Punch: Punch (69.1875)

Joly 10, 1875.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

3

" MANNERS."

Parlour Maid (to Cook). " I knowed that Mr. Smith wasn't no Gentle-
man ! Which he never raised his 'At to me when 1 let 'im our at the
'All Door just now ! !"

Drills, only twenty had sent an answer. Mr. Hardy indignantly denied it.
Answers had been received from 114 out of fewer, he was certain, than 7000
to whom summons had been sent, though he couldn't exactly say how many had
been asked. But it is pretty clear that—many or few—our paper-reserve, in
the field non est inventus, " Mock Reserves," the cynic may say, " suit mock
Manoeuvres."

In the evening a Count-Out, and no business done.

_ Wednesday.—An Irish morning's work on Mr. Butt's Bill for Establishing
Irish County Boards.

Sir M. H. Beach gave a sketch of what such Boards, in the Government
opinion, ought to be, and promised a Bill, but not for this Session. After which

Jromise, Mr. Butt, taking a division, was beaten by 182 to 125—many English
iberals being glad to show their approval of a reasonable measure out of that
Butt.

_ Thursday [Lords).—Committee on the Rivers Pollution Bill, now very
scientifically relieved of its back-bone :—

" The times have been
That when the brains were out the ' Bill' would die,
And there an end ; but now they rise again,
Nerveless and marrowless, their ' musta' turned • mays,'
To keep us on our Btools."

(Commons.) Mr. Hardy spoke a good word—not before it was wanted, and
not more, Punch quite believes, than is due—on behalf of those armed Apollos
of the Knightsbridge Barracks who may be said to make the " six-foot way"
over the hearts of the British nursemaid of the Metropolis. Their conduct,
Mr. Hardy says, is unexceptionable; their officers strict; their houses of call
sans reproche. It is not the military—the mounted military, at least—that keep
up the blackguard haunts of the neighbourhood. So let our gallant Life and
Horse Guardsman—red or blue—ride on, stainless as his own pipe-clayed
buckskins in their first hour of wear—

" Sotto l'usbergo dell sentirsi puro."

Or (for the benefit of non-readers of Dante in the original)—

" Under the corslet of a conscience pure."

As introductory to Supply, on the Education Estimates, Lord Eslington

told the pitiful story of Mrs. Marks in full detail-
showing how the Sphool-Board officer's zeal had in that
case outrun both discretion and humanity, and moving
a Resolution. Mr._ Sandford seconded it in a diatribe
on School-Boards, in which those Boards were painted
blacker than any hung in their own school-rooms.

There is truth enough in Mr. Sandford's picture to
make those who believe in and hope from, and have
Btriven and still strive for, National Education, wince
under the sore sense of means wasted and efforts mis-
directed.

But bad as the case may be between priggish and
pedantic masters and mistresses, over-taught in much
that is least necessary and sadly under-taught in most
that is most essential, and pupils who cannot even be got
to school and kept there long enough to learn anything
that will profit them,—it is better than it was; and the
Education Department is trying honestly to fulfil its
many hard tasks, and to make the best of its many bad
bargains. We are improving, however slowly and par-
tially. To this the general testimony seems conclusive.

Friday (Lords).—A talk about the glut of Naval
Officers. _ The Duke of Somerset put the pinch of the
matter pithily—"To have officers enough in war, you
must have too many in peace." In fact, it is the neces-
sity felt in other branches besides the Navy of a " great
reduction on taking a quantity." The difficulty may
be palliated but can't be prevented; and different
Boards must be left to deal with it by different sohemes.

Lord Dunsany thought that the success of Captain
Waiter with his Commissionnaire Corps might supply a
hint for employment of reduced Naval Officers!—very
much reduced, indeed!

(Commons.) The Captain of the Devastation reports
her (from Ragusa) "the sweetest ship, between decks,
he ever sailed in." And " the ugliest, above them, to
look at," he might have added.

Great fun! The Members for Weymouth, Poole,
Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, and Southampton all
puffing the advantages of their respective boroughs over
Dartmouth as the site of a Naval College !

It was quite a lark. The House roared, as each
Member, with his tongue in his cheek, paraded the
claims of his constituency. Finally, Mr. Childers
suggested a doubt, which Saturday's Times goes far to
deepen into a conviction, whether there is any occasion
f.ir a Naval College at all. If the Cadets are not to goj
afloat till sixteen, why not fix a pass-examination, arus]
leave them to qualify for it where, and as, parents a^i
guardians please.

Mr. Bourke (for Foreign Office) declines to produce
the instructions on which Lords Cowley and Clarendon
signed the Declaration of Paris; and the Chancellor
of the Exchequer does not see his way to interfere
with the Civil Service Co-operative Stores, at the
demand of the London Shopkeepers.

PHYSIC FOR TIPSY MANIACS.

Among the principal members of the deputation, con-
sisting largely of Clergy and Medical Men, who waited
the other day upon the Home Secretary with a
Memorial inviting the Government to carry out the re-
commendations of a Select Committee for the control
and management of Habitual Drunkards, otherwise
called Dipsomaniacs, one gentleman whose name in con-
nection with his errand may appear remarkable was
Dr. Lush, M.P. Dipsomania is both the effect of lush,
and the cause of craving for more lush. By lush Dip-
somania is also curable. Similia similibus—not exactly
as the Dipsomaniac, or sot, as we used to say, physics
himself o' mornings with the prescription of ' a hair of
the dog that bit you." But let him only pursue a steady
course of intoxicating liquors, taken in infinitesimal
quantities and no larger, and lush will certainly cure
him. Homoeopathy never fails in Dipsomania.

toast and sentiment for july.

Success to the Public Worship Bill, now come into
operation. May it enforce agreement between their
Reverences and their Worships.

What this Government might be Called.—The
Permissive Ministry.