Punch: Punch (21.1851)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

■MM

PUNCH'S ANNIVERSARIES.-No. 4. BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD, AUGUST 22nd, 1485.

STORIES OF RAGGED SCHOOLS.

To the Editor of " Punch."

" Sir,

"I don't know whether practical jokes are among the ab-
surdities you deal in. I dare say they are. I hate popular education.
I detest philanthropic associations and all such humbug. Then,
possibly, it was you, or some of your writers, who played me the trick
of sending me a copy of the Hampshire Independent, containing the
report of a Ragged School Meeting at Southampton, with a number
of passages in it, considered, I suppose, contrary to my views, and
therefore marked, and underlined. Whoever the jackanapes was, he
has not succeeded in provoking me—not at all. If the object was to
convince me, I can only say that it has equally failed. I am not to be
imposed upon by such ridiculous anecdotes as those related by the
Rev. j. Branch. But others are—weak-minded persons who are
troubled with sympathy, as they call it—and arc touched. Yah!
touched, indeed, by such stuff and nonsense as this, which is calculated
to soften—the feelings, they say, but I say the head:—

" ' A short time age, a boy, about thirteen years of age, called at his (Mr. Branch's)
house, and said he wanted to see him. He was shown in, much to the terror of the
servant, who by no means relished his appearance, when, said the reverend gentleman,
the following colloquy took place :—' Well, my boy, what do you want ?' ' Why, Sir,
i heard you preach a sermon, last night.' 'Did you? Where?' 'At the Ragged
School, and your text was this:—Give to him thai asketh of thee; and from him that
would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Now, i am come to borrow of you, and i hope
you will act up to your text.' [Laughter). ' Well, my boy, what do you want to
borrow ? and what have you been in the habit of doing for a living ? ' ' Why, Sir, i
have been a thief, and have been lagged four times ; but if i had ninepence, to set me
up in selling ingans, i would earn honest grub.' ' i lent the poor boy a shilling,' said
Me. Branch, ' which he insisted on re-paying me, at the rate of threepence a-week,
and because i would not take any interest, he one morning, unobserved, threw a bunch
of onions into my room.'

"Never would have paid a farthing. Threw in the onions out of
mere impudence. Idle young rascals have served me the same way—
unobserved. Only wish I could have caught 'em !

" Mr. Branch may be a well-meaning man ; but—don't suppose, Sir,
i aim at a paltry witticism—I must say I think this Branch extremely
green. He observes, that

" * The answers given by some of the boys in the Ragged Schools, to questions put to
them, were most remarkable for quickness and pathos.'

" Pathos !—the sort of thing, I believe—whatever that is—that some

people find to cry at in a playhouse. Bagged Infant Bosciuses, I
suppose—much good they will come to! Quickness?—Yes, Sir,
especially on the approach of a policeman, I '11 warrant you. But, now
for the example: which is what I should call simply an instance of
sauciness and impertinence.

"' One poor little fellow, who was very ragged, when asked if he had a mother,
replied, ' Do i look as if I had a mother, Sir ? '

" A mere piece of street slang, Sir. 'Does your mother know you 're
out?'—'Oh, don't I love my mother !'—all the same sort of thing—
what we hear every day of our lives from the little ragamuffins who
stand on their head and walk on their hands about the pavement; a
most dangerous practice—as the sight is enough to give a nervous
person a vertigro.

" Again :—Under an archway, one winter's morning, Mr. Branch
observed what he mistook for a bundle of rags; but,

" ' On approaching it he found two little boys, the one almost nine, the other almost six
years of age, huddled together, and almost perished with the cold. The arm of the
elder boy was round his brother's neck, and was quite stiff with the frost; and when he
was asked why he kept it so long in that position, he promptly answered—' Sir, my
brother is younger than I, and I am trying to keep him warm.' Here was a touch of
natural affection that had never been surpassed.'

"I beg Mr. Branch's pardon, Sir. I have seen these young
monkeys surpassed in the same way by those in the Zoological Gardens,
often, Sir—very often. In one part of Mr. Branch's address I rather
coincide. Appealing in behalf of Ragged Schools to persons of all
denominations,

"' If my house were on fire,' said the speaker, ' i should not ask the men at the
engines whether they were Churchmen, Baptists, Wesleyans, or Independents; but I
should say—Pump, away, lads, pump away.' {Loud cheers). He would also say, in
this great and good work—' Pump away.'

" So should I, Sir, if any amount of pumping would make the little
varlets clean. But you might as well try to wash a blackamoor white,
Sir ; for all your baths and wash-houses, which are another innovation,
and, like your Ragged Schools, will soon, I suppose, extend into the
provinces, and we shall have all the lower orders, at Southampton and
everywhere else, indulging in luxuries and acquiring learning above
their station, through your philanthropic system of ' pumping.'

"I am, Sir, by several years, your

"Senior."

%* Our Senior appears to be a Pump, that wants to throw cold
water on Ragged Schools.