Punch (67.1874)

122

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHAEIVAEL

September 19, 1874.

MORE ADULTERATION.

plaster of the House (the Man has called to look at the Meter). “ Dear me ! Well,
I wouldn’t have Believed it ! Actually Watering the Gas now ! ! ”

CONVERSION IN HIGH LIFE.

The following1 remarks, in the Bien Public of Ghent,
should have appeared under the above heading :—

“ The conversion of Lord Ripon appears to us, in the midst of
the mourning of the Church, persecuted in its chief and its mis-
sion, as a symptom full of consolation and hope. It will be a
balm for the heart of Pius the Ninth, it will also be a true
joy for all Catholics. From more than one heart prayers will
rise to heaven for the new convert and that noble country of
England, where, among the ruins heaped up by the heresy of
Henry the Eighth, one sees a rising harvest which will recall
to the astonished eyes of our sceptical generations the glorious
fecundity of the Isle of Saints.”

The Bien Public is said to he the organ of the Jesuits.
It expresses the sentiments of a kind of persons who
’‘dearly love a lord.” Are there Jesuits of that order?
Their reputed organ evinces a valuation of a lord which
is quite American. Do Jesuits love and value a lord at
this rate ? Have disciples of Ignatius Loyola a respect
for a Peer equal even to that usually evinced on occasion
by citizens of the United States ? To he sure they may
value the lord rather than love him. They may exult
in having caught a live lord, not as respecters of per-
sons, who think any more of catching a lord than they
would of catching a beggar, hut because they imagine
that, in having caught a lord, they have caught a good
decoy-duck. Let us charitably adopt that view of the
case, and give the Jesuits credit for worldly wisdom,
rather than suppose the foregoing quotation an example
of Jesuitism combined with flunkey ism in the proportion
of half and half. Be that as it may, the lord-loving
Bien Public might take for its motto ‘ ‘ In domino con-
fido ”—domino with a small d.

Professional Punsters.

The Tonic Sol Fa Association held their Annual Choral
Gathering on Saturday last at the Crystal Palace,
numbering 3000 voices. Among the audience there were
some medical practitioners who did not scruple to observe
that they supposed that Tonic Sol Fa songs must be
strengthening and bracing airs, and that sweet sounds
having tonic properties were preferable to hitters. Some
of them went so far as to ask what music could he pre-
scribed for dyspepsia; and what musical notes were like
the sulphates of iron and quinine.

LAWN TENNIS.

Now the long shadows of September come,

And idle for a time the scribbler’s pen is,

He passes from the Town’s discordant hum,

From garrulous gossip of the kettle-drum,

From orators who should have been born dumb,

To watch upon green lawn the girls play tennis.

Robins are trilling in the faded trees,

The flitting swallows of their voyage chatter,

Testing their wings before they dare the seas,

For Nile’s dun marge or blue-girt Cyclades ;

The sportsman’s shots come frequent on the breeze,

The flying balls keep up a pleasant clatter.

Croquet’s a merry game for those who flirt

(Who doesn’t, pray,—Punch, poet, peer, or parson ?),
But Tennis, when the ladies are alert,

Follow the swift ball with a looped-up skirt,

Strike it on high with graceful arm expert,

Burns up the masculine heart with sudden arson.

So, pour some icy fluid in a glass
Tinged with deep mulberry stain, true work of Yenice :
And Mr. Punch will let the soft hours pass,

Watching with tranquil eyes each lovely lass
T nt like an Oread * o’er the smooth green grass,

And win his old heart as she wins at Tennis.

* TlufUos ovgi<rl<poir/>s, if pah vuvrQoQos th>j.—NoNNUS.

sad—VERY.

The destination of Temple Bar must at last be Hanwell. The
poor old thing has been authoritatively pronounced “ cracked.”

A MASK ON MEANING.

According to the Globe—

“ Cardinal Cullen has issued a Pastoral to the DueClergy urging
prayer for the ‘ Pope, now a captive in Rome,’ and for the Church, which he
holds to be menaced by ‘ philosophy under the mask of science.’ ”

Philosophy under the mask of science must wear a mask very
much like its own face. Humility under the mask of meekness,
hypocrisy under the mask of deceit, superstition under the mask of
credulity, would wear masks of the same description. For the
purpose of attacking the Church, science might as well wear the
mask of philosophy as philosophy the mask of science. Which
does Cardinal Cullen consider the greater enemy of the Church, ;
science or philosophy ? Irreligion might attack the Church under
the mask of science, just as love of rule might attack liberty under
the mask of religion. Does his Eminence identify philosophy with
irreligion ? The Cardinal effectually conceals meaning under the
mask of expression.

The Double-Headed Judge.

Lord Penzance, late of the Divorce Court, is to be the Judge in
all ecclesiastical causes, under the new Public Worship Act, next
year. Also his Lordship is to be the chief of the proposed Army
Reform Commission. If there is a pedestal vacant anywhere, here
is a chance for a sculptor. Lord Penzance as Janus Peace and
War. His dress to be half ecclesiastical, half military. Motto
“ I see before me a divided duty.”

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

Certain Press-writers of Paris affect to hold in such aversion the
name of a Republic, that they even talk of founding a Septennate of
Letters.