Punch (13.1847)

188 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

TAX-GATHERER OF THE PERIOD.

1 Oh, JUST tell YOUR MasTFR I HAVE MADE ANOTHER ClLL ABOUT THAT

LITTLE MATTER."

A TRIBUTE TO THE BATH BRICK.

Mr. Roebuck, having been swamped in the troubled waters of the
Bath election, has been honoured by a tribute from his supporters. It
is emblematic of the gentleman it is presented to, being an oak cabinet,
■very much carved—expressive at once of hardness and ruzgedness;
with five hundred guineas inside of it—expressive of Mr. Roebuck's
sterling qualities and true mettle.

We have often used our baton on Mr. Roebuck, provoked thereto
by the liberal style in which he laid his tongue upon otiiers ; but if Mr.
Roebuck has the sting of the bee, he has also its virtues of industry
and usefulness. He generally buzzed about corruption, rather like a
bluebottle than a wasp, and chose out the softest and most showy fruit
of St. Stephen's to prick.

He has, it is true, had the art. of making Truth eminently disagreeable.
He has occasionally paraded the goddess, like the Lady Godiya, in a state
•of nudity, which shocked the decorous House of Commons. The water
from the well in which that Lady resides is, unfortunately, bitter ; and
Mr. Roebuck had the mania of insisting on everybody's drinking it,
without the usual emollient additions of Milk of Human Kindness and
'Sugar of Courtesy.

Still, Mr. Roebuck's seat in St. Stephen's is empty; and the.
" stricken deer who has left the herd," though apt to butt, was a Hart
Royal, and deserved a better fate than to be pulled down by the Bath
■chaps. We are glad they have shown some sense of his merits, even
after the testimonial fashion.

Things that only Occur Once in a Hundred Years.

Two events have excited a great sensation within the last week.
The Art-Union has actually distributed two engravings to its sub-
-scribers, and the hoarding has been taken away from the Nelson
-Column. Our children will speak of these events as important epochs
in the present century; and when we are grandfathers, and are called
upon at Christmas time to recount something wonderful, we feel that
the year 1847 will jump up to our hazy recollection, and we shall
grow eloquent upon the two great marvels it witnessed; and the
probabilities are, that some young jackanapes—some Fast Boy of 1930
—will send the whisper round the merry circle, " There's a crammer.
How the old gentleman's wandering! " But such is always the fate
of Truth—especially that sort of Truth which is stranger than Fiction.

AN OFFICIAL OWL IN AN IVT-BUSH.

One of our daily contemporaries, who, in contradistinction from what
he is continually calling the " unfledged writers," wishes no doubt to be
considered the "very old bird," has, in a piece of delicious fine writing
—so fine, indeed, that " nothing lives 'twixt it and nonsense"—
announced the discovery of a regular official owl in a regular official ivy-
bush. The rara avis has turned up, according to our ancient contem-
porary, in the form of Mr. James Stephen, who has recently retired
from the Colonial Office, and who is thus described by our friend the
" very old bird."

" For thirty years or upwards, this sedate, sanctimonious, and most
subtle of men, (mark the alliteration), without noise or display, by the
mere exercise of unbounded craft, huge chssembling, a large stock of
Italian diplomacy, the profoundest reserve, silence, solemnity, acuteness,
and intellectual power, contrived to govern a greater number of human
beings, and of more diversified races, either than the Czar of Russia
or the Emperor of Austria."

Was there ever such an owl in such an ivy-bush as we find here
described? We have italicised some of the words in this description,
t hat have struck us as the most absurd, and the most evidently inserted
because they are words, but for no other reason that we can perceive.
All this fine writing about the resignation of a subordinate office
evinces aflightiness on the part of the " very old bird," suggestive of
the necessity for clipping his wings. Mr. Stephens' alleged " Stock
of Italian diplomacy," furnished no doubt from some fashionable
Italian warehouse, is a new article of which we have not previously
heard. This " silence and solemnity " are owlish and ivy-bushish in
the extreme. After going carefully through Guy's Geography, and
transcribing all the hard names of the most outlandish places, the very
old bird exclaims, with more enthusiasm than grammar—" Thus east,
west, north, south, was his name, and his influence too often disas-
trously felt." We recommend, as a general rule, for the future
guidance of the " very old bird," to think of Lindley Murray in the
first instance as an absolute necessity, and reserve fine writing as a
luxury to be indidged in when this necessary is attained.

GUY FAWKES DAY.

Any search that would now be made into the vaults beneath the
Houses of Parliament previous to the opening, would be made with a
view to writs, rather than to explosive substances. We think that,
for the satisfaction of those legislators who have reason to fear the
missiles of the Sheriff and his officers, an inspection ought to take place
on the eve of the commencement of every new session, to prove that no
legal instrument lies concealed beneath the floor. Even the records,
having the outward appearance of suspicious pfles of parchment, wouid
have a terrifying look m the eyes of some members of Parliament, and
ought to be carefully kept out of sight, to prevent unnecessary alarm.