Punch (9.1845)

64

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS.

While the battle of the gauges is dividing the railway world, the I them ; but if the habitations of the poor are superseded by palaces, while
battle of the streets—the contest between the broad and the narrow—is j pauperism still remains, we would simply ask what on earth is to become
revolutionising the metropolis. Unfortunately for the narrow, the broad of it.

carries, or rather knocks down, everything before it. We shall soon be The old police principle of "move on," "you can't step here,"'

utterly without a lane or an alley throughout the whole of London ; while
as to architecture, the old brick and tile order will be utterly superseded
by the modern stuccoite. It is all very well to enlarge the streets if we
can enlarge the means of the people sufficiently to enable them to live in

seems 1o be now generally applied to those of humble means, and the
question is, "Where are they all to go to !" So as they are got rid of
somehow, this is a question which gives little trouble to those who are
bent on " improving " a neighbourhood.

WAR BETWEEN THE PRESS AND THE BAR.

MR. PUNCH TO THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.

Gentlemen of the Fourth Estate,

I have not been unmindful of the quarrel which has lately
broken out between yourselves and the Bar. I even prophesy from

it considerable public benefit; if, as late circumstances havegivenme j pri"me-ministers, lord-chancellors and'Temple-porters—we all feel it,'

Queen's Ministers and the Bar. For artful dodging with an air of
candour; for dexterously reading an affidavit; for cloaking his client's
lies and abetting his fraud. Bravo ! Let the Temple bells be muffled ;
let the porters wear crape; let the Bar walk after the hearse with
dishevelled wigs, and the silk gowns march in tatters; let the judges
howl a threnody, led by the Chancellor and the Chief Baron; and let
Sir Robert and Sir James sacrifice an under-secretary on his-
tomb. Let us all sit down and weep—clerks, lawyers, newspapers.

to suppose, you are beginning to be aware of the importance of your j we>re all so deep in affliction—we're so sincere, so honest.

calling, to feel your own strength as a public body, to take counsel by
other corporations how to make your own respected, and to submit
to no further impudence or insult when you can conveniently

O omnipotent unfathomable Goddess of Humbug ! Statues should
be erected to you through all our city. A golden one before
Buckingham Palace, a great brazen one before "Westminster, a rigid

repress it. My soul reioices in the prospect of a war between ,. 6 . ' , ^ t a > j i j ~

+i -d j\1 id * \\ t i a .,,1 marble one m the centre of Almack's, and an enormous leaden one

the Bar and the Press of these kingdoms. As a member ot the „ TT . -.^__ .i t, , ntci__m„

, ,. - T j. ,. 6 , . .. . . ,, i in Exeter Hall. But before the Fundi office we would have the

latter profession, 1 am of course disposed impartially to stand by my \ ■ „ . , ___, T , ■__•__, J__

p. / „ .'„. . ^ f j ■ . , I statue fluntr down, and the great Iconoclast waving his baton over
friends. Yes, in this row, or in any other where vour interests are \, . °
______j lt,j.,.. __J„'i ;_ m..' oi___l___j_!x_ -__i___i__t__the rums.

This however for future consideration and other ages. Return we
to the Bar Humbug, and muse, dear friends, thereupon.

Has it not often struck you, considering these things, how cruelly
the Attorneys have been dealt with by public repute—how, by our-
selves in novels, plays, and fictitious works,—hence by the public in
his case in the most harmonious and fair-purposed aspect. If there was ! daily life,—that class of men has come to be considered as a dangerous,
anything false or fraudulent, a hitch or a blot of any kind in his case, he slippery, wicked set of practitioners ? When we talk of roguish
kept it dexterously out of view, or hurried it trippingly over. But if the j iawyers'a3 talk we do—lawyers are supposed to mean attorneys-
blot was on the other side, he had the eye of the lynx, and the scent of the Bar'somehow escapes scot-free ; there's no stain upon them, they
£ ™Z^™ffi?°V Tn iT^ hlStlf T' tr **hf **? greatest skill j f fa become barons and earIg so often above

in reading an affidavit, and could play the 'artful dodge m a style look- > * so magrificentlv and constantly about their own

mg so much like gentleman y candour, that you could not find fauit.-' f4:' U1L^ P/<"e f° ~T° ? 7, '„• . 1: „„ „ +-,

honour and dignity, that the public believes them ; they reap the

menaced, there's a cudgel in Fleet Street, ready to make play for
the common cause.

I have just been reading in Fraser's Magazine, the biography of a
great leader of the enemy, who has lately passed away.

The greatest skill of Follett," Fraser says, " consisted in presenting

Thus it is that the writer, a barrister evidently, eulogises the
various qualities which raised that eminent man ; and complacently
enumerates his merits. He could play the " artful dodge " in a man-
ner so candid as to defy suspicion. He could detect an enemy's lies
in a minute—his client's falsehood or fraud he could keep out of
view. There's a panegyric for a gentleman ! For these precious
qualities he earns fifteen thousand a year; he obtains the highest
post of the law ; be goes to the grave honoured and fcliowcG by the

dignity, and the poor attorney comes in for all the odium.

And yet, these men are but the creatures of the Attorneys : they
go where the latter bid them, they state what the Attorneys tell
them. If Quirx, Gammon and Snap prescribe the "artful dodge,"
Serjeant Buzfus performs it in Court. If an honest man is to be
bullied in a witness-box, the barrister is instructed to bully him. If a
murderer is to be rescued from the gallows, the barrister blubbers
over him, as in Tawf.lt.'s case ; or accuses a wrong person, as in