Punch: Punch (76.1879)

124

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 22, 1879,

SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

" On Saturday last some vert interesting Experiments in
Reflected Signalling were successfully conducted by Lieu-
tenant Spooner, R.E."

and 50,000lbs. of gunpowder having- been shipped at Cardiff for
Mozambique—but promised that they would do their best to prevent
them reaching the Zulus. Punch prefers npt to publish the
shippers' names, as these munitions of war may not be meant for
the Zulu market, and in that case he might be libelling two firms of
honest traders. (And so the fact turns out.)

Mr. Walter James confounded two things so essentially distinct as
fans and faggot-votes. When the Fanmakers' Company, by leave of
the Corporation, create Members of the Guild at so much per head, it
is " not faggot-vote" making, but legitimate increase of the Livery.
Fans are the fashion, and the more makers of these the better,—not
so with faggot-votes.

Sir Gr. Campbell drew attention—he would find it hard to
"draw" anything more substantial—to Oriental loans, and in-
sisted on the inexpediency of Government putting British fingers in
the Egyptian or Turkey pie, at the almost certain risk of burning
them. Here was a pretty mess in Egypt, with our Consul-General,
Mr. Vivian, speaking and writing in the teeth of the Khedive's
Finance Minister, Mr. Rivers Wilson ; and the fellahs being
starved and squeezed to death, that 7 per cent, interest might be
wrung out of their sweat and blood. "It is hard " (as a letter in
the Times puts it) " to see starving peasants whipped to labour, for
the benefit of British and French bondholders."

Colonel Alexander confirmed all that had appeared in the Times
about the misery of the fellaheen, and then came a chorus of denun-
ciation of the Khedive's little games, and the hand France and
England had_ lent the stockjobbers, followed by a half-hearted
speech from Sir Stafford, in which he performed his favourite feat
of sitting upon two stools—in other words, came to the ground—as
clumsily as usual. All Nubar Pasha and his colleagues wanted was
to improve the administration of Egypt, and to alleviate the hard
lot of the fellaheen. They thought the tax-gatherers took more than
they had a right. Whether the people could pay as much as they
were legally bound to pay, was another matter. They had tried to
get rid of the Khedive's malversations. Whether their scorpions
might not prove harder than his whips, was beside the question.
There was no question at present of Government guaranteeing any
Egyptian or Turkish Loan. He didn't say there mightn't be cir-
cumstances that might alter cases. It was impossible exactly to say
what was Mr. Rivers Wilson's position. In fact, it was hard to
say what was any Egyptian Official's position. They had never
thought of interfering with Mr. Wilson's free action. At the same

time, they had told him they thought it undesirable he should resign.
Government would never claim any right of interference in Egypt.
At the same time, they felt it was not desirable that Egypt should
be allowed to fall into anarchy and confusion, to be followed by
embarrassment and bankruptcy, &c, &c, &c, through a rigmarole
of slip-slop and see-saw.

Mr. O'Donnell, in the teeth of repeated attempts to count him out
—the last defeated only by the Speaker counting himself—dinned
into the languid ears of a House of eight the evils of "mixed"
Colleges and Universities. Religious teaching, at least, must be un-
diluted, and all history bristled with religious questions. That
mixed instruction must be muzzled instruction, was the burden of
Sir J. McKenna, Major O'Beirne, Messrs. Sullivan", O'Connor,
Power, Mitchell-Henry, and Biggar, Colonel Colthurst, and
Dr. O'Leary.

Sir W. Harcourt said that as Government sanctioned and sup-
ported Denominational Education here, it could not consistently
refuse it to Ireland.

But how if Ireland won't swallow her education "mixed," and
England will insist on pouring it down her throat in that form and
no other ? Last night revealed no road out of that impasse.

Friday {Lords).—In a question of Lord Thurlow's about the
composition of the Court of Inquiry into the Isandula disaster,
Lord Longford saw an insinuation against Lord Chelmsford.
Between him and Lord Truro, Lord Stanley of Alderley, Lord
Bury, and the questioner, the serene atmosphere of their Lord-
ships' Olympus was quite tempestuous for a brief space ; and the
gods actually quarrelled over Lord Thurlow and his question for
more than an hour !

(Cojmnons.)—Mr. Jenkins stirred a more serious storm out of his
question whether the Government meant to remove Lord Chelms-
ford. On being answered, " JSTo, not as at present advised," the
pertinacious Member for Dundee moved the adjournment of the
House, for the purpose of forcing the Government into explanations.
Persisting in this, against a storm of " Order ! " " Orders ! " Ginx's
Baby braved unshrinking, and impavid, the howling of the House,
the snubbing of the Speaker, and—worse still—the interposition
on his behalf of Sir R. Peel, and Mr. Biggab.

The serene wisdom of the House, without adding by "Order"
to disorder, protested against usurpation by Parliament of the func-
tions of the Executive, by sitting in judgment on a Commander-in-
Chief. Then the militarism of Col. Mure, the cockiness of Mr.
Chaplin, the weak-kneedness of Sir Stafford, the high-and-dry-
ness of Lord Hartington, joined in rebuke of Mr. Jenkins. But if
Ginx's baby showed bad taste, the rowdy element of the House
showed still worse. His question will yet have to be answered.

Col. Arbuthnot defeated the Government by 69 to 68, on _ Motion
for a Select Committee to inquire into the effects of the Abolition of
Purchase on the Scientific Corps, and the alterations that the change
has made necessary, in the promotion, pay, and conditions of service
and retirement of those corps.

Such an Inquiry no doubt will have to be made, and the sooner
it is made the better.

Mr. Cross's Bill for creating a Public Prosecutor got into Com-
mittee.

OUR EE PRE SENT ATI YE MAN.

At the Prince of Wales's—A Protest—Caste—Comedy classification
—Aquarium—She Stoops.

Sir,—Casts was produced about eleven or twelve years ago,_ and has,
since then, been once revived. I did not see it on its revival, and
was delighted at meeting my old friend as vigorous as ever.

Caste is the best play the late Mr. Tom Robertson ever wrote.
The story, though old, plain, and simple, is most interesting, and
abounds in those real touches of nature, which, as Sam Gerridge
observes, "brings the water into your meter," and makes the audi-
ence blow a sympathetic nose, and, like the Soldier who leant
upon his sword, "wipe away a tear."

The play is a study for its well preserved balance between the
pathetic and the comic. Its Acts are so many April days, passed in
fitful showers and bright gleams of sunlight. The characters are
consistent throughout, and the only blots on the dialogue are when
the Author has laboured at producing a gem, and has merely
succeeded in manufacturing a glittering theatrical " property." As
long as he wrote naturally—currente calamo—he was epigrammatic,
directly he paused to polish an epigram he ceased to be natural.
The pathos in Caste is never forced, and the fun, except in the
instance of some few farcical things Sam Gerridge has to say, is
all the funnier by being artistically brought in. You can note this
throughout the piece, but especially in the situation, when George
D' Alroy has returned and embraces his wife. Scarcely are the hand-
kerchiefs out—surreptitiously, of course, for few like to own to the
luxury of enjoying a good cry—than they are rendered needless by the
fun of the two comic characters, Polly Eccles and Sam Gerridge.