Punch (72.1877)

206 PUNCH, OK, THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [May 12, 1877.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

hotjgh scotched not killed, sound sense and
Christian toleration again found a voice in
Loed Gbanvllle {Lords, Monday, April 30),
who gave notice of an Amendment of the Burials
Bill, embodying the defeated Resolution of last
week. He pointed out that the Committee on
the Bill had been fixed for Ascension Day,
when their Lordships usually rise, and do not
sit, and wanted to know if this was a piece of
fun, meant to relieve the grave character of
the subject.

Lord Cabnabvon said it was a mistake, not
a joke—their Lordships were incapable of a
joke.

{Commons.)—Me. Gladstone, three months
too late, flung down his glove, challenging the
Government to Parliamentary combat d out-
rance on the Eastern Question. When trial
by battle has begun, the time for trial by
talk has past. The rival champions stand face
to face in other than division lists.

Sib John Lubbock will move the Previous
Question. It is something to know there is a
previous question. At times, dazed with talk
of the one topic, Punch begins to think there
never was a question before the Eastern one,
and is never going to be another. The Liberal
Party, it is said, as far as there is a Liberal
Party (it seems just now to be party per pale—
of humanity), will go with Sie John. He is
an experimentalist on bees, but does not wish
at .present to disturb the hornets' nest that
lurks in W. E. G.'s Resolutions. Evidently a
good many on the Liberal side think with
him. Whatever Punch may think of W.E.G.'s
tactics, he cannot but admire the pluck of the
House's Hal o' the Wynd, who " fights for his
own hand," and his own conscience. But he
repeats, if this battle was to have been fought
in" the House, as it ought to have been, it
should have been fought in the first'week of
the Session. In so far as England is chargeable
with responsibility in respect of this war, Her
Majesty's Opposition has a right to share it
with Her Majesty's Government. 11 Inter arma
silent Ungues "—as well as " leges."

Me. Boubke gave such information as he
could on the state of the Danube and Black
Sea regulations touching blockade and neutral
rights. The Turkish lights are put out in the
Straits. The Turks have an unfortunate way
in all their straits of putting their lights out,
and sailing at random, in the dark, under a
full-head of steam, right on to the No-money
Shoals, the Too-late Reefs, and the Corrup-
tion Sands.

The Chancelloe of the Exchequer for the Government gave
notice that the usual Declaration of Neutrality would be published
at once, like a declaration of insolvency—in the Gazette

{Commons).—Sir Stafford Northcote did not think Captain
Pim's inquiry about the strength and movements of the Russian Eleet
in the neighbourhood of San Francisco and New York should be

Tuesday {Lords).-The Duke of Somerset wants to know why an«"™red. It is so easy to pop off a question. But who knows

the Cattle Plague Inquiry cannot be taken in the Lords, as thei \waMWer *"* fe*7fn T^t^f f^Rn^

Lordships havf too little to do, while there is a block of business in cartridge-an answer that tells nothing It is evident the Ru so-
the Commons. The Duke was long enough in the House of Commons , Phobists are doing their best, in and out of the House to get up a
to have known that the business of that house is conducted-like the I 8?ar?' , The ?rltl8^ Ll-on declmes tof > poked, W 4°lfthL^???Si
Metropolitan Railway traffic-on the block system. So all is as it | SeM

Tile Duke of Richmond and Goedon rapped his brother Duke \^^&^J^^^jSS? "

Mr. Newdegate gave notice of a Motion to consider the " conduct"
of public business in the House of Commons.

Mr. Biggae proceeded to illustrate the " conduct" of Members, by
reading in an inaudible voice an interminable string of unintelligible
Motions, till even the mild wisdom of the Speaker was roused to
wrath. But the Member for Cavan had his will for all that, and
justified the conclusion that however big the biggest recorded
Parliamentary bore, there is now a Biggae !

By the way, if Me. Biggae wants a motto, what does he think of
one slightly altered from Shakspeake's Measure for Measure :—

over the knuckles for his restless activity. " Surtout, point de zele'
should be the motto of that Upper House—

Where they lie beside their "Woolsack, and the Bills are hurled
Far below 'them in the Commons—and their thumbs are twirled,
As an Upper House's should be, that does no work in the world.

Loed Debet informed Loed Gbanvilde that the answer to
Peince Gortschakoff's Circular had been drawn up and approved
by the Queen, and would be laid on the table as soon as it had been
received by the Russian Government.

Punch hears that F. 0. is mighty proud of its riposte, flatters
itself that it is a " stunner "—" the ablest State-paper-Thunderbolt
that has been launched for years." Ah, if Paper-bolts could but
frighten diplomacy into directness, or strike dumb the brazen
mouths of war!

" To lie in cold obstruction and talk rot."

It was cool of Me. Sullivan, on the heels of 'this little scene, to
complain that, out of 118 divisions on Irish subjects, Irish opinion,