Punch (31.1856)

December 6 1856 ] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 223

WITCHCRAFT IN MODERN EUROPE.

he belief in witches,
affirmed by the wis-
dom of our ances-
lors, has been too
hastily abjured by
their less wise des-
cendants. There c*n
be no reasonable
doubt that a num-
ber of Russian, or
Russo-German,
witches, are now,
at the present mo-
ment, riding about
Europe on their
several broomsticks
sowing discord and
diosension, as busy
as the Grand Mas-
ter of their Order
is proverbially said
to be in a gale of
wind. There is, in
the first place, old
mother Romanoff,
widow of thar, cele-
brated but unfor-
tunate Wizard of
the North, the late

Czar Nicholas. Alexandra Eeodorowna is said to be dt voting her energies
to fomenting, by means of her baleful enchantments, ill will between Victor
Emmanuel ana Francis Joseph. She is the Hecate of them all. Trie
Gband Dtjchess Helena, niece of the King of Wurtemberg, has established
her cauldron at Breslau, and thence dispenses anti-celestial broth to Vienna,
Dresden, Leipsic, Hanover, and Hamburg. Alexandra, the wife of the Grand
Duke Constantine, and Princess of Altenberg, is nursing toads just now
at Berlin, and despatches her familiars from that city to scatter abroad their
venom over Baden and Brussels. Any adventurous traveller who will make
the ascent of the Brocken on May-day night next, will probably enjoy the pleasure
of polking in the most illustrious society.

A CASE OF PORK.

Thomas Perkins is an omnibus conductor; and in so
far as his religious prejudices operate, may be considered
a humble imitator of those lights of piety, Messrs. Spooner
and Newdegate. Mark Levy is a Jew; a descendant
of the Egyptian brickmakers. Now Mark, proceeding up
Ludgate Street, is accosted in terms of ribaldry by Perkins,
who mounting the top of his omnibus takes up a piece of
pork, and holds it mockingly towards the Jew, exclaiming
very foully, " Jew, will you have a bit of this ? " It was
unfortunate for Perkins that a piece of pork should happen
to be upon his vehicle; otherwise he had not been stimulated
into wrong-doing.

" How oft the sigbt of means to do ill deeds,
Make deeds 111 done 1"

The unseemly conduct of Perkins is proved before Sir
James Duke who " sharply " accosts the defendant, saying,

"i fine you 20s. and costs, or in default 14 days' imprisonment. It
is not to be tolerated that respectable citizens of London are to be insulted
as they walk along the stieets, merely because they are Hebrews."

At the latter part of the day the money was paid, and
Thomas Perkins was saved an ignominious jolt in the
prison-van. Where the money came from remains a mystery;
but it wa9 whispered about the court that it had been
subscribed by a few pious readers of the Standard mightily
commiserating the case of Perkins, and withal denouncing
the infidelity of the age, when an orthodox 'bus-conductor
is not permitted to shake a piece of pork in the faces of
unbelieving Jews, the better to illustrate the fervour of his
own Christianity. And, after all, Perkins is only a disciple
of the belief that shuts the House of Commons on the Jew.
Perkins does but imitate his aristocratic betters, Why,
Lord Derby even at a Mansion-House dinner declares
himself staunch to the principles that refuse a seat to
Rotbschild in Parliament; and by so doing mockingly
shakes a piece of pork in the face of the golden Hebrew.
When that primitive Christian, Major Beresford, at an
agricultural feast avows himself determined for ever and
for ever against the Jews, does not the Major, with the
'bus-conductor, taunt the Israelite with no better argument
than pork—pork?

ENGLISH DOMINATION IN EUROPE.

{To the Editor of the Assemblee Rationale.)

My dear Contemporary,

You have been considered—you and your friend Le Nord of
Brussels—to have said some rather hard things about perfidious
Albion. Perhaps you have. Rest assured that John Bull has no
desire, still less design, to extend his domination over Europe. It
would cost him much and, pay him nothing, you see. But if he really
did cherish any such project, I can quite understand how you might
entertain an objection to it, although that may at first sight appear
absurd. If English domination means Anglo-Saxon institutions, bow
could you feel anything but the reverse of lepugnance to them—to trial
by jury, habeas corpus, civil and religious liberty, freedom of speech
and writing, parliamentary legislation, constitutional government, and
the abolition of your vexatious, tyrannical, and useless passport
system? English domination would be Continental emancipation:
would you refuse freedom, and howl for masters in preference, like the
canine species ?

But perhaps you think that English institutions are rather more
numerous than those above named. I suppose you are afraid that
they include the Income-tax, the Court of Cnancery, the Law of Divorce
for the rich only, turnpike gates, fraudulent bankers, ticket-of-leave
men, and garotte robberies. And I know not that there may not be
some reason in such fear. In that case I must acknowledge that you
have some little right to behold a scarecrow, and a monster, and a
bugbear, in the idea of English domination.

Be pleased to accept the assurance of the distinguished consideration of

Your very humble servant,

P.S. Believe me, the sale of wives is not one of those British insti-
tutions of which you can have any reason to fear the introduction.

Russia's Iron Roads.

The Russian Railway scheme may be defined to be a proposition
for the inducement of the people of France and England to make a
series of iron rods for their own backs.

AN AWAKENED CONSCIENCE.

We do not often dream of living in Utopia, and but seldom enjoy
those blissful visions of the future, which the mind's eye of the rhap-
sodist, in freczy rolling, is enabled to revel in. But how deliriously
should we delight in the surprise, and what a delicious new sensation it
would be to us, if just as we had cracked our second eggshell some fine
morning, and were turning over quietly the third leaf of our Times, our
eye should light suddenly on such a notice as the following:—

" The Chancellor op the Exchequer acknowledges the receipt of £20,000 as
Conscience money from a Bishop : being a return of ten years' over-pay."

Amusing Pictures of Vanity.

It's a fact, which you may see framed any day in the printsellers'
windows, that the two classes of men who evince the greatest partiality
for their own likenesses are players and preachers, in one window you
will see a majority of popular comedians, and in another a preponder-
ance of preachers, popular or otherwise. In fact, we think the
Church rather carries it over the Stage, for the nroportion seems to be
two Pets of the Pulpit to every Earce-actor. From this we conclude
that London numbers twice as many Spurgeons as Buckstones.

Delusive Hope.

The House of Hope of Amsterdam is enumerated among the money-
jobbers who have combined to negotiate the Russian railway loan in
the interests of tyranny. " Hope told a flattering tale "—which has
deceived nobody.

army promotion.

It is said, in consequence of the great calmness and dignity with
which Cornet Ames received the last assault of Lord Vane Tempest,
that, the gallant officer is about to be promoted to a lieutenancy in the
—Heavy Spittoons!__

Extensibility of Muslin.—A reliable Swell declares that he lately
danced one evening with three young Ladies the united circumference
ot whose dresses amounted to a hundred ya'ds.