Punch: Punch (52.1867)

76

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[February 23, 1867.

CAUTION.

Don’t keep your Beer-Barrel in the same Cellar as your Dust-Bin f

RESOLUTION OF REFORM.

THE WELL-SPOKEN YOUNG MAN.

(an appeal to patriotism.)

0 come, good Lords and Gentlemen, ye Commons and ye Peers,
We do entreat a loan of you—the favour of your ears.

0 turn your minds unto Reform for good and all this day,

’Tis one more opportunity, and be our last it may !

Too often have ye trifled with the task that’s to be done.

And broken off repeatedly the work yon had begun.

Whereat the people winked long, and patiently forbore.

But know ye now they will abide the like delay no more.

Remember how, in fifty-four one Bill you did resign,

And how ye did another Bill reject in fifty-nine.

And how a third in sixty-one your Palmerston withdrew—
Refuse another, and oh, then, what will become of yon ?

Come let us now take counsel, and consider wherewithal
To frame a measure that shall stand -not through discussion fall.
Let’s put on resolution, and by means thereof proceed ;

For in that we resolve on we shall be thereon agreed.

Fat bulls of Basan round about do vehemently roar.

And that fat Bull of Birmingham is specially a bore.

To bellow till they weary were, though them we might allow,

We must regard that Bull of Bulls whose voice is rising now.

John Bull himself doth call aloud and utter his behest.

This long-vext question of Reform ’tis time to set at rest.

So go to work in earnest now the needful thing to do,

Or you’ll provoke the wrath of John—then woe be unto you !

A Ministerial Query.—Is it true that General Peel is a
Secretary at War—with some of his colleagues on the question of
Reform r

(With all apology to Mr. Charles Dickens).

He is moving forward in the direction in which you are going. You
discover him to be a remarkably well-behaved young man, and a re-
markably well-spoken young man. You know him to be well-behaved,
by his respectful manner of touching his hat, you know him to be well-
spoken by his smooth manner of expressing himself. He says, in a
flowing, confidential voice,

“ Sir Mr. John Bull will you allow me to speak to you Sir it is not
merely retaining office that is my intention for I was brought up by
the best of politicians and merely retaining office is not my trade I
should not know Sir how to follow it as a trade such being quite
foreign to my nature if such were my shameful intention for the
best of politicians long taught otherwise and though now reduced to
fake the present liberty I am favourably known to the Premier the
Lord Chancellor the majority of the Tory party and the ole of the
Conservative profession but through ill blood in my party and the
obstinacy of friends of whom I became leader and they no other
than Members of the Cabinet of my own Premier am sent forth
not to beg indulgence for I will sooner deprive the country of my
services but to help my party to the final end of the session Sir in
appier times and before the calamity of office fell upon us I devised for
my constitutional amusement when I little thought that I should ever
need them excepting for Curiosities of Literature these” (here the
well-spoken young man puts his hand on a paper) “ these Resolutions
Sir I implore you in the name of the Constitution to accept these
Resolutions which are a genuine article resembling those which came
from India the East Indies and alter them in any way your wisdom
may see fit and may the blessings of a party without a policy awaiting
with beating arts the return of Mr. Gladstone to office ever attend
you Sir may I take the liberty of speaking to you I implore you to
accept these Resolutions.”

By this time, being a reasonable judge of what one should answer
with “Walker,” you will have been too much for the well-spoken
young man.