Punch (78.1880)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

109

March 13, 1880.]

TRAIN UP A WIFE,” &c.

“ I PRESUME THE LADY IS AWARE THIS IS A SMOKING COMPART-
MENT ? ”

“The Lady is well aware of the Fact; and, being my
Wife, she knows better than to Object.”

PARLIAMENTARY MAXIMS FROM MEATH.

(Vide Mr. Newdegate's Speech of February 26.)

To retain an Irish Seat. Be on your legs five hundred.

times in a Session.

To comply with a Standing ) Refuse to sit down.

Order.

To prove your respect for the Never hesitate to address empty
Forms of the House. Benches.

To show regard for the Speaker. Always continue speaking until

you are spoken to.

To demonstrate your regard for When sat upon, ignore the
the Chair. fact.

To support the Constitution—d \ Sit up all night, when possible,
VIrlandaise. \ and prevent everybody else

1 from going to bed.

To prove you are not yet under Never go home till morning.
Home-Rule. j

To make the best of a small num- Keep constantly dividing. (N.B.
her (Irish). The smaller the number the

greater the result.)

To show the perfectibility of the Be always making an Amend-
Irish character. ! ment.

To convince the world you cannot Remind it that, as you sit always
he an Obstructionist. below the gangway, it is im-

possible you should be stopping
| it.

LEADING IDEAS.

“ A man and leader of men.”—Tennyson.

The Sphinx soliloquises :—

“ Leader of men! Mellifluous laureate
Of blameless Kings and of ideal Knights,

Piper of high-pitched patriot lays, dost guess
How ’tis by ear and nose, not hand and heart,

Mankind is led ? Leading is easy work!

To inspire or to enlighten earth’s dull drones,

Might task a new Prometheus : nay, to drive
The mulish multitude is Titan’s work,

But leading ? Bah! ’tis as the carrot-bunch
Held in advance of donkey’s outstretched nose
By the adroiter urchin in a race.

With words we manage men!—well-chosen words,

Yague, but of sounding vastness, fit to fire
Those ruling passions which, aroused, give rule
To the deft piper who can play on them.

Have I not played,—ye gods, have I not played
The stops of Bull’s whole gamut up and down,

With firm though most fantastic fingering ?

And,—there’s the humour on’t!—to fine fixed tunes,

Whose score, in my green youth,—which was not green—

I set before his slow unseeing eyes.

With that frank daring which so dupes the fools,

And so disarms the wise ! Commons and Peers,

The Court, the Clubs, the Crowd, cold friends, hot foes,

The Swells, the Cits, the Blues, the Radicals,

The country Squires, aye, all the stiff-necked lot,

From Cowen stout to caustic Salisbury.

Stoop to my lure and follow in my wake !

By Tubal-Cain, there is no instrument
On which sure touch and subtle mastery
Can play to such strange issues as man’s heart.

Heart ? The word serves to cover a wild sum

Of eager appetites, to tickle which

Into esurience gives wit a tool

Stronger than armies or exchequers crammed:

’Tis single strength that sways unto its ends
Multiform weakness—greed and vanity,

The itch for domination, and the thirst

For much noise-making in a noise-witched world;

The larger egoism of land and race.

Stretched but self-centred still, and smartly tricked

In vesture of heroic virtue; fear

That hides with strutting port and swelling speech,

And self-deceptive show of vigilance,

Its inner baseness,—these be dominant chords
To stir a passion in the multitude,

And in a phrase that voices their dumb-wili
To point some plausibility of speech,

And fire the mob with self-approving zeals!

That is the way to work on the gross mass
Of coarsely-fibred matter called Mankind.

4 W e’ve but to make men think' cries Gladstone. 4 Think ’!
Sisyphus-Sophist, ply thy bootless task !

The skulls that yield that brain-secretion scarce
Will give thee back thy lost majority.

Nose-cocked Macallum-More fills two full hours
And columns six with serried cogencies—

So the Scot deems them—’gainst my policy.

I, with an airy smile, a neat appeal

To 4 Rule Britannia ’ sentiment, some quips,

And one vague, sounding, well-considered phrase—

4 The Gates of India ’—deftly iterated,

Pleasantly put him by, rout all his tropes,

And phalanx close of tine- drawn arguments.

As for the Mob, ’twill find my phrase, be sure,

A handy cudgel to beat foes to silence,

Long after the Macallum’s volumes twain
And columns six are banished to the limbo
Of weapons obsolete, with old Brown Bess
And Bruce’s battle-axe ! So men are led! ”

PARLIAMENTARY DEMONSTRATION.

In sending Mr. Grissell to Newgate the House of Commons have
demonstrated that their displeasure is anything but nugatory.
Quod erat demonstrandum. High time it should be.

The One Affection in which the Irish are Deficient.—
Pa(y)rental.