Punch: Punch (69.1875)

218

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON

CHARIVARI. [November 27, 1875.

"THE SERVANTS."

Cook. " Then, shall you go as 'Ousemaid ?"

Young Person. "No, indeed! If I go at all, I go as Lady 'Elp I

SCHOOL FEES AND FLOGGING-.
According to the Metropolitan, as quoted by the Pall Mall Gazette:—

"The masters of a Board-School at Tipton have adopted a novel plan of enforcing
payment of school fees. Three children have been ' severely flogged by the masters of the
schools which they attended, owing to their having neglected to take their school-pence
with them.' It seems, also, that at one school there is a regular flogging hour, at which
non-paying children are whipped."

If this is true, it is visiting: the sins of the parents on the children with a
vengeance. Worse, in some cases it is visiting the poverty of the parents on
the children.

It appears that :—

"The School-Board, however, are not horrified at the occurrence, and have not
prohibited the practice, but only express their dissatisfaction at ' undue ' flogging."

It would be a great satisfaction if a flogging highly due were inflicted on
offenders who—always unless the Metropolitan has been hoaxed—richly deserve
it. Satisfactory as is the knowledge that a savage garotter has been handsomely
whipped, it would satisfy retributive feeling much more to know that the cruel
pedagogues who flog poor children to extort school-pence from their defaulting
but perhaps indigent parents, had been flogged themselves, for their dastardly
brutality, to within an inch of their lives. There was once an eminent hero of
the Prize Ring, celebrated in connection with Tipton. What man—not to speak
of the Tipton School-Board—would not wish such an athlete as the Tipton
Slasher could be appointed to slash their backs with a cat-o'-nine-tails ?

THE PEN AND THE POPPY.

According to the London and China Telegraph, two prizes, one of £200, the
other of £100, given by Mr. J. W. Pease, M.P., for the two best Essays on the
Opium Trade, have, after much deliberation, been awarded by the Committee of
Examiners; the first prize to Mr. Sproat, Agent-General for British Columbia,
the second to the Rev. F. 8. Turner, Secretary of the Anglo-Oriental Society
for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. Mr. Pease, who appears to be no
Free Trader, is an active member of the Anti-Opium Society. He offered the
prizes with Anti-Opium intentions. The Prize Essays have been doubtless

conceived in an Anti-Opium spirit. Yet they are
announced under the title of " Opium Essays." Too
many Essays upon all manner of subjects are found to
produce upon their readers the effect of opiates. Let us
hope, however, that the Opium Essays may possibly
prove so interesting that, on the contrary, they will
deserve to be entitled "Anti-Opium Essays,'' by answer-
ing their purpose, and not that of the narcotic they have
been written against, but for which, in the latter too
likely case they may serve as substitutes.

THE LITTLE BIRDS TO LESBIA.

(A Sound Robin from Songland to the Softer Sex.)

"A considerable demand for small birds, especially robins and
wrens, has arisen within the last few months for the decoration
of ladies' hats, this being the latest requirement of fashion. Not
only are the birdcatchers of the Seven Dials and Whitechapel
unusually busy, but we have the authority of the proprietors of
a large West-End establishment for saying that, great as is the
supply, it does not at all equal the demand."—Lancet, Nov. 13.

"The fashion now so prevalent of ornamenting ladies' hats
and bonnets with small birds, has given such an impetus to the
activity of the birdcatchers, both here and in France, as to cause
well-grounded fears for the annihilation of our favourite little
songsters."—Daily News.

Lesbia ! are Ladies' hearts more cold
Than when your prototype of old

Wept over one dead sparrow ?
Has Fashion iced that snowy breast
Where Cytherea's doves might rest,
Till sighs of Songland, sore distrest,

Its feelings may not harrow ?

0 Sex, whose softness lords of rhyme,
From soft Catullus to our time,

Invoke in songs and sonnets ;
Can you look on with smiling face
While La Mode's myrmidons apace
Exterminate our harmless race

To trim your hats and bonnets ?

This crowning woe you well might spare :
With Cockney's shot and coster's snare

We long have had our trials ;
But is it meet that your commands,
Through Fashion's call, which none withstands,
Should give us to the Herod-hands

Of slaughtering Seven Dials ?

Ahl deign to picture, if you please,
Your poor petitioners' miseries,

Which well may claim your pity!
Tracked by an ever-thickening throng
Of London louts, who '11 leave, ere long,
Our woodland ways as void of song

As is your smoky city.

Conceive how feathered bosoms throb
When roughs' rude hands, intent to rob,

In our loved haunts invade us !
Yet not with them, dear Ladies, lie
The wrong, the shame, the cruelty,—
For, did we plead, they might reply,

" 'Twas gentle Lesbia bade us."

Think when you trim your hats and " things "
With linnets' breasts and finches' wings,

How many songs you stifle;
Swallows that charmed with darting flight,
And nightingales which gladdened night
In myriads die to deck aright

The moment's modish trifle.

The robin, e'en, who all may dare,
Whom callous Cockney gunners spare,

Must fall as Lesbia's quarry.
0 shame, to think that gentle she
Should such a ruthless butcher be !
Could she her slaughtered thousands see,

The Slayer might be sorry.

But if compassion may not move
That breast, supposed the home of love,
When Fashion sways within it,