Punch (70.1876)

February 12, 1876.]

43

AN UNREGENERATE YOUTH.

The New Governess {impressively). " 0, Tommy, when /was a little Girl, and made a
Blot on my Copy-Book, I used to cry."
Tommy (earnestly). "What! Really?"
New Governess (still more impressively). " Yes—really cry! "

Tommy (still more earnestly). " What an awful little Duffer you must have been!"

WHISKEY V. " SILENT SPIEIT."

Alas, alas for Whiskey,

That spirit pure and clear,
That made its drinker frisky,

Yet left his liver clear !
Now vile adulterators

Have caused its name to stink :
Can Irishmen be traitors

To Ireland's noblest drink ?

The nectarous amber fluid

That Erin used to send—
Pure stuff as ere was brewed—

Is now a poisonous " blend ; "
For the true potheeny flavour,

And the fire from headache free,
From fusel-oil its savour,

Its consequence, D.T.!

0 spring of merry laughter,

Of fancy, frolic, fun,
That drew no black bile after,

From honest worms while run.
Now sullen, silent spirit

Sets brains and blood aboil;
Can Erin aught inherit

But woe from fusel-oil ?

Of Yintner and of Grocer

We long* have been the sport :
Claret to ink comes closer,

And elder rules in port.
Petroleum fizz of Roederer

Usurps the famous brand ;
And Hamburgh, wholesale murderer,

With her sherry floods the land !

In wonder I am stranded,

So strange it seems to think
The Irish, nation candid,

Should send us filth to drink,
Yile spirit, which the deuce is

The nose and cheek to blotch,
And Erin's calm excuse is—

" We get it from the Scotch."

0 Firms of both the .Jamesons !

0 Firms of Power and Hoe,
Don't let Hibernia claim as sons

The scamps who treat her so.
Home-Rulers effervescent

Poor Erin may endure,
Put she '11 ne'er be convalescent,

Till her potheen is pure.

TWO DOSES OF JUSTICES' JUSTICE.

[As administered in the Provinces with immense success.)

Dose I.—Crawley-cum-Snoozle.

Bench—Colonel Dunderhead .Rev. Lycurgus Drake, Rev. Minto
Cummin, J. Foozle, Esq., and Lord Shallow.

John Jones, 70, a starved-looking man, was charged with having
stolen four potatoes. Witnesses having deposed to the potatoes
being found in the prisoner's possession, the Bench asked him if he
had anything to say for himself. The prisoner said he was starving.
The REvt L. Drake said he ought to be ashamed of himsBlf. If that
was all he had to say, he had better have held his tongue. The
prisoner said the potatoes were rotten, and that he found them in
the middle of the road. Lord Shallow remarked that that asser-
tion was, on the face of it, false, as rotten potatoes never grew in
the middle of roads ; a remark in which the rest of the Bench con-
curred. The Rev. Minto Cummin asked if there were any previous
convictions against the prisoner. Police-Constable Z 11 said the
prismer had always borne a very good character. The Pteverend
Gentleman said he considered that made the case worse. It was
painful to see a man of seventy commencing a career of crime.

After some deliberation, the Bench sentenced the prisoner to
twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour.

Dose II.—Same Bench:.

Tom Hulker, 2L was charged with having assaulted his wife.
The prosecutrix, whose head was enveloped in bandages, and who
was still so weak from her recent injuries that she had to be accom-

modated with a chair, said that last Saturday her husband came
home drunk, and asked her for money. On her telling him she had
none, he knocked her down with the poker, then kicked her for
half-an-hour, and finally turned her out of doors for the night. The
Bench asked the prisoner what he had to say for himself. The
prisoner said he was a little overcome, and had no recollection of
anything his wife had deposed to. The Rev. L. Draee thought
that altered the case very much. Was the prosecutrix so ignorant
of the duties of Christianity and the married state that she did not
know that it was her duty as a wife to have forgiven her husband
under the circumstances ? J. Foozle, Esq., concurred. Women never
did any good by pulling up their husbands, any more than by
nagging at them. The prosecutrix said she had forgiven her husband
several times before. The Rev. Minto Cummin asked if he was to
understand that she had been beaten previously, and had never
charged her husband with the offence ? The prosecutrix said that
was so. The Reverend Gentleman could only observe that, according
to his reading of the law of the land, shediad been guilty of the
heinous offence of compounding a felony, and had rendered herself
liable, he believed, to penal servitude. It was for her husband to
say whether he would press for a conviction. The prisoner said that
as his wife earned more wages than himself, he wouldn't. After a
short deliberation, the Bench acquitted the prisoner of the assault,
but fined him five shillings for drunkenness.

The money having been paid, Lord Shallow said that he thought
it was his duty, on behalf of himself and his brother Magistrates, to
say how pleased they were with the generous manner in which the
prisoner had refrained from pressing against his wife the charge of
compounding felony, and cautioned the woman to be careful in
future.

vol. lxx.