Punch (74.1878)

June 15, 1878.]

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

267

NEGATIVE PROOF.

Old Gent (who firmly believes in the School Board, to Cow-boy). " Oh, tot: go to School, do you ? Now, I daresay you c ln tell
me who it was that was Saved when the "World was Drowned, can't you ?"

Cow-boy (all abroad). " No-a, Zur-r ! " [Old Gent goes his way, a firmer believer than before.

Monday, June 3rd (Lords).—The Marquis of Salisbury read out
Bismarck's Card of Invitation for the Grand European Treaty
party Unter den Linden—small and early ; with the news that the
English Government and all the Great Powers had accepted the
invitation, and that our Representatives at the Great European
Family Party would he the Earl of Beaconsfield and the Marquis
of Salisbury. From the terms of the invitation it appeared that
the Treaty of San Stef ano would figure on the table—as the piece de
discussion, not de resistance.

Lord Granville was delighted to hear it; hut he could not under-
stand, with the Cabinet's Will and Brain on the Spree, how the
Cabinet was to get along. "Was there any precedent for a Cabinet
thus dispensing with its pillars and main-stays ?

Lord Beaconsfield did not believe there was. All the better.
Nice customs must curtsey to great Kings, and triumphant Ministers
may claim the liberty to make precedents. The Cabinet would be
more important in the absence of its head and right hand. It might
even start a will of its own. What a novelty that would be!

Lord Salisbury was the organ of the House for a becoming word
of disgust over the attempt on the life of the stout old Kaiser.

Lord Elphtnstone gave a graphic picture of the difficulties in
the way of raising the Eurydice. The fact was the Admiralty
had neither time nor means for the job. It had been a bungle thus
far, and he could not hold out any prospect of improvement.
Britannia had better make up her mind that she has seen the last
of her Eurydice.

(Commons.)—-Mr. Gladstone has written one of his perfervid
articles in the Nineteenth Century, called "Liberty in the East
and_West," attacking the policy of the Government in flinging the
Indian tulwar into the scales of European force. It is such an article
as Burke might have signed his name to, though less passionate.
But it has been too much for the Pall Mall Gazette and Mr.
Hanbury. The Journal denounced it; the Member is for bringing
it under formal Parliamentary censure—the modern equivalent of
burning by the common hangman. The common sense of Parlia-
ment knows better—if the Jingoes in Parliament don't. Mr.
Gladstone has written nothing he is not prepared to say and stand

by in his place in the House of Commons. His vitriol is rose-water
compared with the scathing and scalding douche such a defiance of
the Bill of Rights would have provoked in the days of Burke and
Barbe.

The business of the invitations to Congress, and the representation
of this country there, was discussed in the Commons between Sir
Stafford Northcote and Lord Hartington, who couldn't imagine
how the tail of the Cabinet at home could possibly wag the head at
Berlin. He considered that Government resided in Her Majesty's
Ministers en bloc, not in a brace of them. Neither of the Plenipo-
tentiaries would be a Member of the House of Commons, and neither
could speak the will of the Bouse with voice potential.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer didn't see what that mattered.
The Cabinet was of one mind, and it really made no difference
whether that mind were Unter den Linden or in Downing Street.
Other countries would be represented by their Prime Ministers and
their Foreign Secretaries, and why should not England ?

The House, by Mr. Bourke, spoke out its horror at the attempted
assassination of the German Emperor, its delight at his escape, and
its satisfaction^ hearing good news of his progress. English in-
dignation is deepened by the thought that the Emperor's son and
daughter-in-law were the Queen's guests when their visit was first
darkened by the news of the sinking of Der Grosser Kurfurst, and
then abruptly cut short by the shooting at Der Alter Kaiser.

The County Government Bill is the first Innocent done to death.
It will not be much regretted. It was too much for the County
Magistrates, too little for the County reformers.

The Government wished to have given Earl Russell a public
funeral. But his family have deferred to his wishes by burying
him in the vault of the Russells. But why should not his ashes
have reposed in Westminster, while his name stood inscribed
at Chenies ? Or, if he willed his body to sleep in the ancestral
vault by his son's side, why should not his statue, or, at least, his
bust, stand in the Abbey among the Statesmen of his time ?_

Then the House resumed the debate, adjourned from Friday, on
the motion of the O'Connor Don, a fitting moderator for a discussion
on Irish University Education.