Punch: Punch (56.1869)

May l, 1869.j PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHAPIVARI.

175

PROPER REPROOF.

Fussy Parly. “Why don't you Touch your Hat to me, Boy?”
Country Boy. “ So I wul T yeaou’ll howd the Ca-alf ! ”

MISS CUBA AND HER OFFERS.

President Grant (not the P.R.A.) is asked to recognise the Republic of Cuba.
Of course it will be asked, with excessive wit, “what’s He-Cuba to him or He
to Cuba?” But when the laughter shall have in some degree abated, Mr. Punch
rnay remark, through the appropriate smoke of his mild Havannah, that if he were a
Cuban, he should gesticulate in a most remarkable manner for such recognition.
For those who don’t know anything about the matter are therefore probably
unaware that the unfortunate Queen of the Antilles has been used worse than 1
Boadicea, or any other unfortunate female sovereign. She has been kept in !
vassalage by Spain simply that any general, or other court favourite whom it was 1
desired to enrich, might go out to Cuba and make his fortune, no matter how.
He soon came home, wealthy with Cuban plunder. Now, of course, the new
Spanish Government intends to patronise every virtue that lived with Bishop
Berkeley. But a Republic in the hand is worth two Constitutions in the bush.
We have no burning desire to see Cuba annexed to the dominions of King Ulysses,
but we are not altogether astonished at her emulating Mbs. Artemus Ward’s
courtship, and saying, with an indescribable look at the American lover, “ If you
mean gittin hitched, I’m on.”

TO HANG, OR NOT TO HANG?

It is probable, as the Pall Mall Gazelle says, that,—

“If the time should ever come when certain vague and ill-understood notions, which
shelter themselves under the phrase of the sanctity of human life, are permitted to be
rationally considered, the question will be asked about others as well as murderers, and
may receive an answer which would more or less surprise the present generation.”

If the sanctity of human life is to he held absolutely inviolable, sing old Rose and
burn the gallows. But if that apparatus is to be employed at all, is there much more
occasion for its employment given by the cutter of a single throat than by the
breaker of numerous hearts, and the causer of several suicides? If Calcraet is
necessary for the protection of Society from ruffians, is he not equally needful for
its security against rogues whose fraud entails upon their victims death, and ruin
to which death may be preferable. Hang fraudulent directors, or hang not at all.

THE BALLAD OL BOB LOWE.

My name it is Bob Lowe,

Cutting down, cutting down !

My name it is Bob Lowe,

Cutting down !

My name it is Bob Lowe,

And I ’cl have you all to know
For retrenchment in I go,

Cutting down!

Of saving I’ve a plan,

Cutting down, cutting down !

Of saving I’ve a plan.

Cutting down!

Of saving I’ve a plan,

To tax each British man
As lightly as I can,

Cutting down!

To spare you money lost,

Cutting down, cutting down !

To spare you money lost.

Cutting down!

To spare you money lost,

Your means which did exhaust,

I ’ll dock Collection’s cost,

Cutting down!

A building job immense,

Cutting down, cutting down !

A building job immense,

Cutting down!

A building job immense,

Proposed with vain pretence,

I ’ll frustrate ; vast expense
Cutting down!

No nonsense I will si and,

Cutting down, cutting down !

No nonsense I will stand,

Cutting down !

No nonsense I will stand,

But keep, with steady hand,

Whilst 1 the knife command,

Cutting down!

I mean to peg away,

Cutting down, cutting down!

I mean to peg away.

Cutting down!

I mean to peg away,

That tax-payers may say,

“ Continue, Robert, pray,

Cutting down !

“ You do your best, we knowq
Cutting down, cutting down !

You do your best, we know,

Cutting down !

Yon do your best, we know.

To mitigate our woe,

Cur taxes, Robert Lowe,

Cutting down! ”

COLLARS FOR COLONISTS.

Our Colonial Friends will be enchanted to hear (as they
have just been told) that they may be made Knights, if they
deserve and desire the honour. An alteration has been
made, in their favour, in the statutes of the Most Distin-
guished Order of St. Michael and St. George. Mr. Punch's
boxes are full of orders, stars, chains, jewels, and the like
gauds, and be really forgets whether he has St. M. and
St. G. among them. Consulting, however, his deariy-
beloved Pebrett, which is always at his hand, by day and
by night, he perceives that the motto is Auspicium melioris
ce-oi, which, meaning the Promise of a Pleasant Evening,
makes the collar just the thing to go out to dinner in.
The Chancery of the Order is the Colonial Office ; and as
there are some capital fellows among the Knights, and as
he would like to give the Order a good start, Mr. Punch,
Member for all the Colonies, will trouble Lord Granville
to send up a few collars, that Mr. Punch may try them on.
The ribbon is watered Saxon blue, which just suits his
delicate complexion.