Punch (86.1884)

310

PUNCH, OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[June 28, 1884

PICKWICKIAN SCENE IN THE UPPER HOUSE.

Loud Rosebery as the Fat Boy becomes very wide awake, and startles the
Elderly Maiden Aunt. “I wants to make your Flesh creep !”

A HAPPY THOUGHT-READING SEANCE.

Mr. Irving Bishop certainly had a success last Wednesday night when I saw him at
dhe Westminster Palace Hotel,—after several failures. He was unsuccessful in finding
hidden pins—a proceeding almost as difficult as discovering the whereabouts of the pro-
verbial needle in the bottle of hay,—but he certainly did give the correct number of a
bank-note under circumstances which seemed to me to preclude all suspicion of collusion.

The Seance lasted about four hours; and I daresay it struck Sir Henry Holland,
Mr. Millais, Mr. Justin McCarthy, and a few other eminent gentlemen, that, as they
were not entirely idle men, it was just possible their time might have been better
. employed elsewhere. However, the Premier went in for it the following night, and he and
| Mr. Charles Russell and a few other great thinkers were all thinking of numbers and
! setting Mr. Stuart Cumberland to tell them what numbers they had been thinking of
while the dull work of Legislation was going on upstairs.

After all, Cui bono ? It is of no use for the detection of crime, as the thinker, be he a
| great or little thinker, must put himself unreservedly in the hands,—literally in the hands
i —of a thought-readerand, to commence with, it is so very likely that a gentleman, who
has just hidden dynamite somewhere, would step forward and allow Mr. Cumberland, or
Mr. Bishop, to ascertain where the combustible packets were, specially as the thought-
reader would probably be accompanied by a Detective with handcuffs for immediate use.

The Bishop Seance was hot and dry work. “Think of some imaginary pain,” said
Mr. Bishop to Mr. Healy. “Sham-pain” occurred perhaps to more than one mind, but
Mr. Irving Bishop didn’t offer to read their thoughts. Fortunately there was an inter-
change of confidences on this subject. We read one another’s thoughts, and the finish of
that entertainment, long after Thinkers and Thought-Readers had left, wasn’t by any
J means the worst part of that Seance: and, to a certain extent, the result answers satis-
1 f'actorily inv own question, “ Cui bono ?”
i

PLAYHOUSE AND PLATFORM.

That a prominent metropolitan figure like
Mr. Spurgeon should find himself at the fresh
and vigorous age of fifty enjoying the honours
of that elastic piece of festivity known as a
“ Jubilee,” can neither astonish his heteroge-
neous. admirers, nor occasion serious cavil
among his less obsequious critics. He has
worked with no little energy in his day; and
the “beautiful letter” from Mr. Gladstone,
“which being private, he regretted he could
not read to the Meeting,” no less than the
handsome cheque for £4,500, presented to him
on behalf of the Committee by Mr. T. W.
Olney (which he immediately distributed in
charity), testified sufficiently to the public feel-
ing that Mr. Spurgeon has had the power to
evoke. It seems almost a jjity, therefore, that
in the midst of all this hearty jubilation he
should have run across that always pleasing,
but sometimes dangerously alluring person, the
ever enterprising and watchful representative
of the Pali Mall Gazette. Such, however, has
been his fate, and he has been induced to
part with some unnecessary confidences that,
for the sake of his reputation for sound sense,
he had far better have kept to himself.

Mr. Spurgeon is not wise when he begins to
talk about what he does not in the least under-
stand, and he does not in the least understand
“the Theatre.” Assuring his interlocutor that
they will never “ get it ” from him, he went on
to inform him that his aim ‘ ‘ was to raise men
entirely above all that, to elevate them to a
higher level, where they will not f'eei the want
of that kind of recreation,” adding, at the
same time, the rather unfair and inconsequent
piece of information, “that he had too often
seen the trail of the Theatre across the Christian
hearth to have the slightest doubt as to whether
it is an institution that makes us righteous men
or the reverse.”

What the popular preacher means by the
“ trail of the Stage ” he does not say, hut he
furnishes rather an unpleasant idea of the
Christian hearth, for be proceeds to point out
that attendance at a- Play, which may be the
highest and purest known form of intellectual
recreation, is incompatible with such Christian
life as he wots of on the hearth with which he
is familiar. This is nonsense, and it is some-
thing more. It is mischievous nonsense. It is
just this bigoted and hackneyed condemnation
of a great and noble artistic institution, by
well-meaning, but uninformed men, that has
drawn a hard and fast line between recreation
and religion, and has drawn it by no means to
the advantage of the latter.

Lincoln, Mid-Surrey, &c.

Srn,—I thought Sir Henry James had abo-
lished all chances of bribery and corruption.
If so,whatis the meaning of a “Buy-Election” ?
We’ve had three “Buy-Elections” lately.
Who was bought ? I know which Party was
“ sold” at Mid-Surrey, hut that doesn’t answer
the question of your generally well-informed
Correspondent, Thos. A. Oddy.

The Nook, Noodleshire.

Last Saturday, ten of Her Majesty’s Judges,
in full costume, sat all in a row in one Court.
It was at first supposed that they were going
to give a Christy Minstrel Entertamment, hut,
owing to the absence of the Chief, and the
difficulty of deciding who should be the “cor-
ner-men,”—Mr. Justice Hawkins and_ The
I.ast of the Barons having the prior claim,—
the idea was abandoned, and their Lordships
proceeded to discuss a first-rate Crown Case
(Cuvee Peservee tres sec), out of which each
Judge had a full legal pint all to himself.