Punch (59.1870)

October 29, 1870.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

177

THE POST CARD.

Landlady {reads): " ' Marlbro'-House. Dear Joe—Look in to Tea and
Shrimps on your way Home to-Night. We 're all alone, and the Princess
and the Young Ones 'll be Delighted. Yours ever, Albert Edward !'—
Well, if ever I did !—I'd no Idea !- An' I was jt«st goin' to give the

pooe, DEAR, young fellow a bit o' my MlND about his rent ! "

[N. B. The stratagem was successful.

GOLD AGAINST COUNTEES.

Is if; not time we should befriend
The weaker side in losing fight P

Yes, if the better; and defend,
Seeing that Heaven does not, the Eight.

But, if the better cause be, too,

Getting the best of battle-fray,
The wisest thing that we can do

Is leaving Heaven to work its way.

Who would desert his friend in need ?

The generous Briton ? Surely not.
But help him how, by lawless deed

When into trouble he has got ?

Compassion, sympathy, in vain
Unhappy France does not implore ;

But, pity as we must her pain,
We feel her Victors' woe the more.

Troops that, as frivolous as fierce,
Glory, by carnage won, deirand,

What are their hearts, which ballets pierce,
To those torn through for Fatherland ?

"Zouaves" and "Turcos," willing slaves
Of murderous lust for fame and power,

What are they, shovelled into graves.
To brave true men, their nation's flower ?

Together poise such men and such;

These in the balance those outweigh,
Excelling them in worth by much:

Gold against counters lost are they.

If we do take the weaker side,
Own its chief weakness that side must,

Thereto now blinded by false pride,
The weakness of a cause unjust;

Cause of invasion backward rolled,
Cause whose injustice does not cease

While first aggressors still withhold
Security for lasting peace.

We, for the weaker side and worse,

Forbearance only can implore,
When it shall offer pledge to curse

The world all rouud with war no more.

French War Stories.—Balloonacy.

CONSIDERATE GERMANS.

Many an anxious bosom will be relieved of the gravest apprehension
by the following extract from a letter of a champagne manufacturer at
Ay.-

" We are busily engaged in securing our crops of grapes, in which we are
not impeded by the German troops passing through the town every day, but
receive every protection from the commanding officers. I feel it due to them
to.acknowledge this; and the whole world will be grateful to them for their
forbearance and aid, when the soldiers of many other armies would, under
similar circumstances, have been turned loose in our vineyards, not only to
eat up the fruit so temptingly displayed in their sight, but also to trample
down and destroy the plants themselves."

By far the greater part of Champagne so-called, may be made of
rhubarb, but still the thought that, the grapes of the real Cham-
pagne district were in danger of being destroyed was very dis-
piriting. Yet any one might, have been relieved of such a fear by the
consideration that the intelligent Germans have far too much good
taste to destroy the sources of good liquor. If they were induced to
invade England by the demonstrations of our " British Republicans,"
and their associates, and enabled to do so in the local absence of our
fleet, by our general want of military organisation, and had then to
besiege London, in case London were a fortified town, they would
doubtless avoid, if possible, the bombardment of Messrs. Barclay
& Perkins's Brewery; or did they, under the same conditions, beleaguer
Burton-on-Trent, they would not willingly shell the establishments of
Messks. Bass and Allsopp. Nor will they, we may be sure, do more
harm to Paris than so much as they may be compelled to by the in-
fatuation of the Parisians ; but let us hope they won't.

Truly Irish.—Irish Ambulance Corps is a rather happy name for a
squad of auxiliaries. It is quite pat.

ENCOURAGEMENT BY TERROR.

In a certain popular ballad a naval Captain addresses the following
statement to the heroine of the poem, concerning the hero :—

" If that your true love's Billy Taylob,
He's both cruel and severe."

The subjoined telegram was sent, the other day, to Mr. Reuter
from Tours :—

"The Commander of the Army of the Loire has announced that he will
shoot any soldier guilty of hesitation before the enemy."

This terrible Turk, actually a Turco perhaps, of a French military
Commander, reminds us of Billy Taylor. He certainly deserves the
epithets applied to Billy Taylor by the Commander in the British
Navy according to the ballad above-quoted. The Commander of the
Army of the Loire is both cruel and severe. That is, if he is as bad as
his word, and does really mean to shoot any soldier who may prove
guilty of hesitation before the enemy. But it may be feared that he
will carry cruelty and severity yet farther than that, and be even worse
than his word. He will only too probably shoot, if he can catch, any
soldier who, before the enemy, shall be guilty of no hesitation in run-
ning away.__

" NigM Thoughts" for Mr. Cardwell.

(With the late Br. Young's Compliments.)

There is no Army where there's no Reserve,
And 'tis on Savings that your Forces starve.

who shall be king ?

The Germans have all the houses of Orleans, except one. The
French middle-class wish for that House of Orleans. Is peace there?