Punch (33.1857)

October 17, 1857.]

157

A TRIFLE FROM SPITHEAD.

here was a good hit in our
friend Dr. Cumming's Fast-
Day sermon. He reminded
his hearers that he had
always protested against the
assumption of Titles by the
Popish hierarchy, and that
now we found the very
priests whom we had per-
mitted to violate the law,
gratefully hindering enlist-
ment, and preventing
charity. However, we are
not for violent measures
with these foreigners. If,
to be in keeping with their
contemptible conduct, a
vulgar illustration be per-
mitted, we would merely
remark, that the more these
Italian irons are stuck into
the fire, the more inclined
are decent folk, Catholic

was changed into a territorial occupation on the pretext that the lives
employed in this commerce were otherwise endangered. Province
was afterwards added to province, really and truly for this purpose ?
By no means ! For the purposes of colonisation, where the settlement
of Englishmen has been discouraged? For revenue — where the
expenditure exceeds the utmost income ? For the conversion of the
natives, who have shown with what effect our missionaries have
preached and prayed in this behalf ? For none of these things ; but
simply to substitute a great feeding-ground of Tite Barnacles for a
mercantile emporium. Our merchants have been hustled out of its
government, and have now no voice in its councils, and, what is worse,
no consideration from its servants. To the latter they stand in the
relation of Pariahs to Brahmins ; they have been snubbed and
insulted, and now they are ruined.

The system which oppressed them, for their protection, has given
way, and the Indian Government, having reaped the consequences of
treating Hindoos as Britons, now tries to recover itself by treating
Britons like Hindoos._ These gentlemen are indispensable, but they
are quite ignored; their advice would have saved the catastrophe at
Dinapore, but it was rudely slighted. Their services were rejected
till it was found impossible to do without them ; and their press, a
most respectable press, is ignominiously gagged. Now, that their
maltreatment has reached to this extremity, they cry out; and the
cry of the lamb caught in the bushes was not more welcome to the
Patriarch Abraham than this cry is to Golighty Teazle, who is
professionally on the look-out for a scape-goat. " Now," exclaims
and Protestant, to perioral ^at bilious subject, making too free use of his butter-knife, "the
on the priests the operation Circumlocution Office is saved. Vernon Smith may go to bed, and
by which, laundresses as- dream that he is a statesman; the Directors may go to Church, and
certain whether their irons Qumi]iate themselves for other people's sins; and I may not only do
are hot enough. j service to them and to myself, but may have an oligarchy of casual

— I denizens at my feet to kick about in the pages of the Saturday
\ Review till Parliament meets." To which, simple Englishmen as we
BRITISH BRAHMINS AND BRITISH MERCHANTS. ! are, we reply: "Golightly Teazle, Master of Arts, we have almost

I had enough of your conceited trifling; we have petted your Brahmin
Mr. Golightly Teazle, M.A. (Peaders are requested to observe j Caste too long, and Mr. Punch has his park of artillery ready to blow
the " M.A." with proper reverence) has returned prematurely to his you int0 little pieces, if you refuse to march with the rest of us.
chambers in the Temple, in consequence of the complicated aspect of ; Mutinv is bad enough abroad, but the last mutiny we can tolerate is
public affairs. The very first morning after his return he was unfor- j treason to our home traditions. We like self-government for English-
tunate enough to cut his distinguished chm from incautiously medi- j men at all times; at all events we prefer it to the rule of Bureaucracy,
fating an article for the Saturday Review, while he was m the act of after the latter has been tried and found wanting. We are satisfied
shaving that elevated feature; and this accident added to the bile | that the cakes of the Indian Brahmins would never have produced
remaining in his system in consequence of the abridgment of his conti- 1 an Indian revolt, but for the cakes sent out by the Brahmins at home,
nental tour, is sufficient to account for his not being m the best of j an(j we are not to be diverted from condemning them utterly, because
tempers. < \ they appear comparatively innocent in the eyes of Golightly

As he crunches his dry toast with a menacing aspect, he looks over ' Teazle."
his Times in search of a likely victim. The Times itself he has long
ago shown to be the merest waste paper. He has broken the heart of
its principal correspondent, who is supposed in consequence to have
retired into a monastery. He has lashed the novelists, he has slashed
the wits—for he himself is neither a wit nor a novelist —and he has
established to his own profound satisfaction, the superiority of critical
over creative intellect. According to his own statement, he was " sick
of seeing the honours of mind awarded to small jokers and washy senti-
mentalists f and he has cured himself of his sickness by taking these
honours to himself; in virtue of the presumption, to which, of course,
we all assent, that a gentleman who can so cleverly disparage works* of
art could do very much better himself, if he tried. G. T. being a
Master of Arts, has taken the benefit of this presumption, and has
spared himself the trial, at the same time considerat ely sparing his
readers; and now he is occupied in condemning the ungraduated, and
in whipping up the rest of creation for his Saturday syllabub. At the
present moment, it appears that he wants a subject to operate upon in
connection with the Indian Mutiny, the only topic people are supposed
to care about just now; that is to say, he wants to set his mark on
somebody and especially on somebody who least anticipates or
deserves it.

A simple observer would account for the smile on his features by
the obviousness of his target, and would only suppose him. to be hesi-
tating between the Board of Control and the Court of Directors. But
Teazle aspires to a place in the Circumlocution Office, and is prepared
to go through life "On Her Majesty's Service," which makes him
particularly tolerant to the slips of officials, and anxious to keep
up what he designates " the prestige of official station." The Teazle

TO A EADY.

Believe me, if all those voluminous charms

Which thy fondness for fashion betray,
And keep e'en thy nearest relations at arm's

Distance—some paces away :
Were those air-tubes now blown up—exploded outright,

And those hoops trundled off thee as well,
With less ample a skirt thou would'st look less a fright,

And more belle-like when less like a bell.

'Tis not by mere Swells taste in dressing is shown,

And that size is not beauty 'tis clear ;
Nay, the shapeliest forms when balloon-like out-blown,

Both distorted and ugly appear.
Then heed not what fashions le Follet may set,

Be enslaved by no follies like those;
For be sure that your dresses, the wider they get,

The more narrow your mind is disclose.

MO BE MAGISTERIAL TYRANNY.

It appears that one of the legitimate profits of trade, as carried on by
the lower order of shopkeepers, arises from a pleasing process of giving to
children, and others not likely to notice the fraud, bad money in change,
and Tite Barnacle interests are so allied, that if any member ! and when the cheat is detected, of appealing to a notice, stuck up in a

of either abuses the confidence of his country, if he blunders or breaks
down or jobs at the Treasury, or uses his knowledge for his bargains
on the Stock Exchange, if he loses his head or his temper, or an army,
or an empire, or the precious lives and as precious prestige of his
countrymen, G. T. points attention in some other direction like the
confederate in a plant at the cry of " Stop Thief! " G. T. performed
this service for the authors of our Crimean disasters, and G. T. is
ready to perform it again, or as often as the Tite Barnacles bring us
to grief, provided as how he can find a convenient scapegoat.

Thus, our Indian Empire was founded by our English merchants,
and its object was the increase of our commerce and shipping. It

shop, that " No money will be exchanged after taken from the counter."
One of the police-magistrates, who are always interfering, tyrannically
with commercial ingenuity, has decided that this notice is a piece of
impudent and useless trash, and perfectly unavailing against proof that
bad money has been given. What with persecution of folks who " ride
the monkey," give short measure, and pass bad coin, we hardly see
how British tradesmen can live—at least in any style. But adulteration
of goods is still left to them unchecked, and let us hope that this
precious and sacred right of trade may be intact for many a day. In a
nation of shopkeepers, shopkeeping really ought not to be discouraged
by law.