Punch (95.1888)

174 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 13, 1888.

A FLAGRANT INJUSTICE.

(The " United Service Unemployed " Club Smoking-fioom. Noon.)

Behold a dozen honest, enlightened, and able-bodied Britons—Retired Generals and Admirals, Half-pay Golonels,
Superannuated Majors and Captains, not, to mention leisured young Guardsmen, all in the full possession of their
faculties—all bored to extinction (except those who are so fortunate as to be fast asleep), and all cruelly debarred
from the privilege of serving on a jury of their countrymen ! why ?

[First Rival Tout " makes out the ticket" and Little Jem's life
LITTLE JEM'S DOOM- is forthwith insured in the" General Cosmopolitan Infants'

Coffin Supply Association " as Act-drop descends.
ACT II.—A Coroner's Court. An Inquest has just been held on
the bodi/ of Little Jem, who has recently died under somewhat
suspicious circumstances. The fact that he has for some time
past been gradually sinking in an ill-ventilated back room, pur-
posely neglected by his Provident Parents, has not come out in
evidence; nor has it transpired that they have familiarised
themselves with the idea of his decease, and, seeing it will not
only relieve them of the cost of his maintenance, but also put
some ready-money into their pockets, have come to regard it as a
consummation devoutly to be desired. So it has come about that
though Little Jem has been deliberately done to death by his
businesslike natural protectors, the verdict has not been one of
Murder, or even of Manslaughter, but of " Death from Natural
causes." The Coroner, however, assuring the Jury that he will
see that their recommendation, that the Government should take
some steps to legislate for the protection of infant life from the
baneful influence of such Societies as the " General Cosmopolitan
Infants' Coffin Supply Association," shall be forwarded to the
proper quarter, the Scene closes.
Provident Male Parent (who has received the burial-money, and is

Or, The Provident Parents' Resource.

(Brief Low-Life Tragedy, produced, lately with only loo much success on
th-e stage of the Great Metropolitan Theatre.)

ACT I.—A London Slum. Rival Insurance Touts discovered, re-
commending the advantages of their respective enterprises to the
notice of two Provident Parents.
First Rival Tout (summing up). "Well, there you are. You pays
a mere pittance monthly, and, if anything happens to the little one,
why you has him buried respectable, with a regular first-class
funeral, as should be a comfort to the feelings of a decent couple of
parents like you, and quite reconcile you, so to speak, to the loss of
him.

Seco?ul Rival Tout. And if you put into our concern, mind you,
the money you gets more than covers the expenses. When all's paid,
you '11 find you've got a tidy bit over for yourselves. You might
make about two pound out of it, and that ought to console you. It
does most of 'em.

First Rival Tout. But we don't ask no nasty questions, you know,
if so happens you have to put in your claim.

Second Rival Tout. No. If you pays your first premium to-day,
and comes next week for the burial-money, we stumps up like men,
we do, and don't make no fuss.

First Rival Tout. I tell you what: our concern has been a real
blessin' to thousands, that it has.

Provident Male Parent (convinced). Well, there's summat in what
vou chaps say, and I don't mind trvin' it on Little Jem here. (Address-
ing Provident Female Parent.) What do you say, Missus ? Jem has
been a ailin' lately, and if he means goin', I'd like to see him shoved
away proper ; 'specially when there's that two pound over to be got
out of the job. (His ' Missus " nods assent.) All right, Mate, then.
I'm game. Make out the ticket.

returning from the funeral, addressing his "Missus.") "Well, that's
done, though we ain't made quite two pound by it. Still one pound
sixteen ain't bad, with little Jem out of the way, and all. (Confi-
dentially.) I tell you what it is, Missus, Ivotes we take out a ticket
for our Sax and lanky Joe. "When times is black, it ain't half a bad
resource. I '11 just look up that Insurance chap again.

[is left meditating " murder" as Curtain descends.

" A ' Pleasure-horse ' used to do double duty in former days,"
observed Mrs. Ram; " and for my part I regret that Wives no longer
ride on pillories behind their Husbands."