DOI Heft:
July 3, 1875
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16940#0288
282
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[July 3, 1875.
Pleasant, after all the Committees we have had, Select and Un-
seleet, Parliamentary and professional, and all the millions we
have spent, to find every question in gunnery open to such dia-
metrical difference of weighty opinions !)
Major Beaumont was against a new Ordnance Committee, and
for breech against muzzle-loader. So was General Shute.
Captain Nolan declared the Government, for breeches-pocket
reasons, had over-ruled its professional advisers, who were rather
against breech-loading for field-guns, and in its favour for heavy
artillery. Mr. Ward-Hunt triumphantly appealed to the difference
of opinion among the artillery doctors as a reason against calling in
any more of them ; and declared that the Government advisers were
satisfied with the Government guns, and the Government with its
advisers.
At the same time, “ the Admiralty was not bound to put its foot
down, and declare the question should never be reopened.”
(Ah, Mr. Ward-Hunt, is not that rather like “putting the foot
down,” and showing the cloven hoof—symbol of divided opinions
and unsettled minds F)
Motion and Amendment were withdrawn, everybody who knows
anything of the subject feeling profoundly dissatisfied with every-
body else—and the House was Counted Out at twenty minutes to
one.
(The sooner John Bull puts his foot down, and declares his
determination to be satisfied whether he is or is not being made a
fool of in the matter of his big guns afloat and ashore, the better.)
Wednesday.—The House up to its neck in the filth of the Conta-
gious Diseases Acts, on a Motion for their absolute and unconditional
repeal.
Punch prefers not to handle so foul a subject, only too much
handled already, and with far too close familiarity. But he sees
no reason to doubt either the sad necessity for these Acts, or their
working, on the whole, for the alleviation of the evils which have
rendered them necessary.
Thursday [Lords).—Canada has contrived a Copyright Act, which
recognises the rights of the English Author in his own brain-work,
provided he will take the trouble to register and re-publish in the
Dominion.
There is one pirate less in the New World. Canada may be
congratulated that she no longer stands associated with our American
Cousin in robbing their common poor relation, the British Author.
Lord Salisbury finds himself obliged to fling over all that part of
his Rivers’ Pollution Bill which deals with river-fouling from mines
and manufactures—in other words, the marrow of his measure.
[Commons.) Mr. Disraeli meekly apologised for asking for the
Tuesdays, and begged to withdraw his demand, seeing the House
objected to grant it. Lord Hartington complained that the House
knew no more about the state of public business after the Prime
Minister’s speech than before, and wanted to know when the mas-
sacring of the innocents was to begin.
Agricultural Holdings Bill introduced to the Commons in a tame
speech by Mr. Disraeli. Grand fight, apropos of the Bill, between
the “ Mays” and the Musts,” the advocates of permissive and com-
pulsory legislation. Rather oddly arrayed—Liberal Opposition on the
side of “Must,” Couservatives of “May.” Any landlord may contract
himself out of the Bill. All landlords will do so, says Mr. Knatch-
bull-Hugessen. Yet he objects to the Bill because it is not com-
pulsory. So does Mr. Lowe, though all for freedom of contract.
What chance would it have had with the landlords if it had been ?
Mr. McCombie speaking for the Land of Leases, pithily described
the Bill as one of the most innocent ever introduced into the House
of Commons. It gave nothing to the tenant-farmers and would
take nothing from them. He forgets the difference between Scotch
long: lease-holders and English tenants at will—as a rule, Punch is
glad to think, at good-will.
On the whole, Government seems to say of the Bill, as Sophonisba
said of her wound in Thompson’s tragedy—
“ Our Bill’s so great, because it is so small.”
To which the Opposition seems disposed to reply with Thompson’s
pit-critic,—
“ Then ’twould be greater were there none at all.”
The Government has, since the Bill passed the Lords, agreed to
strike out what Lord Hartington calls its “ key-stone’’—the cal-
culation of compensation on the basis of increase in letting value.
The tenant’s compensation is now to be determined by what he has
spent—the fairest basis. Mr. Knight, the out-spoken Member for
West Worcestershire, has forced that change upon Mr. Disraeli.
So modified, no doubt, the Bill will pass. What good it will work is
an open question. It may work better than the Opposition are
willing to admit. But if it effects no good, it can hardly do the
harm they prophesy. As yet, Punch is bound to say they have not
made out a good case against it.
Friday [Lords).—The Committee of Inquiry into the training of
Britannia’s Naval Cadets recommends a little shortening and
simplifying of examinations, and the abolition of competitive
entrance-examinations. Lord Camperdown does not think the
evidence supports these conclusions. But they seem to commend
themselves, on the whole, to common sense. Competitive examination
may be tolerable as the counterpoise of favouritism. But there is a
terrible weight of per contra to all that can be urged in its favour.
An edifying discourse on Ecclesiastical Court fees, out of which
£1000 a year is to go to the Judge under the Public Worship Regu-
lation Act.
Lord Shaftesbury complains that he can’t get at the receipts of
the Diocesan Courts and officers. Eleven dioceses, and forty arch-
deaconries keep dark, in defiance of Parliamentary Orders and Acts
of Parliament. Doesn’t Lord Shaftesbury wish'he may get at it ?
Still more, doesn’t he wish, if he gets at it, that the country may
get it P When was it so easy to recover a bone from a hungry dog’s
mouth ?
[Commons.) Mr. Disraeli objects to too early a fixing of the day
for the massacring to begin. About the middle of July, he says,
has been the usual date of the melancholy announcement.
Meantime, like the iambs and the spring chickens,—
“ Kegardless of their fate,
The little victims play.”
Captain Stacpoole wants to move Parliament to move the
Queen to set up a Royal residence in Ireland.
The common sense of Parliament, and the uncommon sense (for
this occasion) of the Home-Rulers is agreed—however desirable it
may be that Her Majesty, or her Royal Family, all or any of
them, should know and see more of Ireland—that Parliamentary
pressure is not the best way to get them there.
Mr. M. Stewart wants British India to clear her conscience of
the opium-trade with China, and her pockets of its profits. But
it is not a question (for John Chinaman) of opium or no opium, but
of better and cheaper opium (Indian imported) against worse and
dearer (home-grown). His opium he will have, as John Bull will
have his tobacco; and there seems little more to be said against
the opium (in moderation) than against the weed. Besides, England,
that raises above thirty millions of revenue, directly and indirectly,
out of strong drink, can scarcely, with a solemn face, affect to be
scandalised at the millions of Indian Revenue got out of opium.
Non olet—but gross hypocrisy does stink in the nostrils.
NEEDLEDOM v. NOODLEDOM
[A Note from a Needle.)
he Age of Chivalry was
the Age of Needle-
work.”—Lady Ma-
rian Alford, at the
opening of the New
Rooms of the Royal
School of Art Needle-
work.
Dear Punch,—Our
race is on the
rise, that’s clear ;
I have not felt so
proud this many
a year!
How long has all
conspired my soul
to vex!
Robbed of romance
by Singer; by the
sex
I best have served
half flouted, in
their zeal
For alien “rights!”
What finest-tem-
pered steel
Could stand the strain ? The keenest point ’twould try,
And make the stoutest needle pipe its eye..
But epicene ambition’s horrid witchery,
Which makes our spinsters look askance at stitcdery,
At point of Needle now must be dispelled,
When by the hands of Art and I ashion held.
So here ’s hurrah for Lady Marian Alford, r
Who loves her thimble, yet can quote her Talfourd .
“ Art the Consoler,” needle-armed, may try
Tn Hrinfr oitt a,£6 a better chivalry >
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[July 3, 1875.
Pleasant, after all the Committees we have had, Select and Un-
seleet, Parliamentary and professional, and all the millions we
have spent, to find every question in gunnery open to such dia-
metrical difference of weighty opinions !)
Major Beaumont was against a new Ordnance Committee, and
for breech against muzzle-loader. So was General Shute.
Captain Nolan declared the Government, for breeches-pocket
reasons, had over-ruled its professional advisers, who were rather
against breech-loading for field-guns, and in its favour for heavy
artillery. Mr. Ward-Hunt triumphantly appealed to the difference
of opinion among the artillery doctors as a reason against calling in
any more of them ; and declared that the Government advisers were
satisfied with the Government guns, and the Government with its
advisers.
At the same time, “ the Admiralty was not bound to put its foot
down, and declare the question should never be reopened.”
(Ah, Mr. Ward-Hunt, is not that rather like “putting the foot
down,” and showing the cloven hoof—symbol of divided opinions
and unsettled minds F)
Motion and Amendment were withdrawn, everybody who knows
anything of the subject feeling profoundly dissatisfied with every-
body else—and the House was Counted Out at twenty minutes to
one.
(The sooner John Bull puts his foot down, and declares his
determination to be satisfied whether he is or is not being made a
fool of in the matter of his big guns afloat and ashore, the better.)
Wednesday.—The House up to its neck in the filth of the Conta-
gious Diseases Acts, on a Motion for their absolute and unconditional
repeal.
Punch prefers not to handle so foul a subject, only too much
handled already, and with far too close familiarity. But he sees
no reason to doubt either the sad necessity for these Acts, or their
working, on the whole, for the alleviation of the evils which have
rendered them necessary.
Thursday [Lords).—Canada has contrived a Copyright Act, which
recognises the rights of the English Author in his own brain-work,
provided he will take the trouble to register and re-publish in the
Dominion.
There is one pirate less in the New World. Canada may be
congratulated that she no longer stands associated with our American
Cousin in robbing their common poor relation, the British Author.
Lord Salisbury finds himself obliged to fling over all that part of
his Rivers’ Pollution Bill which deals with river-fouling from mines
and manufactures—in other words, the marrow of his measure.
[Commons.) Mr. Disraeli meekly apologised for asking for the
Tuesdays, and begged to withdraw his demand, seeing the House
objected to grant it. Lord Hartington complained that the House
knew no more about the state of public business after the Prime
Minister’s speech than before, and wanted to know when the mas-
sacring of the innocents was to begin.
Agricultural Holdings Bill introduced to the Commons in a tame
speech by Mr. Disraeli. Grand fight, apropos of the Bill, between
the “ Mays” and the Musts,” the advocates of permissive and com-
pulsory legislation. Rather oddly arrayed—Liberal Opposition on the
side of “Must,” Couservatives of “May.” Any landlord may contract
himself out of the Bill. All landlords will do so, says Mr. Knatch-
bull-Hugessen. Yet he objects to the Bill because it is not com-
pulsory. So does Mr. Lowe, though all for freedom of contract.
What chance would it have had with the landlords if it had been ?
Mr. McCombie speaking for the Land of Leases, pithily described
the Bill as one of the most innocent ever introduced into the House
of Commons. It gave nothing to the tenant-farmers and would
take nothing from them. He forgets the difference between Scotch
long: lease-holders and English tenants at will—as a rule, Punch is
glad to think, at good-will.
On the whole, Government seems to say of the Bill, as Sophonisba
said of her wound in Thompson’s tragedy—
“ Our Bill’s so great, because it is so small.”
To which the Opposition seems disposed to reply with Thompson’s
pit-critic,—
“ Then ’twould be greater were there none at all.”
The Government has, since the Bill passed the Lords, agreed to
strike out what Lord Hartington calls its “ key-stone’’—the cal-
culation of compensation on the basis of increase in letting value.
The tenant’s compensation is now to be determined by what he has
spent—the fairest basis. Mr. Knight, the out-spoken Member for
West Worcestershire, has forced that change upon Mr. Disraeli.
So modified, no doubt, the Bill will pass. What good it will work is
an open question. It may work better than the Opposition are
willing to admit. But if it effects no good, it can hardly do the
harm they prophesy. As yet, Punch is bound to say they have not
made out a good case against it.
Friday [Lords).—The Committee of Inquiry into the training of
Britannia’s Naval Cadets recommends a little shortening and
simplifying of examinations, and the abolition of competitive
entrance-examinations. Lord Camperdown does not think the
evidence supports these conclusions. But they seem to commend
themselves, on the whole, to common sense. Competitive examination
may be tolerable as the counterpoise of favouritism. But there is a
terrible weight of per contra to all that can be urged in its favour.
An edifying discourse on Ecclesiastical Court fees, out of which
£1000 a year is to go to the Judge under the Public Worship Regu-
lation Act.
Lord Shaftesbury complains that he can’t get at the receipts of
the Diocesan Courts and officers. Eleven dioceses, and forty arch-
deaconries keep dark, in defiance of Parliamentary Orders and Acts
of Parliament. Doesn’t Lord Shaftesbury wish'he may get at it ?
Still more, doesn’t he wish, if he gets at it, that the country may
get it P When was it so easy to recover a bone from a hungry dog’s
mouth ?
[Commons.) Mr. Disraeli objects to too early a fixing of the day
for the massacring to begin. About the middle of July, he says,
has been the usual date of the melancholy announcement.
Meantime, like the iambs and the spring chickens,—
“ Kegardless of their fate,
The little victims play.”
Captain Stacpoole wants to move Parliament to move the
Queen to set up a Royal residence in Ireland.
The common sense of Parliament, and the uncommon sense (for
this occasion) of the Home-Rulers is agreed—however desirable it
may be that Her Majesty, or her Royal Family, all or any of
them, should know and see more of Ireland—that Parliamentary
pressure is not the best way to get them there.
Mr. M. Stewart wants British India to clear her conscience of
the opium-trade with China, and her pockets of its profits. But
it is not a question (for John Chinaman) of opium or no opium, but
of better and cheaper opium (Indian imported) against worse and
dearer (home-grown). His opium he will have, as John Bull will
have his tobacco; and there seems little more to be said against
the opium (in moderation) than against the weed. Besides, England,
that raises above thirty millions of revenue, directly and indirectly,
out of strong drink, can scarcely, with a solemn face, affect to be
scandalised at the millions of Indian Revenue got out of opium.
Non olet—but gross hypocrisy does stink in the nostrils.
NEEDLEDOM v. NOODLEDOM
[A Note from a Needle.)
he Age of Chivalry was
the Age of Needle-
work.”—Lady Ma-
rian Alford, at the
opening of the New
Rooms of the Royal
School of Art Needle-
work.
Dear Punch,—Our
race is on the
rise, that’s clear ;
I have not felt so
proud this many
a year!
How long has all
conspired my soul
to vex!
Robbed of romance
by Singer; by the
sex
I best have served
half flouted, in
their zeal
For alien “rights!”
What finest-tem-
pered steel
Could stand the strain ? The keenest point ’twould try,
And make the stoutest needle pipe its eye..
But epicene ambition’s horrid witchery,
Which makes our spinsters look askance at stitcdery,
At point of Needle now must be dispelled,
When by the hands of Art and I ashion held.
So here ’s hurrah for Lady Marian Alford, r
Who loves her thimble, yet can quote her Talfourd .
“ Art the Consoler,” needle-armed, may try
Tn Hrinfr oitt a,£6 a better chivalry >