Punch: Punch (60.1871)

18

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 14, 1871.

A SONG FOE THE STEEET.

Another broken Treaty

Again we must deplore ;
An act as base and shameful

As e'er was done before :
The pious King of Prussia

His plighted word denies :
And goes down on his marow-bones,

And turns aloft his eyes.

Count Bismarck at his elbow,

For one we know to be ;
We will not say, a Party

Besides, that we can't see.
By secret instigations,

Who prompts to deed like Cain's ;
For instance, that invasion foul

And slaughter of the Danes.

Old Nick's son, Alexander,

Was first, beneath his hoof,
To trample his engagements,

By means of Gdrtschakoff.
He waited his occasion—

He saw that France was lame,
And thought " 'Tis now the time of day

To play my little game."

Young Nick's religious Kinsman

Now follows in his wake.
Believe no affidavit

Such characters may take.
They may impose on Chaplains,

And other clergymen;
But old John Bull will never trust

That precious Pair again.

DESPERATE CASE'.

M A. (endeavouring to instil Euclid into the mind of Private Pupil going into the
Army). " Now, if the Three Sires of this Triangle are all Equal, what
will Happen 1 "

Pupil {confidently). " Well, Sir, I should Say the Fourth would be
Equal, too ! ! "

A Papal Periphrase.

What does the Pope mean by constantly calling
Victor Emmanuel the Sub-Alpine King ? To speak pro-
phetically, believers in papal sacro-sanctity may imagine ;
his Holiness foreseeing the King of Italy buried, for
sacrilege, beneath an Alp, like the Titan under Etna.
If so, let us hope that, as a Prophet, at least, the Holy
Father is not infallible.

New Proverb.—Set an Ass to find a Mare's Nest.

B1PEOVED PENNY - A-LINING.

Among the many valuable lessons to be taught us by the present
War, may be noticed a style of narrative which ordinary reporters
may learn from Special Correspondents. Even these eye-witnesses
of the realities of AVar occasionally, indeed, present us with un-
adorned accounts of them, as harrowing as we can imagine any
details which could have been revealed by the Ghost in I£a?nlet, if
he had not been forbidden to tell the secrets of the prison-house.
But by far the greater part of their letters from the seat of war are
written in that lively and cheerful manner which, in modern Eng-
lish, is distinguished by the epithet "rollicking." Now, would it
not be a great improvement on the usual language in which the
British Public is wont to be supplied with information concerning
common murders and executions, if the "rollicking" style were
generally adopted by the gentlemen of the Press who chronicle those
events ? No civil murder, whether in respect of the number of
victims, or the spectacle presented by their remains, however seri-
ously considered, is comparable for horrors to the carnage of a battle-
field ; and no execution, not even that of Damiens, can be regarded
as a scene of torture more complicated and atrocious thau that xsre-
sented by the wounded, on the plain, or in a military hospital. Yet
a single murder, or infliction of capital punishment, described in
customary terms, is much duller and more dismal reading than the
most sanguinary battle, recounted in Special Correspondents' special
way. Surely reporters would very much enliven our breakfast
tables by similar treatment of common homicide and hanging.

The scenery surrounding the spot at which a murder had been
committed, the costume, manners, and customs of the people there-
abouts, and other like circumstances, would afford plenty of subjects
for minute and lively word-painting. The journey to the prison
wherein a murderer was to be hanged, would probably be attended

with numerous incidents which could be put in a jocose light. A
break-down of a cab, the quality and price of a cigar smoked on the
way, and many other matters equally relevant, could be worked up
likewise ; and the whole relation, ten times its present average
length, could conclude with the agreeable embellishment of a chat
with Calcraft.

The advantage derived from " rollicking " reports of assassinations
and executions would be that of inducing a very large, if not the
largest, class of readers to regard murder and the gallows with a
feeling no more painful than the levity with which they think of
artillery and rifles, and the work wrought by means of those instru-
ments of glory.

SALLY BY A SCOT.

At a recent meeting of the Edinburgh Free Church Presbytery, a
resolution "emphatically and solemnly" protesting "against the
doctrine or opinion that the rulers of this Protestant country may, or
ought to, charge themselves with taking any concern about the
dignity, freedom, or independence of the Pope—even on the ground
of there being so many in the country willing to own his spiritual
supremacy," was carried, on the motion of Dr. Candlish. Hech,
mon, our Candlish, a'm thunkin, is a burnin' an' a shinin' light o'
the Free Kirk ; na Puseyite Reetualeest Roman Candlish bodie."

Piety Before Paris.

It is a wonder that the pious King of Prussia has not long ago
allowed Paris to be re-victualled. So Christian a Sovereign, one
imagines, would naturally think that giving his enemies food and
drink would be a method of heaping coals of fire on their heads more
effectual than that of a bombardment.