Punch (62.1872)

36

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 27, 1872.

GENEROSITY.

Noble Lord (vihosc Rifle has brought to a scarcely untimely end a very consumptive-looking Fallow Deer). "Tut—t, t, t, t, Tut ! 0,
I sat, Stubbs !—(to his Keeper)—you shouldn't have let me Kill such a poor, little, sickly, scraggy Thing as this, you
know ! It positively isn't fit for Human Food ! Ah ! look here, now ! I'll Tell you what. You and McFarlin may
have this Buck between you ! !!"

A SEAT ON A SAFETY-VALVE.

An Income-tax partial see Thiers oppose,
0 William the Earnest, 0 Robert the True!

A soul above fear of the Rabble he shows ;
Is that to be said, British Statesmen, of you ?

Or is it that you, whom mob-courtship doth move
With tribute from all due to load a part's purse,

Albeit your Honours both see and approve
The better arrangements, do follow the worse ?

How bad are the worse, which poor fleeced Britons rue,
You have often confessed; but decline to advance

On that high path which upright financiers pursue ;
They manage these matters much better in France.

For justice it is which disposes them there,

Political craft in this mighty free land,
Whose Rulers perpend not what impost were fair,

But what imposition tax-payers will stand.

It was not enough upon shoulders select

To pile your whole Budget; on folk thus oppressed

(As housebreakers use, the strong-box to detect)
The Screw has been put; they are over-assessed.

You fancy your Engine is working so well

By way of a Steam-Rack, 'twill yet more extort,

And bear any pressure your force can compel;
You sit on the safety-valve, therefore, in short.

0 William the Daring! 0 Robert the Rash!

Though deaf to remonstrance, to caution give ear,
Ere high-pressure boiler burst up with a crash,

And blow aloft Stoker and hoist Engineer.

SAD ALTERATION.

The Dramatist has led us to think that " Music hath charms to
soothe the savage breast," but the " Heavenly Maid" is not so
"young" as she was when Congreve wrote, and increasing years
seem to have changed her mood and spoiled her temper. What
other conclusion can we come to, when we find in an article on
" Music" in one of the newspapers, in some comments on the per-
formance of a young lady on the piano at a Monday Popular Concert,
the disquieting statement that she " left her mark as usual on the
audience, the music, and the piano " ? It is some little relief to
find the writer adding that "this last was more than once punished
severely;" as it is a fair inference to draw, that whatever the
sufferings of the piano may have been, the music, and, which is far
more important, the audience, escaped with only one assault.

The Managers of the Monday Concerts should consider, before it is
too late, whether they are not endangering the well-deserved popu-
larity of their agreeable entertainments, by allowing performances
which would seem to have rather too striking an effect upon the
hearers.

Nocens Absolvitor.

The South London News makes rather an unkind suggestion.
Thieves enter tradesmen's shops, under pretence of selling some-
thing. The News thinks that people who would be exempt from
such visits should, "keep watch, and, on opportunity, hand the
victims over to the police." This may be fair in South London,
wherever that is, but in Fleet Street we do not dispense that kind
of justice. _

a hint to l. and b. railway.

The Real "Nine Hours' Movement"—to Brighton and back for
Half-a-Crown.