Punch (70.1876)

130 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [April 8, 1876.

AWFUL ALTERNATIVE.

Mistress (Low Church) to Follower discovered in the Kitchen on a Sunday. "Now it is getting late, Sie, and you must leave the House

AT once, unless you 'd both like to come UI'-SfAIRS with me, and I'll ee ad you a sermon ! !"

two on one hobby, running a-tilt at Monks and Nuns. The House
declined to follow them.

Khedive consents to publication of Cave's report! After the
Bears have worked their wicked will on his stock for more than a
week! Poor impecunious, impetuous, impracticable Khedive !
Again we hear his prayer, " Save me from my friends! "

THE APOTHEOSIS OP ENGINEERING.

" I think it is not too much to say that if the school of Archimedes
had triumphed over the school of Plato, the frightful catastrophe which
overthrew the Roman Empire, and condemned mankind to a thousand years
of barbarism and misery, would have been averted. . . . And when I re-
member how many men have spent their lives in small grammatical researches,
in reading or writing bad poetry or execrable histories and biographies—all
this rubbish to be read by the few, and thrown aside by the many—it is a
gratifying reflection that we are this day met to celebrate the triumphs of
a profession which has not only benefited its members by the riches they
have derived from its pursuit, but has been the means of securing the world
against the most awful calamity that could befall it—after a far advance into
civilisation—a relapse into barbarism."—Mr. Lowe to the Engineers.

Hide, Plato, thy diminished head, and pass
Into Philosophy's inferior class,
Since but for thee, vile sophist, but for thee,
There had not been the sad catastrophe,
When the barbaric tide was onward hurled,
And Rome no longer ruled a happy world.
Yes, metaphysic prater, but for thee,
Pome would be mistress still, o'er land and sea,
Gallia and Britain, humbly crouching down,
Would send their tribute to the Imperial town;
And subject provinces would lick the dust
Before our Emperor, peerless and august.

Thus Mr. Lowe, who always greatly dares :
And next, he kicks the literate world down-stairs,
Sneers at the small grammarians, although he
Has lately stooped to grace a Spelling Bee;

Lays heavily his strenuous lingual lash
On poets' rubbish and historians' trash,
And fails to see that, if poetic thought
And great historic records go for nought,
If life is sunk to mere material sense.
No State existing would be worth defence.

'Tis very well to praise the Engineers—

A useful army—but they have their peers :

It is the solitary thinker's brain

That gives us lightning-wire and railway-train.

Apollo bids the radiant arrows fly:

Let Yulcan forge the sun-god's panoply.

As to the Poman Pule, it may be sad

That it was crushed by the barbarian cad,

And all through Plato—sad to think that we

Are Englishmen, and tolerably free,

Instead of working hard at Roman roads,

And bringing to the C^sar birthday odes.

But in that higher state, we want to know

What special corner would belong to Lowe.

Would he not vanish, Orator of whim ?

And would there be a Punch to laugh at him ?

Piping Times.

This must be a pleasant and easy-going employer, who advertises
in the West Sussex Gazette :—

WANTED, a CARTER. Will be allowed to do anything he likes
except smoke in the drawing-room. Liberal wages given.—Apply, &c.

Carters seem to inspire facetiousness in advertisers. This is
from a Bolton paper :—

WANTED, immediately, an idle, drunken CARTER. The Advertiser
has had so many Sober Garters that he wants a change, but a mode-
rately sober one would not be objected to.—Inquire, &o.