Punch (68.1875)

March 20, 1875.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

119

PUNCH’S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Friday, March 5th.—On
the plea that “fair-play is
a jewel,” we must thank Dr.
Playfair for exposing, in a
thin House, the very un-
satisfactory state and results
of the so-called “National”
Irish Education. It began
by being “mixed” Roman
Catholic and Protestant.
But the mixture has been
gradually resolving itself
till Irish National Schools
have fallen under exclusive
clerical management, Ro-
man Catholic, Episcopal,

and Presbyterian, with an issue pithily described by the Professor, as

“ Untrained teachers, untaught scholars, and an ignorant population.’’

While, of the cost of 19s. per. child,

—“ the children’s fees averaged 2s. Id. a head, the contribution of the State 15s. 8d., and
the local contributions, in the form of subscriptions and endowments, 9d.”

No wonder if even a dull House were startled by such a “tottle,” and still
less if, with such miserable results, Irish Members object to teachers’’ payments
being regulated thereby. If this he what Dr. Playfair called it, a sample of
“ Unmitigated Home Rule,” it is not encouraging. But query, if much better
could reasonably have been looked for, as a result of the policy of confiding
education to its most systematic antagonists—the Priests. Of course Mr. Martin
had his explanation :—

“ The Irish system of education was instituted, as every one knows, to denationalise
the population. The stepping in of the Government between the free professors of educa-
tion,in Ireland and the people accounted for the inability of a very large proportion of the
people in some counties to read and write.”

The best Sir M. H. Beach could say was—

“It was at any rate now a truly national system” [—does that mean “a monstrously
mismanaged one”—] “ and that from small beginnings, and in spite of great struggles, it
had at length come to this—it educated, at least to a certain ” [? uncertain] “ extent, nearly
a million of children in Ireland. He did not think it wise to propose any sweeping change.
He would wish rather to deal with the system in the way of preservation and reformation,
•and to restore it where it required restoration to what it was originally intended to
be—a system of united secular and separate religious instruction.”

Mr. W. Hunt gave details of the cost and arrangements of the Arctic Expe-
dition, hut did not say that Franklin’s nephew was to be one of its officers;
and, strange to say, nobody observed on the omission.

Monday.—{Lords.) No knock-down blow so damaging as one from your own
backers. The Lord Chancellor ruefully informed their Lordships, that in
consequence of the serious opposition which the Judicature Bill was likely
to encounter from the ordinary supporters of Government as well as from their
opponents, the only course open to him was to withdraw the measure. In un-
parliamentary English, the “tail” of the Conservative Party has wagged “the
head”—and so hard, that it has forced it to drop the substance of a good
Court of Final Appeal, for the shadow. Lord Redesdale triumphs, and the
codini or tail-peers, whose organ he is, exult. Lord Derby and Lord Cairns
may regret, and Lord Selborne may wig and wail, for the abandoned measure
may he called his own child, but the Government is helpless, and helplessly

drops the Bill. {See Cartoon.) Punch is hound to admit
that the Scotch and Irish Bar, and a very large and
weighty proportion of the English were against it, and
even the mild wisdom of Walpole had consented to
become their mouthpiece. If Lord Cairns can tinker
the Lords Committee of Appeal into a tribunal, sitting
compulsorily without breaks, and can transfuse into it
new blood from the best of the Bench, an ancient name
may be preserved, and a strong working machinery of
appeal secured. But though many have tried to do this,
no one has hitherto succeeded.

{Commons.) Another oppressed nationality. To the
grief of Mr. Osborne Morgan, Wales is not to have
a Cymric breed of County Court Judges, as it has of
wigs and rabbits.

Sir Wilfrid Lawson thinks the pacific assurances of
Foreign Powers warrant a reduction in our forces.
True, they have monstrous standing armies ; but it is not
“standing,” but “marching ” armies that are dangerous.
Sir Wilfrid was never pleasanter; and the House,
which laughed to the echo, seemed to see the fun of his
speech, almost as well as the amusing Baronet, who has
succeeded, without a rival, to the cap and bells of Mr.
Bernal Osborne, and is even more gracious in his
fooling. In fact, we quite regard him as the Member
for Punch, and trust he will long continue to prove his
right to that proud position, by administering as much
good sense in doses of fun as he generally does now,
whenever he is not exercising his Permissive Bill hobby.
But he must not often venture on such broad burlesque
as his Monday’s proposal, though he did find 60 to follow
him into the Lobby.

The Army Estimates. Mr. Hardy was bold, to what
some may have thought foolhardiness, in owning that
the present system was on its trial, and that he was de-
termined the trial should be a fair one. He had even—
with courage unprecedented in a Minister—gone to
Aldershot to test, with his own eyes and judgment, the
quality of our new food for powder, which Colonel
Anson and most of the cloth say is only worthy of
Horace Walpole’s treatment of the cucumber after
dressing — viz., throwing out of the window. Mr.
Hardy says it might be better ; but then, it might be
worse ; and it seems doubtful if it is so much worse than
it has always been. The scum is not usually the best
part of the contents of the pot; and we must still trust
mainly to the scum for our national pot-au-feu. But the
utilisation of refuse is one of the economic discoveries
of the day, and we contrive to utilise into good military
material a fair proportion of even the scum; while all
we are doing for the increased comfort and self-respect
of the soldier ought gradually to leaven the scum, and
to make the battle-broth “ slab and good.”

Tuesday.— {Lords.) Lord Houghton wants the Bill for
more Bishops referred to a Select Committee. Lord
Lyttelton objects. He thinks it hard, when he only
proposes Bishops by voluntary contributions that the
drag should be put on his Bill. Lord Vivian said Corn-
wall did not want more Bishops. It preferred John
Wesley, his Church. Lord Lyttelton said that “ the
Bill was intended to meet the case of counties which did
not want Bishops.” As it will also meet the case of
those that do, it will meet all cases, and therefore ought
to be passed. Q. E. D.

Lord Elliot said he had heard of a parish in Corn-
wall in which it was said—horrescebat referens—“that
a Bishop had not been seen since the Reformatian.” Mr.
Mi all would call that a state of “ Cornuhial felicity.”

We have heard that Pariahs in this parish contrive
to be born, married, and buried, as if unconscious of
their own awful state of Episcopal outer-darkness!
But Lord Elliot thinks the sight of a Bishop would
give these benighted Cornubians an appetite for lawn-
sleeves. C'est possible ! There is no accounting for taste.

{Commons.) Mr. Pease, backed by some. Dean
and Chapter lessees, who have “ good things ” in the
county of Durham, made a sharp move to get the Dean
and Chapter’s management of their estates looked into
by a Select Committee. The fact is, that the Chapter
have now turned over a new leaf, and taken to manage
their property for the good of the Church, its owner,
instead of sharing the fat between Incumbents or
Prebends for the time being, and the lessees, as they
used in the good old time.

As the Pease move had substantial self-interest at