Punch (72.1877)

134

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 31, 1877.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

{Extracted from the Spirit o/Pefys.)

plain to my Lord
Granville {Lords,
Monday,March 19);
but would needs

loff, the Muscovite

Ambassador, the delays in settling of the business. Strange, how-
nice men will be over what methinks can serve for little purpose but
the screening of their real ends, for the which it do seem to me that
one set of words would serve as well as another. But 'tis the business
of diplomacy to fashion such screens ; so no wonder they of the craft
do make much ado about what is writ upon them. Only to plain
folks out-of-doors methinks it must needs seem that it do matter
little. I sorry to learn that Sir Henry Elliot is sick, but glad that
he shall not go back at once to Constantinople; and, indeed, I could
find in my heart to wish he may never go back thither, for methinks
one so weak were better elsewhere, seeing your Turk do need a
strong hand in them that have the dealing with him. Besides 'tis a
hard place for one that I do hear is a most easy gentleman, both in
speech and carriage, though mighty pleasant, and would do well
enough, I doubt not, in another place. Afterwards my Lords did
talk at large on Cattle Plague, and Law Schools, and Inns of Court,
matters I like little, and scarce know which least, but do hold them
all plagues after their kind.

{Commons.)—By reason of Cattle Plague I do find many, both in
Lords and Commons, would have the bringing in of Foreign Beasts

ow the Protocol be I stopped altogether; and I do not well see how otherwise the plague
still a-niending, my j be to be kept out. And methinks I had rather, if we must have
Lord Derry did ex- | strange meat, that it came over dead, than alive, and bring the
plague with it.

I do learn from Under-Secretary Bourse that Sir Henry Elliot
be to be let down by degrees—one being sent in his place, at first,
as if for a while only. Only I do not think in my heart the
■thrust off upon j Government be for sending Sir Henry back; but meanwhile do
Count Schouva- give him many good words, which I would not have him be-
grudged, if they comfort him. And indeed I do find all mighty
tender to him ; as they well may be, seeing he hath but done
what most would have had him, which is nothing.

My Lord Charles Beresford, a mighty brisk young Captain,
that I do like to hear speak for his fiery spirit, did no little content
me to-night by his brave talk of Torpedoes. And indeed I do now
think to understand them better than I had ever hoped to do with-
out seeing ; and strange weapons they do seem, and nasty, and able
to blow a great ship to pieces as it were in a whiff. I do at last
know that they are of several sorts ; some to be laid under water,
like our land petards, and fired by the passage of a ship above them;
and others to be carried in boats within reach of the ship they be to
strike; but the most devilish to be launched from aboard the ship that
carries them, and to run by their own moving power and their own
steerage, and at any depth that they may be ballasted for, and so go
straight at the enemy's ship like a bull-dog at a bull, and at the first
touch burst, and blow the biggest ship to the bottom, and no help.
And though I did always wonder how men should be found so mad
to go to sea when they could stay ashore, I do now wonder at this
more than ever, with such diabolique engines both aboard our
ships of war and ready for launching against them by others. So