Punch (63.1872)

September 21, 1872.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

119

all the questions in the Conversation Book. I answer my Aunt that
Fortesctje will tell us all about price when we meet him.

MiXBUfiD wishes me to come to dinner with him and Mrs. Mil-
btjrd at a restaurant. While it is preparing, I show my Aunt the
Cathedral and the Elisa Fountain. At every other step I am obliged
to explain that it's not the drains, but the sulphur, which she
smells. _ I tell her that I recollect all about it, and, after dinner she
feels a little better.

Very tired, and retire early : after inspection—ahem!—and with
considerable misgiving. I remark that the quiet young persons (the
" gals") below are still giggling. I can't see, but I can hear shouts
of laughter. Are they so pleased at our having taken the lodgings ?

Notes of the Night, made soon after Daivn.—M.y Dream. I seemed
to be in some church which I knew thoroughly well, yet I'd never
seen it before. Somebody, only showing half his body out from be-
hind a pillar, said that High Mass was going on, and at that moment
I saw the clergy in their vestments walking along, accompanied by
a master of the ceremonies in a sort of gold chasuble and a tall black
chimney-pot hat, which he wouldn't (somehow I felt this, for he
didn't say so)—which he wouldn't take off on any account. Then,
all at once, from out of a door in a wall, which seemed to have no
connection with any part of the church, but was put up like a screen
on the right, came a very long, thin monk in a surplice, who de-
nounced every one, as I imagined from his action, though he never
said anything, and yet he was certainly vociferating with all his
might; and my Aunt, who was standing up close to four people who
were kneeling, and somehow doing it by facing both ways at once,
said to me, crossly, "You don't mean to say you've brought me
here for this! " Upon which I remonstrated with her, without
speaking, however, which was the remarkable part of it, and the
tall monk, waving his arm, disappeared through the door in the wall
just as another priest in a black biretta began to pump the handle
of the or^an in the loft just above us, and to preach, at the same
time, against Mary, dueen of Scots ; and whenever he stuck for a
word, a man in a grey dress prompted him. " And then," he said,
" that scamp of a Scotchman ! " whereupon I looked up, and he at
once withdrew the expression, saying, distinctly, that he didn't
mean me. This seemed to satisfy everyone (there were five people
present); when, on looking up towards where the altar should have
been, but wasn't, I saw another priest at least twenty feet high,
who turned round, smiling and bowing (he'd a head exactly like
that of the great Daniel O'Connell the Liberator), and he was

"Then," she returns, with calm desperation, " I've killed five
Wansers this morning. Here's one!" and she indicates the defunct
on the pomatum-pot lid with the air of a Lady Macbeth, pointing
at the " little damned spot." Then she adds, having already for-
gotten the word, " That's a Bonser, if ever there was one."

She is right, it is.

FISH AND FISHERMAN.

reqtjently there is
caught in the
Thames a certain
fish, bearing a name
of questionable pro-
priety. For it is
called the Pope.
Now the Pope (mam-
malian) is credited
with representing a
Fisherman, not a
fish, or any creature
of the kind. Then
there is this distinc-
tion between the
Pope of the Thames
and the Pope on the
Tiber, that, whereas
the former is caught
now and then, you
can never catch the
latter. In a letter
to the Times on the
recent controversy
about the compli-
city of the papacy
~ with the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew,
Sir GeorgeBowyer
thus writes :—

" Allow me only to add, that assuming (though this has been denied and
controverted) that the Pope of that day sanctioned the massacre, the doctrine
stooping "down "to lift" up a" little deacon "who" was" facing us", and j of Infallibility is not involved, nor brought into question; for by the decree

chuckling while he was giving us a blessing. Then the organ began ! of the late Council the Pope is infallible only when teaching dogmatically
to play———and I awoke i cawearu, and decidmg questions of faith and morals.

Think I hear My Aunt stirring. So rise. Every one up and about ! Catch the Pope if you can. He is, says Sir George Bowter, in
in Aachen. Out to look at Water Drinkers. Same old routine, same ; fallible only when teaching dogmatically ex cathedra, and deciding

smell, almost same people. Pretty Miss Elisa, alas ! has vanished
from the fountain. I visit the kindly Miss Catherine (it isn't
Catherine, but something very like it) and while laying in a small
store of cigars (at one gro apiece, and a little one, or two, in on taking
a quantity), I learn that poor Elisa will never more hand waters
from this, or any other fountain, on earth. " She was a very pretty
girl, and as good as she was pretty," says Miss Catherine, with
an emphasis that implies a history, and I feel that nothing more can
be said.

It relieves us both, after a pause, to interchange the tittle-tattle
of the present season, and to discuss the merits of the newest
fashion in cigar-holders.

"And where are you lodging P" asks Miss Catherine, who is
only too pleased to advise and recommend.

Happy Thought.—Whenever going again, send to Miss C. Ought
to have thought of this before.

I answer, oh, at Fraulein Frowster's.

" Ah! so ! " says Miss Catherine, and smiles. I don't like that
smile. She doesn't offer an opinion on the matter. 1 wish she
would. Somebody else enters, and I leave.
I don't like the peculiar way in which she said that "So." I don't

questions of faith and morals. Secular history has been defined, to
be philosophy teaching by example. By parity of expression,
ecclesiastical history is definable as theology teaching likewise.
When a Pope has a medal struck and Te Deum sung to commemo-
rate a massacre of heretics, those historical acts to simple minds
appear to amount to a solemn papal approval of the assassination of
heretics in general, and the French Huguenots in particular. But,
0 no ! It cannot be shown that the Infallible Beformer of the
Calendar approved of the St. Bartholomew massacre ex cathedra.
How are we to know when a Pope speaks ex cathedra, and when he
doesn't ? When he does, are we to understand that he always says
so ? "Now I'm speaking ex cathedra. Mind that. There's no de-
ception or mistake this time." Is that, or some such as that allocu-
tion the necessary preface to every papal bull or other utterance en-
titled to be received as infallible ? Eh, Sir George Bowyer ? _ Or
is the phrase ex cathedra to be taken literally ? As an infallible
Doctor, is the Pope not to be depended upon whilst he stands up ?
Is Infallibility associated with the Pope's head, or with the con-
trary ? Is he infallible only when seated ? Must the Pope's_rela-
tion to his chair be the same as that of the Pythoness to her tripod ?
It has been said that wisdom is in the wig. Do you, Sir George

xik© her smiling and only saying, "So." Bowyer, mean to say that Infallibility is in the trousers? Does

Back to lodgings. Gaily salute the Fraulein Frowster, whom Infallibility locally coincide with Honour ? Sir Knight of Malta,

I see in the shop._ She bows to me civilly and nicely enough. wiU your chivalry also tell us, are the fallibility and infallibility of

I enter the sitting-room. My Aunt is there before me. A frown any past Pope in particular determinable solely by the ex cathedra

is on her brow. In her hand is the lid of, as I fancy, a pomatum-
pot. I wish her good morning. She does not return the courtesy,
but asks me in a tone, at once grave and indignant, " Where is
your Dicket Jockshon Permanary ? "

What ? _ Oh, of course, my Pocket German Dictionary. Here,
naturally, in my pocket.

" Then," says my Aunt, holding out the pomatum-pot lid, on
which I now notice, for the first time, a large round brownish black
spot, as of the remains of a squashed insect; "then, if you please,
tell me what is the German for—for—That?"

Further inspection unnecessary. Miss Catherine's ominous smile.
Ah! I open the dictionary, and far on, under " B," I find it.

" What is it f " asks my Aunt, tragically.

" Wanser," I reply.

decision of the Pope for the time being P If so, then are we to un-
derstand that Popery can stand committed by previous Popes only
in so far as they are acknowledged to have spoken or acted ex
cathedra, by the present Pope, and that the decisions of the present
Pope, accepted as ex cathedra, will have hereafter to be believed to
be ex cathedra or not, only according as the future Pope, of any
particular period, shall ex cathedra have appeared to determine ?
Then, truly, Piscator differs from Piscis. No ; his Holiness the
Pope is no fish. He is, indeed, neither fish nor flesh ; an investigator
knows not where to have him.

But now, what an opportunity has Piscator for hooking Pisces!
Suppose. Pius the Ninth were to handsel his infallibility by cen-
suring Gregory the Thirteenth. What a lot of salmon he might
catch, not to be illiberal and say gudgeons !