Punch (47.1864)

November 19, 1864.1

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

205

RUDE INQUIRY

Street Arabs. “ Hoo curls yer ’Air, Gov’nour?”

HEY POP THE BAND OF HOPE!

Join the National Temperance League,

If you wish to turn souls to sobriety ;

In its labour of love, no fatigue
Can retard that devoted Society.

Exhortation, discussion, discourse.

They push forward on every occasion,

But repudiate physical force,

And rely upon pure “ moral suasion.”

They attempt to control you with facts.

And they try to convince you by figures,

They distribute a great many tracts,

But demand no prohibitive rigours.

That’s the way to restrain you from beer.

And from spirits and wine to convert you,

For they don’t even force you to hear;

And to listen at least will not hurt you.

But there’s wholly another affair.

An intemperate temperance faction,

Whose intention, they loudly declare,

Is to limit your freedom of action;

All your taverns they want to shut up
On the sober, that sots may not guzzle.

Brook their hand ’twist your lip and your cup,
And you ’ll very soon have on their muzzle.

Don’t get into the boat of that crew,

Don’t go pulling with those agitators;

They have odious dictation in view.

Never vote for Maine Law legislators.

Moral suasion obedience may coax,

But compulsion arouses defiance:

Join the League, if you will, then, good folks,
But by all means oppose the Alliance.

Liberal Reasoning.

(Dedicated to the Middlesex Magistrates and Sergeant Payne.)

Why ought Homan Catholic Priests to have the use of
a Chapel in Prisons ? Because they may justly complain
of their Wrongs as long as they are defrauded of their
Rites.

THE BLACK ART AT NEWCASTLE.

A Newcastle Solon has dismissed an application from a gentleman
who had paid his guinea to see the Brothers Davenport in that
enlightened centre of the coal trade. The application was made, we
presume, under the statute 9th Geo. II., c. 5, which, while abolish-
ing prosecutions for witchcraft, enacts penalties of imprisonment and
pillory (the latter now defunct) against any person pretending to
exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or con-
juration ; or undertaking to tell fortunes, or pretending from skill or
knowledge in any occult or crafty science to discover stolen goods.

We are loth to question the wisdom of the Bench—even of the
Newcastle Bench: and perhaps pretending that the “Spirits” tie
and untie the Brothers, and carry their guitars, trumpets, and. trom-
bones whizzing round the room in the dark, may be neither pretending
to witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration in such a sense as
to satisfy that form -of the legal mind which dispenses justice on Tyne
side. But it these offences are properly punishable—and we take Mrs.
Dohany, the Irish witch, to witness that there is nothing so likely to
keep the Spirits down as a diet of skilly and a protracted “exhibition”
of oakum picking, with an occasional course of crank—we would
respectfully submit to the legislative wisdom that the statute might be
improved by including the operations of “ the Spirits ” within its four
corners.

If it be wurth. while to protect the few silly women and sillier
men who believe in such things, from pretended witches, wise women,
and readers of the stars, it is surely not unreasonable to bring the
strong grasp of the law down on those spiritual “ hands ” that are
just now so busy in their vocation among the nocked of the weaker
sort.

De minimis non curat lex is a good legal maxim : and many may think
Be nmnibus non curat lex as wholesome a rule of legislation. But if only
wise men were legislated for, law-makers and lawyers would perish for
want of work. Indeed, as no wise man, it is well said, ever goes to law,
it must be taken for granted that fools are already abundantly recognised
as haying a claim to be taken in and done for by the law. We, there-
fore, humbly submit to the Legislature, that our gulls and geese may

not unreasonably be protected from the decoys of such skilful fowlers
as Messrs. Home, Davenport Brothers, and Company, and should
strongly recommend an infusion of “ Sperrits” into the statute
9 Geo. II., c. 5.

It may be hard on such time-honoured impostors as witches, star-
gazers, and wise women, to be bracketted with anything so new and so
shallow as the Spirit-mongers, and we are willing to make considerable
allowance for their feelings. We would even agree to waive the
offensive link of in pari materia, and to give the older rogues a section
to themselves ; thus acknowledging the trade in illicit “ Sperrits ” to be
the lowest form which the knave has as yet assumed in his world-wide
and age-long warfare on the fool.

THE MILDEST OF HINTS TO A VERY GREAT
PERSONAGE.

My dear George,

Everything that you say deserves to be listened to with
abject attention, and to be printed in letters of gold. Eor this reason,
and because the actors on the stage make so much noise with their
absurd dialogue, while you are discoursing wisdom in your private box,
that the other night I could hear only about two-thirds of what you
were saying (and yet yon spoke with a noble loudness), I wish you
would hang your handkerchief over the front of the box when you want
to talk. Then the stupid players would see it, and take it as a signal to
stop their bosh until you should have spoken all your pearls and dia-
monds. I am sure that you will take this hint in the spirit in which it
is given, for you are the best of good fellows, and a very zealous Com-
mander-in-Chief, and I have always been very kind to you—you know
^at. Ever your affectionate Cousin,

St. Inkermaros Day. _ Punch.

Legal Mem.—A Barrister is only invited to sit on the Bench when
he has had some considerable amount of standing at the Bar.

“ Locus Standi.”—The Corner of Park Lane.