Punch: Punch (39.1860)

August IS, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

63

HOME,* GREAT HOME!

{Respectfully dedicated to all admirers of that mighty medium.)

hrough humbugs and fallacies though we may roam.

Be they never so artful, there’s no case like Home.

With a lift from the spirits he’ll rise in the air
(Though, as lights are put out first, we can’t see him there)

Home, Home, great Home—

There’s no case like Home !

Of itself his Accordion to play will begin,

(If you won’t look too hard at the works hid within;)

Spirit-hands, at his bidding, will come, touch, and go
(But you mustn’t peep under the table, you know).

Home, Home, great Home—

There’s no case like Home !

Spring-blinds will fly up or run down at his word,

(If a wire has been previously fixed to the cord.)

He can make tables dance and bid chairs stand on end
(But, of course, it must be in the house of a friend).

Home, Home, great Home !

There’s no case like Home !

The spirits to him (howe’er others may hap).

Have proved themselves worth something more than a rap ;

And a new age of miracles people may mark,

(If they ’ll only consent to be kept in the dark).

Home, Home, great Home—

There’s no case like Home !

* Such, it appears, is the true orthography of this gentleman’s name, -whose Eying
exploits so far outdo those of Peter Wilkins.—See Facts Stranger than Fiction, Cornhill
Magazine for August.

A PROTESTANT PANIC.

PROPOSED CREATION IN THE SMARTEST NATION.

These is a Mu. Turnbull, a Roman Catholic, who has been ap-
pointed to the office of Calenderer of Foreign Papers in the State Paper
Office. This does not, at first glance, seem to be a fact worth recording,
except in the Red Book, or some snck esteemed work of reference.
But we must not judge by first glances. As the children say, “looky
ear: ”—

“ A deputation has had an interview with Viscount Palmerston, to present a
memorial respecting the appointment. The deputation consisted of the Eap.l of
Shaftesbury, Lord Calthorpe, the Hon. A. Kinnaird. M.P., Sir W. Verner,
Hart., M,P., &c. &c. The memorial presented by Lord Shaftesbury was signed
by 2,500 persons, of whom 10 were Peers, IS Members of Parliament, 10 Baronets,
85 Magistrates, 51S Clergymen, 553 Dissenting Ministers, besides several generals,
admirals, and other officers in the army and navy, heads of colleges, literary and
other gentlemen. Mr. Kinnaird at the same time presented a similar memorial
from Scotland, signed by 3,500 persons. The memorials were very graciously
received by the Premier, who promised that the subject should receive the attention
it deserved. It appeared that Mr. Turnbull is distrusted even by the friends who
appointed him, two competent persons (Protestants) being ordered to ‘revise’ all
his abstracts.”

Tliis is the most astounding phenomenon Mr. Punch has witnessed
since Donati’s comet. Six thousand persons in a state of agitation
about one poor man, who, under other circumstances, Mr. Punch would
have supposed to be a superior clerk, whose business it is to make a
precis of a document, endorse it, and put it in a pigeon-hole, making a
proper entry in an index-book, so that it might be easily found again.
But the whole Evangelical, world is up in arms against the party.
What is the crime which he is suspected of meditating, or can possibly
commit ? Into the State Paper Office rush the Six Thousand, but who
is the enemy ? Are they afraid that Ms,. Turnbull will translate the
old documents wrongly, and forge evidence that this country really
belongs to the King of Naples or the Emperor of Austria? Or is
he suspected of intending to introduce passages into the love-letters of
Philip.to Sanguinary Mary, which will show that England broke
faith with Spain in. remaining Protestant? Or will Ttjknbull turn
Bulls from Rome into engines damaging to our national character.
If so, it is quite right to set two Protestant sentinels over him; but
why the Six Thousand to watch the sentinels? This is altogether a
most inexplicable case of Protestant Terror, and Mr. Punch would
much like t.o have it cleared up. Shaftesbuby had better call at So
some morning before 6.

Putting Louis Napoleon’s Pipe Out.

The French Empebok complains bitterly of the English Govern-
ment’s interpolation of a bar in his favourite air, Partant pour la Syrie.
He declares it quite spoils his latest arrangement of that favourite
melody, which he had intended to be in five fiats. It seems the Five
Powers did not exactly like the Imperial time, or tune either.

Who will bet Mr. Punch a red cent that in ten years time our
American cousins do not create an American Peerage? The Upper Ten
are evidently awakening to a sense of the distinctions between people.
The New York Herald, the leading journal of the States, is perfectly
disgusted with the snobbishness of the Aldermen of that City. Now
that the Prince op Wales is to be the guest of the President, Queen
Victoria’s “good friend” is affectionately urged to take care that the
young stranger is not approached by the “vulgar rowdies” who
belong to the Corporation. It is particularly desired that he should
not take to the old world such an impression of republicanism as he is
likely to derive from seeing and hearing these vulgar personages. The
Mayor of New York, whom Lord John Russell, blundering, called
Your Excellency, is not an unworthy person, it seems.

“ That he will discharge in a fitting and dignified manner his duties as host, and
that he will convey to his guest an agreeable impression of the cultivation and
refinement of the community of which he is the head, we are fully persuaded.
Whatever Mayor Wood's failings may be, no one will accuse him of being wanting
in the manners and bearing of a gentleman, and there is not, perhaps, a man in this
city better qualified to play the part expected of him on this occasion.”

But as for the Aldermen and such like, they are to keep off, and not
disgrace the Republic. If a banquet is to be got up, it

“ Should be entrusted to the management of a committee of gentlemen in whom
the public have confidence; otherwise it might degenerate into another such scene
of rowdyism and vulgarity as the Japanese ball presented.”

As Mr. Punch knows everything, it is his duty to add, io justice to
the Editor of the New York paper, that his opinion of the present
municipal authorities of the territory formerly the property and still
bearing the name of the Duke , of York, is amply borne out by facts,
especially facts which are occasionally elicited before the Police Magis-
trates of that locality; and on the part of the English nation, Mr. Punch
begs to express his sense of the courtesy intended by the advocacy of
the exclusion of the “rowdies” from the hospitalities that await the
young Prince. On the whole, however, Mr. Punch strongly recom-
mends the construction of a Peerage to the consideration of his
American friends. When Mr. Punch himself next visits the States,
he trusts to be welcomed by the Earl of Lincoln and the Marquis
of Bennett, and is ready to bet his own Lincoln and Bennett
(quite right, Wiscount, to explain that he means a At) that Mr.
Douglas will look uncommonly well in a coronet, of which his Scottisii
namesake, the Marquis of Queensbury will be very happy to send
him a pattern. The Duke of Breckenribge is a title that would
sound nobly, and as that nobleman is, according to Garrett Davis

“ A gentleman of good intents, fine manners, easy and graceful elocution, while
his habits are indolent, and his manners and thoughts superficial,”

the Duke must be the exact counterpart of the majority of our own
titled Swells. Let America think of it, and open a Herald’s Office in
connection with the Office of the Herald.