Punch (30.1856)

February 23, 1856. i

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

71


Blanche. " Oh, is there not, dear Emily, something delicious about
Spring 2 —We shall soon have all the dear little Birds singing, and the
Banks and the Green Fields covered with beautiful Flowers!"
Emily. " Oh, yes !—And with it will come all the new Bonnet Shapes
from Paris, and the lovely new Patterns for Morning Dresses' ! "
[Disgusting f

WENSLEY-LE-DALE.
Wensley-le-dale hath no stain on his ermine,
Wensley-le-dale hath no feuds to determine,
Wensley-le-dale is wise, weighty, and winning,
Yet Wensley-le-dale 'gainst the Peerage is sinning—
Take a title for life—not to go to heirs male I
The Lords won't stand that, my bold Wensley-le-dale..
The Bakon op Bareacres pockets his pride,
Begs, borrows, and sponges and shirks, far and wide.
He trades on his title, and discounts his name,
His conduct is wild, and his speeches are tame ;
Yet peers, strictest park'd in propriety's pale,
Like Bareacres better than Wensley-le-dale.
For Wensley-le-dale not a Law-Lord will fight,
Though his pleas were sosharp and his judgments so bright;
To Wensley-le-dale, as ex-judge, yet not Lord,
Neither woolsack nor peer's bench a seat will afford ;
Like Mahomet's coffin, till Cranworth prevail,
In a sort of Lords' Limbo hangs Wensley-le-dale.
Wensley-le-dale with his summons is come.
" Who are you?" ask'd their Lordships, obstructive and
glum;
" Though the Queen 'gainst the peers don't like setting
her will,
There is," quoth bold Parke, " a Prerogative still ;
So 'tis no use to meet me with Ferguson's tale,
Of ' You cannot lodge here,'" said Wensley-le-dale.
Lord Lyndhurst was steel, and Lord Campbell was
stone.
They scoff d at his patent and bade him begone;
An appeal to the Lords as 'tis idle to try,
Give their Priv'lege Committee and them the go-bye;
We want peers to judge causes, but not their heirs male,
And the Country will stand by bold Wensley-le-dale.

Sage worth Gathering.
Somebody has said, and a great many people put faith in
the saying, that " We ought always to believe less than we
are told." This may be a safe maxim for general use, but
when a woman entrusts you, in confidence of coarse, with
her age, you may always believe a great deal more than yon
are told.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
The Senators, hatted and coroneted, began the Session far too
energetically to leave the least hope that they would keep on at so
creditable a pace; and the past week was as nearly wasted as possible.
Everybody has been rising to postpone everything.
February 11th, Monday. Lords Cardigan and Lucan signified
their opinion, that they had not had justice done them ; and the country
thoroughly adopts this conviction. Mr. Punch has, however, tried to
do them (and the system of which they, and Sir P. Airey, and Lord
Aberdeen's son, Gordon, and some other notorieties, are types) a
little justice in his grand Cartoon this week. They pretend that the
Crimean Commission has taken away their characters as professional
soldiers; as if that was not the very best thing that could be done for
them. They blustered about the decorations which the Fountain of
Honour had been unfortunately advised to give them ; and Lord
Hardwicke, who is an exceedingly silly ex-captain in the Navy, made a
speech worthy of himself, or an officer on the quarter-deck of the
Victoria Theatre, to the effect, that if he had been so insulted, he would
have torn off his decorations from his breast, and dashed them at the
feet of his Sovereign. Perhaps Hardwicke will abstain from tearing
off his honours until he earns some. According to the Peerage, his
chief services have been to "wait" on King Clicquot and Emperor
Nicholas,when they came here ■ and for this, he is, very likely, fit enough.
Lord Panmure quietly told the blusterers to wear their decorations;
for, though all the censure upon them would be shown to be just, the
honours were not given to them as wise officers, but only as bold
soldiers. Whereat the goose Hardwicke declared himself comforted.
Earl Grey, with his usual good feeling, tried to embarrass Ministers
in reference to an alleged discrepancy between some diplomatic reports
furnished by Colonel Rose and Lord Stratpord. For this he was
rather well snubbed by Lord Clarendon, who showed the unimport-
ance of the affair, beyond its proving that Prince Menschikopf,
when bullying the poor Turkish Ministers, had actually frightened them

into telling stories. Clarendon introduced a little puff for Stratford,
who, he declared, was the best friend Turkey had in the whole world.
In the Commons, Sir Charles Wood brought on the Navy
Estimates, asking, in the first place, a trifle like £300,000 to_ meet a
miscalculation, and then various millions, arranged in pleasing items of
divers amounts, ranging as high as £6,000,000 and scs low as a con-
temptible £2,000. The Committee talked a good deal, but forked out
the money with an alacrity which gave great joy to the heart of
Mr. Samuel Warren, M.P. He had naturally feared that he
should be rather intolerable, but was delighted to find the Commons
so willing to stand Sam.
Tuesday. The Lords got upon the Parke Peerage again, and actually
had out old patents of the time of Richard the Second, in law Latin,
to help them to a decision. Lord Campbell grew very vulgar in his
language, this Lord Chief Justice actually stating that he had threatened
the Lord Chancellor that "he would make a row about the matter."
Really the Campbells are coming—coming it—in fact rather strong.
The subject was adjourned, after much useless chat, until the following
Monday. ...
Mr. Layard obtained from Lord Palmers-ton the explanation that
though Sardinia joins the Peace Congress, she is not to be admitted to
that which is now sitting at Constantinople to confer equal rights upon
all the subjects of the Porte, and in honour of which the Sultan went
to the fancy ball at the English Ambassador's.
The Tory lawyers are coming out. This day Mr. Napier tried to
get a Minister of Justice appointed, who should see that Parliament
did not pass laws that were nonsensical as well as unjust. The Govern
ment stoutly resisted such an innovation, but a resolution was agreed
to, that provision ought to be made for having the laws properly pre-
pared. And on a later day Sir Fitzroy Kelly, in a very good speech,
asked leave (which he obtained) to bring in a bill for consolidating the
statute law relative to offences against the person. This is something,
but nearly all the lawyers set themselves against codification—net seeing
why the people should have laws they can understand ?