Punch (74.1878)

January 26, 1878.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

35

IMPROVING THE SHINING HOUR.

Paterfamilias. "It was on that Occasion that Caesar sent the famous Despatch
' Veni, vim, via' I"

Ingenuous Boy. "Ah, that would go for a Shilling !"

LESSEPS, SING SMALL!

Dr. Strousberg, "the great Rubs and
German railway schemer, contractor and
constructor, a Muscov King Hudson and
Albert Grant in one, who lately bust up
for more millions than we like to put our
pens to, is about to launch on the world
and the market a wonderful project for
connecting Berlin by canal with the Elbe
and the Oder, and so binding the Prussian
capital, through the one river-link, with
the North Sea, and through the other, with
the Baltic. He feels so sure of his project,
that he is ready to start it on his own
hook, without Government aid or guaran-
tee ; calculating on a return of 10 per cent,
on the eight millions his magnificent scheme
is to cost.

It sounds splendid. Berlin on the Sea,
instead of Berlin on the Spree as hitherto,
and such a poor little shallow small-German
Spree, too !

What a grand subject for a Kaulbachian
Fresco ! Borussia as a gigantic patient at
the German Welt-Brunn swallowing the
North Sea and the Baltic, out of two
glasses, marked Elbe and Oder. There is
only one fear—that the project may turn
out a more effectual means of drawing a

great many capitals into one S-through

one channel, than of linking one capital
with two C's through two.

"Work in the Workhouse.

Chopping Wood has been found at the
Homerton Workhouse a profitable branch
of Pauper Labour. During the last five
years and a half a very considerable profit
has been raised upon it without detriment
to firewood vendors through competition
with their industry outside. Breaking
stones, on the contrary, has always been
carried on at a loss. Query, whether the
loss sustained from breaking stones in
workhouses is compensated by the saving
effected by skinning Hints ?

Many Happy Returns!

We are delighted to read in Belgravia,
" The Return of the Native." But we wait
anxiously to hear whether it is to reasonable
prices.

ANOTHER DUKE GONE WRONG.

"When the Cat's away the Mice will play." Now the Parlia-
mentary Cat has come back, let us hope the Mice won't squeak quite
so loud, either from Paper or Platform. This wish is even more in
Mice's interest than Men's. We all know the fable of the Frog that
tried to blow itself up into a Bull. A Mouse that attempts the
same feat, or even sets itself up to speak as and for a Bull—John
Bcll_above all—is just as ridiculous, even though the Mouse boast
the highest title and the biggest rent-roll in these islands.

About the silliest squeak yet heard has been that of the great Suther-
land Mouse. Among so much silly squeaking it would not be worth
notice, even for its extreme silliness, but for the fact that it marks
a change of political sides, which has its importance when the
Mouse owns a County, and when the squeak is accompanied with
a bite, of which the vigour is, luckily, not to be measured by the
venom. It was at the public meeting called last week, to hear Mr.
Algernon Borthwick—the M.P., in propria persona—lecture on the
war; the Duke of Sutherland in the chair.

We pass over the Chairman's comparison of Russia to a boa-con-
strictor who licks her victims before she 'swallows them. She
certainly has licked Turkey pretty effectually. But when the field
of attack was transferred from Russia to England, and from
Gortschakofe to _ Gladstone—when the speaker, talking of the
ubiquity and activity of Russian agents—mice have a weakness for
tallow,faute de mieux—declared that "Russia's chosen agent in
this country was the Right Hon. Member for Greenwich," it is

going beyond the tall-talker's platform-privilege, or any plea of
personal insignificance, and nibbling at something so. far above
him, that it ought to be out of his reach. Mr. Gladstone has de-
clined, in a few dignified words of indirect rebuke, to notice this
stupid squeak. Punch thinks it well to notice it, because though
in itself the silliest of many silly utterances, it comes from one
who bears a ducal title, lives in several palaces, owns a county,
figures at the head of a charitable movement, and is generally
agreed to have a great turn for amateur engine-driving, fire-ser-
vice, and—better still—bog-reclamation and general agricultural
improvement, where they are much wanted._

Let the Duke of Sutherland stick to his Sutherland improve-
ments and steam engines, and not try to act as an organ of public
opinion, or even his own opinion in public. Chairmanship is not his
forte, and he is clearly the wrong man in the wrong place on any
platform except that of a steam-engine.

Our Own Cardinal's Last.

"The Head of the Eoman Catholic Communion in London has signalised
his zeal by telegraphing from Eome his refusal of permission for the Italians
in London to hold a high funeral Mass in honour of their patriot King."—
Times.

Of High Mass for Ring Victor unlooked-for restrictor,
Lo, Manning stands solus, forbidding the rite ;

And from over the mountains, at source of Faith's fountains,
For Fisherman's bark, defies fighting men's bite.