DOI issue:
July to December, 1848
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16547#0092
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
85
OUR PROROGATION SPEECH.
hen Parliament opens, it is gene-
rally witha Speech from the Queen ;
it ought to close with a Speech
from Punch. There would be a
propriety about this arrangement.
It would be pleasantly typical of
the Royal Promise and Ridiculous
Performance of the present Minis-
try. So to our Speech:—
My Lords and Gentlemen,
You assembled on Thursday
the 19th of November; you are
about to separate this present
Saturday, the 19th of August. You
perceive this gives nine months of
work—that is, talk. In eight of
these nine months you have passed
RATHER UNSATISFACTORY.
The Court Circular is certainly not the place in which we are in the
habit of looking for our light reading, nor do we expect to find it in any
of those moving accidents by flood and field which form the elements of
romance ; but we do occasionally get hold of a paragraph in it that (as
the Reviewers have it when their amiable criticism is charged as an
advertisement) " will repay perusal." We found in Wednesday's
Number of that water-gruelly work a few lines that raised a smile, and
as we estimate every smile at threepence—we will pav that price to any
one who can manage to call up a risible illumination into our counte-
nance—we may allow that the Court Circular has for once " repaid
perusal." The following is the paragraph, whose value as a ludicrous
irritant may not at first sight appear:—
"Captain Denham, R.N., F.R.S., had interviews at the Board of Trade and
Admiralty yesterday with his reports and diagrams respecting the recent steam
vessel accidents in the Irish Sea and Gulf of Finland."
talked 4810 pages of Hansard.
About twice that quantity of talk has escaped unprinted. The Country
appreciates your services. She acknowledges your readiness to devote
your last breaths to her advantage. All she asks is the halfpennyworth
of work to this intolerable quantity of words.
Gentlemen of the House or Commons,
You met early; you are separating late. You were called
together mainly for three objects. Measures were to be recommended
to your consideration for advancing the social condition of Ireland ; for
modifying the Navigation Laws; and improving the Public Health.
Towards the first of these objects you have contributed an Arms Bill, a
Crown and Government Security Bill, and a Bill for suspending Habeas
Corpus; towards the second you have contributed nothing; towards
the third, not exactly nothing, but next to it. You have, besides this,
passed a Sugar Bill, which has the great merit of dissatisfying every-
body ; you have thrown away a million and a half in the shape of a loan
to Irish landlords, and a half-million in that of an advance to West
India Planters. You have also emasculated the Public Health Bill, and
passed a measure on the subject which cannot do much harm, and may
do a little good.
When I turn from what you have done, to what you have left undone,
I am struck by a great contrast. You may congratulate yourselves on
having abundance of work cut out for the year.
I have given directions that Estimates of all that is to be done " next
Session" should be made out, and laid before Ministers. I expect
that i', will astonish them.
I remark with pain, that you have got into a habit of laughing at very
serious things; such as Chartism and Irish Rebellion. I am desirous
that you should leave this to me. /will find out the absurdities of
both : you have to deal with the serious side of these facts. Feabgus
O'Connor mav be a very absurd person, and Smith O'Brien very
contemptible; but Chartism is, nevertheless, rife among English working
men, and disaffection among the peasantry of Ireland. I look with
confidence to see you grave on both these subjects for the future.
I am preparing measures for limiting the speeches of honourable
Memb rs; I trust that the time is not far distant when honourable
Members who have nothing to say, will not think it necessary to take
up so much time in saying it.
Gentlemen, your Session has extended over a time marked by
marvellous events, and full of great suffering on the part of the
Working Classes of the Empire. You do not seem to have appreciated
t/he one, and you have done nothing to alleviate the other. It is a
gratifying proof of the stability of our Institutions that they have
resisted all convulsions without any help from Her Majesty's
Ministers, who have tested the Consti'ution, as railway bridges are
tested, by putting on it a much heavier weight of incapacity than it is
ever likely to be required to bear on ordinary occasions.
Mi Lords and Gentlemen,
Allow me to bid you all good bye, on the conclusion of a
Session unexampled for the greatness of its promise and the smallness
of its performance—the Spanish Giant of Sessions, as far as words go;
and their Tom Thumb, as far as work.
A closer examination of the sentence will, however, show its purport
to be that Captain Denham has had an interview wir.h his own reports
I and diagrams. Why he should have made the Admiralty the place of
twenty-six Acts, ot whicti all but -s rendezvous between himself and his own productions does not appear,
nine were Acts ot course, lo bring am} t^e thing is almost as absurd as an amateur punster makin? an
about these nine Acts you Have appointment with one of his own jokes to meet him at, the Punch Office,
or Colonel Sibtiiorp arranging an interview with himselt on \\ ater-
loo Bridge. Captain Denham's tete-a-tete with his own diagrams at
the Boards of Trade and Admiralty must have been one of the dullest
and most unsatisfactory rencontres that ever occurred, or the wag who
writes the Court Circular must have come to the fearful determination
of "having his joke." If this is really the case, the thing must be
stopped at once ; for though we can tolerate mere imbecility, its union
with attempted facetiousness is too terrible to allow us to see it realised.
The Centaur is not a more frightful combination than the junction of
waggery with the solemn dulness of the Court Circular, and we have
determined therefore not to tolerate the attempt of our contemporary
to place upon the body of the donkey the head of the buffoon.
The Value of Ridicule.
If the Irish Rebellion had only broken out six months ago, what a
deal of bloodshed might have b?en saved! for there is no doubt the
result would have cast such intense ridicule upon the very name of
Revolution, that no State would have had the courage to attempt one
alter the Hibernian failure.
3Tf)f ISural ©rumuler.
Zbs here what comes o' your Vree Trade
In cattle voreigneerin !
Them Garman sheep there, I 'm afraid,
Wun't pay me for the shearin.
They've got the zmall-pox, all the vlock,
And arter that who '11 ate 'em ?
And I, to zave my 'tother stock,
Must go and vac-ci-nate 'em.
Ah ! these baint like the good old times
When we enjoyed Purtection ;
Now beasties vetch'd from voreign climes
Brings over here infection.
Great cry did Bright and Cobden raise,
We countryfolk to put on :
Here's precious little wool, I zays,
And terrible bad mutton.
But there—'tis true things might be wuss—
Misfortuns will befall us ;
And voreigners—for all the fuss
We made—don't quite forestall us.
And corn and cattle, arter all,
In price don't greatly tumble ;
Zo p'raps you'll zay we han't no call
Zo very much to grumble.
Shocking Accident to Mr. Urquhart.
We are sorry to record a terrific accident which has befallen
Mr. Urquhart, M. P. On Wednesday last week, in the House of
Commons, the Honourable Member attempted to move a heavy reso-
lution, condemnatory of the anti-slave trade policy of Ministers in the
East. This incautious movement brought down upon him Lord Pal-
mebston, who, falling upon him with tremendous weight, literally
crushed him to atoms. We cannot say that the unfortunate gemleman
lies in a dangerous state, for he is completely smashed, and the vital
spark being politically ex'inct, he is incapable of doing mischief to
anybody. _
the horse for our money.
In the list of the horses at Egham races, we observed a steed named
" Death's Antagonist." This is just the animal on which a man would
choose to ride for his life.
85
OUR PROROGATION SPEECH.
hen Parliament opens, it is gene-
rally witha Speech from the Queen ;
it ought to close with a Speech
from Punch. There would be a
propriety about this arrangement.
It would be pleasantly typical of
the Royal Promise and Ridiculous
Performance of the present Minis-
try. So to our Speech:—
My Lords and Gentlemen,
You assembled on Thursday
the 19th of November; you are
about to separate this present
Saturday, the 19th of August. You
perceive this gives nine months of
work—that is, talk. In eight of
these nine months you have passed
RATHER UNSATISFACTORY.
The Court Circular is certainly not the place in which we are in the
habit of looking for our light reading, nor do we expect to find it in any
of those moving accidents by flood and field which form the elements of
romance ; but we do occasionally get hold of a paragraph in it that (as
the Reviewers have it when their amiable criticism is charged as an
advertisement) " will repay perusal." We found in Wednesday's
Number of that water-gruelly work a few lines that raised a smile, and
as we estimate every smile at threepence—we will pav that price to any
one who can manage to call up a risible illumination into our counte-
nance—we may allow that the Court Circular has for once " repaid
perusal." The following is the paragraph, whose value as a ludicrous
irritant may not at first sight appear:—
"Captain Denham, R.N., F.R.S., had interviews at the Board of Trade and
Admiralty yesterday with his reports and diagrams respecting the recent steam
vessel accidents in the Irish Sea and Gulf of Finland."
talked 4810 pages of Hansard.
About twice that quantity of talk has escaped unprinted. The Country
appreciates your services. She acknowledges your readiness to devote
your last breaths to her advantage. All she asks is the halfpennyworth
of work to this intolerable quantity of words.
Gentlemen of the House or Commons,
You met early; you are separating late. You were called
together mainly for three objects. Measures were to be recommended
to your consideration for advancing the social condition of Ireland ; for
modifying the Navigation Laws; and improving the Public Health.
Towards the first of these objects you have contributed an Arms Bill, a
Crown and Government Security Bill, and a Bill for suspending Habeas
Corpus; towards the second you have contributed nothing; towards
the third, not exactly nothing, but next to it. You have, besides this,
passed a Sugar Bill, which has the great merit of dissatisfying every-
body ; you have thrown away a million and a half in the shape of a loan
to Irish landlords, and a half-million in that of an advance to West
India Planters. You have also emasculated the Public Health Bill, and
passed a measure on the subject which cannot do much harm, and may
do a little good.
When I turn from what you have done, to what you have left undone,
I am struck by a great contrast. You may congratulate yourselves on
having abundance of work cut out for the year.
I have given directions that Estimates of all that is to be done " next
Session" should be made out, and laid before Ministers. I expect
that i', will astonish them.
I remark with pain, that you have got into a habit of laughing at very
serious things; such as Chartism and Irish Rebellion. I am desirous
that you should leave this to me. /will find out the absurdities of
both : you have to deal with the serious side of these facts. Feabgus
O'Connor mav be a very absurd person, and Smith O'Brien very
contemptible; but Chartism is, nevertheless, rife among English working
men, and disaffection among the peasantry of Ireland. I look with
confidence to see you grave on both these subjects for the future.
I am preparing measures for limiting the speeches of honourable
Memb rs; I trust that the time is not far distant when honourable
Members who have nothing to say, will not think it necessary to take
up so much time in saying it.
Gentlemen, your Session has extended over a time marked by
marvellous events, and full of great suffering on the part of the
Working Classes of the Empire. You do not seem to have appreciated
t/he one, and you have done nothing to alleviate the other. It is a
gratifying proof of the stability of our Institutions that they have
resisted all convulsions without any help from Her Majesty's
Ministers, who have tested the Consti'ution, as railway bridges are
tested, by putting on it a much heavier weight of incapacity than it is
ever likely to be required to bear on ordinary occasions.
Mi Lords and Gentlemen,
Allow me to bid you all good bye, on the conclusion of a
Session unexampled for the greatness of its promise and the smallness
of its performance—the Spanish Giant of Sessions, as far as words go;
and their Tom Thumb, as far as work.
A closer examination of the sentence will, however, show its purport
to be that Captain Denham has had an interview wir.h his own reports
I and diagrams. Why he should have made the Admiralty the place of
twenty-six Acts, ot whicti all but -s rendezvous between himself and his own productions does not appear,
nine were Acts ot course, lo bring am} t^e thing is almost as absurd as an amateur punster makin? an
about these nine Acts you Have appointment with one of his own jokes to meet him at, the Punch Office,
or Colonel Sibtiiorp arranging an interview with himselt on \\ ater-
loo Bridge. Captain Denham's tete-a-tete with his own diagrams at
the Boards of Trade and Admiralty must have been one of the dullest
and most unsatisfactory rencontres that ever occurred, or the wag who
writes the Court Circular must have come to the fearful determination
of "having his joke." If this is really the case, the thing must be
stopped at once ; for though we can tolerate mere imbecility, its union
with attempted facetiousness is too terrible to allow us to see it realised.
The Centaur is not a more frightful combination than the junction of
waggery with the solemn dulness of the Court Circular, and we have
determined therefore not to tolerate the attempt of our contemporary
to place upon the body of the donkey the head of the buffoon.
The Value of Ridicule.
If the Irish Rebellion had only broken out six months ago, what a
deal of bloodshed might have b?en saved! for there is no doubt the
result would have cast such intense ridicule upon the very name of
Revolution, that no State would have had the courage to attempt one
alter the Hibernian failure.
3Tf)f ISural ©rumuler.
Zbs here what comes o' your Vree Trade
In cattle voreigneerin !
Them Garman sheep there, I 'm afraid,
Wun't pay me for the shearin.
They've got the zmall-pox, all the vlock,
And arter that who '11 ate 'em ?
And I, to zave my 'tother stock,
Must go and vac-ci-nate 'em.
Ah ! these baint like the good old times
When we enjoyed Purtection ;
Now beasties vetch'd from voreign climes
Brings over here infection.
Great cry did Bright and Cobden raise,
We countryfolk to put on :
Here's precious little wool, I zays,
And terrible bad mutton.
But there—'tis true things might be wuss—
Misfortuns will befall us ;
And voreigners—for all the fuss
We made—don't quite forestall us.
And corn and cattle, arter all,
In price don't greatly tumble ;
Zo p'raps you'll zay we han't no call
Zo very much to grumble.
Shocking Accident to Mr. Urquhart.
We are sorry to record a terrific accident which has befallen
Mr. Urquhart, M. P. On Wednesday last week, in the House of
Commons, the Honourable Member attempted to move a heavy reso-
lution, condemnatory of the anti-slave trade policy of Ministers in the
East. This incautious movement brought down upon him Lord Pal-
mebston, who, falling upon him with tremendous weight, literally
crushed him to atoms. We cannot say that the unfortunate gemleman
lies in a dangerous state, for he is completely smashed, and the vital
spark being politically ex'inct, he is incapable of doing mischief to
anybody. _
the horse for our money.
In the list of the horses at Egham races, we observed a steed named
" Death's Antagonist." This is just the animal on which a man would
choose to ride for his life.