Punch: Punch (60.1871)

•0. PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [February 18, 1871.

GRATITUDE.

Fastidious Vagrant. " And they 'ain't 'alf Buttered! I could 'a Done as well if I'd Gone up the Lane to the 'Union!'"

THE MASTERS OF THE MILLION.

When Louis Napoleon suck wisdom had shown

As, firstly, at Strasbourg and then at Boulogne,

As some may remember that ere then were born,

Lor a hare-brained pretender men laughed him to scorn.

But when, having first, upon Satory's plain,
His soldiers with sausages bribed, and champagne,
They saw him high perched on an Emperor's throne,
They gave him great credit for brains of his own.

He having an army his will to enforce,
They owned that he must be a great man, of course ;
With trembling and fear .they awaited his nod,
And weighed his least Words as the words of a god.

But after some blunders, when, making the last,
And greatest, down headlong he came to be cast;
He seemed in their eyes, that had witnessed his fall,
To be no such very great man, after all.

'Tis Bismarck that now for a lion doth pass

With those who, not long ago, thought bim an ass.

He bolds Blood and Iron, they see, at command,

To work out the schemes which his genius has planned.

"Whilst Iron is ductile, and Blood will obey,
So long will be Bismarck the man of his day ;
Should Iron grow stubborn, Blood choose not to flow,
As Bonaparte went, Bismarck likewise may go.

Blood, spent, Iron helps to crush muscle and bone,
Commanded—but they have a will of their own.
Thy Chancellor's bidding to-day they attend—
New Cjesar of Germany—" Look to the End."

THE JOURNALISM OF PEACE.

Mr. Punch,

The papers of late have been lively reading for those
readers who like sanguinary sameness. When the war is over what
matter will journalists find to replace the narratives of special cor-
respondents, and the suggestions of spontaneous ones r Horrid
murders will not occur in sufficient number, nor can any murder, as
to its details, exceed those of the battle-field in the horrors with
which we have been regaled to repletion.

Proposals for improving the means of destroying human life will
probably go on for some time, and it may be long before we see the
end of the case " Muzzle-loaders v. Breech-loaders." It may be
expected that these will be accompanied by communications of
devices for the improved construction of gibbets and instruments^ of
bodily punishment. Considering the torments which good citizens
have been compelled to incur in battle, people will naturally begin
to think little of inflicting any amount of pain on criminals. Accord-
ingly crimes will be made generally capital, and torture will be
revived. Then we shall be entertained at breakfast by controversial
letters in the newspapers, headed, " The Wheel versus the Gallows,'"
for instance, or, "Wire r. Whipcord," or "Cow-hide v. Cat o'
Nine Tails."

Others will advocate peculiar points in the construction and
employment of the rack, the thumbscrews, the boots, the scavenger's
daughter, the branding iron, the stocks, and the pillory. The moral
effect of the War may be anticipated to be a return to the humanity
of the Middle Ages. Sir, I have the honour to be a Sign of the
Zodiac, symbolising Progress in the direction wherein Europe is at
present moving. Your obedient servant,

Cancer (the Crab).

Artistic.

Our friend Maulsticke so devotes himself to the Study of Cos-
tume that his brother Artists say he has abandoned the Fine Arts, in
order to pursue the calling of a Costume-m»nger.