Punch (61.1871)

Dkcembeh 30, 1871.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

27S

Trod heavy on the necks that low

Were laid for him to tread ;
To hands for bank-notes stretched would throw

Buffets, sometimes, instead.

But who that so the seamy side

Of men 'twas given to see,
Less rough-shod e'er o'er backs did ride

That bowed at his decree :
Was kindlier, for all pocket-pride,

Than bluff King George could be ?

And when our fire of straw had burned

To ash, as straw-fire must,
When the gauds in our hands were turned

To rottenness and rust;
When our Great King, a knave we learned,

His fairy treasures dust;

When all the bubbles we had blown

Burst with a swift collapse,
And exultation turned to groan

O'er Stock Exchange mishaps,
And house on house, crashed, overthrown,

To earth, in thunder-claps ;

We too howled out upon the name

So oft with blessings heard ;
Helped pelt with mud of bitter blame,

The crown we had conferred ;
In howls of scorn and shouts of shame

On our Ex-King concurred.

So he we'd fawned on so, and feared,

With curses down was cast,—
King Hudson had no statue reared,

But forth to exile past,
To climb the stranger's stairs, and beard

Penury's bitter blast.

Faint tidings of his lot we had

From far across the main,—
A fat old man, poor, shabby, sad,

Of casual dinners fain :
Their doubtful recognition glad

To give men back again.

Till some on whom he had smiled when king
Thought shame that this should be,

And clubbing their alms-gathering
Bought an annuity;

They said it is a sorry thing
A Beggared King to see !

Christmas weather.

(It may alter before this appears to the Universe, but the moral's the same.)

A CORRECTED CATECHISM.

Here is a story which, for the purpose of discrediting Ultramontanism, is at
least well calculated :—

" There is a certain work called Keen an'8 Controversial Catechism, which has had a very
wide circulation among Irish Roman Catholics under high ecclesiastical sanction. It
And poor King hudson clutched the gift contained the following question and answer :—Q. ' Must not Catholics believe the Pope

And gratef ul was therefor_- m himself to be infallible ? A. This is a Protestant invention : it is no article of the

The weieht of novertv to shift Catholic faith. No decision of the Popes can oblige under pain of heresy, unless it be

— ° - - - ^ - - - - ' received and enforced by the teaching body—that is, by the Bishops of the Church.' "

The wolf keep from his door ;
His pittance used, they say, with thrift
Till int'rest's fruit it bore.

The periodical which relates this story asserts itself to have been informed
that the question and answer cited therein have been lately expunged from the
book which had contained them. Unless the story told as above is a story in the
Now, from his ups and downs not loath, sense in which our sisters use that word, an Oecumenical Council of the Roman

He rests, where Kings and churls are one; Catholic Church has adopted, as a dogma of faith, a falsehood declared by

He scaled heights, sounded depths, with both : j Roman Catholic authority to have been originally forged by Protestants. But,

indeed, the Infallibility dogma has annoyed certain persons very much. It has
drawn a sharp line, and set an impassable barrier between real and mock
Roman Catholics. It has constituted the so-called " Anglo-Catholics " Pro-
testants in all eyes but their own essentially as thorough as Mr. Spurgeon
or Dr. Cumming. Thereby it has made some people very angry. Some one of
them may have spitefully hoaxed a contemporary. Grave inexactness, wil-
fully designed to damage a cause, or to injure opponents, is guilt into which
even theological spite has never betrayed the Saturday Review.

As basely fawned as spit upon.
Should men who hailed his mushroom growth,
Cast at his humble grave the stone.

A FRIENDLY WISH TO FRANCE
Thus saith a newspaper :—

"New Year's Day in Paris. — It is announced that the
President of the Eepublic and the Ministers will hold their
receptions on New Tear's Day in Paris."

They will receive the compliments of the season as
representative men. Their visitors will, in wishing
them, wish France many happy new years. That this
wish may be realised, it is to be hoped that France will,
on New Year's Day, turn over a new leaf in a book of
which no future page will contain the word gloire, and

A Sneeze for Spiritualists.

If Spiritualism is neither a fact nor a fallacy, but an imposture, still
Spiritualists, those who find their account in it, must be up to snuff. That
snuff might be denominated Table Rappee.

LOST OB MISLAID, probably in an omnibus, or else a railway station, a
remarkably fine Baby, aged nearly seven months. Very knowing for its age.
, Answers to the name of Tiddy Icicle Sing. Was dressed iD a white frock, red worsted
that Frenchmen wiU cease to talk about, or to dream! shoes, and blue silk sash. Whoever will restore the same to its disconsolate mamma,
of, revenge for a drubbing which they incurred by an ! shall receive Punch's Almanack as a commensurate RE WABD. — Address, Anxious
assault. | Mamma, 11a, Queer Street.