Punch: Punch (15.1848)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

81

THE BATTLE OF THE OYSTERS.

When the little boys poke an oyster-shell under our noses, with a re-
quest that we will shell out, and a plea that it is only once a-year, we little
t hink how important it is that Oyster-day in London should be only an
annual. We have heard of the Battle of the Constitution being fought in
the Registration Courts, but it is mere child's play compared with the
Battle of the Oysters, as fought on the 4th of August at Billingsgate,
There is nothing in the history of the onslaughts made upon the indi-
genous tribes by foreign invaders that is half so fierce as the attack
upon the natives on the anniversary of Oyster-day. The superstition
prevailing in London, that nobody can be lucky all the year unless he
devours a dozen or so of the favourite Crustacea on the first day of their
coming in, necessitates the supply of some millions of the case-hardened
fish; and as they can only be bought in one contracted spot, no wonder
that the contest is one of inveterate bitterness and desperate ferocity.
The simultaneous rush of fishmongers' carts towards the point whence
the spoil must be taken, resembles the rapid whirling of the Roman
war-chariots, which Adahs, in his Antiquities, and Batty, in his Circus,
have combined to impress upon our memories.

Every fishmonger in London sends a vehicle to the scene; and as the
horses are driven furiously to the attack, the approach of the cavalry
affords a magnificent spectacle of equestrian eagerness, stimulated by
human energy. Every combatant seems to reverse the view of ancient,
Pistol, who looked upon the world as his oyster, and to see in every
oyster a world for which everything must be jeopardised. When we
witness in the evening the mountains of shells reared into grottoes, or
strewed along the thoroughfares, turning every street, for the time
being, into a sort of sea-shore, without any sea; when we witness this
peaceful sight, we little think of the fearful encounters amid which
these oysters have been sacked. We, at an awful sacrifice, paraphrase
the words of the poet:—

" Fish on whom tbt town has fed,
Oysters o'er whose gory bed
Many a British nose hath bled,

Hit by one, two, three.
Who would for an oyster—spread
Butter fresh and fancy bread,
Kun the risk of broken head ?
Why! the more fool he ! "

Mercy among the fishmongering tribes is a quality utterly unknown;
and it has been well remarked by Smith, in his Joca Seria sine Punctu,
(a work at present unpublished), that the Shellfish dealers are imbued
with the habitual Shellfishness that their calling is likely to generate in
their minds.

THE BREAK-DOWN ON THE BALLOT.

To Lord John Russell.

My dear Lord,

In the debate on Ma. H. Berkeley's resolution in favour of
the Ballot, you are reported thus to have expressed yourself in opposition
"to it :—

"I can understand, indeed, that an argument might be used, running somewhat
in this manner—and if you introduce <our princ pie of secrecy into the right of
voting, I do not know but such an argument might have its force and effect—that
it would be better that juries should not be subject to intimidation in the discharge of
their duties; that the judge, to give the full opportunity for deciding justly and
impartially, should not become obnoxious to public censure, and therefore trial
at law should be secret."

Very well, my Lord. And if juries, in their vocation as grocers or
cheesemongers, were actually exposed to loss of customers, and if judges
did really lose their employment by giving verdicts and passmg
sentences according to their consciences, then, doubtless, trial at law
should be secret. Do you mean to say that such is the fact as regards
them? Do you mean to say that such is not the fact as regards voters ?
Will you pretend that the cases are similar ? Excuse me, my dear Lord,
but I really must beg you to take your choice between the bouncer and
the blunder. Which will you admit that you have outraged—truth
or logic ?

Next, dear Lord John, I find you represented as objecting to
t he proposal of the Ballot, for being unaccompanied by a plan for the
Extension of the Suffrage, and as saying:—

" So this one-seventh of the adult male population of the kingdom is to be endowed
with what the constitution of Venice enjoyed, a secret and despotic power over all
th* affairs of the realm."

But, my good Einality Lord John, whose fault is it, I beseech you,
that no scheme has been proposed for the Extension of the Suffrage—■
t hat the constituency of the kingdom includes but one-seventh of adult
Euglishmen ? Does this sin lie at Mr. Berkeley's door, or at the
fjate of the Treasury, and at the portal of a certain domicile in Richmond
Park ?

Lastly, after having objected to the Ballot on the score of secrecy, I
am informed that you assert:—

«'I belie?e that if persons took the Dains to find out the vote that was given, it

would always be discovered, and that it never could be disguised ; and therefore
there would be always some kind of influence used at elections."

So you maintain the Ballot to be mischievous on account of its
secrecy, and useless because that secrecy is impossible. You support,
your point by a mis-statement and a false analogy, and clench your
reasoning by a contradiction in terms. Your fallacies remmd me of
Pharaoh's kine ; for your lean arguments eat up your plump assertions.
No wonder the House affirmed the principle of the Ballot, after heaiing
your objections to it. Congratulating you on having thus attained your
minority,

I remain, your sincere well-wisher,

THE PARLIAMENTARY HARVEST OF ONE SHEA?.

Mr. Bull. " Well, John, what of the Harvest \"
John. " Oh, Mr. Bull, we've an average crop."

CONSCIENCE MONEY.

We are happy to see the practice of sending sums anonymously, in
the shape of Conscience Money, becoming somewhat general. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer is continually getting the half of a
bank-note from some penitent, who, in his day, has done—what England
expects every man to do now and then—the Duty.

We shall be glad to find this system applied more generally, and it
would give us unalloyed pleasure to hear of cash dropping into the
public coffers from the overburdened consciences and plethoric purses
of some of the holders of snug sinecures. Unfortunatelv the consciences
of people of this class are not very troublesome, and we hardly know how
to work upon them, unless the Treasury were allowed to put into com-
mission a few ghosts, regularly rigged out in sheets and stilts, to inter-
cept the sinecurists on their way home after receiving their un-earned
salaries. Something of the kind might answer very well behind the
door of the Court of Chancery, to alarm the scruples of the door-keeper ;
but unfortunately the keeper never goes near the door, and therefore is
never in a position to be pounced upon.

As a proof of something like returning conscience among certain
literary depredators, we may mention the fact that we have received
several hundred ideas, jokes, and articles of a miscellaneous description,
forwarded to us by persons who had tried to convert them to their own
use by pilfering and slightly disguising them, but who had disgracefully
failed in the experiment.

Some curious instances of Conscience Money, returned in the shape
of fees disgorged by attorneys, and sent back to their victimised clients,
have also been reported to us ; but these cases are of such an apocryphal
nature that we cannot believe them until we have had experience of
their reality. When Mr. Briefless sends us back the guinea we gave
him for the opinion that has been overruled twice, at a cost of 240
guineas, and established three times, at an expense of £570 14vs. 2</,
and "a friendly suit" that amicably eased us of £86 18s., we shall
begin to put some faith in the rumour that conscience is beginning to
find its way at last into the forensic profession.