Punch (60.1871)

January 21, 1871.1 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 21

A REAL CASE OF DISTRESS.

PITY THE POOK FOGGED-OUT PHOTOGKAPHERS!

A WATCHDOG'S BARK.

Me. Speaker,

How enviable is your position, considered with a view to the treat
which you will shortly begin enjoying for some six months ! Night after night
you will have the pleasure of sitting up, often till three o'clock in the morning.
So, indeed, will many people in high life, out of Parliament; but theirs will
be the frivolous and petty pleasure of dancing, and small talk. You, on the
contrary, will sit still, and hear talk of the very largest kind, and the longest.
Ten or a dozen orators in succession will talk pamphlets to you; a pamphlet
each almost every night. Every sentence in succession will be an epigram
embodying wisdom and conveying information—if you need that. The language
addressed to you will be so lucid that there will seldom be any necessity for your
entertainer to repeat a statement, much less to say the same thing over and over
again in different words.

The eloquence of the gentlemen whose hearer you will be—called, therefore,
as though from not speaking, Speaker—will be exerted chiefly on the inter-
esting subject of our National Defences. This will be treated in the most ex-
haustive manner possible, only not so as by prolixity to exhaust your patience.
The immense importance of reorganising the British Army, indicated by the
collapse of the French, will be fully explained, but not more fully than pithily.
In the meanwhile, of course, military reorganisation will proceed at such a rate,
that wise oratory will be accompanied by suitable action. And, Sir, in discuss-
ing the lessons to be derived from the Franco-German War, the gentlemen
over whose discourse you will preside will, doubtless, not limit their rhetoric
to the more obvious, but, though very important, perhaps less important one.
Their utterances will not merely be delivered in view of the particular collapse
whose likelihood is directly suggested by that of the French Army. They will,
some of them at least, have a word or two to say tending to obviate the still
worse collapse, of which the possibility should be suggested to us, by that
national misfortune of our neighbours—I mean the collapse which, for us, Sir, in
our position, would be the one most truly analogous to that which they have
sustained—the not impossible collapse of the British Navy. You will presently
be gratified by the big bow-wows. Among them, perhaps, will be echoed, the
warning bark which you have heard from your ever faithful Toby.

Most Important.—Eminently gratifying! No more alarm! No more
anxiety! Why? Because in a recent telegram addressed to the world at
large, Greece savs, " Our Foreign Policy will be Peaceful ! " Hooray !

SONGS OF SIXPENCE.

THE MUSICAL FAMILY.

I belong to a musical lot,

I've sisters, and brothers, and cousins,
I've grandpas and grandmammas got,

And uncles, like oysters, in dozens.
We all of us instruments play,

We practise night, morning and noon ;
My father at six every day,

Gets up to awake the bassoon.

My grandmother, ninety about,

A widow was left all alone,
'Cos grandfather blew himself out,

One night on the gentle trombone.
My Uncle Sam plays on the harp,

In a wild and inspirited manner ;
And my Aunt plays three tunes in F sharp,

On a strong-minded Broadwood pianner.

My Uncle Bill sits on a stool,

For his size he 's uncommonly thin;
In the summer he keeps himself cool,

With airs on his own violin.
My young brother Tom, quite a boy,

Has written an op'ra called Tasso ;
To sit up in bed is his joy,

And play his own tunes on the basso.

My Great Aunt's composed (she's a " Sim1'),

Oratorios—one is called Noe,
And on Sundays she plays us a hymn

Arranged for the cheerful oboe.
My sister's attached to the flute,

And brings out most wonderful tones ;
My nephew—a vulgar young brute—

Prefers nigger airs on the bones.

My youngest who says " ^at" for " that,"

In fact he 's of five the last comer,
Performs with two spoons on my hat,

And cries out, " Papa ! I'm a dummer."
My baby in arms has a way

Of playing the fife on its coral;
And my twins play the bag-pipes all day,

With a loyalty worthy Balmoral.

Through life we've in harmony passed

With a stock of some twenty or more tunea,
And a sum we've together amassed,

Which is equal to two or three fortunes.
Wherever our musical tribe

Took a house 'twas our aim, I admit it—
To make all the neighbours subscribe

A sum to induce us to quit it.

So all the great cities we've seen,

From the Thames to the banks of the Tiber;
And every one in 'em has been,

A heartily willing subscriber.
As thus Europe we ve done, the word's sharp

To Jericho f thither we '11 hie,
To learn the neglected Jews' harp

From native Professors. Good-bye !

The Greatest of all Functionaries.

Happy, thrice happy Rome! Not because of the down-
fall of the Pope, not because of the visit of the King of
Italy, but because it—the "Eternal City," the City of the
Caesars—has a "Lord Mayor!" We hope this is only
the commencement of a better order of things, and that
before long we shall hear that Imperiai Pome has also
Common Councilmen, and City Companies, and Vestries,
and Wardmotes, and a Toastmaster, and a large consign-
ment of Turtle, and all the other luxuries London has so
long enjoyed.

where are the police ?

A Gentleman in the top story of a house near Hyde
Park, the other day, incautiously Threw out a Suggestion.
Luckily, no one was passing at the time.