Punch: Punch (75.1878)

\ 180

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 19, 1878.

NECESSITY HAS NO LAW.

Person (sternly). " How could you come to Church to be Married to a
Man in such a state as that ! "

Bride (weeping). " It wasn't my Fault, Sir. I never can get him to
come when he's Sober ! ! "

A ROUND OF RHYMES.

(Contributed by returned Tourists of a certain familiar type.)

What 's your mood, while fresh from Autumn outing ?

Dismal, all misdoubting !
Physical status, with a mind thus sceptic ?

Deucedly dyspeptic t
" Surveyed mankind from China to Peru " ?

Doesn't pay—a " do " /
Widens the mind this survey wide, extensive ?

Preciously expensive !
Paris. The Exhibition was delightful ?

Wearisome—-fine art frightful!
Galleries vastly fine in Rome and Florence ?

Pictures my abhorrence !
Picturesque, poetic, the Italians ?

Lazy, rude rapscallions !
Antwerp quaint. Perhaps you liked that best ?

Peter Paul 's a pest!
Love the country of the hardy Switzer ?

Not a blessed bit, Sir !
Eh ! Mont Blanc, the glaciers, pines, crevasses ?

Chaps ivho climb are asses !
Well, Cologne, and other towns Germanic ?

Stinks perfectly Satanic !
Oh! The Bhine—the blue, romantic ! What of it ?

Fair, but such a lot of it!
Visited, I hear, the Isle of Venus ?

Pestilent hole, between us !
And the Golden Horn, the beauteous Bosphorus ?

Shirked'em—no great loss for us!
Humph ! How feel you, having widely travelled ?

Gloomy, gritty, gravelled!
Net result of Annual Vacation ?

Peevishness, prostration !
An intending tourist you might frighten ?

llamsgate's best—or Brighton !

Bobs and Snobs.

There is a book advertised entitled Love your Lords.
It is a snobbish title. It sounds like a collection of anec-
dotes of the Upper House, published in order to foster
the respectful attachment of the lower orders for that
ancient institution where our hereditary rulers are
seated. How W. M. Thackeray would have relished
this title !

GREECE'S LOANS AND GREECE'S LOVERS.

Punch, in 1863, printed the following :—

" con". by a greek bondholder.

Spell, in five letters, ' Bully, Bilk, and Sneak,
Bepudiator, Trickster'—read it, ' Greek.' "

The writer, no doubt, wrote out of the bitterness of his bondage,
and Punch published according to his lights.

But now he feels he owes Hellas an amende honorable, and it is
with the utmost satisfaction that he pays it. She has offered a com-
position to her creditors, and considering the treatment she met with
from her English friends and lovers some half century ago, quite as
handsome a composition as her bondholders have any right to
expect.

Complete knowledge of the facts and figures connected with the
Greek loans of 1824 and 1825—such as may be gathered from the
Press utterances of that time, reprinted without comment,* no doubt
in explanation of the terms now offered—should satisfy everyone
that the compendious character given in the bondholder's couplet of
1863 might more fairly be applied to the so-called Philhellenes
who " financed " the Greek loans of half a century ago, than to poor
Greece, who incurred the debt but did not receive the money.

The upshot of the Philhellene financing then was that out of nearly
three millions of money nominally subscribed for her, Greece re-
ceived little more than £300,000, and that the balance did not go
into Greek pockets. That dark tale of roguery is a mess of dirt
which Punch does not feel called upon to stir up. Suffice it to say
that it is not Greece that comes worst out of it. Some of the loudest
of her so-calleclEnglish friends treated her as scurvily then as the
j English Government treats her now. Can Punch say more ? He

* The Greek Loans of 1824 and 1825. How they were handled, and ivhat
the World thought of it. Opinions of the day without Comment. London :
j R. S. King, Canada Building, King Street, Westminster.

is sorry to find that the score of Hellas against Britannia is so
heavy, and begs to take his hat off to the ill-used little Lady, with
an apology for having printed hard things of her which were not
deserved.

She now offers terms for redemption of her debt, which, under the
circumstances of the case—and of Greece—Punch feels to be fair, if
they should not even be called liberal. If the Greek bondholders
are wise they will take them, and be thankful. May Crete, Thessaly,
and Epirus be soon as well out of Turkish bonds, as Hellas, if her
present offer be accepted, will be out of English ones.

PEAL COLTLEIIR DE POSE.

No' need to cry " On, Stanley, on ! " Our War Secretary needs
no stirring up. Thus gallantly, in his Blackpool oration, does he
confront facts (see Alexander Forbes's article in the Nineteenth
Century) and fever (see Sir Anthony Home's reports) :—

"He believed there was no reason, despite all the desponding views which
were taken of the position, that that part of the Anglo-Turkish Convention
by which this country administered the island of Cyprus would prove other-
wise than satisfactory. He did not wish to go into the military part of the
question, but he thought the step they had taken was advisable, and that it
had been proved to be prudent. A great deal had been said about the illness
and suffering of the troops there ; but although there had been illness in the
island, which all must deplore, the authorities who were best qualified to
speak continued to assure him there was no permanent likelihood of this
remaining."

Certainly not. Any more than there is of the troops remaining.
Punch quite agrees with Colonel Stanley. If one Stanley has
traversed the darkness of a Continent, here is another who, with no
less courage, "traverses"—in the legal sense—the darkness of an
island—Cyprus, once the chosen abode'of the Goddess of Love, now the
head-quarters of the Fiend of Fever. The Colonel's "couleur de rose"
must "be the fastest colour known to the Trade. It defies all the
bitterest water in the well of Truth to wash it out.

A3T To Cokbkspondents. — The Editor does not hold himself bound to acknowledge, return, or pay for Contributions. In no case can these be returned unless accompanied by a

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