Punch (61.1871)

December 30, 1871.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

271

REVIEWS FOR ROGUES.

HE Public is perhaps
tired of reading about
the roguery of South
London tradesmen. By
way of a change, they
will probably not be
much gratified by the
information that the
same practices on the
part of small shop-
keepers as those for
which the South of
London is celebrated,
appear to be equally
characteristic of the
East, suggesting the
apprehension that dis-
honesty is not more
particular to points of
the compass than to
anything else. In the
London Daily Chro-
nica and Clerkenwell
News, the other day,
appeared a statement
that, at a petty session
held on the previou

chapel, fifty tradesmen
of the district were
fined for using light
weights and short mea-
sures ; the aggregate
of the penalties im-
posed on those half-
hundred rogues amounting to £61. Hereto is added a suggestion that this sum
would be well spent in advertising the fraudulent contributors to it by name in
the principal newspapers. This would be a very salutary proceeding_ if it were
practicable, that is, authorised by law; for, otherwise, the advertiser might
nave fifty actions of libel brought against him by fifty knaves, and then, in
each case, unless tried by a special jury, would probably get a verdict of heavy
■damages giren against him by twelve knaves more, the generosity of their
fellow-feeling having been stimulated by the eloquence which is always forth-
coming, in any cause, for a fee, from members of an honourable profession.

New, let us go a little farther, and propose such an alteration in the law of
libel as would render articles of general merchandise open to criticism equally
with that special class of articles called "literary." Why should samples of
tea and sugar, or any other food for the body, be held exempt from censure
on their quantity or quality, how merited soever, when specimens of food for
the mind—tales, poems, epigrams, books, papers, and publications of every sort
and kind— are liable to any amount of dispraise and depreciation no matter
how unjust, and although prompted simply by the motive of hatred to publishers
or authors, for the express purpose of hindering the sale of their works, and
thereby doing them damage ? Of course, if comment on ponderable wares and
on writings were alike free, we should often have a rascally tailor or grocer
running down the goods of his respectable rival over the way. But the precisely
analogous thing continually happens in Grub Street; and who cares ?

SHIPOWNERS AND STORM.

The Government and the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer may be congratulated on the effect that sys-
tematic endeavours, by means of surcharges, and other
pressure, not too gentle, to aggravate the burden of the
Income-tax, are succeeding admirably in the benignly
politic purpose of creating an agitation against that
impost which will enable, in truth by compelling, Mr.
Lowe to propose a just substitute for it in his next
Budget. At "a very infiuentially attended meeting of
shipowners" held on Thursday last week at the rooms
of the Shipowners' Association, City, for the purpose of
protesting against the present mode of levying the
Income-tax on that class of proprietors, whioh is even
peculiarly extortionate and inquisitorial, the following
resolution, being an amendment on a motion les deci-
dedly condemning the tax itself altogether, was carried
unanimously :

11 That the Income-tax on trades and professions is a tax
which is wrong in principle, incapable of equitahle realisation,
offensive and vexatious in its operation, and can only be qualified
as an expedient in cases of great urgency, and ought now to be
repealed, and that the movement for this purpose be supported
by petition, or otherwise, as the meeting may deem fit."

The tight additional turns which the familiars of the
Income-tax Inquisition are—of course by direction of
their Superiors—giving to the screw of Schedule D., are
fast accomplishing the excellent object of raising a
Monday^ at White- grumble into a roar. The storm is rising at such a rate

as to attest in the most striking' manner the ingenuity of
the Finance Minister in the art of raising the wind. It
is to be hoped, however, that Prospero Lowe will be
satisfied with the pitch of clamour to which the hurly-
burly of his Tempest will have attained by the
opening of Parliament, and that he will not, for the
sake of augmenting it to an unnecessarily high degree
of fury, defer the immediate abolition of the Income-tax
till the gale shall have become a hurricane, whilst, in
the meantime, he confiscates another penny or so in the
pound, under pretence of conferring on the Great Un-
taxed " a free breakfast-table."

CHRISTMAS " CRACKERS.

The Inns of Court have expressed their desire to
defray the entire cost of the New Law Courts.

Sir Charles W. Dilke will be presented at the next
Levee.

The freedom of the City is to be conferred on Mr. Odgee.
The House of Lords is to be abolished.
The dish of honour at the Pope's table on Christmas
Day was a boar's head, the gift of, and shot by, the
King of Italy (by telegram).

The British Museum is to be thrown open to the public
every day in the week. There will, consequently, be no
further necessity for intending visitors (especially those
from the country) to recollect whether the Museum is
open on a Tuesday and shut on a Friday, or closed on a
Wednesday and open on a Monday,
i With the New Year all fees and gratuities will be
ALL A-GROWING." abolished at the different London Theatres.

Temple Bar is to be pulled down.
The pavements are to be kept clean.
No person will in future be allowed to enter any
carriage on the Metropolitan Railway which has already
its proper number of passengers.

Mk. Bruce has been invited to preside at the next
anniversary of the Licensed Victuallers' Association.
Mr. Whalley will be the new Speaker.
The Lord Rector-Elect of the University of Glasgow
(Mk. Disraeli) is taking lessons on the bagpipes, and
has already made considerable progress in learning the
Highland Fling.

The equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington
will be removed from its present position at Hyde Park
Corner before the commencement of the season. Its
destination isnot positively known— probably the Borough
Road.

No portraits of Mayors, Masters of Hounds, Town
Clerks, Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, Deputy Lieu-
tenants, or Presidents of Hospitals will in future be ad-
mitted to the Royal Academy Exhibition.

The Spiritualists have discovered who Junius was, and
who the Claimant is.

"Great preparations, we hear, are made for Christmas at Berlin. The squares are
already covered with Christmas trees, which abound in the forests of Thuringia and
Silesia, and which daily are carried by railway into the town."

These must be enchanted forests, inhabited by the most magnificent fairies,
unknown even to the Brothers Grimm, or Hans Andersen, or Lewts
Carroll, to abound in Christmas trees all ready for family use, laden with
presents and blazing with lights. For greater safety, the lamps and tapers
are probably extinguished during the railway journey. The Thuringian and
Silesian forests must be such a beautiful sight just before Christmas that it
seems almost a pity to deprive the "little people" of a single tree, even for
the sake of the little folks.

We wish our forests were as productive at this time of the year. Thousands
of fathers, ten thousands of mothers, would be thankful to know of a con-
venient wood, full of Christmas trees, which without any further trouble or
expense (except the cost of transit by railway—the Great Eastern, for instance,
from Epping) could be transplanted to their drawing-rooms, with, perhaps, a
neatly dressed fairy in charge.

NOTHING IN THE PAPERS "—Isn't there, though? My eye! Why, all
of them have said something in praise of Punch's Almanack ; and, indeed, it is,
without exception, the most blinding coruscation of wit and wisdom extant. N.B.—And
fancy, only Threepence ! Verbum Sap.