Punch: Punch (84.1883)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[June 16, 1883.

DICKY-BIRDS AT
DINNER.

“ The appetite of the bird (says
the Rev. J. GL Wood in the cur-
rent number of Good TFords) is
wonderful. A. thrush will eat at
a meal the largest snail that Eng-
land produces. If a man could
eat as much in proportion, he
would consume a whole round of
{ beef for his dinner. The redbreast,
j again, is a most voracious b.rd.”

| You pass the blooming1 haw-
thorn hedge in Spring,

And hear thereout a very
cheery gush

| Of music, and, as then you
hear it sing,

You recognise the sweet
voice of the thrush;

I No wonder that such power it
should reveal,

| It eats the largest snail up at
a meal.

If Man ate like a thrush, it’s
Wood’s belief—

And surely such a naturalist
should know—

He ’d eat at one meal a whole
round of beef.

Oh, how can pretty little
birds do so F

For here’s the robin redbreast
too, they say,

Eats fourteen feet of earth-
worms in a day.

Oh, City gormandisers, when
we smite,

You can retort that if you
tried to eat

Like robins, in one single day
and night,

Of nine-inch sausage sixty-
seven feet

Would be your portion; it’s
quite too absurd,

To find our gluttons beaten by
a bird.

PUNCH'S FANCY PORTRAITS.-No. 140.

Littery and Scientific.—
The St. John Ambulance Asso-
ciation.

SIR R. CUNLIFEE OWEN.

The Merman of the Fisheries Exhibition. Owen’ everything to
his Owen energy.

A SONG- OF SIXPENCE.

Says the Sixpence to the Shil-
ling,

“ Bumptious ‘ Boh ’ you’ve
had your day !

And the Public is not willing

Any longer you to pay

For a Magazine or Novel.

I am bringing knowledge
down

To the cottage and the hovel—

Silver Shilling you ’re done
brown!

“ Literature’s choicest pickins

I distribute to the mob ;

Walter Scott, Charles
Lamb, and Dickens !

What d’ye think o’ that,
Lord ‘Bob’?

Will wit sparkle with a
slacker ray

When the Working Man has
got

Jerrold, Shirley Brooks, or
Thackeray

For the price of j ust a pot ?

“ Now the Cornhill's cover
orange

Is to bear my conquering
name ;

As in price it sinks to low
range

May it rise in force and I
fame. j

Clearly Literature’s banner

Will henceforth the sign j
display

Of the proletariat ‘ tanner.’

Bumptious 4 Bob ’ you’ve
had your day I ”

discretion and valour.

The Duke of Cambridge, in
theHouseof Lords, “expressed
the opinion that the raising
the standard of age to nine-
teen would decrease the num-
ber of enlistments.” Do youth
generally begin to get indis-
posed to become food for
powder at that approach to
years of discretion ?

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. -

EXTRACTED FROM

THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

House of Commons, Monday, June 4.—Left House at eight o’clock
with prospect of Corrupt Practices Bill most satisfactory. Nearly
everyone supported Second Reading. Fortune of Bid completed by
opposition of Warton and Charles Lewis. Thought of saying a few
words for it myself, but in circumstances unnecessary. So went off
to dinner.

Coming back at eleven found Attorney-General apparently
delivering funeral oration, or addressing a Common Jury in a murder
ease. _ Solemnity appalling. Cadence of voice a little monotonous,
but still capable of moving Jury to tears.

44 What’s happened ? ” I asked Harcourt, who was strolling out,
gently stroking his chin, and softly smiling to himself. 44 Going to
withdraw the Bill or be beaten on a Division ? ”

44 Neither, my dea-r Toby,” said Grandiose Old Man. 44 It’s only
James’s Oxford-Circuit way. Thinks he’s defending a man for
sheep-stealing : that funereal manner, and that voice with a tear in
it are preparatory to calling witnesses to show that the prisoner
either had a dying mother at the time of the act charged, or that
owing to a long series of undeserved misfortunes, his mind had
become affected, and that when he took the sheep he thought it
was a favourite poodle he had lost in infancy. Fact is, it’s most
difficult for lawyers to forget that House is not a Jury, and that
Speaker and Clerks at Table are not .Judges sitting in banco. Have

heard it said that I’m the only great lawyer who is also effective
House of Commons speaker. A little kindly exaggerated, but
perhaps something in it.”

Bill all right, after all. Second Reading agreed to without
Division.

Tuesday — House of Lords to-night scene of tremendous dissension
on Bishops’ Bench. Bishop of Carlisle moved Second Reading
of Cathedral Statutes Bill. Joseph Gillis in Gallery scented the
row from afar. Came to see how Bishops quarrelled. From very
first his keen intelligence went with Opposition,
j 44 What do they want with more statutes in Cathedrals ? ” says he.
j “Thought you English would have had enough of statutes. Just
' after moving the Duke of Wellington, and don’t know what to do
j with him. Better leave statutes alone, and go on grinding the poor
! Irish.”

Bishop of Peterborough opposed Bill on quite other grounds.

! Managed with great dexterity, in discussing it, to give Govern-
ment several digs in the ribs. Lord Salisbury hugely delighted.

“Pity Peterborough took Orders,” says he. _ 44 His lawn sleeves
tie his hands. If he’d been a layman, and got in for some borough,
he would have changed affairs in House of Commons. He would
have joined the Fourth Party, or perhaps created it, and made
things hot for everybody all round, especially the Government.”

44 Yes,” Lord Granville sweetly lisped. “Peterborough’s a
little lost here; we can’t do with a Randolph, more especially in
lawn.”

Peterborough stood alone, with back to the wall, having dropped
tin bonnet-box of dynamite on Bishops’ Bench. Pretty to see other