Punch (48.1865)

May 6, 1865.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

PUNCH’S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

ENATORIAL holiday over, the Commons re-assembled on
Monday, April 24th. Nothing of note occurred, except a
discussion on the question whether the War-Office has not
been very unkind to a number of temporary clerks, who have
been dismissed, after - serving so long that they had sup-
posed themselves to be Permanencies instead of Temporaries.
The authorities settled the matter in the peremptory style of
Miss Susan Nipper. It may also be said that vast heaps of Scotch petitions were presented, a project for opening the Botanic Gardens, in
Edinburgh, on Sunday afternoon, having frightened all the Scotch ministers and elders out of their senses. Clergymen, who declare that
they enjoy a Monday’s newspaper, and then send for the printer who produced it by working on Sunday, and excommunicate him, are of
course entitled to all the reverence due to charity and consistency. As Milton says,

New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.”

Divers of Her Majesty’s subjects are detained as prisoners by the
King op Abyssinia. That monarch was said to have favoured Queen
Victoria with an offer of marriage, and to have imprisoned her lieges
j in revenge for her non-appreciation of his dusky love. It is more
j probable that he hopes to induce us to aid him, either with money or
| arms, against his neighbours, and also against Prance, who is thought
to regard him with an unfavourable eye. We may have our own
j reasons for not wishing to scrunch him, but they should be good ones,
if they are strong enough to justify us in leaving friends in his power.
Some of them are missionaries, who may be expected to take their
chance of the results of their pertinacious interferences, but Captain
Cameron, our Consul, has a right to our best help. Mr. Layard
j deprecated any conversation on the subject, as the King is touchy.

Sir K Smith pointed out that in page 9 of the War Estimates there
' is a mistake, in the addition, of £443,000. The other day we were told
I that the War clerks are too clever by half, and certainly this looks like
! it. The Houseless Poor and Abolition of Beggars Bill passed, so it
will be of no use for the Beggars to be coming to Town, as they are
doing so amusingly in Mr. Marks’s capital new picture at the
Academy.

Tuesday. Sir George Grey very properly said that he disapproved
of the making a show of the poor children at the Reformatories.
Islington, which is growing notorious for exhibitions, and seems eager
to get away from Puritanism and back to its normal condition of
“ merry Islington ” (Cowper), is now to be enlivened with a parade of
such children at the Agricultural Hall. The arrangements will probably
be modified, after the Minister’s intimation.

Government at last brought in a Bill for the reform of Greenwich
Hospital. We felt quite unequal to enter into the subject until we had
examined the localities, and this investigation, with our usual zeal, for
the interests of the public, we endeavoured to make later in the week.
Not wishing to excite the apprehensions of the Hospitallers by any
ostentatious parade, we occupied a balcony of the house of a lady of the

name of Hart, whence we should have been able to examine the place
at leisure, but for a sun-blind, which limited our view to the river.
This, however, was of less consequence, as we had not been in our post
for more than a few minutes, when it became necessary to adjourn to a
neighbouring room for refreshment, and this occupied us until a late
hour. We are able to speak in the highest terms of the refection,
especially of the salmon and hot pickles, the whiting omelette, the
ducklings and asparagus, and the ices; nor must we omit a word of
praise, touching the only liquids which our simple and temperate habits
permitted us to take, namely, the Sherry, Hock, Moselle Cup, Champagne,
Cognac, Port, Claret, and Madeira. As regards the Hospital, we did not
like to disturb the waiters by asking them questions, but we believe that
the sailors are to have out-pensions, so that they can live with their friends,
and that the Hospital is to be kept for the infirm, and that the pay-
ments are all to be made through the estimates ; but as we shall shortly
have occasion to visit an inhabitant of Greenwich, _ called Quarter-
maine, we shall make a point of inquiring more fully into that matter.

A curious little Bill was brought in to-day—we do not mean at
Greenwich, as we had nothing to do with that detail—but in the House.
Archdeacon Hat.e objects to the sale by auction of St. Bennet’s
Church, E.C., so a Bill is to be passed enabling the Auctioneer to knock
down the sacred lot without the Archdeacon’s leave.

Wednesday. After some debate, Sir George Bowyer’s Bill for
regulating the jurisdiction of the Inns of Court, was read a Second
Time, but there be signs and tokens that it will be wrecked before long.
The Attorney-General invited the Inns to say what they thought
about it.

In the middle of this day arrived the news that Abraham Lincoln,
the honest, kind-hearted, resolute President of the United States, had
been foully murdered in a theatre at Washington on Good Priday last.
It is not in this place that an attempt should be made to describe
the fierce indignation felt ail over this land, or the deep sympathy which

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