Punch: Punch (75.1878)

158

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 12, 1878.'

FROM MANXLAND, HO

STARVATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCE.

Although no famine exists in these dominions, there are, appa-
rently, certain parts of them in which, as a contemporary testifies,
poor people are dying of

" Starvation.—The Sedgeley Correspondent of the Press Association
telegraphs that the Medical Officers of Health in the coal and iron districts of
Colesley, in making their reports on the state of mortality in September,
allege that the number of deaths is unusually large among adults, and
attribute the fact in a great measure to want of sufficient nourishment, arising
from inability to obtain food through the serious depression of trade."

The hungry, says Mr. Bumble, might obtain food enough to sup-
port life in the Workhouse, if they wotdd enter it, but they prefer to
starve. This effect of the Poor-law our Beadle considers not alto-

gether so satisfactory as could be wished. Persons starved to death
are, indeed, provided for with a shovel, at the cheapest possible rate,
but it does not therefore follow that rates are saved, since many
destitute parents die and leave families of children behind them, for
whom there is no choice between starvation and in-door relief.
Such is the Law, remarks Mr. Bumble ; but then we all know what
the Law is. The Law, however, being such, precludes a suggestion
which he would otherwise submit to the Social Science Congress ■
namely, that, in conformity with the principles of Parochial
Economy, the Legislature should, in cases of extreme distress,
legalise suicide.

Puns in Proportion.—As Shere Ali is to sheer nonsense, so is
Ameer of Afghanistan to mere stuff.