Punch (31.1856)

Novemb.h 22, 1856.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

209

WheD, in 1964, the Civil War broke out between Ai.bert the Second
THE FUTURE OF THE BELL. aa<* his Pe°plp> bee .use the former insisted on paying the expenses of

the State from the revenues of the estates purchased by the celebrated
{From the Times Newspaper, Nov. 9(fi, a.d. 2256.) husband of the good Victokia, while the people, justly deeming this

an insult, demanded to be Taxed, the Bell sounded the alarm, as the

"Bella, hobeida billa !" Such will probably be the exclamation
of many a charity child, in these educated dajs, as he takes Irs farthing
ride in the galvanic railway across the lucid and sparkling Thames ar,
Westminster, in his way to the Nightingale College, and sees the ruin
wiought by this morning's catastrophe. Barry's old Clock-Tower has
been brought down by the weight of the Bells, and lies in fragments at
the foot of the colossal statue of Lobd Roebuck in the centre of
Palace Yard.

As usual ia England, everyone had foreseen the accident for months.
Indeed the quivering vibration of the Great Bell itself, when the large
hous were s'ruck, might have presaged its fall to any but adminis-
trative ears. The Government bad been warned, even up to the close
cf the Ssssion, when Sir Iket de Solomons (some said with an eye to
bell-metal) moved that "B:gBen" should be taken down. The Duke
oe Willington, with a manner haughty enough for the extinguished
chamber in which his ancestors sat, resisted the motion, but ptomised i ^^^jgig^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^S^-
inquiry. The victor of Waterloo, according to the ancient records, was S '^CL__T ^r=^S^sS^^~~:^'::^~' '—

famous for keeping his lordly word, but four hundred years have wrought j 5
changes in Dukes, and not an oyster in his present Grace's well-known ... _,

and excellent shop at Charing Cross could have been more silent on Ro?31 H°rse Marines went splashing up the Tnames to cut out the
the suhj ct The Tower is down < Maria [Food at Richmond. It sounded too, as the signal for grace at

The carious in details will find all particulars of the occurrence in our 1 S'f^P Ya/d ^W**. jft hfjT&^S^?' ^ ft6
ucual half-hourly editions. Suffice it to sav here that the Conservator ! Dlctator *h? had brought back King Albert to his people s

jf Lights had iust left Palace Yard, where he had been putting out the a™s> made fe St?;te expT*w & ch,ar?e,uP0D^e Profits of, & sal,e. of
m(,.tBj..tri. „i„u„ /-fmin^ anc^r c^ m„«i, hof+I. +t,o« tikt his own back numbers, and thus relieved the Sovereign and the nation

Si eat electric globe (found to answer so much better than the moon), ^ gCilce|y & percep'ible los8 to himself> Lt the Celebration of the

Cnard ■Di-^0^ two-thousandth anniversary of the Christian Era, the Bell summoned
truara was wicaing the Metropolis to receive a medal in commemoration of the Anglican
up ine oteam i once-; Bish having agreed to surrender a tithe of their incomes to the
man tor ine seven j workiDg clerg? and in 2133 the Bell rang backwards as an unteachable
0 clock round when hjerarchy ente'red the House of Lords for the last time. In 2150, when
an inexplicable noise a Hebrew fanatic, calling himself "The Asian Mystery," led Hounds-
was nearr- rouowea ditcb and j-[0iywen Street to the Tower, stormed it, and carried away
oy 3 CEt&rsC(j 01

the glass jewels (which the poor adventurer was unaware had been sub-
stituted for the regalia, presented to the Emperor, Fremont the Third,
of America,) the Bell would have given warning of his execution, but
that an ancient book, by one Rabbi Bendizzy, was discovered to have
stimulated the madman, and the massacre of Holywell Street and
demolition of that aged den of

stones, clock-work,
beams, bells, pinna-
cles, and caiving,
which came down in
thunder to the base

of the Roebuck sta- wag th harmlg8S yen,

tue. Its original I ge^c/tflken by the people

Then came the Italian and
Russian invasion of 2178,
when England once more put
out her strength, sank seven
fleets and routed eleven armies,
and scorning to gain an acre
of territory, divided Ita'y
among the desceLdants of
Mazzini and Grisi, and par-
celled Russia between Poland,
Sweden, and Sardinia. The
Bell struck twenty-seven time3
while Yiscount Gladstone
delivered the speech of as
many hours, in which he com-
menced explaining the new
arrangement of the map of

might have seen in
that mighty devasta-
tioi a type tf the
ruin which he pre-
dicted for England;
but which, thanks to
her wise and hold
dealing with her Con-
stitution, her sinking
Ireland to the bottom
of the sea, her esta-
blishing the House of

Journalist?, )jer compulsory education, her annihilation of professional
lawyers, and above all her Private Currency Guarantee Acts, has yet
to come to pass. Now that the State furnishes every honest man with
whatever money he requires, we have no need to be dishonest, and we
wish that the spirit of Roebuck cou'd see a Metropolis, counting

thirty-nine millions of. inhabitants, guarded by a few pieces of police- £ - Th j t { [d £t t
machinery, and knowing nothing of crime save what is imported from wMc£we shall advert is within
the Empire of Afnca. the recollection of most of us,

So has fallen the mighty Bell, to which we see by reference to our!whe£1 jn 2230, Primrose Hill
archives, that we devoted an article on its arrival at the foot of the now | oroke out as'a Vulcano, and

prostrate Tower in 1856. It was raised to its place some time after-
wards, and has hung, at that dizzy height, for four centudes. What
scents have passed around it! To what deeds, celebrations, solemnities,
crimes, has not Warner's thunderous metal lent its earthquake note !
Let us recal a few of the instances when the Great Bell of VVestminster
has sounded. In the Revolution of 1862, when the ferocious Ernest

totally overwhelmed the cities
of St. John's Wood and Cam-
dentcnia. The Btll sounded
furiously, and the Board of
Works, availing itself of the ersrtxn of the period.

maivellous mechanism of the

Jones and the sanguinary Paul Bedford usurped the sovereignty, the , gran(j seWers of London, brought them to bear upon the fiery mountain,
Be 1 announced their coronation, and when the fratricidal combat 1 an(j speedily extinguished it. The Bell's last important labour was

between the two, as to which should possess the Koh-i-Noor diamond
(now in the Baptist Cathedral at Heme Bay) was terminated, after a
dreadful struggle in Maiden Lane, by Paul stiikirg off the head of
Ernest, fend proclaiming himself King Paul Jones, the Bell told
London of this consolidation of the monarchy. Forty years later, early
in the twentieth century, when the Australian fleet arrived at the Nore
to menace the mother country into repayment of the Gold Dust Loan
of 1S97, the Bell gave the signal to the terrible Torpedo Volunteers,
who, swimming out with their frightful engines, affixed them to the
bottcar.s of the ships5 and blew the tyrant colonists to the five winds.

there'ore one of kindness, and it has fulfilled its mission. Sir Ikey de
Solomons shall not have our Bell.

The Money-Market.

"You scoundrel," cried a distinguished s4ock-broker last week to a
pickpocket plying his trade, " wha1; are you about with my purse ? "

"iVly dear Sir," was the mo'lifying answer, " what is a man to do
tfith money at seven per cent f"