Punch: Punch (76.1879)

February 1, 1879.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 47

THE (DEAD) LETTER OE THE LAW.

George Smith, of Coalville, a kindly man, whose heart
had been moved for the neglected, ill-cared-for, and too
often ill-used wives and children of our bargees—that
large but little known floating population of our canals
and rivers,—mainly by his own exertions in urging the
subject on tbe Home Office and the Collective Wisdom,
at last got an Act passed for the registration and in-
spection of barges. The origin and effect of the regis-
tration was to bring the barge-babies within the pale of
school-law; and one chief object of the inspection was
to see and secure that certain elementary conditions as
to living and sleeping-space, ventilation and cleanli-
ness, were complied with. In a word, the law aimed
at making the barge-children fit to live, and the barges
fit to live in.

Thereupon, Punch very much applauded Mr. George
Smith for what he had done, and sat down, hugging
himself in the thought that the worst days of the barge-
women and barge-babies were over, and that old father
Antic, the Law, had taken these poor outcasts and out-
lyers under his protection.

But now he learns to his equal amazement and dis-
may that the Barge Registration and Regulation Act
is, in many—if not in most cases—a dead letter j tbat in
one instance a barge-owner has written in vain, more
than once, to the Local Authorities of his native town,
asking them to have his barges inspected and registered.
He has not even got an answer to his letters. " In fact,
it almost seems," writes Mr. Smith to the Daily News,
"as if those who have tbe carrying out of this Act—
one of the most beneficent Acts of the present Govern-
ment—are determined to let it quietly die, and then
bury it and nobody know."

Another Correspondent of the Daily News, Mr. Lang-
don, writes:—

" To-day I have walked along the sides of the canal from
Hampstead Eoad wharf to the City Eoad basin, and visited the
wharves in the neighbourhood of Edgware Eoad and Paddington,
and have seen between 130 to 150 canal boats, barges, and flats,
and I have not seen one canal boat, barge, &c, which has been
registered in accordance with the provisions of the Act."

In the name of those on whose behalf the Act was
passed, the women and children, whose lives are lived,
and often lost, aboard these floating homes, Mr. Punch
begs to ask, if the law for their regulation is to be re-
duced, not merely to the letter, but to the dead letter;
and, if not, " when the registering is going to begin ? "

Which question, with Mr. Punch s compliments, he
takes leave to put to all Town Councils, Local Boards,
and other Local Authorities charged, but as yet it would
seem ineffectually, with the administration of the Barge
Registration and Regulation Act.

THE WAY THINGS GET ABOUT.

Young Smith. " They say the Middlesex and Jerusalem Bank has

Young Smith. "Really ? Then it must be the Middlesex and something

else ; but 1 do think there should be some way of punishing the idiots
who go spreading these reports about."

Lyceum, of course, excepted—is, for light comedy, to be found just
now at the Court. The ingenious play—light comedy is its true de-
scription—called the Scrap of Paper, is capitally acted. Mr. Kendal
reminds me forcibly in tone and manner of the late Mr. Charles
Mathews, and the scenes between Mr. and Mrs. Kendal are very
amusing, though the last Act is, a trifle too farcical. It "goes,"
however, tremendously. But the Quiet Rubber is my favourite, not
as a well-written piece, for the dialogue is not brilliant, but as a
charming little comedietta with two very clever sketches of charac-
ter, which become highly finished miniatures in the hands of Mr.
Wenman as Mr. Sullivan, and—

" Mister Hare
As Lord Kilclare"

whose only fault is over-elaboration. But the whole performance is
well worth going some distance to see, even in this over-elaborated
weather.

Ere this appears, Mr. Cael Rosa (is it Carl Rosa, or Charles
Rose? What's m a name?) will have started with Rienzi and
Piccolini at Her Majesty's. Good luck to operas in English, and to
English operas, if we can get them.

So, to hark back, for a moment, to Mr. Kendal's resemblance to
Charles Mathews, it reminds me of a " gag" that the latter intro-
duced into his part, when he was playing in his own version of the same
piece—and being his own version, "gag" was, I suppose, pardon-
able. It was, I think, in the last Act; Charles Mathews was the
Colonel and Mr. Howe the Jealous Husband. The Colonel wanted
to conceal the letter, or tell somebody something—I forget what the
precise situation was—but at all events the line he had to say was,

"Weill must tell her, but hotv?"—when, at that moment, the
Jealous Husband appearing at the door, Mathews turned to the
audience, and in a very distinct aside au public, and with a know-
ing wink said, "Ah, here's Ho we ! "—which was received with a
shout. Of course the "gag "became stereotyped, but the way he
gave it was inimitable.

The Opera and another visit to the Old Masters must next occupy
the attention of your Representative.

DRUNK, OR DYING?

Always practical, and always humane, Mr. Punch is glad to
ventilate a very simple and much needed remedy for a very painful
and often recurring neglect. We are continually reading of inquests
on poor folks, who, having been run in as " drunk and incapable,"
turn out to be dying, and incapable even of saying so. Such cases of
incapability are now left to the tender mercies of the police—gene-
rally as "incapable" of distinguishing drunk from dying as those
they take up—and the comfort of the cell, which, at best, is
very cold comfort indeed, and often turns out a very serious "sell"
for all concerned—both the moribund run in, and the repentant
runner-in, who meant no harm, but whose sphere of duty was
narrowed all round, by his ignorance first, and the Station accom-
modation afterwards.

Mr. J. H. Hill, Surgeon, of Abercorn Place, N.W., stirred by a
very sad recent case of this cruel confusion of drink and disease,
writes to the Daily Neivs, suggesting—

" That at each police-station there should be a suitable room, containing a