Punch (78.1880)

ap.il 3, 1880.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. i«

BOGEY.

(An Election Appeal from Head Quarters.)

Arch-Mystagogue, loquitur.

Hist !!!

Friends, Britons, Countrymen, lend me your ears!

(They heat good Bottom’s own !) List, list, do list!

(And let me slily work upon your fears),

This is a Crisis ! !!

Pinnacled on the pivot of its fate,

England doth oscillate,

’Twixt starry splendour and degringolade—

Disastrous downfall! Urgent my advice is,

Dash dumb Yahoos who long have yawped and yah’d
Against Imperialism!

Limp Liberals whose loud litigious schism
Must end in chaos, crash, sheer cataclysm!

Horrors are out! I have a special organ
Detective of all shapes of Demogorgon;

And the wild way in which those shapes are flocking,
Is, I assure you, shocking.

Yet do not funk or feel uncomfortable,

To deal with them I—I alone—am able ;

The one sane voice amidst a blatant Babel,

The one unfailing cable,

Ship-saviour though the barque be tempest-tost—
Lose me and all is lost!

Dangers P Great Heaven, I’m bound to be oracular,

I dare not trust myself to the vernacular.

Pregnant and compound polysyllables only,

Aided by artful apt alliteration,

Dare I deal forth. Lord of the situation.

Luciferous leader luminous but lonely,

Like firm-based beacon amidst boisterous billows !
Danger P You could not rest upon your pillows
Did you but know what I,—but no, I spare you,

I’ve no desire to scare you!

Russia! The Radicals !! The rude Home-Rulers ! ! !
vThe new “Three R’s” of England’s sole sound
schoolers)

There’s a tremendous triad of vague terrors!!!

If they “ consolidate co-operation,”

Slav hate, Gladstonian gush, mad Erin’s errors
Will soon smash up the Nation.

They ’re the three terms of a demoniac trinity
Whose natural affinity
Must lead to Coalescence. As for him,

That sour, sophistic, savage son of Siva,
Noctivagating newly in the North,

Could he be stripped as bare as poor Godiva,

Touched with Ithuriel’s spear, what should come forth,
From all his wrappages of wild loquacity P—

A monster of malignant mad mendacity !

Caliban playing Prospero ! Good gracious !

He’s a word-deluge threatening to overwhelm
England, and bring rank Ruin on the Realm.

My followers, sweetly, sheepishly sequacious
Of Me,

Agree

That the Arch-Fiend in Scottish breeks, the Russ,
Robed as a Tory, plus Parnell, with pinions,

A triad were less dangerous to us,

And our fair Queen's dominions,

Than him of the Three Courses, each one leading
To—but to name the place were scarce good breeding !
But ’tis the goal of Good Intentions. Therefore
Let all who England’s heavenward tending care for,
Yote for the deft devoted demon-queller,

The second-sighted seer of spectral foes,

Whose nose

Of Brobdingnagian rats is shrewdest smeller ;

The patent Anti-Ogre Isle-protector,

Ithuriel Imp-inspector,

Brave Banshee-vanisher, stout scourge of evil,

Great Ghoul-detective, dab at demonology,

And general foe of Gladstone and the Devil,
(Though that’s tautology)

In fact vote—plump for Me, my poor John Bull
If you’d not sup on horrors full, choke-full! !

(And if that does not fetch the fogged old fogey,

I'll say there is no virtue left in Bogey !)

THE PROSPECT (PROM TWO SIDES).

(Conversation for 1887.)

If Lord B.’s Lease is Renewed.

Did I understand you that France, Russia, Austria, Turkey, and the United
States had all simultaneously declared war with us this afternoon ?

When will the next batch of Sepoys arrive at Wapping ?

Does it astonish you to hear that the Income-Tax is only five-and-ninepence
in the pound F

The Alliance with Monaco is so advantageous that it might have been con-
ceived by a Machiavelli.

How capitally the country gets on without a House of Commons!

Which dungeon in the Tower is occupied by the Editor of the Daily News ?

The Six white Elephants, ridden by the Duke of Beaconsfield, are nearly
the finest in the Row.

On what day does Lord Lytton make his first appearance with his Indian
jugglery, at the Canterbury ?

There is something really very Imperial about all this showy statesmanship.

Is that the Music Hall Singer dining with the Cabinet ?

Surely those two hundred thousand foreign troops landing at Herne Bay,
are not arriving merely to take apartments ?

I am extremely proud of the efforts some one has made to promote the
ascendency of England.

Dear me, was that a shell exploding in the back garden F

What do you say to adjourning to the coal-cellar, and singing “ Rule
Britannia ” in whispers F

If that Awful AY. E. G. Carries the Day.

Did I understand you to say that five more of the Colonies had declared
their independence this afternoon P

How can I help dancing the hornpipe, with the Income-Tax at only a half-
penny in the pound F

This boy of fifteen appears to have the franchise.

Why is the dis-established Archbishop of Canterbury obliged to give
Shakspearian Readings F ... . .

Is it the terror of further domestic legislation that has obliged the friends of
yonder householder to lock him up in Han well F

I do not like this new tax on umbrella handles.

It is extremely thoughtful of the Prime Minister to light the fire with the

Ultimatum. .

Is it a party of frozen-out bricklayers, or of our representatives at Foreign
Courts, who are informing the neighbourhood in chorus that they have “ got no
work to do.”

I am not surprised that the Turk has declined Cyprus with thanks.

Now that the Game Laws are revised, we get partridges at £1 17s. Gw.

a brace in Bond Street.

Who could have guessed that the Home-Rule Parliament would have so
speedily beheaded Mr. Parnell F .

AVhy has the Duke of Midlothian reduoed the price of post-cards to one half-
penny a dozen F „ . ,, . . T _

Can that be an illustrious Nobleman from Argyll, playing an Io Pecan on
the bagpipes over the collapse of our Indian Empire P .

The reception of the Hero of Berlin into the Order of Dancing Dervishes
will be a very imposing ceremony.

“Consolidation of Cc-oferation.”—“Stores” firmer than ever!

Vol. 78.

5—2