Punch (54.1868)

that Mr. Gregory sprang up and declared that the question was not
one of softening hearts or saving souls, hut of preventing the Queen’s
subjects from being murdered. But the speech of the night was
that of

Mr. Mill, who approved of many of the labours of the “philan-
thropists,” but said that they ought to know when to stop. To deprive
a criminal of the life of which he had proved himself unworthy—
solemnly to blot him out from the fellowship of mankind, and from the
catalogue of the living—was the most appropriate and the most im-
pressive mode in which society could deal with so great a crime as
murder. Imprisonment would be far more cruel, and less efficacious.
None could say that this punishment had failed, for none could say
who had been deterred, and how many would not have been murderers
but for the awful idea of the gallows ? Do not bring about an ener-
vation, an effeminacy in the mind of the nation; for it is that to be
more shocked by taking a man’s life than by taking all that makes life
valuable. Is death the greatest of all earthly ills ? A manly educa-
tion teaches us the contrary; if an evil at all, it is one not high m the
list of evils. Respect the capacity of suffering, not of merely existing.
It is not human life only, not human life as such, but human feelings,
that should be held sacred. Moreover, taking life for murder no more
implies want of respect for life than fining a criminal shows want of
respect for property. In countries where execution is morbidly dis-
liked, there is no abhorrence of the assassin. Mr. Mill added, that
we had been in danger of reducing all our punishments to nothing;
and, though that disposition had stopped, our penalties for brutal
crimes (for which he earnestly recommended the Scourge) were ridi-
culously light, and ought to be strengthened.

A speech like that “ stints the strife; ” the House went to Division,
and by 127 to 23—Majority 104—affirmed the principle of Capital
Punishments. Discussion on the clauses followed, the only remarkable
proposal being Mr. Neate’s, who, because hanging was disagreeable,
would administer Carbonic Acid Gas, or allow the criminal to destroy
himself. The latter suggestion made the Committee laugh; and cer-
tainly, the idea of Calcraet coming into the cell, and, like the gaoler
of Socrates, respectfully presenting Gordon, of Jamaica, or Prit-
chard, of Glasgow, with a bowl of poison, was provocative. The Bill
passed through its last stage but one.

Wednesday. Theology, of course. Battle on a Bill for allowing
Homan Catholics to be buried, with their own religious service, in
Irish Churchyards, without obtaining leave from the Protestant incum-
bent, who, it was asserted, always refused this. The measure was
resisted by the Lefroy and Newdegate party for the usual anti-
Catholic feeling; but Mr. Henley, who has his prejudices, but is not
a bigot, suggested that the real objection to free burial might be, that
three sets of religionists might come at once, and the churchyard be a
scene of unseemly strife. But

“ Gin a body meet a Body,

Need the mourners fight? ”

This is only a detail, and the London cemeteries never witness frays.
The Second Reading was carried by 74 to 51.

Thursday. The Earl of Derby, walking with a vigorous step, again
took his place in the House of Lords. He will accept Mr. Punch's
congratulations.

Mr. D’Arcy M'Gee, an Irish gentleman whose antecedents were
rebellious, but who became a loyal and valuable servant of the Crown,
has been brutally murdered, at Ottawa, by a Fenian, who assassinated
him on his way from doing his duty in the House of Commons. The
Canadians are justly enraged to the utmost, and caught the murderer,
and, as they believe, accomplices, for all of whom there will probably
be “ a short shrift and a long cord.” The Colonial Secretary to-
night spoke worthily of the slaughtered victim, who is assuredly a
martyr to loyalty.

Mr. Gladstone’s Bill for the mild extinction of the Church Rate
was considered by the Lords. It was introduced by Earl Russell.
Mr. Punch is sorry to say that some of the Peers showed small wisdom.
The Bishops of London and Oxford spoke as men of the world, who
saw that the time had come for a concession, and so they made it; but
Lord Derby assailed the measure with much fire, and Lord Cairns
also assaulted it. These friends of the Church had better pass the
Bill—or the next will be a shorter and less civil one. It was read a
Second Time, but menaced with a Select Committee.

In the Commons the new Chancellor of the Exchequer brought
in the Budget which it had pleased Mr. Disraeli and the Depart-
ments to give him. We shall say nothing about it, except that there
is a deficiency of upwards of a Million and a Half, and of course the
money is taken from the Middle Class, which never defends itself.
The Income-Tax is to he raised to Sixpence.

There was something about India, at least Northcote made a very
long speech, but we were much too sulky to listen. Improved Govern-
ment, or something of the sort. Income-Tax, Sixpence. We ’ll save
or evade it somehow, Mrs. Grundy, eh ?

Friday. The Lords sent the Church Rate Bill to a Committee, and
it may be that it will be improved there. But the principle must be

accepted sine grano. The author, Mr. Gladstone, publishes a letter,
denying; that he is a Papist, a confederate with the Pope, au enemy of
Dr. Wynter, a condemner of public aid to the Clergy, a refuser to
attend the Queen to a Scotch Kirk, a receiver of Papal thanks, or a
member of a Ritualist Church. He knows best what attention liars
and fools deserve ; but, while he was about it, we think he might have
added, for the amusement of those who are neither, that he is not a
Buddhist, does not sneak with bis mouth full, never broke into a
sausage shop, takes off his hat iu church, is not afraid of snails, seldom
cheats at whist, dislikes eating asparagus stalks, and has not been
turned out of the gallery of the Adelphi Theatre for insisting on “Hot
Codlings” in the middle of No Thoroughfare.

In the Commons, a debate on Crete, and exchange of abuse of Turks
and Russia, and another on the case of a Post Office Clerk, extruded,
after having been reprimanded 9 times in I860, and 11 times between
February and July, 1867. Truly the Legislature has leisure.

THE BUDGET OF THE FUTURE.

Lo the Income-Tax ascending
War expenses to defray,

You, whose cash alone by spending.

Its whole cost the State will pay !

And would you have others share it
In proportion just and due ?

“ Victims, you must grin and bear it,”
Parliament replies to you.

Bear it; yes, for not much longer
That injustice you’ll endure.

When the masses are the stronger,
Equal burdens they ’ll insure.

They ’ll insist that each his fraction
Of taxation shall sustain,

And no more, of gross exaction,

One sole class stand all the strain.

Hope, from Parliaments elected
By the People, justice done.

And the rights of all respected,
Imposition forced on none.

Wrong will ne’er be done to any,
When their will its way has got.

Then, wars voted by the Many,

Will the Few be taxed for, not.

A CAPITAL PUBLIC DINNER.

As a rule, a public dinner is a thing to be avoided and abhorred, like
a bagpipe or a barrel-organ, or any other noisy nuisance. However,
there is now a marked exception to this rule, and such a pleasant
novelty demands a pleasant notice.

Mr. John Parry, having given up his Merrymaking, now makes
merry with the people who attend a public dinner. In half-an-hour of
drollery he personates a dozen of the bores whom public diners meet
wherever they may dine, and he makes them so amusing that all who meet
them with him wish to meet them all asrain. By mere facial expression
and a slight change of the voice, Mr. Parry fills his stage with a host
of public characters, without whom no public dinner could be deemed
to be complete. He is by turns a chairman, a steward, a treasurer,
a toastmaster, a man who can’t speak without laughing, another who
can’t speak without crying, a band of music, a soprano, a procession of
small children, and a tenor with a cold. What most “ entertainers ”
fail to do by aid of wigs and whiskers, Mr. Parry does successfully by
change of tone and look. When you see him as a lady sitting down
to a piano, pulling off her gloves, arranging a stray curl, and smoothing
down her dress, you believe yourself the victim of an optical delusion,
when you find it is a gentleman on whom your eyes are fixed. Clever
artists have the power by half-a-dozen touches to present a life-like
face; but John Parry by an attitude can represent a person, and por-
tray a man, a child, a lady, or a lapdog, by a gesture or a glance. By
just one touch of nature he makes the whole world grin; and, if we be
pardoned for a further misquotation, we may say that, as an enter-
taining “ entertainer,” none but himself can be his Parrylel.

■ ■-

What says Sir Bernard Burke ?

In the Installation Procession in St. Patrick’s, there was a “ gentle-
man at large.” “ Who could this be ? ” the curious ask. Some one
who was released from incarceration for that day only, on his promising
to return at nightfall F But Irish gentlemen have been far too wise to
bring themselves into this predicament. It therefore remains a mystery
who the “gentleman at large” was, and how he got his ticket-of-
leave—a thousand pardons, admission—to the Cathedral.

19,8

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 2, 186-8.