Punch (49.1865)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [July 8, 1865.

THE ONLY SEAL OF CONFESSION

THE BRIDGE.

I Stood on the bridge at midnight,

As Big Ben was striking the hour,

And the moon rose o’er the Abbey,

Behind the Yictoria Tower;

And like the waters rushing
Before the House of Peers,

A flood of thoughts came o’er me,

That Med my soul with fears.

How often, oh, how often,

In the Sessions now gone by,

I had shirked the debates at midnight,

And shunned Mb. Hugessen’s eye!

How often, oh, how often,

I had wished that the House would divide,
And let me escape from the lobby
To the Bow for my usual ride !

For Committees made me restless,

And constituents brought me care ;

And the speech expected from me
Was more than I could prepare;

But now it must shortly be spoken,

When the County town I see,

When the County hustings’ awning
Throws its shadow over me.

And whenever I think of the mob
On the next nomination day,

Like the dream that succeedeth to pork,
Comes the thought of what they will say.

For for hours and for hours,

As long as me hustings stand,

As long as there’s chaff in the people,

As long as there’s breath in the band ;

The pledges I gave last election,

And broke—my opponents say—

Will rise like political spectres,

And trouble the polling day.

ALLOWED IN THIS COUNTRY.

Westminster, July, 1865.


OUR WORKING CHILDREN.

A Great deal has been said of late about our working men, but little
notice has been taken of our working children. Yet working children,
if they live, grow into working men and women, and assuredly are
scarce less worthy to be talked about. At a meeting of the Working
Men’s Club a few evenings ago, what is called the “half-time system”
was sensibly considered. “ By this system,” said Lord Lyttelton,

“ Which compelled every parent who chose to send his child to work also to send
him or her half the day to school, a very useful compromise had been effected
between the demands of labour and education. * * This system, as carried out
in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, had resulted in the in-
creased education, and consequent improved life and conduct, of their inhabitants,
as had been manifested during the late cotton famine, and in many other ways.”

As a rule, it is not wise to do things by halves: but this division of
the day’s work between bodily and mental labour may certainly be
viewed as an exception to the rule. When the mind has been exhausted,
it is a great relief to exercise the muscles; and when the limbs are
tired—but not over-tired—with labour, there is positive refreshment in
the labour of the brain. Children’s work in cotton factories, and similar
employments, is limited by Government to ten hours a day; and this
surely is enough to weary their small limbs. If their time be wisely
halved between the workshop and the school, their handiwork and
head work are mutually improved by the alternate hours of rest. But
ten hours’ work per diem may be said to be mere child’s play compared
with the child’s woik which other children have to do. Gentlemen of
England who live at home at ease, perhaps have little notion of how hard
some children work, and how needful it appears to make some effort to
relieve them. From a Blue-Book he produced at the meeting we have
mentioned, Lord Littelton

“ Gave an instance of a little girl engaged in a brick-yard near Birmingham from
6 a.m. to 8 p.m., only having fifteen minutes for breakfast, and thirty minutes for
dinner, no time for tea and during one day she would have to catch and throw to
her neighbour fifteen tons of bricks.”

What, a mercy it would be to such poor little working children if
their fathers were compelled to send them every day to school! “ But,”

says Brown or Tomkins, “ this is a free country. By our blessed
Constitution men are left at liberty, if they like it, to be brutes. The
British Government has no right to compel a British subject to educate
his child.” And so we, calm, complacent Britons keep on twiddling
our thumbs, and bragging. Sir, that slavery was never known in
England, while hundreds of our working children now slave worse than
any slaves. _

A HINT.

You heard him yelping through the night,
That spaniel in our Terrace mews,

And taking all a fiend’s delight
In hindering Christians from a snooze.

A coachman owns him—to the man
I sent my maid with bland remark,

That menial told my faithful Ann
That “ dogs had got a right to bark.”

Unto his master then I wrote,

And brought my wrong beneath his eye.
But to my gentlemanly note
The vulgar snob made no reply.

’Tis well! A dogsmeat man’s my friend,
A strychnine pill gives little pain,
Macbeth reminds me, “ I will send ”—
You shall not hear that beast again.

The Reds and the Blues.

The Police force ought to be much larger than the Army. Why P
Because it admits of persons of both sexes joining it. How so?
I will explain: thus, only a man can “ go for a Soldier,” but a
man, a woman, a little boy, or even a little girl, can “ go for a Police-
man.”