Punch (73.1877)

July 21, 18/?.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 13

ATROCITIES AND ATROCITIES;"

oe, "the distortions of_partisanship."

\1^5^/'fiif^ 1/7 <k HE "Gentleman who

*nE68554^^WW i writes for Gentle-

A & X^^tm^cM A^Ss-Akt u men" in the Pall
v>> imSM^r^\ J Mal1 Gazette, and

•j^S^S^^^^^M^ -V J T^f complains that the
~Js ^fflBBi^^K^K^^' / | party of sentiment
7 *i1n^%i|iiiL nTii ;"' / \ will not give his side

^Jj^^^^^^^^^-, QQXX credit for good in-

C|s tentions, is, it must

\y .-^r5^ /J ^e Emitted, a master

■saSr' ^MSf y °^ stron? language, if

^ not of strong logic"!

Let us gather some

of the plums flung by him at the heads of the party^he delights to
dishonour :—

" The truly blood-thirsty disposition of the party of sentiment,"
shows itself in their irrepressible " chagrin and disappointment,
shocking to behold," that " the extermination of the Turks has been
temporarily deferred." They show " with an almost horrid frank-
ness " their "impatience of any intermission in the work of
slaughter." They feel an "anxious longing for a heavy list of
Turkish killed and wounded." Their leading paper is "an organ
of sentimental blood-thirst." They are "indifferent to human
suffering," not only among the belligerents, but among harmless
peasant families driven into the forests to die of starvation.

We reserve the plum for the last, and give it the honour of
italics—

They " employ their powers of defamation " to " deny the Turks
the virtue of veracity, which has hitherto been allowed them by the
most virulent of their detractors"

It may be necessary to assure our readers that this rich selection
of Billingsgate abuse and reckless assertion, is made not from
Reynolds's Miscellany, but from the Pall Mall Gazette, whose dis-
covery of the "veracity" of the official Turk is worthy to figure
among the most wonderful audacities or. hallucinations of partisan-
ship.

Why, if there be one quality of Turkish Officialism on which
there is a perfect consensus of disinterested testimony, it is its prac-
tice of cool, calm, gigantic lying, that not only qualifies or sup-
presses, but calmly reverses the truth with a grand composure and
dignified assurance which has often imposed on English Diplo-
matists, and led them to accept as facts the statements of official
reports that were, from first to last, tissues of unblushing lies,
converting tyranny into tenderness, assailed into assailants, defeat
into victory, and black into white.

And this brings us to another article by our friend, the Gentle-
man of the Gazette, which for amenity of phrase, and. fairness to
those who differ from him, is worthy to be put on a par with the
one from which we have culled the sweet things above quoted. This
article is headed, " Atrocities and Atrocities;" and its object is to
insist on the glaring inconsistency of "the party of sentiment"
for not losing their wits " as completely, and becoming as blind to all

generous allowance for difficulties" over the "Atrocities,"
reported by the Turkish bulletins to have been committed by the
Russians m Armenia and Bulgaria, as over the " Atrocities," which
last year turned the universal feeling of England towards the
ruling Turk to one of horror and repulsion, and forced our Govern-

ment to hold its hand from, aid to the power that had sanctioned,
if not directed, such abominable brutalities and indiscriminate
massacres.

It never occurs to this amazing drawer of parallels that for the
Bulgarian atrocities we had the testimony both of Eaglish eye-
witnesses of the hideous relics of Batak and Philippopolis, and of the
English gentleman officially charged to investigate the facts, to set
against the audacious lying of the Turkish official report; while for
the alleged Russian atrocities we have as yet no evidence but those
very Turkish official reports, which we know, as a rule, to be
unworthy of credit.

Next, apart from the question of evidence altogether, our common
sense tells us that there is all the difference in the world, as a matter
of justification, between such trivial provocation as alone was ever
proved in the case of the Bulgarian Atrocities and the exigences of
actual war. The burnings and bombardments of an invading army
are blind, and cannot always distinguish between the persons or pro-
perties of avowed enemies and unarmed peasants, between magazines
and hospitals, head-quarters and consulates, particularly where Hags
are hoisted at the command of those to whom lying costs nothing.

If the Gentleman of the Pall Mall Gazette cannot see the differ-
ence between the horrors and sufferings which follow the advance
or retreat, the course of attack or defence, of an invading army, and
the massacre and outrage of unoffending women, innocent children,
unarmed peasants, and unoffending priests, to say nothing of the
indescribable horrors far worse than death, which revealed the
utter brutality of the ruling Turks in Bulgaria last year, we find
it difficult to say which most unfits him for his task of public
instructor—his lack of common fairness, or his want of common
sense.

ALFRED THE GREAT AT WANTAGE.

What's in a name ? Something, sometimes. Thus Wantage,
without a statue of its noblest son, Alfred the Great, may be said
to have represented a Want of the Age. This want is now supplied
by Count Gleichen's full-length statue of that best and bravest of
English Monarchs, that "worthy father of a worthy line," presented
to the town by Colonel Loxd Ltndsay, and last Saturday unveiled
by the Prince and Princess of Wales. It was well that the statue
of such a king and hero should be the work of a sculptor of the
British blood-royal, that it should have been given by a soldier who
bears the badge of valour on his breast and unveiled by the hand
that will one day, it is hoped, bear the sceptre of these Isles, and
hers whom this isle has taken to her heart out of those Danes from
whose fathers Alfred rescued England. A pleasant thought that she
should do Alfred honour, for whom Alfred's, Kingdom, grown
to fulness of strength, has, of its freewill, again put on Danish
chains—the chains of love and honour.

APPOINTMENTS FOR THE INSANE.

The Earl of Shaftesbury, among various uses, serves as hono-
rary Chairman of the Lunacy Commissioners. Examined, the other
day, before the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed
to inquire into the operation of the Lunacy Laws, he expressed an
opinion worthy of note :—

" His Lordship would not render admittance to Asylums easier than it
was at present, although he would not increase the obstacles attending it."

This statement, authoritative as it is, will perhaps induce legisla-
tors to relinquish the idea of enacting that a necessary condition of
admittance to a Lunatic Asylum shall be success in a Competitive
Examination.

Entre Dire et Faire.

" M. L£on Say, late Finance Minister of France, and leading representa-
tive of Free-trade in that country, is expected to attend the next dinner of
the Cobden Club."—Daily News.

Leon for Cobden hath couched lance :

And yet, for all this champion true,
Free-trade in France has yet to advance

From the domain of " Say " to " Do."

The Latest Opera.

The Second Act of Santa Chiara (the Dtjke of Saxe-Cobtjrg-
Gotha's unfortunate Opera) is entirely funereal, representing the
obsequies of the deceased wife of the Czarowitch. Mr. Gte should
have announced this as " a great undertaking."

An Expensive Election.—For the Ward of Cheap. {With
Punch's compliments to Sir John Bennett.)

VOL. LXXin.

c