Punch (25.1853)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

175

EXIT G. V. BROOKE.—ENTER TOM BARRY.

HAT Mr. Brooke—
according to tire in-
formation benignantly
supplied to a be-
nighted public by
his manager—has re-
stored Drury Lane to
its former grandeur
as a Temple of the
Drama, is a grand
fact. Having restored
the Temple, and made
his exit — en route
for California—enter
Tom Barky “ the
Deathless Clown.”

Mk. E. T. Smith — like a modest
flower—unconscious of his own merits,
has culled in “ a wise discretion, the
result of a deliberative council in
science.” And the wisdom of his dis-
cretion shows itself in astounding re-
sults. Eor instance, he has the youthful
Hernandez, who is, in himself, “ the
very constellation in the hippodramatic
hemisphere.” Next, he has Eaton
Stone ; and he “ confronts in a mar-
vellous manner, the wild horse of the
prairies ”— that animal being at the
present hour rampant and loose under
Drury Lane stage. Next, there is
Arthur Barnes, “the champion of
all the world ” who throws “ ninety-one summersaults in successiona living anatomical
illustration of the truth that one good turn deserves another. Tom Barry, “ the deathless
Clown—his name and fame are enough.” The Undying One ! Immortal William over
the portico, and the Deathless Barry in the sawdust!

It is expected that the Deathless Barry will, fore his engagement concludes, be regaled
with a complimentary supper of several yards of property sausages. Among other
expected toasts, is “the Memory of Joseph Grimaldi,” which, it is believed, will be
responded to by his late dresser, a veteran of the good old school. On this festive occasion,
the horses of the company—deathless Barbs !—will have an extra feed of beans.

THE GOD OE THE RUSSIANS.

God of the Russians !—who is he ?

A great—and bulky—deity :

He stands some six feet two, or three.

He is proportionally stout;

The lofty form is well filled out
Of the Controller of the Knout.

He ranks among the Di Majores,

And in despotic power he glories ;

He once was worshipped by the Tories.

He banquets on celestial fare.

His Nectar fo Clicquot, potion rare !

And his Ambrosia’s caviare.

As to the Russian God’s costume,

It is a cocked hat and a plume.

If so to speak we may presume :

Likewise, a military stock ;

Belt, sword, and coat—a tail or frock:
He stands in jack-boots like a rock.

Yet any thinker might suppose
He ’d wear a different sort of clothes.
More ancient—classical—than those.

Eor this same God of Russia seeks
To be the God, too, of the Greeks.

Then why does he sport coat and breeks ?

Old Nicholas should wear the loose
Robe that once clad the form of Zeus,
That is the garment for the Deuce.

Britannia’s Safety Belt.

Considering how much England is indebted
for its safety to the magic belt of water that
runs round it, every Englishman, when speaking
of St. George’s Channel, ought, in true nautical
fervour, to ejaculate: “ Bless its old Chops ! ”


THE “VOW OE POVERTY/'

Some Benedictine monks, with a strange mixture of the secular and
the spiritual in their affections, presented themselves a few days ago as
claimants to vote for Members of Parliament. Though they profess to
entirely de-vote themselves to the Church, they do not wish to be
de-voted or deprived of votes for the county of Northumberland. But
the best of the joke—rather a solemn piece of mockery, by the bye—
was the fact of their appearing in the character of persons having taken
“ a vow of poverty,” to claim their right to certain property, in Respect
oi which they contended that they ought to have the electoral franchise.
The contradictory and anomalous position in which they stood led to
a cross-examination of the claimants, in the course of which some
peculiar views as to the effect of a “vow of poverty” were elicited.
The result seems to be, that a Benedictine monk may be a man of
property, though be has taken a vow of poverty, and that, in the words
of one of the professional men engaged on the occasion, “ so far as
respects property the law of poverty has no effect whatever.”

The Benedictine monk was a good deal pressed, and in spite of the
ingenuity appropriate to Ins “order” he was driven into a corner,
from which he could not escape except upon the prong of a fork which
the professional gentleman kept continually presented to the Benedictine
monk, for the latter to fall upon. When told that, “ in making the
vow of poverty, he says he has no property whatever,” the “monk” could
only reply “We must have property or we could not exist;” so that
we are justified in asking what is the meaning of a vow of poverty,
if it can be taken by a man of property who, on the strength of that
property, lays claim to a vote for the county ? The -witness when pressed,
admitted, “We all have property ”— all we who have made a vow of
poverty, or an abnegation of property—but the way we manage it is
this : “We have what is called a ‘ peculium,’ which is a separate thing
from the vow of poverty.” It is convenient, certainly, to be able to be
poor and rich at the same time, and to combine all the temporal
advantages of property with the spiritual advantages of poverty. The
“ peculium ” is, of course, elastic, and there is no particular place for
drawing the line in the' banker’s book. A vow of poverty which
admits of a “peculium ” in the shape of a private fortune is like a vow
of tea-totalism, which allows of a “ peculium ” in the form of a private
gin-bottle.

INFECTION GLEBE.

Everybody knows that an intramural churchyard has a tendency to
enlarge itself—not in area, but in perpendicularity. It is in every
sense a rising concern, and it swells like an investment &t compound
interest. The attraction of mortality increases in a ratio multiplying
with the increase of the mass—and what is there to prevent so deadly
a nuisance from being immediately abolished ? Hear the Bishop of
London in his evidence given before the Lords’ Committee on the Great
Extramural Cemetery Bill—opposed by the Lord Bishop

“ I wish, in a very few words, to explain that, when the bill was first printed, the
clergy were much alarmed. They saw that it would in’erfere with the establishment
of parochial burial grounds, and they objected more particularly to the small amount
of compensation fees which the company intended to pay, viz., Is. 8d. for the open
ground, and 2s. 6d. for the brick graves and vaults.”

In the country it is a common thing to see sheep grazing in church-
yards, but in London, by the account of the Bishop, the same pastures
afford food to the shepherds. To the eye of chemists—who are ghost-
seers—for ghost and gas “ are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a
little variations ”—what a picture is presented by a metropolitan
incumbent pra\ ing at his reading desk against pestilence with the cause
of it steaming np all around him in the shape of sulphuretted hydrogen,
for the generation of which he is principally responsible! By all means
give the intramural clergy compensation for the loss they may sustain
by extramural cemeteries, though the poor innkeepers did not get any
when their businesses were destroyed by the railroads. Let them be
compensated even at the Bishop’s estimate, which he says he “prevailed
upon Mr. Corfield ” to adopt, viz., 2s. 6d. for the open ground and
6s. (id. for the brick graves. Canterbury Registrars and fat pluralists
will cut up one of tliese days sufficiently well to supply the needful: in
the mean time let the convives of the earthworm feed without the walls.

the bridle roads.

We see a book advertised under the title of “ The Bridle Roads of
Spain.” We know very little about Spain, but can inform our fair
readers (we mean the ladies) that the Great Bridal Roads of England
are :—St. George’s, Hanover Square, and Gretna Green.