Punch (77.1879)

76

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 23, 1879.

WOKE UP.

" 'Tis the voice of the sluggard,

I heard him complain."—WATTS.

Boots. "Eight o'clock, Surr ! "

Voice {from the deeps). ** Why didn't ye till me that before, confound
you !"

Upon this truly cheering announcement, the House hoorayed. Londoners
have now some prospect of being in the way to obtain, sooner or later, a supply
of cheap and good water instead of dear and dirty diluted sewage. Skies, fore-
fend any slip 'twixt the cup and the lip !

Sir C. Dilke, considering the Home Secretary's statement "very satisfac-
tory," recommended the Member for Hackney to withdraw the Resolution he
had moved to the effect that, as the Metropolitan Board of Works had failed to
tackle the Water Difficulty, it was "a subject which ought, without further
delay, to be dealt with by the Government." That, the Government grants.
Motion, therefore, withdrawn.

Enter Sergeant-at-Arms. " I have to inform the House that, in obedience
to their orders and Mr. Speaker's warrant, I have this day taken into custody
Charles Edward Grissell."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer. "Ha! h'm! We will talk of him to-
morrow !"

After this episode, a little more business done, but the House Counted Out at
6'30; when Ministers and their friends off, as fast as possible, by steamer to
Greenwich, and a diversified fish dinner, comprising, besides turtle and white-
bait, the daintiest delicacies, and inclusive of the choicest and most celestial
intoxicating liquors.

Thursday {Lords).—Lord Skelmersdale, on the part of Lord De L'Isle,
contradicted a newspaper paragraph stating that the latter Noble Lord, having
been sued in the Brompton County Court for £2 8s., the amount of a coal-bill,
had pleaded the privilege of a Peer for non-appearance. No such thing.

A whole batch of Bills then passed their Third Reading. Thereafter, Noble
Lords assented to the Commons' amendments of the Supreme Court of Judicature
Amendment (Officers) Bill, and adjourned once more.

{Commons.)—Sir M. Hicks-Beach, in reply to Mr. Anderson, said, and
answering Mr. Courtney repeated, that the Government had not been informed,
and did not believe, that Sir Garnet Wolseley had set a price on Cetewayo's
head. What could have put such a fancy into Mr. Anderson's ?

The House, on the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, adjudged
Mr. Grissell, for having evaded the Speaker's warrant for his apprehension,

besides having committed a breach of privilege in the
first instance, to be sent to Newgate for the remainder of
the Session on the point of expiring. But, as the
Speaker previously said, the prisoner, though released
on prorogation, will by no means have been purged of his
offence by his few hours' purgatory, but will remain
liable to further purgatorial pains and penalties next
Session.

On moving for papers relative to the Treaty recently
concluded with Yakoob Khan, a long denunciation of
that pact by Mr. Grant Duff, followed up by Lord
Hartington, and replied to by Mr. E. Stanhope and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, led to nothing of
more consequence than a Count Out at the reasonable
hour of 9-26.

Friday, Theatre Royal, St. Stephen's. Close of the
Season. The Managerial, that is Ministerial, Address,
called, in the lingo of Constitutional fiction, the Oueen's
Speech, was read by the Lord Chancellor. Her Most
Gracious Majesty was advised to say that:—

She was glad to release her Lords and Gentlemen from
their labours.

She continued on good terms with Foreign Powers,
and intended to try and make them keep their engage-
ments.

The Treaty of Berlin had been faithfully carried out,
and the new map of Turkey was nearly finished. The
Russians had evacuated the Balkan Peninsula, and her
Majesty was pleased to approve of Prince Alexander's
promotion from Battenberg to Bulgaria.

The effects of the late war were an excuse for the delay
of promised Turkish reforms, but she meant to keep peg-
ging away at the Porte until it kept its word.

Her Government and that of France between them
had, owing to the past misrule, suggested a slight change
in the Viceroyalty of the Land of Egypt.

She had concluded a treaty with Yakoob Khan,
guaranteeing peace, safety, and a strengthened Indian
frontier, and re - establishing friendly relations with
Afghanistan.

Her troops, British and native, engaged in the Afghan
war, deserved the vote of thanks they had received from
both Houses. She also thanked the Native Princes, as
well those who offered, as those who gave assistance.

She hoped the Zulu war would be soon over; lamented
the precious lives it had cost: and hoped her South-
African Colonists would learn how to manage their own
affairs in future.

She thanked the Commons for having handsomely come
down with the needful dust.

She congratulated her Lords and Gentlemen on having
passed the Army Discipline Act, Acts appointing a Pub-
lic Prosecutor and Amending the Law, a Joint Stock and
Banking Companies Act, and an Irish Education Act. _

She had pleasure in granting a Commission to inquire
into Agricultural Depression.

Withal, she blessed her Lords and Gentlemen, and
bade them farewell. The Ministers having thus tootled
their own trumpets, as it were, by the Royal mouth,
the Session of 1879 passed into Infinity; went off like
Herr Breitmann's " Barty " and his lager beer, away in
the ewigkeit.

R. I. P. It seems to have given us a few good laws,
and has left our liberties none the less.

CONVERTS AND CANNONS.

Notwithstanding that the great gunsmith, Herr
Krupp, has manufactured steel guns which work
wonders, yet, as accidents will occur to the best-con-
structed steel ordnance, the Admiralty, it is said, are
now considering a proposal made to them by that other
eminent artillerist, Sir William Palliser, to apply to
the heavier guns in the Service his system of converting
old guns, by giving them a lining, not of steel, but of
soft, ductile, coiled wrought iron, forming a barrel,
placed loose, so to speak, within the gun; a method
already partially adopted in the United States Navy. In
thus proposing to convert old guns, Sir William
Palliser maybe supposed to regard them as old sinners,
although he trusts their state may not be so bad but that
there is some hope for them. The conversion of these
old guns will certainly at least be genuine should bir
William Palliser be enabled to renovate their
interiors.