Punch: Punch (38.1860)

June 23, I860.j

255

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

!



“SHALL OUE POOE LITTLE BILL HAVE A STATUE?”

A Proposal is under consideration for the erection of a Monument
to the late lamented Bill of Lord John Russell, which expired at
Westminster, on Monday, the 11th of June, after a lingering and
tedious illness.

The following Noblemen and Gentlemen have kindly consented to
act on the Committee, for considering the design and inscription of the
Monument:—

Lord John Russell, M.P.
Lord Palmerston, M.P.

Lord Derby.

Mr. Mackinnon, M.P.

Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., M.P.
The Hon. Chas. Yilliers, M.P.
Mr. Horsman, M.P.

Mr. Disraeli, M.P.

Mr. John Bright, M.P.

Mr. Gladstone, M.P.

Sir J. Ferguson, M.P.

Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton, M.P.
Mr, Bentinck, M.P.

Mr. Bernal Osborne, M.P.

We have received several suggestions for in memoriam inscriptions,
to be placed over the remains of this ill-starred scion of the House of
Russell. We have pleasure in putting the following at the service of
the Committee:—

“ Amendments sore long time I bore;

Parental love was vain;

Till by degrees the House did please
To put me out of pain,”

This strikes us as terse, but slightly deficient in originality. It
reminds us, in fact, of something we have heard before. The same
criticism applies to the composition which follows, intended apparently
to suggest consolation to the afflicted parent :—

“ Weep not for me, my parent dear,

You ’ll have another Bill next year:

Above my grave write R. L P.;

There’s room for more small Bills by me.”

The following, on the Classical model, should, it is suggested, be
inscribed on a Tablet, to be fixed, like the Italian “ Stones of Infamy,”
in the wall of the Lobby of the House of Commons :—

IN PERPETUAM IN FAMINE MEMORIAM
JUXTA HOC MARMOR
GULIELMICULUS E. RUSSELLII STIRPE,

PESS1MUS MINIMUS
IN REMPUBLICAM GRaSSATUS
FOXLI CHATHAMIQCE AD PEDES
PROPRIA PARENTIS MANU
L. J. BRTJTI EXEMPLAR PR.D SE FERENTIS
PROJECTUS

S. P. Q. B. LUDIBR1UM
INFAUSTUS INFLERILIS
MORTEM MERITAM OBI1T
JUNII III ANTE. ID.

Another Correspondent suggests that the only epitaph applicable to
the poor little deceased is the brief but pregnant one inscribed on the
nameless and dateless tombstone in Worcester Cathedral—

“ MISERRIMUS.”

The following is not ill-conceived, but the word “ flop ” is, we fear,
inadmissible on a tombstone:—

“ Some told my Pa he went too far,

Some bade him to go further:

’ Twixt two stools, flop, he let me drop,

The fall it was my murther.”

Finally, one Tennysonian Correspondent flows over in a whole quire
of short poems, on the In Memoriam model, purporting to be written
in the character of the bereaved parent of our poor little Bill. We
subjoin a sample from this quiver of poetic shafts, winged, we are
bound to admit, with the Laureate’s pen-feathers

“ IN MEMORIAM.

I.

“ As one, that lacking coin, is fain
To shirk his tradesmen’s frequent calls,

And cry along his guarded halls,

* Here is that butcher come again,’

“ So I, whom thought of little Bills,
Protested all, with no effects,

Still hanging o’er my head, dejects,

Sit sad, where Thames its gas distils,

“ And wonder, will they yet rise up,

With all their pledges on each head, __
To upbraid their father from the dead;

Or, drinking deep from Lethe’s cup,

“ Forget what in them wakened feud:
The fancy franchises they knew,

The six-pound rental, pleasing few,

And all their clauses rash and rude.

“ Oil if, as I still fondly hope,

Next year the ‘Little Bill’ renew.
Which this year’s judgment overthrew,

May it with friends be strong to cope,

“ Nor, like the Bill that here doth lie,
After a Session run to waste,

Be in the category placed

Of things that, by amendment, die.

II.

“ Last night I sat in Chesham Place;

The rain fell fast, usurping June,

As though the year were out of tune,

And Summer scowled with Winter’s face.

“ I brooded o’er my discontents,

Saying—‘The Notice-paper thins:

Now that with early June begins

The Massacre of Innocents.’

“ I had an Innocent—mine own—

Life’s flame within my little Bill
Burnt low; I fanned and fed it still,

By June’s keen blast to be outblown.

“ For this do I rejoice to mark
Each wild vagary of the year:

Rude winds make music to my ear;

Damp and cold water seem a lark.

“ A ruder wind was that blew out
My little Bill-y’s flickering lamp;

Colder than this June rain the damp

That on him chilling tongues did spout.”

“Then on the bell-pull hands I laid,

With thought of hanging, but, in doubt,
I rang and ordered ‘ Cold without; ’

And Hope perched on the glass, and said—

“ ‘ If Winter Summer’s seat doth fill.
Summer will sit for Winter hoar:

Will bring me new-year swallows o’er.

And unto thee a second Bill.’ ”

ONE NATION’S MEAT ANOTHER’S POISON.

The following statement occurs in the Curiosities of Science
familiarly explained in a recent work of great merit, by John Timbs,
F.S.A.:—

“ Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, says: ‘Judging from the present state of our know-
ledge, it would rather seem as if poisonous fungi may act as ferments when intro-
duced into the system, and thus set up a series of changes in the vital fluids which
are incompatible with life. This will explain the circumstance, otherwirr incom-
prehensible, why the fame fungus which operaJes as a poison upon one persor. does not
affect another : and why certain nations, as the Russians, either from national want
of susceptibility or from habit, use as articles of food several kinds of mushrooms
which are rejected by us as poisonous.’ ”

People who value their lives should observe that all fungi whatever
in a state of fermentation, that is of putrefaction, themselves, are very
likely to act as ferments when introduced into the system. Moreover,
common mushrooms will operate as poisons on some people, whilst
they agree perfectly well with others. This property is not peculiar
to mushrooms or any other sort of fungi. Liberty agrees with Britons,
for instance, as well as toadstools do with Russians and other
foreigners that might be named, but it operates as a poison upon those
people whose natural constitution is too inflammable to bear it.

“ Or, ‘ here that baker, threatening ill
With mutteringsof the County Court,’
And knows not whither to resort
For thinking of each ‘ Little Bill.’

LATEST FROM BADEN.

He ’ll do those Germans, and he ’ll make, as we know
The Zollverein another Zolferino.