Punch (77.1879)

November 15, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 219

the University! But it's all passed away—all passed
away! "

" Who and what are you ? " asked Rip.
"A British Farmer of the Twentieth Century," re-
turned the distressed agriculturist, sorrowfully.
" Oh, you still have farmers ? "

"Well, we keep up the name;" hut we get all our
corn from Canada and the United States."
" And your meat ? "

" From Australia, and North and South America
together."

And your milk and butter ? "

" Oh, from all over the place—except England. About
fifty years* Jago an enterprising foreigner discovered
how to keep butter and milk sweet for any length of
time. So we have had to give up our dairies."

" Ah! I think I remember something about that! "
murmured Rip. " They were talking about it just before
I fell asleep."

" Yes, everything has passed away from us—cattle,
sheep, poultry, milk, cheese, butter, green crops, corn,
fruit, vegetables, everything ! They all come from abroad
nowadays! "

" And how do you pay for 'em ? " asked Rip.

" Pay ! Bless you," said the farmer, " we don't pay.
They give 'em us. Still, a man must have pocket-
money and his little ' luxuries.' "

" Yes, certainly," said Bpp, consolingly. " And what
do you do for them ? "

"Well, we have had to take up a trade that the
Yankees have quite discarded. Since they have become
the food-producers of the world they can afford to let us
have a monopoly."

"I see. So the work of the British Farmer of the
Twentieth Century is to manufacture-"

The Agriculturist blushed.deeply, and replied,

"-Is to manufacture Wooden Nutmegs ! "

" Oh, I think T had better try to get another nap ! "
stammered out Rip, as he thoughtfully reascended his
mountain, sighing, "And that's what Free Trade has
brought us to ! Oh, Shade of Cobden, if ghosts had only
heads to punch ! "

That's How the Money Goes.

(By a True Blue.)

Nice Liberals ! Cheeseparing kind !

Not so lib'ral as we Tories—/know;
True, you may be down to the Rind,

But 'tis we that are up to the Rhino !

Fop Mps. Weldon's Consideration.—modus in
rebus ! There is a medium in all things !

"SOCIETY SMALL TALK."

"On the young Lady's exclaiming, ' How well these rooms are lighted!' the
young Man might reply, ' Yes, by the light of Beauty's eyes, and you are lending
your share, which is not a small one, to the general illumination, the brilliancy of
which is almost too dazzling to a poor mortal like myself, to whom it is well that
moments such as these are brief, else the reaction would be destructive to my peace
of mind, if not altogether fatal to it.' "

Young Peter Piper has got Ms lesson well by heart, and is only waiting, to begin,
for the lovely MissRippington to exclaim, " How well these rooms are lighted ! "
which, unfortunately for him, they are not.

BOARDING-OUT V. BABY-FARMING.

Punch finds, to his deep disgust, that a recent paragraph of his,
suggested by the Tranmere horrors, has been read as implying some
relationship in his mind between the murderous abominations of
baby-farming and the boarding-out system, as advocated by that
noble ministress and martyr to good works, Mrs. Nassau Senior, and
as carried out, Punch is rejoiced to know, in many parts of England
and Scotland. Wherever the attention of a Local Ladies'
Committee can be secured, first to select proper foster-parents
for the boarded-out little ones, and afterwards to keep an
attentive eye on their treatment and progress, Punch believes
that bqarding-out may supply what big pauper schools cannot —
something like a substitute for parental loving care and guidance.
But if these conditions be not most sternly insisted on, the
boarding-out system may be a cover for horrors little less foul than
those that made the old parish apprenticeship-system so often a
mask for unspeakable oppression and ill-treatment. Even now it is
not safe to consign parish apprentices to callings that carry them out
of reach of surveillance, such as the Grimsby smack-fishing. " Out
of sight out of mind " is likely to be a sad law sorely verified in the
case of many an ill-used young pauper, overworked and over-
watched, underclad and underfed, out on the cold Northern Sea.

But Boarding-out, under the wise and watchful eyes of a con-
scientious and careful Ladies' Committee, ought to be a real blessing
to Parochial babies; enabling Boards of Guardians, with a clear
conscience, to transfer to woman's hands part at least of the most
perplexing duties of their guardianship.

Punch would grieve deeply if any ill-interpreted joke of his
should lead to the least confusion between " Boarding-Out," rightly

managed, and Baby-Farming, which is not, and is not meant to be,
anything but a cover for babe-murder, made manslaughter by
cautious systematic protraction of the sufferings of its doomed
dumb victims.

If ever fiends in human form earned the gallows, it was the
Barneses, husband and wife. If ever a wise and humane Judge's
reading of the law erred on the side of lenity, it was Mr. Justice
Brett's, when it suggested to the Jury the lowering of their crime
from murder to manslaughter.

If those babe-slaughterers, the Barneses, were rightly treated, as
homicides in only, the second degree of guilt, the wretched woman,
Waters, the Lambeth Baby-Farmer, who was hung a few years ago,
paid too high a penalty when she gave her miserable life to the
gallows. And yet, when have we felt more satisfied than in her case,
that the halter had no more than its due ? And who has not felt
that the Barneses, under Justice Brett's direction, have had less
than theirs? Much as Punch objects to sitting in judgment on his
Judges-—and above all, one of the most intelligent—he cannot help
doing it in the case of the Tranmere Baby-murderers. Not only
does their offence seem to him in its long-sustained and cold-blooded
atrocity, to cry out for the highest doom of law, but it is an offence
that above most requires the deterrent influence of the sternest
punishment on behalf of creatures that of all most powerfully claim
our protection by their innocence, and their powerlessness to protect
themselves.

wonderful.

The late Lord Mayor, rope-maker as he was, was not satisfied
with the rope the Aldermen gave him. He actually took more !