Punch: Punch (70.1876)

Maech 25, 1876.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 109

ON HER DIGNITY.

Cook (at the Registry Office). " 'Avin' never lived with" asy but 'igii Fam'lies, '.should wish to know if the Party kjseps

their Carriage,—Mex-Suvvants in the 'Ouse,—Moves in good Society-"

Mistress of the Office (shortly). " The Lady has been Presented at Court, if that will suit you !"
Cook (condescendingly). " Thanks. Then I think I'll call upon her.'/"

dealers in skins, but it does not beget confidence in the article:
and " Nothing like armour-plates ! " works the same way. Punch
can't, for the life of him, help putting more trust in hearts of oak
than in plates of iron.

Tuesday (Lords).—" Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditionequerentes ?"
Fancy Lord Halifax and the Duke of Argyll—two of the most
aggravatingest Indian Secretaries that ever nagged a Governor-
General and his Supreme Council to tearing of hair and gnashing of
teeth—united to wig the Marquis of Salisbury for dictation to
Lord Northbrook, because he preferred other tariff reforms to the
remission of the 5 per cent, duty on cotton goods ! That the Secre-
tary of State for India must have some say in Indian Government,
is admitted. It needed no J. S. Mlll to come from the grave
to tell us that. That, with the telegraph at his elbow to say
his say through, the Secretary of State is likely to say it more
promptly and peremptorily than always pleases a Governor-General,
is not surprising. Perhaps, in the instance specially complained of
by Lord Halifax, Lord Northbrook may have been right, and
the Marquis of Salisbury wrong. Doctors differ. But surely it
is rather unreasonable to complain of a Secretary of State suggesting
that it might be more convenient if important acts of Indian legisla-
tion were submitted to him, as a rule, for approval, before they are
passed in Council, rather than for veto after passing. Altogether, in
the night's debate Lord Salisbury seemed to Mr. Punch to have
decidedly the best of it—whatever he may have in his difference
with Lord Northbrook.

(Commons.)—Mr. Clare Reed enjoyed that pleasantest and
proudest of all positions—that of the martyr who can point to the
conversion of his persecutors to the faith he has suffered for. He
resigned Office because the Privy Council would not enforce uni-
form regulations for the slaughter of diseased cattle in Ireland
and England, and so the Privy Council have agreed, as Lord Sandon
now announces to the House, to uniformity of regulation in the two
countries!

As Mr. Reed's case was unanswerable, his triumph is complete ;

and he has fairly earned the handsome testimonial which his friends
the tenant-farmers have subscribed to present him with.

He remarked significantly, in closing the debate, that all the
changes made by the Privy Council had been made since his resig-
nation in November. He has earned his little crow.

The Government has lost more in Mr. Reed than Mr. Reed in his
berth under the Government.

Wednesday.—A wonder !—the Scotch Members divided among
themselves, over Mr. M'Claren's Bill for the Abolition of Church-
rates in Scotland. As the organs of Scotland's collective wisdom
always manage to agree among themselves when the obj ect in view
is clearly and demonstrably good, we conclude that Mr. M'Claren's
Bill was not of this kind ; and that it was rejected by 210 to 155 for
good and sufficient reasons.

Mr. Egerton's Bill for putting parishes into "mission" whose
parochial "black shepherds" neglect their pastoral charge, was
talked out.

Punch is rather at a loss whether to condole with Mr. Egerton,
or to rejoice for John Bull that another Clerical bone of contention
is not to be added to the heap already collected; but he is disposed
to think that the measure might have done good in some cases, and
that some of the black shepherds it aimed at might be the better for
its rod being hung up over their irreverend heads.

Thursday (Lords).—The Lord Chancellor's Bill for lopping the
too luxuriant branches of the Irish Judicature. The twenty-seven
judges are to be cut down to twenty.

Et tu, Brute ! Then die, Irish Conservatism !

The changes suggested seem called for. But.let us hear what
Ireland—above all, the Irish Bar—have to say to them, and then cut
away, Cairns !

(Commons.)—Second Reading of the Royal Titles Bill. The Leader
of Her Majesty's Opposition gave voice to the general feeling
in his Amendment that "it is inexpedient to_impair the ancient
and Royal dignity of the Crown by the assumption of the style and
title of ' Empress.' " But Mr. Disraeli persevered, in spite of