Punch: Punch (76.1879)

February 22, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

75

AWFUL CONDITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED

IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE LATE FEOST.

in so many homes; one great, common grief over so many of the
brave, the loved, and the lost; one common misgiving as to the un-
ayoidableness of the war in which they have fallen, and the fore-
sight of those who should have made provision for its needs at
home, and guided its operations in the field.

In the meantime^ England's sorrow uttered, and her tribute to the
brave dead duly paid, for which she can count on eloquent tongues on
both* sides of both Houses, her only thought is, how best to retrieve
her National honour, and fill up the places of her brave dead with
brave avengers.

These thoughts so pre-occupied all in both Houses on Thursday
night that the speeches in both fell flat. Vaunt and vituperation,
thrust and parry, attack and defence, seemed equally spiritless.

In the Lords, Lord Beaconsfield blew his trumpet with bated
breath. After a few first notes of sorrow over the disaster that lay
heavy on all hearts, he set to work cautiously picking such bits of
couleur de rose as could be extracted from the most roseate view of
the past, under its now familiar aspects of the Berlin Treaty, the Anglo-
Turkish Convention, the future of Cyprus, and the Afghan War,
(which, we are glad to know, has achieved all the Government ever
wanted), and then passed to the most promising view of the future
in the shape of Bills,—or rather promissory notes,—of the Session,
including an amended Mutiny Act, not meant to oust Parliament
of its Army-control, Bills for Criminal Law Consolidation, Bank-
ruptcy Amendment, County Boards, and new Valuation in England,
Grand Juries in Ireland, and Poor Law Amendment in Scotland.

Lord Granville did his cavilling as gingerly, as Lord Beacons-
field had done his praising and promising gently. The Opposition
hammers, he declared, had not smitten with undue heaviness on the
Official anvils. He contended, in the teeth of the bolts forged by the
Admiralty Muleiber, that he and his friends had had a policy on the
Eastern Question. Lord Beaconsfield was to be congratulated for
not having supported the suggestion of the quack medicine of Protec-
tion as a panacea for the existing distress ; and under the Zulu disaster
the Government might count on the aid of the Opposition for the repair
of losses and the supply of needs. Still, the sufficiency of the case
for the war with Cetewato was open to question on the Papers, and
it was odd that when Sir Battle Frere so pressed the need of
cavalry, the Government had sent none.

Lord Caeogan said the Government had sent all that Lord
Chelmsford had asked for. He had said nothing about Cavalry.

Lord Carnarvon, from his Colonial Office experience, believed the
war to have been both just and inevitable. But we must wait for
papers before committing ourselves to an opinion on that point, or
many others. Only one thing is certain—we must strike now our
hardest and fastest, lest we should increase alike the cost, the
danger, and the area of the war.

Lord Kimberley doubted whether the annexation of the Trans-
vaal had not been the determining cause of the war and the disaster.
But though we might differ about the policy of the Government,
Home or Colonial, there could be no doubt what the honour of the
Mother-Country, and the safety of the Colony, demanded in the
present emergency.

With whicb, a dull night's dull talk went out prematurely, at
twenty minutes after seven, for sheer want of fuel. Everybody, in
fact is out of spirits, and nobody wants a row.

{Commons.)—Mr. Blake got a laugh—flat as the House was—by
asking whether it was right for the Clergy of the Established Church
to set up in the grocery and tobacco business ?

Who nave so good a right to make their sixpences go as far as they
can on the way to shillings as the most poorly paid body of men in
the kingdom P

The Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered himself of a languid
and long-winded echo of his Principal in the Lords. One bit of in-
formation he did give. India insists on paying the cost of our war
with the Ameer. The utmost it will accept from us is the loan of
Two Millions, without interest—to cover loss by depreciation of
silver—a little present of about £80,000 a year.

Sir C. Dilke performed the work of vivisection on Sir Stafford's
very colourless creation with rather more spirit than Lord Gran-
ville had done the same office on Lord Beaconsfleld's. The Chelsea
Pet showed no small skill as a smart hitter, even amid the pre-
vailing dulness of the evening. He particularly pressed for an
answer to his awkward questions,—What were the Government
going to do in Afghanistan ? Where were they going to stop ?
With whom were they going to treat? By what magic did they
propose to leave an " independent and self-governing Afghanistan '
behind them, after breaking up the only power that held the