Punch (72.1877)

June 23, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 281

hap'orth of Scotch bread, in the shape of a wrangle over the Roads
and Bridges Bill, but ending, 3fore_ Scottico, with a step in
advance, a Second Beading, and Committee fixed for next Friday.
Mb. Biggab was then bowled over in an attempt to stop the
Summary Jurisdiction Bill. And the night wound up with a
vigorous, but unsuccessful attempt at equalising the Irish Borough
Franchise with the English—defeated by 239 to 165.

A BOOR AT A CITY BOARD.

City Boards have a prescriptive right to
be well spread. When they or thei
members groan, it should be with
good things, not against them. But
when the City Corporation and the City
Guilds are free to feast in
—^ spite of Precisians and Par-
\ liament, shall City Guar-
dians be belly-bound by
strict auditors and grum-
bling ratepayers—nay, even
«v by scurvy so-called Re-

formers of their own hardly-
\ , "l, I ~ used and imperfectly-nou-
- ) fished body? We have
saijif^gi^ before us a letter headed,
SgSglgr "City of London Accounts,"
nMlfiUlBil/ lrom a City Guardian for
St. Botolph, rightly named
Book, in which he sets forth
alleged irregularities in the
accounts of the City Guar-
dians, principally under the
head of " Refreshments " or
"Entertainments." Is it to
'v'^-^^ttS^^^^^I^^S:- he wondered at that Book,

—-----. - being evidently the sort of

man to rob a poor City
Guardian of his lunch, should have been treated as he complains in
his letter ?—

" I have been excluded from all Committees, the resolutions against me
being proposed or framed by and at the instigation of one particular member
of one of the House Committees, Mr. John Cox. Why, let me ask ? I have
not partaken of any of the soup, fish, flesh, fowl, jams, jellies, custards, desserts,
&C, &c, furnished the Committee at the ratepajers' expense. I have not
been a party to the splitting up of large bills into small ones, so as to pay
them out of petty cash, and thus blind the Government Auditor.* I was not
aware of such a practice existing, until the matter came out in evidence before
a Special Committee on which I was placed. I thereupon tried all I could to
put a stop to such a state of things, by attending at the proper Committees,
with the necessary suggestions for putting an end to the manipulations. I
was defied, and the officers told not to answer my questions."

" Questions," indeed ! Pretty questions ! Objections to refresh-
ment accounts and pastry-cooks' charges for entertainments to which
Boor was never asked!

And serve Book, and all such boorish kill-joys, right! "It's a
poor heart that never rejoices " (according to the old saw), and not a
Poor-Law Guardian's.

* Clever dogs!

" WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK, THEN COMES' THE
TUG OF WAR.

Geeek has met Greek with a vengeance! Four ex-Premiers,
Comondotjeos, Zaimis, Deligeoegis, and Teicotjpi, gin one Ad-
ministration, with Constantine Canaeis, the old Sciote fire-ship
captain of the War of Independence, at their head !

We question if he then commanded a craft laden with more com-
bustible and explosive materials than he is likely to find in this
curious Cabinet of ex-ministerial marqueterie.

Think of Gladstone and Beaconsfield side by side, and Haedy
lying, or rather, sitting down on the same Treasury Bench with Bob
Lowe !

What should we infer from such a Coalition but that the public
had uttered " a plague on both your Houses," in accents so decisive
that Ins and Oats, Whigs and Tories, Conservatives and Liberals,
had been startled to the conclusion that those who said so meant it,
and that "measures not men " must, for once, be the order of the
day P.

So it is said that this portentous Coalition Ministry in Greece
means business for once—i.e., that Greece feels that a crisis is at
hand, in which the fortunes of the kingdom, not of a Minister and
his dependents, _ will have to be put to hazard. So Hellas has
hoisted the National flag, in the good ship Great Idea, with this
queer crew of Premiers and this gallant old fighting Captain

Canaeis. _ If he but show the same pluck in blowing up his four
Ex-Premiers as he did, more than half a century ago, in blowing up
Turkish men-of-war, he will have approved himself, in the evening
of his political days, the right man in the right place, as clearly as
he did off Scio in 1822 !

MORE OF MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECIES.

When maydens blushe not to appearen dighte
In robes made not to hide but brynge to lighte,
Then schalle talk waxen loose, as cotes wax tyghte.

When plaies of Parys please ye baser sorte,'
Till fooles to clappe stoppe not of frenzie shorte,
Then shall men's wives of wantonnesse make sporte.

When husbondes playe away the long daye's griste
In nightes atte Pokyr, and in daies atte whyste,
Blame ladyes nought that wolle doe what they liste.

When Fysshe be trained to run strayte off ye reele,
And beren heades of death and tayles of Steele,
Then Englonde's iron-walles greate shocke shall fele.

When men deigne ryde with lemans in the Parke,

And talk thereof to maidens as a larke,

Then shall loves waxen light, and firesydes darke.

WHEN POPE MEETS PRESS.

. HI 1L -,fW^ opposite direc-

^fflfe^BBMSli®^^ tions on one road
/^■''illiilP^^^^-e^Eth. are hound to
AWmF "^lilk meet' This ac-

ill 1 11 ll counts for the

<^hV^|' Mm Ji clashing of two

'^fSS^^i^..,, _ antagonistic an-

^sUff^r--1"" "»^TBSfej7l!iP^ niversaries, the

fiftieth of the
Pope's Episcopal
life, and the five
hundredth of the
life of the Eng-
lish Printing
Press. At the
Caxton celebra-
tion of last
Saturday was
shown, among
other exhibits,
an extract* from
Loed Heebeet's
W "Btfell jf-' "■ — history of Henet

__ * ■'~~^a=ag=glr^ Jm^£jT ' THE Eighth, in

'."~^Izl=5p(j|g."" jOfp/ which the Pope

-' - ~"^|S|y .AYJ and the Press

-—— — ~ _ —^r^»\& are brought to-

gether by no less

a link than Caedinal Wolsey. Loed Heebeet there states the
reasons urged by the Cardinal on Pope Clement the Seventh for
"throwing down a few superfluous Monasteries in England" :—

" That his Holiness could not be ignorant what divers effects this new
invention of printing had produc'd. For as it had brought in and restor'd
books and learning, so together it hath been the occasion of those sects and
schisms which daily appear'd in the world, but chiefly in Germany, where
men began now to call in question the present faith and tenets of the Church,
and to examine how far religion is departed from its primitive institution.
And that, which particularly was to be lamented, they had exhorted lay and
ordinary men to read the Scriptures, and to pray in their vulgar tongue.
That, if this were suffer'd, besides all other dangers, the common people at
last might come to believe that there was not so much use of the clergy. For
if men were persuaded once they could make their own way to God, and that
prayers in their native and ordinary language might pierce Heaven, as well
as Latin, how much would the authority of the mass fall ? How prejudicial
might this prove unto all our ecclesiastical orders."

When read, let Ridsdalists and Ritualists make a note of.

* Printed by Benjamin Harem, Castle Works, Liverpool.

gold eoe beass.

At more than fair exchange Great Britain aims—
Making a Civic Geant for Alabama claims !

Mateenal Partiality.—The old Seal's impression (at the Brighton
Aquarium) is that her cub is a Signet.