Punch: Punch (54.1868)

102

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 7, 1868.

RETAIL TRADERS v. CO-OPERATIVE STORES

JOHN THOMAS IS EMPHATICALLY ON THE SIDE OF THE FORMER.

PEERS, IDLE PEEPS!

“ The House of Lords sat last night somewhat less than a quarter of an hour,
during which no business was done."—Times.

Peers, idle Peers, I know not wiiat they do.

Peers from the depths of their luxurious chairs
Rise in the Clubs, and saunter to the House,

In-looking on the happv Hugh, Loud Cairns,

And thinking of the Bills that are in store.

Sure as the hammer falling at a sale,

That makes us travel by the Underground,

Sad as the feeling when our bargains prove
Not quite the treasures which we hoped to find ;

So sad, so sure, the Bills that are to bore.

Ah, sad (not strange) as on dark winter morns
The surliest knock of half-impatient dun
To drowsy ears, ere, watched by drowsy eyes,

The tailor slowly goes across the Square;

So sad, so very sad, the Bills that are in store.

Drear as repeated hisses at your Play,

And dread as dreams by indigestion caused
To those that take hot suppers ; dull as law,

Dull as dry law, and lost without regret;

0 House of Lords, the Bills that are to bore.

THE BRITISH LION AT THE HOME OFFICE.

It is doubtful if more of the naked truth was ever exposed in a
Minister’s Room than by one Mr. Smith, “of Rotherhithe,” at
Mr. Hardy's reception of the Deputation from the National Con-
servative Union last week. Our good friend the Pall Mall Gazette,
which has a sharp eye for the plums in the gathering of the day, prints
a verbatim report of this harangue of the illustrious Smith—-who
assumes the proud title of “part-proprietor of the British Lion."

And who, let us ask, if we may judge by the Post-office Birectory,
can set up a better title to that designation than Smith—John
Smith, no doubt—at once eponvm and representative of the yens
Smith, which counts more heads lhan an-y gens in the nation—Brown,
Jones, and Robinson not excepted. And thus he roared, at the Home
Office, iu the manner characteristic of the animal, with one eye to his
principles, and the other to his profits

“ The stronghold of Radicalism has been the weekly cheap press, but we. Sir, !
have established the British Lion, which circulates in thousands, and I call on you,
Sir, and all present, to support it in a business way by giving it advertisements.

In the British Lion, Sir, we have given the Liberals what they will not forget.
They have libelled us in every way, and called us everything, even walrusser
They have even gone so far as to say that no one could know whether we had a head or
a tail. What are those people to whom we are opposed? Are they the people
who figured in last Saturday’s paper as persecuting the press? Are they not the
people who get up an agitation like wildfire ? I have been used to work all my liie,
and I can tell you I don't want no mercenary agitators. What we want you, the
Conservative Ministry—you whom we have the highest respect for and confidence
in—to do is, to associate with us, to come a little more amongst us. You did not
come to the Crystal Palace. But, certainly, Lord John Manners did come. V/ell,
Sir, I wish to present you with this paper (British Lion) to peruse over. I wrote to
the Chancellor of the Exchequer about this ‘ British Lion,' but / did not receive a
reply, and I also wrote to Lord Derby for support, but l did not get any. [Avery
cruel hit this ] It is a penny paper, Sir—it is a new Paper, Sir—and is doing an
immense amount of good. If there are any Conservative gentlemen here who have
advertisements to give away, let them not mind sending them to the daily papers,
but to us ; because I may tell you, Sir, that I’m a part proprietor of the Bi-itish Lion,
and of course I wish to do my property service. In conclusion, Sir, I have very
great pleasure in meeting Mr. Hardy, that great hero of the metropolis.”

Well roared, British Lion ! . . . The conclusion of the Gazette's re-
port is startling. “Mr. Hardy,” it says, “bowed, and put the
British Lion in his pocket."

Let us hope no British Home Secretary ever did that. Mr. Walpole
once put the British Lion, if not in his pocket, in his pocket-handker-
chief, when he wept in the bosom of Beales, but we had trusted that
Mr. Hardy, as his name implies, was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps,
however, if lie did put the British Lion in his pocket, it was only to have
him ready to slip at any noisy mob who may hereafter venture to
invade the Home Office, be it Finlan and his Fenians, or even Beales
and his Bubbleyjocks.

The Sedentary Man’s Paradise — Sittingbourne.