Punch (90.1886)

88

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Febkuaey 20, 1886.

case, Mr. Htntqian" and Ha friends being put to prison, with hard
labour, until they had fairly earned that sum, so that it might not
be said that thev, at least, were amongst the unemployed.

Do they not deserve it ? Dealing with an excitable mob, partly
composed of suffering toilers and partly of skulking scoundrels, blood
is on their lips, murder and cruel outrage at their hearts. Fools
they may be, but not such fools as to be unaware of the possible out-
come of such incitements addressed to such a multitude. "Work,
Bread, or Blood! " seems to be the motto of Mr. Hyndman's choice.
He must have known that an appreciable portion of his audience did
not want either, but loot and licence. These he was prepared to give
them, at the expense of the innocent, in order to further his own
preposterous and impracticable schemes. To enlist the aid of the
predatory classes in the cause of Chaos, is a singular preliminary to
the Socialist Millennium. It would be a folly in the crassly ignorant;
in the intelligent or instructed it is an atrocious crime.

But whilst we denounce, and righteously denounce, this detestable
pact of fanaticism with ruffianism, let us not lose sight of, or sympa-
thy with, the real suffierers in these hardest of hard times. A
hundred thousand paupers in London! That terrible fact does not
need the sanguinary comments of the blatant Burns to bring its
meaning home to the minds and hearts of wise and kindly men. The
prolonged and pitiful sufferings of the industrious toilers who are
really ' Out of work," only themselves, their families, and the few
sympathisers who have an opportunity of intimate observation can
rightly appreciate. Poor souls! The majority of them would use
their last remnant of strength to kick such a firebrand as Burns out
of their half-stripped homes if he came talking violence and villainy
to them. So much the greater their claim upon our sympathy and
assistance. Much in the way of wide-reaching reform and social
readjustment will have to be done in the interests of these ill-paid,
precariously-employed, but industrious workers and wage-earners
before their condition is made tolerable, and their remuneration
approximately just. But the duty of the hour is aid to the actually
suffering.

The shameful scenes of Monday should not slacken anyone's
sympathy, or shut anyone's purse-strings. Hykdman & Co. did not
care though the innocent suffered for the guilty. If the Mansion
House or other Funds suffer from their fault, we shall be sharing it.
The workless "Working-Man all must compassionate, and all should
help, now by friendly aid, hereafter by well-considered reform. It
is the drunken, violent, ?»2-Working-Man, the tool of sedition-
spouters, the ready ally of ruffianism, the danger to all classes, and
the disgrace of his own, whom Mr. Punch, speaking the sentiments
of all honest men, despises and denounces. It is amongst such as he
and such only, that self-styled "Bepresentatives of the Unemployed,"
like Messrs. Hyndhan & Co., are likely to find recruits for their
Army of Anarchy. That Army had a field-day on Monday, and
gave a surprised City and a disgusted community a taste of its
quality. For that perhaps we may, after all, be thankful; for we
know now " with whom we have to deal." The Army must be
promptly disbanded, and its leaders—brave leaders, who lead from
the rear!—suspended, if not precisely in the manner pictured in the
cut, in one equally summary and decisive. And in the necessary
work of doing so Mr. Punch is persuaded that the first to '' lend a
hand " would be those genuine, industrious, often hardly-used, but
honest and entirely unsanguinary wage-earners, whom the Arch-
Anarchists so stupidly traduce, and their ruffianly followers so
shamefully travesty.

TO WORKING-MEN.

Cohe all ye British Workmen who lead honourable lives,
And labour for the hearth and home, for children and for wives,
Repudiate the evil deeds late wrought by roughs and those
Who are the enemies of Law, and Order's bitter foes.

The sullen tramps who every form of occupation shirk,
The loafers who have never done a day of honest work;
nvt6 j ves wno sneak down areas, the burglars armed to slay,
Ihe doers of all kinds of wrong that shun the light of day.

Smug Htndjian, in his broadcloth, urged such men to smash and'rob,
But wot we well his watch and chain were safe within his fob;
He egged curs on to outrages, to wage a social war,
Yet kept his own skin safe the while he cheered them from afar.

Such are no fit companions for honest folk and true,
Such are no real allies, good friends, for Working-Men like you ;
We know your hardships, and Heaven send you better days in store,
But down with those vile plunderers, and list such men no more.

Teach them that British Workmen hold the Law in due respect,
Teach them who robbed defenceless girls, you've strong arms to
protect;

Down with these Social Democrats, let Workmen lend a hand,
And sweep these thievish miscreants for ever from the land.

THE RUNNING FOOTMEN !

Well, we are living in stranger times than even I supposed
possebel. I was naterally prepared for a good deal wen I herd

Cabbinet Minis-
ters a mockin at
Citty hinstitoo-
shuns and Citty
sherrymonials as
had bin^a goin on
for sentrys amid
the hincreesing
respect and wene-
ration of all the
most importantest
parts of mankind,
and then acshally
proposing to erbol-
f iish 'em at one fell
l/.i swoop! But the
f/t ordashus preposi-
' tion met with its
dew reward, and
the rash Nite was
hurled from his
lofty heminenee,
and fell!

But, alass! the
gibes and geers
he flung about so
freely had took
root, and, for the
fust time in the
Putting his best foot foremost. histry of man-

kind, a Lord Mare,

in all his pannoply of state, a going for to pay his respecs to his
lawful Prinse at his hown lawful lewy (whatever that may mean),
insted of being reserved with that degree of haw and respec to
which he is so akustomed, was acshally chivvied by an howling
mob! And had it not been for the gallient conduck of his two nobel
Footmen, in their Cocked Hats of Power, and their Gold Sticks of
Oflis, assisted by a few duzzin Pleacemen, no one nose what mite not a
appened. Let us draw a whale over the dredful idear, and. proceed.

Well, the werry nex thort as strikes my bewildered mind is one of
contrarst, and witch tho' one for regret, is also one for proud rejoic-
ing. Can any one doubt that, if the gallient City Officials stood
their ground manfully to protect their own Lokd Make and Marster
from insult and danger, that they wood have stood even much more
bolder, and much more gaUanter to defend their own Lady Maeess
and Missus ? Why, suttenly not. Werry well—then now to my
tail of contrast.

Let my readers carst their eyes f rom Traffalger Square to Ide Park.
From the seen of glory to the seen of shame. What is it that I sees
in that arnt of Buty and Fashion ? Can I bleeve my eyes ? Yes, I
can, and I do, and what do them estonished and blushing eyes see ?
A cowardly Mob a tacking defenseless butiful Ladies in carridges,
and the lordly Footmen with their gorgeous array, and their fatted
calves a running away faster probbably than they hever run afore, a
leaving them as they was bound to pertect, and whose clothes they
was a wearing, and whose vittels they was accustomed to heat, four
full meals a day, besides hextras on hollydays, to the untender
mercies of a howlin Mob ! What a subjeo for thortfool meddytashun!

The grand old Citty so edicates its ofishals from the werry ighest
to the werry lowest, that they are always reddy at the caul of duty,
and ewen the humbel Footman defies the howling mob to move him
from the foot-board to witch he has attained by long ears of good
conduct and onest ambition, and meets their derysive shouts with
the paleness of shupreme contempt.

On the hother hand the aughty swells of the West End selects
their amost equally aughty Footmen for their hight, or their figger,
or their prowd demeaner, and so wen the hour of trial comes, the
hireling fleas beeoz he is a hireling, and not traned in the parth of duty
by the traydishuns of the past and the haspirashuns of the future.

And as it is with Footmen so it is with Waiters. If you wants
respec from 'em you must show confidence in 'em, or when the time
of trial cums and you looks for currage from the fust or for discre-
tion, or ewen concealment, from the second, you will get instead of
ether^ Punning Footmen and Torking Waiters, and then how long-
will life be wurth living ? With armless Ladys left to their fate,
and open arted and open tongued gentlemen finding their most
secretest rewelations the common tork of their Clubs, the fashnable
world will begin to wish with a si that they had follered the good
example of the grand old Citty and by care, and kindness, and respec,
produced sitch a crop of bold" Footmen and discreet Waiters as are
suttenly not to be matched elsewheres in this United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Wales. Robert.