Punch: Punch (21.1851)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

31

HYPERBOLES OF THE HOLY SEE.

In the late papal " Appeal to the Piety and Charity of Italians," urging them
to subscribe to the erection of a new grand Roman Catholic Church " in the centre
of London, in a fine position, in one of the most majestic streets in the City," it is
declared that

"Those conversions to Catholicism, so frequent and remarkable; that necessity which, in the present
day, Protestants feel for instruction in Catholic concerns; those efforts which the ministers of error are
now making to stop the spontaneous impulse of the nation towards the truth, are strong reasons for conceiving
the sweetest hopes of the immediate return of that prodigal daughter within the bosom of its afflicted
mother, the Roman Church."

Ferdinand Minucci, also, "Archbishop of Florence, of the Holiness of our
Lord(!) Pope Pius IX., Domestic Prelate, Assistant Bishop of the Pontifical Throne,
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit,
under the title of St. Joseph "—and Punch doesn't know what else—in his " notifica-
tion " on the same subject, headed with the unworldly and unpretending titles just
quoted, talks of "the happy success of the Catholic Apostleship in the United
Kingdom of Great Britain;" of " the numerous restorations to the bosom of the
true Roman Church, not only of the unlearned, of the simple, and of the poor,
but especially of the most enlightened, of the most learned, and of the most
honoured personages;" expresses, likewise, " the sweet hope" of Great Britain's
speedy conversion to Popery, and asserts "the marvellous tendency of that nation
towards Catholicism."

Did you ever, reader, meet with the like of this ? Why, yes; for of course you read
Shakspeare as well as Punch. In Richard the Third, Act III., Scene 7, you will
recollect Buckingham gives Gloster the following hopeful account of his attempt to enlist
the citizens of London in behalf of their design upon the Crown:—

" When he had done, some followers of mine own,
At lower end o' the hall, hurl'd up their caps,
And some ten voices cried,' God save King Richard !'
Aod thus i took the vantage of those few:
' Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth i;
' This general applause, and cheerful shout,
Argues your wisdom, and your love to Richard.' "

What only makes the cases not precisely similar is, that whereas, when Buckingham
tried it on for Gloster, " the citizens were mum, said not a word," and nobody
responded to his solicitations but a few of his own flunkies, a similar manoeuvre on
the part of Cardinal Wiseman in the cause of his chief, elicited a tremendous roar of
" No Popery ! " all over the kingdom.

Minucci's assertion about the "numerous restorations" to his church, "especially
of the most enlightened, of the most learned, and of the most honoured personages," is
really quite seasonable—it is so cool. Perhaps Minucci seriously imagines that the
principal ornaments of the Bench, the Bar, the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons,
the Royal Institution, the Peerage, and Army and Navy, are the kind of persons who
have lately been turning papists. Punch hopes Minucci has deceived himself—if not,
Minucci has made a very bold attempt to deceive Punch.

The new place of worship to be built under the auspices of the Pope is to have its
site "in the centre of London in a fine position." The centre of London is Smithfleld,
and what position could be a finer one for the Church of Queen Mary ?

A GAP IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION!

There is one great omission in the British contributions to the industry of
humanity. Among all our astonishing machinery, we have not one specimen, nor
even model, of the Benevolent Machine. The reader, peradventure, says he has
never heard of such an invention. It is no invention, however; at least no modern one;
but he has heard of it often enough—under another name. We exhibit machines
simply destructive; guns, pistols, artillery, shells, all kinds of devices intended to
smash, pierce, shatter, mutilate, and kill, perhaps with horrible agonies, brave and
good men, or to dismiss bad ones—suddenly it maybe—to such fate as may await them
elsewhere.

The Benevolent Machine, it is true, is associated also with the idea of physical
suffering in connexion with the Great Change; but how much otherwise than muskets,
field-pieces, and mortars! Its intention is—returning on the part of society good

for evil—to provide the vilest, the most atrocious
criminal, a passage to the realms of endless bliss. For
are we not told that almost every villain, who, by the
award of law, exchanges this world for the next, has
died devoutly penitent—brought, " by the exertions of
the reverend chaplain who attended him, to a due sense
of his awful situation ?" Shall we be ashamed, then,
of the material instrument by which this great feat of
philanthropy—nay of Christianity, if society canteth not
—is accomplished? Well, then, is it not either by an
unaccountable oversight, or by a wonderful inconsis-
tency, that, whilst there are plenty of fountains, there
is positively not one Drop in the Great Exhibition P

THE DOOM OF THE DIRTY OFFICERS.

a copy op verses.

See us, stripp'd of lance and sabre,

With our uniforms, too, gone,
Here a-working at hard labour,

With our prison dresses on.
Look—our hair is cropp'd like stubble,

Our moustaches they have shorn.
You behold us here in trouble,

Doomed to toil, and shame, and scorn I

Here's a plight for crack young Lancers!

Here's a state for fast Hussars !
" Serve you right," the public answers,

Smiling through our prison bars;
" Earned full richly your disgrace is;

Well it suits such brutes as you."
Throwing eggs in people's faces

What you see has brought us to.

With the man who strove to shield us

We our plighted word did break,
And when he, compell'd, reveal'd us,

Basely did his ruin* seek.
Slaving thus, all clipp'd and shaven,

Officers and gentlemen,
May we learn the sneak and craven

Never to enact again!

THE TRUTH SEEN THROUGH A WINDOW.

In a shop in the City the following inscription may
be read in the window:—

" ici on trend l'ARGENT de l'eTRANGER."

Meaning, we suppose, that foreign money is received
there. But the delicious truth that peeps through the
badness of the translation is most amusing. From what
we have heard of the extravagant prices demanded for
trumpery little articles, and the stories that have reached
us of the almost incredible impositions practised by
our tradesmen upon the poor foreigners^ "We have not
the slightest doubt that the "Vargent de VStranger"
has been taken in more shops than one in the City, and
taken, too, in the greatest abundance. But the candour
of the announcement deserves some praise, and has
only been exceeded in its touching naivete by an an-
nouncement we remember seeing over a Gasthqf in
Vienna to the following confidential effect:—

"englishmen taken in here."

Agriculture and Pharmacy

To Mr. Punch.

« Sur,—I hears as how Mr. Jacob Bell ba brought
a bill into the House of Commons called the Farmacy
bill. I be told Mr. Bell is a great druggister. They
tells us now-a-days to look to drugs as the chief remedy
for agricultur. I spose this here Farmacy bill of his
concerns both drugs and farming. I thinks he'd better
mind his own bisnus, and stick to druggistry, and lave
Farmacy to farmers. I be

"A Farmer,"