Punch (48.1865)

March 25, 1865.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

123


I

“ Life’s fight well fought, the task of duty done.
Upon his death-bed the pure patriot see.
Loosing this earth’s affections, one by one,

Into God’s bosom so to pass more free.”

Pure, gentle, tolerant, wise, and debonair—
What virtues or good gifts but met in him P
Till looking on this image, we despair
To think what eclipse Prance’s sky must dim

With the extinction of the shining star.

That such a wondrous radiance can fling.—
But still a life’s a life, and lights there are
Seen after death, that from corruption spring.

SOMETHING SENSIBLE FROM SUFFOLK.

Muster Punch, I humbly
ax yar pardon, Sir, for
troblun yow with my hand-
writun, for I baint over
grand at spellun, and may
be our Soffuk way o’ speak-
un ull puzzle yow good
tidily. But blame it! I
fare somehow as if I must
sah suffun bout this here
pack o’ lies as hev bun towd
about the Malt-tax. Gorm
me if I don’t think that
that there Sir Pitz Roy
Kelly hev been swiggun
some sour beer, and it hev
givun him the stomik acke !
Well, there, to hare him
talk yow’d raly ommost
fancy that our faermers
ware nigh starved to dead
with this here blessed tax, and cooden afford the best on ’em to drink a
pint of homebrewed. A mort o’ fulish gabble he hev gone * us folks,
sure-ly ! Why, to hare him prate, yow’d think as how a faermer
dint git northin by high faermun, for the moor baerleyhe growed the
moor tax he’d hev to pay, and so, yow see, a faermer as do justice to
the land he wornt a mite the better off for a good hairvest.

Well then there’s my bor Jim as work for Muster Skinflint, he
goo a Sarrerday + sometimes and buy the Ipsidge Jamal, which yow
know is a high Tory peayper, and it’s sprisun what a sight o’ fulishness
is put in it—Bout this here beer matter I mean, for in most respex the
Jamal is as sensible as many country noospeaypers. But there, it
wholly stammed me tuther night at the Blue Lion to hare a letter read
as was put into the Times, and written by a faermer as live nigh here in
Soffuk, and he sah as this here tax be ruination to we labrers, fur if
malt were free we’d all onus goo a brewun good mild beer at 3 hapence
a quart, and cood git as drunk as lords on our own premises for 6 pence.
But’strue as I sit here, I don’t believe we’d get a mite o’ good by
gittun drunk, nor by heven cheaper beer and keepun sober, nuther.
Yow see our maisters ud be sure to cut our wages down accordun.
My blief is as the money which now goo to pah the malt-tax woodent
goo into our pockets, nor yet the faermers’ nuther. The brewers and
the maltsters might git a howd o’ some on it, but we shouldn’t see a
doit, leastways that’s my opinion.

So when I hare a faermer complainun of the malt-tax, think i—This
here’s all grub. The real tax upon the barley is the Geame, and nit the
Guvermint. Why, ’strue as yow ’re alive we ’re ommust eaten up wi’
Geame down here in Soffuk. No wonder corn dont pay for growun,
when it be mostly all cornsumed by hungry hares and rabbits, and
patteridges, and pheasunts ! The fairmers nowj this right enough, but
they’re afeard to halier out, cos why they think if they complain they
ull git tunned out of their fairms, ana spite o’ the Geame they most on
em be doing pritty tidily.

So no moor at the present from your bedient humble sarvunt to
command, j0E jJqdge,

Uppards o’ thutty year a Labrer in the filds, and arnun 9 shillun a
weak to keep my wife and family, and its as much as I can du to find
em in dry bread, but taint the Malt-tax as purwents it from beun pork
and poodden.

* Anglicd, given.

t Anglice, on Saturday.

J Know

BIG AND LITTLE BET HELLS.

Nothing can well be more cruel or unreasonable than these attacks
on Lord Westbury for giving away the Clerkship of Patents to his son-
indaw’s brother, and the Clerkship of the House of Lords to his son.

_ His Lordship, like Silky in the Road to Ruin, very properly considers
himself bound to provide for his family ; and the length and breadth of
this pious feeling is beautifully shown in the following list of appoint-
ments which have already been distributed among the House of Bethell,
without anybody saying a word against the Lord Chancellor

“ First, a Registrarship at Exeter, and afterwards in London, to the Hon.
Slingsby Bethell, son of the Lord Chancellor, and now the Reading Clerkship
of the House of Lords ; second, a Registrarship of Deeds to the Hon. R. Bethell,
another son of the.LoRD Chancellor, trader the New Bankruptcy Act; third, the
Crown Solicitorship to the Court of Bankruptcy, to Walter William Aldridge,
Esq. , who married a niece of the Lord Chancellor—an appointment created under
the New Bankruptcy Act; fourth, the berth of Architect to the Court of Bank-
ruptcy, to Augustus B. Abraham, brother-in-law to the Lord Chancellor—an
appointment found necessary under the New Bankruptcy Act. In addition to
these, a Secretaryship of Presentations has been given to A. B. Abraham, Esq., and
a Mr. R. J. Abraham has been appointed Second Clerk in the Land Registry Office,
and his Lordship’s son-in-law holds the Official Assigneeship to the Exeter District.”

It is a strong proof of the organised antagonism of the Solicitors to
Lord Westbury’s Act, that they have been able to bring it to a dead-
lock, in spite of an executive strengthened by this powerful force of
Bethells and Abrahams. But why should the public strain at the
last two gnats, after swallowing all those camels ?

THE PAPAL STATES.

{From our Own.)

March 11th.—The Pope is in good health. He had an audience the
other day : pit quite full—no half-price. Erench in arms not admitted.
Later in the evening there was a game of hunt the Papal slipper, which
the Pope enjoyed amazingly.

The other day the Pope drove to Pimlico.*

His Holiness is, as you are of course aware, very fond of billiards.
Some few favoured ones are allowed to go into St. Peter’s, and see the
canons the Pope makes. When I told his Infallibility this sally, the
good-natured Pontiff laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks;
the wily Cardinal who was playing with him took advantage of Pi using
a large red cotton pocket-handkerchief to mark up five for himself.
Such is life at the Yatican !

“ Lor’, Billy,” said Pi to me one evening (I always call him Pi, and
he calls me Billy), “ it’s all very well to say, ‘ The Pope he leads a
happy life,’ but I ’ll tell you in confidence——” What he said I cannot
of course repeat. But mark my words. The Erench will not leave
Pome to-morrow. If they do, I give up all chance of a Cardinalate, foi
which I am daily intriguing. There are lots of vacant bats, and plenty
of vacant heads to be fitted. Verb. sap. Yours,

The Bum ’un.

* Query, the Pincio ?

Musical Note.

. yRAfricaine is to be produced at Covent Garden with great splendour.
The plot is very simple; a coloured gentleman, while stopping at a
South African Port, falls in love, and poisons himself with a glass of the
native Sherry. The story was originally told of the first man of colour,
Adam Black. There will be a ballet of Buffalo gals, who will come
out every night, and dance by the light of the usual Moon.

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL.

Why is the Duke of Manchester like Siiakspeare ? Don’t be
outrageous, the comparison is not “ too absurd.”

Because he knows “ small Latin and less Greek ”

unpublished correspondence.

The Boman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham’s Postscript to Mr.
Newdegate “ P.S. L ’ll be an Ulla-^oraein your side. Yours truly,
The Brummagem Bishop.”

Nursery Rhymes for Leeds Babies.

Lord Nambypamberley first was a scorner
Of six-pound “ francheese,” and was put in a corner:
But he’s eaten his words, and it gives us great joy
That Lord Nambypamberley’s now a good boy.




SEASONABLE CONUNDRUM.

Why ought you never to lend anything to a strict Poman Catholic?
Because what is Lent to him, he keeps.

An Idea for a Quack.—A Schoolboy’s Appetite will be regained at
the latest period of life in cases of the most complete anorexia, by
recourse to Cramwell’s Peptic Pills. Sold in boxes, at &c. &c.