Punch (43.1862)

September 6, 1862.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

93

EARS FOR INTONATION.

mono the varieties of humbug
which have lately come uuder
our cognisance may be men-
tioned a letter, which has ap-
peared in the Bath Express,
under the signature of H. S.
Fagan. It is a puff of the
pseudo-catholic Church of All
Saints, Margaret Street, which
Me.Fagan highly recommends
to Bath people staying in Lon-
don. He observes that

“ The service must delight even
the most unartistic person, unless
strong preconceived prejudice x>re-
vents his joining in it heartily. The
Psalms he will be especially pleased
with. While joining in that rapid
well-managed Gregorian, he will
feel that he enters more into the
spirit of the Psalms, that he realises
better their use and value in congre-
gational worship than ever he did
before.”

And subsequently Me. Fa-
gan, whose name bespeaks the
Hibernian, and whose pen sug-
gests the Jesuit decoy-goose,
indulges in the subjoined im-
pertinence :—

“ And this is the service which
Punch takes every opportunity of
raising a stupid laugh against,
which East End Magistrates allowed
street boys to hoot down ‘ for fun.’

Punch never objected to
chanting Psalms, although he
may not have hesitated to
point out the absurdity of

singing Collects, or intoning Prayers in recitative. He has also remarked on the absurdity
of burning daylight, and otherwise aping popish rites and ceremonies. How the Psalms are
chanted at All Saints Mr. Bunch does not know; only knows that Me. Fagan is pleased
with them; and surmises that the music which charms his ears may be peculiar. Bunch
once heard a foreign Priest, officiating in the genuine service of which that which delights

Me. Fagan is a spurious imitation make a
noise closely resembling the bray or an ass.
He is inclined to suspect that the chant admired
by Me. Fagan at All Saints was a somewhat
similar performance in the key of D, or Donkey.

THE FEDERAL FELONRY.

The brave army under the command of
General Pope does not stint itself to plunder
with the strong hand. In a Federal newspaper,
even, it is stated that “ the troops also pass
among the population large quantities of forged
Confederate notes, manufactured in Philadel-
phia.” The forces of Geneeal Pope had better
be organised by distribution into divisions, each
destined to carry out a special operation. One
squad of these scoundrels, selected lor service
requiring the muscular strength of powerful
ruffians, might be formed into a brigade under
the denomination of Heavy Burglars; whilst
another set of thieves, designed for nimbler
depredations, might take the name of Light
Prigs. There might also be a scientific corps
of Pickers and Stealers, capable, doubtless, of
stealing anything but a march on the enemy;
but particularly expeditious in stealing away.
This higher department of Pope’s rascalry
should include a body of Faussaires who could
forge as well as utter counterfeit shinplasters;
and with these might be associated a regiment
of Smashers, if it were supposable that Federal
soldiers are paid in a metallic currency.

It is not . probable that any of General
Pope’s villains march wide between the legs,
because, under the present humane conditions
of penal discipline, none of them could have
been accustomed to have gyves on. There is
doubtless more than a shirt and a half in each
company of them, because, if they heretofore
wanted underclothing, by this time we may be
sure that they have found linen enough on every
hedge. It is devoutly to be hoped, that Pope
will soon have led his ragamuffins where they
are peppered.

“ WHY SHOULD OUR GARMENTS,” &c.

“The Artists of the Nineteenth Century ” have issued a declaration
(published by our friend, Miss Emily Faithpul, and it was delicate to
use a lady’s printing press in such a matter) “ On the Influence of cos-
tume and fashion upon High Art.” The declaration is signed by a
great number of eminent men at home and abroad, and its point is to
insist that people of the present day dress so hideously that they will
not make pictures. A transitional change is recommended, and the
Declarers affectionately remind the public that so long as they make
Guys of themselves at the instigation of tailors and milliners, portraits
have no value, except as family memorials, whereas, if we dressed pro-
perly, the artists would make us into tableaux which the whole world
should admire. All this is perfectly true, but what is to be done F
How are we to extricate ourselves from the tyranny of the tailor and
the milliner? This the Declarers do not tell us, nor was it to be
expected perhaps that they should advise us how to conduct a rebellion.
But why do they not tell us how they would like us to dress ? Men,
for instance. Are they to come out with a choice array of colour, and
with a picturesquely cut garb, and that general ampleness and noble-
ness in treatment of costume, which bespeaks the grand and heroic in
the wearer ? In that case, and unless the Declarers have something
better to recommend, which we humbly conceive to be impossible, there
is one garb which fulfils all the above conditions, and renders the
owner a subject for the pencil of the grand school. Need Mr. Bunch add
that such costume is His Own. My brethren, what a world this would
be to live in and to paint if we were All Punches—except the Judies.

A Ticket-of-Leave that Really is Wanted.

We think that a Ticket-of-Leave might be granted with great effect
to his Holiness the Pope. A little travelling at this time of the year
would do him a great deal of good. The French troops might accom-
pany him on the trip. They would be not only company for him, but
would be able, also, to protect him. Should the Pope be prevailed
upon to withdraw his holy person as well as his holy escort from Rome,

then the Papacy might be significantly translated into the three French
magic initials P. P. C., which, we all know, are the fashionable slang
for “ Bour Brendre Conge.” The sooner he takes that conge the better.

SAINTS LAID DOWN TO MELLOW.

Among the news from Paris we read that:—

“ The tomb in white marble, erected in one of the chapels of Nbtre Dame to the
memory of Mgr. Affre, killed at the barricades in June, 1848, is now terminated.
The archbishop is represented in his soutane with the olive branch in his hand, and
in the act of falling mortally wounded. ”

Why did not the Pope, the other day, canonising the alleged Japa-
nese martyrs, whilst his hand was in, canonise the real martyr in whose
memory the above-described monument has been erected ? The Japanese
sufferers are said, truly or falsely, to have been robbers and pirates, and
executed as such; but there is no doubt that Archbishop Affre was
shot in the act of attempting to stay bloodshed by persuasion. His
Holiness might at least as safely have declared the undoubted peace-
maker blessed as he affirmed the beatitude of the questionable victims.
There is a relic, too, of Affre, preserved at Notre Dame; a portion of
his spine perforated by the shot which killed him, and which is fixed on
the point of a golden arrow that threads the perforation. No doubt
this relic is as miraculous as any other in existence, and will be found
so three hundred years hence, if there should then still be a Pope, who
may deem it expedient to canonise a martyr to all appearance meriting
the crown of one so well as the original proprietor of that section of
vertebrae. It generally takes about three centuries to prepare the world
for the discovery that .miracles were notoriously wrought with the
bones of a Saint immediately after his death. Perhaps, however, it is
less likely that Archbishop Affre will be canonised in 2162 than that
the honour of sanctity will be conferred on some of those Irish martyrs
who have lately attested their faith, if not that of their spiritual
teachers, on the gallows. That is to say, provided always that there
shall at that future period be a Pope in being, as there may be if the
physical force of civilised France is eternally to uphold popery and
priestcraft in the Eternal City.