Punch (59.1870)

252 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 10, 1870.

FIGHTING AT FOOT-BALL.

Surgeon " in the Times, ani-
madverting on a practice
called " backing," gives an
inventory of certain injuries
thereby occasioned. Whether
they were or no, it is noto-
rious that such injuries are
wont to be. He says :—

" One boy with his collar-
bone broken, another with a
severe injury to the groin, a
third with a severe injury to his
ankJe, a fourth with a severe
injury to his knee, and- two
others sent home on crutches,
ought to be sufficient to call the
attention of the Head Master to
the culpable practice of hacking;
practice which has nothing to do
with the game, but which fre-
quently injures for life, and is a
licence for a malignant grudge."

The Head Master above referred to is the Head Master of Rugby ;
the game is that of foot-ball. But for the mention of him and it in the
foregoing passage one might imagine the letter in which it occurs to
have been written at the seat of war, and to relate to wounds received
in action.

"Hacking," however, does not mean smiting with the edge of the
sword, but, we are informed, is a synonym of kicking, which, when
performed with a heavily-tipped boot, is capable of causing even worse
injuries than those ordinarily inflicted by a cutting instrument.

This " hacking," we are further informed, in foot-ball, is permitted
by the "Rugby Rules," which are the generally received laws of that
game. These regulations render a player liable, under certain circum-
stances, to be kicked when down on ihe ground, and, as the account of
the " Surgeon" above quoted shows, in any part of the body. His
opponents are permitted to force the ball out of his clutch by any

answers. An adequate number of influential Ratepayers should be
requested to attend, to prevent copying, and to enforce the strictest
silence—any lady or gentleman failing to observe the regulations would
be at once disqualified for office for three years.

I will now, Mr. Punch, submit to you the questions 1 have drawn
up :—

1. Give the dates of the following events :—the execution of Charles
the First, the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, Gunpowder Plot,
the Accession of George the Third, the Great Fire of London, and
the birth (within twenty years or so) of Napoleon, Shakspeare,
Milton, and Sib Isaac Newton.

2. Who were the Queens of James the First and Second, and
what was the fate of each of Henry the Eighth's wives ?

3 Explain briefly the following historical allusions:—the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew, the Arrest of the Five Members, the Trial of the
Seven Bishops, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Fall of the
Western Empire, the Wars of the Roses, the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the Ptye House Plot, the Cato Street Conspiracy, the Seven
Years' War, the Hundred Days, and the Middle Ages.

4 Who wrote Don Quixote, Sir Charles Grandison, Absolom and
Achitophel, The Dunciad. Orlando Furioso, The Vanity of Human Wishes,
Lycidas, She Stoops to Conquer, Timon of Athens, Wilhelm Meister, The
Decameron, and Peter Plpmley's Letters ?

5. Give a short account of any one of these processes :—brewing,
tanning, paper-making, cotton-spinning, or the manufacture of gas or
china.

6. How is the electric telegraph worked ?

7. Explain the terms, " atmospheie," "electricity," "oxygen,"
"eclipses," "tides," "latitude," "longitude," "equator," "equinox,"
"aorist," "decimals," and the "North Pole "

8. What is the geographical position of the Suez Canal, the Black
Sea, the Dardanelles, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Apennines, the
Cotswold Hills, Middlesborough, Paisley, BeKast, and the Caledonian
Canal?

9. Write out the following arithmetical tables :—Troy, Avoirdupois,
and Long Measure.

10. If seven men can dig a trench sixty feet long, three deep, and
five wide in thirteen days, how many days will eleven men be digging
a trench one hundred feet long, four deep, and seven and a half wide ?

means other than fisticuffs. 11. What was the " Lancasterian" system of instruction, and

Is it not advisable to amend this rule by simply reversing it, and j that known as the " Madras," or Dr. Bell's ? Who was Pestalozzi,
directing that it shall be allowable to get the bail away by no greater 1 and what do you understand by " Kindergarten F "
violence than that of blows with the fist, and those only when the ball- 12. Correct the spelling of the following sentence :—"On sevaral
holder is on his legs ? Then will the manly game of foot-ball be so far ; succesive days seperate parties came greatly exhilirated, and were
humanised as not to exceed in brutality the noble art of self-defence as | recieved in an agreable manner by the new veterinary surgeon, Mr.
normally practised in the prize-ring. If there is to be fighting at foot-; Bartholemew White, who had that moment returned on his poney
ball, let it be fair. i to a home where, posessed of independant means, he spent his lesure

------ = I surounded with all the elegances of life, which, however, he could not

appreciate, because of his vaccilating temperement, inherited from his
SCHOOL BOARDS. father, the well-known apothecery, whose life was once in iminent

Mr. Punch, danger from the falling of a neighbours' wall." Ignoramus.

My thoughts, this last week, have been travelling from Bootle
to Birmingham, from Southwark to Swansea, dwelling on the import-
ant events happening there and in various other places in London and
the country. The School Board Elections, present and to come, set
me thinking on a grave question—not whether education should be
voluntary or compulsory, secular or religious, free or on payment of
fees—but what guarantee the Ratepayers have that those they select
to be Guardians of the ignorant and untaught, are themselves fairly
acquainted with the ordinary branches of knowledge.

1 have not heard or read that candidates for seats at Education
Boards have been examined by the Civil Service Commissioners or the
College of Preceptors: I fear that this desirable preliminary has
been entirely overlooked, and that we have no proof of the compe-
tence of the Governors to govern; and as 1 am one of those who
suspect that ignorance rages amongst the middle and higher, as
well as the lower classes, I have uncomfortable misgivings as to
the qualifications of some of the members of these new Election
Parliaments.

It is, of course, now too late to rectify this error in those places
where Boards have already been chosen; but, for the future, I hope
Mr. Forster will insist on candidates answering—to his and your
satisfaction, Mr. Punch—-a few easy, simple questions, before they are
allowed to publish addresses, make speeches, and hire vehicles for the
conveyance of Voters to the poll.

I have prepared a specimen paper containing only twelve questions
in all, and I shall be curious to hear, either from you or the Vice-
President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether the
answers prove that I am right in my estimate of the amount of common
knowledge posssssed by those classes who will have the working of the
new Act.

If my suggestion is adopted, the Candidates might assemble in a
convenient room in the Town Hall, or other suitable public building,
be supplied with writing materials, but no books of any description, and
have from ten to four allowed them for the preparation of fK\ir

THREE CHEERS FOR THE LADIES.

Miss Garrett the highest

For Marylebone Board,
And Miss Emily Davies

For Greenwich, have scored !
Let the " Woman's Rights " Flag.

Be triumphantly shown,
From the Polls' head at Greenwich,

And Mary-le-bone !

Each thing has its place:

High is still Garrett's goal—
Be't a-top of a house,

Or a-top of a poll.
And to solve School-Board riddles,

Let Emily, greedy puss,*
Claim, as her special title.

" Davies sum, if not CEdipus."

* So she must be; since, not satisfied with founding and presiding over the
Ladies' College at Hitchin, Bhe now insists on a place at the Metropolitan
School Board.

In Appropriate Binding.

One of the Times' Correspondents notices the publication, at a little
town in Baden, of the " Hinkende Bote Kalendar—the Limping Mes-
senger Almanack " ; but omits to mention that it is issued bound in
cloth limp.

Mrs. Ramsbotham is delighted to observe announced " Antiseptics."
She says they are much wanted in these free-thinking days.