Punch (77.1879)

October 11, 157 P.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

167

"A VITAL QUESTION."

Brown (picking up Volume from Club tabic). " UlXO ! what's this? 'Is Life worth
Living ?' What do you say, Jones ?"

Jones. "H'm!—it depends. If I'm going to have Curried Lobster and "Welsh
Rabbit for Supper, Yes! If I've had Curried Lobster and Welsh Rabbit for
Supper, No! But I've not had Curried Lobster and Welsh Rabbit for Supper,

you see ; and, what 's more, I 'm not going to. So I give it up ! "

Brown. "So do I ! " \Exeunt, each to his respective business or pleasure, as the case may be.

CHAIRS! CHAIRS!

India seems in a bad way; far worse
than we imagined. There will have to be
another loan from England. The Govern-
ment, apparently, cannot afford the com-
monest articles of furniture. We read with
dismay and apprehension of the injurious
effect the disclosure will produce on the
native mind, the following telegram :—

" General Roberts received Yakoob Khan,
Daoud Shah, and Mustaufi Habibulla in
durbar on Monday. The paucity of chairs pre-
vented more Sirdars from attending."

We hope Professor Fawcett, or some other
Member of Parliament, will get to the bottom
of this most untimely "paucity of chairs,"
whereby proud and influential Chiefs were
prevented from personally testifying their
hdelity to the Sovereign Power. Why was
such a lack of seats not foreseen and reme-
died ? Surely the resources of India are not
so impoverished as to make a moderate out-
lay with some cabinet-maker at Calcutta or
Simla an impossibility ! If so, why did not
the Viceroy telegraph an urgent message to
his friend the Prime Minister, begging him
to send out, without an hour's delay, a few
of those useful chairs, which are made, cheap
and good and plentiful, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Hughenden ?

Empires before now have been perilled
and tempers lost through causes quite as
trivial as the one we are now deploring. The
Council table at the India Office should
attend to this, and despatch at once the
most comfortable and imposing chairs of
state that can be purchased in Oxford or
Wardour Street.

Legal Ownership of Limbs.

The Solicitors' Journal instances a new
legal question which has arisen at Washing-
ton ; that of the right to a pair of legs,
which a surgeon having amputated, there-
upon took possession of as his perquisites,
put up in spirits and deposited in a museum
for exhibition, in a iar labelled with the
name of the original owner, who claims
them as his property. The point requiring
determination seems to be whether the sur-
geon who has removed another man's legs
has a right to walk off with them.

THE BRAVE BOTJLONNAIS.

(To be translated into French by M. Fictor Nogo.)

It was a grand sight. It was the meeting of Valour and Domestic
Love. It was more than grand—it was glorious.

" You are prepared to brave the storm ? " said his wife.

" I am prepared," he answered, and he put on a water-proof over
his four great coats. " The brave are always prudent; which is the
effect—which the cause ?"

"You shall not go."

" My mother!" he exclaimed, and fell upon his knees. He was a
good son, and knew to what shrine he owed obedience and devotion.

" You must not go," she repeated. "It will rain. If it rains,
you will get wet. If you get wet, you will catch cold. You shall
not go."

His wife and children threw themselves on the ground before the
old woman, and implored her to alter her decision.

" I beg of you," said his wife, " in the name of humanity. The
human race calls out to him to come."

" The human race may call," replied his mother. Then she added,
—"ineffectually."

" My mother," he said, embracing her tenderly, "my mission is
to save life! It is because I have this mission, that I wear an enor-
mous life-belt of cork, and carry a horn. The sea is perfectly calm,
and there is not the slightest danger—let me go."

And fhen she wavered. To waver, in a woman, is to be half con-
quered.

"I ask you in the name of France."

" I can deny nothing to France," and she submitted.

He tenderly kissed his children, embraced his wife, and fell upon
his knees to receive his mother's blessing. Then he stamped three
times, struck an attitude, and after his family had admired him in
it, left the room.

" A parting gift, my son," cried his mother, opening the window.
Then she threw out to him in the street a large woollen comforter, a
respirator, and an umbrella.

He fell upon his knees, and amalgamated the articles with his
costume. Then, for the second time, he received his mother's
blessing.

When he reached the sands he trembled. He did more than
tremble. His cheek blanched, and his heart (for a moment) stood
quite still.

" It is getting rough! " And he fell upon his knees, and wept
bitterly. It was a grand sight! The Man and the Ocean! They
were equals ! The Ocean had salt waves, the Man salt tears._ The
waves and the tears were soon mingled ! It was refined sensibility
meeting rugged Nature half way !

Then there was a storm. Peace met War. Peace was represented
by a bathing-machine. A bathing-machine is an emblem of peace.
A bathing-machine cannot be used as a castle—it may sometimes
form a portion of a barricade. But a barricade is also an emblem of
peace. The storm, the emblem of war, met the bathing-machine,
the emblem of peace. War was the victor, and the bathing-machine
was overturned.

And what was the life-saver doing when this incident occurred ?