Punch (33.1857)

238

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[December 12. 1857.

Governor, but his lordship needed not insult it also. Louis Napoleon
don't do that. As I have said, look out; for though you have secured
and silenced a good many Englishmen who know the truth, and could
make you feel, you have neither secured nor silenced Me. [Exit.

Lord P. Confound him ! He said he came to inquire, and he has
inquired nothing. If he has got up the wholecase as well as this
specimen, it may be awkward. Deuced rum thing of him to come
here making that shillabaloo ! By Jove ! By Jove, I shouldn't
wonder if—

^Considers for eleven minutes whether he will offer Mr. Disraeli
Vernon Smith's place, and finally decides that he will not.

MIRACLE-MONGERY.

AND 0"TH E fi

MIRACULOUS
R E L L£-S

ML

THE S N EEZINC
STATU E .

Writing from Vienna the Own Correspondent of the Times informs
us that—

"Anthony Ernest, the Lord Bishop of Brtinn, has just edified the faithful in
this empire by announcing that '.the oil of St. Walbi'RGa' possesses miraculous
Dowers. The Right Rev. Shepherd does not inform his flock what kind of fluid the
oil in question is, but he certifies that a girl in an institution kept by ' the Daughters
of Conation Charity' did on a certain day kiss a bottle containing the aforesaid oil,
and was immediately cured of an inflammation of the eyes, which was so violent
that she was almost blind. The Bishop was so much struck by this, that he ordered
the Daughters of Christian Charity for ever to keep holy the 7th of November, that
being the day on which ' the miracle ' was performed. It is said that some heretical
writer in Germany has dared to call the Daughters of Christian Charity in Brtinn
impostors, and the Very Rev. Anthony Ernest'a credulous old gentleman."

Although we certainly admit that we put no faith in the miraculous oil
of St. Walburga, and that as for its ophthalmic properties, we regard
them in effect as being all our eye, still we cannot quite agree with the
unnamed German heretic in viewing the Lord Bishop as a simply
" credulous old gentleman." We believe, indeed, to use a somewhat
free expression, that his lordship is in fact a rather deep old tile. With
our knowledge of the ways in which the Romans " do " at Rome, and
why their pictures wink at Rimini, and how their miracle-machinery
is generally worked, we are pretty well convinced, that if the Christian
Daughters of Briinn Charity have been guilty of imposture, the very

food and saint-like Anthony has helped to do the trick. We may
epend that his certificate of their eye-healing oil was the result not of
credulity, but of preconcerted dodgery. Money being tight, the
Sisters were perhaps in struggles with their banker : and hit upon the
oil as a means to bring "the faithful" to their Christian Institution,
where, of course, all comers have to pay their footing. Having worked
their miracle, the next thing they required was to advertise the fact—
and no doubt by offering the good Bishop a percentage of their profits,
they succeeded in engaging him to make the matter public. We
regard his "announcement" therefore as a puff, and in no way as a
symptom of delusion or credulity. It being to his interest to bring the
eye-specific into popular demand, he makes it his business to exhort
his blind believers, in the blindness of their faith, to go and try the
article. His certificate, in fact, is just a parallel to those which are
furnished by Lord Holloa way and other vouchers of quack nostrums;
and we should recommend, that when the oil of St- Walburga is

advertised in Austria, the announcement should be decorated with a
portrait of the Bishop, represented in the act of kissing a quart bottle,
and exclaiming in German the equivalent for, "Ha! ha! Cured in an
Instant! "

We suppose if Bishop Anthony's certificate is ascertained to draw,
the example will be followed elsewhere on the Continent, and all the
getters-up of miracles, and dealers in infallible specifics for the faithful,
will retain a special Bishop as their advertising agent, and set down his
"announcements" among their trade expenses. The dodge of the
Briinn Daughters in getting their oil certified by a father of the Church
will be copied to a certainty by all traders in such nostrums; and
doubtless the chief miracle-mongery establishments will offer premiums
for the best episcopal advertisement; and in the rivalry of trade,
perhaps will find it pay to keep a Bishop on their premises, to certify
to customers the genuineness of their wares. Pushing men of business
in the quack miracle and medicine line will get episcopal assistance in
penning their trade circulars ; and with all the unctuousness of lan-
guage which a Bishop can command, will announce their latest
novelties and invite inspection of their stock. The patentees of any
Sainted Hair Oil or Holy all-my-Eye Snuff will pay a prelate to attest
that he has had his " Baldness Removed " by thirteen bottles of the
one, and his eyesight restored by nineteen pinches of the other: and,
as usual, his certificate will end with the logical requirement, that the
patentees will kindly forward him another large supply of their
infallible specifics.

With but very little stretch of our caoutchoutical imagination, we
can fancy, if the dodge of these Briinn Sisters is found to be success-
ful, that dealers in old relics will copy their address, and make use of
the same means to advertise their treasures. We can readily imagine
that the spirited proprietors of old-church curiosity shops would not
shrink from posting placards outside their establishments, headed by a
picture of their certifying Bishop, with an adjuration in their language
to, " Look here ! This is the right Shop !!" The fortunate possessors of
the toe-nails of St. Vitus might give episcopal warranty that those
articles were genuine, and any wholesale dealer in the corns of good St.
Limpa might similarly certify the truth of their extraction. Following
the lead of the Sisterhood of Briinn, the bottler of St. Blubba's tears
might get a prelate's voucher that his goods were unadulterated, and
sound in preservation: and a Bishop might be paid for announcing to
the faithful, that the holders had some remnants of the wardrobe of
St. Filthus, and that there were still to be obtained a few remaining
hairs of the left whisker of St. Hirsute.

The keepers of church peep-shows might resort to the same means
of making known their treasures. In their charges to their flocks,
Bishops might continually make announcement of the fact, that the
exhibition of the Bleeding Statue was still open to believers : and that
crowds were still attracted daily to the interesting show of St. Domingo's
hair-shirt. Due notice might in this way be episcopally given of the
days on which a picture would next condescend to wink, and of the small
charge which had been fixed for the admission; and in short whatever
exhibitions were opened to the faithful, recourse might be had to epis-
copal persuasion, as an inducement to church sight-seers to come and
be let in there. We confess we might ourselves be tempted to a peep-
show where a Bishop was on hire to officiate as touter, and stood on
the outside bawling through a speaking-trumpet words which in his
language were equivalent to "Walk hup! Honly thr-r-r-r-r-uppence
heach!!"

We have no wish to waste space in the conjecture of remote and
improbable fortuities; but if ever England should become a Roman
Catholic dominion, and the oil of St. Walburga be in demand among
our doctors as a remedy for blindness (events of about equal likelihood
to happen), we may expect that the Briinn Sisters will, m their Chris-
tian charity, appoint some agent to supply it. Purchasers, of course,
would have to bear the cost attending exportation: but in spite of
this enhancement of the price of the specific, a sufficently brisk sale
might no doubt be commanded, if the Sisters' course of puffing were
.judiciously pursued. Just to start with, they perhaps would content
themselves with advertising "Fifty Million Cures:'' every one of
which, of course, might be personally certified hf the right reverend
prelate whom they paid to do so. Should Cardinal Wiseman be
living at the time, his Eminence perhaps might find it worth his while
to undertake the office, for which, indeed, his knowledge of the English
language (as proved in his late letters to the Times) most admirably
fits him.

Not being of "the faithful," we own that we have small belief
ourselves in the oil of St. Walburga : and regard the miracles it
works as merely optical delusions, which only eyes that are blind with
superstition cannot see through. In fact we should not mind confess-
ing, were we privately examined, that if any day be ever set apart in
England for the use of this specific, we think it should be, not the
Seventh of November, but the First of April.

The Value or Health.—A good constitution is like a money-box
—the full value of it is never properly known until it is broken.