Punch (72.1877)

268

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[June 16, 1877.

calls that something like business! Lower Palaver House, go thou
and do likewise.

{Commons.)— Again much exercised about the Suez Canal, (bee
ante.) Lord Derby has made known England's will in the matter
to the effect that anything or everything may pass through the
Canal, but nobody shall be allowed to stop the way to it, or light
in it, unless England knows the reason why. How about Turkey s
rights in the matter? Pooh! The independence of the Porte is
one thing, the independence of the Canal another.

Sir E. Watkin having called attention to a dictum of the Lord
Chief Justice, in Twycross v. Grant, calling a spade a spade {i.e.,
pronouncing "rigging the market," to be but another phrase for
"getting money on false pretences"), Sir Robert Peel asked'a.
question, in effect charging Sir E. Watkin with having "rigged
the market" in the case of the Humber Iron Works. Sir E.
Watkin replied with dignity and effect, pointing out how that case
had, by his act, been fully investigated at law, and his own con-
duet in regard of it cleared of all evil imputation. Sir Robert
should have known better, but he doesn't, and we presume—after
all the schooling he has had against the bad habit of Hinging dirt
—never will.

Then the House, on the Prisons Bill, struggled for some hours
against Dr. Kenealy's, and some of his Irish friends', persistent
attempts to turn the prison tables against the officers, and to make
their treatment penal, instead of their prisoners'.

Serjeant Simon's more reasonable Motion for abolition of the
tread-wheel, the crank, shot-drill, and flogging, was negatived by
229 to 72. These punishments are to be kept—if chiefly in terrorem.

The House and the country should be much obliged to Mr. Cross,
not only for the framing, but for the fighting of the Prisons' Bill.

Friday {Lords).—Earl Delawarr (the appropriate Peer) moved
for returns of the killed and wounded in that but too deadly war-
fare always going on above and underground with the powers of
nature, aided by those formidable allies—ill-governed machinery
and human carelessness. As an appendix, the Dure of Somerset
asked the Board of Trade for information as to the progress of
brake-power—not break-power—on the Railways. The Duke of
Richmond assured my Lords that the Companies are improving their
system of brakeage—again note the spelling—and that the Govern-
ment have their eye on them.

{Co?n?nons).—A vast deal of talk, including a " heckling " of Sir
Stafford Northcote by Lord Robert Montagu and Mr. Whal-
ley, which roused even Sir Stafford's practised patience into pro-
test, till, by the united efforts of the House and the Speaker, Lord
Robert MoNTAGUwas snuffed out, and Mr. Whalley silenced.

Then came a miscellaneous rush of questions and answers on all
sorts of subjects, crowned by Mr. Taylor's defeat (by 229 to 87)—
destined to be a victory some day, and the sooner the better, on
a Motion for the Sunday opening of the National Museums and
Galleries as rivals of the Public-house, now sole sharer of the
leisure of that holy day with Church and Chapel.

Lord F. Hervey, Mr. Locke, and—Mr. Punch is glad to note—
the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, for the first time, pro: Colonel
Beresford, Mr. MacArthur, and Mr. W. H. Smith for the
Government, con. The Treasury has a natural weakness for the
Licensed Victuallers—those-roof-trees of the revenue. Still, Clerical
majority at Sion House, Conservative Government and. Gin-spinning
interest to the contrary notwithstanding, magnus est sensus com
munis et prcevalebtt ! So hold out, Hansard (Rev. Septimus) !

The rest of the night was consumed in a chat on the working of
the Judicature Act, and a desperate struggle of Mr., Whalley with
the impatience of the House and the patience of the Speaker, to get
a hearing for Mr. de Morgan's petition, in the course of which the
Member for Peterborough had the pleasure of calling Mr. W. H.
Smith to order ! Such a new sensation for him, poor dear !

"Put out the Light, and then

From some provincial jottings we extract the following item of
news

"Belfast.—To-night the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
m Ireland commenced its annual deliberations in Belfast, when a sermon was
preached by the outgoing Moderator, the Rev. John M'Neely, Belfast."

" Outgoing Moderator " ! It is to be hoped that he was speedily
extinguished, as, if a moderator is allowed to go out by itself, the
consequences are most unpleasant. But surely a moderator oughtn
to be permitted to go out. A moderator should be " turned down,
like a collar, or an idle Eton boy.

a superfluous spirit-revival,
{A strain, and a great strain too, on the syllable for a new Beggar's Opera.)

What ! Highwaymen on Slack-heath.!
They 've rapped up Captain .Mac-heath !

OPERATIC STATISTICS.

A BILL OF THE REAL LTALIAN OPERA.

{Adapted to cither House.)

This evening will be presented the
celebrated Opera composed by Herr
Meyerbeer, entitled

LES HUGUENOTS.

Valentina . . . Mlle.'.'Pic-
colezza (real name, Miss
de Ouinze, native place,
St. Helier's, Jersey).
Margherita di Valois (known
in France, where the ac-
tion of the Opera takes
place, as Marguerite de
Valois) . . Mlle. Gras-
sezza (real name, Mrs.
Silas Fixings, native
place, Massachusetts,
U.S.).

Urhano . . . Mlle. Dita di
Pastilani (real name,
Fraulein Schmidt, na-
tive place, Cologne).
Conte di San Bris . . . Sig-
nor Capoffi (real name,
Mr. Hatton, native place,
John Street, Adelphi).
Conte di Nevers . . . Signor Dolordi Denti (real name, M. Havit-

outski, native place, St. Petersburgh).
Mar cello . . . Signor Lo Sternuto (real name, Mustapha Snez-

zezin, birthplace, Constantinople).
Huguenot Soldier (known in French as Le Soldat, in Italian as LI
Soldato) . . . Signor Moschetto (real name, "Van Schut,
native place, Rotterdam).

and

Ltaoul de Nangis . . . Signor Foto Graffo (real name, Mr.
Patrick Murphy, native place, Dublin).

Conductor . . . Signor Tempo Fugitto (real name, Professor
Yyld Tyme, from Vienna).

And, to make it complete, the whole Entertainment should be
under the sole management and direction of Mr. McWheestler, of
Fife. But what's the odds ? Viva La Liberia ! and Italy for the
Italians!___

A SPIRIT-LETTER.

{From Mr. Joseph Addison to his friend, Sir Richard Steele,
from where Button's Coffee-house once stood.)

My dear Steele,

Since my return to Earth for a brief change of scene, I
have seen many things which were not dreamed of in our more
primitive philosophy, not even in the capacious brain of our great
Sir Isaac, to whom, in all humbleness and sincerity, I beg the
favour to be remembered.

I have told you in a former letter that the present time prides
itself on being a knowing age, in comparison with whose printed
wisdom the lucubrations of our good Anna's reign are but as the
babblings of a child to the reflections of a philosopher. But one
point I must mention, in which the present time and the past to
which we belonged show an outward resemblance, which but make
more apparent their inner unlikeness. With Mr. Defoe and Dr.
Arbuthnot, you will probably be, at first, pleased to hear that
the Spectator and Tatler, the Plain Dealer, Craftsman, and Ex-
aminer, and all the rest of the countless brood of printed Ephe-
merae, which sprang to life in our day, have yielded a numerous
progeny—particularly in the shape of the many satirical weekly
journals which have lately sprung or wriggled into being.

But although some of these papers have taken our names, and
masquerade it in our clothes, there is but little resemblance between
our clean, if narrow, sheets and their broad, but too often foul, ones.
Still less can they boast any flavour of the fine humour which lent
a relish to the lightest performances of my dear Steele and the wits
and fine gentlemen who, with him, lashed while they diverted the
town. We strove to refine manners and elevate public taste. They
are panders to the most witless excesses of the one, and active
agents in the degradation of the other. They serve up the scandal
of the stable and the servants' hall, or the gossip of the Club, to
tickle the jaded palates of an idle and luxurious nobility, or a
plutocracy which affects their vices without the transmitted habit
which half excuses, or the hereditary grace which half redeems