Punch (36.1859)

Street Boy {in playful allusion to tJie basket-carriage). "Oh, look here, Bill! If eke ain't a Swell driving hisself home

prom the Wash! "

A REALLY STRONG-MINDED WOMAN.

To Mr. Punch.

" Sir,

" In the interview which Prince Alexander, the Ex-Hos-
podar of Servia, had with the deputation from the Servian Parliament
(■whose name looks so ridiculously like Soupkitchen), touching his
abdication, it seems that the Hospodaress had a good deal more to say-
on the question than the ladies of Princes, Premiers, or Presidents, are
allowed, by our old-fashioned if not effete, civilisation of the West.

" The Augsburg Gazette informs us, that the Princess violently
reproached her Husband for his iceakness, declaring that, if she were in
his place, she would 'rather be cut to pieces than capitulate.'

" The Correspondent of the Gazette—a man of course—goes on:—

" After the Princess had raved1 for some time, her husband lost patience,2 and
taking tier by the shoulders,3 pushed her into an adjoining room. Hardly, however,
had the interrupted conversation been renewed by the spokesman of the deputation,
when the lady re-appeared,4 and discharged a volley of invectives5 at the represen-
tatives of the nation. The Hospodar again conducted his wife to the door, and dis-
missed her with a feio sound cuffs." 6

" And this, Mr. Punch, is the sex which a cruel prejudice, endorsed
(I grieve^ to say) by you, like the rest of your sex, excludes from
political functions ! See what an element of political stability you are
throwing away, in this fine female determination—you men call it
obstinacy—this noble tenacity—I am aware you call it ' love of the last
word'—this highspirited defiance of consequences, which ' will be cut
in pieces rather than capitulate !' Do you suppose, if Lady Palmer-
ston, or Lady Derby, or the dear Empress Eugenie, were associated
in aut hority with those very poor creatures, their husbands, that we should
have all these changes of ministry at home, and these ridiculous shilly-
shallyings about India Bills and Reform Bills, or these childish vacil-

1 " i like his impertinence.

2 " Of course be did. They always do.

3 || The cowardly wretch ! brute force as usual!

* || Perfectly right Any woman of spirit would have done the same.

' Invectives ' indeed ! If a man had been the speaker, i should like to know
if that would have been the word.

" The Brute ! sending away the poor woman, with anv kind of cuffs and choier
px?ept the best lace ones."

lations at Paris, these prosecutions and pardons, these fits of severity,
and indulgence ? No—if the ladies of these very poor Lords of Creation,
were allowed their proper place, we should see a very different, and a
much more steady and consistent state of things ! Lady Palmer-
ston's ability, it is true, has met with a proper recognition from her
husband, and that accounts for his amazing success in the private and
personal side of his political life. Did ever any man hold office so long,
and under so many ministries ? Why was this, but because Lady P.,
like the Princess of Servia, ' would be cut to pieces rather than
capitulate;' and because, wdien she told her husband so, he had the
good sense to take her advice and stick to his place, instead of telling his
wife she didn't know hers, as most English husbands would do, or
pushing her out of doors by the shoulders, and giving her cuffs, like
this cowardly brute of a Servian Hospodar ?

" I have no doubt, if Lady P. were allowed a seat in the Ministry,
without a department, she would soon exercise as much wholesome
influence in the Cabinet as in the boudoir; and that we should have no
mistakes about Conspiracy Bills and Lord Privy Seals. She would
show Count Walewski the difference, I'll answer for it. There would
be no want of spirit in our policy, with her at the helm.

" People tell me, that Mr. D'Israeli is an excellent and most attentive
husband, and that he always takes his wife's advice ; and look how
he has prospered.

" Pray, Mr. Punch, will you tell me which is the best governed nation
in the world ? Of course, you will say England. And why ? Because you
see on our throne the artificial order of the sexes reversed, and the woman
in her natural position of superiority. I say natural, for it clearly was
in the order of nature that the woman should gtdde the man. To whom,
I should like to know, did Adam owe the knowledge of good and evil,
but to that much-maligned Eve ?

" Hoping that I have now set the heroic conduct of the Princess of
Servia in its proper light, instead of the odious and ridiculous view in
which it has been placed by that very small German, the Belgrade
Correspondent of the Augsburg Gazette, I beg to subscribe myself,
Mr. Punch,

" Your faithful, but not obedient,

" Thalestris Hardlines,"

(Authoress of The Cry of the Wom-en : a Plaint in Twenty-Seven Cantos.)