Punch: Punch (96.1889)

April 27, 1889.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

193


BALFOUR ON HIS BATTERING-RAM.

A HASTIE JUDGMENT.

By a Vindictive Victim of the Law's
Delay.

[Mr. Hastie, at the April meeting
of the Incorporated Law Society, is
reported to hare said that the con-
fidence of the public in the members
of his profession had been “ greatly
shaken.”]

Greatly shaken ? Not a bit!

’Tis a statement of the oddest.
Hastie must be slow of wit,

And he ’s very much too modest.
“ Confidence,” a Statesman said,
“Is a plant of growth most
tardy.”

But when once established
’Tis perennial, and hardy.
Confidence in Lawyers ? Pooh !
That tree ne’er firm root has
taken.

And a tree that never grew,
Surely, surely can’tbe “ shaken.”

Superstition at St. Stephen’s.
—Is it the duty of the Govern-
ment to keep a House on Friday
night? This question has pro-
bably been raised by some repre-
sentative of an enlightened con-
stituency who believes Friday to
be an unlucky day.

Free—but not Easy.

Free Schools may he a blessing
to the Nation,

But in these days of fads and
fiddle-de-dee,

Punch fancies that the best ‘ ‘ Free
Education ”

Is that which teaches Britons
to be free.

A-RANTING WE WILL GO.

Political Hunting Song for the Season.
(A long way after Henry Fielding.)

Air—“ A-Hunting we will go."

TnE dusky night begins to fly,

And brighter grows the morn;

The Party wants a winning Cry.

To help exalt its horn.

So a-ranting we will go-o-o,
A-ranting we will go !

It is the mode, to Party owed
And a-ranting we will go.

Cool sense the Spouter may oppose,

Sweet Spring may beg his stay :

‘1 Good Sir, the early primrose blows.
You will not rant to-day ? ”

But a-ranting he will go, &c.

Listeners to rant in yonder hall
Secure to find we ’ll seek ;

For why, they shouted, great and small,
At the same rant last week.

So a-ranting we will go, &c.

Away he goes, before the rout,

Whose ears for tickling itch.

He throws them in, he throws them out;
He leaves them in the ditch.

But a-ranting they will go, &e.

At length his twaddle, threadbare worn,
He stops. They yell delight.

He bows, and swears—with secret scorn—
He ’ll spout another night.

For a-ranting he must go-o-o,
A-ranting he must go.

In all the mode, to Party owed,
And a-ranting he must go.

OUR BOOKING-OEEICE.

No book sells better than the volume of
short.stories, or the collection of essays and
descriptive papers, and yet for years past pub-
lishers have refused
to let us have them,
and have dosed us
with three volumes
of twaddle or unread-
able polemical no-
vels. It is a satis-
faction to find the

__ providers of literary

fill jffjP^i food are beginning
to see the error of
their ways, and to be
convinced that the
British Public must,
before anything else, be amused. They will
get plenty of amusement out of Mr. William
Henderson’s Clues, which consists of nine
stories derived from a Chief Constable’s note-
book. The author ought to know something
of his subject, seeing he is now Chief Constable
of Edinburgh, that he occupied a similar
post at Leeds, and was formerly Chief In-
spector of the Detective Department at Man-
chester and Glasgow. Each story is, in the
main, a reproduction of facts, and they
have that reality and interest which facts
alone can give. The Chief Constable of
Edinburgh has arrested our attention ; we are
unable to move on, for we have found lis-
tening to his entertaining recitals anything
but hard labour.

That none but an Irishman can write Irish
songs is pretty generally accepted. This axiom
receives further proof—if proof were needed—

in Mr. Alfred Percival Graves’ Father
O' Flynn and other Irish Lyrics. This book
which consists of a choice selection of the
author’s previous volumes printed in a cheap
and handy form, cannot fail to be popular. It
contains well-nigh sixty poems full of grace
and endless in variety, and above all a “ go,”
a spirit and a National flavour that none
but an Irish bard could accomplish.

Those who are in search of a weird and grue-
some tale dramatically told cannot do better
than turn to Marion Crawford’s latest effort,
Griefenstein. 1 can confidently recommend
it. It is a grim but very powerful bit of work.

Those who know Zola only from such
works as La Terre, Nana, and so forth, should
take the trouble to read his Le Here. The
trouble after the first few chapters will soon
be a pleasure, and the pleasure will soon be
increased and intensified as progress is made
with the story. The style of the descriptions
throughout, though at first sight as tedious
as those of Walter Scott’s to a modern
go-a-head novel-reader, will gradually force
even the most knowing skipper to retrace his
steps, and go over the ground deliberately.
The author’s characteristic insistance on
details would be blameable did it tend to
diminish the interest which he has created in
the. central figures; but, as it does not do so,
it is masterly. Altogether the work is a
beautiful study of a lovely life, as far exalted
above ordinary types as, let us hope, some of
the lives in his other works are exceptionally
below them. The last scene of all is a grand
conception, sweet in harmony, rich in tone,
powerful in design and execution. C’est
magnifique, mais ce West pas La Terre, says,

The Baron de Book-Worms.

vol. xm.