Punch: Punch (76.1879)

April 19, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 169

COMMON LAW GHOSTS DEPARTING.

he Attorney-
General, in the
course of his
speech on the
night of Thurs-
day, April 3rd, in
the House of
Commons, in in-
troducing the Bill
to codifv the Cri-
minal Law, ob-
served :—" The
code, however,
although it does
not contain an
exposition of the
law relating to
every indictable
offence to be found
in the Statute-
books, contains
this, to my mind,
very salutary pro-
vision—that every
one who is party
to an indictable
offence shall be
proceeded against
under some provi-
sion of the Bill, or some statute not inconsistent therewith,
and shall not be proceeded against at Common Law."—Time*,
April 4, 1879.

Shake hands, my Common Barrator !

Nor longer eye the world askance ;
The law now opens wide its door

To Champerty and Maintenance.
Who knows ? In time may even see
No great crime in Embracery !

Eaves-droppers may henceforth be bold,

By prosecutions undismayed ;
And our good friend, " the Common Scold,"

May ply, secure, her roaring trade.
For blood from turnips none shall draw
Henceforth by screw of Common Law !

Old Common Law is dying fast,

His undefined dominions fade.
See Holeer sounds the trumpet-blast,

And wields his Code as battle-blade.
Barry behind, and Blackburn rush,
"With Stephen and the force of Lush.

Ye parishes whose bridges fall,
Whose highways, unrepaired, decay,

Lift up your voices, one and all,
With a triumphant " Hip, hooray ! "

For prosecutors now no more

Shall lay indictments at your door !

The stirring soul who hates the night
When drowsy towns in slumber lie,

May work a fog-horn as of right,
And make dull sleep, affrighted, fly.

No longer kept in abject awe

By the large threats of Common Law !

Poor_ Common Law ! Thy pride is o'er,
' Tis Statute now that rules the roast;

Where ghosts and bogies fled before,
Flee thou, the shadow of a ghost,

To guide, mayhap, the legal helm

Of some pale Rhadamanthine realm !

A DISQUALIFIED LEADER.

On- the word of a "Soldier," we have it stated,
that Colonel Cordon, C.E., notwithstanding all his
abilities and exploits as a military leader, '' would never
have been allowed to hold a Commission, or even a com-
batant staff-appointment in the English service; merely
because he is an officer in the Engineers, and not in
either the cavalry or infantry." As the "Soldier"
naturally remarks:—

" It is almost incredible, yet strictly true, that Colonel

Gordon, who has shown his power of conquering for the Khedive in North Africa'
would not be intrusted with the command of a brigade, or with the office of Assistant-
General, in a force of his own countrymen operating against Zulus ! "

Why, everybody supposed the British Army to have been reorganised the
other day; and yet, whilst engineering is now acknowledged to be of the first
importance in warfare, an Engineer Officer, as such, remains ineligible even to
the office of Assistant-Adjutant General. Is not this a survival from the days
of "crack" regiments, consisting, for the most part, of dandies and dunces?
Has Mr. Bull been dreaming of a different survival in the British Army; a
new development, with a competitive struggle for existence, and a survival of
the fittest ? Does he now awake to find the War Office and the military
authorities still tied up with red tape as ridiculously as a " Soldier" repre-
sents them to be ?

ON A LOWE VIEW OE LITEEATUEE.

{By the Boy at the Bookstall.)

"Everybody knows those lovely yellow books with the beautiful red backs—that
charming binding which comes off m your hand before you get to Kilburn. They are
inseparably connected in the mind of every true-born Briton with a railway journey. . . .
An improvement in this direction might be to the public advantage."—Mr. Lowe at the
Annual Dinner of the Institute of Civil Engineers.

Bob Lowe be blowed ! My. stall-mate, Tare, who cheeks the old City chaps so,

Says 'taint respectful talking in that style of Statesmen. P'raps so ;

But when an M.P. goes and spouts 'bout things he's lost the run of,

A man who's seen the world—like me—his bunkum must make fun of.

Yes, seen the world. No sniggering ! Don't the world by rail now travel ?

I tell you there ain't many things as a bookstall boy can gravel.

What I say 's Mister Lowe has missed his tip, and come a cropper;

Which he does often, in a style rayther verdant, for a topper.

Yellow books, with scarlet backs, that come off—you say, " instanter "—

Now, really, that's the stale, stale chaff of the conventional canter;

Quite in the Cockney comic style of tuppenny Timon smartness

Which you drop into now and then, for all your classic tartness.

Why, bless your innocent old heart, here's Taef and I could sell you

Off our own stall a batch of books none so dusty, i" can tell you.

We've Mill and Mallocr, Tyndall, Taine—stiff enough for any reader—

As well as Braddon, Trollope, Wood, and her Burnand calls " Weeder."

Then if a traveller wants to do a grind by rail, I '11 venture he,

Unless a " Sap," won't want to fly above The Nineteenth Century ;

Or should a sweet Blue-Stocking wish to make her spin pass lightly,

She must be precious hard to please if she sneer at the Fortnightly.

Bobus, my buffer, well-nigh all the news and nous of London

Lies on our stalls, we see the best in Science, Art, or fun done.

I keep my eye upon the lot; and, for human nature, why Sir,

There's precious few of its small games to which us two aren't fly, Sir.

Statesmen, scholars, novelists, poets, them as thunder, them as tinkle,

I '11 bet you two to one that we could show them many a wrinkle.

Ladies, languid swells, and spoons, may go in for the mustard covers,

But heaps of folk that ride by rail aren't tooth-pick toffs nor lovers.

Old business buffers read their Mill, their Bagehot, and their Fawcett,

You should see 'em with their wrinkled brows, their giglamps on and jaws set.

Your stiff and sniffy spinsters, too, catch them with two-bob twisters!

Not they ; their mark is Woman's Rights and Cries of Struggling Sisters._

Then gushing girls, with such rum togs, Berne-Jones riddles all for solvin',

Turn up their sweet tip-tilters, save at Swinburne, Pater, Colvin ;

I hear the funniest things while dusting, folding, and arranging;

The pretty pull-backs' chat, quite free, while their books for'em I'm changing.

I learn to know them by their looks amidst the Station's Babel,

Business, sport, science, love, high-art, there's few that I can't label.

I know the fashionable fads, sensations hot and shocking,

All that pokes the parsons up, and moves the beauty or blue-stocking.

Books, and pictures, jokes and journals, buyer's talk and lounger's patter,

There's little takes the town but what I'm posted in the matter.

Tafe laughs and cheeks; but I take notes ; Society 's my study;

And I can tell you that your view of railway reading 's muddy.

It's all onesided, much like those of that smart slogger,_ Harrison,

Who paints library so blue, bookstall's rosy by comparison.

It's curious how such clever cards will lay on colour lumpy,

Now all whitewash, then all lampblack, just as they feel gay or grumpy.

That's how your Critics miss their mark in Science, Art, Society ;

My berth would teach 'em of this Age the feature is variety.

You've been down on Metaphysics, scorned the Classics, dear Robertus,

And now you 're wiring into us. Your wigging will not hurt us.

Smith will survive it, never fear ; your hits must be much neater,

If you would set the times to-rights ; so thinks

Yours, truly, Peter.

it will never do.

The fatal objection to the Electric Light is that it shows things in their true
colours! What a world it would be if that alarming result should ever come
to pass, Punch need not waste time, ink, and eloquence in insisting.

Homceopathic Cere {for the half-drowned people of Szegedin).—Whetham.

vol. lxxvi.

Q