Punch: Punch (69.1875)

Novembeb 13, 1875.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

203

OTHER PEOPLE'S HOBBIES.

Mr. Jones. " "What a wonderful Collection of "Walking-Sticks, Mb.
Brown !"

Mr. Brown. ""Well—yes! there are Ninety-Six of them. And what
makes the Collection really interesting is that every one of them has
a History. Take this one, for instance—labelled No. 1. In 1837 I

happened to be-"

[Mr. Jones suddenly recollects he has a Train to catch, and bids a hasty
farewell.

CURSING AND SWEARING.

We know that good Society has now for some time relinquished the bad
habit of cursing and swearing. So, Sir George Bowyer maintains, has the
Roman Catholic Church—although he cannot deny that, at one time, it cursed
as terribly as ever the British Protestant troops swore in Flanders. On All
Saints' Day the Defender of the Ultramontane Faith appropriately communi
cated the following explanation to the Times:—

" Sir,—In answer to your Correspondents of to-day, I will only say that I did not assert
that curses had been never used in the fulmination of excommunications. But I assert
that curses are no essential part of excommunication, for it is defined by the Canonists
simply as a communione exclusio."

Just so. Curses, in excommunication, > as well as in common talk, are
unnecessary. Excommunication, in its ultimate effect, means all that can be
expressed in the strongest language. Going into detail from the crown of the
head to the sole of the foot, with a special malison on each of the intervening
organs, is simply superfluous. Ecclesiastics, like other gentlemen, have dis-
continued the use of vulgar expletives. It is now only the coarser portion of
the populace who are accustomed to utter imprecations on the organs of sight,
the circulating fluid, and the members of those who displease them. The
declaration added to the foregoing statement will perhaps be frankly accepted
by Mr. Newdegate, or even by Mr. "Whalley himself :—

" I assert that those old forms are either abrogated or obsolete. Our present Pope
repealed a great number of old excommunications, and, among others, the Bull of Pope
Clement excommunicating Protestants."

Had not this Bull, however, practically repealed
itself ? "What was the use of a Bull to excommunicate

Sersons who were never in communion ? A Pontifical
lull which had come to be as it were a capital sentence
on dead men had surely degenerated into a Bull of the
Irish species.

However, it is some news to hear from Sir George
Bowyer that the Pope has repealed Bulls. If present
Infallibility can allow itself to repeal bygone Infalli-
bility's Bulls, there is no saying to what rational con-
clusions future Infallibility, guided by Common Sense,
may not one of these days find it possible to arrive. In
the meanwhile, let us allow all due weight to the assur-
ance that, in "the fulmination of excommunications,"
unparliamentary language is now unusual, if not un-
canonical.

A FUNERAL ANTT-REEORMER.

(Sings.)

"Wen we 'ears'the knell a tollin'
"Wile the 'earse along is rollin'
To the Parties 'ow condolin';

Slow and solemn, wilst in others,
"Wakenin' feelings wot they smotheri";
Yourn and mine, beloved brothers,

In our melancholy duty,
Mindin' us 'ow rich and fruity
Black jobs is in gain and booty.

But there is a agitation

For mean burials, and " cremation,",

'Orstile to our havocation.

Bright adwises people turnin'

" Friends " he calls^em, as to mourni x';

Not a rag the bier adornin'.

Nare a mute, nor wand, nor weeper,
All in plain clothes, nothink deeper,
For to make interment cheaper.

" Friends," and all the world not s'iow to
Due respect deceased they owe to!
"Where do they expect to go to ?

Then there's Clergy a combinin'

In a resolution jinin',

'Atbands, scarves, and gloves decliuin'.

Funeral show sitch check at Sutton,
Maidstone, Kent, they've been and put on,
From our mouths to snatch the mutton :

Sich you might expect of Quakers—
But the Church, to back the makers ,
Of a war on undertakers!

Also there's the leadin' papers,
For the shabby funeral-scrapers,
Foes to we and to the drapers.

"Wot will then be our condition,
Stopped from funeral exhibition,
In the day of abolition ?

To the knell of the departed,
In their plumeless 'earses carted,
"We should 'earken 'eavy 'earted.

Not, as now, with innard gladness,

In the decent garb of sadness—

No more—that there way lies madness !

Change may come, by slow degrees on.
But, in their bereavement's season,
Folks is deaf to stingy reason.

In their rooted inclination
For funereal hostentation,
Dead agin all reformation,
Long will yet lay our salvation.

"Which Jewel does Russia hope to add to her Crown ?
Turk wars or an Oriental Purl ?