Punch: Punch (70.1876)

EXPERTO CREDE.

Our Dustman. "'Ere's this 'ere ltg 'Ouse, Bill, on the left, why I should say they'd turn oyer their matter o' three

Load o' Dust a Week in the Season vithout a heffort !! "

A GRACE'S COUP DE GRACE?

According to the London Correspondent of a local paper, the
Archbishop op York has lately distinguished himself "by saying a
sharp thing. In order to the repression of national intemperance:—

" The Archbishop of York cleared the ground for doing something when
a few days ago he gave the coup de grace to the old blatant sophism ' You
can't make people sober by Act of Parliament,' and said ' But you are now
making them drunk by Act of Parliament.' "

This is clever, indeed. An Act of Parliament not only sanctions
public-houses, but also compels people to go and get drunk in them.
That is the case of the agitators for a Liquor Law. It isn't as
though the people could do as they chose, drink or not. That would
be simply reasonable and constitutional freedom. They are absolutely
forced to drink, and more than so, to get drunk, by Act of Parlia-
ment. Under what penalty ? The Archbishop of York will
perhaps tell us if it was really he, and not somebody of another
order of intellect, who, by the_ particularly brilliant saying with
which his Grace has been credited, so completely gave to the " old
blatant sophism" the " coup de grace " quoted as archiepiscopal.

PHILOSOPHERS AT FIGHT.

Philosophers, authorities of weight,

A much-vexed question in the Times debate.

" Spontaneous Generation " these sage men

Discuss with some asperity of pen ;

Professor Tyndaxl con., and Bastian pro,

Does putrefaction gender life, or no ?

Both parties are on this main fact agreed,

That some infusions infusoria breed.

Tyndall protests, " Negatur, giv'n due care

To purify or quite exclude the air."

"Not so," cries Bastian. " Germs spontaneous grow,

Exclude and purify the air or no."

Within a word the controversy lies—
Let us but understand what it implies—
Unhltered air contains, you tell us, " germs."
Philosopher, explain ambiguous terms !
What is a " germ '' ? An ignoramus begs
To know, do " germs," or do they not, mean eggs,
Or embryosj which preceding creatures bore,
Of other animalcules born before ?
If " germs " are eggs, then do " bacteria " bear
Eggs, to be hatched in water, laid in air ?
Say when you mention " germs " you do but mean
Mere motes of juotoplasm or protein,
Then what although they needs must coalesce
With matter in a putrefactive mess,
To generate forms of life, no parent stem
Having, as offspring, generated them,
Whence infusorial progeny are bred,
Are not those " germs " at best as mutton dead ?
And is not all your question a mere word,
As being the reverse of sense,' absurd ?
Sure unspontaneous were the proper term
Whether for agency of senseless " germ,"
Or particles as void as " germs " of sense,
Wherefrom, in ferment, living things commence.
Life in some states, beneath creative laws,
If Nature generates—both, hold your jaws.

post et propter.

In former times, Actors in the Royal Theatres were called His or
Her Majesty's Servants, whether male or female. According to
report, however, Her Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket is, in
future, to be occupied exclusively by Her Majesty's Mails.

The Worst Kind op Do.—The do as one would be done by.