Punch: Punch (60.1871)

april 2d, 1871.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 169

from £1 IBs. id. in the £100 to £2 is. And thus he gets nearly all
the required amount out of the real "Working Class, the people who

THE DRAMA OF THE FUTURE.

pay an unjustly regulated tax. He takes £1,950,000 from us. tjnch, Sir, we are presented

As for the comparatively small .sum left, he ohtams that, by alter- j^^j^^^Str^ f \ Wlt]l ,,n'' more instance of

ing the Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties. ^^^Mffi^^^^^^^. /! a 800& tragedy, wherein

And—it is not a joke—he imposes a Tax on Lucifer Matches . It i^^^^^^^m^^^^^^L I there is no love. May we

is trim. Every box of 100 common matches is to bear a Halfpenny \) not hope for a good comedy

Stamp, and evi rv box of 100 wax matches, or fusees, is to bear a Mm^^^^^^^^^^p^^^^J] also, in which that passion

Penny Stamp. He believes that he shall get £550,000 in this way. Wm^^^^^^^^^^^^^J will be conspicuous by its

And he carried this proposition, after a Ion- debate, m which he /MS^^^^^^^^^^2> absence? If the stage is

was considerably chaffed. Me. Dixon. Member for Birmingham, really to hold the mirror

divided the House on the Match Box question, and was defeated by ^b^^^^^^^P^^^p ^flPi? opto Nature, as Nature

201 to 44. ^^^^^^^^^^ is, and indeed to show the

We were far too much displeased with him about the two ^^^^^^^^^^^v-£<^^^ very age and body of tin;

Millions of Income-tax to be sportive over his Match Box, until we wKS^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ' time, its form aiid pres-

recollected that on it he proposes to print the motto, Ex luce luce/- H^^^^P^^^^^gB^^^. sure,'yes.

lum. "Show me children, and do what you like with me," said ^^^^^j^ttffiJi^tX In the week next to

Me. Bucket. " Show me Latin, and you put me in a good temper," JBw^SmSSS Si 'JA' Easter, this year, the dood

says Mr. Punch. The literal translation of the words is, A small JHfflM»%^W^g^ ~ iV.b/f*? °^ marriages, pent up

gain out of light." Me. Lowe has made hut a small gain out of the Uj J^^^^^^NSa frl^f~ \? during Lent, did not rush

light he has had on political economy; but let that pass. ^ W^mSwIS^^^Sff Vj k( / < down°the Times in any-

Friday. The Lords read a Dover Harbour Bill. It includes, we —Hm|k^^^ ^ ^^vjx, thing like its usual cata-

believe, a valuable clause, prohibiting Mayors, and the like, from ^WmSSmmM^ ^^tU^ O ract" °" one day the

going down to the harbour, and showing Dover taste by reminding ^^MmWBM^WW <z£l births were forty-two only,

royal exiles of happier days. ^^^^bBSH^T (t~-£3> the deaths as many as

Me. White gave notice of War on the Budget. So did Me. fifty-three, the marriages

Fawcett, in a milder way. So did Mb. Liddell, in opposition to not more than twenty,

the Purchase-purchase scheme. Argal, fighting at hand. Hooray ! i The connection which you have pointed out between this sort of

Nextly, Me. Cavendish Bentince got up a debate on the Decla- ratio and the Married Women's Property Act doubtless exists. But

ration of Paris, 1856. He wishes us to withdraw from the articles a concurrent cause of the declining marriage-rate I believe to be the

abolishing privateering, and giving immunity to an enemy's goods I cessation of love among the generality of at least the higher and

under a neutral flag. In the course of the discussion, Me. Disbaeli ! middle classes. There are exceptional lovers, by their associates

remarked that, at the recent Conference, Government had registered commonly called spooney, whence we see that they are exceptions
their disgrace, and recorded the humiliation of this country. Mr.
Gladstone indignantly denied it, and asked whether that was
language to be used about those who had made llussia eat her own
words.

that prove a rule.

Several causes have combined to abolish love. One of them I
believe to be the immense prevalence of smoking amongst young
men. If love does not put a man's pipe out, his pipe puts out love ;
We finished with a row over the Match-boxes, the most creditable [ and a cigar has the same effect. For smoking not only calms passion,
part whereof was the manifestation of feeling on behalf of the very | but also aids thought; hence, perhaps, the habit of deep reflection
poor, who make matches. Do readers know that babies of two 1 for which most men are now-a-days remarkable

years old work at the boxes ? It is asserted that the tax will

operate even to the discouragement of these mites. Nobody, of

course, believed that who voted in the majority that carried
Me. Lowe's resolution

MORE RED FINANCE.

The Income-tax payers have not been disappointed in the expec-
tation that they would have the honour of defraying the by far
greater portion of the increased estimates. As £2,250,000 direct
taxation is to £550,000 indirect, so is their share of that honour to
the proportion enjoyed by the community at large, with the addi-
tion, on the part of many of them, of increased Succession and
Legacy Duty levied on their inheritance. People say that the finan-
cial prospects of the nation are gloomy ; but Mb. Lowe's Budget, as
an earnest of future taxation, is all couleur de rose, that is to say,
the red rose. Indeed, if Me. Lowe pleased to make himself so
agreeable as to oblige the House of Commons with a song some night,
he could express a truth prettily by singing a parody on " My Lore
is like the Red Red Rose" substituting " My Budget" for "My
Love." What can be Redder than the imposition of taxes mainly
on a single class, except the confiscation of that one set of people's
entire property? "There's a good time coming, boys." If you
don't want your incomes exceptionally taxed, don't make money
otherwise than by manual labour; and if you don't wish your chil-
dren, or brothers and sisters, to be fined for the public benefit, on
the amount you may leave them, don't put by any.

Epigram on the Budget.

{By a Scot.*)
" Nae wonder that oor Budgets still should grow,

When at sic sma' sma' game the Exchequer snatches;
By matches we've been used to raise a lowe.t
But, noo, 'tis by a Lowe that we raise matches ! "

N.B. His first piece of wut or rhyme—" Facit indignatio versum:
t Scottice, a blaze.

Memorandum for Managers.

The Managers of Playhouses are wont to announce that their
theatres are nightly crowded. This information makes all who hate
to be stifled, and will go to see only a probably good performance,
stop away. Unintelligent audiences, and pieces to suit them, are
thus perpetuated.

Another cause is, probably, the air of indifference to the regard of
men which girls generally affect, if they feel it not, in their manners
and style of dress; the former being characterised by levity, and
the latter by ostentation. Female attire, moreover, although showy,
is little decorative, and very costly indeed ; helps, therefore, to ex-
tinguish any spark of love which a youth mayr contract. '' What is
the use," he thinks, " of loving her whom I can't afford to marry ?"

Now, then, that love has become an anachronism, it should be
exhibited on the stage only in dramas which reflect the state of
Society in past ages, or in burlesques and pantomimes wherein all
the performers make fools of themselves. As an element in a comedy
or a farce, if employed at all, it ought to be treated as simply absurd,
and the piece which includes it should terminate with the joke of a
broken-off engagement; the lovers agreeing to shake hands and
part, whilst a light father says, "Be happy." This improvement
of the Drama would gratify men of a certain age, who, under cir-
cumstances, occasionally find themselves at a theatre, and whom
experience has taught that matrimony, at best, is very temporary
beatitude. They are disgusted at seing youth of either sex,
especially their own, invited to believe a delusion which all those
who do live to be undeceived; except in the case of a person always
remaining, Calebs.

P.S. The diminution in the Times marriage-list may suggest some
hope that a stop will be put to the destruction of woods, and the
enclosure of commons, which have been caused by the spread of
population. But it is to be feared the lower orders go on as usual.

"MIST, MIST, O MIST!"

It having been announced that the Empeboe Napoleon and his
family, desiring to effect an escape from the impertinence of British
vulgarians, were about to reside at Whitby, the Situation, a French
journal published here, observes :—

" We do not doubt that Chiselhurst will soon be deserted ; but we do not
think its guests will leave it in order to retire still further into the mists of
Albion."

We compliment the French scribe upon his admirable acquaint-
ance with geography. Chiselhurst he evidently knows to be a place
on the edge of the sea, while Whitby is, he is equally aware, in the
heart of a woody region. The " mists " are in the French Cockney's
brain.

Huiltlity Itself—Consideeing.—" None ought to aspire to be
wiser than the laws."

Vol. 60.

6