Punch: Punch (57.1869)

December 11, 1869 ] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

229

THE BOBBY AND HIS BOOTS.

The Police are hereafter to have their
boots made in the Convict prisons. The
Pall Mall Gazette expresses a hope—

"That no vindictiveness on the part of the
convicts will lead them to cause trifling annoy--
ance, such as inserting the point of a small brad
in the heel of the Policeman's boot."

There is no fear of anything1 of the kind.
The convicts know such tricks would make
the police, instead of bootless, only more
effective. We have the authority of a great
Latin poet for contending that the more
policemen might be lamed in this way, the more
convicts would be nabbed. See Horace:—

" JRaro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Posna daudo."

Which Mr. Punch would translate :—

" "lis seldom one hears of a Bobby that's lame,
But at running his prig down he showed himself
game!"_

Quite Another Thing.

A newspaper correspondent, writing from
Rome on the subject of the (Ecumenical
HAVE YER HAT ! " Council, says that the Hall in which it is to

be held is now stated to be " good for
N.B.—As this Phrase js Used only by the Inferior Creation, Mr. Punch is Glad sound." We are afraid it will not be equally

to Illustrate it so Appropriately. good for sense.

ECONOMICAL COUNSEL.

The (Ecumenical Council will comprise
between six and seven hundred Bishops,
many of whom, belonging to Italy, the East,
and other Missions, are so indigent that the
Pope will have to board and lodge them.
This cannot but be very expensive for His
Holiness—almost enough to make him cry
" Nonpossumus ! " The burden thus devolved
upon him, however, it will be in his power
considerably to lighten, by prescribing, as a
condition calculated to further the Council's
deliberations, the frequent practice of fasting
as hard and as long as the Fathers are able.
Could he not sell a dispensation from absti-
nence to the richer Prelates, and dispense
himself?

By the expedient above suggested the deci-
sions of the Council would be expedited as
well as its cost diminished. But there is
one objection to it. Dr. Johnson said that
fasting made him peevish. It might pro-
voke the Members of the (Ecumenical Coun-
cil to declare the Pope not infallible.

" A SWEET LITTLE CHERUB " AT ITS POST.

Caraccas, like other South American republics, is in a chronic state
of revolution, and the merchants of Maracaibo, its capital, naturally
are the first to bleed, in purse, if not in person also, whenever some
gallant Colonel pronounces, or some patriot civilian buys, bribes, or
bullies some other patriot out of the President's chair, as in private
duty bound. But Maracaibo numbers some Britishers among its
merchants, and the Maracaibo Britishers have been lucky enough to
get the British man-of-war Cherub, Captain John Davies, sent to
protect British interests in that lively port, which the Captain has done
so well that the merchants have presented him with a sword and a
chronometer.

The last West India mail brings the story how Captain Davies
told the Britishers ashore to hoist a flag if they wanted his help : how
the flag was hoisted; how the Captain pulled ashore with an armed
boat's crew, just in time to prevent one Pulgar, the last " pro-
nouncer," from battering down stores and houses, and converting
cotton bales into breastworks ; how Pulgar, being worsted, came
aboard the Cherub, and put himself and his adherents under Captain
Davies's protection, and then basely plotted to seize the Cherub and
massacre its crew; how Captain Davies, at risk of his life, circum-
vented him, handed him over to the authorities, and left him on the

high road to the gallows—which we trust he has by this time reached,
in due fulfilment of the laws of natural selection and manifest destiny.

All honour to Captain Davies—for so well sustaining the credit of
the British pennon, the protector of honest folks' lives and properties
all over the world, and the terror and scourge of evil-doers.

The Britons in Maracaibo have been taught the faith as it is in
Dlbdin, that there's a " sweet little Cherub " anchored in the offing, as
well as smiling aloft, to keep watch o'er the life of rich John (Bull)
io hot water, as well as of poor Jack in cold ditto.

An Irish. Reason for Fixity of Tenure.

wouldn't you " fix " Irish tin
a fix already.

Your constant reader, Rory O'More.

Mr. Punch, Sirr,—Why wouldn't you "fix" Irish tinants ? Sure
Irish landlords is in a divil of a fix already.

A Pert Memory.

"He told me," says Artemus Ward, "to get out of the Office. I
pitied him, and went." What put tliat into Mr. Punch's sublime head ?
Could it have been Lokh Malmesbury's protest that he was not
" deposed " from the leadership of the Tories, but that he " resigned " ?