Punch (67.1874)

July 4, 1874.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

AECH AND KEYSTONE.

(See the Report of the great Manchester Unions’ Meeting. Times, Monday,

June 22.)

“ March, with your Arch, of one mind multitudinous!
Hurry in legions to Manchester town!

Union has wakened new life and strange mood in us:
Under our loads we ’ll no longer sit down.

March, not a man awry!

Wave Union banners high,

Through the thick smoke-wreath, the factories’ crown.

“ What do we want ? Why the answer is summary;

What we’ve a right to is all we demand :

Anything less is sheer nonsense and flummery—

Make but the labourers lords of the land!

As sure as Halllday
Says so, there shall a day
Come for fulfilling a notion so grand.

“ Porches with woodbine and plots of geranium
Don’t make the labourer’s leaky thatch snug:

With no food in his stomach, and brains in his cranium.
Think of him, after all day he has dug,

Coming home wearily,

_ Supperless, drearily

Laid on his straw, aching bones and thin rug!

“ Picturesqueness, indeed! and the charm of antiquity!

Ask Hodge of that in his tumble-down shed ;

Ask country Parsons to strive with iniquity,

In flocks housed like pigs, but not half as well fed.
Whose is the knavery
Dooms to such slavery ?

Knaves there are somewhere—that’s plain to be read.”

Arch, Arch, much that you say is right;

Right too is much you provoke of replies:

[f you must lead the blind, see that the way is right,

See that you make a good use of your eyes.

Farmer and labourer

Still next-door neighbour are—

Who sows strife ’tween them had need to be wise.

Have a care, Labourer, Farmer, and Bishop,

Heads soon get heated, twixt keen tongue and pen ;

Hard words to fling at each other why fish up ?

Hard words, so easily flung back again !

One key-stone strong, if small,

Holds up this Arch, and all,

“ Do as you’d be done by ”—the one rule for men !

BENEFIT FOR BABES.

Though the Chancellor oe the Exchequer has withdrawn from
his Friendly Societies Bill (to be reintroduced next Session) the
intended prohibition of the Life Insurance of Infants under three
years old, he proposes to subject that practice to restrictions which
will render it unobjectionable. The objection to its unconditional
allowance appears to be that, for little Children, what is termed
Life Insurance is, on the contrary, not seldom the insurance of an
untimely end. _ Perhaps this does not happen quite so often as to
justify the suspicion of a real Massacre of the Innocents, but the
idea of it is quite sufficient to necessitate every precaution that
members of the institutions named Benefit Clubs shall not be
suffered to insure their infants’ lives to an amount which would
exceed the sum-total of a reasonable undertaker’s bill in the event
of their deaths. Benefit Clubs are vulgarly called Coffin Clubs, not
without reason. It seems that, in some eases, they facilitate the
insurance not only of coffins for children but also of ohildren for
coffins.

Something Like Business.

The Government having acceded to the Archbishop oe Canter-
bury’s request that “Letters of Business” may be granted to
Convocation, let us hope that Convocation will make it their busi-
ness to prepare, for the early consideration of Parliament, the
project of an additional “Act of Uniformity” for the regulation,
once for all, of ecclesiastical uniforms.

Conservative Schooling.

A public meeting was convened the other day at the Mansion
House by the Lord Mayor, in aid of the Royal Normal College for
the Education of the Blind. The assistance of the Premier should
be solicited on behalf of this useful charity. He could instruct the
teachers of the blind in the method of tuition by which he “educated
his Party.” _

Reasonable Hours.

In the opinion of Mr. Disraeli, half-past eleven in the House
of Commons is “a time very favourable to the progress of business.”
But should not the House of Commons, by closing at a reasonable
hour, set an example to other public houses ?

EXTRAORDINARY VOCAL FEAT.

The orator continued speaking for three-quarters of an hour, after
having expressly stated at the outset that he really had no voice in
the matter.

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Vol. 67.

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