Punch (72.1877)

278 PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHAKIVARI. [June 23, 1877.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

he Lords {Monday, June 11).—"In the name of the Prophet—
Figs!"

" In the name of England's Indian Empire—a Consul! "
Such, and so proportioned, peroration to demand, is Lobd De
Mauley's proposal. In the proposer's own terms, he wants a Consul
'' in some selected town of Central Asia, to watch over the commercial
and territorial interests of British India," threatened by the insi-
dious advance of Russia. (Punch knows the man for the place—
Mr. Partington—Mrs. Partington's husband.) Lobd De Mauley
"prefers the human buffer to parry attack." The wild tribes are
such a buffer. His lonely Consul, on his weary Central Asian
watch, would be another—of whom we might say, at once with per-
fect truth and genuine sympathy, "poor buffer!" Father
Mubphy, in the Irish Rebellion, proposed to stop the mouth of a
twelve-pounder with his own wig. Since our great Asian mystery-
man proposed to bar the Russian advance Indiawards with an