Punch (73.1877)

150 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 6, 1877.

SIX OF ONE, HALF-A-DOZEN OF THE OTHER.

Three of our Countrywomen Abroad. " Well, I never! To turn round, and Stare at one like that!"

PEOM THE TOMB.

"Socialism has removed to other countries, powerful and glorious, which
are pre-occupied with it without making it a subject of alarm, for they know
that real or affected fear serves only to render epidemics more dangerous, and
they see that for moral epidemics the only efficacious remedy is time, reason,
and liberty."—M. Thiers's Political Testament.

Not oft amidst the conflicts of to-day

Comes counsel from the grave to point the way

To a fair morrow ; but the Sage, whose speech,

Living, his laud could wisely guide and teach,

Speaks now, as from the shadows, with a voice

Whereat all patriot hearts may well rejoice.

A legacy of more than golden worth!

Seen in its light, tongue-tricks of later birth

Seem doubly fustian. How this Parthian dart,

From a dead hand, hits humbug to the heart!

Pierces with polisbed shaft of honest sense

"What pompous falsehood, what big-blown pretence!

Ulysses' bow, bent even from the Shades,

Should scare the squabbling suitors ; and the trades

Of Bogey-making and .B/a^e-masking—crafts

Whose lurking plyers shrink from Satire's shafts—

May dread a hand which even from the grave

Strips off the scare-crow rags, or trappings brave,

With which the foes of Freedom are so prone

To impair her aspect, or improve their own.

Rig the Red Spectre in another guise ;

Flaunt it once more before the troubled eyes

Of frighted France ? Trick tyrant power again

In plumes of " peace and order " ? All in vain!

Will the keen Gaul be gulled with such stale sleight,

Thrice-exposed hocus-pocus ? Must the blight

Of fear-inspired fatuity fall once more

On Freedom's budding promise ? Which restore

Of all the oft-wrecked rivalries, to make

Fair France once more the reckless Gamesters' stake,

Lost ever in the issue ? Church or Throne,

Flouting all peace, all order, save its own,

Stands self-condemned as a self-seeking sham ;

The Wolf who blames the blood-thirst of the Lamb.

Thieks, from out his tomb, has torn the mask

Oft such false posturers ; a patriot task,

Whose fine achievement is a fitting crown

To his long labours and his fair renown.

Legality and loyalty both claimed

For the Republic, not its foes ! Well aimed,

Keen Archer! France's would-be Masters whelmed

With ridicule, each champion unhelmed

With one straight lance-thrust from a biting wit!

Fair charge i' faith! Will France not follow it ?

Sick as she is, is she not fain to try

Her Patriot's cure—Time, Reason, Liberty ?

A FALSE POLONIUS.

Ms. Gladstone, in a communication to the Daily Telegraph,
refuting the statement that he had written a Greek merchant at
Constantinople letters advising the Greeks to " unite with the Slavs
in an attack upon the Turks," observes, with reference to a Special
Correspondent of the Telegraph, who had sent that statement to
that journal:—

" It is, however, plain that he has been no more than a dupe in the busi-
ness. There is some Polonius behind the curtain, and I call upon him to
come out."

So did not Hamlet. What he did, everybody knows. "Dead,
for a ducat, dead! " Mr. Gladstone, of course, would not, if he
could, serve his Polonius so ; but if he could, and were to, Polonius
would only be requited for stabbing in the dark. William does
not, like Hamlet, call his Polonius a rat. Would it, however, not
be tolerably correct to give that name to a creature that gnaws at a
reputation ?

bloomers by halves.

An advertisement in the Post announces the introduction of
" Corduroy Jackets for Ladies." Corduroy Jackets. What next r