Punch (72.1877)

January 13, 1877.] PCJNCfl, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 11

( >

THE CHRISTMAS SERMON.

Gerald {who has been listening with exemplar]}patience). "Mamma, when is he going to Talk

about hie Pudding ? "

EDUCATIONAL EXPENSES.

It may be that the relation existing be-
tween education and crime is precisely tbe
reverse at Manchester of what it will be
found to be everywhere else. The Chaplain
of Manchester Gaol the other day read a re-
port declaring tbe experience of the Assizes
and Sessions at Manchester to show "that
mere reading and writing have been the
instrumental means without the use of
which the forger, the embezzler, the frau-
dulent trustee, the base coiner, the false
begging-letter writer, the dishonest ware-
houseman and clerk, and such like, could
not ever come into existence as criminals."
Perhaps the development instead of the pre-
vention of crime by education is peculiar to
Manchester. Otherwise School Boards will
not be found such economical institutions as
it was predicted they would. An outlay in
education rates, instead of being repaid by
reduction of county rates will simply neces-
sitate augmented local taxation for prison
expenses. But let us hope it is an excep-
tional and not a general fact, that the
Three R's are conducive to the growth of
a fourth 11—Roguery.

NEW TWELFTH-NIGHT CHARACTERS.

The Queen as the Star of India.

The Sultan as the Injured Innocent.

The Emi>euor of Russia as the Two-
headed Dilemma.

Midhat Pasha as Cheri-Bounce.

Lord Salisbury as the Pilot who did
his best to weather the storm.

General Ignatiefe as Jack Brag.

Earl Beaconsfield as Lord Bateman.

Mr. Gladstone as Cerberus, the three-
headed Janitor ofj the gates of London,
Rome, and Constantinople.

Mr. John Bright as the Angel with the
Olive Branch.

Mr. Tennyson as Harold-Hard-writer.

George Eliot as the Poet of Moses & Son.

Mr. Swinburne as the Blush Rose.

Mr. Carlyle as the Cremorne Hermit.

Dr. Slade as the 'Possum up a Gum Tree.

Mr. Spurgeon as the Christian Minstrel.

WHY STIR HIS STUMPS ?

What, in the name of common sense, could the Yicar and Church-
wardens of Wadsley Bridge have meant by objecting to the bat, balls,
and stumps on the tombstone of Benjamin Reeton, the Cricketer,
with the loving and Christian inscription, which, thanks to the
kindness of a Sheffield Correspondent, a Cricketer too, Punch is
glad to be able to append:—

" Farewell, dear wife, my life is past:
My love was true until the last.
Then think of me, nor sorrow take,
But love my Saviour for my sake."

Altogether we never heard of a more creditable gravestone: nor is
this professional symbolism a new thing in the tombstones of those
parts. The Yicar and Churchwardens may see in Wadsley Bridge
Churchyard a Musician's tombstone, with its music-bars and the
notes of Handel's sublime strain, " The trumpet shall sound and the
dead shall be raised" carved upon it; and a Blacksmith's, charged
with the hammer and pincers flanking the horseshoe of his grimy but
useful occupation.

Did not the Yicar at least know—whatever the Churchwardens
may have known—that in the good old times this carving on the
tombstone of the implements of the sleeper's handicraft, beginning
with the Soldier's sword and the Dame's distaff, was an almost
universal practice ? And bat and balls were Reeton's tools as a
professional Cricketer.

Then, if we turn from the practice in the matter to the principle
at the bottom of it, where can be the objection to what is a mere
record of the sleeper's craft—true labour wherein was one of his
life's best prayers,—qui labored, oral—-but a record addressed to
the eye, at once picturesque, and encouraging local art; instructive,
as showing what trade implements have been; directly intelligible,

and more vivid in its appeal to the memory than any description
in words would be, while infinitely closer to the fact than most
monumental enumerations of the virtues of the departed—your
grave-stone mason being the one recorder who observes the law,
more charitable than honest, de mortuis nil nisi bo?itim.

The more Punch considers the matter, the more he feels inclined,
instead of objecting to the practise of such symbolic stone-cutting,
to wish it were everywhere restored in English Churchyards, till the
proverb should run "True as a tombstone," instead of "False as
an epitaph."

We are glad to find that Wadsley Bridge Yicar and Churchwar-
dens having thought of it, have naturally thought better of it, and
have determined to leave Benjamin Reeton's bat, balls, and stumps
where his widow has placed them.

January Summer.

An advertisement announces that:—

" Cherry Ripe .' is commenced in the January Xuoiber of the Temple Bar
Magazine."

Here is indeed a proof of the extraordinary mildness of the
season!

official omission.

We see advertised extensively " Inexhaustible Salts, as supplied
to the Oueen." What a pity that they were not supplied to the
Admiralty in time for issue to the last Arctic Expedition!

Poker—red-hot—banished from Pantomime, has been received
with open arms at some fashionable London Clubs.