Punch (44.1863)

110 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [March H 1863.

convinced that ample compensa-
tion would have liberally been
given; and as tor trampling on
poor people, in all the history of
England there never was a time
when the well-being of the poor
has been more generously cared
for by the rich than now.

The Gushers say that fox-hunt-
ing is frivolous and foolish: but
it brings classes together that
might otherwise be separate, and
as a manly healthy pastime it is
far more worthy of support than
of abuse. The gushing gents too
probably know nothing of its plea-
sures, and to hunt a girl down
Regent Street may to them seem
sport far nobler than following, a
fox. Mr. Punch however looks
wisely to results; and a fine old
country fox-hunter, with his cheery
full-lunged voice, strong limbs and
healthy life, is to him, he must con-
fess, a far more pleasant picture
than the smoke-dried pumped-out
individual, who is conteut to take
his pleasure only in a town..
“ Live and let live ” be the motto,
and don’t kill foxes but by hunt-
ing them in fair and manly sport.
The fox-hunters do nothing _ to
disturb the little game of larking
town-bred gents, and why should
they—the latter—fling foul words
at the former? A dance at a
Casino and a drink may be ex-
static pleasures to those who,,
somehow, relish them; but there
is pleasure in fresh air and manly
country exercise, and they who.
can’t enjoy it have certainly no-
right to sneer at those who can.

ZEAL POE A FRIEND.

Friendship is a holy thing, and a generous friendship no cold
medium knows, and friendship on thee my anchor’s cast, to thee my
bleeding heart is bound, thou wilt be with me to the last, thou, whom I
early sought and found, and so on, and we trust we need say no more
in proof that we know and value the sacred tie. But there are other
sentiments in the world beside friendship, and one of them is the senti-
ment of fair-play. To this, as existing in the bosom of his contemporary,
the John^Bull newspaper, Mr. Punch begs to make a slight appeal.

The Marquis or Nokmanby is perpetually making very silly speeches
in the House of Lords upon Italian affairs. These addresses please
himself and a knot of legitimatist old women of both sexes, and do
nobody any particular harm, and therefore Mr. Punch seldom does more
than smile at them. But it is one thing for an unwise elderly Lord to
emit spiteful gabble, and another lor a smart and intelligent journalist
to translate that noise into effective language, and make leading articles
in honour of the gabbler. We beg to signify to our friend John Bull
that it is not quite the thing to offer one’s own smart notions to the
Conservative public, while presenting them by implication as Loud Nor-
manby’s, who is notoriously incapable of being clever or logical.
Dramatised, the little scene which Loud Normanby as Lord Cackles,
and John Bull as the Intelligent Friend play, would go somewhat in this
wise, o^r rather as an American would say, “ in this foolish.”

Lord Cackles. I assure you, niv Lords, that Piedmont, that is to say,
the King or Italy, as he calls himself, well, I mean Victor Amadeus,
or 1 might say, Asmodeus, only his name’s Emmanuel--

Intelligent Friend. Exactly so. His Lordship points out with very
great force that although undoubtedly the Sovereign of Sardinia has
procured recognition of his newly-acquired title of King or Italy, it
by no means represents his positioii in regard to a very large portion of
the inhabitants of the Peninsula.

Lord Cackles. Ya-as-just so. And, my Lords, when you talk, I mean
when He talks, this Mr. Emmanuel—I don’t mean the respectable
jeweller in Hanover Square, tar from it, and quite the reverse—when
Mr. King or Italy talks about uniting Piedmont, that is Italy, instead
of that it is only Piedmont that—that, don’t you see?

Intelligent Friend. Precisely so. _ His Lordship in the very happiest
way characterises the new state of things, not as a united Italy, but as
an aggrandised Piedmont.

Lord Cackles. Ya—as—exactly. And when you talk, my Lords, that
is when he, Mr. King or Italy talks of the tyrannies and all that
which he says used to be in the times of my friends the King or
Naples and the Grand Dure of Madeira, no, Modena; well, if the
present folks do the same or worse, how can you say there’s a change
for the better ?

Intelligent Friend. Nothing can be more convincing. His Lordship
felicitously inquires, whether the Italians have not awaked from their
dream to iind the yoke of an alien race upon their necks more galling
and more remediless than the most despotic sway of their rightful
sovereigns ?

Now, John Bull, you must not play Lord Cacrles’s Intelligent
Eriend to this extent. Friendship is all that Punch has described it,
but fair play is also respectable. If you like to play off your own bat
for the bigots and tyrants who have been expelled from Italy, that is a
matter of taste. But you really must not talk seriously of Lord
Noemanby’s “ commentary,” and Lord Normanby’s “ friendship
i’or Italy,” and so forth, as if our amusing friend were a statesman.
You do liim no good, because you compel Mr. Punch to notice the case,
and you must see that the less Lord Normanby is noticed the better.
We shall next have leading articles based on the utterances of Lord
Dundreary.

Church Chess.

{Latest state of the Game.)

White Bishop attacks black Bishop1
Black Bishop declines to move2

REMARKS.

1 This we consider a mistake.

2 As might be expected. Now we suppose a Knight (Sir S„
Lushington) must interpose. But the game is in a strange state.

NEW PASHION.

In remembrance of the numerous seats occupied by the fair sex on
the occasion of the Royal Procession, it will be the fashion for Ladies,
the next month, to wear their hair in nlat-forms.

IS FOX-HUNTING INJURIOUS ?

xY Short while since, the gushing gents who write for the cheap press, flung a penful of foul words
against a certain noble duke, for having, as they put it, tyrannously trampled on a freeborn British
subject, who had killed a noxious creature hunted by the duke. A fox, as it appeared, had been followed to
some land in the possession of the slaughterer, and when the hounds were in full cry, was destroyed by
that possessor, who with venomous malignity seized upon the chance of robbing bis rich neighbours of
a pleasant morning’s sport. The duke on riding up, with his “myrmidons” around him, remonstrated
against the destruction of the animal, which was giving some few gentlemen a little harmlessi ;sport; and
tin's act ot remonstrance, coupled with the claiming of the carcase of the creature, was construed by the
Gushers as an act of overbearing tyrannical oppression, such as a haughty aristocracy alone could
wish to perpetrate, and which all friends of British freedom should cry shame on, and resent.

Low, no one more than Mr. Punch has stuck up for the liberty and rights of Biitish subjects, be they
poor or not: but he cannot see that this reported ducal act deserved the strong terms of abuse which the
Gushers heaped upon it. Eox-hunting is a national fine English institution, and does more good to the
country than the gushing gents may know. Moreover it appeared to Mr. Punch, on reading the report of
the case now under notice, that the killing of the fox was a wanton act of vulpicide, committed by a
.-urly churl who, since he took no pleasure in the hunt himself, evinced a dog-in-1 lie-manger joy in stopping
< tiiers Irom enjoying it. Had any injury indeed been done to the man’s properly, Mr. Punch feels quite