Punch (67.1874)

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October 10, 1874,] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

145

TONGUE v. TRADE.

How great would be the wonder of our Honourable
Legislators, were a Petition to be signed by our leading
Merchant Princes, praying that the opening of next
Session be postponed, say, till next summer, on the
ground that talking politics sadly injured trade! Yet,
so far as we can learn, nobody seems startled by this
scrap of Paris news:—

“ A petition has been signed by the Merchants of Paris,
praying the National Assembly not to meet before the loth of
January, in order to avoid exercising an unfavourable political
influence on the trade of the country at the close of the year.”

A petition such as this seems rather a bad compli-
ment to the honourable gentlemen who compose the
French Assembly, and who, be it borne in mind, are
paid a handsome salary for the service which they are
supposed to render to the State. If the influence of their
meeting be injurious to trade, one wonders that La
France should retain them in her service, and still more
that she consents to retain them in her pay. Or it
might be worth her while to increase their yearly in-
j come, on condition only that they did her the great
service of abstaining from all speech-making, and living
peaceably in silence, as far as for a Frenchman that may
be possible, at home.

A Puzzling Announcement.

Friends, Ladies, Housekeepers, lend us your eyes, to
look at this advertisement:

WANTED, a GIRL, about 16 ; need not have been out;
for titled family.

One may presume that this young person is wanted in
the kitchen, but, for aught that one can gather, she may
rather be required for social service in the drawing-room.
Perhaps the titled family may be wishful to adopt her,
and intend to bring her out if she has not yet been so
brought. There is no mention made of wages, or any-
thing of that sort: but admission to the house of a
family of title may be esteemed full compensation for
such a trifling matter as the want of actual pay.

First Artisan. “Been to the Sea-side this Year, Bill?”

Second Artisan. “No; it don’t run to it, My Boy. A Pint of S’rimps
and ’alf a pound o’ Tidman’s Sea-salt ’ll be about my form !”

The Eastern Position. — Ritualist squatting cross-
legged on the Chancel floor.

MR. GLADSTONE ON RITUAL.

Physician and Prophet, yon write with a will
From your quiet retreat in Llandudno or Rhyl,

And the wicked world, given to excesses habitual,

I s warned by your eloquent sayings on Ritual.

Three courses there are which yon carefully touch :
There may be too little, there may be too much;
What’s precisely enough only trial can tell—

This prescription applies to one’s Cognac as well.

The point that you miss is to most people clear:
Sacerdos should ask himself—“ Why am I here ?

To wear whimsical finery, radiant and rare,

Or to teach the true meaning of duty and prayer ? ”

Our stolid strong world is in some things obdurate,
And laughs at the silly caprice of the curate;

And even a Gladstone will labour in vain
To prove that excitement is good for the brain.

With music and painting to glorify God
Is a noble desire ; but contemptibly odd
Is the notion, from Romanist policy caught,

Of exalting these Arts to the loss of true thought.

Our Gladstone, spoilt child of the nation, might see
That England is strong because England is free,

And that ferment of fierce theological yeast

Will ne’er put John Bull under power of the Priest.

We think rather slowly: the heterodox

May laugh at the grave old strong sire of the ox:

But he waits till the fever of phantasy cools,
Knowing Premiers and Petticoats both may be fools.

So, Physician and Prophet, though welcoming you,
Mr. Punch doesn’t think you teach anything new,
And holds that your sayings may make men litigious,
But will give them no help to be truly religious.

The Church of our realm has a glorious basis
In the faith of the people, and scorns all grimaces:
Nothing new, Dr. G., what you come to prescribe is—
In media via tutissimus ibis.

A BLUE-BOOK WITH A ROSE TINGE.

Read the Third Annual Report of the Local Government Board
for 1873-74. In the midst of that vast blue-book of seven hundred
pages there is a bit of motherly writing by Mrs. Nassau Senior,
which is delightful to read, and cannot fail to be of immense use.
Mrs. Senior has visited pauper schools, and has traced about seven
hundred girls who had been educated at pauper schools; and her
brief biographies of these poor little waifs are perfect in their
simplicity. She believes that the Poor Law system will, in time,
come to an end through improvement in education. Mr. Punch is
not so sanguine, toug vrruxobs vuvrors exirs tavrZv, Mendicity

is eternal. But the pauper may be gradually raised to a higher
level: and such an inquiry as Mrs. Senior’s is likely to do great
good in this way.

Mr. Punch is delighted when a lady does in this direction what
no man could possibly do. The terse memoirs of these poor little
pauper maids are much more pathetic than anything in modern
fiction. We trace the poor children from place to place—we see
them stunted, sulky, squinting, suffering from ophthalmia, the very
refuse of the world. Mrs. Senior, kind and keen in her investiga-
tions, tells the Guardians of the Poor (who too often deem them-
selves mere guardians of the rate-payers) how they may gradually
diminish this evil. Mr. Stansfeld did a wise thing when he asked
her to undertake the inquiry: if the lessons of it are rightly read,
her second contribution to the blue-book will have a far rosier tinge.