Punch or The London charivari (1.1841)

102

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PEEL ' REGULARLY CALLED IN."

At length, Peel is called in " in a regular way" Being assured
of his quarterly fee, the state physician may now, in the magna-
nimity of his soul, prescribe new life for moribund John Bull.
Whether he has resolved within himself to emulate the generous
dealing of kindred professors —of those sanative philosophers, whose
ftcnevolence, stamped in modest handbills, " crieth out in the
street,'' exclaiming •• No cure no pay,"—we know not; certain we
are, that such is not the old Tory practice. On the contrary, the
healing, with Tory doctors, has ever been in an inverse ratio to the
reward. Like the faculty at large, the Tories have flourished on the
sickness of the patient. They have, with Faktaff, " turned diseases
to commodity ; " their only concern being to keep out the under-
taker. Whilst there's life, there's profit,—is the philosophy of the
Tory College; hence, poor Mr. Bull, though shrunk, attenuated,—
with a blister on his head, and cataplasms at his soles,—has been
kept just alive enough to pay. And then his patience under Tory
treatment—the obedience of his swallow ! '■'Admirable, excellent! "
cried a certain doctor ( we will not swear that his name was not
Peel), when his patient pointed to a dozen empty phials. " Taken
them all, eh.? Delightful ! My dear sir, you are worthy to be ill."
John Bull having again called in the Tories, is "'• worthv to be ill; "
and very iil he will be.

The tenacity of life displayed by Bull is paralleled by a case
quoted by Le Vaillakt. That naturalist speaks of a turtle that
continued to live after its brain was taken from its skull, and the
cavity stuffed with cotton, is not England, with spinning-jenny
Peel at the head of its affairs, in this precise predicament? England
may live; but inactive, torpid; unfitted for all healthful exertion,—
deprived of its grandest functions—paralyzed in its noblest strength.
Wc have a Tory Cabinet, but where is the brain of statesmanship ?

Now, however, there are no Tories. Oh, no! .Sir Robert Peel
is a Conservative —Lysdhlust is a Conservative—all are Con-
servative. Toryism has sloughed its old skin, and rejoices in a
new coat of many colours ; but the sting remains—the venom is
the same; the reptile that would have struck to the heart the
freedom of Europe, elaborates the self-same poison, is endowed with
the same subtiitv, the same grovelling, tortuous action. It still
creeps upon its belly, and wriggles to its purpose. When adders
shall become eels, then will we believe that Conservatives cannot be
Tories.

When folks change their names—unless by the gracious per-
mission of the Gazette—they rarely do so to avoid the fame of
brilliant deeds. It is not the act of an over-sensitive modesty that |
induces Peter Wiggins to dub himself John Smith. Be certain of it, j
Peter has not saved half a boarding-school from the tremendous
fire that entirely destroyed " Ringworm House "—-Peter has not
dived into the Thames, and rescued some respectable attorney from
a death hitherto deemed by his friends impossible to him. It is I
from no such heroism that Peter IViggins is compelled to take
refuge in John Smith from the oppressive admiration of the worlu
about him. Certainly not. Depend upon it, Peter has been sig-
nalised in the Hue and Cry, as one endowed with a love for the
silver spoons of other men—as an individual who, abusing the
hospitality of his lodgings, has conveyed away and sold the best
goose feathers of his landlady. What then, with his name ripe
enough to drop from the tree of life, remains to Wiggins, but to
subside into Smith ? What hope was there for the well-known
swindler, the posted pickpocket, the callous-hearted, slug-brained
Ton; f None: he was hooted, pelted at; all men stopped the nose
at his approach. He was voted a nuisance, and turned forth into
the world, with all his vices, like ulcers, upon him. Well, Tory
adopts the inevitable policy of Wiggins; he changes his name! He
comes forth, curled and sweetened, and with a smile upon his
mealy face, and placing his felon, hand above the vacuum on the
left side of his bosom—declares, whilst the tears he weeps would
make a crocodile blush—that he is by r.o means the Tory his
wicked, heartless enemies would call him. Certainly not. His
name is—Conservative J There was once, to be sure, a Tory—in
existence ;

" But he is dead, and nailed in 11:s dies'- !

He is a creature e.vtinct, gone with the wolves annihilated by the
Saxon monarch. There may be the skeleton of the animal in some
rare collections in the kingdom ; but for the living creature, you shall
as soon find a phoenix building in the trees of Windsor Park, as a
7'ory kissing hands in Windsor Castle!

'Che lie is but gulped as a truth, ami Co-nscvxhvc is taken into '

service. Once more, he is the factotum to John Bull. But when
the knave shall have worn out his second name—when he shall
again be turned away—look to your feather-beds, oh, John! and
foolish, credulous, leathern-eared Mr. Bull—be sure and count vour
spoons!

Can it be supposed that the loss of office, that the ten years' hunger
for the loaves and fishes endured by the Tory partv, has disciplined
them into a wiser humanity ? Can it be believed that they have
arrived at a more comprehensive grasp of intellect—that they are
ennobled by a loftier consideration of the social rights of man—that
they are gifted with a more stirring sympathy for the wants that, in
the present iniquitous system of society, reduce him to little less than
pining idiotcy, or madden him to what the statutes call crime, and
what judges, sleek as their ermine, preach upon as rebellion to the
government—the government that, in fact, having stung starvatiou
into treason, takes to itself the loftiest praise for refusing the hang-
man—a task —for appeasing Jzistice with simple transportation ?

Already the Tories have declared themselves. In the flush of
anticipated success, Pkel at the Tamworth election denounced the
French Revolution that escorted Charles the Tenth—with his foolish
head still upon his shoulders—out of France, as the " triumph of
might over right." It was the right—the divine right of Charles—
(the sacred ampoule, yet dropping with the heavenly oil brought by the
mystic dove for Clovis, had bestowed the privilege)—to gag the
mouth of man ; to scourge a nation with decrees, begot by bigot
tyranny upon folly—to reduce a people into uncomplaining slavery.
Such was his right : and the burst of indignation, the irresistible
assertion of the native dignity of man, that shivered the throne of
Charles like glass, was a felonious might—a rebellious, treasonous
potency—the very wickedness of strength. Such is the opinion
of Conservative Peel ! Such the old Tory faith of the child of
Toryism !

Since the Tamworth speech—since the scourging of Sir Robert by the
Frerjch press—Peel has essayed a small philanthropic oration. He has
endeavoured to paint.—and certainly in the most delicate water-colours—
the horrors of war. The premier makes his speech to the nations with the
palm-branch in his hand—with the olive around his brow. He has applied
arithmetic to war, and finds it expensive. He would therefore induce
France to disarm, that by reductions at home he may not be compelled to
risk what would certainly jerk him out of the premiership—the imposition
of new taxes. He may then keep his Corn Laws—he may then securely
enjoy his sliding scale. Such are the hopes that dictate the intimation to
disarm. It is sweet to prevent war ; and, oh ! far sweeter still to keep out
the Wigs !

The Duke of Wellington, who is to be the moral force of the Tory
Cabinet, is a greit soldier ; and by the very greatness of his martial fame,
lias been enabled to carry certain political questions which, proposed by a
lesser genius, had been scouted by the party otherwise irresistibly com-
pelled to admit them. (Imagine, for instance, the Marquis of London-
derry handling Catholic Emancipation.) Nevertheless, should " The
follies of the Wise "—a chronicle much wanted—be ever collected for the
world, his Grace of Wellington will certainly shine as a conspicuous con-
tributor. In the name of famine, what could have induced his Grace to
insult the misery at this moment, eating the hearts of thousands of English-
men ? For, within these few days, the Victor of Waterloo expressed his
conviction that England was the only country in which '' the poor man, if
only sober and industrious, was quite certaix of acquiring a compe-
tency ! " And it is this man, imbued with this opinion, who is to be hailed
as the presiding wisdom—the great moral strength—the healing humanity
of the Tory Cabinet. If rags and starvation put up their prayer to the
present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered by the Duke of \\ el-
lingi-on ? " Ye are drunken and lazy ! "

If on the night of the '24 th of August—the memorable night on which
this heartless insult was thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands—
the ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws,—the spectres of the wretches
who had been ground out of life by the infamy of Tory taxation, could have
been permitted to lift the bed-curtains of Apsley-House,—his Grace the
Duke of Wellington would have been scared by even a greater majority
than ultimately awaits his fellowship in the present Cabinet. Still we can
only visit upon the Duke the censure of ignorance. " He knows not what
he says." If it be his belief that England suffers only because she is
drunken and idle, he knows no more of England than the Icelander in his
sledge : if, on the other hand, he used the libel as a party warfare, he is
still one of the " old set,"—and his " crowning carnage, Waterloo," with
all its greatness, is but a poor set-off against the more lasting iniquities
which he would visit upon his fellow-men. Anyhow, he cannot—he must
not—escape from his opinion ; we will nail him to it, as we would nail
a weasel to a barn-door ; " if Englishmen ivant comyetenct, they must be
drunken—they must Is idle." Gentlemen Tories, shuffle the cards »s you
will, the Duke of Wellington either lacks principle or brains.

Next week we will speak of the Whigs ; of th? good they have doao—0?
the good they have, with, au iiistiucC towards aristocracy—most foolishly
most traitorously, missed. Q.