Punch (72.1877)

June 30, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 291

EXPENSIVE !

Londoner (to Friend from the North). *' Well, how do you like the Opera,
MacAlister ?"

Mr. MacAlister. "No that bah. But is't no dreadfu', Man, to be
sittin' in thae Chairs at Ten Shullins apiece !"

the Thetis; the number of prisoners in the United Kingdom (30,000, so says
Me. Cross, instead of "nearly a million," as loosely put by Me. G. Potter);
Transvaal Annexation the pro (tests against it), and the consents with it); the
prosperity of Natal; the site of a Naval College ; the striking of Hobaet Pasha
off our Navy List; the Irish Sunday Closing Bill (with which the Government
has played rather a dodgy "little game," having managed to send it back
to the Select Committee, so Sib "Wilfrid Lawson won't give up his Permis-
sive Hobby-ride on the Wednesday he has been lucky enough to get for it; and
though Sib Stafford Northcote spoke of the possibility of Mr. Smyth's Bill
being proceeded with, he judiciously said nothing of " probability").

After its unusually heavy game of " cross questions and crooked answers,"
the House set in for serious business, and the rest of the long night was devoted
to the Navy. Poor Mr. Ward Hunt, though scarcely able to stand on his gouty
foot, was regularly baited first by Mr. Shaw Lefevre, then by Dr. Lyon
Playfair, and then by a whole pack, headed by Reed, Goschen, and Seely.
Mr. Shaw Lefevre fell foul of the Admiralty for abandoning Competitive
Examination for Naval Cadets, and substituting what is called nomination with
test examination, but is really the bad old system of patronage revived. It
must be admitted, whatever we may think'of Competitive Examination as a
means of getting the best raw material of officers for land or sea, that it is an
improvement on the old Patronage System, which combined hap-hazard and
injustice. Mr. Shaw Lefevre made out so strong a case that it hardly needed
the strengthening it got from Gorst, Childees, and Goschen. As for Mr.
Hunt, he had not a leg to stand on—in more senses than one.

But what would be the good of having the priceless blessing of a Conservative
Government, if it did not, as far as possible, restore patronage, and give the
proper sort of people one chance at least for their stupid boys, for whom the
nasty levelling system of competition leaves no opening ? Poor dear fellows !
Everybody that is anybody ought to be delighted that stupidity should have
its chance. And, after all, the old system gave us very fair officers in Nelson's
time.

"iVbws avons change tout cela,n you say. Machinery calls for brains as
well as heads and hands. And, however kindly one may feel for the fool of
the family (who had such a good time of it once, that it seems as if he were
having more than his due of hard time now), it does seems rather cool delibe-
rately to turn the Navy into the waste-boy-basket of the Upper Ten Thousand.

Dr. Lyon Playfair touched with a gentle hand on
the blunders of the late Arctic Expedition, and quietly
hinted while he deprecated, censure. If ever we send
another - party to the Pole, we must attend more to
ventilation and varied diet. Probably this had. as much
to do with the outbreak of scurvy in the sledging
parties as the omission of lime-juice.

Last came the_ far more serious question of the
Inflexible. This is the last new type, "the war-ship
of the present," and we have other ships a-building on
her lines. She has a central citadel and unarmoured
ends. Will the one float, if the others are riddled or
shot away ?

Mr. Babnby, head of the Board of Naval Construction
—Mr. Reed's connection and pupil—says " Yes." Mb.
Reed, Babnby's ex-instructor and past-master in
armoured ship-building, says "No;" declaring that if
once her unarmoured ends are peppered, the Inflexible's
armoured citadel will obey inflexible laws of gravitation
by turning the turtle. Hunt might well feel his least
gouty leg shaky under him at the indictment of the
Inflexible, as urged on Monday night, and newspaper
discussion of the subject has not improved matters.
_ Punch would not much like to command the Inflexible,
till a considerable Committee has sat upon her. He
presumes that will have to be done before this doubtful
duckling of Bbitannia's is allowed to be taken into
action. Think, in her first battle, if she were to " take
action " by capsizing !

Tuesday (Lords).—Not a drop of Essence to be extracted
out of the Peers' brief and barren night's work. Tried
by its Peers, Parliament must often be found guilty of
doing next to nothing.

(Commons, Morning Sitting.)—Mb. O. Mobgan gave
notice, if the Lords bury the Burials Bill, he will resur-
rectionise Lobd Harrowby's Clause in the shape of a
Resolution.

Prisons Bill read a Third Time, under a leaden pelt of
protests from such incongruous quarters as Rylands,
Peter Taylor, Newdegate, Dodson, and Parnell.
Even men as sensible on most subjects as Sir W. Bartte-
lot, and Mr. Hlbbert owned they didn't like it, but depre-
cated division. The opposition to the Bill is based on the
mistake that prison management is a local, not an impe-
rial, business. Convict prisons are in the hands of the Cen-
tral Government already, and there is no reason in
principle why County Prisons should be in the hands of
local magistrates. There will be plenty of useful work for
them under the new Bill. Once more, Mr. Punch, in
parting with the Bill, takes off his hat to Mr. Cross, as
he did in welcoming it.

The Morning Sitting wound up with a rattling Irish
shindy and tremendous talk against time, in which Par-
nell and Biggar both appeared in their favourite charac-
ters of the "Hibernian Bore," and the "Imperturbable
Obstructive."

Wednesday.—Chaplin and Race-horses ? Yes. But
Chaplin and Road Locomotives one would have fancied
were like "cows and shwimps " in Lord Dundreary's
zoological classification, "Things that didn't go together."
A vast variety of opinions was vented on the subject of
these ugly, but useful, Colossi of Roads, who, having a
giant's strength, are rather tyrannous, now and then, in
using it like giants, to crush both roads and lesser things
that travel thereon, to say nothing of frightening horses
and causing runaways and upsets. A Colossus can't be
put in harness with as much impunity as a Pegasus. But
it was evident that the subject was unripe and the Bill ill-
considered, and that the best course was that recom-
mended by Mr. Sclater-Booth—to withdraw it for
longer incubation.

The rest of the sitting was wasted over Mr. Sharman
Crawford's Bill for turning Irish Tenants into Land-
lords, by means of an arbitrary extension of Ulster
Tenant Right, which was of course decisively rejected.

Thursday (Lords).—Silent burial of the Burials Bill.
The gay Gordon may sing—

" That eagle's fate and mine were one,

"Who winged the shaft that made him die ;
For ' silent burial' was none,
Save of the Bill 'twas licensed by."

But over Lord Harrowby's Clause, if not over the Dure
of Gordon's Bill, Punch may carve " Resurgam.
Lord Coleridge was forced to leave Women's Property