Punch (68.1875)

February 6, 1875.]

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

53

LEADING AND MISLEADING.


SAMBOUKNE

Is’t that John Bull more wise has grown,
More wary as he has waxed older,

Or that your ancient cunning’s flown
Of hard straight hitting from the shoulder ?

ohn Bright, in tor-
pid ears you
blow;

The age of mira-
cles is past.

The walls of the
Church-Je-
richo

Totter not to
your trumpet-
blast.

Liberals, of Church-cloth or Dissent’s,

Round the old flag we hoped you’d rally ;
And lo, upon Establishments
From Fox’s Fort a Quaker sally!

Stray sheep we thought you would have fired
With wisdom to select a shepherd,

A cowed host with new hopes inspired ;

And lo, we have the Church black-peppered !

As cold as cold-drawn castor-oil,

Fall your invective, and your sneer,
Save where, to apathy a foil,

Speech too strong finds too ready ear.

The Brums may muster lungs to shout,
Though they must be hard whipped for
frothing ;

But outside Liberals ask, in doubt,

Is’t they or you that have learnt nothing F

Were there no fractures to rejoint,

No cheering retrospects to turn to,

No prospects of good work to point,

No nearer fields of fight to adjourn to ;

No impudent cocks’ combs to cut,

No weak and wavering knees to brace up,

No doors upon defeat to shut,

No failures to their founts to trace up F

But you must prove Bright can be dull,
And in the wrong sense wake Dissent,

Waving, in vain hope to rouse Bull,

The red rag of Establishment.

Discord’s sour apple throwing down,

Twixt Church and Chapel ground that
grows,

Bidding Dissent crack Church’s crown,

And Church fists smite Dissenting nose.

Not that Church isn’t oft stiff-necked,
Uppish and offish, cold, exclusive,

Split here and there ’twixt sect and sect,
Still your deduction is delusive ;

While second-best is to he had,

Doubtful improvements wise men shun.

Whose common sense votes Church so bad,
That’t would he better were there none ?

There runs a tale how Knight with Knight
Fought on a point each scorned to yield,

Whether ’twas or, or argent bright,
Blazoned a certain target’s field.

They fought, they fell, but ere they died,
Some kind friend brought to them a
Sergeant-

Of-Arms, who showed them the one side
Of the shield or, the other argent.

So with Church charge and counter charge—
Of dirt-pies flung of old stale dish-
ups——.

’Tis but the two sides of the targe,

Turned, one to Bright, one to the Bishops,

“White and all White,” the Bench discerns,
Where “Black and all black,” Bright
can see;

Neither the piebald target turns,

In “ truth on both sides ” to agree.

A GROWL FROM THE ZOO.

The Gardens, Regent's Park,

Worthy Mr. Punch, Jan. 22, 1875.

We write to you as the literary representative of our dear
friend and relative the Great British Lion. We have to complain,
Sir, of the conduct of the Council of the Zoological Society. For
some years it has been jierfeetly well known to Naturalists that the
space afforded to us for recreation in the Gardens adorned with our
presence is utterly inadequate to our requirements. One of our
number, some little time since, got hold of a fragment of an old
copy of the Pall Mall Gazette (it was thrown to him as a covering
to a stale bun), and what did he read in that fragment? Why,
this—that many of the lions’ skins presented to one of your National
Museums were found to he worthless, because the original owners of
the skins in question had died from the effects of want of proper
exercise in the Zoological Gardens, in which they had been exhibited
to an admiring public !

Well, Sir, we hoped that something was at last being done for us ;
there were rumours in our dens to that effect. Hope, however, told
a flattering tale, as you will see by the following extract from a
newspaper we found artfully concealed in the peel of an orange :—

“The Council announced to the meeting that they had entered into a con-
tract with Messrs. J. Simpson and Son, builders, for the erection of a new
lions’ house in the Society’s gardens, which they trusted would be completed
and ready for the reception of the animals by the 1st of November next.”

Why the 1st of November ? Surely we need not wait until that
distant date for the necessary alterations.

Really, Sir, it is too bad. Even that miserable impostor, the
Northumberland House Lion, has now comfortable quarters in Isle-
worth, and yet we (if the present inclement season of the year he
taken into consideration) are literally “left out in the cold!” If
you would kindly persuade a deputation from “the Council” to
wait upon us chez nous, we think we could easily convince those very
dilatory persons that we are very angry with them indeed ! Gurrroo-
owl! The Lions oe the Zoological Gardens.

University College of Wales.

“The half-yearly meetings of the Governors of this College were held at
Aberystwith last week. Loud Aberdare was unanimously elected the first
President of the Institution.”—Times, January 27.

An Alma Mater in Welsh hat and habit!

It won’t be Aberdare’s fault if she fails ;

Let Tafey, while he toasts his native rabbit,

Toast, too, the University of Wales.

Nor only toast, with men and means assist her,

And send her students, sharp wits and well strung ;

And prove, if Dublin be “ the Silent Sister,”

His Alma Mater has both brains and tongue.

New Lights for Old Ones. A new Anglican Ecclesiastical story,
by a Canon of St. Paul’s, author of A Liddon and h^s Wonderful
Lamp.