Punch (69.1875)

October SO, 1875.1

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

181

LAYING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER.

Study of an interesting Discussion between two earnest but veby near-sighted
Gentlemen who have left their Spectacles at Home.

MODERN LOVE-SONG.

By a Young Bachelor in the Black Country,

Come, live with me, and be ray bride ;
And when the nuptial knot is tied,
Our wedding-day I '11 make you rue,
And nightly beat you black and blue.

My temper's ugly, as you'11 find,

I'm brutal when with rage I'm blind :

I work as little as I can,

And drink my wages like a man.

There's working-men as spend their lives
In slaving to support their wives ;
"With such as them I don't agree;
I want my wife to work for me.

Ere half our honeymoon be flown,
You '11 hardly call your life your own :
And, when a second month hath sped,
You'll wish you'd died ere you had wed.

Assaulted by my manly foot,
Encased in heavy hob-nailed boot,
A life of misery you '11 lead,
And all in vain for mercy plead.

Some day, when I am on the drink,
Of death I '11 beat you to the brink:
And if the neighbours interfere,
I '11 swear you tried to stop my beer.

Then, should you snivel to the Beak,
Mayhap he '11 quod me for a week;
But when I darken next your door,
You '11 catch it hotter than before.

So, if you like that sort of " hub,"
Would see your savings spent in " bub,"
And daily tremble for your life,
Come, live with me, and be my wife!

The New Alderman.

The Cordwainer Ward must implicitly feel
That Nottage's views are the best for their
weal;

But if they had added Sir John to the
Knights,

They'd have had a good watchman, at least,
of their rights.

more than the following and concluding paragraph of this Circular
will emanate from his pen.

Lord Darnley begs to say that the following paragraph is as
follows:—

Lord Darnley does desire and intend to have a resident tenant
at West Court upon the same footing as his other tenants. He begs
also to say that to say (as some of the Press say) that Lord Darnley
would have lost his head on the scaffold, for trying to break up one
of Her Majesty's Regiments, had he lived hundreds of years ago, is
immaterial to him. He begs to say (indeed, it would be foolish not
to do so) that it would have been utterly impossible to have deprived
him personally of his head. Nothing of the kind has emanated
from his pen.

By Order of Lord Darnley.
Long Live Lord Darnley!

Repudiation and Revolt.

Pending an insurrection in Herzegovina, the Turkish repudiation
was peculiarly inopportune. By renouncing their obligations to
their bondholders just now, the Sultan and his Government not
only justify the Herzegovinians in throwing off their bondage, but
also set Crete, and all their other discontented provinces the
example of rejecting their bonds too. This repudiation, if tried,
will be preventible only by force, and then, the Sublime Porte
just having cheated its creditors, how on earth will it possibly be
able to borrow money to carry on the war ?

in the press.

Half-Hours with the Worst Authors, including the Admiralty
Minute. Dedicated to the Right Hon. Ward Hunt, M.P.

VACCINATION AND WISDOM.

Among the Boards of Guardians in England and Wales, there is,
whatever satirists may say, a considerable number comparatively at
least endowed with immense wisdom. Our friends the Keighley
Board lately held a meeting, thus reported by a contemporary:—

" Official Opposition to Vaccination.—At the meeting of the Keigh-
ley Board of Guardiaas yesterday afternoon, fifty letters were read in answer
to an anti-vaccination memorial which had been sent by the Board to all the
Boards of Guardians in the kingdom. Not one of the replies concurred with
the opinions expressed in the memorial."

The absolute amount of sense indicated by this difference of
opinion is, to be sure, no more than ordinary. Relatively to the
common understanding it does not appear to be above the average,
and might in fact be below it. Nevertheless, it is evident that there
are no less than fifty British Boards of Guardians endowed with
intelligence in a measure whereby they immensely exceed those of
Keighley. Indeed, the replies of some of these fifty Boards evince
even a degree of acuteness:—

" The Merthyr Tydfil Board said they thought that the Keighley Board
must have gone mad, and hoped the laws would bring them to their senses.
The Stafford Guardians enclosed a copy of a resolution which had been passed
by them to the effect that' the Keighley Board ought to be sent to an asylum,
and made to pay their expenses.' "

Hereupon it is significantly added :—
" No remarks were made by the Guardians."

Although they could not be sent literally to an asylum for idiots,
the Keighley Guardians were, as to their anti-vaccination drivel,
conclusively shut up; a reality which it appears they were just
sufficiently sensible to feel.

The Sinking Fund.—The Navy Estimates.