Punch (68.1875)

April 17, 1875.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

165

TWO ALEXANDRAS.


pril, coquette month of the year, plays with our hopes and tears ,
Oft when we woo her smiles the most, is readiest with her tears;
Will closest wrap her head in clouds upon some gala-day,

When she should beam her brightest, her sunniest face display.

So that Wednesday of all days for sulks the wayward month
must take,

When she should have smiled her sweetest for our Alexandra’s
sake :

She who has still a smile for all, deserved a smile from thee,

Coy April, when she went to launch her namesake of the sea.

There in her bed at Chatham that Alexandra lay—

Strange contrast with our Princess, the gracious and the gay :

A monster hulk of iron—iron-clad from stem to bow,

Death in her iron throats, and death about her iron prow.

The Ship, last fruit of all the toil, wealth, thought man can
employ

To quell all man and nature wield of forces to destroy.

The Princess, sweet and slender, happy mother, loving wife,
With babes and flowers about her, and. love in all her life.

And England resting between both, and upon either stayed,

The strength built up in that great ship, still in its cradle laid,
The loyalty that holds the Crown of the land’s life a part,
Softened and strengthened by her love for the Princess of her
heart.

Small grace in Chatham at the best, and less that small
doth show

To-day, with weeping skies o’erhead, and weltering mud
below ;

But grandly looms the stately ship, at rest in that great
shed,

With the festal crowds about her, and the flags wreathed
overhead.

Under her ram’s edge, strong to cleave sea’s flanks and rivals’ sides, _

What means that box, where those four steps a fence of flags divides ?

Topped by a tube that might be case a lady’s fan to hold,

Carved trim in box and ebony, with ’scutcheon-plate of gold ?

Some gift for the loved Princess ? Hark to salute and cheer,

And the roar of many voices, still nearer and more near !

Through ordered ranks, and cheering throats, flag-flaunt, and
ordnance roar,

The Prince and Princess have ta’en place the great ship’s stem
before.

A hush, till England’s Primate Heaven’s grace shall have implored
On those who shall brave storm or shot that stately ship aboard :
Then the Princess has stept forward, on that tube her hand has
laid—

Light as a lady’s hand should fall—half pleased and half afraid:

A pause of doubt—a pulse of fear—a clink of shivered glass—

And with majestic motion slow glides that mighty mass,

And through a roar that shakes the shed to broad roof windowed
wide,

Curtsies to Medway’s waters, and, proud, swings to the tide.

Weights, roller, spindle once well fixed, a woman’s touch was all
Needed to make the shores that stay that giant war-ship fall.

See type in Ship and Princess of England and her Queen,

Whose woman’s hand the motive spring of this wide realm is seen.

“A woman’s head—a woman’s hand!” the nostrum-mongers
sneer—

“ What reductio ad ahsurdum of ruling have we here ! ”

But without spindle, roller, ropes, and weights arranged below,
What were toy-lever, woman’s touch, to lay the dog-shores low?

Beaks and Bishops.

Confirmations at the ancient, venerable, and most especially
ecclesiastical and episcopal city of Winchester have hitherto always
taken place in the Cathedral. The following extract from a para-
graph of local news therefore sounds rather startling :—

“ County Bench.—Saturday, before T. Chamberlayne, Esq. (Chair-
man), and T. Gunner, Esq. The following overseers were confirmed. . . ”

Matrimony in the Registrar’s Office was sacrilege enough; but
heresy has culminated in confirmation by the County Bench ! Such
is the comment which the foregoing quotation has perhaps suggested
to some French commentator on British manners and customs.

FIST, KNIFE, AND BOOTS.

Mr. Justice Brett, the other day, at the Central Criminal Court,
sentenced two youths for manslaughter ; one of them to fifteen, the
other to ten years’ penal servitude. The next day he sentenced six
young men, also for manslaughter, four of them to one week’s,
and two to three days’, imprisonment. Manslaughter had been
committed in the former case with a knife in a desperate affray, had
resulted in the latter from the normal use of the fists in a fair fight.
It may be hoped that Judge Brett’s discrimination between these
cases of manslaug hter will not only tend to abate the use of the
knife among the coarser classes in the adjustment of their differ-
ences, but also the use of the heavy hob-nailed boots. _ Kicking
people, even men, when they are down, is a practice of which much
more is heard in these “ fair, well-spoken days,” than there used to
he during the brutal and demoralising era of pugilism.

Song of Christopher Sly.

Give me a pot of your smallest ale—my throat is parched and dry.

I ’m a bond fide traveller—true as my name’s Christophero Sly.
Above three mile away from home as straight as I can go.

Good two mile as the crow flies—hut I don’t fly like the crow.

First I go right—then I go left—a zigzag course I steer.

And that makes two mile twice two mile ; and I wants a quart more
beer.

Two mile extends to four mile while I tack like a ship in sail.

Give a bond fide traveller a pot of your smallest ale.

Clerical Representation.

Female suffrage, notwithstanding that the Premier votes for it,
remains an open question. Yet the Female Disabilities Removal
Bill, though not a Government Measure, must always he a Minis-
terial one. If women had votes, would they not, with very few
exceptions, vote for the nominees of their Clergy ? What, a triumph,
therefore, their enfranchisement would be for Ministers of all
denominations!