Punch (31.1856)

58

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 9, 1 £56.

NEW OPERATIC TERM.

The rage for seeing Mlle. Piccolomini is recorded in the annals of
Her Majesty's Theatre as "The Piccolomania."

ao revoir, piccolomini.

PUNCH TO PALM ERSTON.

Civil List Pensions—" Total £1,200."

My Dear Lord,

I write this to you from a haycock, where I have gathered
myself up for an hour or two. Your Parliament being piotogued, (tLis
hot weather, if nothing else, ought to have dissolved it,) I trust this
will find you in the honeysuckle bower of your recess ; and your heart
expanding with the influence of the time and place, to say nothing of
the sweet consciousness of duty done ; Russia magnificently rebuked
and mulcted of powder and shot expeuse; naughty noblemen doomed
to eat their Chelsea bun in a corner; valour and merit in lowly places
garlanded and exalted; and, indeed, all matters so hai mouiously
ended, that the sourds of the distant shepherd's pipe windug to you
through the honeysuckle bower aforesaid, are only consonant aed
according with, the mysterious music of the state.

My dear Lord, I have purposely delayed nntil the present balmy
hour, the performance of wnat I have nevertheless fp]t, a dear and
tender duty towards yourself, and, a'low me to add, Punch, I have
thought it bes*; to await the ministration of Black Rod in his most,
welcome spiriting, ere I addressed you on the best distribution of t^e
annual £1,200 voted by a grateful and high-minded country in recog-
nition of the claims of what are sonorously denominated, science,
iiterature, and art.

My Lord, it cannot be denied that we are a poor people. We are
crushed by debt, cripoled by taxes, beaten in the foreign tna'kets by
foreigners; beside which, never was gun at Woolwich so oveicharged
and so tried as the British Constitution (a fact that Eield Marshal
Albert has affectingly touched upon before the softened Fishmongers),
that, nevertheless, up to the present time has not burst, but may
probably be found serviceable for another year or two. Well, with
these difficulties to face, the country nevertheless makes a heroic effort,
and succeeds in paying a new £1,200 per annum to science, literature,
and art. The fishes are not very big, neither aie the loaves very large;
but the straitened circumstances ot the country aie to be considered,
and science, literature, and art ought to be ashamed of themselves if
not grateful. Will your lordship, however, with your constitutional
good humour, deign to explain to Punch the peculiar services r<-nder< d
»o science, literature, and art bv many of the recipients of the little
fishes and rolls " between the 20th day of June, 1855, and the 20th day
of June, 1856?" To begin:—

" March 4. 1856, Mbs. Pauline Dd Flat, (widow of the late Brigadier-General
DtJ Plat, Royal Engineers,) £100, in consideration of the distinguished services of
her husband, and the straitened circumstances in which she is placed by his decease."

All honour to the Brigadier-General's memory, and all ttan-
quillity to his widow ; but why should the estimable "lady be made by

your loidship to forage, to the loss of science, lileratuie, ar,d art?
Again :

" Psyche Rose Elizabeth Hoste, (daughter of the late Admibal Sir William
Hoste,) £50, in consideration of the naval services of her father, and her own destitute-
aud infirm condition."

Is there not Greenwich chest? Are there not the salaries of the
Lords of the Admiiahy ? Rob the one or deduct from the other, and
the £50 per annum for Miss Hoste (ali-deservii g, no doubt) cannot be
so unfairly levied as upon science, literature, and art, that, in this case,
have nothing to do with the quarter-deck or the cockpit. Nelson was-,,
it is true, a great author; there is no line in our language more
immortal than "England expects," &c, but even Nelson's literature
has been unrewarded in his child and grandchildren.

" March 4 ,Francis Petit Smith, £200, in consideration of his great, and for a long,
period, graruitous exertions connected with the introduction of the bcrew-propeller into
Her Majesty's service."

As I have said, my lord, we are a very poor country; otherwise for
the. inexpressible, the invaluable services ren iered by Mr. Smith to
Her Majesty's service (how triumphantly his genius walked the
wave at Ponsmnuth review!) you would doubtless have come to
Pailiameut and asked for an exclusive grant for that propulsive man;
but no, England is staggering with her difficulties, and the " screw " is
put upon science, literature, and art!

" March 4, Jane, Emily Sarah, and Lodisa Cathoart. the three eldest daughters
of the late Lieutenant-General <!athcart, pensions of £100 a year each, in con-
sideration of the distinguished services of their father, and his death cn tbe field of
battle wben in command of a division of Her Majesty's forces."

" Cathcart's Hill" will remain a gieen place in the memory of
Englishmen, perennially green as English sward; but why, my lord,
should you blot it with pensions due to the ink-bottle? Sutely it is to
do no lio-our to the gallant spirit that yielded itself "on the field of
battle" to divert the means that might solace the scholarly, the learned
:-pirit fighting against death in a garret.

" March 4. Mrs. Maria Long (widow of the late Frederick Beckford Long,
Inspector-General of Prisons in Ireland.) an additional peusion ot £50 a-year, in con-
sideration of the services of her husband, in consequence of whose death, from illness
contracted in the execution of his duty, she has been left, with a large family, in cir-
cumstances of great distress."

There is some fitness in this grant. Science, literature, and art have
often been in prison, may again be there ; hence there may be a grim
propriety in rewarding from such a fund the memory of Beckforb
Long. Again, >he grant may be taken as an unconscious acknowledge-
ment of the huuanity of the Bristol gaoler, who helped and buried
Savage. .

1 will not, this hot weather, weary vour lordslvp by specifying every
case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:—

To Science, Literature, and Art.......£275

To sundries...........y25

£1200

Deduct sundries.....• ... 925

£275

Due to Science, Literature, and Art......925

Total Civil List . . . £1200

It was hoped that the venerable Joseph Guy, the man of many
books, the evergreen Spelling-Book among the number, might have had
a modicum—say an odd £50—to keep his fireside warm for the «ew
years he may need it. But let scholarship shiver under grey hairs!
Trie cockpit and the trench have dearer claims on the annual bounty
nationally voted for science, literature, and art. Poor Joseph Gtjy is
now a little too old to enlist; otnerwhe, in 1900, he might yet have a
pension tor "distinguished services in the field," and lurther in
consideration of " his destitute and infirm condition."

However, matters might have been worse. A poor £1000 a-year has
been voted by Parliament to Williams, the hero of Ears. _ Had it
been thrice as much, no man would have grudged a larthing ot it.
Nevertheless I feel that science, literature, and ait have had a great
escape. It is, indeed, lucky for them that your loidship did not make
the £1000 £12,000, and give it in a lump to Sir Eenwice, to spare the
tiouble of distribution. . ,

Acknowledgiug, for science, literature, and art, your lordship s con-
siderate goodness, I remain (m the haycock)

v Yours,

A Hopeless Irish Member.

Perhaps there was never any Parliamentary gentleman whose hopes
of place were so completely blighted as those of James Sadleir. The
Government has disavowed the intention of gram jug Mr. Sadleir the
Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. Perhaps Government fears
tb«t, in t-he exercise of even that Stewardship, Mr. Sadleir might
prove an Unjust Steward.