Punch (55.1868)

August 8, 1SGS.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

55


MR. PUNCH’S DESIGNS AFTER NATURE.

“ Gardez-vous ! ”

FLIGHT.

(.Adapted from Longfellow’s “ Curfew f)

i.

Suddenly, joyfully,

Leaving the Row,

The London belle
Is beginning to go.

Cover the couches,

And shut out the light;

Calls cease in the morning.

And parties at night.

Closed are the windows,

And out is the fire ;

The knockers are silent—

All footmen retire.

No groom in the chambers,

N o porter in hall!

Dust and brown holland
Reign over all!

n.

The Season is ended,

And closed, like the Play;

And the Swells that adorned ll
Vanish away.

Dim grow its dances ;
Forgotten they’ll be,

Like the ends of cigars
Thrown into the sea.

Squares lapse into silence,

The railways are full.

The windows are papered.

The West-end is dull.

Fewer and fewer
The people to call;

Sweeps and the charwoman
Reign over all!

SMALL CHARGE FOR STAMPING.

The need of a public prosecutor appears to be suggested by the very
mild justice administered to the ruffians concerned in an outrage thus
described by the Times.-—

“ Nearly a Murder.—An atrocious case of assault was heard at Malton on
Saturday before a full Bench of magistrates. The gross nature of the case
caused the court to be crowded. Four men, named Thomas Potter, W.
Potter, and W. Sharp, labourers, of Terrington, and Thomas Goodall,
groom, of Rigganthorpe, were charged with assaulting a young man, named
John Swann, a tailor, of Slingsby, in Hovingham, on the 14th inst., between
ten and eleven o’clock at night. Goodall only pleaded ‘ Not Guilty.’ From
the evidence of a gentleman named Sedgwick, of Hovingham, who witnessed
the latter part of the affray from his bedroom window, and whose appearance
appeared to have saved the life of the complainant, the four men, seemingly
without provocation, most cruelly ill-treated the man Swann, got him down,
and kicked him until senseless.”

When, in such a case a,s this, the accused are not committed for trial,
the obvious supposition is, that their victim preferred to have it sum-
marily settled. That, in some measure, enables us to account for the
apparent leniency shown by the Malton magistrates to the above-named
criminals. The Times continues

The walls of Mr. Sedgwick’s house and the pavement are yet covered
with blood, the heavy rains having failed to obliterate it. Mr." Sedgwick
did not hesitate to say that if not interfered with, the men must have murdered
the complainant, and some of the magistrates expressed a similar opinion.
With the exception of Goodall, who said he took no part beyond holding the
coats of two of the others, the men made no defence. The Bench were unani-
mous in fining the defendants heavily, and imposed a penalty of £10, costs
included. Three of the men paid their proportion, the fourth to pay in three
weeks, or two months’ hard labour.”

Who can doubt that, if these fellows had killed the man on whom
I they committed the assault attested by Mr. Sedgwick, they would
| have _ committed quite a murder, and he the first to get hanged
i in private? The crime they did commit deserved penal servitude for
i life, and if they were let off with a fine of £2 lO.v. each, or the option
! ot two months’ hard labour, surely it was but because they were sen-
tenced to the heaviest punishment that the Rench had power to inflict.

“ The Bench were unanimous in fining the defendants heavily.” Of
course, that means as heavily as they could. Only, what needs a little
explanation is the statement that one of these brutes, to whom imme-
diate cash payment was inconvenient, had three weeks’ credit given to
him instead of having been immediately sent to gaol. We do not blind
ourselves to the fact that John Swann, the sufferer of their maltreat-
ment, was a tailor; but we dismiss the suggestion that the Malton
Beuch regarded the injuries which he sustained as bearing a relative
proportion to merely the ninth part of a man. But, anyhow, a Public
Prosecutor is wanted to take perpetrators of atrocious assaults out ot
such hands as theirs, and send them to the Assizes, where a judge will
have the authority, as well as the intelligence, to visit them with a
punishment not absolutely ridiculous.

ANGLO-AMERICAN JURIES.

Denying that the American Government has any just reason to
complain of the treatment of captured Fenians, who were naturalised
Irishmen, the Times explains that:—

“ The form in which the doctrine of immutable allegiance appeared was the
refusal of a jury de medietate linguae ; for if a prisoner could not satisfy the
Court that lie was au American born, his claim to a mixed jury was rejected.

It is difficult to see how, in the case even of an acknowledged
American citizen, it would be possible to empanel a jury de medietate
linguae. The English language is the English language. All Americans
claim, as they say, to talk good English ; and some do. As to language,
a mixed jury of Americans and English would be six ol one and haii-a-
dozen of the same.

Scarcely Likely.

In the news brought by the West India Mail we read that the
“ agent general of immigration has arrived en route lor India to engage
coolie labourers for Jamaica.” We hope he will succeed.

IIugly Customers.—Bears.