Punch (68.1875)

April 17,, 1875.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 163

PUNCH’S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

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AKiiAMElfl — or rather the
Commons — re-as sembled
{Monday, April 5), all the
stiller in the back, let us
hope, for their Easter holiday.
A very thin house to a mili-
tary night. Captain Nolan,
a practical as well as scientific
artillerist, wants to know—
and not a day too soon—why,
when all the military powers
of Europe have adopted
breech - loading ordnance,
England stands, solitary, by
her muzzle-loading guns—a
question to he asked and
answered—hut certainly not
answered on Monday night.
All Mr. Hardy could say was
that successive Committees
had reported in favour of
muzzle-loading; and so they
have, hut as against one
system of breech-loading—-
Sir W. Armstrong’s—which
we adopted hastily, and, in-
stead of amending, have
abandoned.

As we shall have spent four
millions and a quarter on
great guns by 1876, Mr.
Hardy recommended the
House to he cautious. The caution would have
come better before we spent the money. Suppose
we have to give up muzzle-loading, after all, for
a better system of breech-loading than Sir "W.
Armstrong’s F The probability seems to lie in that
direction, and what of our money and our caution
then?

The appointment of a Colonial bishop as Chaplain-
General of the Forces, instead of one of the six
Senior Chaplains, all of long service and exemplary
deserts, was questioned, and not justified.^ All Mr.
Hardy could say was that the Chaplain-General had seme
quasi-episcopal functions, and therefore he thought an ex-
bishop would he the right man for the place. But we never
heard that Chaplain-General Gleig showed a want of either
episcopal authority or unction. Is there any more reason why
any of the six Senior Chaplains might not have done all the
^wasf-episcopal work required, whether in the way of confirm-
ing recruits, or wigging subordinate chaplains ?_ But the job is
jobbed ; and there is no use trying to put a varnish on it.

Then the House got to the Army Estimates. Sir A. Lusk,
Colonel Gourley, and some other amateur critics, did the usual amount of
nibbling and hobby-riding. Attention was called to some fine examples of
the favourite official game of shutting the door after the steed is stolen—as the
Beggar’s Bush Barracks nuisance, the Crimean graves, and other cases in
“Ut which the timely expenditure of a few pounds would have saved thousands ;

■i ^ and the hulk of the Estimates was comfortably disposed of before midnight.

Tuesday. —It is wonderful how frank and full a Minister can he in admitting
the faults of those over whom he has no control. The Jersey prisons are not
under Home Office inspection. A weakly girl of fourteen, sentenced to a month’s imprisonment—half of it solitary, on bread and water—
has died from disease accelerated by her punishment. Mr. Cross admitted the facts, regretted that the case should have occurred, and is
glad to think it cannot occur again. But Jersey must he allowed her full privilege of local mis-government.

Lord Robert Montagu has been saying disagreeable things about the Folkstone drainage, and has been_ accused at a public
meeting, by a gentleman in shirt-sleeves, with a turn for unparliamentary language, of “telling a pack of lies about the town.”
Lord Robert did not propose to call the offender to the Bar of the House, shirt-sleeves and ail, but himself waxed so unparliamentary
in criticism of his critic, that he was pulled up by the Speaker.

Mr. J. Holms tried, in vain, to prove to the House that brewers having been relieved of the Hop-duty ought to he relieved of the
Licence-duty imposed in its stead. The House declines to believe that brewers are too simple innocents to extract the amount of that,
or any other, duty out of their customers. The Chancellor op the Exchequer undertook to correct inequalities in the scale of duty
which make it press unfairly on small brewers, and so cut away the only ground Mr. Holms had to stand on.

The Customs and Inland Revenue are to have the benefit of the Bank Holidays’ Act; but the latter are to lose the Coronation Day,
and Prince op Wales’s Birthday, which they have now. In the Docks the holidays are to be permissive.

Mr. Norwood thinks the Bank Holidays’ Act an unwarrantable interference with the rights of labour. Punch thinks Mr. Norwood’s
an unwarrantable interference with the rights of play. Mr. Norwood is of opinion that the working-classes have too many holidays as it
is. Mr. Punch begs to remind him that Sir J. Lubbock’s Bill did not institute Saint Monday, and that clerks and employers, at
all events, do not worship at the shrine of that saint of the working-man.

Before going into Committee on Sir H. James’s Bill for regulating Returning Officers’ expenses, Mr. Fawcett was defeated on his
resolution for throwing election expenses on the rates, by 130 to 46. Neither side of the House wants a rush of impecunious candidates.

Wednesday.—Mr. Forsyth, Q.C., member for the -Spinsterhood of Great Britain, moved his little Bill of mighty consequence, to
give votes at Parliamentary elections to women not under coverture. They bore the burdens of citizenship: they were interested in