Punch (76.1879)

June 28, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 291

to know. Lord Beaconseield, who has put
the Canon in position, is quite satisfied that
his great gun is good, as well as great. The
Archbishop of Canterbury is not quite so
cock-sure, but seems to think that the
Canon has fired—i. e. voted—without being
any the worse'; for it, and must, on the
whole, be taken to be a good and sufficient
Canon. Altogether, their Lordships got up
a lively debate on this momentous question,
on whose darkness Punch does not even
profess to throw light, himself seeing none.
The debate supplied a peg for a very self-
complacent speech from Lord Beacon sfield,
in which he had the pleasure of making
out that he was quite right, and everybody
else quite wrong, and somehow left the
impression that the Dean and Chapter of
York were a remarkably muddle-headed
body—the very reverse of what we should
expect from a Yorkshire Chapter.

Lord Teueo wants a civil element in the
Military Commission which is going to
report on the War-Office break-down.
What we should rather fear is, that it may
be too civil by half.

Lord Calloway groaned over the lament-
able fact that, when the British Army was
in a state of collapse, nobody could come to
its rescue with any more effective stimulant
than Inquiry.

Lord Beet said there was nothing like
inquiry, and that soldiers were the proper
people to inquire into the weak points of
military organisation. Everybody would
be delighted with the Committee when they
heard who was to sit upon it. But it
would not do to publish their instructions
before they had got them.

Lord Ceaneeook said civil things of Lord
Caedwell's scheme ; and Lord Caedwell
said civil things of Lord Ceaneeook. The
Chairman of the Committee was to be Lord
Aieev. That was the best guarantee that
the Inquiry would d not be an Airey
nothing'

Their Lordships adjourned, after quite a
late and lively sitting (for them), at Twenty
Minutes past Eight.

Naughty old boys, sitting up to such
untimely hours!

(Commons.)—Mr. Boeeke assured Mr.
Otwat that Mr. Yivian, our Egyptian
Consul-General, had not been deposed, he
had only come home on private business.
(Egyptian report says he is anything but
at home in public business.) Till he returns
he will have Mr. Lascelles for locum
tenens. Suppose, on his return, he were to
find his friend the Khedive sent to the
right-about! It would have been awkward
if Mr. Yivian, who is supposed to have not
been altogether a stranger to the little
game which ended in the upsetting of
Nubar Pasha and Mr. Rivees Wilson,
had to assist at the hoisting, with his own
petard, of the engineer of that clever piece
of diplomatic fireworks.

Apropos of the hair on our soldiers' faces,
Mr. Stacpoole solemnly announces that he
means to take the War Office by the beard.

" Cutting off the Cat's tails, and allowing
the men to wear their beards!" What is
the Service coming to ?

In Military Supply. Shall the Judge-
Advocate-General be improved off the face
of the Estimates ? We should not like to
insure the place another year—if things
military go on as they give promise of
going, that is, in the direction of the dogs—
in other words, towards civilian reforms,
and right in the teeth of Colonel Sabre-
tache, and Major Martinet.

A row over the Army Medical Establish-
ment, which bloomed into a squabble over
allegations of inhumanity to Zulus, in, and

FRONTI NULLA FIDES.

Leicestershire Squiress, "Oh, I see you've brought my Horse round."
Stable Boy. "Please, Sir, this is a Lady's 'Oss, Sir!"

out of, hospital—which further developed into a general scrimmage, in which the Irish

shillelagh was freely flourished.

Mr. Norwood complained of the want of back-bone on the Treasury Bench._
Sir Staeeord Northcote retorted that the House would not help him to amend its own rules.
Supply finally—

"Drave on wi' storm, and clatter,
And aye more idle waxed the chatter —

Till the watchman of old would have cried " half-past two o'clock—and a windy night! "

Tuesday (Lords),—2 propos of the Metropolitan Racecourses Bill, Lord Hardwicke said
a good word for the Suburban Race Meetings and two for the Jockey Club. Their Lordships
decline to be satisfied with the protective and prohibitive action of that .aristocratic sporting
body in preserving the suburbs from the invasion of blackguardism under the name of
sport.

Lord Enfield maintained his ground stiffly, and backed by his peers, carried all the
contested clauses of his Bill through Committee.