Punch (45.1863)

September 12, 18G3.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

105

/Y

THE HOAX ABOUT HUDSON.

Dare you, little Earl Jack,

To give Hudson the sack,

Eor the work he has done long and well,
And, that you, in his post
May put one of the host
Of your Elliots, a statesman expel ?

Then your courage, indeed,

Will immensely exceed
The expression of famed Sidney Smith.
It must greatly surpass
All the valour of brass,

If you thus can prefer kin and kith.

Turning out man of worth,

To give nephew a berth,

E’en a Bishop would deem a disgrace :
And you’re not quite so brave
As to play thus the knave,

No; you can’t be so bold and so base.

Old Party (reads). “ Crystal Palace—This Day—Fdte of the Amateur Gymnastic
Society,—c That’s the Holiday for me ! ’ ”

SAVAGES ON THE COAST OE KENT.

Brighton at this season may be said to be crammed,

I not to say replete, with beauty. Naturally so. Brighton
is a bathing-place ; so is Ramsgate : so is Margate. But
the authorities at Brighton have made calegons indis-
pensable, or de rigueur as the genteel say. At Margate
and Ramsgate, however, bathers are allowed to crowd the
coast in a state of native innocence more perfect than that
in which the men of Kent rejoiced when they went about
in a coat of woad of a very partial nature, and nothing
corresponding to “ Sydenham 17«. 6i7.,” except a patch of
colour which may have occupied the place of those figures
in the well-known advertisement. The consequence has
been that no young lady of any pretensions to refinement
can even mention Ramsgate or Margate. That those
watering-places may enjoy their fair share of the beauty, and
the business now engrossed by Brighton, it is necessary
that local self-government should subject bathing to those
conditions which are prescribed by civilisation.

A TERRIBLE ASSAULT.

What a horribly savage country is this England, to be sure! What
brutally aggressive ruffians are allowed to be at large in it! Only look,
Ma’am, at this awfully atrocious case reported a short while since in
the Western Times:—

“ WOODBURY PETTY SESSIONS.

“ William Budd, an elderly labouring man, was summoned fbr using threaten-
ing language towards the Honourable Lady Gertrude Rolle, and putting her in
bodily fear.

“ Her Ladyship stated as follows I saw the defendant on the 31st of July last,
between six and seven o’clock in the evening, on Colyton Common, in the parish of
Colyton Raleigh, cutting turf. I was walking 15 or 20 yards off. I heard a voice
calling after me, but I did not think anything of it, till a young lady who was with
me, said he was speaking to me. I turned round and asked the man what he
wanted, when he called out in loud tones, ‘ I want some cider, you had best not
deny me. Come on, come on.’ He said this in a very threatening manner, and
held up his fists at the same time (here her ladyship suiting the action to the word,
threw down her parasol, and compressing her face, and shaking her fists, she en-
deavoured to imitate the old man’s conduct). * * * He walked two or three
paces forward and then went back again, and I went on my way, but I was as much
frightened as if a pistol had been let off at my head.”

In palliation of his frightful conduct the audacious hardened mis-
creant (who was described by one of the witnesses, who had known him
many years, as being an “industrious, sober, honest man”) had the
impudence to state, through the lawyer who defended him, that he had
mistaken Lady Rolle and her companions for three lace girls, and had
offered them a drink of cider, which offer they mistook lor his having
asked for some ! When afterwards he found out whom he had accosted,
he was frightened out of his wits at having taken such a liberty, and
her Ladyship confessed in her cross—yes, very cross-examination—
that—

“ Wlien the defendant found out that I was Lady Rolle he was very sorry,
because he knew he would get the worst of it. He came a few days afterwards to
beg my pardon, at least my butler told me so.

Mr. Floud. You refused to see him, then?

y Witness. Of course I did. I think it a good opportunity when one does meet
with a case that can be brought home to the party to do so.”

Ladies, nervous ones especially, will feel thankful to her Ladyship
for trying to “ bring home ” such an outrage to the perpetrator as the

one that she experienced, and they will regret to learn the case was
after all dismissed, on the ground that the complainant was not in
bodily fear. But though her shattered nerves afflict us with the very
deepest sympathy, we fear we must allow that this decision was a just
one, for there was certainly no ground to think the insult was inten-
tional. If fine ladies would but condescend to talk a little oftener to
the labourers they meet, they would not be terrified at hearing some
six words from them.

IS MONTALEMBERT A HERETIC?

Alt, honour to M. de Montalembert for the courageous avowal, in
the face of his priesthood at Malines, of the justice and common sense
thus eloquently outspoken:—

“ Without mental reservation and without hesitation, I declare myself an upholder
of liberty of conscience. . . The gag forced into the mouth of whomsoever lifts

up his voice with a pure heart to preach his faith, that gag I feel between my own
lips, and I shudder with pain.”

Count Montalemeert distinctly contended for the liberty of
preaching error as well as truth. So it will not do for their Ultra-
montane Eminences and Reverences to say that there is only one faith
that can be preached with a pure heart, and that no pain can possibly
be caused to M. de Montalembert by forcing a gag into the mouth
which preaches heretical pravity.

But how, then, about that liberty of the Press which Infallibility, late
and present, has so bitterly cursed and condemned in unmistakeable and
undeniable Allocutions ? Count Montalembert and the Holy Father
are at issue. Which is to cry Nrravi? Which will cave in? As the
liberty of the Press is the matter in question between the most illustrious
champion of the Papacy and the Pope, we will take that liberty to
remark that “the quarrel between them is a very pretty quarrel as it
stands.”

NOTE BY A NEDDY-TOR.

The New Court of Ass-size.-
we believe, to be held at Bray.

-The forthcoming Donkey Show. It is,