Punch (43.1862)

14

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 11, 1862.

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A COMFORTER.

Sympathetic Swell (devoted to the Noble Science). “ Got a Wetohed Cold ! no, weally ? That’s a bad job, old Fella.—Might ha’ been

WORSE, THOUGH.—HORSE MIGHT HAVE HAD IT, YOU KNOW !

A FAIR OFFER FROM JOHN BULL TO MISS COLUMBIA.

Shall we kiss and be friends P Why not ? Sister Columbia,

N o more ugly faces let you and me pull;

Though we both have our tempers, our worries and troubles,

Let “ bygones be bygones” for me, says John Bull.

You must own that you ’ve given me a deal of bad language.

And have been far too free with your bunkum and brag:

That I ’ll pocket, if now, like a sensible woman,

You ’ll disclaim your friend Wilkes, and salute the old flag.

Fools may sneer and call family feelings all humbug,

But I feel that one blood in the veins of us flows ;

Our tongues are the same, though I don’t like your fashion
Of talking, (as you’d make me pay) through the nose.

We snarled and we scratched, in the days of our folly.

When you wanted to leave me and start for yourself;

To think of those times makes me quite melancholy—

The blood that we wasted—the temper and pelf !

When I vowed that I’d tame you, and make you knock under,

And you dared me and bit, like a vixen as well;

I did think by this time we had both seen our blunder;

Meant to live as good friends and in peace buy and sell.

But of late I can’t think what the deuce has come o’er you;

First, you turn your own house out of window, and then,

Declare that 1 want to o’erreach you and floor you,

Stop my ships, seize my passengers, bully my men !

I can stand a great deal from my own blood-relations,

And I know that your troubles your temper have soured ;

But I can’t take a blow, in the face of all nations,

Arid consent to see law by brute force overpowered.

Only own your friend Wilkes is a blundering bully,
And make over Mason and Slidell to me,

And all that is past I’ll condone, fair and fully,

Kiss you now, and in future, I do hope, agree!

THE RESIGNATION OF MR. BRIGHT.

{From, the “Morning Star.”)

We blush for Birmingham. It is unworthy to be represented by
the greatest orator, noblest patriot, and soundest statesman in the
world. Mr. Bright owes it to himself and the universe to resign his
seat for blundering, bloodshedding, blatant Birmingham. A vast meet-
ing has taken place, at which the working classes, those for whom he
has laboured so gloriously, were present in thousands, and in answer to
the moderate demand that they should call on the Government to sacri-
fice what is called the honour of England, they have in the most brutal,
uneducated, and un-Christian way, passed by an overwhelming majority,
a resolution that they have confidence in Lord Palmerston. Con-
fidence in Lord Palmerston 1 This from Birmingham, after Mr.
Bright has expressly commanded them to have no confidence in Lord
Palmerston. Monstrously ungrateful and insolent as mobs have ever
been, we did not expect this, even from the dingy rabble of the Toy-
shop of Europe. They are more fearfully demoralised than we could
have believed. It must be that the large number of aristocratic mansions
in Warwickshire have exerted a poisoning influence upon the masses.
The lordly halls in those beautiful scenes must have sent out their
gorged menials, with beer in one hand and bribes in the other, and the
thousands of Birmingham blockheads have yielded to ducal debauchery.
But as they have made their bed, they must lie. We can scarcely
commiserate them, Christmas time though it be. But they have
repudiated Mr. Bright and his teaching, and chosen to stand up for
a false honour, and now in his turn, he stands up for his own
honour, and repudiates them. We are authorised to state that Mr.
Bright, reluctant as he is even to seem to take office under the Crown,
has applied for that lying sham, the Chiltern Hundreds, and Birming-
ham may go where good intentions make the pavement.