Punch (45.1863)

September 5, 1863.]

97

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

ENGLAND’S NEUTRALITY.

A Parliamentary Debate, with Notes, by a Confederate Reporter.

All ye who with credulity the whispers hear of fancy.

Or yet pursue with eagerness hope’s wild extravagancy',

Who dream that England soon will drop her long miscalled Neutrality,

' And give us with a hearty shake the hands of nationality ;

Read, while we give, with little fault of statement or omission,

The next debate in Parliament on Southern Recognition;

They’re all so much alike, indeed, that one can write it off, I see.

As truly as the Times Report without the gift of prophecy.

Not yet, not yet to interfere does England see occasion,

But treats our good Commissioner with coolness and evasion,

Such coolness in the premises that really ’tis refrigerant
To think that two long years ago she called us a belligerent.

But further Downing Street is dumb, the Premier deaf to reason.

As deaf as is the Morning Post, both in and out of season;

The working men of Lancashire are all reduced to beggary,

And yet they will not listen unto Roebuck or to Gregory :

“ Or any other man ” to-day who counsels interfering.

While all who speak on t’other side obtain a ready hearing;

As, par exemple, Mr. Bright, that pink of all propriety,

That meek and mild disciple of the blessed Peace Society.

“Why, let ’em fight,” says Mr. Bright, “these Southerners, I hate
’em.

Aud hope the Black Republicans will soon exterminate ’em;

If Ereedom can’t Rebellion crush, pray tell me what’s the use of
her?”

And so he chuckles o’er the fray as gleefully as Lucifer.

Enough of him—an abler man demands our close attention,

Tiie Maximus Apollo of strict Arws-Intervention;

With pitiless severity, though decorous and calm his tone,

Thus speaks the “old man eloquent,” the puissant Earl oe Palmerston:

“ What though the land run red with blood, what though the lurid
flashes

Of cannon light, at dead of night, a mournful heap of ashes,

Where many an ancient mansion stood—what though the robber pillages
The sacred home, the house of God, in twice a hundred villages—

“ What though a fiendish, nameless wrong, that makes revenge a
duty,

Is daily doue” (0 Lord, how long?) “ to tenderness and beauty ? ”
(And who shall tell, this deed of hell, how deadlier far a curse it is
Than even pulling temples down and burning Universities ?)

“ Let xArt.s decay, let millions fall, for aye let Ereedom perish,

With all that in the Western world men fain would love and cherish,
Let Universal Ruin there become a sad reality,

We cannot swerve, we must preserve our rigorous neutrality.”

Ob, Pam ! oh, Pam ! hast ever read what’s writ in holy pages,

How Blessed the Peace-Makers are, God’s Children of the ages —
Perhaps you think the promise sweet was nothing but a platitude,

’Tis clear that you have no concern in that Divine beatitude.

But “hear! hear ! hear! ” another peer, that mighty man of muscle.

Is on his legs, a hearing begs, the noble Earl of Russell ;

Thus might he speak, did not of speech his shrewd reserve the folly
see.

And thus unfold the subtle plan of England’s secret policy :—

“ John Bright was right, yes, let ’em fight, these fools across the water,
’Tis no affair at all of ours, their Carnival of slaughter ;

The Christian world, indeed, may say we ought not to allow it, Sirs,
But still ’tis music in our ears, this roar of Yankee howitzers.

“ A word or two of sympathy, that costs us not a penny,

We give the gallant Southerners, the few against the many.

We say their noble fortitude of final triumph presages,

And praise in Blackwood's Magazine Jeff Davis and his Messages—

“ Of course we claim the shining fame of glorious Stonewall Jackson,
Who typifies the English race, a sterling Anglo-Saxon;

To bravest song his deeds belong, to Clio and Melpomene ”—

(And why not for a British stream demand the Chickahominy ?)

“ But for the cause in which he fell we cannot lift a finger,

’Tis idle on the question any longer here to linger;

’Tis true the South has freely bled, her sorrows are Homeric, oh,

Her case is like to his of old who journeyed unto Jericho—

“ The thieves have stripped and bruised, although as yet tney have not
bound her.

We’d like to see her slay ’em all to right and left around her,

We shouldn’t ciy in Parliament if Lee should cross the Raritan,

But England never yet was known to play the Good Samaritan.

“ And so we pass the other side, and leave them to their glory.

To give new proofs of manliness, new scenes for song and story :

These honeyed words of compliment may possibly bamboozle ’em.

But ere we intervene, you know, we’ll see ’em in—Jerusalem.

“ Yes, let ’em fight till both are brought to hopeless desolation.

Till wolves troop round the cottage door in one and ’tother nation;

Till worn and broken down the South shall prove no more refractory,
And rust eats up the silent looms in every Yankee factory:

“ Till bursts no more the cotton boll o’er fields of Carolina,

And fills with snowy flosses the dusky hands of Dinah;
i Till war has dealt its final blow and Mr. Seward’s knavery
Has put an end in all the land to Ereedom and to Slavery.

“ The grim Bastille, the rack, the wheel, without remorse or pity,

I May flourish with the guillotine in every Yankee City,

| No matter should Old Abe revive the brazen bull of Ehalaris,

| ’Tis no concern at all of ours,” (Sensation in the galleries')—

“ So shall our ‘ Merry England’ thrive on transatlantic troubles,

I While India on her distant plains her crop of cotton doubles ;

| And so as long as North or South shall show the least vitality,

We cannot swerve, we must preserve our rigorous neutrality.”

—Your speech, my Lord, might well become a Saxon legislator.

When the “ fine old English gentlemen ” Jived in a state of natur ’—
When Yikings quaffed from human sculls their fiery draughts of honey-
mead,

Long, long before the Barons bold met tyrant John at Runnymede.

But. ’tis a speech so plain, my Lord, that all may understand it,

I And so we quickly turn to fight again the Yankee bandit,

Convinced that we shall fairly win at last our nationality,

I Without the help of Britain’s arm, in spite of her Neutrality !

*** Mr. Punch has inserted the preceding lines from a Secesh Corre-
j spondent, as “a few straws to show which way the wind blows” in the
! South.

MAGISTRATES AND MUSHROOMS.

There are some Magistrates who do not know how to enforce the
; rights of property ; others who do. Among the latter must decidedly
be included the gentlemen named in the subjoined extract from the
Manchester Guardian:—

“ Penalties for Trespass at Preston.—On Saturday, at the County Police
Court, Preston, before Messrs. C. R. Jaoson, R. Oliverson, and Peter Catterall,
j a man named William Walmsley, was summoned for trespassing on some land in
Fishwick, and doing damage to the amount of one penny. In reply to the Bench,

[ the defendant said he had done no damage.—He was fined half-a-crown and costs,

I ordered to pay the damage, and in default, one month's imprisonment in the House
of Correction.—Afterwards, a man, named Roger Hothersall, was charged with
j being in the same field, and doing damage to the extent of one penny.—Defendant.

I plead guilty. I hope you will be as merciful as you can. I am a labourer, and
I work for the Guardians, on the Cattle Market.—The Chairman. Well, but you know
land must be protected.—Defendant. I'm sorry. I hope you will be lenient. 1
only earn a shilling a day, and out of that have to keep myself, my wife, and two
little children. I can’t pay any fine.—The Bench. What were you doing in the
field?—Defendant. Well, I had gone to get a few mushrooms for our dinner.—The
Bench. You are fined half-a-crown and costs; you must also pay the damage;
and, in default, you must go to the House of Correction for a month.—-Defendant.
Well, I can’t pay, gentlemen.—He was then removed to one of the cells.”

Here is a malefactor who, merely to get a few mushrooms for bis
dinner, does not hesitate to trespass on another man’s land, and do
damage to the amount of one penny ! His only excuse for this act of
depredation is, that, having a wife and two children to keep, he earns
only one shilling a day ! It is very dangerous to allow the poorer
classes to trespass on the fields in order to get mushrooms to eke out
their meals. There are lots of other fungi that the poor might eat, and
when they find that out they will commit 1'arther trespasses to procure
them, and do damage to the value thereof; more than a penny. This
trespassing in search of toadstools must, be knocked on the head ; and
now that waste landk *ire everywhere getting enclosed and appropriated,
there is no finding toadstools without trespassing. Let wretches be
taught to keep in the turnpike roads, and out of the fields at all times
except when they are employed to labour in them. We can enter into
the feelings of the Preston Bench, who, when they sent the penny
trespasser, Hothersall, to the House of Correction, may perhaps have
regretted that they could not order him to be whipped. Don’t their
Worships know how to deal with distress in Lancashire?