Punch (55.1868)

278

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[December 26, 1868.

HOW TO STOP STREET OUTRAGES

Y dear, Mr. Bruce,—Allow me to j
congratulate you on your seat in the
Cabinet, and on the many pleasant
hours of good hard earnest work in
store for you. As Secretary for the
Home Department, you will find
enough to do to prevent your time
from ever hanging heavy on your
hands, and you never need antici-
pate the bore of being idle. What
millions of memorials you will have
to read, and what hosts of deputa-
tions you will have to bow to ! And
this reminds me, by the way, that
the Vestrymen of London (who are
not quite such fools, all of them, as
some people imagine) propose to call
upon you shortly for a little quiet
chat about the increase of street rob-
beries, and the inadequate protection
of our system of police. Now, Ves-
trymen in general, are beings to be
snubbed, but I hope this deputation
will not be cold-shouldered on the
score that you are busy, and have
more important matters to attend
to. To you and me and others of
us carriage-keeping people, it is of
mighty little consequence if the
streets be safe or not, for of course,
we seldom condescend to walk in
them. But it really is no joke for a
poor devil of a clerk, who is forced to
go afoot, to be knocked upon the
head, or tripped up and laid senseless
by a brute who creeps behind him, :
arid then robbed of watch and purse,:
which holds, may be, his quarter’s '
salary. One wouldn’t so much mind
if one’s pocket were picked neatly, without the slightest violence,1
though one might call oneself a precious fool to be outwitted. But,

I repeat, it is no joke to be knocked upon the head, out of which one’s !
jokes must come, if one is forced to live by them. Who steals my
purse steals cash— a few sovereigns or shillings • but he who thumps
me on the brain robs me of my livelihood, it may be, for a twelvemonth.

At the meeting of the vestry delegates where the memorial to your-
self was the other day proposed, it was suggested, with the aim of
diminishing street robberies

“ That while pointing the law against criminal capitalists, they should
strengthen it against the operative criminals; that landlords should he
enabled to eject bad tenants by an easy and inexpensive process ; that all per-
sons letting their houses to the predatory classes, and thus deriving their rent
from the plunder of their neighbours, should be indictable ; that in case a
house proved to be a harbour for criminals, the Magistrates should be able to
authorise the police to take possession of the house while endeavouring to \
discover the person guilty of harbouring the thieves; that the names, &c., of
all offending persons should be made public ; and that the law should be so
altered that, where the overt act or intention to carry out a crime was fully
proved, the conviction should follow, although the offence had not been com-
pleted.”

To these suggestions i would add that, as the cat has checked
garotting, it might be well to try its influence in all cases of street
robbery accompanied with violence, and I hope that you will give all
our Magistrates the hint. If you could find time now and then to
glance at the police-cases reported in the newspapers, and call over the
official coals all “ beaks ” who seem too lenient in dealing with street
outrages, you would much gratify the public, and earn the praise of

Punch.

P.S. As bulldogs breed bulldogs, so human brutes will bring up
their offspring to be brutes : and I can’t help thinking that the race of
our street ruffians would sensibly diminish were their children
taken from them at their first conviction, and trained for emigration,
or the army or the navy, at the national expense. Prevention in
such cases would be far cheaper than cure. To feed and clothe and
teach a lad would really cost less money than to feed and clothe and
keep him safe in prison, when a. ruffian mature, and grown to be so
dangerous that society demands his extrusion from the streets.

No Apparent Connection.—Mrs. Malaprop, whose head is still
running on politics, cannot make out why the New Ministers are
obliged to go and be elected again, because of a statue of Queen Anne !

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS.

The Paris Press are writing about the New Ministry and its fore-
most chiefs with good taste, knowledge, and discernment, and with a
friendliness which it is agreeable both to read and record. Should they
continue and extend their observations, we can imagine that there are
some functionaries and offices, some changes and appointments, which
will be the occasion of natural mistakes and pardonable perplexity.
For example, the First Lord of the Admiralty. If you, a Briton, did
not possess that accurate knowledge of the history of your country
which the training of our Public Schools and Universities has amply
supplied, you might reasonably suppose from the wording of his title,
that this Minister was invariably, at least a Baron, and from the nature
of his duties, as a matter of course, a naval officer. You will not, there-
fore, wonder if the French are surprised when they find that the new
First Lord of the Admiralty is neither a Lord nor an Admiral but,
simply, Mr. Childers, a name which in verse has an obedient rhyme
in “ bewilders ”—as probably our Minister of Marine (who, we venture
to predict, will not be at sea at Whitehall) does his French critics. As
a contrast, dwell in thought on the Postmaster-General. The postman’s
knock and Christmas box, the rough leather sacks bulging with news-
papers, the mail-carts, the N.E. district, the penny stamps, the pillar-
posts—do these things suggest a Marquis now and a Duke to be, a
Cabinet Minister who, when he can leave the sealing-wax of St. Mar-
tin’s-le-Grand for the red tape of Downing Street, must pass from the
Irish mails to the Irish Church, and think about abolishing posts instead
of extending them, forgetting for a time the cares of money-orders and
telegraphs in the lighter duties of protecting the interests of sextons
and vergers P Excuse, then, the astonishment of the Frenchman when
he reads that the Postmaster-General, with a seat in the Cabinet, is the
Marquis of Hartington, the eldest son of’the Duke op Devonshire.

The Lord Privy Seal! What a grandeur, what a seductive mystery
about this title ! How many of us Englishmen could say what his
duties, his responsibilities are P How many could give any information
about him except that he is always a Peer, always one of the Sacred
Conclave or Cabinet, with a salary of £2000 a year, and most probably
an irreproachable Deputy ? There are incendiaries who think he
might be abolished without danger to the Constitution. Monstrous !
Imagine a Cabinet without a Lord Privy Seal! . We are a decaying
nation, a lost people when that happens. Still, if the French in their
researches can discover why he is essential to the happiness and wel-
fare of England, we shall be more than ever pleased with the interest
they have shown in our New Ministry.

To complete the quartett, enter the Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, towards whom there is shown a capriciousness of conduct
quite unaccountable, for he is sometimes taken into the bosom of the
Cabinet, and at other times left to stay outside. Some eminent and
experienced lawyer, the French may conjecture, selected to decide all
the disputes and difficult questions that must arise in such a vast and
important county, one of your great manufacturing provinces, the
Palatinate of industry? We can but confess again that we know
almost as little of his duties and doings as of the Lord Privy Seal’s,
and can only suppose the necessity for them is equal, their .salary being
the same. Perhaps the Judge-Advocate-General, -who is popularly
supposed not to be overdone with work, will supply the needful in-
formation.

Do the French writers explore the London Gazette ? If so, we can
fancy the Journal de Paris or La Liberte asking why the Mistress of
the Itobes is changed ? Does the Wardrobe go with the Cabinet ?
Must the custodian of ermine, and velvet, and miniver be sound on the
complex Irish Church question, and to be depended upon when the
battle rages over the Compound English Householder P Or perhaps
the inquiry is, why must you have a new Master of the Horse ? The
Royal Mews, the State Equipages, the Queen’s Plates, the Highland
Shelties, there is no dark design to disendow or disestablish them, is
there ? What statesman would be daring enough, whatever his
stability might be, to interfere with their stalls and appointments P
The Master of the Buckhounds—yes, there does appear to be a reason
why he should retire, for is he not a Government Whip ? But that
the Captain of the Hon. Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, and. the Captain
of the Yeomen of the Guard should be compelled to give up their
salaries and uniforms because they are conscientiously of opinion
that Ireland cannot do without Archdeacons., is a political conundrum
which even at this season, in the midst of Christmas hampers and
illustrated periodicals, we are unable to answer. What then must be
the despair even of the best-informed Frenchman ?

The Retort Courteous.

The French Bar gave a dinner to the English at the Grand Hotel.
M. Grevy proposed “ The Health of the Foreign Barristers,” Mr.
Huddlestone, Q.C., responded to the Toast. Bravo ! If the French
Bar gave the English Grew ; the English Bar gave the French
Sauce in reply.