DOI issue:
June 15, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16879#0250
244
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[June 15, 1867.
VICTORIA PARK IN PERIL.
Ms. Serjeant Gaselee tried to make another speech, but was
repressed by loud advice to shut up, so he did.
Mr. Disraeli congratulated the Committee on having no party
feeling. In consequence of the vote of the previous Friday (when Mr.
Laing’s Amendment, taking away a Member from boroughs with fewer
than 10,000, was carried) he had now 45 seats to give away. The wishes
of the House were in accordance with the policy first enunciated by
Ministers.
The Committee rejected the Gaseleian Amendment by 269 to 217.
Nearly everybody then went out; of the place, making such a noise
that it must nave been difficult for the Gallery to hear what Mr.
Hayter was saying. He was however moving for enlarging boroughs
by taking in the agricultural districts around, that a fusion of Shop
and Spade might occur, and the equipoise of parties be preserved. This
came to nothing, clause 9 was passed, and
Mr. Disraeli arranged that a new scheme of Distribution should
! be prepared.
So we laid aside Reform until after Whitsuntide.
Tuesday. Question touching another portion of the frame of a naval
cadet. Two of his comrades had scored on his nose the Queen’s
“ broad arrow,” cut in with a knife. For this brutality they were dis-
missed the Service. But as it appeared that they did not rub gunpowder
into the slits, their humanity was recognised, and they were reinstated,
with an awful wigging. Mr. Punch is not habitually hard upon boyish
escapades, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and it is not being
too fastidious to draw it at disfigurement for life.
Debate on the Government Bankruptcy Bill. The lawyers, of
course, fought on each side, but let us hear the Philosopher. Mr.
Mill thinks that we have passed from the old savage system of treating
debtors barbarously to one which lets them escape with too much
impunity. He intends to move clauses for punishing debtors who
have shown “ culpable temerity” in dealing with their creditors’ pro-
perty. This information may he interesting to sundry.
Thanks, Lord Enfield. A select Committee on the practice of
summoning juries, not forgetting the gross bribery and favouritism of
the summoning-ofiicers. This is grappling with a real grievance. We
hope the Judges will behave properly in this matter, but they have a
habit of showing small sympathy with gentlemen who suffer by a vicious
system, of which the bench is just as well aware as the fellows who
practise it.
Lord Elcho’s Bill for softening the law of Master and Servant was
read a Second Time. Mr. Fawcett thought that it very fairly repre-
sented the evidence taken before the Committee.
Wednesday. Mr. Ewart moved the Second Reading of a Bill which
will have interest lor most people. He wishes to restore the old state
of things at the Universities. He proposes to enable anybody to
affiliate himself to any college or hall (with the consent of the Head),
without being obliged to reside therein. The object is, avowedly, to
give college education to poorer men than can at present obtain it.
Mr. Hope opposed the Bill, and wished that the House would abstain
from “ teasing ” the Gentle Mothers. Mr. Gladstone supported it in
a powerful speech, affirming that those ladies were by no means doing
their work, and educating the professions. It was carried by 164 to
150, and sent to a Select Committee. People who love “the falsehood
of Extremes ” will be prompt to foresee the bestowal of college
honours on farmers and shopkeepers, and will say that they shall
expect to receive a tailor’s bill made out by Timothy Snitch, B.A.,
and that all the rest of the Manhood Suffragians will be M.A., besides
Mr. Beales. But this will be bosh, like a good many things that
will be said on the other side. We think Mr. Gladstone’s lead may
be safely followed in such a matter.
Mr. Punch refers to a debate on a Bill enabling the Public Works
authorities to lend money towards the erection of Priests’ Houses in
Ireland, because our friend Mr. Whalley was enabled to state his
views on the Catholic religion, and they are so very clear. Though
tolerated here, the Roman Catholic religion, said Mr. Whalley, is
the greatest curse which can be inflicted on a country. Now our
Catholic friends know all about it.
Thursday. No Fenian is to be hanged. We have not yet heard this
construed into an Irish grievance, but fully expect to be told that it is
an insult, as implying that a mere Irish traitor is not worth hanging.
A real Irish grievance, however, was raised to-day. It is a rule in
the Guards not to enlist Irishmen and Catholics. The rule is subject
to a great deal of infraction, but it ought not to exist.
Friday. We had, on the Army Estimates, the case of the old
Merchant Seamen who had to pay sixpence a month to Greenwich
Hospital, and who consider that they get no returns for the “ Greenwich
Sixpence.” The Admiralty would not admit that the merchantmen
had any case. We voted away a load of money, and then took a spell
at the Bankruptcy Bill. On the preceding day the Czar, a visitor to
the Emperor Napoleon, was shot at by a Pole, and missed. Three
Counts-Out were tried to-night, and Mr. Disraeli alluded to them as
“ unsuccessful attempts at assassination of the House.”
Mr. Punch,
You know what your friend the author of Paradise Lost says
about the architect of Pandemonium, that “ men called him Mulciber,”
and “fabled” how, having fallen from the celestial regions, he “ dropt
from the zenith like a falling starbut—
“ Thus they relate.
Erring ; for he with his rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught availed him now
To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in ”-
—the opposite place, to be named only by clergymen. Now, Sir, 1
should like to have the foregoing quotation (complete) posted up on
every surface of green field in England, bearing flowers, but disfigured
with a notice-board offering it “ to be let or sold ” as “ eligible building
ground.” Perhaps it would suggest a hint, which might possibly
awaken the conscience of the speculating builders and their industrious
crews, who are fast improving all the beauty of this earth off its face.
We might as well improve all the pictures off the walls of the National
Gallery.
Just now. Sir, it is especially desirable that the hues above quoted,
or some other caution or warning to the same purpose, should be
planted at convenient intervals around Victoria Park. That only open
space which the East Londoners can enjoy is in course of being
surrounded by a thick belt of cottages and villas, which will, when
i finished, completely shut out the Park from public view. “ Fancy,”
says a circular of the Victoria Park Preservation Society, “ that
portion of St. James’s Park, abutting on Piccadilly, being covered
with houses. This is what is being done at Victoria Park.” A dead
set seems to have been made against this place by the building and
money-grubbing demon. Last year the fiend attempted to smother it
with enormous gasworks; but was happily foiled. Now he is trying
to hem it in with bricks and mortar and stucco, so as to exclude the
fresh air, and to offend the eye. He is perpetrating the same abomina-
tions there as those with which he is defacing Hampstead Heath,
Epping Forest, and every other beautiful and healthy spot about
London.
Mr. Punch, all this is very sad to think of. Years ago, Cobbett
used to call this capital the “ Wen.” What would he call it now ? A
'‘Fungus haemal odes” one would think, or some other form of, not
simple, but, malignant tumour. Where will the Londoner be able
hereafter to go for a really constitutional walk ? I mean by that a
walk which will refresh his soul as well as his body ; the latter with
pure air, the former with verdure, and foliage, and sweet flowers.
Every such walk will cost him about half-a-crown to get to it by rail- !
way ; if he is able : for railways induce bricks and mortar along their
whole course, wheresoever there is aoy paradise to be spoiled. London,
Sir, will become a city of the Philistines, into whose hands its environs, |
with all their scenery, are falling. I repeat, London will become a
city of the Philistines, and the proper name for it will be Gath.
I am quite aware that it is very sentimental to care for the preser-
vation of landscapes. So it is to care about money. Sentiment is
feeling, and low feeling is as sentimental as high feeling—in a low way.
When a Philistine calls you sentimental for preferring spiritual and
moral good to material utility, he gives you an epithet which you
might- retort. He sneers like a fool, and he also sneers like a pig. A
pig, preferring barley-meal to every other consideration, would utter
exactly the same sneer, if he could. No doubt he would call any
objection to his rooting in a bed of tulips “ sentimental.”
Material utility is something, Mr. Punch, but immaterial utility is
something too. What has made the English character but, for one
thing, English scenery ? What sort of creatures will Englishmen be
when they are born only fit to consume the fruits of the earth, and
incapable of enjoying its flowers ? Even in a material and physical
way, you might show the Philistine, if you would go into a calculation
with him, that he was considerably indebted to the sentimentalists and
poets, Messrs. Shakspeare, Milton & Co.
Does increase of numbers necessitate the incrustation of this island
with buildings ? If so 1 should envy France her stationary population.
But there is a point at which the excess of our swarm must needs
emigrate. Determine it by limiting the enclosure of open spaces. Or
else posterity will all be turned to apes, with foreheads villanous low,
or else to a sort of human pigs, having oblique eyes like Chinamen.
You will live to see the day of that degeneration, along with the Wan-
dering Jew. Forme, I hope that, before it comes, I may be gathered
to my fathers in the happy hunting-grounds, and out of the eligible
building-grounds.
In the meantime Victoria Park to the rescue ! The brutes who atU
building round it can only be bought off. Could a part of the Peabody I
Donation be applied to its redemption ? Could a grant from the Con-
solidated Fund? Cannot a Conservative Government even manage to
conserve Victoria Park ? Excuse the prolixity and passion of
Yours truly, Silenus.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[June 15, 1867.
VICTORIA PARK IN PERIL.
Ms. Serjeant Gaselee tried to make another speech, but was
repressed by loud advice to shut up, so he did.
Mr. Disraeli congratulated the Committee on having no party
feeling. In consequence of the vote of the previous Friday (when Mr.
Laing’s Amendment, taking away a Member from boroughs with fewer
than 10,000, was carried) he had now 45 seats to give away. The wishes
of the House were in accordance with the policy first enunciated by
Ministers.
The Committee rejected the Gaseleian Amendment by 269 to 217.
Nearly everybody then went out; of the place, making such a noise
that it must nave been difficult for the Gallery to hear what Mr.
Hayter was saying. He was however moving for enlarging boroughs
by taking in the agricultural districts around, that a fusion of Shop
and Spade might occur, and the equipoise of parties be preserved. This
came to nothing, clause 9 was passed, and
Mr. Disraeli arranged that a new scheme of Distribution should
! be prepared.
So we laid aside Reform until after Whitsuntide.
Tuesday. Question touching another portion of the frame of a naval
cadet. Two of his comrades had scored on his nose the Queen’s
“ broad arrow,” cut in with a knife. For this brutality they were dis-
missed the Service. But as it appeared that they did not rub gunpowder
into the slits, their humanity was recognised, and they were reinstated,
with an awful wigging. Mr. Punch is not habitually hard upon boyish
escapades, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and it is not being
too fastidious to draw it at disfigurement for life.
Debate on the Government Bankruptcy Bill. The lawyers, of
course, fought on each side, but let us hear the Philosopher. Mr.
Mill thinks that we have passed from the old savage system of treating
debtors barbarously to one which lets them escape with too much
impunity. He intends to move clauses for punishing debtors who
have shown “ culpable temerity” in dealing with their creditors’ pro-
perty. This information may he interesting to sundry.
Thanks, Lord Enfield. A select Committee on the practice of
summoning juries, not forgetting the gross bribery and favouritism of
the summoning-ofiicers. This is grappling with a real grievance. We
hope the Judges will behave properly in this matter, but they have a
habit of showing small sympathy with gentlemen who suffer by a vicious
system, of which the bench is just as well aware as the fellows who
practise it.
Lord Elcho’s Bill for softening the law of Master and Servant was
read a Second Time. Mr. Fawcett thought that it very fairly repre-
sented the evidence taken before the Committee.
Wednesday. Mr. Ewart moved the Second Reading of a Bill which
will have interest lor most people. He wishes to restore the old state
of things at the Universities. He proposes to enable anybody to
affiliate himself to any college or hall (with the consent of the Head),
without being obliged to reside therein. The object is, avowedly, to
give college education to poorer men than can at present obtain it.
Mr. Hope opposed the Bill, and wished that the House would abstain
from “ teasing ” the Gentle Mothers. Mr. Gladstone supported it in
a powerful speech, affirming that those ladies were by no means doing
their work, and educating the professions. It was carried by 164 to
150, and sent to a Select Committee. People who love “the falsehood
of Extremes ” will be prompt to foresee the bestowal of college
honours on farmers and shopkeepers, and will say that they shall
expect to receive a tailor’s bill made out by Timothy Snitch, B.A.,
and that all the rest of the Manhood Suffragians will be M.A., besides
Mr. Beales. But this will be bosh, like a good many things that
will be said on the other side. We think Mr. Gladstone’s lead may
be safely followed in such a matter.
Mr. Punch refers to a debate on a Bill enabling the Public Works
authorities to lend money towards the erection of Priests’ Houses in
Ireland, because our friend Mr. Whalley was enabled to state his
views on the Catholic religion, and they are so very clear. Though
tolerated here, the Roman Catholic religion, said Mr. Whalley, is
the greatest curse which can be inflicted on a country. Now our
Catholic friends know all about it.
Thursday. No Fenian is to be hanged. We have not yet heard this
construed into an Irish grievance, but fully expect to be told that it is
an insult, as implying that a mere Irish traitor is not worth hanging.
A real Irish grievance, however, was raised to-day. It is a rule in
the Guards not to enlist Irishmen and Catholics. The rule is subject
to a great deal of infraction, but it ought not to exist.
Friday. We had, on the Army Estimates, the case of the old
Merchant Seamen who had to pay sixpence a month to Greenwich
Hospital, and who consider that they get no returns for the “ Greenwich
Sixpence.” The Admiralty would not admit that the merchantmen
had any case. We voted away a load of money, and then took a spell
at the Bankruptcy Bill. On the preceding day the Czar, a visitor to
the Emperor Napoleon, was shot at by a Pole, and missed. Three
Counts-Out were tried to-night, and Mr. Disraeli alluded to them as
“ unsuccessful attempts at assassination of the House.”
Mr. Punch,
You know what your friend the author of Paradise Lost says
about the architect of Pandemonium, that “ men called him Mulciber,”
and “fabled” how, having fallen from the celestial regions, he “ dropt
from the zenith like a falling starbut—
“ Thus they relate.
Erring ; for he with his rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught availed him now
To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in ”-
—the opposite place, to be named only by clergymen. Now, Sir, 1
should like to have the foregoing quotation (complete) posted up on
every surface of green field in England, bearing flowers, but disfigured
with a notice-board offering it “ to be let or sold ” as “ eligible building
ground.” Perhaps it would suggest a hint, which might possibly
awaken the conscience of the speculating builders and their industrious
crews, who are fast improving all the beauty of this earth off its face.
We might as well improve all the pictures off the walls of the National
Gallery.
Just now. Sir, it is especially desirable that the hues above quoted,
or some other caution or warning to the same purpose, should be
planted at convenient intervals around Victoria Park. That only open
space which the East Londoners can enjoy is in course of being
surrounded by a thick belt of cottages and villas, which will, when
i finished, completely shut out the Park from public view. “ Fancy,”
says a circular of the Victoria Park Preservation Society, “ that
portion of St. James’s Park, abutting on Piccadilly, being covered
with houses. This is what is being done at Victoria Park.” A dead
set seems to have been made against this place by the building and
money-grubbing demon. Last year the fiend attempted to smother it
with enormous gasworks; but was happily foiled. Now he is trying
to hem it in with bricks and mortar and stucco, so as to exclude the
fresh air, and to offend the eye. He is perpetrating the same abomina-
tions there as those with which he is defacing Hampstead Heath,
Epping Forest, and every other beautiful and healthy spot about
London.
Mr. Punch, all this is very sad to think of. Years ago, Cobbett
used to call this capital the “ Wen.” What would he call it now ? A
'‘Fungus haemal odes” one would think, or some other form of, not
simple, but, malignant tumour. Where will the Londoner be able
hereafter to go for a really constitutional walk ? I mean by that a
walk which will refresh his soul as well as his body ; the latter with
pure air, the former with verdure, and foliage, and sweet flowers.
Every such walk will cost him about half-a-crown to get to it by rail- !
way ; if he is able : for railways induce bricks and mortar along their
whole course, wheresoever there is aoy paradise to be spoiled. London,
Sir, will become a city of the Philistines, into whose hands its environs, |
with all their scenery, are falling. I repeat, London will become a
city of the Philistines, and the proper name for it will be Gath.
I am quite aware that it is very sentimental to care for the preser-
vation of landscapes. So it is to care about money. Sentiment is
feeling, and low feeling is as sentimental as high feeling—in a low way.
When a Philistine calls you sentimental for preferring spiritual and
moral good to material utility, he gives you an epithet which you
might- retort. He sneers like a fool, and he also sneers like a pig. A
pig, preferring barley-meal to every other consideration, would utter
exactly the same sneer, if he could. No doubt he would call any
objection to his rooting in a bed of tulips “ sentimental.”
Material utility is something, Mr. Punch, but immaterial utility is
something too. What has made the English character but, for one
thing, English scenery ? What sort of creatures will Englishmen be
when they are born only fit to consume the fruits of the earth, and
incapable of enjoying its flowers ? Even in a material and physical
way, you might show the Philistine, if you would go into a calculation
with him, that he was considerably indebted to the sentimentalists and
poets, Messrs. Shakspeare, Milton & Co.
Does increase of numbers necessitate the incrustation of this island
with buildings ? If so 1 should envy France her stationary population.
But there is a point at which the excess of our swarm must needs
emigrate. Determine it by limiting the enclosure of open spaces. Or
else posterity will all be turned to apes, with foreheads villanous low,
or else to a sort of human pigs, having oblique eyes like Chinamen.
You will live to see the day of that degeneration, along with the Wan-
dering Jew. Forme, I hope that, before it comes, I may be gathered
to my fathers in the happy hunting-grounds, and out of the eligible
building-grounds.
In the meantime Victoria Park to the rescue ! The brutes who atU
building round it can only be bought off. Could a part of the Peabody I
Donation be applied to its redemption ? Could a grant from the Con-
solidated Fund? Cannot a Conservative Government even manage to
conserve Victoria Park ? Excuse the prolixity and passion of
Yours truly, Silenus.