Punch (53.1867)

Sh'Ptbmkkr 21 1867.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

113

NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND”

Thirsty Soul (after several gyrations round the Letter-box.) ‘‘I sh ’like t’ know
wha’-sh-'e good ’f Genlemn-sh tokn'n Tea-Tot’luer ’f Gov’m’nt {Hie)
goes-h an’ cut-sh th' Shpouts-h o’ th Pumpstj off ! ”

A FASHIONABLE REFORM.

Now Reason in a measure reigns

O’er female dress ; some girls, with feet

And ankles gifted, and with brains,

Wear skirts that do not sweep the street.

The wearer thus her brains doth show,
Exhibits feet and ankles too :

Without her dress held up, as though
On purpose to afford the view.

Now you can see a form of grace,

Whose outlines were before concealed ;

Draped, simply, and, besides the face,

With judgment other charms revealed.

Old times return, emotions old

Back with sweet recollections bring ;

The dull blood feels, in winter’s cold,

As though revisited by spring.

Our very youth, serene through smoke
And self-sufficient as are they,

With some sensation may be woke
By damsels clad in meet array.

Ye fair ones, blest with minds and souls,
Effect just one amendment more ;

Discard those chignons from your polls,
And you ’ll be objects to adore !

MANSLAUGHTER A-LA-MODE.

We learn by a contemporary, more enlightened than
ourselves in fashionable matters, that among some other
striking novelties of costume :—

“ A steel dagger is sometimes worn stuck in the belt, and a small
sword is thrust transversely through the chignon ”

So to carry on the war against poor bachelors and
widowers, Yenus now is borrowing her armaments from
Mars. What with daggers at the waist and small swords
in the chignon, our elegantes must surely be able to look
killing-. __

“ Letters of Credit.”—I.O.U.

THE CONFESSIONAL UNCONTROLLED.

The following extract from the evidence o'-the Rev. Edmund Clay,
M.A., incumbent of St. Margaret’s, Brighton, before the Ritualist Com-
mission, is commended to the attention of parents and guardians : —

“ I requested to visit a person in great distress. She was a widow lady who
had come down to Brighton. . . . Sbe told me that she was very much alarmed for
her general condition ; that she was in the habit of undergoing severe penances,
which had been imposed by a clergyman, hut not a clergyman in Brighton. He
was a clergyman then officiating in London. She Rave me one instance : the night
before she spoke to me she had kneeled on a marble slab bare-kneed for four hours
repeating certain penitential psalms and prayers, which were imposed as a penance
in consequence of her having confessed to some sins of temper or infirmity of that
sort.’

There is a certain article of apparel, which, though generally sup-
posed to be distinctive of Ritualist, parsons, has not even once been
referred to by any one of either the examiners, or the witnesses in the
Commission on Ritualism. It is not, indeed, a vestment, of the cere-
monial kind ; but tailors are wont to call it a vest. They call it, how-
ever, something more. To the word vest, tailorish for waistcoat, they
prefix the initials “ M.B ” The species of vest, or waistcoat, denoted
by those letters, and with a peculiar and personal significance by the
second of them, is worn, or would be worn, by the sham confessor who
had the brutality to impose on his poor humbugged penitent the cruel
penance above described.

Taking, however, the “M.B.” waistcoat as simply the badge of a
party, and not as the token of an individual, and regarding it as an
“ M.B.” in the sense of an “M.R.,” or Mock Romish waistcoat, every
sensible man must see that it is high time the bishops, or the legisla-
ture, should look after its wearers. This is no suggestion that, the
Mock-Romanists had better be placed under restraint,, aud confined in
waistcoats of a closer kind than the “ MB” It means that if they are
permitted to play the part, of Father Confessors, they should be sub-
jected to the same regulations as those which govern the priests whom
they imitate. Even genuine Romish Confessors are not necessarily to
be trusted ; must, some of them, have now and then done such things

I as those of which Dr. Newman’s witnesses accused Dr. Achilli.
What may not possibly be perpetrated by some of their unsupervised
apes, allowed, like the one above referred to, but unfortunately not
named, to practise, in secret, on the weakness and impulsiveness of
penitents of the softer sex P

A BLACK BUT BRIGHT FUTURE FOR IRELAND.

The Mechanics' Magazine says that it is certain that various mineral
substances are now in process of formation or development—that.the
formation of stone, for instance, is as apparent as its disintegration;
and that,

l< So, also, we know that coal is being formed from peat. The intermediate stage
is lignite or ‘ brown coal/ which in turn becomes coal.”

By the time, then, that all our coal is exhausted, if that time is
distant enough, perhaps Irish peat will have turned into Irish coal.
Irish peat-bogs are possibly inchoate coal-mines, and the Emerald
Island may be destined to become the Isle of Black Diamonds. Then,
when the speciality of Newcastle shall have sunk into oblivion, the
proverbial phrase for a superfluous presentation will very likely have
passed into that of “ carrying coals to Donegal.” Set to work, therefore,
you Ministers and Statesmen, as hard as you are able, to devise some
means of conciliating Paddy Whack; since consideration for Posterity,
in particular as to coal, suggests justice to Ireland.

The Worst Horse Winning-.

Great scandal has been caused at Paris by the rapid progress of the
new Opera in comparison with that of the new Hospital. Considering
the orgies enacted in the Salle d’Opera at, the Carnival balls, one
might call it a race in which Hotel Dieu is being beaten by Hotel
Diahle