Punch (13.1847)

204

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

when we saw him seat nimseif in that uneasy chair. And then, with
bitter mockery, they laid the golden mace before him. We say it,—
mockery; for if, availing himself of the elasticity of the Constitution,
the Speaker were allowed to stretch it a little, in order now and then
to knock down a Plumptre when tedious, or a Spooler when prosy—
the weapon would be a useful, nay, a valuable ^instrument. As it is, it
is a mockery and a shame: laid before the Speaker only the more to
test his patience; for often, we are sure of it, his fingers must itch to
be at it, that he might adjourn the House, as a policeman with his staff
adjourns a mob.

Lefevre, new Speaker of the new Commons—Punch compassionates
thee! Doomed for hours and hours 1o sit into "the deep waste and
middle of the night," listening to nothing—listening, when, it may be.
those dear to thee think thou wert better in bed. Talk of impaling!
why, what would the sharp punishment be for an hour or two, and so
have it over at once, to the sitting night after night upon dull points
of form or law, or bits of broken arguments, comfortless, though not
as clear, as bits of broken glass !

And then looked we round, and pitied the doomed silent members.
Morbid victims of miserable ambition ! Doomed silent all as Turks in a
toy-shop ! Men, who would tremble at the thought of a speecli! Men,
who, if tempted in an unguarded moment to open their mout hs, would
drop again, covered with such fiery blushes as would make their
Parliamentary seats too hot to hold them.

For the present, we shall say nothing about the Queen's speech: that
in our next; which will also contain our own maiden speech in the House
of Commons—a speech to the which all the ears of All England will, we
know it, graciously incline, even as the million ears of a field of golden
wheat bent by the southern wind.

Punch would not print his own many speeches in Parliament—for
there are few subjects upon which he will not say something—but that
there is a conspiracy against him. The hollow hearts of the newspaper
press have at last thrown off the mask, and have declared their intention
to ruin Punch in the opinion of his great constituency—All England, be
it remembered—by not printing his speeches.

Ha! ha! Punch, jocund, skips to his own cases, sets up his own type
in glittering row—"dews of morning, strung on slender blades of
grass "—and then, covering himself with his own ink, comes from his
office, singing to the world, like a big bumble-bee full of honey from the
heart of a flower.

And so much for Punch in Parliament. Yet a moment.—Punch had
almost forgotten to state, that when he visited the House the following
day for the purpose of tendering as M.P. his ceremonial loyalty to his
beloved Queen, the Constitution, &c. &c, he proceeded to the House,
and then to the Speaker's table, to perform the usual formalities, led
thither by, on one hand, Sir Robert Peel, and on the other, Lord
John Russell. This was handsome; and the loud cheering of the
House showed that the whole Commons appreciated the courtesy.

WHERE ARE THE RAILWAY SURVEYORS 9

A couple of years ago, such was the fertility of the soil in conse-
quence of railway speculation, that surveyors sprung up like mush-
rooms all over the land. Those who had never been in any line at all,
went at once into the railway line; but, alas ! they have 'all of them
long ago found their very dumpy levels, and the only cuttings they
have recently studied, have been those forming the curious art of
cutting away from their creditors. They have, in fact, been going
down the hill by the most precipitate gradients; and, though it is a
long lane that has no turning, their career of decline has not exhibited
one friendly curve they could take advantage of. Their ingenuity is
now required to manage that ingenious piece of tunnelling, the act of
getting through the difficulties brought upon them by fallacious hopes
of becoming, in time, Brunels or Stephensons.

Many enthusiasts, who, in the year forty-five, were prepared to
throw a viaduct half-way across the world, are now scarcely able to
construct a bridge to carry them safely over their last week's washing-
bill. _ The tear of pity mingling with our ink, prevents us from pro-
ceeding further.

THE DUAL VOCALIST.

Among the novelties of the age is an individual who possesses the
ability to sing a duet all by himself, taking both parts in unison, and
executing the bass and treble at the very same moment. This is cer-
tainly wonderful if true, and surpasses even the talent^ of which Peel
and others have given the world the most astonishing specimens.
There have been many political performers who could vary their voices
in a marvellous manner, and sing at one time extremely high, at another
profoundly low ; but there is something quite new in the alleged power
of keeping up contrary sounds at the selfsame moment. The secret
would be a valuable one to a statesman like Sir Robert Peel, whose
transitions, though sometimes very startling and sudden, are, after all,
mere changes, which we may admire for the tact with which they are
effected ; but he has yet to acquire the art of keeping up simultaneously
a bass and a treble, so as to give him a kind of double voice, which he
has not hitherto been able to acquire.

It is true he has the benefit of the two voices in their separate form;
but to profit by them both at once is an accomplishment he must learn
from the dual vocalist.