Punch (25.1853)

176

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Cobden. “WHO HAS THE DONKEY’S EARS, NOW?”

[Mr. Punch answers the question.

OUR TOURIST IN PARIS-No. 9.

My dear fellow-countrymen who throng the theatres, the cafes, and
the promenades of this gay city, may form very different opinions of
its inhabitants and institutions ; but on one point, I believe, they are
all agreed ; that, in common with the rest of the Continent, it is over-
ridden with bureaus and bureaucracy. Every third man is an employe,
a soldier, or a policeman. You cannot have a warm bath, without
taking a ticket from a lady at a desk, nor indulge in a mild polka,
without beingwatched by a man in a cocked hat. If you change your
hotel, instant information must be sent to the Prefecture ; if you wrnnt
to send a telegraphic message to England, it must first receive the
sanction of the Minister of Police ; if you enter Paris from a country
walk, with a great-c^at on your arm, you will be pounced upon and
searched at the Barriere. All this is disgusting to honest John Bull,
and he curses it with great force of language. “ Thank goodness ! ”
says he, “ at all events, we are free from this miserable drilling,
and marshalling, and boarding-school discipline.” In England we
certainly are.

t Occasionally the London newspapers take the opportunity of an
“ illustrious foreigner’s” visit, to contrast our liberty and their thraldom.
The leading journal will point out with its usual epigrammatic terse-
ness, varied illustration, good sense and eloquence, the advantage of let-
ting people alone, and the extent to which our Government does let
us alone. “ITis Highness, or Majesty, as the case maybe, will ride for
hours in our Metropolis without seeing a soldier or (especially if
there’s a row) a policeman.” Blessed independence ! but the contrast
is much more striking, because more disagreeable to a wretched
Englishman, born to freedom, who finds himself in a mess on the Con-
tinent—a contingency which happens to one out of every dozen
tourists. Those confounded passports form the monster grievance.
Accordingly from July to November, not a week passes but some
victim writes to complain that he is in confinement at Marseilles or
Como, or somewhere or another, because his passport is lost or not en
regie. Old Jollyboy, I recollect, wrote a tremendous letter to the
Times containing a column and a half of his adventures. It ought to
lave produced a reconsideration of the whole passport system, but it
didn’t. Those foreign governments are so dense!

I And now little Bombazine (who is “ reading for the bar,” like every
(young fellow about town that is not in the army) comes to your Cor-
respondent, and complains of a grievance which throws all the foreign
misdemeanours into the shade. He went to the English Embassy to
get his passport signed, and the man there could not spealc English !
Now, by Jove, Harry is right, and it is too bad! Here are we every
day ridiculing or cursing the villanous antiquated machinery of pass-
ports. We all know, and are never tired of repeating, that it works
for the persecution of helpless timid travellers and the protection of
brazen and ingenious criminals. (Joseph Mazzini entered Italy a few
months ago in the petticoats and‘*‘ front” of an old woman, the police-
men taking off their hats and paying compliments, while a poor
English consumptive parson in search of health was marched off
between two chasseurs as if he had been a pickpocket.) We complain
reasonably enough that we travel everywhere scattering our livres
sterling, making the fortunes of innkeepers, creating watering places,
supporting entire branches of commerce, fostering capital cities, every-
where cheated, pitied, and laughed at, and yet foreign governments
have not the sense to encourage such lucrative and harmless visitors,
but do everything they can to prohibit our free locomotion. They are
great asses, are they not ? Cali them all the names you like, and -now
believe, if you can, that an English establishment abroad is worse than
them all. Our ambassador, as I understand from a diplomatic friend,
receives a very tolerable income from his country by way of wages ana
compensation for exile, and yet cannot afford to keep a man in his
office capable of communicating with the multitude of Britons who
do not speak Erench.

We recollect a certain circular issued from the foreign office at
Washington, which invited the United States’ consuls and ambassadors
to employ native Americans and none others in their offices. And
quite right. It is bad enough to have to deal with foreigners about our
passports where it is absolutely necessary, but when we go to our own
Embassy we hope to meet with, if not the personnel at least the language
and plain good sense of the Anglo-Saxon. We might expect to meet also
there a disposition to smooth instead of aggravating the nuisances of the
assport system, and, behold, we find an official with all the Erencli
ureaucratic humbug, and without a knowledge of our tongue. How
such a monstrous absurdity could have arisen passes one’s under-
standing. Good heavens ! why every hotel, every cafe, every shop, nay
every superior police office, contains one or more persons who speah
English, and the English Embassy is the only establishment without
one. Why don’t some of those young swells come down from their
room and do the passport business F Do they think it “ low ? ” But
hear Henry Bombazine.

“ You know Mrs. Toodleham, my Aunt, is given to reading the
papers in connexion with the prophecies, and has just got hold of a
very entertaining book on those subjects called ‘ The Battle of Arma-
1 geddon,’ which has determined her to come to England at once with
me. It’s by one of those immensely knowing parties, you see, who tell
you about the end of the world, give c tips ’ in fact ‘ on future events,’
like the Derby prophets in Bell's Life. Well, he savs, that Russia is
going to invade Jerusalem, and the English fleet is to sail into the
Dead Sea—no—the United States’ fleet is to sail into the Caspian
—no—hang it! I never can recollect the names of places—at all events,
there’s to be an awful shindy somewhere, and England is the only safe
place to go to. So I went to the Embassy to get the old lady’s name
put on%ny passport, and, as I said, the fellow couldn’t speak a word of
English. I tried him with Erench ” (you should hear dear Henry’s
Erench), “and could hardly make him understand then. He wanted first
to see her passport, but, bless you, she hasn’t got any. I don’t suppose
she ever had oyie, and at all events, if she had, must have lost it years
ago. You know she came over to see Louis Philippe crowned, and
liked the place so much she has stayed ever since. And when I told
him that, and offered references to bankers, and so forth—mind you.
he’s not over civil in his manner, I suppose because he can’t make
anything by the job—he opened his eyes till the eyebrows went right
away into the hair of his head, and flatly refused. ‘Savvy vous, Mossoo,’
said he,c savvy vous que e'est une affaire tres serioose. TJne affaire serioose ’
—those were his very words. What do you think of that, because a
poor old woman wants to get back to her native country out of the
way of the battle of Armageddon ? By Jove, I know what I ’ll do. I ’ll
write to the Times.”

No, no, Harry my boy, we’ll do better for you than that. I’ll
send your history to Mr. Bunch. He is great and good, my friend, and
will see you righted if anybody can.

Agricultural Improvements.

The old proverb informs us, that “ a reformed rake makes the best
husband;” but, according to Mechi, it is “your reformed plough that
makes the best husbandman.”

The Oatmeal Philosophy.—“ There is a mean in ail things.”