be-nefit, abstained from laying it on, and in consideration of DAN's respectful attention to their desires, and rejects this Bill because it is penitence, permitted him to adjust his garments, and retire, with a hoped to give something fairer and better. severe warning. Vide Cartoon. Thursday. Last day before the Holidays. So Old RUSSELL (we use In the Lords, the MARQUIS OF TOWNSHEND proposed two out of about a dozen bills of his, framed for the most part in the interest of the adjective as schoolboys do, not irreverently) thought he would humanity. One was to protect the property of Lodgers who owe no about Irish land policy, and telling him he had better have minded that have a lark, and suddenly bonneted Old GRANVILLE, cheeking him rent, yet have their goods seized by a landlord, the other for punishing than bankruptcy and schools. Or, if you want to be serious, he accused brutal assaults on women and children. The former Bill was opposed the Government of having encouraged dangerous hopes, and held on technical and worthless grounds. Against the latter it was alleged them, by their silence, responsible for MR. BRIGHT's plans. that such assaults are becoming less frequent, and therefore new legislation is not needed. We should be glad to believe it. None of LORD He announced nothing. Government were not responsible for MR. LORD GRANVILLE had nothing to say but what he had said before. TOWNSHEND'S Bills will be carried, but none the less honour to a Christian nobleman who, in the House and out of it, defies the vulgar grin of those who call him "eccentric" because he believes that property has its duties. If he gambled away a magnificent ancestral estate, like one peer, debauched until he killed himself, like another, or ran away with his bosom friend's wife, like a third, he would not be laughed at, but only called "poor fellow!" Property has its Duties. But its Taxes, at least those on Real property, are light. At least so contended MR. FOWLER, and raised a debate of much prosiness. MR. LOWE said the question involved a problem which he could not solve then, but he promised that if an idea flashed upon him, the country should hear of it. So he merrily escaped the snare of the fowler. Apropos whereof, there was a quarrel over Scotch game again, and a one-sided Committee which MR. LOCH had compounded, but not to the satisfaction of other Scots. Evidently, Scot land is waking up on this game question, and when she really wakes she has a habit of not going to sleep again until the rousing matter has just been settled. County Financial Boards-do you want to know anything about them ? Punch supposes not. Do you remember Mr. Huggins, in HOOD's Epping Hunt, who, being run away with by his horse, thought that "He never saw a County go At such a County Rate." Wednesday. In the Lords-now, then, MM. Clever? The Lords don't sit on Wednesday. They don't, eh? Have you any other valuable information on the science of egg-sucking to impart to your grandmother? Perhaps the PRINCE OF WALES is not a member of the House of Lords, and perhaps the EARL OF PUNCH is not going to note, with satisfaction and delight, that this day the PRINCE and PRINCESS OF WALES returned to England, after months of absence in the East and elsewhere, lunched with HER MAJESTY, embraced their infants, who were brought up from Windsor, went with the QUEEN to the Royal Academy, drove in the Park, and attended a State Concert. Says BROWN to JONES, "You and I are temperate fellows, and moreover have cellars of our own. ROBINSON may be tempted to drink too much. Let us shut up all the public-houses. He has no cellar. Then he must be sober, and his wife and children will get his wages." So BROWN and JONES get SIR WILFRID LAWSON to ask Parliament to allow a majority of two-thirds to shut up the public-houses. Parliament is right. But, as MR. FORSTER Said, the Permissive Bill is demanded by "the aristocracy of the working classes," and though this plan for repressing drunkenness will not do, their wishes must be considered. There was a long debate. COLONEL JERVIS opposed an infringement of the rights of the subject. MR. O. MORGAN believed that some such special enactment would do much to put down drunkenness. MR. CAWLEY did not approve of this Bill, but would support any practicable project for reducing the number of public-houses. To MR. BAZLEY, who had stooped to repeat the silly slang about "not making men moral by Act of Parliament," MR. FORSTER said, "No, but you may diminish their temptations." Punch hoped that slang was extinct, but it is too foolish not to live long-idiots do, and so do shallow phrases. LORD SANDON believed that the working classes were reforming themselves. MR. WALTER dwelt on the evils of gin-drinking, which was worse than beer-drinking. MR. JACOB BRIGHT supported the Bill, but hoped there would be a sharp and general interference with the liquor traffic. He would legislate in the style in which they had dealt with the Irish Church. The HOME SECRETARY spoke most sensibly and satisfactorily. The present system must be considerably changed. But education was the chief remedy. The upper classes were sober, because they had mental resources. But the class whose only enjoyments were sensual, instinctively drank. Repressive measures must, however, be adopted, and hitherto no Government had been strong enough to carry a valuable measure, because representatives were afraid of certain influences. Now that the franchise was widely spread, those influences would greatly diminish. [Bungo, "mine host," how do you like that?] It was the honest intention of the Government to deal with the question next Session, and meet the wishes of the people, without interfering with innocent enjoyment. So the Permissive Bill was rejected by 193 to 87, and next year look out for BRUCE's Permits. Punch points out to the superior class of artisans that Parliament, which legislates for all, has nevertheless given BRIGHT's views, but these had nothing in them opposed to the rights of property. LORD DERBY said that the Irish had been led to believe that no more rent was to be paid after 1870. He drew a pleasing parallel between There was no disturbance in the Commons. The General Omnibus Company having failed to defeat the Tramways in Committee, tried to But the Bicycle Brought me a Billet from BOB." the Third Reading for the 31st, and after some Budget details, not THE ZERO OF FRAUD. Is it come to this? Under the head of "Notices of Motions," in a programme of "Parliamentary Business" recently printed, there was the following entry : "LORD ELCHO.-To call attention to the adulteration of manures; and to move that, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that the attention of the Board of Trade should be directed to this subject." Has commercial rascality descended even to the adulteration of manures? Why this is worse than TENNYSON'S conception of the pharmaceutical rogue "pestling a poisoned poison." It is the lowest conceivable depth of dirty dishonesty. British mercantile morality must indeed be at a low ebb if LORD ELCHO has reason for bringing the adulteration of manure itself before the House of Commons. What will Parliament do to prevent it? We can imagine what the Collective Wisdom of our ancestors would have done. It would have doomed the debaser of manure to stand in the pillory, and be pelted with his own wares-purified. SOLILOQUY BY A SOT. No SHWILFRID LAWSON, no! Sh' House 'fuses you permission An' every shober man in sh' 'bitual sot's position, Ash t' how mush liquorsh more shan 'sh goo' for zsheir nutrition, AGRICULTURAL FROLICS IN FRANCE. THERE's a Cathadral at o' the Itchun. But when you larns, if you needs to larn, and dwoant know already, as how that sart of a trial o' skill was witnessed by the tother venerable buildun, I expect you'll say them French fellers be a gettun on. That's another leaf they've taken out of our book; fust they took to hoss-racun and le sport, and now they be a imitatun our manners and customs in the farmerun way. Fur twusn't only a ploughun match as was perfarmed at Chartres, but that there perfarmance came to pass in the coorse of a agricultural meetun, and the Times says them gatheruns is becummun as common in France as they be this here side o' the Channle. Fur the credit o' JOHN BULL, howsomedever, you'll be plazed to know that the fust prize, a goold meddle and 200 franks, was carried off by an Englishman, sent over by MESSRS. HOWARD, of Bedford. I wish 't had been Hamshire. But no matter fur that. Old England fur ever! I'll own its grativyun to zee that the French be beginnun to lower a little that there terreeable consate o' theirn, and to find out who's their masters in some things at any rate, and whilst they brags about leadun the van o' civilization, that they bain't above bein' show'd who drives the plough. There's one pint wherein I be curus to know if the French be gwaiun to foller we at their agricultral meetuns, and that is as to prizes. I wonder if the Moosoo 'squires and farmers 'ool gie any for good conduct and length o' sarvus; persent a carter, fur instance, by way o' reward for bringun up a famaly of a dozen childern without help o' charutty wi a napoleon-and a pair o' cordroys. Praps instead o' the cordroys they'll award un a cross o' the Legion of Honner, which 'll be zummut more greashus, and arnamental for un, if not so useful. I be, &c., JACOB HOMEGREEN. P.S. I dwoan't know, though, about the twelve childern. I fancies the French bain't much inclined to incurridge merit in that line. Well, they han't got no colonies-that herearter zome o' these days ool break away vrom 'un and then zeek occasion to plunder 'un and cut their drooats. Zo much for your increasun poplation of the Anglo-Zaxon reass. AN ADDITION TO THE DAIRY. JOHN THOMAS AT ELYSIUM. And figure in the Park of Hyde, The foot-board whilst I treads be'ind. My hi ow 'appy they must be! Ow rich, them raptured looks to wear! Thinks I-and seems their bliss to share. Which 'tis a gladness to beold, When meddows glows with green and gold. Whose hindependence is secure; As is genteel, well-paid, and sure. Of ruin aunts his noble breast. Ence, hall you hugly slaves of toil, Though what makes countenances fine? Of five good meals a day, and plush, Down fawthought, drive paw drudges mad! I won't look like a carewawn Cad, I may, with fascinatin' hi, Some hairess catch in yonda scene; JOHN THOMAS keep your brow serene. ESCALADE OF THE SHANNON. A RECENT list of Parliamentary notices included the announcement of a question to be put to the CHIEF SECRETHE British Medical Journal publishes an analysis of sow's milk by PROFESSOR TARY FOR IRELAND by MR. ORMSBY GORE, respecting the CAMERON, of Dublin, showing that it contains 18 20 parts of solid matter per cent., Government's promised construction of salmon ladders on This question suggests another whereas in the milk of the cow there are only about twelve. Amongst the consti the River Shannon. tuents of the former fluid the quantity of lactin, or sugar of milk, as stated by the inquiry which does not, however, appear to have occurred Professor, very nearly approaches the average proportion existing in the natural to MR. GORE, or any other Honourable Member whose diet of babies. In fats his table exhibits sow's milk as nearly twice, in casein and attention he may have called to the subject of salmon other nitrogenous matters as almost four times as abundant as the other. Its ex- ladders. When the salmon scale the ladders, do the ladders cessive richness would therefore perhaps be considered by the Faculty to dis-scale the salmon? There is the rub, so to speak; and we qualify its producer for the situation of wet-nurse, for which her aptitude might pause for a reply. seem to be suggested by the largeness of the saccharine element in her milk, as also by the advantage that its formation requires no stout, which, together with loads of other "nourishing things," is usually consumed in vast quantity by the ordinary substitute supplying maternal attention. There is no foundation whatever for the proverbial comparison which implies that excess in intoxicating liquor is a besetting infirmity of that female pachyderm to whose parental care, and lactescent qualities, we are indebted for sucking-pig. Parliamentary Intelligence. THE House of Commons, in addition to its permanent inmates, has now got a GUEST in the person of the new Member for Youghal. We hope a Welcome Guest, A GOOD SITE FOR A HOSPITAL.-Healing. Debates at the Fingers' Ends. Nor every reader of Punch may be aware that there exists a Society called the Deaf and Dumb Debating Club, otherwise the "WALLIS Club." "This organisation," says the Post," has just terminated its third session in the usual English fashion by a dinner." During its last term it has had nine debates on various subjects, political, social, and scientific. One question which the Deaf and Dumb Debating Club might have opportunely discussed at the dinner with which its meetings concluded, is whether a dumb waiter is not as good as a deaf one. "LIGHT DUES."-Photographers' Charges. The Lancet must be wrong. The head of the Board of Works is called LAYARD. His antecedents have shown that if he cares for architecture much, he cares for the British soldier more. We call upon him from his place in Parliament to contradict the slanders of the Lancet, and to assure us that if he has shut up one window in the Sergeants' room at Buckingham Palace, it is only that he may open two. We were not aware, till so informed by the Lancet, that the architecture of Buckingham Palace could be spoiled. But if the Board of Works considers that such a feat is possible, we are sure it will not be done by opening a window in the dog-hole known as the Sergeants' room; and that the most æsthetic passer-by will gladly compound for the irregular opening, when it is understood to be the only provision for light and air in a room occupied by the non-commissioned officers in authority over soldiers who keep watch against the intrusion of possible boy Joneses into the Palace of the Sovereign. THE STOLEN LADDER; OR, HOW WILL THEY GET DOWN AGAIN! LOOK OUT, LAYARD! A PRETTY SIGHT IN PARIS. AFTER all it seems that there is still some good taste extant in the drawing-rooms of Paris, although, from what the fashion-books and newspapers have told us, we may perhaps have doubted if such could be the case. Mais voilà la preuve : "Some young ladies of the élite of Parisian society have obtained at the last fêtes a real success, by showing themselves with their hair simply braided." Hair "simply braided" is indeed to our mind simply charming, and we wonder how young ladies who have prettily-shaped heads can disfigure them with chignons and similar excrescences. A girl who simply braids her hair and wears nothing on her head but that which Nature has implanted there, will please the eye not only of the lover of the beautiful, but in like degree of the admirer of the sensible. A pleasant sight she likewise will present to the phrenologist, who in these days of monstrous feminine hirsuteness can rarely get the chance of a sight of a girl's head; so much false hair is heaped upon it. A simple glance would be sufficient, where the hair was simply braided, to show which bumps, or organs, appeared the most developed. Those of modesty and candour would be prominent, no doubt: while those of vanity and folly would be reduced to cavities. A man who wants to marry should look out for a girl whose hair is simply braided, for he then could form some notion of her cerebral qualities, before it was too late to escape being their victim. The Gravity of a Flea. By an ingenious little instrument which is called a pulexometer, it has been found that the strength of the Pulex irritans, or doinsani-mestic flea, is "equal to eight hundred times its specific gravity." Without in the least questioning the truth of this scientific statement, we may be allowed to say that it really seems a joke to talk about a flea's "specific gravity." As if any one could specify the gravity of a flea! One might as well attempt to chronicle the humour of a cockchafer, as pretend to specify the gravity of a flea. THE Lancet some time ago called attention, not before it was needed, to the wretchedly tary state of the Guard-room at Buckingham Palace, where, in the Sergeants' room more particularly, the arrangements for slow poisoning by foul air were carried to a pitch of perfection hardly attained, much more surpassed, in any of our many highly pestiferous barrack quarters. The Lancet's ventilation of this abomination, we were glad to hear, was like to lead to the ventilation of this dog-hole. Proposals were submitted in the Estimates for new windows to give light and air, new Galton's stoves, a plentiful introduction of ventilators, and a new cooking apparatus. The Treasury had approved. Parliament had sanctioned. The improvements were nearly completed, under the authority of the War Office, which has control of the inside of the Guardroom. But the outside, unluckily, is under the Board of Works. And the Board of Works, on the plea that the new windows were an architectural disfigurement, has given, so says the Lancet, peremptory orders to the War Office to put things "as they were." O'SULLIVAN TO WIT.-The best way to dispose of a Bottle of Smoke-Un-Cork it. THE BLOCK FOR TRAITORS. MASTER O'SULLIVAN CORK. "PLEASE, SIR, I DIDN'T MEAN WHAT I SAID, SIR; AND I DIDN'T SAY WHAT I MEANT, SIR. BOO-HOO-BOO-HOO-00!" HEAD MASTER. "O, YOU DIDN'T, DIDN'T YOU? WELL, I WON'T FLOG THIS TIME, BUT IF YOU'RE UP TO ANY MORE TRICKS, YOU'LL CATCH IT. YOU MAY GO." |