Punch (34.1858)

March 6, 1858.1

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

91

GOOD SERVICE PENSIONS.

We hear from a busy-body, who has the entree of the Horse Guards,
that the Duke of Cambridge intends conferring the next good-service
pension of £100 upon himself for the extreme care and devotion lie has
always shown to the Regiment of Guards, of which he is the distin-
guished Colonel.

The next good-service pension after the Duke's will be bestowed on
H.R.H.F.M. Prince Albert, for the loving attention that he has, also,
at all times, shown to the wants and personal comforts of the valiant
men whom he has the honour of commanding.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

February 22nd, Monday. Parliament met only twice this week, to-
day and Friday. The meetings were in the nature of the scenes called
—in theatrical productions of the spectacle order—Carpenters' Scenes.
The object of these is to gain time for the arrangement of some grand
" effect," and so a pair of flats is shoved on in front, and the adroit
author serves out to a pair of bores as much dull talk as will allow
the glittering stars to be got right, the aerial nymphs to stick them-
selves to their brackets, and the coloured fires to be brought to the
wings. Then, at a hint from the prompter, the bores suddenly recol-
lect that they can just as well talk somewhere else, and they perform
the feat whereby the American youth suggested that " the leopard
might change his spots"—when he was tired of one spot he could go
to another. All is then clear for the Effulgent Realms of Dazz-
ling Light and the Sparkling Home of a Million Stars !

Earl Granville apprised the Lords, and Viscount Palmerston
informed the Commons, that, in consequence of the victory of Mr.
Milner Gibson on the preceding Friday, the Government had re-
signed,—that Her Majesty had not insisted on their retaining office—
that the Earl of Derby had been sent for—that his latter Lordship
was making a Ministry, and would be obliged by an adjournment
until Friday.

There is a class of persons who are ready to get up twopenny
squabbles_ at the moment when thousands are watching an eruption
of Vesuvius, a ship going over Niagara, an eclipse of the Sun, Mr.
Punch publishing a new number, or during any other of those grand
and gigantic incidents which thrill the soul. Lord Campbell in one
House, and Mr. Roebuck in the other, got up some personal ques-
tions ; the Lord assailing Sir Richard Bethell for something
he had been reported to say about the Alien Law, and the Com-
moner bringing up a story against Mr. Isaac Butt, whom he charged,
at the instance of one Coffey, with having received money to advocate
in Parliament the claims of a forging Ameer of Scinde. There was

some discussion on the first subject, and the second was referred to a
Committee.

Lord Malmesbury's first official act was not an ungracious one.
He signified the assent of the Government to the immediate passing of
the Havelock Annuity Bill, which operation was thereupon performed.

It is marvellous what luck sometimes attends the greatest criminals
when all hope is supposed to have fled. History presents heaps of
instances (which Mr. Punch would cite, but that he does not recollect
any of them, and the thermometer is much too low for him to be
crossing his enormous library and handling cold books) of ropes-
breaking, reprieves coming, amnesties issuing, revolutions exploding,
executioners fainting, and other interpositions which have saved the
wicked from their just doom. But never was there a more signal case
of this kind of succour than in the luck of John Company. The
scaffold is in black, the sawdust is strewn, the spectators hold their
breath, Russell leans upon the axe that was to avenge Oude, and
Gladstone is reading the prayer for the departing, when a white
handkerchief waves a signal—no, by St. George, it is a White
Feather, in the hand of Palmerston—and execution is stayed ! Ross
D. Mangles flings himself in an ecstacy into the arms of Thomas
Baring, and this very night has sufficiently recovered to insist upon
that trifle of Eight Millions Ibat was to be lent to the Company.
More, he will get it, for Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, signified, through Mr. Hamilton, that he should not seek
to delay the Loan Bill.

On the Friday the Ministerial explanations were expected, but Lord
Derby, not having quite made up his mind what reasons he could give
for taking office, told. Lord Salisbury to get the house adjourned
until the Monday. Granville complained that Derby had grudged
similar grace to Aberdeen, but as this was only said for the sake of
saying something, Salisbury merely made the novel and ingenious
remark that the Lords never sat on Saturdays or Sundays, which shows
that James Brownlow William Gascoigne Cecil has paid some
attention to Parliamentary proceedings.

Sir Richard Bethell came down to the Commons, so absorbed in
his intention to flagellate the Lords who had been rude to him, that he
utterly forgot the change of Ministry, went to bis old place, and sat
down by Mr. Whiteside. The latter was so taken by surprise that
he actually had not time to interpret this into an insult, and to put
himself in a rage; and he went so far as to shake hands with Sir
Richard, a liberty which aroused him to a sense of his situation, and
he darted over from Whiteside to his right side. New writs were
ordered for the Ministerial constituencies—(Sir Bulwer Lytton,
it seems, does not take office, because the return to the Herts writ
would, in all probability, contain some less distinguished name
than his own),—and Billy Jolliffe moved the desired adjourn-
ment. And then, Mr. Punch is bound to aver that Sir Richard
Bethell, whose services, Mr. P. will remark, the country can ill afford
to lose at the present or any other crisis, did lay the lash into the
pachydermatous law-lords with a delicate calmness but a merciless
vigour which, as an artistic operation, was worthy of all plaudit.
It precisely resembled the welting which, in Ask Mamma, the Jew's
groom administers to'tbe dishonest Master Anthony Thom, holding
him by one ear so that he can't bite, and when he has whipped him
enough from one point of view, taking his other ear, and repeating
the dose, and finally kicking him down-stairs. Mr. Punch can do a
little in that line himself, and therefore his compliments are valuable.
Sir Richard amply deserves what Pope, addressing to him the
immortal Second Satire, wrote of him :—

" Thus Bethell spoke, who always speaks his thought,
And always thinks the very thing he ought."

So closed the week. Mr. Punch will not attempt to describe the
sensations with which he transcribes his record of the last great
Ministerial change. Of Friday, February 9, 1855, he wrote :— _

" The House adjourned for a week, to re-assemble when Tiverton
has re-elected Palmerston, the People's Premier."

" Say, chief, is all thine ancient valour lost,
Where are thy threats, and where thy glorious boast,
That propped alone by Priam's race should stand
Troy's sacred walls, nor need a Foreign hand.
Remote thou stand'st, while Alien troops-

The appositeness of the quotation here is so sad that Mr. Punch?
overcome, dissolves in tears, and refers his readers to the Iliad, V. 575.

Prattle from Paternoster Row.

The Marquis op Clanricarde intends writing his Memoirs aunng
the few weeks that he was in office. He is so pleased with the title of
Ra(i)kes' Diary, and thinks it so appropriate in his own particular case,
that he intends continuing the same.

The Emperor Louis Napoleon is attempting a new History of
England. It is to be written in a good taking style, as it is his-
ambitious aim to have his name on a work that, in boldness of execu-
tion shall fully equal Rapin's England. The title is to be, U Angleterre,
apres Rapine.