Punch: Punch (6.1844)

210

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

EXETER HALL PETS.

Religion, like fancy, has her peculiar favourites. Ladies and
gentlemen have, among the various heathen, their pet proselytes, just
as among birds and dogs they have their pet macaws, their pet
poodles. It is an adage old as Truth—whose register of birth was not
lost at the Flood —that the human heart must love something : hence,
beautiful is it, in this balmy month of May, to see crowds of lovers-
spiritual lovers we mean—ascending the crystal steps of Exeter Hall
to testify their affection for the benighted sons and daughters of
earth thousands and thousands of miles away. Elastic, indeed, are
human heart-strings, for they stretch from pole to pole. Indeed, with
many of the worthy people of Exeter Hall, distance is essential to
love. Just as connoisseurs take a backward step truly to consider
the beauties of a picture, do many of these good folks require distance
to see the miseries of human nature through an attractive medium.
They have no taste for the destitution of the alley that abuts upon
their dwelling-place, but how they glow—how they kindle at the
misery somewhere in Africa ! Familiarity truly begets contempt.
The famishing shoe-binder or sempstress is a homely commonplace ;
the benighted Chinese an exotic darling. With some folks sympathy,
like Madeira, is all the better for a sea-voyage.

We have said that proselyte-mongers have their special pets :
Among them, the Hebrew people bear a great price. Hence, as was
shewn at a late meeting, upwards of £25,000 are annually subscribed
for the conversion of the Jews at Jerusalem, Hebron, Beyrout, Con-
stantinople, Smyrna, and we know not at how many other places pro-
mising in apostacy. We must confess, we should like to see a fair
balance-sheet of this account. We should like to know the exact
number of converted Hebrews, that we might arrive at something
like the market-price of a renegade Jew. We own it; we more than
fear that he is a great luxury ; a bird of Paradise of exceeding cost.
Hence, we confess it, we would have our gentle countrywomen re-
trench their outlay on the foreign curiosity, that they might better
afford to buy up somewhat of the misery produced at home.

A day or two after the meeting was held of these benevolent people,
whose hearts yearn for the Jews in Sapet and Strasburg, there ap-
peared in the papers—but then the tragedy happened at No. 1, Angel-
court, Long-acre, not a quarter of a mile from Exeter Hall—an account
of the death of one Mary Walt., aged 35. She died famished.
John Bitton, of St. Martin's workhouse, testified as follows :—

" On opening the door of a room on the ground-floor, or, more properly speaking, a
lumber-room, there bein.fr no fl"Or to it, he found the deceased lying on her face on the
earth, her body covered with shuttings, and her head resting on part of an aid basket simi-
lar to a wine-merchant's hamper. She was groaning, and seemed quite insensible."

Mr. Leonard, surgeon to the out-door poor of St. Martin's,
deposed :—

" On being taken to the workhouse, remedies were used to restore animation ; but she
never rallied, and died within twenty four hours after. The place where deceased dwelt
emitted a most noisome smell, from the quantity of decayed garden-stuff. On making a
post-mortem examination, he found inflammation of both lungs, which no doubt arose
from the non-application for medical assistance; which, together with her not receiving
any domestic comforts, and Iging on the bare and cold ground alone and neglected,
produced extreme exhaustion, of which she died,"

It must, however, be allowed that the death of the woman was
doubtless accelerated by her determination not to go into the work-
house : nevertheless, had we societies as actively benevolent in the
Angel-courts of London and our great towns as in Constantinople
and Smyrna—had we home missionaries of charity to tempt the
fetid dangers of Seven Dials and Spitalfields, could these scenes of
horror be enacted? But then there is this bar to the zeal of the
philanthropic—both Seven Dials and Spitalfields are close at hand ;
they are real, tangible foulness; the eye turns from them—the nostril
shrinks at them; whilst what a picturesqueness invests Constantinople
—what a halo of beauty does distance cast about Jerusalem !

Again ; consider the great difference between the objects to be
succoured. The dwellers of English lanes and alleys are common,
vulgar things : creatures of foul and violent speech ; commonplace
in their very rags and ghastliness. But the Jews—the spiritually
forlorn of Jerusalem ! Oh, the Evangelical imagination clothes them
with the mystic beauty of the place ; uplifts and sublimates them by
the magic of religious fervour, and the very tatters of the Hebrew
become rare and beautiful as Joseph's coat of many colours. And
so, soft-hearted ladies and gentlemen, rapt by the forlornness of the
far-off Jew, write their cheques, or put their money in the plate, too
deliciously possessed by the sweet apostate in the distance ever to
dream of the famishing Christian at their right hand. Could we but
transport our destitute population to China or to Africa, we have no
doubt that many English Samaritans would then be marvellously

piteous of them. Oh, ye miserable Christians, who hunger and
waste unvisited in English lanes and cellars,—why are ye not Jews,
glorified by distance, dwelling at Beyrout and Hebron ?

Even religion to some people is more attractive when invested
with a certain air of romance. The modern missionary is, to some
folks, picturesque as was the Templar Knight of old. To be sure, he
goes not forth to slay the unbeliever ; but—happier condition of the
world—to make proselytes. He carries neither sword nor spear,
but hard cash, with which he turns the heart of the needy Hebrew,
and writes home " a soul saved." And every gentlewoman who gives
a guinea to the goodly fund is softened and upraised by the thought
that she has her soldier of peace fighting in Palestine ; and with
such sufficing belief she may give a chicken wing to Bijou her dog
even though a Christian mother shall whine with hunger at her gate.

On the last meeting of the Society in question, the Bishop of
Winchester preached a sermon. Eloquent no doubt was the dis-
course ; heart-touching, pocket-penetrating. We would, however,
that his Grace—if only for one round—would visit'the Angel-
courts of London : the pilgrimage might, we think, give an impetus
to the sluggish imaginations of those who think that true misery,
real mental darkness, is only to be found, like their fine hyson, in a
far country.

Allowing, however, that it is necessary to the apoplectic philan-
thropy of some folks to bleed their purses for the heathen, we think
that at least the Jews might be left as they are until every other
unbeliever should be converted.

-Here, madam,—you, who at the last meeting invested five

pounds in apostate Jews, — here is the map of the world. Cast
your eye over it. Here is the poor Esquimaux doomed to whale-
blubber and a soul-blighting creed—here the Red Man—here the
Hottentot—here the New Zealander—here people on people, and
tribe on tribe, all in uttermost darkness. Enlighten them, and then,
if you will, begin with the Hebrew. Meanwhile, for ourselves—we
confess it—we have more than a sneaking respect for a people who
had Moses for a leader and a law-giver. We rarely meet a long-
bearded Rabbi that he does not carry our thoughts to the plains of
Mamre—to the first patriarchs of the first nation.

And ye, who would convert the Jews, first copy the Jews' great
virtue : first take care of your own poor ; feed and clothe them, and then,
if you will, with the superfluity make proselytes of the Hebrew.
Meanwhile, with misery wasting thousands of our fellow-Christians
at our very doors, we hold the subscription of large sums of money
for, at best, the questionable conversion of the Jew, as the offering of
a miserable, morbid egotism ; and should still think so of the purpose,
though the whole Bench of Bishops wagged their silrer tongues in
aid of it. Q.

MY WIFE'S DIARY.

now, Punch, I am a married man. Yesterday
I found a little note-book in the passage.
It turned out, on inspection, to be my wife's ;
and to contain—what think you ?— a journal ;
which that woman has been keeping, I dare
say, ever since our marriage. The ensuing
is an extract therefrom. Punch, you are a
gentleman ; and, therefore, I hope you will
insert it. If you were a lady, indeed, I
imagine you hardly would ; besides, I should
wish no lady to take a leaf out of my wife's
book. Here, however, sir, is one, at your
service : —

" Sunday — Charles out late last night;
not up this morning till twelve: breakfast
not over till one. Wished particularly to go
to church ; my new lilac bonnet with pink trimmings came home yesterday.
Couldn't go, of course. The Walkers and the Kutchinses there, and all!
Very angjy with Charles ; wouldn't talk to him at dinner : went up after-
wards into the dressing-room, and there sat by myself When I came down
again, found him smoking and reading the paper. That Edwards called
this evening. Knew Charles would ask him to stay to supper. Slipped
out directly after lea ; locked the larder, took the key of the cellar, and
went to bed : hope they were comfortable 1

Monday.—Charles very cross this morning about last niyht ,• but
coaxed hirn over, and made him promise me that dear shawl. Paid for

week's housekeep. Mem__to get those open-work stockings. Charles

out at half-past ten. Mas. Saunders called. How well she manages
Saunders ! Mem.—not to forget her hint about the save in sugar.
Charles home again, for a wonder, at four ; said he had been for a walk
with Bradshaw. Steaks for dinner. Charles never asked me what cui