Punch (72.1877)

10 PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [January 13, 1877.

RECOLLECTION OF HUNTING SEASON (CLOSE OF 1876-BEGINNING OF 1877).

Paterfamilias. " Well, I begcn to Think the "Weather is a Trifle too Open !"

wine, coals, gas, and attendance, and yon '11 soon be a Committee-
man yourself. Then you can snub other grumblers.

Pocket the Club stationery. It is far cheaper than buying your
own, and it is only wasted at the Club.

Wear your hat m every part of the house. It informs strangers
of the fact that you are a member, and is an altogether dignified
and becoming method of asserting your proprietorship. This is a rule
to be rigidly observed when any member happens to be showing a
party of ladies over the house.

Keep new members at arm's length : let them clearly understand
that, while you are compelled to tolerate their presence, you are by
no means certain that they are not swindlers and vagabonds.

By observing these few rules, and some others which Mr. Punch
may furnish you with upon another occasion, you will, in time, be-
come a most popular member of your Club, and when in the fulness
of time you die, your place will not easily be tilled.

OUR BENEFICED DISSENTERS.

Friend Pun-ch,

It is verily gratifying to see friends E. F. Croom and
J. Plimpton, Churchwardens of St. James's,' Hatcham, and up-
holders of friend Tooth in his defiance of the law and the Court of
Arches, seemingly in a way to arrive at a sense of his position and
their own. Thou hast doubtless read their letter to the Times,
wherein they say :—

" We are not such a small body as many think ; the English Church Union
and the Church of England Working-men's Society together number more
than 25,000 Churchmen, and these do not represent a tithe of those who sym-
pathise with us."

If not so small a body as many think, the party they belong to is
a minority not perhaps as large as they imagine. As to the " tithe
of those who sympathise with them," how much longer do they
suppose members of the Church by Law Established are likely to
continue paying tithes to Clergy whose followers have at last begun
to discern them to be ministers of another denomination ? The
above-named friends go on to testify as follows :—

" It is said we are lawless. No more lawless, I take it, Sir, than Noncon-
formists were when they refused to pay Church-rates, which were then imposed
by the law of England, by permitting their goods to be seized rather than give
up the principle for which they were contending—that citizens should not be
compelled to support a religious institution against their consciences; so we,
for principle, are determined to suffer loss of property, and of liberty if need
be, for the maintenance of the right of the Church of England to govern her-
self in spiritual matters without interference from secular authority."

When friends Croom and Plimpton-, on the part of friend Tooth
and his adherents, describe themselves as representing the Church,
those three said friends doubtless remind thee of three other such,
the celebrated apparel-makers of Tooley Street, who styled them-
selves the People of England. Whilst, however, with one breath
our Hatcham friends claim to typify the Church whose Government
they disown, thou seest that with the other they compare themselves
to Nonconformists ; and it may be hoped that they will soon discover
how nearly they resemble them, the resemblance being precisely
such as one pea bears to another. They persist in practising rites and
ceremonies of their own, and refusing to conform to those of the
Established Church by Law—matters of ritual prescribed by that
Law as interpreted by its legal Judges ; and it is notorious that
their Nonconformity as to postures and gestures signifies Noncon-
formity of opinions also. Wherein, then, do their Ministers differ
from friend Spurgeon, friend Parker, friend Newman Hall, and
the Nonconformists who sit under those and other Nonconforming
friends ? In two important but unessential particulars. They
preach and practise their Nonconformity within the steeple-houses
and other edifices of the Establishment, instead of Salems and
Ebenezers of their own, and they sack the Established hire. Other-
wise it is manifest to every creature above a donkey, and, from the
avowals above quoted, appears to be dawning upon even their own
intellects, that they are all of them, laity and clergy, no more and
no less out-and-out thorough-going Nonconformists and Dissenters
than friends Chadband and Stiggins—Dissenters andNonconformists
though of a different colour from the drab which distinguishes the
" vestments " of thy broad-brimmed Friend, Obadiah.

Scurvy Outbreak.—The attacks on the Arctic Expedition.