Punch (74.1878)

March 2, 1878.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

85

A CRY FROM THE "AGONY COLUMN,"

and the interpretation thereof.

RAVEN-SPRING.—Gladly would the Raven drink at
the precious fount to allay the thirst of his troubled
heart; but dark clouds haye crossed his flight, and doomed him
for a time to lose his way.

THE RAVEN-SPRING.—The living draught. For ever
flows, through dark of night, through shine of day.
Bright runs the sparkling water fresh and free. Welcome the
precious drink—there drink and live.

These mysterious Advertisements which have lately
excited public curiosity in the second column of the
Times, have at last found their interpretation. They
are evidently a shadowing forth of the inter-aquine
and inter-necine struggle between Manchester and
Thirlmere.

Manchester is well symbolised under the symbol of
that sooty and ugly bird of prey, the Raven. It is
black, and it croaks—so does Manchester. The "pre-
cious fount," the "living draught," the "sparkling
water fresh and free," are as evidently Thirlmere.
Gladly would the Raven drink at the precious fount,
but "dark clouds have crossed his flight" — in the
opposition of the Thirlmere Defence Association, and
"doomed him for a time to lose his way "—by the division
on the Second Reading, which sent the Bill to a Hybrid
Committee. Or the dark clouds may be those that issue
from the Mancunian chimneys which ought to consume
their own smoke, and do not—(Look to them. Mr. Mayoe,
and Sir Joseph)—and whose all-invading blacks give so
much force and significance to the " Raven " symbol or
simile.

Some have interpreted the "Raven-Spring" to mean
the Irwell; which certainly merits the name by its colour.
On the other hand, the " sparkling water fresh and free,"
which is welcomed as a precious draught, and which we
are called on to "drink, and live," is palpably inap-
plicable to the sluggish and sable Cocytus, which is
compelled to do the dirty work of the Manchester dis-
trict, a pint of which not the strongest constitution could
resist. "Brief life would be their portion" who should
venture to quaff of Irwell. Still, that is not a reason for
tapping and embanking Thirlmere.

WEIGHTED.

Clerk (giving change). " Have you a Penny, Sir ? "

Swell. "Haw! 'Don't genewally cawwy Coppars !"

Clerk. "Then I'm afraid I must give you Eleven of 'em, Sir !"

" NOW, UNMUZZLE ! »

Shakspeare.

"We have put into black and white, in this number, a bark from
Toby on the Justices' justice dealt out at Weston-super-Mare, in a
case of dog-roasting. If Justice forgot both her scales and her sword
in that case, it must be owned she was called upon to make an odd
use of them at the Northwich Petty Sessions the other day, when
the Master of the Cheshire Hounds was summoned, under the Dogs
Act, 1871, for not having his hounds muzzled ! Think of a pack of
the best bred, best cared-for, best hunted, best whipped, and best
mastered hounds in England, trotting to cover, with due escort of
huntsman and whips and Master to boot, pulled up under the Act
(certainly not " in that case made and provided ") as " certain dogs
not being under control of any person, and not muzzled with a wire
mnzzle " !

One has to take breath at the first reading—or should we not
rather say at the first blush—of the monstrous charge, which heaps
insult on injury, and both on idiotic misreading of the law !

" Certain dogs " / As well known and well credited a pack of
hounds—not " dogs," Mr. Pettifogger—as there is in England!

" Not under control of any one." We wish we had the imbecile
who brought the charge as well under control at Earlswood Asylum
—his proper quarters—as these hounds were under the stern con-
trol of huntsman and whips—to say nothing of Master.

Fancy hounds running riot within the reach of those four thongs,
or going mad, except in the mad rapture of the run, with all these
paternal despots looking after them I "Why, as the Counsel for the
Master well said, fox-hounds were the last class of dogs for whom
the provisions of the Act were meant, as being well-fed, well-lodged,
and always kept under the strictest rule and governance in field
and kennel.

Of course the Bench dismissed the summonses. But if the North-
wich Magistrates by miracle had been as preciously rare examples
of magisterial sagacity as those wise men of the West at Weston, and
had held the statute applicable ? Blase English Gentlemen, all the

" Notices of Motion."—Tram-car and Bicycle Bells.

world over, go a hunting that game—which seems only less hard to
find than the shirt of a happy man—a sensation !

Punch offers them one—free, gratis : running a fox with a
muzzled pack!

Imagine the finish—with the Master calling on the huntsmen and
whips to " Unmuzzle ! " and Reynard invoking the Dogs Act, and
threatening to take out a summons !

A Rhyme from Rome.

The Pope's name ? Ecce !
Don't call him " Pecksy."
If rule you reck, he
Must not be " Peckt."
Who'd get in a mess, he
May style him " Pesse."
He' 11 not be "tetchy,"
If you say Pecci.

"What Shall he Have that Killed the Deer?"

The hard fate of Royal favourites is proverbial. It extends to
quadrupeds as well as bipeds, to judge by the following from the
Daily Telegraph :—

"Uxbkidge.—To-day Her Majesty's Staghounds met Lord Hardwicke,
the Master, and a very large field, at Gerrard's Cross, five miles from here.
A favourite stag was uncarted, and, after running almost in a ring, it took
to a sheet of water in Bulstrode Park, the seat of the Duke of Somerset,
and was literally torn to death by the hounds."

Alas, poor favourite!

judicial cockshies.

Test strength of thing shot at by strength of the missile.
As egg is to bullet, so is Matins to Jessell.

vol. lxxtv.

I