Punch (68.1875)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

193

May 8, 1875.]

PUNCH’S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

iven a Parliament out of (good) work,
and we need not wonder that the noble
art of tongue fence—or, we should
rather say, tongue off- and de- fence
—receives substantial development.
Prominent among the various forms of
mischief which Satan has found for
idle Members’ hands to do this Session,
has been the picking to pieces each
other’s reputations; and personal on-
slaught has borne its natural fruit in
recrimination and explanation, usque
ad nauseam. Punch may say of him-
self, like Wordsworth,—

“I am not one who much, or oft, delight
In personal talk-”

consequence, been much an-
the unconscionable quantity
of personal at-
tack and perso-
nal explanation,
to the half-
pennyworth of
solid legislation
supplied by the
Session thus far.
The proportion
is quite as mon-
strous as that
of Falstaff’s
sack to his

bread.

To-night
(Monday, April
27) Lord COLE-
RIDGE took Up
the best part of
the Lords’ sit-
ting in the

superfluous task
of defending
his character
against De. Ke-

nealy’s imputations. Let the lion shake the dewdrops off his own mane as much as he pleases; but
please, my Lords and Gentlemen, do not you take the trouble of shaking the Doctor’s dewdrops off
your own too sensitive skins. They don’t stick, and they don’t dirty anything but the mane they are
flung from. This is for Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, as well as Rakov Coleridge in the Lords.

Major O'Gorman—biggest bulk and best fun of all Home-Rulers, always welcome to the House,
and the maddier the merrier, who ought to be re-christened “De. Kenealy’s large majority of One”
—was even greater than usual on the Peace Preservation Bill, and told some capital Westmeath
“ crackers,” on such lively subjects as coffins and threatening letters, in his very best style. The
division on the Second Reading, taken cleverly enough in the middle of dinner-time, was 153 to 69,
for some English and Scotch “ Intransigentes ” joined the Home-Rulers. In Committee Big gar made
himself a general nuisance as usual in motions to report progress, till the Bill was stopped at Clause
3, and the rest of the Orders were rattled through by a quarter to one.

Tuesday.—Those Gods of Epicurus, the Lords, vouchsafed a few languid minutes to Justices’
qualifications, and then, headed by the Prince oe Wales, adjourned en masse—a Lords’ “mass ” is a
mild form of the thing, low mass, in fact, rather than high—to hear Chaplin on Horses, in the
Commons. Such a crowd of swells—home-hred and foreign !

Race-horses, you know,— and Chaplin up !

But there’s many a slip between the speech and—the ear. Biggae “saw strangers” on his own
account, to the intense disgust of everybody—Home-Rulers, Intransigentes and all, and actually had
the galleries cleared for eighteen minutes, and might, if he had known more about the forms of the
House, have had them cleared for the night, for Me. Disraeli, who promptly moved and carried the
suspension of the standing order, had no right to do so without notice, except upon unanimous vote of
the House, which Biggae’s “Ho ” would have defeated.

This is a reductio ad dbsurdum (see Mr. Punch's Cartoon) which must bring to an end the old-
standing absurdity of allowing even a Biggae to put out the light of publicity that shines from the
Reporters) Gallery, and will, no doubt, substitute reasonable rule for an unreasonable. Who but
dear stupid old Conservative John Bull would have left such an order “ standing ” so long ?

Biggae—would-be snuffer—snuffed out, Chaplin went into the woes of horse-breeders, and the
alarming look-out for blue-blood on four legs, now being drained from England’s equine veins by the
foreigner. He suggested a penal tax on stallions, to be returned on sires proved sans reproche,
Government stud-farms, and Cobden’s ghost only knows what alarming defiances of Free-trade and
Laissez faire, for the improvement of our breeds, and the comforting, aiding and abetting of our
breeders.

But Geraed Sturt arose, and with a light hand made “pie” of Chaplin’s facts, and “hash” of
his figures, proving that we have more horses and better horses than ever, that the breeders’ best
friend is the foreign customer,, and that the worst thing that could befall the horse and his rider
would be Government “touching a single hair, in a single tail, of a single stallion.” Nothing like
climax, as Me. Sturt well knows, for oratorical effect.

So Me. Diseaeli aiding Sturt, even the doughty Turf Champion, Chaplin, collapsed, and the
House was Counted Out before nine. Such is the languor of this dead-alive Session I If even

Horses won’t draw a House to
the small hours, what will ? To
he sure, horses are not “ per-
sonal.”

By the way, Me. Sullivan
means to move a vote of cen-
sure on Lord Northbrook for
his bungle of the Baroda busi-
ness, and Me. Mills means to
oppose him.

Wednesday. — Scotch and ail
Scotch. Since the Scotch Mem-
bers, as a rule, know their own
minds, and settle their own busi-
ness, and so enjoy real Home-
Rule without talking about it,
Mr. Punch has nothing to say of
this sitting, but that several
Scotch crotchets— Sawney knows
of such things as well as John
Bull — were quickly cold-shoul-
dered, and some hobbies hobbled
for the rest of the Session in ex-
cellent style.

Thursday {Lords).—A lumi-
nous and voluminous review of
the Judicature Bill, and history
of the question by Lord Sel-
boene, hardly interesting or in-
telligible except for the lawyers,
though clients should be mate-
rially interested in all that con-
cerns improvement of Judicature.

So we are all interested in the
purity of our physic, but we don’t
care to intrude on the mysteries
of either Apothecaries’ Hall or
the minor mysteries of the
Chemists and Druggists. We
take our black draught in faith
that the Pharmacopoeia is all it
should be; and so we of the
laity are likely to take our Judi-
cature.

{Commons.) After a perilous
passage to the table of Me. New-
degate with a Monster Roll,
said to be signed by 117,663
Women of the United Kingdom,
for Inspection of Convents—in f
which Mr. Eoesyth, Q.C., cham-
pion of the Ladies, helped to bear
up the Ladies’ Petition, which
actually burst its bonds, and like
a certain famous monkey who
came over in two ships, required
two Members to carry it to the
table -Lord Hartington gave
notice of a Motion for allowing
Reporters to report freely, except
where the House forbids them by
resolution without debate, or the
Speaker, on occasion arising,
directs their exclusion.

Mr. Sullivan, asking a ques- j
tion about a cock-and-bull Irish
story, in ridicule of the restric- j
tions on the carrying of arms in
Ireland, was duly certified of
its cock-and-bullism by Sir M.

H. Beach. Finally, the Peace
Preservation Bill was fought
through Committee hy the Home-
Rulers, clause by clause, and
almost line by line, and word by
word, particularly after they
found a section of the Opposition
to support them on some points,
as on the continuance of the Bill
for five years or two. On Sir
M. H. Beach conceding amend-
ments, moved by Me. Butt,
that searches for arms should
not take place between set and
rise of sun, and then only in

Vol. 68.

7