DOI issue:
July 19, 1873
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16937#0035
July 19, 1873.]
PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
23
contractors, £4 15s. Do not these contractors want something
unpleasant done to them—blowing away from guns, or some such
gentle hint about profits ?
On the Judicature Bill, Mr. Gladstone very elaborately defended
the course which he had taken in regard to the Irish and Scotch
Appeals question. But he thought it respectful to the Lords, who
had behaved so well about the rest of the Bill, to make things easy
for them, and he proposed to retain the words which completed the
jurisdiction of the new Court, but not those which extinguished the
Lords’ jurisdiction. Then the Lords would find a Court ready made
tor the three kingdoms, hut nothing to impair their own privileges.
The device seems neat, and if the purpose be effected, what matter
. how circumbendibustically it is done. We regret to say that Mr.
Disraeli begged for time to digest the “ queer "propositions ” of the
Government. We went into Committee on other parts of the Bill.
In the course of the debate Hr. Cavendish Bentinck said that he
was not to be put down, to which the Attorney-General replied
that nobody supposed he was, “ especially after dinner.” Laughter.
But we should have preferred to hear Weeping, considering what was
implied in Sir John Coleridge’s “ suckasm.”
Friday.—Lord Halieax stated that Government intended to
repair our defensive works at Alderney. At present they have cost
only a Million and a Half, Madam. They will be useful, it seems,
for “ watching Cherbourg” when we go to war -with France.
In the Commons there was a Scene. You know, Madam, that if
any Member calls the Speaker’s attention to the fact that there are
Strangers, in the House, he must turn them out. Mr. Mitchell
Henry did this, and the Eeporters were excluded. Half-a-dozen,
pencils, of course, were instantly ready to take notes for the news-
papers, and just as satisfactory a report appeared in every journal
as if Mr. Henry had abstained from his absurd act. His alleged
reason was that the papers did not report the Irish speeches with the
fulness the speakers desired.
Mr. Bouverie warned Mr. Henry that such capricious exercise
■of power would lead to its being taken away, and Mr. Gladstone
had something of the same kind to hint.
Of course the “folly’s crown of folly ” was woven by Mr. Whal-
: ley, who declared that he was very scantily reported because three-
fourths of the gentlemen in the gallery were Roman Catholics.
From anybody but Mr. Whalley the imputation involved here
would he an insult. How, of course that is out of the question. But,
if the gentlemen in the gallery were really his enemies, they would
lose no opportunity of recording his utterances. He was rebuked
by the Speaker for the line he took. Peterborough ought to be
very proud.
After this the reporters were re-admitted. In the O’Keeffe case,
Mr. Gladstone virtually gave a victory to Mr. Bouverie. We
went through a good deal of business.
Lastly, Whalley again on Tichborne. He complained of the
proceedings for contempt of court. Mr. Bruce had hoped that
Whalley, having relieved his mind, would not again have troubled
the House. Mr. Bruce is a sanguine person. He added that it was
the offensive language used by the friends of the defendant that had
, 'got them into trouble.
Whalley up again, but up sprang another Member, and got him
Counted Out.” Peterborough ought to be very proud.
ANGLO-SAXON DIGNITY.
The Paris correspondent of a contemporary represents the Shah
us enjoying, for one thing in that capital, the advantage of not being
mobbed. This expression implies a comparison which is odious to a
Briton who sympathises with the masses of his fellow-countrymen.
It is true that whenever they could get at the Shah they pressed
upon him in their thousands, and sought the gratification of a noble
sentiment in trying to touch him bodily, insomuch that they made
His Majesty smile to witness the enthusiastic veneration excited by
contiguity to a despot in the minds of the free. But this physical
manifestation of delicate respect towards the Shah should be called
thronging, not mobbing him. Of course he has had no such polite
attention paid him in Paris. And perhaps, how flattering soever it
would have been to his higher nature, he did, in a sense, enjoy
exemption from it in the hot weather.
. We are also told that the Shah, who has the newspapers read to
him occasionally, expresses his surprise at the trivial details
recorded about himself and his movements. The journals referred
to in this statement are, of course, the British. There are none
other in Europe the bulk of whose readers have humility enough not
to despise such small matters. In the United States, however, the
Shah, if he went thither, would be surrounded, watched, and inter-
viewed, and reported with a degree of minuteness evincing, even
more than any similar manifestations have shown in England, how
profoundly the majority of individuals constituting a great people
are impressed with a sense of their own littleness.
CONJURORS AND NO CONJURORS.
zJX 3tf^****~ ER'IAI^ conjurors, illusion-
ists of great ingenuity, are
giving performances at the
Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly,
professedly in imitation of
the alleged phenomena of
Spiritualism. The pheno-
mena exhibited by these
gentle ffien are real appear-
ances. They are produced
by conjuring; but they
are produced: with the
help of apparatus. Are
the spiritualist phenomena,
so-called, produced at all ?
For those who think they
witnessed them do seem, at
any rate, to have ascer-
tained that no apparatus
was employed to produce
them. Men of science be-
lieve them to be either
fictitious or subjective;
their narrators either hav-
ing been seized with hallu-
cinations, or telling lies.
To give imitations, then,
of those pretended pheno-
mena, how clever soever, is not a clever way to prove Spiritualism
humbug. What is there to imitate ?
PBEACHEE PBEACHEE.
It is too true that the affairs of nations, other than our own, are
not regulated by amiable sentiments. There is more than enough
reason to fear that, while human nature continues to be human
nature, all other people than ourselves are likely to be swayed by
their blind and bfutal passions, uncontrolled, and ungovernable, by
considerations of reason and justice. So long as they remain subject
to the frailties which they share with the gorilla, the tiger, the
hytena, and other ferocious beasts, that is to say, so long as the
world endures, it will be idle to invite them, as Mr. Richard pro-
poses, to settle their disputes by arbitration instead of war. It is
sentimental folly to think that a merely verbal appeal to the better
feelings of mankind, Her Majesty’s subjects excepted, will ever
succeed in elevating those feelings, or rather the rudiments of them,
to any degree of predominance over the animal propensities. But,
mind, except the exception, namely, Her Majesty’s subjects. . For
if you announce, as a proposition universally true, that there is no
use in preaching to reform and convert offenders, evilly disposed, the
subscription-payer will, if he believes you, immediately cry, “No
more missionaries! ” and the Church-goer will likewise shout, “ No
more sermons ! ” Unless, indeed, the latter regards the utility of a
sermon as consisting, not in any possible reformatory, effect it is
absurdly credited with, but in supplying a deficiency which, without
it, might justly be objected to by adversaries to Protestant discipline.
For, unless in the case, here and there, of an instructive and. inter-
esting discourse, something else than a string of cant and platitudes,
do not sermons constitute the penance of the Protestant Church ?
PROJECTILES AND POWDER,
Suppose that, sixty or seventy years ago, some one gifted with
clairvoyance had read in a newspaper of. the present day, meta- 1
physically expanded to his prophetic vision, that a question had
been asked in the House of Lords about firing a salute in honour of ,
the Shah with pebble powder.
Not endowed with the faculty of interpretation as well as that of
prevision, that clairvoyant may be conceived to have been puzzled
by the statement which he may be imagined to have foreseen.
The presence of the Shah in this country would probably have
struck him as a fact not clearly intelligible. Yiewing the future as |
the past, he would perhaps have conjectured that the Shah had
involved himself in a war with the East India Company, got cap-
tured by the British troops, and conveyed to England.. But then
what to make out of firing a salute in honour of the Shah, must
have perplexed him. Would a salute be fired in honour of a prisoner
of war ? And then how could a salute be fired with pebble powder ?
Pebbles might be made into gun-flints, but by what means could
gunpowder be made out of them ? Perhaps the clairvoyant would
ultimately have taken refuge in the conclusion that the Shah had
been saluted by the populace with a volley of pebbles.
PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
23
contractors, £4 15s. Do not these contractors want something
unpleasant done to them—blowing away from guns, or some such
gentle hint about profits ?
On the Judicature Bill, Mr. Gladstone very elaborately defended
the course which he had taken in regard to the Irish and Scotch
Appeals question. But he thought it respectful to the Lords, who
had behaved so well about the rest of the Bill, to make things easy
for them, and he proposed to retain the words which completed the
jurisdiction of the new Court, but not those which extinguished the
Lords’ jurisdiction. Then the Lords would find a Court ready made
tor the three kingdoms, hut nothing to impair their own privileges.
The device seems neat, and if the purpose be effected, what matter
. how circumbendibustically it is done. We regret to say that Mr.
Disraeli begged for time to digest the “ queer "propositions ” of the
Government. We went into Committee on other parts of the Bill.
In the course of the debate Hr. Cavendish Bentinck said that he
was not to be put down, to which the Attorney-General replied
that nobody supposed he was, “ especially after dinner.” Laughter.
But we should have preferred to hear Weeping, considering what was
implied in Sir John Coleridge’s “ suckasm.”
Friday.—Lord Halieax stated that Government intended to
repair our defensive works at Alderney. At present they have cost
only a Million and a Half, Madam. They will be useful, it seems,
for “ watching Cherbourg” when we go to war -with France.
In the Commons there was a Scene. You know, Madam, that if
any Member calls the Speaker’s attention to the fact that there are
Strangers, in the House, he must turn them out. Mr. Mitchell
Henry did this, and the Eeporters were excluded. Half-a-dozen,
pencils, of course, were instantly ready to take notes for the news-
papers, and just as satisfactory a report appeared in every journal
as if Mr. Henry had abstained from his absurd act. His alleged
reason was that the papers did not report the Irish speeches with the
fulness the speakers desired.
Mr. Bouverie warned Mr. Henry that such capricious exercise
■of power would lead to its being taken away, and Mr. Gladstone
had something of the same kind to hint.
Of course the “folly’s crown of folly ” was woven by Mr. Whal-
: ley, who declared that he was very scantily reported because three-
fourths of the gentlemen in the gallery were Roman Catholics.
From anybody but Mr. Whalley the imputation involved here
would he an insult. How, of course that is out of the question. But,
if the gentlemen in the gallery were really his enemies, they would
lose no opportunity of recording his utterances. He was rebuked
by the Speaker for the line he took. Peterborough ought to be
very proud.
After this the reporters were re-admitted. In the O’Keeffe case,
Mr. Gladstone virtually gave a victory to Mr. Bouverie. We
went through a good deal of business.
Lastly, Whalley again on Tichborne. He complained of the
proceedings for contempt of court. Mr. Bruce had hoped that
Whalley, having relieved his mind, would not again have troubled
the House. Mr. Bruce is a sanguine person. He added that it was
the offensive language used by the friends of the defendant that had
, 'got them into trouble.
Whalley up again, but up sprang another Member, and got him
Counted Out.” Peterborough ought to be very proud.
ANGLO-SAXON DIGNITY.
The Paris correspondent of a contemporary represents the Shah
us enjoying, for one thing in that capital, the advantage of not being
mobbed. This expression implies a comparison which is odious to a
Briton who sympathises with the masses of his fellow-countrymen.
It is true that whenever they could get at the Shah they pressed
upon him in their thousands, and sought the gratification of a noble
sentiment in trying to touch him bodily, insomuch that they made
His Majesty smile to witness the enthusiastic veneration excited by
contiguity to a despot in the minds of the free. But this physical
manifestation of delicate respect towards the Shah should be called
thronging, not mobbing him. Of course he has had no such polite
attention paid him in Paris. And perhaps, how flattering soever it
would have been to his higher nature, he did, in a sense, enjoy
exemption from it in the hot weather.
. We are also told that the Shah, who has the newspapers read to
him occasionally, expresses his surprise at the trivial details
recorded about himself and his movements. The journals referred
to in this statement are, of course, the British. There are none
other in Europe the bulk of whose readers have humility enough not
to despise such small matters. In the United States, however, the
Shah, if he went thither, would be surrounded, watched, and inter-
viewed, and reported with a degree of minuteness evincing, even
more than any similar manifestations have shown in England, how
profoundly the majority of individuals constituting a great people
are impressed with a sense of their own littleness.
CONJURORS AND NO CONJURORS.
zJX 3tf^****~ ER'IAI^ conjurors, illusion-
ists of great ingenuity, are
giving performances at the
Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly,
professedly in imitation of
the alleged phenomena of
Spiritualism. The pheno-
mena exhibited by these
gentle ffien are real appear-
ances. They are produced
by conjuring; but they
are produced: with the
help of apparatus. Are
the spiritualist phenomena,
so-called, produced at all ?
For those who think they
witnessed them do seem, at
any rate, to have ascer-
tained that no apparatus
was employed to produce
them. Men of science be-
lieve them to be either
fictitious or subjective;
their narrators either hav-
ing been seized with hallu-
cinations, or telling lies.
To give imitations, then,
of those pretended pheno-
mena, how clever soever, is not a clever way to prove Spiritualism
humbug. What is there to imitate ?
PBEACHEE PBEACHEE.
It is too true that the affairs of nations, other than our own, are
not regulated by amiable sentiments. There is more than enough
reason to fear that, while human nature continues to be human
nature, all other people than ourselves are likely to be swayed by
their blind and bfutal passions, uncontrolled, and ungovernable, by
considerations of reason and justice. So long as they remain subject
to the frailties which they share with the gorilla, the tiger, the
hytena, and other ferocious beasts, that is to say, so long as the
world endures, it will be idle to invite them, as Mr. Richard pro-
poses, to settle their disputes by arbitration instead of war. It is
sentimental folly to think that a merely verbal appeal to the better
feelings of mankind, Her Majesty’s subjects excepted, will ever
succeed in elevating those feelings, or rather the rudiments of them,
to any degree of predominance over the animal propensities. But,
mind, except the exception, namely, Her Majesty’s subjects. . For
if you announce, as a proposition universally true, that there is no
use in preaching to reform and convert offenders, evilly disposed, the
subscription-payer will, if he believes you, immediately cry, “No
more missionaries! ” and the Church-goer will likewise shout, “ No
more sermons ! ” Unless, indeed, the latter regards the utility of a
sermon as consisting, not in any possible reformatory, effect it is
absurdly credited with, but in supplying a deficiency which, without
it, might justly be objected to by adversaries to Protestant discipline.
For, unless in the case, here and there, of an instructive and. inter-
esting discourse, something else than a string of cant and platitudes,
do not sermons constitute the penance of the Protestant Church ?
PROJECTILES AND POWDER,
Suppose that, sixty or seventy years ago, some one gifted with
clairvoyance had read in a newspaper of. the present day, meta- 1
physically expanded to his prophetic vision, that a question had
been asked in the House of Lords about firing a salute in honour of ,
the Shah with pebble powder.
Not endowed with the faculty of interpretation as well as that of
prevision, that clairvoyant may be conceived to have been puzzled
by the statement which he may be imagined to have foreseen.
The presence of the Shah in this country would probably have
struck him as a fact not clearly intelligible. Yiewing the future as |
the past, he would perhaps have conjectured that the Shah had
involved himself in a war with the East India Company, got cap-
tured by the British troops, and conveyed to England.. But then
what to make out of firing a salute in honour of the Shah, must
have perplexed him. Would a salute be fired in honour of a prisoner
of war ? And then how could a salute be fired with pebble powder ?
Pebbles might be made into gun-flints, but by what means could
gunpowder be made out of them ? Perhaps the clairvoyant would
ultimately have taken refuge in the conclusion that the Shah had
been saluted by the populace with a volley of pebbles.