Punch (55.1868)

210 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [November 14, 1868.

BORROWED PLUMES.

; Photographer (to old party who has. been shilly-shallying about her carte for ever so long). “ You’d better have it Done this

, Morning, Madam ; there’s a,beautiful Light.”

The Lady. “So I intended, Mr. Fokers, and I’d decided to be taken like ‘Mabel Grey’! and there’s that stupid
' Man has never sent my Haii home ! !.”

j_ _

A WORD FOR A PATRIOT.

Mr. Punch has ever a tear of compassion for the afflicted, and he
! proposes to weep with his friend Mr. Peter Taylor, of Leicester, if
convenient to that gentleman. Among the candidates for Chelsea was
Mr. Odger, working-man. It became a question whether Mr. Odger
• or Sir Henry Hoare should retire from the contest, and this ques-
tion was referred, by consent of both, to three umpires, whose ex-
tremely radical views made it certain that they would be guided only
by consideration of the interest of Liberalism. When Mr. Punch
piames them, it will be seen that they are out-and-out Liberals. Mr.
Stansfeld, Mr. Tom Hughes, and Mr. Peter Taylor aforesaid
;were the three. They decided that Mr. Odger should retire. He did;
‘but, in the following gracious speech to an artisan meeting, signified Ills
discontent:—

“No doubt the working-men had been insulted by what had taken place.
A blow had been dealt to the Liberal party ; and, although he was as faithful
to the Liberal party as any man could be, he was not faithful to every limb of
it, because he knew; there was a rotten limb behind it. (Hear, hear.)”

'The Chairman, a Mr. Nieass, was still more explicit.

“ It was the old story over again—that working-men acted with undue
! faith in those whom they considered they might trust. (Hear, hear.) They
had been too honest and too confiding in the class which had no sympathy
with working-men. (Hear, hear.)”

Mr. Punch has nothing to say about the decision—of course it was
impossible for three men to be honest Liberals, and yet to believe that
an enormous constituency, comprising not only a great mass of the
wealth and education of London, but a variety of interests requiring
the attention of a Member with leisure as well as skill, might be more
conveniently represented than by a working-man, however intelligent.

' But the cruel charge of want of sympathy i Mr. Stansfeld is a
L statesman, and can afford the taunt, and Tom Hughes has done so

much for the artisan class that he can laugh at the accusation. But
we fear that it may damage our friend Peter Taylor at Leicester,
and we sorrow with him enormously, and sincerely trust that at the
eleventh hour no opponent may start up, and deprive the House of
Peter’s solemn yet lervid oratory, profound wisdom, and sparkling
epigram. We cannot spare our Peter Taylor, and we, shall be very
vexed with Leicester if it avenges Odger on him. Banish patriotic
Peter and banish all the world.

THE EIGHT POR FINSBURY.

The men of Pinsbury have resolved to pay all Mr. Torrens’s
election expenses. This is a fitting tribute to a worthy man and a
useful legislator. Alderman Lusk, we believe, pays liis own, which is
equally fitting, not to say necessary, for if we were a Pinsbury elector
we would stand on our head on “ Pinsbury Eavement ” before we would
subscribe a shilling to help a man who “didn’t think much of the Elgin
Marbles,” and then we wouldn’t. We don’t think much of Alderman
Lusk, in fact we never think of him at all, except when obliged, as we
were by having to speak of the other, and excellent candidate, Mr.
Torrens. If our old friend and enemy Cox licks Lusk, we don’t know
that we shall go into mourning. They are both Nobodies, and Fins-
bury ought to be represented by Somebodies, but we never heard that
Cox sneered at the Elgin Marbles—so for Cox we ’ll raise our vox, and
into Lusk we ’ll run our tusk. Hooray !

An Example to Eitualists.

The newspapers have announced that tiie Rev. J. Montesquieu
Bellew is about to be received into the Church of Rome. In the
words of Hamlet, says Mr. Punch to Mr. Purchas, “ I would ye*;
were so honest a man ? ”