Punch (95.1888)

July u, 1888.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 21

HOW WE ADVERTISE NOWADAYS.

MS

This Little Boy has eaten too much Jam, but JIM JON'SO^'S
LIVER PILLS will cure him.

TWO P.'S, BUT UNLIKE.

Mr. ParneU. Mr. Punch, I believe ?
Mr. Punch. Mr. Pabnell, I'm sure.

Mr. Parnell. Your manner of salutation re-assures me. We are
friends ?

Mr. Punch. Acquaintances.

Mr. Parnell. Mr. P., if I thought you looked upon me as the
mean-spirited, sanguinary creature the Times would make me out,
I'd—I 'd—well, there now, I'd be sorry for you.

Mr. Punch. No necessity for sorrow or anger. I laugh at all
that's laughable, even when it's contemptible. I assume every
man's innocence until he is proved guilty beyond all possibility of
doubt. Therefore I assume that you and your party are innocent of
the complicity in these crimes with which you have been charged.

Mr. Parnell. And you don't believe a word of it at all, do you now ?
Who in his senses can believe that I, or Pat Egan, ever wrote such
trash as was put forward by the Times ?

Mr. Punch. I am in my senses, and I say, as every judicially
minded man must say, that if these letters are forgeries, if your
treasurer, Pat Egan's, letters are, as he wrote to our friend Labby,
II.P., " vilkmous concoctions," then why do not you, with the Parisian
Pat, and others of vour party, unite, and bring an action against
the Times ?

Mr. Parnell. Why should we ?

Mr. Punch. Why? Because the cause which you have at heart
will gain the sympathy of all liberal-minded Englishmen, if you
purge yourself and your party from all taint of crime, and thus
confound your accusers.

Mr. Parnell. Those who would believe that I wrote "make it hot
tor old Fobsteb," or that Pat Egan wrote as he is represented to
have done, would believe anything.

Mr. Punch. Just so; and the majority of Englishmen, "from
information received" at the trials of the American Irish Dyna-
miters and Phcenix Park murderers, will continue to regard you and
the "constitutional leaders," be they "mealy-mouthed" or not,
suspiciously, until you yourself take up the gauntlet the Times has
long ago thrown down, and bring a civil action for libel, or place
Proprietor, Editor, Printers, and Publishers in the Dock of the
Old Bailey.

Mr. Parnell. See here now! When the Times first attacked me,

you may remember I offered to have the whole matter sifted by a
Select Committee of the House ?

Mr. Punch. An offer the Government obstinately declined, sug-
gesting that you should bring your ease before the ordinary tribunal.

Mr, Parnell. And would I have a fair trial ?

Mr. Punch. Before an English Judge and Special Jury? Certainly.

Mr. Parnell. If it were only myself, you-see .... but—there," I
can't do it. . ...

Mr. Punch. If a person m a responsible position charges a private
individual with complicity in murder, then I should say any man,
conscious of his innocence, would prosecute the utterer of so foul
and malicious a libel.

Mr. Parnell. But isn't an Irish gentleman's word as good as that
of the Times f Why certainly. And suppose, now, I'd publish a
pamphlet charging the proprietors, publishers, and the whole of the
Times crew with conspiracy and with aiding and abetting forgery,
where'd I be then ?

Mr. Punch. Try it, and you '11 see. Floreat Hibernia! Good
day. Causa nondum finita est. [Exeunt severally.

" BEADY, AYE BEADY ! "

[Imperial Naval Farce, fust piroduced with great success.)

A Secret Chamber in Whitehall. Exalted Admiralty Official listen-
ing attentively to report of Well-informed Subordinate.
Exalted Admiralty Official. Then I am to understand that the
Jackass, Bouncer, Wheelbarrow, Phlegethon, and Rattlesnake
have been patched up into a condition that will at least warrant the
expectation that they will float.

Well-informed Subordinate. Yes, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And new bottoms have been put on
to the Blunderer, Pigstye, and Corkscrew ?

Well-informed Subordinate. They have, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And they can now be counted on not
to capsize in tolerably smooth water ?

Well-informed Stibordinate. They can, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And the Blue-bottle, Catapult, Oxus,
Jam-potj and Thunder-bolt, though their boilers want replacing,
are not likely to blow up within a month's manoeuvring ?

Well-informed Subordinate. I think they may, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And so, saying nothing about guns
that won't stand firing, vessels, some of which are not quite sea-
worthy, and others of which the speed is not remarkable, you think
we can make a flourish on paper that shall induce the nation to
believe that, after all, it has got something to show for its money ?

Well-informed Subordinate. Indeed, I do, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. Come, that is satisfactory. And how
about the men ? Have you whipped in the Reserve, hunted up the
Coastguard, and supplemented the deficiency of stokers by the enlist-
ment of the local bathing-machine men ?

Well-informed Subordinate. We have, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And the stores ? You are sure that
the several Departments have provided respectively supplies of
marling-spikes and tinned rabbits, hammocks, rum, sardines, gun-
powder, tarpaulins, coals, Patent Medicines, mixed biscuits, and other
necessaries m sufficient quantity to enable the Meet to put to sea for
three davs without replenishing ?

Well-informed Subordinate. I am nearly sure my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. And you think that, after this secret
three months' preparation, if mobilisation were to be, so to speak.
" sprung upon "you officially at a supposed twenty-four hours'
notice, you would be prepared to mobilise ?

Well-informed Subordinate. Well, my Lord, I thmk we should—

almost. _ _ . . . , ...

Exalted Admiralty Official. And you are of opinion that the country
would be immediately impressed with the idea that the whole thing
had not been a pre-arranged job, and regarding the charges brought
against the working and organisation of the Departments as un-
founded, consider that to be ready at a moment's notice was your
normal condition ?

Well-informed Subordinate. Indeed I hope it would, my Lord.

Exalted Admiralty Official. Well, then, I think f will try the
experiment.

[Does so, and ordering Mobilisation at twenty-four hours'
notice," staggers the public mind and produces immense effect.-

Ad Davidium Pltjnketuii. — If Cyclists are to be allowed in
the Parks, why not throw open a way of escape from them to the
poor Equestrians through Kensington Gardens? When are there to
be some new rides m Hyde Park besides this squirrel-in-a-cage-
round-and-rounder called Rotten Row ? Never was a Rottener Row.
The long-suffering riders cry aloud to the Honourable ^Edile, much
as our Wilson Baebett used to exclaim whenever he got a chance,
" How long! How long!''