Punch (72.1877)

February 17, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

63

A TRUE PATRIOT.

Young Lady Teacher (in Welsh Sunday School). "Now, Jenkin Thomas, what grew in the Middle of the Garden of Eden?"
Jenkin Thomas (promptly). "Leeks, Miss!!"

"Leaden," if we may take this year's concatenation of chill nar-
rative and puny promise as a sample. It tells all in the history
of the Turkish troubles that everybody knew already, omitting
everything everybody wanted to know, and leaving us equally in
the dark on the really important point what we are going to do
next. It dashes the announcement of the assumption of the Im-
perial title at Delhi with the grim tidings of famine in Bombay
and Madras (but, strange to say, not a word of the cyclone) ; gives
a regret to the troubles in the Transvaal, and promises—

For England—Bills for Reform in the Universities, the Law of
Bankruptcy and Patents, Prisons, and Property Valuation, Factories,
Workshops, and Summary Jurisdiction of Magistrates.

For Scotland—Legislation about Roads and Bridges, and Poor Law.

For Ireland—Bills for Establishing one Supreme Court of Judica-
ture, and giving the County Courts an Equitable Jurisdiction.

Et voild tout!

Let Punch call in the ghost of his old friend, Samuel Perys,
to condense the Essence of the evening.

"Then Lords and Commons to debating on the Address. But,
Lord! to see how blindly they did all talk, for lack of the papers,
whereof 1,200 folio pages be only this day distributed to Members of
both Houses, for such digestion as they can give them. Mighty
pretty to note how in both Houses the Speakers for the Government
and the Opposition did shoot in each other's faces—the one clearly
proving how they have all along used one language and kept one
policy, the other as plainly showing how they have contradicted

themselves flat in the one, and gone right round in the other.....

And each to the satisfaction of his own side.....So no marvel

nothing like to come of it all but nothing.

" Only both sides do agree that my Lord Salisbury hath borne
himself bravely, and said and done exactly what both the Ministers
and the Opposition would have had him do. As though a man
should blow hot and cold at once. Which puzzles me. And my
Lord Dues oe Argyll did speak mighty hotly, and gave their Lord-
ships his mind like a spirited gentleman as he is, and of a ruddy
colour, and peppery, and was for making the Grand Turk do what we
would have him, and taking him by the throat, if it came to the worst,

whereat my Lord Derby did seem troubled, being of a mind that it
is better for all, and most for the Christian subjects of the Turk, to
open their eyes and shut their mouths, and see what Time or Mus-
covite will send them, which, methinks, is a course like to be more
to the mind of my Lord Derby, and us in this island, than the Chris-
tians now so grievously ill-handed and misruled by the Grand Turk.

'' Pretty to see how marvellous modest my Lord Beaconsfield did
bear himself, and how soft-spoken he was in his new place. And,
methinks, he did wear his robes of Earl as easy as ever I saw, and
not unhandsomely, as do some that were born to them. And my
Lord Hartington, in the Commons' House, did speak with a thick
voice, but to the point, showing how that when the Envoys came to
Conference at Constantinople, it was not only to ask the Grand Turk
for Reforms, but to have the same Reforms, with the Turk's will or
against it. And methinks my Lord would have England join with
the.Muscovite to press the Grand Turk home, rather than leave him
altogether in the hands of the Muscovite—and therein methinks my
Lord spoke wisely as well as boldly. But to see how the new
Leader of the House was sore hampered, and would read from
papers which were not yet before Members, and how Mr. Gladstone
chid him sharply for it, but himself afterwards spoke mighty weU,
and maintained all that the people in their meetings last autumn
had given voice to, and all he had himself said and written against
the Grand Turk and his ill-doings. Yet, for all this, could I not
clearly learn what they of the Opposition would do to make the Turk
do better, but hope they would do somewhat, though the Government
do seem plainly of no mind but the mind to do nothing.

'' And so I home, marvellous weary of their much talking, and no
wiser than I was before, which vexed me."

In the Commons, Notices of Bills by the Bushel.

Friday (Lords).—Archbishop of Canterbury moves for Select
Committee on Intemperate Habits, and the effect of recent legisla-
tion on them. Including Ritual, Low Church, and Liberationist In-
temperance, as affected by the Church Discipline Bill—eh, my Lord P

(Commons.)—More notices of Bills added to the eighty announced
yesterday.

On Mr. Cross re-introducing Prison Bill (not"a burglar of that