Punch (72.1877)

304

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[July 7, 1877.

Punch fails to find a fitness in any of these four sites to compare
with that of the oft-suggested one in Threadneedle Street—provided
always that the Old Lady of that street does not utterly decline
association with anything suggesting Egyptians. But what if we are
going to annex Egypt ? Would there not be, in that case, some-
thing very appropriate in the juxtaposition of Cleopatra's Needle
—an obelisk from the temple of the (rod Turn, the Rising Son of
Egypt—and the Bank of England, symbolising association of the
fair but out-at-elbows Realm of Nile, with the Old Lady who
represents British wealth and British credit all the world over P
The City, too, would see an omen of the successful fioating of
Egyptian Stock by British Capital in the floating over of the stone
of Turn by the skill of an English Engineer set to work by the
liberality of an English Physician.

The Porte does not mean to allow Russian ships of war to enter
the Suez Canal. As the Russian Government has distinctly de-
clared that her war-ships will give the Canal a wide berth, this is a
perfectly safe undertaking.

The Admiralty declines a Select Committee to sit on the In-
flexible. They have put the stability of the ship to a better test
than sitting on her. They have set an exact model of her afloat
in a big tank, in which, after her unarmoured ends are filled with
water up to the beams, she still floats like a duck with all her
fighting and sea weights aboard, and shows no disposition to turn
from duck to turtle. Mr. Reed says he has seen the model, and that
it "distinctly does not represent the danger of the ship." The
Constructor of the Admiralty declares that it distinctly represents
not her danger, but her safety, which is the important matter.
The Admiralty Constructors would hardly be such fools as to falsify
their model under Mb. Reed's nose ; and it is difficult to believe
that Mb. Rerd means to charge the Department with such dirty
dodging. That point, at least, must be cleared up ; and when it is
settled, as no doubt it will be, in favour of the Admiralty, all dis-
putes about the Inflexible should be at an end before the. fact that
she floats—though it be but in the Admiralty Tank, instead of the
broad or narrow seas.

When a Royal Warrant was issued by Lord Cakdwell's Com-
missionin 1872 to give First Captains of Artillery and Engineers
field-officers' rank and pay, the India Office grumbled on the score
of the additional cost this would throw on Indian revenue, in the
case of Indian service—amounting to some £10,000 a year. Accord-
ingly, they have never paid First Captains of Artillery and Engineers
the pay and allowances of Field Officers of the Line. The grievance
being brought forward by Colonel Jekvis, the India Office (present
and past represented by the union of Loed G. Hamilton and Sir G.
Campbell) and the War Office (present and past by the alliance, for
the nonce, of Me. Haedt and Mr. Campbell-Bannebman) resisting
the demand, Government were defeated by 145 to 93 ; and on the
vote being challenged by Sir G. Campbell, the defeat was repeated
by 104 to 56. So you see a House can be made on an Indian ques-
tion. But it must be when the fight is over the rights and wrongs
of Artillery First Captains by scores, not of nameless and friendless
Natives by millions.

Mr. Holms made one of his wild and whirling attacks on the
Army as it is—or rather, he would say, as it is not—including in his
fell swoop its recruiting, its desertions, its management, its punish-
ments, its term of service in the Ranks and the Reserve, and ending
by a Motion for robbing the Army of its bone and sinew by passing
into the Reserve at least five thousand soldiers over thirty years of
age and ten years of service. All the military authorities in the
House, differing, as they do, on all other points, were unanimous in
condemning this wild proposition; and Mr. Hardy had an easy
task in demolishing Mr. Holms's unsubstantial facts and inac-
curate figures. In truth (as Mr. Hardy said), if Mr. Holms had
carried his assertions to their proper conclusion, it would have come
to nothing less than impeachment of two Secretaries of War, and
reversal of our whole Military System. Member for Hackney ?
Say, rather, " Member for Hobby! " But really Mr. Holms has
ridden his Military Misadventure Hobby too far. There should be
a limit to the over-riding even of Hobbies. Ought they to be left
quite beyond the pale of the Cruelty to Animals Act P

Tuesday [Lords).—London Solicitors have been accustomed to
shoot their arrears into the Surrey Assize Cause Lists. Somebody
objects; not the County, nor the Solicitors, nor the Suitors; pro-
bably the Judges. At any rate, the result is that the practice is to
be discontinued, and Surrey Juries are to deal justice, or as much
of it as can be put into process of law, on sins of Surrey only.

Commons [Morning Sitting).—Some stirring of highly offensive
matter between Mr. Whalley, the Solicitor - General, and
Lord Sandon. When we say that it involved the Confessional and
certain obscene Publications, it will be seen at once that the less
comment the better. The usual Irish wrangle over the Irish
Judicature Bill, in which the Gemini of Irish obstructiveness—
those twin stars, Biggar and Paenell—shone as brilliantly as
usual.

[Evening Sitting.)—Long discussion of the Treasury dealings

with a Scotch Intestate's estate, which has fallen to the Crown,
there being no heir-at-law, owing to the illegitimacy of the In-
testate. The exercise of the Crown right was supported by 197 to
135. The Treasury may well be proud of having got £40,000
out of a canny Scot; and we can't wonder they are loth to let
it go.

It did not need Mr. Leatham's eloquence to enforce the scandal
brought on the Church by the Sale of Soul-cures. But it is easier to
descant on the evil than to suggest a remedy. No doubt a remedy
will have to be found, if the Church is to survive this and her
other ailments; but, in the meantime, where is the money to come
from to buy off the owners of the two thousand livings in the
market, and the rest waiting to come forward ? And, supposing
patrons paid off, who is to exercise the right of appointment in their
stead ? What would Church or Country gain by vesting hard cures
of souls and easy berths of bodies in the Church, to be dispensed by
her Bishops, or in the State, to be flung broadcast by her Lord
Chancellor? Private patrons at least secure for us varieties of
species in the genus Parson. All that is possible for the present
seems to be to bring the Bull's-eye (for what is Public Opinion but
Bell's eye ?) on the practices of patronage, and to keep the scandal
of advowson- and next-presentation-selling within the strictest
bounds of decency that Public Opinion can secure.

Wednesday.—Mr. R. Smyth's Irish Sunday-Closing Bill talked
out by its Irish opponents. An Irish measure, if not an Irish man,
being to be roasted, there were the Irishmen, as usual, turning
the spit. Punch, as the consistent opponent of all such coercive
legislation, cannot regret that its advocates have not an Irish Sunday-
Closing Act to set up beside the Scotch one. He is also glad to see
that the opponents of the Bill did not include Biggar and Parnell,
which is much in favour of the Opposition.

Thursday [Lords).—Prisons Bill introduced by Lord Beauchamp,
and read a Second Time under a faint anti-central-legislation fire
from Lord Kiubebley, Lord Hardinge, and Lord Morley.

[Commons.)—Appearance of the Colorado Beetle on the European
stage—in a potato-field near Cologne. Crop and field have been
burnt up with sawdust steeped in petroleum. Unluckily, one beetle
has been seen on the wing ! The Custom-house officers have been
put up to the marks and habits of the fierce invader. The
English coast has its coast-guards everywhere on the look-out for
Doryphora decemlineata. These posted, the Government can do no
more than fold its hands in prayer and patience.

Mr. Lowe raised the important Leeds-Fuller Question, on
the right and power of the Indian Executive to interfere with
the Judiciary. A long and grave discussion of a grave question
ended in the common sense conclusion, that while a right of control
is needed to meet extreme cases its exercise must be guarded by the
utmost discretion.

Has Lord Salisbury, in his proposed changes of the Indian
Civil Service Examination, been giving a bonus, if not a monopoly,
to his own University, Oxford, and, in effect, excluding Scotch and
Irish University men from the Competition ? Dr. Lyon Playeair
gave his reasons for so contending, and they seem strong ones.
Lord Salisbury will do well to reconsider his plan ; and if he can't
remove the objections, provide for them.

Friday [Lords).—Ex nihilo nihil fit.

[Co)nmons.)—'M.n. Trevelyan, seconded by Sir C. Dilke, brought
forward, his hardy annual—Equalisation of County with Borough
Franchise and Re-Distribution of Representation.

Too soon, my dear Mr. Trevelyan. For the present your Motion-
though it ended in the highly respectable Minority of 276 to 220,
and will no doubt be carried some day—does more to reveal the
splits in the Liberal party (as when it brings Mb. Goschen to his
legs in opposition to your Motion) than advances the cause you have
in hand.

The Right Man in the Right Place.

(Ii, Conde x>i Bam Ketib.0, in attendance on His Imperial Majesty Don-
Pedro the Second.)

Fob my Quicksilver Emperor's

Right-hand well-named I am ;
Petiro means a resting-place—

And in my case rest's a " Bam !"

a saw england doesn't see.

" Any Port in a stoim." It won't have anything to say to the
Sublime Porte, let the war-storm blow never so bard!

Motto oe the Austrian Abmy.—" They also serve, who only
stand and wait."