DOI issue:
August 30, 1873
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16937#0095
August 30, 1873.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
83
SEVERE WORK FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
ow, it is admitted that
Our Governors, that is
to say, the Government,
have not done very
much this Session for
the benefit of them-
selves, or the advantage
of the country—which,
after all, perhaps, is a
secondary matter. But
it is surely not too late
to retrieve their falling
character. If, instead
of shooting, fishing,
hunting, yachting,
touring, bathing, boat-
ing, lounging, larking,
Alpine climbing, public
orationising, pitching
pebbles in the Sea, and
riding races upon bicycles, they were to set to work in earnest during the
recess, and settle a few things which for a long while have been talked about,
they might, ere next election, regain their reputation as the Working Majority.
They may incline to say, with Falstaff (merely altering a syllable), “ ’Tis no sin
for a man to labour in his vacation ; ” and they may easily bethink themselves
of a host of pressing matters on which they may bestir themselves. For
instance, they may—
1. Fix a day for laying the foundation stone of the new Law Courts.
2. Clear away the ugly hoarding which disfigures Leicester Square, and, in
place of the old Statue, erect a pretty fountain.
3. Devise a way to utilise in a really worthy manner
the noble Thames Embankment.
4. Suggest a method for supplying us with cheaper
gas and purer water.
5. Invent a proper mode for punishing the Van-
demons and other careless drivers, who cause such cruel
daily slaughter in the streets.
6. Propose a plan which would prevent, in any future
case, such a scandalous and costly waste of public time
as in the present pending trial.
7. Devise a mode of making a speedy diminution in
the present cost of fuel.
8. Prepare a practicable scheme of penal legislation,
whose aim should be enforcing punctuality on railways.
9. Abolish half our Cabs and three-fourths of their
drivers, and, in lieu of them, provide us with comfort-
able vehicles and conscientious civil Cabbies.
10. Hit upon a plan to improve the present system,
whereby all the busy men are always summoned on
juries, and all the idlers somehow manage to escape
them.
11. Pull down the frightful pepper-boxes which dis-
grace Trafalgar Square, and begin a National Gallery
worthy to adorn the finest site in Europe.
12. Set on foot a scheme for better education of our
Vestrymen and Civic Corporations.
13. Bead through, with careful study, all the back
volumes of Punch, with the view of gaining wisdom for
future mental guidance.
Puzzle eor Your “ Uncle.”—Ask a Pawnbroker how
much he would give you on your birthday.
CRAB’S PBOGBESS.
What would happen if the black men refused to work in the
tropics, and we could get no more cotton or sugar ? The Pall Mall
Gazette suggests that the slave trade might possibly he revived.
There is another case, far from unlikely, of which the occurrence
might produce the same result. Our masters the colliers will by-
ana-by, perhaps, have succeeded in extorting from their employers
above a whole week’s wages for half a day’s work. Nevertheless
they will still go on striking for less work and more wages, until at
last they will have raised the cost of coals to prohibitory prices.
We shall then have to choose between being frozen and starved to
death, or procuring fuel by compulsory labour, which, large as is
the per-centage in our population of the criminal classes, we could
not depend upon convicts for. And, if we could, the criminal classes
are the dangerous classes, and convicts, even working under the
strictest supervision, could not be trusted with safety-lamps in
mines. Then it is at least conceivable that we should buy a coloured
man and a brother, and say to him, “ Thou shalt work ere I perish.”
Even if the colliers set hounds to their extortion, yet if we go on
supplying the world with fuel, scarcity of coals will sooner or later
ensue from exhaustion. White men, that is to say men who can he
washed white, will he unable to dig coal at a certain depth because
of the high temperature. For coal-miners .we shall then want
niggers, who can stand working in tropical climates, and shall be
able to get a sufficient supply of them only by forcible importation.
If we are not to go without coals, it will be necessary for us to enslave
either niggers or men of another race equally able to endure heat,
though not, as their name may seem to imply, capable of being
employed to reduce it—the Coolies.
MINISTERIAL MOVEMENTS.
It is well understood that Me. Gladstone’s activity in the Vaca-
tion will not cease with School Meetings and Eisteddfods. His visit
to Balmoral will, unfortunately, interfere with his desire to be
present at the Birmingham Musical Festival, but he hopes to take
part in the Meeting of the Three Choirs at Hereford, in September.
The Peemiee’s journey to Scotland has put an end to his projected
excursion to Dartmoor, but if the Camp at Cannock Chase is not broken
up when he returns from the North, he still intends to see something
of the Autumn Manoeuvres. Any spare moments the Prime Minis-
ter and Chancellor oe the Exchequer and Leader of the House
of Commons can command are devoted to the composition of the
paper—we are not at liberty to refer- particularly to its subject—
which he looks forward to reading at the forthcoming meeting of
the British Association at Bradford; and to the preparation of the
Address which the Social Science Congress hope to hear from him
when they assemble at Norwich. The members of the Chureh Con-
gress are anticipating with great pleasure Me. Gladstone’s presence
amongst them at Bath in October; and London expects to see him
back in November, to reply to the toast of “ Her Majesty’s Minis-
ters ” at the Lord Mayor’s inaugural banquet in the Guildhall.
SHAME !
“ The Goulston Square Model Baths and Wash Houses, the first erected of
these most useful institutions, opened twenty years since, in one of the most
foul and fetid quarters of Whitechapel, by Prince Albbrt, and a distin-
guished company of supporters, lay and clerical, are now lying useless, in
waste and decay, under a debt of £6000, of which £4000 has still to be
subscribed.”
Master Bull, Master Bull,
At your purse take a pull,
And fork out a small contribution,
The needful bestowing
To pay the debt owing,
That now keeps the Goulston Street Bath’s taps from flowing,
And the Goulston Street cisterns their suds from bestowing,
"While the poor of the quarter
Are starving for water,
And their bodies and homes reek with plague and pollution!
And all that is w.anted, this good work to do,
Is less than six thousand, of which they’ve raised two !
Think, some twenty years since,
How you cheered the Good Prince,
Of good works that stout Pioneer :
As with Bishops to court him,
And Peers to support him,
And no fear of John Bull’s vis inertice to thwart him,—
Which now on these Baths sits in piteous post mortem —
He opened this “ Model,”
Which all rushed to coddle,
Sanitarian Sage, and philanthropist Peer.
Now the windows are broken, the buildings defaced,
The Bath-cisterns dry, and the Wash-houses waste !
And this is the land
Where good sense has command,
And the practical head guides the diligent hand!
And here is a matter,
Which, spite of our chatter,
Of Duty, and loud Sanitarian clatter,
With which we lull conscience, and indolence flatter,
All London’s full view in,
We let go to ruin
A work, which was built as “ a Model ” to stand!
Are we humbugs, or hypocrites ? Tell me, John Bull :
Or should “ Model” be “Muddle”—great cry, little wool?
If not, from your purse that four thousand please pull!
83
SEVERE WORK FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
ow, it is admitted that
Our Governors, that is
to say, the Government,
have not done very
much this Session for
the benefit of them-
selves, or the advantage
of the country—which,
after all, perhaps, is a
secondary matter. But
it is surely not too late
to retrieve their falling
character. If, instead
of shooting, fishing,
hunting, yachting,
touring, bathing, boat-
ing, lounging, larking,
Alpine climbing, public
orationising, pitching
pebbles in the Sea, and
riding races upon bicycles, they were to set to work in earnest during the
recess, and settle a few things which for a long while have been talked about,
they might, ere next election, regain their reputation as the Working Majority.
They may incline to say, with Falstaff (merely altering a syllable), “ ’Tis no sin
for a man to labour in his vacation ; ” and they may easily bethink themselves
of a host of pressing matters on which they may bestir themselves. For
instance, they may—
1. Fix a day for laying the foundation stone of the new Law Courts.
2. Clear away the ugly hoarding which disfigures Leicester Square, and, in
place of the old Statue, erect a pretty fountain.
3. Devise a way to utilise in a really worthy manner
the noble Thames Embankment.
4. Suggest a method for supplying us with cheaper
gas and purer water.
5. Invent a proper mode for punishing the Van-
demons and other careless drivers, who cause such cruel
daily slaughter in the streets.
6. Propose a plan which would prevent, in any future
case, such a scandalous and costly waste of public time
as in the present pending trial.
7. Devise a mode of making a speedy diminution in
the present cost of fuel.
8. Prepare a practicable scheme of penal legislation,
whose aim should be enforcing punctuality on railways.
9. Abolish half our Cabs and three-fourths of their
drivers, and, in lieu of them, provide us with comfort-
able vehicles and conscientious civil Cabbies.
10. Hit upon a plan to improve the present system,
whereby all the busy men are always summoned on
juries, and all the idlers somehow manage to escape
them.
11. Pull down the frightful pepper-boxes which dis-
grace Trafalgar Square, and begin a National Gallery
worthy to adorn the finest site in Europe.
12. Set on foot a scheme for better education of our
Vestrymen and Civic Corporations.
13. Bead through, with careful study, all the back
volumes of Punch, with the view of gaining wisdom for
future mental guidance.
Puzzle eor Your “ Uncle.”—Ask a Pawnbroker how
much he would give you on your birthday.
CRAB’S PBOGBESS.
What would happen if the black men refused to work in the
tropics, and we could get no more cotton or sugar ? The Pall Mall
Gazette suggests that the slave trade might possibly he revived.
There is another case, far from unlikely, of which the occurrence
might produce the same result. Our masters the colliers will by-
ana-by, perhaps, have succeeded in extorting from their employers
above a whole week’s wages for half a day’s work. Nevertheless
they will still go on striking for less work and more wages, until at
last they will have raised the cost of coals to prohibitory prices.
We shall then have to choose between being frozen and starved to
death, or procuring fuel by compulsory labour, which, large as is
the per-centage in our population of the criminal classes, we could
not depend upon convicts for. And, if we could, the criminal classes
are the dangerous classes, and convicts, even working under the
strictest supervision, could not be trusted with safety-lamps in
mines. Then it is at least conceivable that we should buy a coloured
man and a brother, and say to him, “ Thou shalt work ere I perish.”
Even if the colliers set hounds to their extortion, yet if we go on
supplying the world with fuel, scarcity of coals will sooner or later
ensue from exhaustion. White men, that is to say men who can he
washed white, will he unable to dig coal at a certain depth because
of the high temperature. For coal-miners .we shall then want
niggers, who can stand working in tropical climates, and shall be
able to get a sufficient supply of them only by forcible importation.
If we are not to go without coals, it will be necessary for us to enslave
either niggers or men of another race equally able to endure heat,
though not, as their name may seem to imply, capable of being
employed to reduce it—the Coolies.
MINISTERIAL MOVEMENTS.
It is well understood that Me. Gladstone’s activity in the Vaca-
tion will not cease with School Meetings and Eisteddfods. His visit
to Balmoral will, unfortunately, interfere with his desire to be
present at the Birmingham Musical Festival, but he hopes to take
part in the Meeting of the Three Choirs at Hereford, in September.
The Peemiee’s journey to Scotland has put an end to his projected
excursion to Dartmoor, but if the Camp at Cannock Chase is not broken
up when he returns from the North, he still intends to see something
of the Autumn Manoeuvres. Any spare moments the Prime Minis-
ter and Chancellor oe the Exchequer and Leader of the House
of Commons can command are devoted to the composition of the
paper—we are not at liberty to refer- particularly to its subject—
which he looks forward to reading at the forthcoming meeting of
the British Association at Bradford; and to the preparation of the
Address which the Social Science Congress hope to hear from him
when they assemble at Norwich. The members of the Chureh Con-
gress are anticipating with great pleasure Me. Gladstone’s presence
amongst them at Bath in October; and London expects to see him
back in November, to reply to the toast of “ Her Majesty’s Minis-
ters ” at the Lord Mayor’s inaugural banquet in the Guildhall.
SHAME !
“ The Goulston Square Model Baths and Wash Houses, the first erected of
these most useful institutions, opened twenty years since, in one of the most
foul and fetid quarters of Whitechapel, by Prince Albbrt, and a distin-
guished company of supporters, lay and clerical, are now lying useless, in
waste and decay, under a debt of £6000, of which £4000 has still to be
subscribed.”
Master Bull, Master Bull,
At your purse take a pull,
And fork out a small contribution,
The needful bestowing
To pay the debt owing,
That now keeps the Goulston Street Bath’s taps from flowing,
And the Goulston Street cisterns their suds from bestowing,
"While the poor of the quarter
Are starving for water,
And their bodies and homes reek with plague and pollution!
And all that is w.anted, this good work to do,
Is less than six thousand, of which they’ve raised two !
Think, some twenty years since,
How you cheered the Good Prince,
Of good works that stout Pioneer :
As with Bishops to court him,
And Peers to support him,
And no fear of John Bull’s vis inertice to thwart him,—
Which now on these Baths sits in piteous post mortem —
He opened this “ Model,”
Which all rushed to coddle,
Sanitarian Sage, and philanthropist Peer.
Now the windows are broken, the buildings defaced,
The Bath-cisterns dry, and the Wash-houses waste !
And this is the land
Where good sense has command,
And the practical head guides the diligent hand!
And here is a matter,
Which, spite of our chatter,
Of Duty, and loud Sanitarian clatter,
With which we lull conscience, and indolence flatter,
All London’s full view in,
We let go to ruin
A work, which was built as “ a Model ” to stand!
Are we humbugs, or hypocrites ? Tell me, John Bull :
Or should “ Model” be “Muddle”—great cry, little wool?
If not, from your purse that four thousand please pull!