DOI issue:
October 21, 1865
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16876#0171
October 21, 1865.]
PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
159
DISRAELPS LAST.
ind Mr. Benjamin
Disraeli has said a
great many good
things in his time;
but, of all of them,
Ben’s last is his best.
It was spoken the
other day at Amer-
sham, where Dizzy
was the guest of the
Amersham and Che-
sham Agricultural
Association, and, after
making some observa-
tions about leases,
delivered his opinion
“ as to the expedi-
ency of rewarding
long service by a pe-
cuniary donation.”
The Ex-Chancellor
OE THE EXCHEQUER
and leader of the Con-
servative party in the
House of Commons
declared that he ap-
proved of that prac-
tice, and in answer to
the objection that the
sum usually awarded
to meritorious labour-
ers is small, advanced
the exquisite argu-
ment reported as fol-
lows :—
___ “ It is a very great mis-
take to suppose that be-
cause to the editor of a
newspaper, who perhaps receives £1,000 a year, the reward may seem trifling, therefore it is small in the
estimation of the person who receives it. Recollect, you must estimate the value of a reward of £3 to a
labourer in proportion to his income. £3 to a labourer with 12s. a week represents a sum equivalent to
£500 or £600 to a gentleman worth £5,000 a year. Now I have observed that gentlemen in the receipt of
£5,000 a year are not absolutely indifferent to the chances of receiving £400 or £500 extra. (Laughter.) ”
?.£
Naturally the squirearchical and agricultural auditors of this comic reasoning laughed to
hear it. To be sure it constituted, and of course it was meant for, a joke at their expense ;
which they did not see. But they took a keen satire on their parsimony for a jocular illus-
tration of their munificence; and so they laughed. They particularly relished the idea, ironi-
cally suggested to them, that, at the sacrifice of only three sovereigns, they were really
bestowing, on the receiver of that absolutely not large amount, the relative equivalent of five
hundred pounds.
It is almost cruel to open their eyes; but yet pity guides the hand of the surgeon that
couches for cataract. Let them understand, then, that there is_ a converse to the state-
ment which so highly delighted them. True, £3 stumpy down, is a great deal of money in
proportion to 12s. a-week. But, on the other hand, 12s. a week is a very small income in
proportion to £5,000 a year. Not only that, but it is a very wretched income, a very insuffi-
cient income, for any man whose wants are above the wants of a beast; and it is hardly
sufficient for those.
Never did there issue from the enclosure of our Benjamin’s teeth a jest more incisive
than the mock eulogy with which he affected to flatter the members of the Amersham
and Chesham Agricultural Society. What an advantage, however, it is to be pachy-
dermatous, and to feel the sensation of being smartly whipped, as an agreeable tickling !
OLD SAWS NEW SET.
Dear Mr. Punch,
I am just home from a foreign tour which I have relished incontinently _ well.
Musing one day on the subject of proverbs—by a singular coincidence I was on the Adige at
•the time—it struck me that many saws of English manufacture were rusty, antiquated, and
not sufficiently polished, and might be reset to the gain of a genteel generation which has
ceased to pall a spade a spade, and only knows it as a gardening implement. Possessed
with this idea I set to work, and gave my nights and days to adapting a few. familiar pro-
verbs to modern ways and customs. . I now submit my brainwork to your judgment, in
the hope that you will not object to give a world-wide currency to the new mintage.
Yours proverbially, Robert Sawyer.
Least broken soonest paid for. (Recommended to the notice of servants of all work)
addicted to the grave offence of smashing.
Rolling stock gathers no dividend.
Money makes the Lord Mayor to go.
It is never too late to repair. (Said to have been originated by some humble tailor.)
Keep your breath to cool your Revalenta Arabica.
The better the client, the better the deed.
Hobbs laughs at locksmiths.
Troubles never come to the single. (The re-
flection of a bachelor of long experience.)
Good wine needs no puff.
Greenwich time and tide wait for no man.
Let not the repairer of boots and shoes go beyond
his ultimatum.
Pride will have a “ fall.” (Supposed to have
been said of the first housemaid whose ambition
it was to wear a veil.)
Hanspm is as Hansom does. (By one who has
ridden in cabs for a quarter of a century.)
Never say dye. (An awful warning to all
whose cry is, “ No more grey hair.”)
Drink before you leap. (The advice of the cele-
brated Lord Huntingeield.)
Do not enumerate your young Dorkings before
the process of incubation is complete.
Indisposed weeds grow apace.
“ FROM PLAGUE, PESTILENCE
AND FAMINE/’
“ Qui labobat ORAT.”—Mediaeval Proverb.
Who are they, that, sadly doubting,
Ordered prayer presume on scouting ?
Who are they, that, darkly straying,
Question what’s the use of praying ?
Praying that our hands He’d strengthen.
Praying that our days He’d lengthen,
Praying blessing on our labours,
For ourselves and for our neighbours:
Blessing on our prayers and preaching,
Reading, visiting, and teaching;
Our relieving and our training,
Sewering, scavenging, and draining.
Praying selfishness to soften,
Rampant still though scourged so often;
Praying pride of purse to chasten;
Our slow-moving steps to hasten
To the goal of wise endeavour,
Still proclaimed, but compassed never.
Pray—but see the Church’s ora
Finds its echo in labora.
He who links effects and causes,
He who works by law, nor pauses;
Who for all to read that run by
Writes, “Do as you would be done by.”
He knows prayer is sorely needed—
Prayer, that lessons may be heeded;
Prayer, that ill ways may be looked to;
Stubborn backs due burdens crooked to;
Stony hearts to pity quickened;
Sluggish souls of idlesse sickened ;
Till no more our towns’ pollution
Call down plague’s grim retribution:
Till no more centralisation
And self-rule in altercation
Jangle, while between them lying
Squalid youth and age are dying.
But how hope God heeds our ora,
While we heed not his labora ?
Till the hands, in prayer uplifted,
Prom the lap for work are shifted ;
Till the lips that move in praying,
Own how “ doing ” shameth “ saying
While good law to tinder crumbles.
In the hands of bloated Bumbles;
While Domestic Thuggee smothers,
Baseborn babes of wretched mothers;
While unhappy childhood stunted,
Dwarfed of mind, with senses blunted.
Labours on from dawn to dark’ning;
While the soul’s voice finds no heark’ning,
And its eye no glimpse of nature,
Not trod out of shape and feature ;
While in our hot quest of riches,
Of fair streams we make foul ditches;
While we house our human workers,
As no squire would house his porkers—
Wiser ’twere, instead of ora,
If our Church would preach labora !
PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
159
DISRAELPS LAST.
ind Mr. Benjamin
Disraeli has said a
great many good
things in his time;
but, of all of them,
Ben’s last is his best.
It was spoken the
other day at Amer-
sham, where Dizzy
was the guest of the
Amersham and Che-
sham Agricultural
Association, and, after
making some observa-
tions about leases,
delivered his opinion
“ as to the expedi-
ency of rewarding
long service by a pe-
cuniary donation.”
The Ex-Chancellor
OE THE EXCHEQUER
and leader of the Con-
servative party in the
House of Commons
declared that he ap-
proved of that prac-
tice, and in answer to
the objection that the
sum usually awarded
to meritorious labour-
ers is small, advanced
the exquisite argu-
ment reported as fol-
lows :—
___ “ It is a very great mis-
take to suppose that be-
cause to the editor of a
newspaper, who perhaps receives £1,000 a year, the reward may seem trifling, therefore it is small in the
estimation of the person who receives it. Recollect, you must estimate the value of a reward of £3 to a
labourer in proportion to his income. £3 to a labourer with 12s. a week represents a sum equivalent to
£500 or £600 to a gentleman worth £5,000 a year. Now I have observed that gentlemen in the receipt of
£5,000 a year are not absolutely indifferent to the chances of receiving £400 or £500 extra. (Laughter.) ”
?.£
Naturally the squirearchical and agricultural auditors of this comic reasoning laughed to
hear it. To be sure it constituted, and of course it was meant for, a joke at their expense ;
which they did not see. But they took a keen satire on their parsimony for a jocular illus-
tration of their munificence; and so they laughed. They particularly relished the idea, ironi-
cally suggested to them, that, at the sacrifice of only three sovereigns, they were really
bestowing, on the receiver of that absolutely not large amount, the relative equivalent of five
hundred pounds.
It is almost cruel to open their eyes; but yet pity guides the hand of the surgeon that
couches for cataract. Let them understand, then, that there is_ a converse to the state-
ment which so highly delighted them. True, £3 stumpy down, is a great deal of money in
proportion to 12s. a-week. But, on the other hand, 12s. a week is a very small income in
proportion to £5,000 a year. Not only that, but it is a very wretched income, a very insuffi-
cient income, for any man whose wants are above the wants of a beast; and it is hardly
sufficient for those.
Never did there issue from the enclosure of our Benjamin’s teeth a jest more incisive
than the mock eulogy with which he affected to flatter the members of the Amersham
and Chesham Agricultural Society. What an advantage, however, it is to be pachy-
dermatous, and to feel the sensation of being smartly whipped, as an agreeable tickling !
OLD SAWS NEW SET.
Dear Mr. Punch,
I am just home from a foreign tour which I have relished incontinently _ well.
Musing one day on the subject of proverbs—by a singular coincidence I was on the Adige at
•the time—it struck me that many saws of English manufacture were rusty, antiquated, and
not sufficiently polished, and might be reset to the gain of a genteel generation which has
ceased to pall a spade a spade, and only knows it as a gardening implement. Possessed
with this idea I set to work, and gave my nights and days to adapting a few. familiar pro-
verbs to modern ways and customs. . I now submit my brainwork to your judgment, in
the hope that you will not object to give a world-wide currency to the new mintage.
Yours proverbially, Robert Sawyer.
Least broken soonest paid for. (Recommended to the notice of servants of all work)
addicted to the grave offence of smashing.
Rolling stock gathers no dividend.
Money makes the Lord Mayor to go.
It is never too late to repair. (Said to have been originated by some humble tailor.)
Keep your breath to cool your Revalenta Arabica.
The better the client, the better the deed.
Hobbs laughs at locksmiths.
Troubles never come to the single. (The re-
flection of a bachelor of long experience.)
Good wine needs no puff.
Greenwich time and tide wait for no man.
Let not the repairer of boots and shoes go beyond
his ultimatum.
Pride will have a “ fall.” (Supposed to have
been said of the first housemaid whose ambition
it was to wear a veil.)
Hanspm is as Hansom does. (By one who has
ridden in cabs for a quarter of a century.)
Never say dye. (An awful warning to all
whose cry is, “ No more grey hair.”)
Drink before you leap. (The advice of the cele-
brated Lord Huntingeield.)
Do not enumerate your young Dorkings before
the process of incubation is complete.
Indisposed weeds grow apace.
“ FROM PLAGUE, PESTILENCE
AND FAMINE/’
“ Qui labobat ORAT.”—Mediaeval Proverb.
Who are they, that, sadly doubting,
Ordered prayer presume on scouting ?
Who are they, that, darkly straying,
Question what’s the use of praying ?
Praying that our hands He’d strengthen.
Praying that our days He’d lengthen,
Praying blessing on our labours,
For ourselves and for our neighbours:
Blessing on our prayers and preaching,
Reading, visiting, and teaching;
Our relieving and our training,
Sewering, scavenging, and draining.
Praying selfishness to soften,
Rampant still though scourged so often;
Praying pride of purse to chasten;
Our slow-moving steps to hasten
To the goal of wise endeavour,
Still proclaimed, but compassed never.
Pray—but see the Church’s ora
Finds its echo in labora.
He who links effects and causes,
He who works by law, nor pauses;
Who for all to read that run by
Writes, “Do as you would be done by.”
He knows prayer is sorely needed—
Prayer, that lessons may be heeded;
Prayer, that ill ways may be looked to;
Stubborn backs due burdens crooked to;
Stony hearts to pity quickened;
Sluggish souls of idlesse sickened ;
Till no more our towns’ pollution
Call down plague’s grim retribution:
Till no more centralisation
And self-rule in altercation
Jangle, while between them lying
Squalid youth and age are dying.
But how hope God heeds our ora,
While we heed not his labora ?
Till the hands, in prayer uplifted,
Prom the lap for work are shifted ;
Till the lips that move in praying,
Own how “ doing ” shameth “ saying
While good law to tinder crumbles.
In the hands of bloated Bumbles;
While Domestic Thuggee smothers,
Baseborn babes of wretched mothers;
While unhappy childhood stunted,
Dwarfed of mind, with senses blunted.
Labours on from dawn to dark’ning;
While the soul’s voice finds no heark’ning,
And its eye no glimpse of nature,
Not trod out of shape and feature ;
While in our hot quest of riches,
Of fair streams we make foul ditches;
While we house our human workers,
As no squire would house his porkers—
Wiser ’twere, instead of ora,
If our Church would preach labora !