DOI Heft:
August 1, 1874
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16939#0051
August 1. 1874.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
43
PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
request (Monday,
July 20) from the
Queen to the
Peers to concur
in a Settlement
on Prince Leo-
pold.
Second Read-
ing1 of the Bill for
Rating Woods,
Sporting Rights,
and Mines other
than Coal—now,
by legal con-
struction, ab-
surdly and un-
justly exempted.
This is, in effect,
the last Govern-
ment’s Bill,
which came to
grief in the
Lords, and now
passes Second
Reading without
a division. “ Col-
lemflectes, Sicamber; ure quod adorasti, quod ussisti adora.”
Or, in English, “ The measure that’s one set o’ men’s meat
is another set o’ men’s poison.”
In the Commons was fought the first real fight of the
Session, on the Endowed Schools Bill. Her Majesty’s
Opposition in good force, Punch is happy to say. Mr.
Fawcett hit out in his best style, putting “ Vestigia nulla
retrorsum ” into the shape of an Amendment on going into
Committee, and was well seconded by Lord G. Cavendish,
one of the most moderate and conciliatory of men. Lord
Sandon protests the Bill is misunderstood. It is not meant
to shut out Dissenting pupils from either the instruction or
prizes of Endowed Schools, nor Dissenting parents from
their government, nor to confine head-masterships to men
in orders.
But the practical question is not what is the Bill meant to do—latet dolus interioretatione—hut what does it do ? And that seems
precisely what nobody, on either side, is in a position to say definitely and decisively. In the meantime Honourable Members put on
the paper all manner of Amendments, to prevent the evil consequences which Lord Sandon says the Bill will not have ; the law-officers are
silent, the Opposition indignant, Ministerial supporters divided and discouraged. The one thing clear is that Mr. Disraeli has
made a mistake, under the malign influence of the Marquis, and will do well to lose no time in imitating the Scotch trespasser
detected half-way through a garden paling, who, when asked where he was going, sagaciously answered, “ Bock agin.”
If the Commissioners are to go, let them ; though the Minister who flings his Jonah, or Board of Jonahs, overboard, is apt to have
him, or them, come back, and as a rule unpleasantly, after many days.
It is bad enough in a Minister to swap horses while crossing the river, and try shifting the heavy pack of Endowed School Reforms
from a Commission that knows it to a Board that has it still to learn. But at least, let the mischief stop there. Besides changing hands
at the broom, why put a new lock on the Augean Stables ?
Tuesday.—Cold consolation to Spanish bond-holders from Lord Derby in answer to Lord Hampton. No doubt this last swindle
of the bond-holders has been brazen even beyond the usual Spanish brass; a certain batch of Pagares,—a facetious word in Spain,
TYlOQTiyUO1 ^ T TTH11 nou IlOTTVnni ATTATl ll/iVA 4a TY> Aa4 Ah n J n /I AA KaTI Arl L VT fllA Sll Q Y11 fill O 1T1 T1 Cfl
credit being damaged by anything now possible in financing!
In the Commons adjourned debate over going into Committee on Endowed Schools Bill. Everybody as much in the dark as yesterday,
as to what the Bill would do, or would not do. There seems to be the utmost haziness, even among those responsible for the ill-advised
measure, as to what it was meant to do. The most candid men on the Government side of the House repudiate retrogression,
e. g., Sir J. Kennaway, Colonel Bartelott and Mr. Russell Gurney—with a goodly hatch behind them, as well vocal as
silent Members. It becomes more and more evident every hour the Bill is debated that three out of the six clauses will have to he
dropped, and the Bill pass as a hare sentence of death on the Commission. They will die, if they die, for having worked “ not wisely hut
too well.” Punch offers an inscription for their tombstone :—
The School Commission here lie we,
Now dead as is the Do-do,
Of too voMch fortiter in re,
Too little suaviter in modo.
Having sealed the Commissioners’ death-warrant, let the rest of the Bill drop. Can’t the Marquis of Salisbury take the mischief its
first three clauses will do as a sufficient consideration for the withdrawal of the three last ?
Wednesday.—The whole sitting was occupied in fighting the Endowed Schools Bill. The Bill was successfully kept out of Committee
through the whole sitting. The same haze still hangs about this luckless and lamentable measure ; the same doubts as to its action
and its intention; nobody, apparently, except its enemies—and Mr. A. B. Hope, who clings to it in solitary desperation—having any
heart in the fight over it.
Mr. Disraeli must withdraw half of it, at least, if he means to pass any part of it into law. He need not much mind, though
Mr. Hope should then complain of it as “ monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui numen ademptum.”
In the evening, at the Mansion House, coming in the wake of Tuesday’s more illustrious guests—Captains of the Pen, Ministers of
Beauty, Makers of Music, and Queens of Song—those smaller men, Her Majesty’s Ministers, greatly daring, dined, and listened to a
most sonorous and sockdolagerous chime from the great Ben with intermezzi from the minor hells of the Downing Street peal, till
the time came for him to adjourn to the masque of Marlborough House, and there take part in the revel, in his never relinquished
disguise of the Sphinx. (N.B. Beware of confusion between Sphinx and Death’s Head; both are names of moths, and both are
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
43
PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
request (Monday,
July 20) from the
Queen to the
Peers to concur
in a Settlement
on Prince Leo-
pold.
Second Read-
ing1 of the Bill for
Rating Woods,
Sporting Rights,
and Mines other
than Coal—now,
by legal con-
struction, ab-
surdly and un-
justly exempted.
This is, in effect,
the last Govern-
ment’s Bill,
which came to
grief in the
Lords, and now
passes Second
Reading without
a division. “ Col-
lemflectes, Sicamber; ure quod adorasti, quod ussisti adora.”
Or, in English, “ The measure that’s one set o’ men’s meat
is another set o’ men’s poison.”
In the Commons was fought the first real fight of the
Session, on the Endowed Schools Bill. Her Majesty’s
Opposition in good force, Punch is happy to say. Mr.
Fawcett hit out in his best style, putting “ Vestigia nulla
retrorsum ” into the shape of an Amendment on going into
Committee, and was well seconded by Lord G. Cavendish,
one of the most moderate and conciliatory of men. Lord
Sandon protests the Bill is misunderstood. It is not meant
to shut out Dissenting pupils from either the instruction or
prizes of Endowed Schools, nor Dissenting parents from
their government, nor to confine head-masterships to men
in orders.
But the practical question is not what is the Bill meant to do—latet dolus interioretatione—hut what does it do ? And that seems
precisely what nobody, on either side, is in a position to say definitely and decisively. In the meantime Honourable Members put on
the paper all manner of Amendments, to prevent the evil consequences which Lord Sandon says the Bill will not have ; the law-officers are
silent, the Opposition indignant, Ministerial supporters divided and discouraged. The one thing clear is that Mr. Disraeli has
made a mistake, under the malign influence of the Marquis, and will do well to lose no time in imitating the Scotch trespasser
detected half-way through a garden paling, who, when asked where he was going, sagaciously answered, “ Bock agin.”
If the Commissioners are to go, let them ; though the Minister who flings his Jonah, or Board of Jonahs, overboard, is apt to have
him, or them, come back, and as a rule unpleasantly, after many days.
It is bad enough in a Minister to swap horses while crossing the river, and try shifting the heavy pack of Endowed School Reforms
from a Commission that knows it to a Board that has it still to learn. But at least, let the mischief stop there. Besides changing hands
at the broom, why put a new lock on the Augean Stables ?
Tuesday.—Cold consolation to Spanish bond-holders from Lord Derby in answer to Lord Hampton. No doubt this last swindle
of the bond-holders has been brazen even beyond the usual Spanish brass; a certain batch of Pagares,—a facetious word in Spain,
TYlOQTiyUO1 ^ T TTH11 nou IlOTTVnni ATTATl ll/iVA 4a TY> Aa4 Ah n J n /I AA KaTI Arl L VT fllA Sll Q Y11 fill O 1T1 T1 Cfl
credit being damaged by anything now possible in financing!
In the Commons adjourned debate over going into Committee on Endowed Schools Bill. Everybody as much in the dark as yesterday,
as to what the Bill would do, or would not do. There seems to be the utmost haziness, even among those responsible for the ill-advised
measure, as to what it was meant to do. The most candid men on the Government side of the House repudiate retrogression,
e. g., Sir J. Kennaway, Colonel Bartelott and Mr. Russell Gurney—with a goodly hatch behind them, as well vocal as
silent Members. It becomes more and more evident every hour the Bill is debated that three out of the six clauses will have to he
dropped, and the Bill pass as a hare sentence of death on the Commission. They will die, if they die, for having worked “ not wisely hut
too well.” Punch offers an inscription for their tombstone :—
The School Commission here lie we,
Now dead as is the Do-do,
Of too voMch fortiter in re,
Too little suaviter in modo.
Having sealed the Commissioners’ death-warrant, let the rest of the Bill drop. Can’t the Marquis of Salisbury take the mischief its
first three clauses will do as a sufficient consideration for the withdrawal of the three last ?
Wednesday.—The whole sitting was occupied in fighting the Endowed Schools Bill. The Bill was successfully kept out of Committee
through the whole sitting. The same haze still hangs about this luckless and lamentable measure ; the same doubts as to its action
and its intention; nobody, apparently, except its enemies—and Mr. A. B. Hope, who clings to it in solitary desperation—having any
heart in the fight over it.
Mr. Disraeli must withdraw half of it, at least, if he means to pass any part of it into law. He need not much mind, though
Mr. Hope should then complain of it as “ monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui numen ademptum.”
In the evening, at the Mansion House, coming in the wake of Tuesday’s more illustrious guests—Captains of the Pen, Ministers of
Beauty, Makers of Music, and Queens of Song—those smaller men, Her Majesty’s Ministers, greatly daring, dined, and listened to a
most sonorous and sockdolagerous chime from the great Ben with intermezzi from the minor hells of the Downing Street peal, till
the time came for him to adjourn to the masque of Marlborough House, and there take part in the revel, in his never relinquished
disguise of the Sphinx. (N.B. Beware of confusion between Sphinx and Death’s Head; both are names of moths, and both are