Punch (70.1876)

June 17, 1876.] PUNCH, OH THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

SONNETS FOR THE SEX.

We idolise the Ladies. Are they fairies,

"Who make delicious this slow world of ours—
Or from Olympian hotbeds happy flowers—

Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies p

No matter : sweet are they, and their vagaries
Charm care away, and give us joyous hours,
And multiply cur pleasures and our powers,

Provided that they don't turn missionaries.

We like the lady who rides, rows, or rinks,
But not the lady who makes pious fuss,

Or she-philosopher who thinks she thinks,
And studies Sanskrit or the Calculus,

Or hunts 'mid Polypi for missing links.'
When these appear, we ask why this is thus ?.

0 Mister Dante Gabriel Rosetti !

0 Mister Algernon Charles Swinburne ! Punch

Having now ended a poetic lunch
With two fair girls both perilously pretty,
Swears your Faustine, Dolores, Jenny, Hetty,

Are just lay figures with no bones to crunch,

And he, the giant of the comic hunch,
Greatly prefers a bouncing Devonshire Betty.
He knows, which you, it clearly seems, do not,

Where, in the maddening whirl of this wild planet,

With statesmen solid, sonnet-scribblers shady,
How to discover men who know what's what,
How to detect the gem amid the granite,

How to hnd Earth's first flower—a lovely Lady.

Well, just another sonnet, Ladies fair:

Punch loves to see your exquisite soft ways,
To watch you in the summer's happy haze,

To braid poetic roses in your hair.

Only he says to younger men, " Beware ! "
The old Philosopher whose length of days
Would veteran Metiiusaleh amaze,

Laughs at these boyish wooers, void of care.

Ladies prefer brain and backbone and power,
The easy strength that makes a joke of toil,
The hand that masters either sword or pen :

So, youngsters eager for a glorious hour,
Learn that the rapier's stronger than the foil,
Love Ladyhood, and live the life of men.

The Brand oe Champagne to be Avoided at
Academy Dinners.—Ruinart.

Advice Oeatis to the Russian General Venyou-
kofe.—Take a Lozenge.

PAEISH BELIEF.

Dear Mr. Punch,

Surely Sir Thomas Browne, had he lived in these days,
would have included amongst "Vulgar Errors" the common idea
of the duties of a " Believing Officer." This mistake, dear Sir, you
may observe made in a communication from "A Country Parson "
to the Daily JYews. It is' one which Clergymen in general, as a
class, mostly labour under—a pectdiarly clerical error. The
" Country Parson " airs his fallacy in the following anecdote :—

" A case lately occurred in my parish that bears out what I say. A poor
man was suffering from an abscess in his neck, and the Doctor ' ordered,' or
rather ' recommended,' a certain quantity of mutton and ale every day, which,
the Doctor told me, 'he ought to have.' The Relieving Officer, however, did
not think so ; but gave only what he thought proper; awaiting leave from the
Board, that met ten days later, to give the full amount of relief recommended
by the Doctor. I remonstrated with the Board, telling them in truth that a
sick horse or a sick cow would fare better in like circumstances, but to no
purpose ; they would screen their officer from all blame."

He then wrote to the Local Government Board, but the Local
Government Board screened the Board of Guardians. The Board
above upheld the Board below. Of course. He invoked the aid of
an influential Peer who shared his misconception of a Relieving
Officer's functions—but in vain. The noble Lord was too busy to
attempt an unwise interference.

The "Country Parson" prefaces his case, as above stated, with
a perfectly true remark :—

" It is needless to say that . . . when a sick man has to wait nearly a fort-
night ere leave from the Board can be obtained for the administration of relief
ordered by the Doctor, the poor sufferer has time to wait and to die with-
out it."

Certainly. There is not the slightest need for saying what is
obvious. Equally unnecessary are the " Country Parson's " subse-
quent comments on the misery and suffering which the circumstance
that " the Relieving Officer is not allowed to obey the Doctor's orders
as regards relief to the sick, without leave from the Board of
Guardians," entails on "the sick poor." Of course, a system
essentially penal entails misery and suffering—if it works as it
should.

; The " Country Parson," and most other parsons—and persons—
imagine that the Relieving Officer's duty is to relieve the poor. His

duty is to relieve the poor no more than he must. He is the Parish
Relieving Officer. His office is to relieve the parish. He has to do
that by administering tYiv.minimum of relief to the poor. Relieving
Officers, too many of them, if left to themselves, would too commonly
be weak enough sometimes to take the vulgar and clerical view of
their business, and fly in the face of parochial philosophy. It would
never do to allow them to execute the orders of doctors at their own
indiscretion. Doctors, in their ideas of what the '' sick poor," as they
are called, ought to have, are apt to be quite as extravagant as
parsons. The Guardians have to guard the ratepayers' pockets.
Happily they know how.

As to a " sick horse or a sick COW;" how absurd comparing valu-
able stock to paupers! There are indeed horses and cows corre-
sponding to the "sick poor" closely enough; but we can relieve
ourselves of them without any other Relieving Officer than the
Knacker. Parish Guardians are unable to relieve the parish more
directly than they can through a Relieving Officer whose negative
office is limited to the partial negation of relief. No bread at all, not
any other food, would be very much better than half a loaf—to say
nothing of superfluous "nourishment" ordered by the Doctor—
completely to answer the purpose Avhich Relieving Officers are
intended for, and ought to serve. That would be at once a true
economy of both human suffering and of the rates. By economising
the latter, dear Sir, we economise the former to the extent of put-
ting an absolute end to a very great deal of it; and I am sure you
will allow that there is no more efficient Relieving Officer than our
old friend with the scythe and hour-glass. A " draught of his
sleepy wine " is a more perfect anodyne for "them wicious paupers,"
as Mr. Bumble called them, than anything the doctor can order.
In relieving them, it relieves the parish of them, and of having t )
support them—at some cost even upon nutriment not more expensive

^nan Skilligolee.

A Problem.

A wins of B a bet of 100 to 20 against the Mineral Colt.

A goes down to the Derby with a barouche and four, which he
persists in paying for on the strength of his luck.

A gives a dinner to twenty friends at the Lucullus Club ; B
never pays up.

If A's winnings = x, what does he lose ?

VOL. lxx.

a a