Punch (73.1877)

August 25, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 73

'SEEING OTHERS AS OTHERS SEE US."

Traveller. " A Glass of Ale, please. And look sharp ! I want to
catch a Train !"

Potman {who has been improving his opportunity in the absence of the Land-
lord). " 'Should'n' be jusht fied shkrvin' you, Shir I 'Peaksh t'me you've
had more 'nsh good for y' already, Shir ! "

" WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY."

Scene — The Official Residence of the Premier. The
Cabinet Council is over, and the Ministers are pre-
paring to depart.

Premier. Good-bye, my dear fellows, and I hope you
will all enjoy yourselves. I hope I shall not have to
bother you by another summons for some time to come.

Mr. Secretary Hardy. But how about the Army ?

Premier. Oh, don't let that trouble you. If you have
time, you may just look in at Aldershott.

Lord Salisbury. And the Indian Famine ?

Premier. Like Christmas—comes once a year. I am
sure I can leave that in your hands. If it is too much
for you, refer the matter to the authorities out there.
They seem to be full of zeal.

Mr. First Lord Smith. I really feel I don't know quite
as much as I could wish about Naval Administration.

Premier. H o more did Pigott about Stationery. When
in doubt consult your Naval Lord. You might so on a
yachting cruise together. Why not take the Channel
Fleet to Cowes ?

Lord John Manners. I confess I feel a little misgiving
about the success of my'new Post-Cards.

Premier. Confer with Mr. Gladstone. Post-Cards
are his specialite.

Mr. Secretary Cross. I should like a few hints about
this awkward Detective Affair.

Premier. Apply to Mr. Ktjrr, of Bow Street and
Millbank—a really clever fellow, I should say, from his
cross-examination.

Sir Stafford Northcote. Don't you think we ought to
think over the new regulations to prevent obstruction
of business in the House ?

Premier. By all means think them over. We know
nothing about that'sort of thing " in another place."
And now, my d< ar friends, have you anything more to
suggest or inquii e about ? {A silence.) Then good-bye
to you all, and may you enjoy yourselves. {Exeunt all
the Ministry with the exception of the Foreign Secretary.)
And now, my dear Debby, that those troublesome fellows
have gone, you and I will have some fun. We '11 teach
them to leave us in town this hot weather !

\_Whispers for five minutes in Foreign Secretary1's ear.

Lord Derby {smiling). But won't they make an awful
row ?

Premier. Of course they will—but not until next
February! And now for telegrams to Portsmouth,
Gibraltar, Malta, and Constantinople !

[(Scene closes.)

THE CRY OF INDIA.

Can it be that familiarity breeds contempt even of Famine ?

Is it possible that England, horror-stricken as she was into liberal
humanity when, three years since, she first heard of Hunger threaten-
ing some six millions of lives in Behar, has now hardened her heart,
and closed her hand against the news that the same awful presence
is darkening over eighteen millions in Madras alone—to say nothing
of Mysore ? We do not, we will not, believe it. Is it because England
helped to save so many in the last famine that she cannot yet realise
how many have already fallen, how many will yet fall, in this so
much worse want, and so much wider dearth ? She has not yet shaped
into a fact in her rather slow imagination the horrible truth that the
slow sure hand of Hunger has already wiped out of life more than
half a million men, women, and children—the population of Liverpool;
that Pestilence dogs the steps of Famine to glean the blighted life she
leaves ; that, if more help be not given than the Indian Government
can give, this huge tale of death may be told twice or thrice over
before the tardy rains have brought up the crops that are to feed
the starving myriads of Madras and Mysore. Help is needed not
only to buy food, but to find and pay agencies for the distribution of
grain and medicine.

Ever first in such work, London has at length lifted the wide
sluices of her bounty, and the stream has begun to flow through.
Let the dribble become a deluge, or rather a vast irrigating fountain
head, whence the life-saving streams of agency and aid in food and
medicine, may be disbursed over the hungry land that in the last
famine had reason to bless the benevolence of England, and let us
hope and pray, may not have reason to curse her backwardness in this.

GERMS.

(Respectfully addressed to the President of the British Association.)

If ovum ab ovo we grant, in the term
Comprehending as well as egg, seed, spore, and germ,
If all life from an egg sprung at primal creation;
Nor, save from an egg, know we aught of creation,

Then, granted that germs, whether wafted on breezes,
Or in fluids conveyed, cause zymotic diseases,
Typhoid fevers, for instance—when should they be dated ?
Were the germs of disease with our Cosmos created P

Or was there but one germ,—0 theory splendid!—
Whence germs of disease with all else have descended ?
In their separate eggs if you catch things, or hive 'em—
" Omne vivum ab ovo "—how came the first " vivum " f

Suppose that the germs that cause typhoid are shed

By live things in sewage developed and bred,

Where abode they in days before cesspools and sewage,

When the young earth was pure of such savoury brewage ?

By what sowers, and where, were these typhoid germs sown,
Long ere man yet existed or typhoid was known P
And did germs, first created all good, by degrees
Get developed through time into germs of disease ?

Were they old as the hills, and the seas, and the shore,
Did they clog the first herbage that Earth ever bore ?
In existence how long had they probably been,
When our pedigree reached the Ascidian Marine ?

These are questions which vainly may puzzle the mind—
But if Doctors from fever can rescue mankind,
Small matter if plague-germs be facts plump and plain,
Or germs that don't germinate save in the brain.

vol. lxxiti.