Punch (42.1862)

102

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Tuesday. Earl Derby, in remarking on some legal redundancies in
a law Bill, modestly described himself as “ an unlearned person.” A
nobleman who can read Italian newspapers, and can translate Odes of
Horace into elegant English verse—he call himself unlearned! Eh,
Mr. Cox ? We were quite proud of our Learning, weren’t us, the day
we found out that the Bill of Rites was not the Act of Uniformity.
But, the unlearned Derby made the lawyers cut away the superfluous
bosh, which turned out to be “ words of explanation,” and of course
darkened the business.

Me don’t spend all our money in soldiers, Mrs. Materfamilias.
Government gives about ^800,000 a-year in aid of education; that is to
say, a good deal less than a sixteenth part of the Army expenditure.
And recently there has been an endeavour to render this expenditure
more profitable. The Education Scheme is a teaser, M’m, for those
well-informed young men who come to your dinner parties, and talk so
fluently about everything, to the admiration of dear Blanche and
Latjra. It is a subject that cannot be got up by a rapid glance at the
speeches during one’s after-breakfast weed. And you may have re-
marked, though you were too good-natured to notice it, how poor
Augustus Cackleby, who tried a little confident talk on the matter,
at dinner on Tuesday, was floored by that reverend and grim country
parson, Mr. Grubbery Shrubbery, who is compelled to comprehend
the whole business. Gussy made a gallant bolt of it with that joke about
Pupil-teachers and a young lady’s Eyes, but the table adjudged him
sat upon.

To-night, M’m, the Bishop of Oxford delivered a large speech
upon the subject, and without boring you with details, or pretending
to mean to coach Master Augustus for his next dinner, we may
mention that the Bishop attacked the Reform which the Government
have sought to bring about. The plain English of the matter is, that
we have ludicrously neglected the Three R’s in our laudable British
zeal for a Eourth. We have not managed to insert much Reading,
’B iting, or ’Rithmetic into the children of the poor, but we—all denomi-
na i ions—have worked hard at something which is called Religion, but
which does not approach the noble thing which that word should
mean. So, when the Schools are examined, we find the children ex-
tremely intimate with Jehosaphat, but on distant terms with Cocker,
Mavor and Carstairs. This awkwardness, and a variety of evils
that help to produce it, Government tries to do away, and of
course battle is given by persons who are—many of them—thoroughly
in earnest in then- belief that the old system works well. The Bishop
made himself their mouthpiece, and was very eloquent, and not at all
convincing. There is to be much debating over the matter, before the
Amended Revised Code is finally accepted, but we think, M’m, that
you will observe that the Reform is in the right direction, and a
sensible woman, like yourself, cannot fail to perceive the necessity of
carefulness in education—thank you, M’m a little more sugar.

Mr. Cowper stated that he had denied a site near St. Margaret’s
Church to some persons who wished to erect there a statue of the late
Joseph Locke, the engineer. Considering that, as Mr. Charles
Knight remarks in his invaluable Cyclopaedia, “Mr. Locke’s name
must hold a chief place in any record of the development of our Rail-
way system during the last quarter of a century,” it does not much
matter whether an official refuses or denies any particular corner for a
statue to such a man; but a more appropriate locality might easily be
selected than the gardens in which Cowper’s Winter Morning’s Walk
is taken. Mu. Layard stated that a miscreant who had killed an
English doctor at Pisa would be duly dealt with by the authorities, and
that a Sardinian captain who had wopped a Maltese editor had been
fined; in each case Baron Ricasoli behaving as might be expected.
The first offender ought to be promptly abbreviated, but we should
like to know a little more about the second case, in which one Debono
was the beaten party—all brutality is detestable, but some of the
Maltese are brutal slanderers.

Then came a goodish bit of Anti-ultramontane spite. Maynooth had
sent an address of condolence on the late national loss. Mr. Whalley
demanded whether Sir Robert Peel had ascertained that this
was not a forgery, as from Maynooth’s notorious disloyalty (in proof
of which Mr. Whalley cited a song sung by the students), it was
not probable that the College would express itself properly on such an
occasion. Sir Robert merely vouched for the genuiueness of the
document, but Mr. Bernal Osborne, with no great felicity, attempted
to rebuke the querist, and on a subsequent night had to correct nearly
every one of his own allegations about Mr. Whalley. But the latter
should not air, upon needless occasions, the mantle which has descended
to him from Mr. Spooner—the moths are annoying.

An interesting debate followed on the question whether Britannia
ought not to expect such of her colonies as have grown up, to defend
themselves, instead of relying on her, and a resolution to the effect that
at all events they ought to assist in their own external defence, was
agreed to. Mr. Locke King then got Counted Out.

Wednesday was the anniversary day on which by order of Gregory
the Great there used to be a sprinkling of ashes, as a commencement
of Lent. The day was called the Dies Cinerum or Ash-Wednesday.
The ashes were abolished at the Reformation as being “a vain show,”

[March 15, 1862.

but surely the Legislature caunot think itself included in that defini-
tion. It abolishes itself, however, on Ash-Wednesday.

Thursday. The Bavarian Wick, which the Powers took so mucli trouble
to stick into Greece, is in a splutter, and may probably go out with a bad
odour. That is to say, many of Otho’s subjects and soldiers are in
insurrection. If the two parties would extirpate each other, and Pan
were not dead, it would be an elegant thing to restore the old tern pies
and altars, and fit up Greece as Classical and Mythological Gardens
for the recreation of mankind. And we would make * * * * *
the Curator, because he is the Greatest Heathen we know. Whom do
we mean ? Emd out.

Army Estimates, and good debates thereon, in the course of which
Lord Palmerston gave as detailed and practical an explanation of
certain defects in the Armstrong gun, and their remedies, as Sir
William himself could have given, and if Pam had not a perpetual
retainer from Us, and had not bound himself to write for no other
journal, we should have thought that he composed the narrative which
appeared in the Times about the demolition of the Eairbairn target at
Shoeburyness. Sir George Lewis was facetious about “ large bores
and small bores,” and said that experiments with both were then going
on, at which the Committee laughed. Later the Government were less
facetious, receiving a defeat, by 81 to 53, and being compelled to knock
£10,000 off the estimate for Sandhurst College, Mr. Selwyn, Member
for the Cambridge Colleges, leading the attack.

Mr. Cowper asked for and got £2000 to make a temporary Road
across Hyde Park. It is for Exhibition purposes, and the Yan Demons
are not to use it, but all vehicles carrying human beings to the Show
may. The vote was carried by 78 to 28.

Friday. The Education Question was again raised in the Lords, this
time by Lord Lyttleton, a thoughtful and scholarly noble who has
given much attention to the subject. His was a very different oration
from the showy, guShy harangue of the Bishop, and he dealt in no
wholesale commination. He was answered by Lord Granville, and
ultimately withdrew the resolutions he had proposed. The best and
shortest answer to all objections to the Reform is in the facts that out
of 15,952 existing schools only 6897 are aided, and that only a fourth of
the children in these aided schools are really educated in return for
£800,000. So reports the Canon of Bristol, who has been for 35 years
an active educator.

The Longford election has been carried by Major O’Reilly and
the priests, with the aid of the gentler suasion of bludgeons, occasional
remonstrances being made in the shape of charges by the dragoons.
“ It is very fit that the Committee hear a riot,” and we presume the
Pope’s Major will be unseated—meantime Sir Robert Peel under-
takes to prosecute the rioters.

Then came a long debate on the question of the American Blockade,
which Mr. Gregory, in an able speech, endeavoured to prove no
blockade at all. He thought that if it had been one, we were one-
sided in recognising it, but being both unjust and ineffective, the House
ought to declare against it. Divers speakers exerted themselves, and
the Solicitor-General, Sir Roundell Palmer, who has a special repu-
tation for international law, had his first opportunity of coming out. with
his learning. He thought that we ought to remember the difficulties in
which the United States Government had been placed, and argued that
there was no valid reason for condemning the blockade. Lord Robert
Cecil professed extreme admiration of the “splendid” speech of Mr.
Gregory, and the eloquence and learning of Sir Roundell, . and
talked of the distress occasioned by the present state of things.
Admiral Walcott called the Stone Eleet a blot on the American
escutcheon, and the debate ended. The English Commons evidently
mean to wait, but not to be dumb waiters.

“HERE’S A COIL, MY MASTERS!”—ShaJcspeare.

The Pythoness writes to us to complain of the impertinent intrusion
of Mr. Sclater upon her privacy. She does not see, she says, why a
poor serpent is not to be permitted to hatch her eggs in her own way,
without Negretti and Zambra’s thermometers being thrust in upon
her maternal coils. No wonder, she. says, that some warmth may be
detected in her under such persecution. She feels it especially hard,
when every lady in confinement is left to take her caudle in peace, that
a poor Pythoness is not to be allowed her egg-hot without letters in
the Newspapers. We have pleasure in giving expression to these
feelings on the part of the interesting lady Python at the Regent’s Park.

A Literal Correction.

When Prince Jerome was charged with putting into the mouth of
the people, on the return of Napolbon the Eirst from Elba, the cry
of “ a has les pretres ! ” he declared that what he said, or meant to say,
was “ a, has les traUres! ” Prince Jerome should really mind his
“pis ”—his cues he is understood to take from the Tuileries, whatever
appearances may say to the contrary.