Punch (48.1865)

160

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 22, 1865.

THE VOLUNTEER REVIEW.

The Portrait of Private O’Locker on finding his Billet is at a

Teetotal Hotel.

THE NEGRO’S PLACE IN NATURE.

(To the Ethnological Society.)

Sages of that zetetic band
Who, with discussion free,

Which few Societies will stand,

Pursue Ethnology;

You have been looking up of late.

Last week you had a grand debate
About the Negro’s place
In Nature, if he is, indeed,

A man and brother, or of breed
Below our nobler race.

The Negro’s wool, the Negro’s skin,

The Negro’s nose and jaw,

The Negro’s heel, the Negro’s shin.

Are data whence you draw
Your inferences pro and con,

That Quasuee is, or not, as John.

His facial angle, too,

You measure, nor those odours fail
To note, which Negroes all exhale,

But not all black men do.

Disraeli’s option, widely known
As Punch doth worlds amuse,

Of Ape or Angel, is your own.

Oh, tell us which you choose!
Philosophers, allied are we
To cherubs or the chimpanzee P
With you that question hangs.

Have we rich relatives, who soar
Bright seraphim, or have we poor
In the orang-outangs ?

The Negro’s and Gorilla’s shape
Comparatively scan.

What kin is that anthropoid ape
To that pithecoid man ?

If any, the Gorilla’s proved
Our cousin some degrees removed;

If none, with fellow men
And angels Quashee takes his stand;
With Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and
Accordingly with Ben.



A COMPULSORY PAST-DAY.

What a pity it is that earnest Clergymen, who wish the British
Public to spend the whole of Sunday and the other festivals of the
Church in religious exercises, do not endeavour to persuade them to do
so by the cultivation of pulpit eloquence, instead of by attempting to
take measures to deprive them of the means of following their own
inclinations towards diversion ! A paragraph in a contemporary, headed
“ Observance of Good Priday,” states that, at a Meeting of the Clergy
of the rural deanery of Canterbury, held a few days since, a resolution
was adopted for the presentation of an address to the directors of the
South-Eastern, and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway companies,
requesting them “ to take into consideration the service they would
confer on religion by ceasing to run Excursion Trains on Good Fridays.”
There is too much reason to fear that the gentlemen thus requested to
deprive not only themselves, but also their constituents, of the most
profitable day’s business in the whole year did not receive the invitation
to perform that sacrifice of dividends with all the respect which the
calling, and perhaps the motives, of their reverend memorialists de-
served. Among Railway Directors there are not only gentlemen of the
Hebrew persuasion, but also Members of the Society of Friends, and
other dissenting Christians, who, on the ground of objecting to what
they deem a superstitious observance of days, refuse to observe Good
Friday. All these gentlemen might be likely to make the great mistake
of resenting the solicitation to stop their excursion trains on that holi-
day, as a piece of impertinence.

It, however, the Directors appealed to by a section of Church of
England Clergymen with a request to forego their own gains, and
withhold the means of holiday-making from the community at large,
were to return those divines a suitably respectful answer, they would
perhaps reply, that they had taken into consideration the service they
would confer on religion by ceasing to run Excursion Trains on Good
Fridays, and on consideration, were convinced that they should not
confer any. They might proceed to point out to their Reverences that
people are not driven into Church by being shut out of the Crystal
Palace, or debarred of Excursion Trains; and, they might add, the

certain result of exclusion from sober enjoyment would be that of
driving them into the public-house.

There is something peculiarly clerical in the argument whereon the
clergy of the rural deanery of Canterbury, to the number of twenty-one
out of twenty-three, rested their vocation to ask the Directors to stop
Good Friday excursion trains. They stated “ that they were aware the
working classes require recreation, but Good Friday is the one day in
the year which presents distinctive and peculiar features for religious
observance.” Why, so does Christmas Day. So does every Sunday,
according to the Sabbatarians, whether Churchmen or Dissenters. If
the pious desires of all the sanctified persons who want to impose their
own way of observing Sundays and holidays upon other people, were
gratified, the working classes would pretty soon have no recreation
at all.

The Clergy of the rural deanery of Canterbury will perhaps be recom-
mended by the Railway Directors, with whose business they have
attempted to interfere, to confine themselves in future to their own j
province, the province of Canterbury, and not to travel out of it into
the province of cant.

Who are the two Clergymen out of twenty-three who signalised their
good sense by refusing their signatures to the memorial agaiust Good
Friday excursion trains ? Their names should be known to discerning
patrons with large Church preferment at their disposal, and admiring
freedom from assumption, folly, and hypocrisy. We may suppose that
those two parsons are wise men.

Is the University Boat Race a Myth ?

The Bishop of Numbers presents his compliments to Mr. Punch,
and wishes to know if the University Boat Race ever took place. He
has heard much about the “ Oxford Eight,” but as all the latest ac-
counts show conclusively that there must have been nine menjn it, he
is obliged to conclude, that there never was such a thing as the “ Oxford
Eight,” and consequently, that the Boat Race could never have taken
place.