Punch (69.1875)

November 6, 187?.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 183

"OUT O' SESSION."

Grandma! {from the Country). " My Dears, I come dp Parli mentory a

purpose, because i thought i 'd see as much as i could. but would you

believe it, there wasn't a sii^gle-not so much as a irish member o'

parliment in the whole train ?"

THE CAT.

(Punch to Sra H. James, touching a weak point in his
very good talk at Taunton.)

We know, Sir. Henry, the nine-tailed Cat
Is not pleasant at all to the fierce garotter :

No wisdom needed to tell us that.
Does rat like ferret, or salmon otter ?

But when yon talk about torture, Punch
"Would hint that we all are sometimes tortured—

The hungry man with no time for lunch,

The schoolboy birched for robbing an orchard.

The Belle of the Season's Mamma, fit to drop,
Who sees that charming creature gaily

(Though Dukes and Earls are ready to pop)
Flirting with detrimentals daily.

Member who fails in his maiden-speech,

Or makes bad jokes, and House won't see the fun of
them—

Parson hard up for a sermon to preach—
Are they not tortured, every one of them ?

Torture ! an ad captandum phrase,

'Tis very clear to the English nation
That for brutal crimes in these finnikin days

No remedy equals castigation.

When the red weals rise on the ruffian's back,
For his cruel crime you have not half paid him :

On his vile career when looking back,
Tell us, Sir Henry, how can you degrade him ?

You suggest the case of husband and wife—
Husband flogged when wife is accuser ;

Well, 'tis a difficult problem of life ;
But might not dread of Cat make the coward well-
use her ?

That the Cat's revenge is rather severe

Punch free to confess, nay delighted to own is ;

But when woman is crushed by the brute in his beer,
Cat upon cad is Lex talionis.

Peace and Pekoe.—It will be a blessed thing, says
Mrs. Caddi", if we escape a war with China. Next to
quarrelling with our bread-and-butter, the worst we-
could do would be to quarrel with our tea.

LAW REPORTS (IN FUTURO).
(By a Barrister wlw can't understand the Judicature Act.)
Before the Lord Chief Justice.
Brown v. Smith.

This case, which has now reached its fortieth year, is of great
interest to the general Public. In 1797 Peter Brown, being then
heir in tail to the estates of Llymcromrch and Chatmysllingo, North
Wales, married, and had five children, of these Thomas {cujus est
solum ejus est usque ad cwlum), was the co-heir, with a contingent
remainder to Barbara.

At this point the Jury said they had made up their minds, and
found the prisoner Guilty.

The Lord Chcee Justice, having ordered both Plaintiff and
Defendant to stand in the dock, said, that the Jury were doubtless
aware that the intricate gloom of Chancery was henceforth to be
illumined by the pure light of Common Law. His Lordship,
addressing the prisoners, said that, in the whole course of his pro-
fessional career, he had never had to try so bad a case as this. The
prisoners had tried to find shelter behind the quibbles of Chancery
by dubbing themselves Plaiutiff and Defendant. That, only made
their case worse. He wuuld sentence Brown to twelve months'
imprisonment with hard labour, and Smith to seven years' penal
servitude, regretting, at the same time, that he could not have them
both soundly hogged.

The Plaintiff and Defendant, who seemed very much surprised, if
not gratified, at the sudden termination of this protracted case,
were^then removed in custody.

Before the Lord Chancellor.

William Sires, thirty-five, thief, was charged with the wilful
murder of his wife. The case has already been fully reported in
our columns. The facts of the murder having been clearly proved,

The Lord Chancellor, in the course of an elaborate judgment of

four hours' duration, remarked that all those in Court were doubt-
less aware that the intricate gloom of Common Law was henceforth
to be illumined by the pure light of Chancery. His Lordship,
having quoted a great number of precedents, said that the judgment
in the case of Thompson v. Green compelled him to discharge the
rule.

The Prisoner, after remarking that he had never been called a
rule before, hastily left the Court.

BRAVO, PROFESSOR !

It is seldom indeed that "Parliament out of Session," or in it
either, is redeemed from dulness by such a passage as the following
in Professor Fawcett's late speech delivered at the North London
and Hackney School of Art and Science Annual Prize Distribution.
Speaking of the cultivation of the testhetic faculties derivable from
works of nature, the Professor having, " evidently with the deep
sympathy of his audience," referred to the calamity which has for
twenty years past denied him the pleasure of looking upon them,
said:—

''It was perhaps because he had once enjoyed that pleasure, and could do
so no longer, that he could estimate what a precious privilege it was, and
during the ten years he had been in Parliament there was nothing in his work
he regarded with so much satisfaction as his endeavours to preserve Epping
Forest, the New Forest, and the beautiful commons which still remained,
from being sacrificed to the selfishness of individuals and a contemptible
parsimony."

This declaration was received with cheers, to which might have
been deservedly added "three times three" for the Lord Mayor
and Corporation of London, as the saviours of Epping Forest, and as
many rounds of hisses and groans for the individuals to whose self-
ishness that and the New Forest, and sundry beautiful commons,
were like to have been sacrificed; and likewise for the Administrators
who wished to sacrifice them from motives of contemptible parsimony.

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