Punch (62.1872)

1

202

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[Mat 18, 1872.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

onday, May 6.—The prospects
of the Government are im-
proving, as the summer ad-
vances. Prospects usually
improve by hne weather.
Punch unhesitatingly sacri-
fices truth to epigram—any-
body can tell the truth, few
people can make epigrams—
the weather has been any-
thing but fine, and May
seems to be getting like her
old husband January. But
to revert. The Ministry, we
are happy to say, were de-
feated only three times this
week, once comically, once
seriously, and once serio-
comically. Tom Moore tells
us of a certain Jack, who was
ubiquitous.

" A friend of his one evening said,
As home he took his pensive
way,

' Upon my soul, I fear Jack's
dead,

I've seen him but three times
to-day.' "

In the House of Lords Earl
Granville made urgent
appeal to Earl Russell
again to postpone his motion
on the Washington Treaty.
He begged this publicly and
privately, and Lord Russell
was obliged to assent, but
demanded that the Whit-
suntide holidays should also
be postponed, an unkind
proposition, considering how
frightfully hard the Lords
work, very seldom sitting less
than an hour and a half.
Finally, the motion stood over
for a week.

The Attorney - General
gave Magistrates a hint which
they may as well notice. Mr.
M. Guest alluded to the want
of severity in punishing brutal outrages. Sir John Coleridge said that
the fault was not so much in the law as in those who administered it. Some
of the ridiculously lenient sentences of last week confirm this statement.

Then came the Serious Defeat of the Government. We shall tell the story
with American brevity. Mr. Gordon, Member for Glasgow Universities,
moved, on the proposal to go into Committee on the Scotch Education Bill, that
regard should be had to the old law and custom of Scotland touching imparting
Biblical instruction in schools. It was known that the Opposition would rally
strongly on this, so the Silent System was adopted on the Liberal side, and
Conservatives were allowed to go on, unanswered. But they were not to be
done, and protracted the debate till nearly midnight, when Mr. Forster got
alarmed, and tried to make matters pleasant. He did not exactly succeed, for
when the division was taken, Mr. Gordon beat the. Government by 216 to 209
■—majority Seven. "My Jo!" how the Tories shouted—over and over again.
The four tellers were obliged to stand still, and abstain from telling anything
while the frantic cheers went up. It was delightful to witness such earnestness
in the cause of religion.

Tuesday.—We repeal the Party Processions Act for Ireland. You see, it can't
be enforced against Fenians and the like, so it would be hard to enforce it
against Orangemen. " But where is dat Barty now?"

We protected the Pacific Islanders, and Lord Carnarvon made some remarks
which were sincere, like everything he says, but which may excite comment in
pious circles. Referring to the desire by the Bishop op Lichfield that no
vengeance should be taken for the murder of Bishop Patterson, Lord Car-
narvon said that in the mouth of the prelate the sentiment of leaving the
punishment to Heaven was highly proper, but it could not indicate the course
the State ought to adopt. Lord Carnarvon unconsciously joined the Libera-
tion Society. If ever there was a divorce of religious from secular duty, it
was pronounced in this autoschediastic fashion. But, dear Lord Carnarvon,
what says Tertullian ?—Punch is sure you know Tertullian—" Vani
erimus si putaverimus id quod clericis non licet laicis licere."

Mr. Gladstone volunteered a promise to let the Commons know, at the same
time as the Lords, the state of the American negotiations ; and he added
warm expression of the extraordinary forbearance which Parliament and the

country had shown to the Government, not as the
Government, but as those entrusted with important
public interests.

Mr. Guildfobd Onslow asked why the public were
to prosecute Castro, when Overend and Gurney had
not been so prosecuted. Mr. Lowe gave an elaborate
answer, particularly weak as regarded the commercial
frauds, but not weak at all as regarded Castro. He,
Mr. Lowe said, was charged with wilful and corrupt
perjury on a gigantic scale, with trying to rob an infant,
and with slandering a virtuous lady. If guilty, it was
difficult to imagine a case of greater turpitude, and the
enormous expense to which he had put the Tichborne
family would prevent their prosecuting him. The House
of Commons cheered.

Several dull topics were discussed to no purpose, and
then there was a relief in the shape of a personal ques-
tion. Why was Colonel the Honourable Charles
White made Lord-Lieutenant of Clare, he being a non-
resident in that county, and a stranger to its Magis-
trates. There was very smart talk on this. The real
reason was that Colonel White is a son of Lord
Annalt, who has fought a series of tremendously
expensive elections in the Liberal interest. Lord Pal-
herston gave_ him a Peerage, and there can be no
objection to his son's appointment, as Lord Annaly
gives him a fine estate, on which he will build a fine
house. The Clare gentry—what did Lady Morgan say
about

"Pat O'Daisy, and Mistress Casey "—

make a disturbance ; but when the hospitable young
L.L. and Guardsman shall have given some dinners and
balls, his merits will be discovered. There was plenty
of spice "exhibited" as usual when Irishmen have to
pepper Irishmen. This incident shall be noticed. Mr.
Bernal Osborne used Sheridan's phrase, " damned
good-natured friends." He was actually called to order
by Members who had evidently never heard of the
School for Scandal. Why, Mr. Punch himself, who
never permits a coarse word to appear in his pages, except
when ne nails it up as a warning (and even then he de-
licately enfolds it in periphrase), had a poem—and a
very admirable and beautiful one the other day—about
the d. good-natured friend. We shall have Shak-
speare called to order next, for describing a bleeding
soldier and a perished heath by adjectives which the
lower orders use after their nature. There is nothing
so vulgar as " gentility."

Wednesday.—To-day came the Serio-Comic Defeat.
It was moved by Mr. Glyn, for Mr. Gladstone, that
the Committee should not sit next day, being Ascension-
Day, before two o'clock. Mr. Bouverie, who though
educated at Trinity, is a Scotch Member, and does not
recognise religious festivals, opposed the motion on the
ground that the time of witnesses ought not to be
wasted that certain folks might go to church. And,
snapping a division, he beat the Government by 52 to
47; majority, Five. Bad management again; why was
not somebody put up to talk until Churchmen could be
fetched ? Or had they all gone off to Chester to see the
Cup won by Inveresh ?

Sir Wilfrid Lawson moved the Second Reading of
his Bill for permitting people to refuse to permit other
people to have liquids. Mr. Punch is at once too im-
patient with the fanatics, and too weary of the topic to
say more than that the Bill would have been very com-
pletely extinguished, but for the artful device of pre-
venting a division on the merits, by allegation that a
lot of Irish Members wished to speak. The numbers
against adjournment testified to the feeling of the Com-
mons ; there were 369 to 15; but as the hour for ad-
journing the House itself was near, the Bill became a
Dropped Order. We can hear no more of it till the 24th
of July, when the House will be in a kicking frame of
mind. Not having been present, Mr. Punch cannot say
whether Sir Lawson realised the lines in Rokeby:—

" "Wilfrid changed colour, and, amazed,
Turned short, and on the Speaker gazed."

(Canto iv. 31.)

Thursday.—The Lords Spiritual, of course, abstained
from sitting to-day, and the Lords Temporal followed
their example. In the Commons, Mr. Beresford Hope
made some remarks on the Ascension-Day division, and
complained that his own religious feelings, and those of
Members of both the English and the Catholic Churches.