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Punch: Punch — 21.1851

DOI Heft:
July to December, 1851
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16608#0104
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92

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

" A HIGH SHERIFF IN DIFFICULTY."

The High Sheriff of Suffolk has been an object of sympathy. At
one time there seemed no help for it, but that he must perform his
legal function of executioner ; no deputy being obtainable. Maky
Cage, for poisoning her husband, was to have been hanged on Saturday,
at Ipswich : but Calcraft, the hangman, had to do his office on the
. same morning at Norwich. The Warwick hangman was also pre-
engaged. Great was the dismay of the High Sheriff of Suffolk!

"To have had the law carried into effect on Saturday [says the newspaper para-
graph] would, beyond all probability, have been repugnant to the feelings of the High
Sheriff; for, as no person could be found to supply the place of Calcraft, the High
Sheriff must have performed the horrid duty himself."

And why not ? If the punishment be a wholesome punishment
—if the sacredness of life is to be taught by the taking away of human
existence—who can be too exalted to teach to the nations the awful
lesson ? Wherefore "horrid duty ? " Why not—solemn sacrifice ?

"The unpleasant position of the High Sheriff, not only on this, but on a former occa-
sion, may be attributed to the usual course not being adopted—the making sure that
Calcraft can attend before any day be appointed.for the execution."

We altogether dissent from the principle that makes the office of an
executioner a " horrid duty," and a reproach. If—as the advocates of
the infliction of death avow—the taking away of life be the fulfilment of
a solemn behest, solemnly pronounced, then why should the High
Sheriff, or indeed any much higher functionary, be considered too nice,
too dainty, to carry out the injunction? But, no ; human instinct is
greater than human sophistry. Our very loathing of the function of
executioner is the irrepressible condemnation of his office.

THE RETURN OF THE ALDERMEN.

Hoav drearily, how seedily we steam across the sea;

The billows are all tumbling up and down, and so are we:

The Stewards with their basins are rushing left and right,

Like creatures in whose eyes Lord Mayors are quite a common sight.

The Press rings with our triumphs : of France we've had a peep ;—
We thought 'twould be all gratis, but it wasn't quite so cheap.
We' ve dmed and danced, and seen Versailles, the Waterworks, and Park:
Oh, proud must be each Alderman of such a jolly lark !

Oh, proud must be the Aldermen of their glorious seven days—
What with speeches, sights and soldiers, and compliments and praise;
They've seen the sea and crossed it, and, though sure it is a bore,
They '11 talk big enough about it all, no doubt, when safe ashore.

I would I were an Alderman, to come to be " my Lord,"
And ride in a gilt City coach, with City mace and sword ;
I'd show the Corporation that each honour done to me
Should be shared by all the Aldermen and all the Livery.

Yet the Aldermen were sulky, and sulkier still they grew,
Till, on nearing Folkestone Harbour, it was all black looks and blue ;
And, from their distant tone with Lord Mayor Musgrove, it was clear
At the coming Common Council some unpleasant things he '11 hear.

He'd treated them, they all declared, in the free-and-easiest way ;
He hadn't got them rooms ; he kept them waiting at the play;
At the Versailles lunch, along of him, they came in at the death,
And to get good seats at the Review had run till out of breath !

All night some had to walk the street, without a place to sleep ;
Some into loose French habits had been obliged to creep ;
And all through Lord Mayor Musgrove—so I'm thankful I'm not he,
If the civic wigging is at all what I expect 'twill be.

THE DISCONTENTED ALDERMEN VOWING VENGEANCE.

TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND MODERATION.

An average meeting of Teetotallers was held yesterday evening in
Spouters' Hall, to enjoy a little excitement derived from hearing every-
body abused, instead of from the abuse of fermented liquors. Some
Welsh choristers attended, and sang, at intervals, some of their national
choruses, occasioning among the more irritable of the assembly
paroxysms of enthusiasm approaching to frenzy.

Mr. Belloway took the chair, supported by the principal pro-
pagandists of the Pump, who would employ the handle of that useful
engine as a lever, with which to hoist clean off the world its whole load
of vice, misery, and disease; and who advertise the water-cure as a
panacea for all conceivable tviL from infidelity to measles.

The Chairman congratulated the meeting on the immense success
which was attending the mighty Temperance movement, and which
would soon produce a magnificent deficit in a rascally revenue, swelled
by the atrocious Excise duties imposed and perpetuated by an unprin-
cipled Government that encouraged the consumption of ardent spirits.
He concluded an impassioned invective against Her Majestx's
Ministers, amid loud cheers, by calling on his hearers to make a solemn
resolution not to vote for anybody as Member of Parliament who,
amongst other pledges, would not take the pledge of total abstinence.

A Welsh song was then sung, and twice encored. A demand for its
third repetition occasioned a tremendous uproar that lasted several
minutes; after which,

Mr. Screamer, said, the House of Commons was as bad as the
Government, and the House of Lords as bad as the House of Commons,
or worse. An election never took place without more or less of that
soul-destroying fluid, beer, being drunk; to say nothing of those yet
more abominable liquids, gin, rum, brandy, and whisky, with which the
vile and treacherous candidates paralysed the intellect and corrupted
the morals of a debased and slavish constituency. A young lordling—
a whelp of the aristocracy—could not come of age, but his brutal
parents, in honour of the occasion, must needs broach barrels of strong
ale, generally brewed at the young man's birth, and kept for twenty-
one long- years, on purpose to acquire the more powerfully intoxicating
properties, and thus to make the tenants—he would rather say the
Helots—of the inhuman oligarch more disgracefully drunk. _ What an
example, too, these minions of rank set those pampered menials whose
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