Punch: Punch (75.1878)

November 2, 1878:]_ PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.__203

" TOUT VA BIEN ! "

" Before leaving the platform, the Marshal, taking both hands
of M. Ghevy, said, ' line belle journee. Tout va bienV''—
Account of Ceremony at Distribution of Awards, French Exhi-
bition.

Bravo, mon brave ! A better phrase

Than that which set all France a-fuming,
"When, touched with the Imperial craze,

You stood the despot's pose assuming.
Through faith, the path that France finds best

If you will tread in fashion loyal,
You yet may say " J"'y suis,fy reste,"

In tones triumphant, if less royal.

And bravo France ! Punch lifts his voice

In cordial congratulation,
And tells her English hearts rejoice

In the success of the Grand Nation,
Whose seven years of patient toil

Have set her fairer far in story
Than long pursuit of power and spoil,

And that blood-spotted phantom—Glory.

Peace has its victories. Worsted late

In War, and schooled by black disaster,
France shows herself supremely great

In might that can misfortune master.
Self-ruled, strong, rich, she firmly stands,

Midst general poverty and pother.
The best " revenge " is in her hands ;

They 're foes who'd urge her to another.

Yes, Tout va bien ! May good increase,

And your belle journee, my dear Marshal,
Be harbinger of progress, peace,

And liberty, and law impartial.
Facons de purler change, you see,

Like other fashions,—this fits better.
Punch trusts your vows and hopes may be

Ilight soon fulfilled, ay, to the letter !

INTUITION.

Puzzled Cookid. "Well, I can't quite make it out, 'Aiiry ; but I think

it means as we ain't to pass along 'ere."

Venus's Oven.

Sib Garnet Wolseley, in answer to a memorial from
the Church of England Temperance Society, assures the
Society of "the warm interest that he takes in all
measures calculated to encourage sobriety." In Cyprus
Sir Garnet must find it difficult to take anything but a
" warm interest" in anything.

JUST IN TIME.

Mr. Wybrow Robertson, having roused British passion in earnest
by his unwary announcement of selected Tableaux from the Ober-
Ammerg-au Passion-Play at the Aquarium, has had the good sense to
acknowledge his mistake, and back out of his blunder.

Not a day too soon. For on the heels of his letter announcing his
withdrawal of these Tableaux comes a pithy telegram to the Times,
which turned into literal English, runs :—

" Representation of the Ober-Ammergau Passion-Play at the Aquarium
Theatre—humbug. No native of Ober-Ammergau has anything to do with it.
Legal steps in progress. Please make public. Lang, Burgermaster's Office."

So it seems that Mr. Wybrow Robertson has not only roused
the British Lion, but has done so under, let us say, a mistake. His
Passion-players would have been impostors—violating propriety and
outraging respect for sacred things in borrowed plumes. Of course
Mr. Wybrow Robertson did not know this. But how very unfor-
tunate he has been in the whole business.

It is a comfort that one set of people come well out of the mess—
the worthy, simple, and pious peasants of the Ober-Ammergau, for
whom the performance of their Passion-Play is a religious solemnity,
in performance of a vow made in 1633, when their village was ravaged
by a pestilence. _ When the performance of Passion-Plays was inter-
dicted in Bavaria in 1779, this one was specially excepted, as being
under the superintendence of the monks of Ettal, hard-by, and,
besides, in fulfilment of a vow.

But if the institution of the play stayed the pestilence in 1633
(as these simple Ober-Ammergauers believe), its continuance may in-
troduce a new pestilence in 1880, should it bring on Ober-Ammergau,
as yet pure and simple, the plague of speculating Managers to tempt
the village Actors, as well as of Cook's tourists and cosmopolitan
audiences, to poison the village life with greed of gain, and take

the sanctity of simple faith from this Passion-Play, so turning it
—as there is already fear it has begun to be turned—into a show
which, in becoming popular, must become profane.

CAMBRIDGE COLOURS.

From the subjoined announcement there appears to be a good time
coming for our Cambridge Crews :—

"The River Cam.—At the Cambridge Improvement Board yesterday it
was resolved that immediate steps be taken for diverting the sewage of the
town from the river Cam, and that Sir Joseph Bazalgette be requested to
advise the Board as to the best mode of doing so."

The Cam's colour will probably also be the better for purification,
so as to be no longer in such flagrant contradiction to the tint
wherewith it is associated in boating circles—"light blue."

Jockeys and Judges.

It is announced that Sir Henry Hawkins has been elected an
honorary member of the Jockey Club, as also was his learned Brother,
Sir Samuel Martin, three years ago. The Jockey Club has done
wisely in calling to its counsels two good Judges, in the ordinary
sense, as well as the special one in which a man is spoken of as a
" good judge " in the horsey world—that is, a good judge of a horse.
Unfortunately, as assessors at the Jockey Club s assize-courts,
Brothers Hawkins and Martin have no power to commit rogues
and swindlers convicted of tricks, whether of ownership or jockey-
ship.

Last News from Berlin.— Freie Presse put down.