Punch (50.1866)

January 6, 1866.]

LUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

OUR OPENING ARTICLE.

(After the manner of our most respected Contemporaries.)

\UHEN a New Year commences, a fresh period begins. At such a
’ ’ time it is impossible for the most serious to avoid—even if they
desire so to do—a class of reflection that must occur to minds of the
least frivolous character. He who addresses himself to a survey of
mankind from China to Peru will not improbably be led to the convic-
tion that he has entered upon an area of observation whose limits are
of the widest description, and may not be reluctant to assent to the
proposition of one of the most remarkable of men, that there are more
things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. To
abstain from the discussion of a difficult subject is, we may almost
venture to say, to avoid the examination of an arduous topic, but on
the other hand, where there is advantage to be gained by even an
inadequate inquiry, we cannot consider that an incomplete investigation
should be regarded as entirely unprofitable. With these feelings, at
the outset of 1866, we apply ourselves to a task, which, if self-imposed,
cannot be termed an involuntary labour.

It is natural in the first instance to be attracted by those questions
which more immediately affect ourselves—nihil alienum putamus—and
the state and condition of our own island, at the opening of the year,
would instinctively be selected for treatment by the home journalist.
But it appears to us that to be guided by the conventionalisms of
geography is to submit ourselves to the dictates of merely scientific
arrangement. We therefore glance cursorily towards Andes, giant of the
Western Star, and we state with regret that though there is no percep-
tible alteration in the position of his meteor standard, it waves over
regions in which many changes may take place, if a policy of conserva-
tion be not sternly adopted. Cape Horn, however, still affronts the
Antarctic or Southern Ocean, nor has the great mystic belt which unites
the Americas at Panama, like the Siamese twins, been done away by
the skill of engineering surgery. We rejoice to be able to state that
the long and terrible war which has been waged in North America has
written no wrinkles on the azure brows of the Atlantic or Pacific, and
that three degrees still stretch between the isles of Vancouver and
Newfoundland. We commend these facts to the geologists who are
perhaps unwisely seeking to disturb received beliefs, and we point out
to them how little the fluctuations of the moral world disarrange the
j Cosmos of material nature.

Whatever the modern statesman may think of the Asiatic confede
ration, there can be little doubt, in candid minds, that Asia has been
the scene of many remarkable events, of the smaller details of which, at
least, it may not be too much to say, that the records are to a certain
extent defective. Yet from Lake Timour to Ceylon the populations
are still in possession of various degrees of civilisation, and if the Sea
of Okotsh remains to the present period in its pristine form, the western
frontier of the mighty continent is none the less rigidly guarded by the
Ural mountains. We do not desire to increase the difficulties of those
who are considering the propriety of removing Calcutta to the Hima-
layas, nor at the conclusion of the Bhootanese war is it a fit time to
look retrospectively upon that disaster, but we will not be deterred
from warning our readers that large portions of Mongolia are entirely
unfit for houses of Italian architecture, replete with the conveniences ot
a metropolitan suburb, nor will we be foremost in advising those who 1
are in possession of all that luxury can afford in England to seek new
homesteads in “ Samarcaud by Oxus, Temur’s throne.”

Africa appears to us to afford little cause for immediate agitation, or
even apprehension on the part of the Englishman. But. it is the duty
of the wise man to be prepared for all contingencies, and inasmuch as
the agents of civilisation are advancing upon that continent from all its
corners, it may not be amiss to remember that while the Emperor
assails her from the north and M. Lesseps on the east, Dr. Livingstone
and M. Du Chaillu have penetrated in other directions, and it is not
impossible that under the auspices of the intrepid Beke, the fanatic
chivalry of King Theodore may avail itself of all this enlightenment to
constitute a grand central power, which, perhaps under the name of
the Empire of Sahara, may send the legionaries of Lake Nyanza to the
Iron Gate and the Bosphorus. But we are disinclined to believe
that the festive season of Christendom need this year be disturbed by
such vaticinations, the less that the return of the gallant Mr. Baker
seems to assure us that in the contest proverbially waged between his
namesake and Our Mutual Enemy, the pull may at present be
assumed to be on the side of the type of humanity.

Last, and only least in respect to size, the continent of Europe offers
itself to the unprejudiced gaze. Reasons which the intelligent reader
will be the first, and the uncultivated reader the last to appreciate,
preclude our touching, at this moment, upon the moral, social, or
political condition of this interesting continent. England, Erance,
Spam, Germany, Russia, not to name Monaco and Greece, suggest many
reflections which will occur to those who have regularly followed the

Vol. 50.

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