Punch (70.1876)

May 20, 1876.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 197

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

rlthee.myLORD
marquis of

Huntly, what
if the Scotch
Agricultural
Holdings Bill
should prove a
dead letter ?
Punch would
ask, Has not
. the English
Agricultural
Holdings Bill
proved the
same ? Why
should a Con-
servative Go-
vernment' s
Land-Law for
Scotland be
livelier than
that for Eng-
land ? Their line is that
of hani-lords, not Land-
laivs.

The Lords (Monday,
May 8), by a narrow
majority of 12, decided
against cumulative vo-
ting in elections for Irish
Representative Peers.
Evidently a large pro-
portion even of their
Conservative Lordships
are fairly ashamed that
Liberals should be alto-
gether excluded from a
oice in the representation of the Irish
Lord Chancellor was
even more than usually reckless in his
reasons against the concession.

(Commons.)—The Financial Secretary
of the Treasury explained a curious dis-
tinction between the expenses of hang-
ing in Scotland and England. In the former the Royal Boroughs have to pay the cost of
their own gallows, halter, and hangman ; in the latter, the Sheriff is allowed £10 per
hanging, because, if he can't find a hangman, he is bound to do the hanging himself. Was
it supposed, by those who made such a distinction, that there never would be a Scotchman
to be hung but you would be able to find a Scotchman to string him up " f or a considera-
tion; " just as it has been said, " there never was an Irishman to be roasted, but you can
find another Irishman to turn the spit." " Divil a bit o' like in it," says an indignant
Milesian, "the Irishman turns the spit for love; the Scotchman would tie the noose for
money."

The Merchant Shipping Mull once more, happily for the last time of its appearance.
Mr. Plimsoll made a gallant, though ineffectual, attempt to enforce an official survey of
disclassed ships.

Sir C. Adderley contended that such a requirement would be to reverse the_ present
practice as to surveys, which, no doubt, is the reason why Mr. Plimsoll wants it. _ Mr.
Gorst moving Amendments on the Disciplinary Clauses, Sir Charles' manner of resisting
provoked such a feeling in the House, that Mr. Cross had to promise a Bill dealing with the
subject next Session. A pleasant prospect, if it is to be entrusted to the present President
of the Board of Trade! The rest of the Amendments being got rid of, Sir Charles was
enabled to enjoy his little crow in proclaiming the Bill through Committee, amidst the cheers
of the much-relieved House. ~No wonder they cheered !

" "Weary twelve nights, close confined,
Have they lingered, yawned, and dined ;
Though the Bill could not be lost,
Yet it could he Plimsoll-tossed."

It has, indeed, been a perilous passage through a mauvais pas. Sir Charles boasted
that he had really, after his twelve nights' gestation, produced a Virgin Bill—meaning one
untouched by the rude hands of its would-be un-doers, or rather over-doers. Punch is
reminded of Martial (Epig. i., 67):—

" Secreta queere carmina, et rudes curas,
Quas novit unus virginis pater chartse."

Or, if we may English it for Sir Charles's behoof,—■

" What consultations with Bentincx and Stanhope,
What carking cares, as high or low ran hope
Of pinning pestilent Plimsoll amendments,
And. making clear Adderleian intendments,
Are his who Board of Trade's Chair doth fill,
To shape into life a Virgin Bill! "

Sir W. Harcotjrt irreverently observed that Sir Charles's virgp intacta had at all events

been delivered of two bouncing twins—the
deck-load clause, and the clause bringing
foreign ships within the Act.

On going into Committee on Naval Esti-
mates, Mr. Brassey moved for a Royal
Commission to review the '' Ship-building
Policy " of the Government.

Me. Goschen begged Mr. Ward Hunt
to produce such policy.

Mr. Ward Hunt defied any man to say
that any Government could have any such
policy—and then proceeded to describe
the policy of the present Government, and
then agreed to the appointment not of a
Commission but a Committee to consider
whether such policy could be improved.

At first Punch thought the only upshot
of the discussion would be to show that
the British Fleet of the future was to be
like the Spanish Fleet of the past—a thing
we—

" Cannot see, because
It is not yet in sight."

But Mr. Ward Hunt carried us clear
of this fear by his bold reversal of his
engines.

Tuesday (Lords). — A cheerful night.
Lord Grey laid a Burials Bill on the
table, and the Marquis oe Huntly car-
ried Second Reading of a Bill to punish
farm-servants for administering arsenic to
animals to make their coats shine.

" Ilfaut souffrir pour etre heau" is an
old proverb. But these ill-informed, if
well-meaning rustics, ride the proverb
literally to "death."

(Commons.)—Sir Charles Dilke tried to
move the House to move the Royal Academy,
because it had not moved, of itself, in the
right direction. Sir Charles spoke a long
indictment against the Forty—charging
them, in effect, as a band of forty thieves
with having stolen privileges and prestige,
honour, house-room, and hard cash, in the
shape of the splendid shillings of the public,
on a condition they have not complied with,
of teaching, cultivating, and promoting the
arts of design in England. Or if not forty
thieves, contended Sir Charles, they are,
at best, forty shop-keepers ; and their Ex-
hibition, which they at first apologised for
not opening free to all, has now become a
receipt of custom, and the be-all and end-
all of their existence, the source of their
shillings, the scene of their Annual Dinner,
by help of which they keep a firm anchorage
among the official and aristocratic classes,
the stage on which they parade their supe-
riority over wretched " outsiders," whether
when they sit upon their pictures, or cold-
shoulder them off " the Line."

Perhaps no count in Sir Charles's long
and heavy indictment against the Academy
might not be supported by evidence that
would go far to win a verdict of guilty from
an unprejudiced jury. But such a jury Sir
Charles did not address in the House of
Commons, least of all a House with a
crushing Conservative Majority. If th.3
hard - headed and hard - hitting Chelse i
Baronet drew the indictment against the
Academy anything but mild, Mr. Cart-
wright, Mr. Baillle Cochrane, and Mr.
Cowper-Temple went quite as far in their
more agreeable and amiable task of white-
washing—if we should not rather say
" sweetening "—and megilping, framing,
and glazing their portraits of the Forty,
and hanging them in the most favourable
and flattering of lights. Even Mr. Beres-
ford Hope, though he had his grievance
as a student of architecture, contended,
like Mr. Cowper - Temple and other
speakers, including Mr. Gladstone, that
the House had no jurisdiction, as the

VOL. LXX.

V