DOI issue:
August 27 1887
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17658#0091
August 27, 1887.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 85
THE PRICE OF SUPPORT.
A Fragment of a coming Contemporary Romance,
" Is it possible that Mr. Giabstone, not content with having allied him-
self with the Parnellites, or with having endeavoured to sow jealousies
between the component parts of the United Kinpdom, is at last endeavouring to
purchase the parliamentary support of the South-Eastern Railway ? The idea
seems almost too humiliating to be entertained; but it is not easy to place
any other interpretation upon this new and startling announcement. Can it
be conceived that the safety of England ranks as nothing in his estimation
when it is brought into competition with the possibility of winning a few
votes from the interested supporters of a commercial enterprise ? "—Times.
VOL. I.—The Compact.
It was on a sultry August evening in the memorable year 1887
that a stranger, whose anxious gaze, now and again fixed on the
entrance, denoted the fact that he was awaiting the arrival of one of
the Members, crossed and re-crossed the pavement of the Hall of the
Reform Club with a step that indicated a high condition of nervous
trepidation. To the casual observer he might have passed for a
solicitor in an extreme state of irritability. The Hall-Porter, how-
ever, who had watched him narrowly, had recognised him for who
he was. He knew that the restless interloper, who had several times
peered into his carpet-bag, and examined specimens of Channel
chalk, and had, when he thought no one was looking, hacked a
London, Chatham and Dover trains'-bill with his penknife, was no
other than the famous Sir Edwaed "Watkin, the then Chairman of
the South-Eastern Railway Company. He approached him.
" He won't be long," he said, intuitively truessing the object of
his visit, and addressing him kindly. ''Ha! hark! Here he
comes!" He had scarcely spoken, when a roaring cheer, borne on
the sweet evening air, broke the comparative silence of the street
outside, and in another minute a surging and struggling mob, who
were shouting themselves hoarse, had deposited safely from their
shoulders, on the door-step of the Club, their great hero and idol,
whom they had thus, as was their wont, nightly carried in triumph
from the House.
The ex-Premier, for indeed the buoyant bearing, the high shirt-
collar, and the contagious enthusiasm of the new arrival proclaimed
Ms identity at once, dashed up the steps three at a time, and, waving
a radiant farewell of thanks to the crowd, bounded into the Hall,
where, seeing the stranger, he instantly seized him by the arm, and
hurriedly led him to a recess.
"This is very good and genial of you, my dear Sir Edwaed," he
commenced.
The other eyed him cautiously. "You wanted to see me?" he
rejoined, sulkily.
" Yes, indeed! " was the brisk reply. "I wished to tell you that,
as you bad been wicked enough,—ha! ha!—to conceive the idea of
uniting England and France by a Tunnel, I had been wicked enough
also to determine to help you to do it. Ha! ha! " He laughed long
and loud. His interlocutor stared at him for a few moments aghast.
Then he clutched him.
"You mean this P" he asked, growing pale with excitement as he
spoke. " You mean that you will vote for the Bill ? "
" Not only vote for the Bill, but make it a Government measure."
As he spoke he was interrupted by a commotion in Pall Mall. Some
Junior Members of the Carlton were by way of a practical joke,
common enough at this season, dropping a Unionist Liberal out of
the first-floor windows into the area, and their merriment over the
exploit resounded loudly down the street. The ex-Premier heard it
and a wonderful smile played upon his almost beautiful features.
" You see, they are going to pieces next door," he added exultingly,
"I shall be in in a few weeks, nothing can stop me; and then, I give
you my word, you shall have your Tunnel."
The other approached him. There was a curious look in his eye.
" You have your price ? " he asked. " Name it," he added under his
breath, glancing around him furtively to see they were not
overheard.
The great Statesman winked knowingly. "Merely the South-
Eastern vote," he whispered. " Come, is it a bargain at that P "
, " Done! " was the quick rejoinder. They grasped hands.
" Show this gentleman to a four-wheeler," said the ex-Premier.
So they parted. But as the Grand Old Politician turned towards
the supper-room there was a fine triumphant lustre beaming in his
eye, for he knew, that if he had possibly betrayed his country, he
had at least Bquared the Railway Company. He had made the
compact!
VOL. II.—Paid m Ftjix.
The country was about to face a great crisis in its history. Yet,
as the year 1894 opened, there were little evidences of the approach-
ing storm. It is true that the Gladstone Cabinet were still in
power, and were passing exasperating measures. Bnt this was
nothing new. Last year they had abolished Compulsory Vaccination,
and ,had passed the Country Estates Popular Appropriation Act.
They had inaugurated the first Session of the present one by
suppressing the Volunteer Movement, and cutting down the
Naval and Military votes respectively to the modest figure of
£2,000,000 a year; and they pointed to the Channel Tunnel, now
opened about sixteen months, for a triumphant vindication of these
Imperial economies. They argued that a country that could pour a
perpetual stream of Cook's Tourists night and day over to the Conti-
nent, had given a guarantee for preserving International peace such
as would warrant it in reducing tbe expense for its defences to a
pecuniary minimum; and, though they met with some opposition
trom the Permanent Departments, and were hotly criticised by an
angry mob of naval and military men, who found themselves, at a
moment's notice, both thrown out_ of work, and deprived of tbeir
pay, they, nevertheless, carried their point, and efieottd the proposed
reductions. But a thunder-clap was about to fall upon the un-
suspecting country from a blue sky, and the Channel Tunnel, which
had inspired, its misguided leaders with a baseless confidence, was
destined to inflict the shock.
It became known in London suddenly on the morning of the
Tuesday in the Easter Recess that the approaches to the Tunnel had
been suddenly seized by a hostile French force that had landed by
the night-mail disguised as tourists, and that the key of the appara-
tus destined to flood it in any case of emergency, was not forth-
coming, the Chairman of the Company, who had charge of it, having
suddenly disappeared without leaving his^ address. It was also
further rumoured that the guns commanding the shore-exit had
been spiked by active Shareholders anxious to protect their property
from destruction at all hazards, and were useless. "When, therefore at
eleven o'clock, the second edition of the morning papers announced
that a French army was pouring through the Tunnel, and occupying
the neighbouring heights, at the rate of ten thousand men an hour,
the panic became indescribable. Nor did it diminish when it was
further known that the French Ambassador, leaving a threatening
ultimatum behind him, had that afternoon taken his departure for
Paris. The country flew to arms. Sir Abchibald Haeeison
hastily collected the available force at Aldershot, and took up his
position on the Hog's Back, and awaited the approach of the enemy
with 213 men, all told, and three guns. They took no notice of him.
At twelve the following day it was known that the Duke of Cah-
eeidge, falling back on Sydenham, in command of a handful of
Volunteers and a squadron of the Household Cavalry hurriedly
got together, had capitulated in the Refreshment Department.
The details of the disaster spread like wildfire. The consternation
was terrific. The Lobd Mayor went into hysterics, and was, by
common consent, removed to Colney Hatch, while an angry mob
invaded the War Office, and seizing any members of the Ordnance
Committee they could lay hold of, forthwith dragged them out, and
lynched them in Pall Mall. That same evening a French army,
350,000 strong, entered London in triumph.
A few outrages marked this occupation. The Nelson Column was
thrown down, "Waterloo Bridge blown up, Piccadilly re-christened
the Rue Boul anger, and the whole of Madame Tt/ssaud's Collection
seized as National property.
So matters stood., but the cutting off of the food supply, thirty
shillings being charged at a "West-End Club for a plate of indifferent
tinned-rabbit, soon brought matters to a crisis. The Cabinet that at
the first approach of the enemy, had instantly retired to the Island
of Lewis, came cautiously up to town and opening negotiations for
peace with the French Government, finally signed the Tottenham
Court Road treaty, and provided for the evacuation of the country by
the invader. The terms were stringent and somewhat severe. In
addition to agreeing to the cession of India, Australia, the Cape,
Canada and all her Mediterranean possessions, together with the
division of her Fleet among the Navies of Europe, Eneland undertook
to pay an indemnity in ready money at the Bank of England of Aye-
hundred millions sterling.
*•*•*«
As a cordon of French troops was keeping back the sullen crowd
that thronged the space in front of the Royal Exchange and watched
the waggons heavily laden with the bullion that was about, to be
transferred to the South-Eastern Railway for transmission to France
a tall, elastic figure wearinar a high shirt-collar, pushed eagerly up
the steps of the Mansion House, and gazed reflectively at the scene
that was ^being enacted below. Presently some one touched it. It
turned.
"Ha! Sir Edwaed," was the bright recognition, "who would
ever have thought of meeting you again, and who would ever have
conceived," the cheery voice continued, "that our little compact
should have ended in this! » The speaker pointed with a significant
smile to the waggons of bullion lumbering beneath ""Well"
responded the other with a suggestive dryness, "my support got you
into power at any rate!" , '
A marvellous brightness overspread the features of his interlocutor.
"Yes it did he replied, "and though I am quite confident that
posterity will sbv it was worth the price, I see," he added airily,
waving bis hand in the direction of the Bank, "that at the present
moment it is apparently being paid in full'"
vox. xcnr.
THE PRICE OF SUPPORT.
A Fragment of a coming Contemporary Romance,
" Is it possible that Mr. Giabstone, not content with having allied him-
self with the Parnellites, or with having endeavoured to sow jealousies
between the component parts of the United Kinpdom, is at last endeavouring to
purchase the parliamentary support of the South-Eastern Railway ? The idea
seems almost too humiliating to be entertained; but it is not easy to place
any other interpretation upon this new and startling announcement. Can it
be conceived that the safety of England ranks as nothing in his estimation
when it is brought into competition with the possibility of winning a few
votes from the interested supporters of a commercial enterprise ? "—Times.
VOL. I.—The Compact.
It was on a sultry August evening in the memorable year 1887
that a stranger, whose anxious gaze, now and again fixed on the
entrance, denoted the fact that he was awaiting the arrival of one of
the Members, crossed and re-crossed the pavement of the Hall of the
Reform Club with a step that indicated a high condition of nervous
trepidation. To the casual observer he might have passed for a
solicitor in an extreme state of irritability. The Hall-Porter, how-
ever, who had watched him narrowly, had recognised him for who
he was. He knew that the restless interloper, who had several times
peered into his carpet-bag, and examined specimens of Channel
chalk, and had, when he thought no one was looking, hacked a
London, Chatham and Dover trains'-bill with his penknife, was no
other than the famous Sir Edwaed "Watkin, the then Chairman of
the South-Eastern Railway Company. He approached him.
" He won't be long," he said, intuitively truessing the object of
his visit, and addressing him kindly. ''Ha! hark! Here he
comes!" He had scarcely spoken, when a roaring cheer, borne on
the sweet evening air, broke the comparative silence of the street
outside, and in another minute a surging and struggling mob, who
were shouting themselves hoarse, had deposited safely from their
shoulders, on the door-step of the Club, their great hero and idol,
whom they had thus, as was their wont, nightly carried in triumph
from the House.
The ex-Premier, for indeed the buoyant bearing, the high shirt-
collar, and the contagious enthusiasm of the new arrival proclaimed
Ms identity at once, dashed up the steps three at a time, and, waving
a radiant farewell of thanks to the crowd, bounded into the Hall,
where, seeing the stranger, he instantly seized him by the arm, and
hurriedly led him to a recess.
"This is very good and genial of you, my dear Sir Edwaed," he
commenced.
The other eyed him cautiously. "You wanted to see me?" he
rejoined, sulkily.
" Yes, indeed! " was the brisk reply. "I wished to tell you that,
as you bad been wicked enough,—ha! ha!—to conceive the idea of
uniting England and France by a Tunnel, I had been wicked enough
also to determine to help you to do it. Ha! ha! " He laughed long
and loud. His interlocutor stared at him for a few moments aghast.
Then he clutched him.
"You mean this P" he asked, growing pale with excitement as he
spoke. " You mean that you will vote for the Bill ? "
" Not only vote for the Bill, but make it a Government measure."
As he spoke he was interrupted by a commotion in Pall Mall. Some
Junior Members of the Carlton were by way of a practical joke,
common enough at this season, dropping a Unionist Liberal out of
the first-floor windows into the area, and their merriment over the
exploit resounded loudly down the street. The ex-Premier heard it
and a wonderful smile played upon his almost beautiful features.
" You see, they are going to pieces next door," he added exultingly,
"I shall be in in a few weeks, nothing can stop me; and then, I give
you my word, you shall have your Tunnel."
The other approached him. There was a curious look in his eye.
" You have your price ? " he asked. " Name it," he added under his
breath, glancing around him furtively to see they were not
overheard.
The great Statesman winked knowingly. "Merely the South-
Eastern vote," he whispered. " Come, is it a bargain at that P "
, " Done! " was the quick rejoinder. They grasped hands.
" Show this gentleman to a four-wheeler," said the ex-Premier.
So they parted. But as the Grand Old Politician turned towards
the supper-room there was a fine triumphant lustre beaming in his
eye, for he knew, that if he had possibly betrayed his country, he
had at least Bquared the Railway Company. He had made the
compact!
VOL. II.—Paid m Ftjix.
The country was about to face a great crisis in its history. Yet,
as the year 1894 opened, there were little evidences of the approach-
ing storm. It is true that the Gladstone Cabinet were still in
power, and were passing exasperating measures. Bnt this was
nothing new. Last year they had abolished Compulsory Vaccination,
and ,had passed the Country Estates Popular Appropriation Act.
They had inaugurated the first Session of the present one by
suppressing the Volunteer Movement, and cutting down the
Naval and Military votes respectively to the modest figure of
£2,000,000 a year; and they pointed to the Channel Tunnel, now
opened about sixteen months, for a triumphant vindication of these
Imperial economies. They argued that a country that could pour a
perpetual stream of Cook's Tourists night and day over to the Conti-
nent, had given a guarantee for preserving International peace such
as would warrant it in reducing tbe expense for its defences to a
pecuniary minimum; and, though they met with some opposition
trom the Permanent Departments, and were hotly criticised by an
angry mob of naval and military men, who found themselves, at a
moment's notice, both thrown out_ of work, and deprived of tbeir
pay, they, nevertheless, carried their point, and efieottd the proposed
reductions. But a thunder-clap was about to fall upon the un-
suspecting country from a blue sky, and the Channel Tunnel, which
had inspired, its misguided leaders with a baseless confidence, was
destined to inflict the shock.
It became known in London suddenly on the morning of the
Tuesday in the Easter Recess that the approaches to the Tunnel had
been suddenly seized by a hostile French force that had landed by
the night-mail disguised as tourists, and that the key of the appara-
tus destined to flood it in any case of emergency, was not forth-
coming, the Chairman of the Company, who had charge of it, having
suddenly disappeared without leaving his^ address. It was also
further rumoured that the guns commanding the shore-exit had
been spiked by active Shareholders anxious to protect their property
from destruction at all hazards, and were useless. "When, therefore at
eleven o'clock, the second edition of the morning papers announced
that a French army was pouring through the Tunnel, and occupying
the neighbouring heights, at the rate of ten thousand men an hour,
the panic became indescribable. Nor did it diminish when it was
further known that the French Ambassador, leaving a threatening
ultimatum behind him, had that afternoon taken his departure for
Paris. The country flew to arms. Sir Abchibald Haeeison
hastily collected the available force at Aldershot, and took up his
position on the Hog's Back, and awaited the approach of the enemy
with 213 men, all told, and three guns. They took no notice of him.
At twelve the following day it was known that the Duke of Cah-
eeidge, falling back on Sydenham, in command of a handful of
Volunteers and a squadron of the Household Cavalry hurriedly
got together, had capitulated in the Refreshment Department.
The details of the disaster spread like wildfire. The consternation
was terrific. The Lobd Mayor went into hysterics, and was, by
common consent, removed to Colney Hatch, while an angry mob
invaded the War Office, and seizing any members of the Ordnance
Committee they could lay hold of, forthwith dragged them out, and
lynched them in Pall Mall. That same evening a French army,
350,000 strong, entered London in triumph.
A few outrages marked this occupation. The Nelson Column was
thrown down, "Waterloo Bridge blown up, Piccadilly re-christened
the Rue Boul anger, and the whole of Madame Tt/ssaud's Collection
seized as National property.
So matters stood., but the cutting off of the food supply, thirty
shillings being charged at a "West-End Club for a plate of indifferent
tinned-rabbit, soon brought matters to a crisis. The Cabinet that at
the first approach of the enemy, had instantly retired to the Island
of Lewis, came cautiously up to town and opening negotiations for
peace with the French Government, finally signed the Tottenham
Court Road treaty, and provided for the evacuation of the country by
the invader. The terms were stringent and somewhat severe. In
addition to agreeing to the cession of India, Australia, the Cape,
Canada and all her Mediterranean possessions, together with the
division of her Fleet among the Navies of Europe, Eneland undertook
to pay an indemnity in ready money at the Bank of England of Aye-
hundred millions sterling.
*•*•*«
As a cordon of French troops was keeping back the sullen crowd
that thronged the space in front of the Royal Exchange and watched
the waggons heavily laden with the bullion that was about, to be
transferred to the South-Eastern Railway for transmission to France
a tall, elastic figure wearinar a high shirt-collar, pushed eagerly up
the steps of the Mansion House, and gazed reflectively at the scene
that was ^being enacted below. Presently some one touched it. It
turned.
"Ha! Sir Edwaed," was the bright recognition, "who would
ever have thought of meeting you again, and who would ever have
conceived," the cheery voice continued, "that our little compact
should have ended in this! » The speaker pointed with a significant
smile to the waggons of bullion lumbering beneath ""Well"
responded the other with a suggestive dryness, "my support got you
into power at any rate!" , '
A marvellous brightness overspread the features of his interlocutor.
"Yes it did he replied, "and though I am quite confident that
posterity will sbv it was worth the price, I see," he added airily,
waving bis hand in the direction of the Bank, "that at the present
moment it is apparently being paid in full'"
vox. xcnr.