DOI issue:
Volume XXVI
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16613#0141
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
i 34
AN OBJECT FOR THE PEACE SOCIETY.
HAY FOR THE EAST.
here is a Mr. Sturgeon
— hay contractor for the
Artillery—surely he is an
object worthy of the sympa-
thy and support of the Peace
Society. Considered with
becoming charity, his con-
duct in supplying rotten hay,
well wetted, and mixed with
dirt and shavings, could only
have been dictated by his
desire to serve bloodshed.
For instance, if the horses
have been half-starved, how
could they have taken the
field for the work of slaughter.
As for the shavings, they
were no doubt shavings
from the palm-trees of peace;
whilst the dirt in the trusses
preached the valuable truth
to belligerent man that man
himself—in all his glory of
scarlet and gold lace—is but
earth.
The dead lamb in one of
the trusses is a most touch-
ing symbol of the pacific
nature of the contractor
Sturgeon ; a sturgeon that,
for the rest of his days, we
would compel to trail a
pike.
Hay for the East was the warriors’ cry,
Hay for our gallant steeds’ supply :
Such hay asihey got you never saw ;
Each truss full of shavings, and filth, and straw !
Who was the miscreant—who the beast
Supplying these trusses of hay for the East ?
A lamb’s dead carcase was found in one,
Which looks like a piece of playful fun.
Rare fun it had been—for besides, this hay
Was damped, that it might the heavier weigh—
Had the cargo caught fire like a heated rick;
Such fun as might come of a Russian trick.
About us ’twere well to have our eyes,
And keep a look-out for Russian spies :
The Czar sells Quakers; but others are sold
By themselves, perhaps, for the tyrant’s gold.
Eor supplying this mess of filth and straw.
Enact an ex post facto law,
In that litter to make the Purveyor’s bed,
With the straw and the filth and the lambkin
dead.
A Sort of Gentleman.
It will have been observed that the Emperor
oe Russia whilst negotiating with the British
Government—which he all the while endeavoured
to deceive—was continually making protestations
on his honour as a gentleman. He cannot be said
to have had no pretensions to that title; only it
is a pity that Ministers did not know that the
gentleman they had to deal with in Nicholas,
was the Old Gentleman.
“ MAIMED RITES ” OF CONSCIENCE.
From: a letter dated Wrawby, and commencing with “ My dear
Parishioners,” we learn that a painful act of conscientiousness has
been performed by the vicar of that parish, the Reverend J. R.
West. That reverend gentleman asserts himself to have made this
exertion from principle, and out of real charity, and says that it cost
him “a great deal of pain and trouble indeed.” This sacrifice of
feeling to duty consisted in the refusal to allow the body of a deceased
Methodist—a Mrs. Smith, according to the Lincolnshire Times, wife of
Mr. Edward Smith, ironmonger, that was to have been buried at
Wrawby—to enter the church. How peculiarly distressing its perform-
ance must have been to his merely natural sentiments, may appear from
the following passage in his apology, in which, referring his systematic
exclusion of certain corpses from the sacred building to a sense of
right, he asks—
“ What other motive could 1 have had in the last instance, where the family is so
very respectable; where I have never seen or even heard of any of that bitterness of
word or feeling against the Church, which is too plainly manifest in some of this
parish? I have, indeed, a real esteem for that family; they have never given me the
least offence or occasion for any unkind feeling. I acted simply out of kindness and
out of a feeling of duty.”
If Mrs. Smith had been a wicked Duchess, whose pride, luxury,
stinginess, malevolence, and irreligion bad been a scandal to the
neighbourhood, who never went to any place of worship at all, it may
be conceived that a clergyman, though amiable as the Rev. Mr. West,
would experience but a moderate wrench of the heartstrings in closing
the holy portals against her unholy remains, in case he thought himself
bound to do so. But Mrs. Smith, the wife of Mr. Edward Smith,
ironmonger, who “ had,” says the Lincolnshire Times, “ been a con-
sistent member of the Wesleyan Connection for several years, and died
in the faith of a Christian,” was, at least, a person whose conduct had
procured her the Rev. Mr. West’s “ esteem.” It must, therefore,
have deeply pained him to shut her body out of the church—consider-
ing what the exclusion meant.
,T But if Mrs. Smith died in the Christian faith, she also died in the
I Wesleyan schism; and Mr. West acts in obedience to the following
I Rule
11 who have regularly forsaken the Church during their lifetime should not be
admitted within the walls of the church at their burial.77
But_ by whom was this Rule decreed? By oue of the Nicene
j Councils ?—by the Council of Chalcedon ?—at least by the Hampton
Court Conference, or perhaps by Convocation under James I.? By
no such authority; to judge from the information afforded on the
subject by Mr. West to his “ dear Parishioners
“ As some of you have told me that many think me wrong in having made a certain
rule about the Burial of Dissenters, and that many attribute to me very wrong
motives, I wish to explain to you what were my real reasons and motives for making
that rule.”
Hence it appears that this Rule, or Canon, was framed by the Synod
of Wrawby-cum-Brigg, convoked by Mr. West, whereat Mr. West
presided, and which consisted of the Rev. Mr. West.
In making this “Rule,” Mr. West contends that he ought, at the
very worst, to be thought mistaken. That may be granted; he writes
in a vein of Puseyite pathos evidently sincere. But was be not grossly
mistaken in convoking, and constituting, and superintending, and
obeying the Synod of Wrawby-cum-Brigg ?
Mr. West cannot believe
“ That Dissent is lawful, that to split up into ten or a dozen separate bodies in every
Parish is agreeable to the principles of the Christian religion.”
Does Mr. West not remember that the whole Parish of Christendom
was split up into ten or a dozen separate bodies, more or less, three
hundred years ago ? “ If I could believe that Dissent is lawful,” he
declares, then I would give up my Rule at once.” If it is not lawful
to dissent from the Parson op Wrawby, was it lawful to dissent
from the Pope op Rome ?
With seeming justice, certainly, Mr. West observes :—
“ I have only to add that it does seem to me a most unreasonable thing that people
who regularly forsake the Church in their life-time should so much desire to be taken
within the walls of the church at their burial.”
No doubt; provided there is a dissenting cliapel in the churchyard.
Would Mr. West be willing to allow one in bis ? In the meanwhile
clergymen who refuse the dissenting body church-room alter death
might as well decline to accept church-rates from it during life.
Phoebus’s Picture Gallery.
We are happy that Lord Raglan intends to take with him to the
East an experienced Photographer. “The Land ol the East” is, as
Byron says, “the clime of the sun,” and we may now hope for a
series of pictures by that eminent Artist, Mr. Phcebus, executed m
his own atelier.
Disraeli’s Hopes.—When Mr. Disraeli said, “ I have some
modesty, I hope,” did not “ Hope tell a flattering tale ? ”
i 34
AN OBJECT FOR THE PEACE SOCIETY.
HAY FOR THE EAST.
here is a Mr. Sturgeon
— hay contractor for the
Artillery—surely he is an
object worthy of the sympa-
thy and support of the Peace
Society. Considered with
becoming charity, his con-
duct in supplying rotten hay,
well wetted, and mixed with
dirt and shavings, could only
have been dictated by his
desire to serve bloodshed.
For instance, if the horses
have been half-starved, how
could they have taken the
field for the work of slaughter.
As for the shavings, they
were no doubt shavings
from the palm-trees of peace;
whilst the dirt in the trusses
preached the valuable truth
to belligerent man that man
himself—in all his glory of
scarlet and gold lace—is but
earth.
The dead lamb in one of
the trusses is a most touch-
ing symbol of the pacific
nature of the contractor
Sturgeon ; a sturgeon that,
for the rest of his days, we
would compel to trail a
pike.
Hay for the East was the warriors’ cry,
Hay for our gallant steeds’ supply :
Such hay asihey got you never saw ;
Each truss full of shavings, and filth, and straw !
Who was the miscreant—who the beast
Supplying these trusses of hay for the East ?
A lamb’s dead carcase was found in one,
Which looks like a piece of playful fun.
Rare fun it had been—for besides, this hay
Was damped, that it might the heavier weigh—
Had the cargo caught fire like a heated rick;
Such fun as might come of a Russian trick.
About us ’twere well to have our eyes,
And keep a look-out for Russian spies :
The Czar sells Quakers; but others are sold
By themselves, perhaps, for the tyrant’s gold.
Eor supplying this mess of filth and straw.
Enact an ex post facto law,
In that litter to make the Purveyor’s bed,
With the straw and the filth and the lambkin
dead.
A Sort of Gentleman.
It will have been observed that the Emperor
oe Russia whilst negotiating with the British
Government—which he all the while endeavoured
to deceive—was continually making protestations
on his honour as a gentleman. He cannot be said
to have had no pretensions to that title; only it
is a pity that Ministers did not know that the
gentleman they had to deal with in Nicholas,
was the Old Gentleman.
“ MAIMED RITES ” OF CONSCIENCE.
From: a letter dated Wrawby, and commencing with “ My dear
Parishioners,” we learn that a painful act of conscientiousness has
been performed by the vicar of that parish, the Reverend J. R.
West. That reverend gentleman asserts himself to have made this
exertion from principle, and out of real charity, and says that it cost
him “a great deal of pain and trouble indeed.” This sacrifice of
feeling to duty consisted in the refusal to allow the body of a deceased
Methodist—a Mrs. Smith, according to the Lincolnshire Times, wife of
Mr. Edward Smith, ironmonger, that was to have been buried at
Wrawby—to enter the church. How peculiarly distressing its perform-
ance must have been to his merely natural sentiments, may appear from
the following passage in his apology, in which, referring his systematic
exclusion of certain corpses from the sacred building to a sense of
right, he asks—
“ What other motive could 1 have had in the last instance, where the family is so
very respectable; where I have never seen or even heard of any of that bitterness of
word or feeling against the Church, which is too plainly manifest in some of this
parish? I have, indeed, a real esteem for that family; they have never given me the
least offence or occasion for any unkind feeling. I acted simply out of kindness and
out of a feeling of duty.”
If Mrs. Smith had been a wicked Duchess, whose pride, luxury,
stinginess, malevolence, and irreligion bad been a scandal to the
neighbourhood, who never went to any place of worship at all, it may
be conceived that a clergyman, though amiable as the Rev. Mr. West,
would experience but a moderate wrench of the heartstrings in closing
the holy portals against her unholy remains, in case he thought himself
bound to do so. But Mrs. Smith, the wife of Mr. Edward Smith,
ironmonger, who “ had,” says the Lincolnshire Times, “ been a con-
sistent member of the Wesleyan Connection for several years, and died
in the faith of a Christian,” was, at least, a person whose conduct had
procured her the Rev. Mr. West’s “ esteem.” It must, therefore,
have deeply pained him to shut her body out of the church—consider-
ing what the exclusion meant.
,T But if Mrs. Smith died in the Christian faith, she also died in the
I Wesleyan schism; and Mr. West acts in obedience to the following
I Rule
11 who have regularly forsaken the Church during their lifetime should not be
admitted within the walls of the church at their burial.77
But_ by whom was this Rule decreed? By oue of the Nicene
j Councils ?—by the Council of Chalcedon ?—at least by the Hampton
Court Conference, or perhaps by Convocation under James I.? By
no such authority; to judge from the information afforded on the
subject by Mr. West to his “ dear Parishioners
“ As some of you have told me that many think me wrong in having made a certain
rule about the Burial of Dissenters, and that many attribute to me very wrong
motives, I wish to explain to you what were my real reasons and motives for making
that rule.”
Hence it appears that this Rule, or Canon, was framed by the Synod
of Wrawby-cum-Brigg, convoked by Mr. West, whereat Mr. West
presided, and which consisted of the Rev. Mr. West.
In making this “Rule,” Mr. West contends that he ought, at the
very worst, to be thought mistaken. That may be granted; he writes
in a vein of Puseyite pathos evidently sincere. But was be not grossly
mistaken in convoking, and constituting, and superintending, and
obeying the Synod of Wrawby-cum-Brigg ?
Mr. West cannot believe
“ That Dissent is lawful, that to split up into ten or a dozen separate bodies in every
Parish is agreeable to the principles of the Christian religion.”
Does Mr. West not remember that the whole Parish of Christendom
was split up into ten or a dozen separate bodies, more or less, three
hundred years ago ? “ If I could believe that Dissent is lawful,” he
declares, then I would give up my Rule at once.” If it is not lawful
to dissent from the Parson op Wrawby, was it lawful to dissent
from the Pope op Rome ?
With seeming justice, certainly, Mr. West observes :—
“ I have only to add that it does seem to me a most unreasonable thing that people
who regularly forsake the Church in their life-time should so much desire to be taken
within the walls of the church at their burial.”
No doubt; provided there is a dissenting cliapel in the churchyard.
Would Mr. West be willing to allow one in bis ? In the meanwhile
clergymen who refuse the dissenting body church-room alter death
might as well decline to accept church-rates from it during life.
Phoebus’s Picture Gallery.
We are happy that Lord Raglan intends to take with him to the
East an experienced Photographer. “The Land ol the East” is, as
Byron says, “the clime of the sun,” and we may now hope for a
series of pictures by that eminent Artist, Mr. Phcebus, executed m
his own atelier.
Disraeli’s Hopes.—When Mr. Disraeli said, “ I have some
modesty, I hope,” did not “ Hope tell a flattering tale ? ”