Punch (53.1867)

September 14, 1867.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

103

Cabby (disputes the fare, and insists on having Fitzbelgrave’s name and address
—the latter has not his Card-case). “ W there’s Writin ! Why didn’t yer
say’s y’ vos a Onedicated Man ? If yer’d ’a’arst Me, I’d a’ Done it

FOR YER ! ! ”

THE TREE KIRK RAMPANT.

Auld Pirie, Sabbatarian chiel,

An’ Doctor Begg, for Scotia’s weal,

Sair dread frae Sunday steamers feel:

’Tis varra wrang !

They fear the kintra to the deil
Is like to gang.

Morality will stan’ or fa’

As folk observe the Sabbath law :

They wi’ the Tree Kirk doctors a’

That point maintain,

Wi’ logic that a fule wad ca’

Baith sound and plain.

Spain, Dutchland, Italy, and Prance,
Where sinners on a Sunday dance,

Are—could a mon wi’ truth advance ?—
Of a’ lands sunk

In vice beyond redemption’s chance ;

Of a’ maist drunk.

Rech Begg, ye Sabbath’s champion stark.
Ye ’re nae dumb dog that winna bark,

Ye say as bad as Sabbath wark
Is recreation.

Begg, ye ’ll become a man of mark,

Por admiration.

An’, Begg, ye said ae ither thing,

Wilk far and wide is like to ring,

While tunefu’ bards your praises sing.

An end, about,

Por servants ye proposed to bring
Of “ Sabbaths out.”

O Begg, and sae ye fain wad blot
That ae wee pleasant weekly spot
Whilk brightens the puir slavie’s lot.

Ye babe o’ grace !

To stay hoo mony hae ye got
In sic a place ?

A Shocking Thing to think oe !—A Galvanic Battery.

THREATENED STRIKE OF CURATES.

According to a correspondent of the Times, signing himself “An
Old Incumbent,” measures are in course of beiug taken to institute
a Curates’ Union, likely to be followed, in the natural course of things,
by a Curates’ Strike. These are striking times. There seems to be a
contagious principle in operation among working-men, which impels
them to _ strike. It has now attacked the working-clergymen. The
strike of the journeymen tailors will perhaps be succeeded by a strike
of the journeymen parsons.

Por the contemplated strike of the curates there is that to be said,
which is more than any one can truly say in justification of some strikes
on the part of workmen—the demands of the curates are not altogether
unreasonable. They are thus stated in a document, quoted by the
“Old Incumbent-.”

“Curacies are to become permanent; curates to have a proper independence ; to
be protected from arbitrary and despotic ‘ treatment, whether episcopal or other
curates to be on equal footing- in spiritual matters with the incumbent; to be the
incumbent's assessor in things spiritual; the equality of priests ; the right to cele-
brate at certain times ; a system of promotion by seniority ; the equalisation (accord-
ing to population) of the stipends of incumbents ; the moneys of the various charities
to be thrown into a common fund.”

But whether a strike is an expedient likely to enable the curates to
obtain their ends, is what may be doubted. It is true that the clerical
employers would be unable to combine on their part, and have recourse
to a general lock-out. No rector or other incumbent could possibly
shut up church, unless, indeed, the bishops joined in the combination
of the master-parsons, and unless also the lock-out were permitted by
public feeling. The former of these two conditions would, to be sure, be
probable enough under the latter. As regards the adequate remunera-
tion of the curates, it is against the episcopal body more particularly,
that the strike would, if it prevailed, take effect. The curates’ increase
of stipend would have to come out of prelatical profits. Then, too,
htcumbents would be unable to import curates from abroad, where,
besides popish and Greek priests, there are, according to established
church law, no ordained clergy. And, if there were any, they would

mostly labour under the disadvantage of being unable to speak

English.

On the other hand, the Curates’ Union would find it a hard matter
to enforce its decrees on its own members ; still more to coerce non-
unionist curates. What steps do they meditate taking for those pur-
poses ? Do they think to ratten a refractory or contumacious asso-
ciate by abstracting his surplice, or secreting his set of lithographed
sermons ? Have they any idea of stationing pickets at church-doors,
with a commission to taunt, abuse, intimidate, annoy, or thrash
reverend knobsticks F Are they prepared to go any farther in the
way of assailing offenders against their union rules than by peppering
them with the pop-guns of paper warfare, and blowing them up in
print ?

On the whole, the prospects of a Curates’ Strike do not appear to be
very hopeful. If it were so general as to create any serious amount
of spiritual destitution, the bishops would have it in their power to
ordain agricultural labourers, able to read and write, and, in the last
resort, constitute them labourers in the vineyard. They could, indeed,
consecrate their own footmen, and those of other people, if the loot-
men were willing to become servants of the church ; but very few of
them would be—well aware that they should, by so doing, better them-
selves in nowise.

“ Six to One and Half-a-dozen to the Other.”

The famous Cretan blockade-runner Arkadi has been burnt by the
Turkish cruiser Izeddin. One feels tempted to apply to the ships,
captains, crews, and indeed all parties to the great Candian quarrel,
Greeks and Turks alike, Byron’s famous line from Don Juan,

“ Arcades ambo,—id est, blackguards both.”

NOTE BY A SPIRITUALIST.

Unbelievers jeer at our tables dancing and chairs talking in action,
yet no one has ever yet cast a doubt upon the annual “ Speech from
the Throne.”