GREAT BOON TO OUR HOUSEHOLD GUARDS. MR. BULL. "I NEVER DOUBTED YOUR BRAVERY, MY STRONG FRIEND: WHAT I WANT IS MORE BRAINS; SO, TO ENCOURAGE THEM, I'LL GIVE YOU A WHOLE SHILLING A WEEK MORE!!!" [N.B. This is the English of "Important Concessions in point of pay to the Metropolitan Police."-See Morning Papers. The Times draws a comparison between the comedy of Gibraltar and the recent tragedy in Greece. Where," it asks, "is the keystone of the difference between the cases P It admits that much credit is due to the tact and energy of MR. LAYARD, but the essential distinction is in "the promptitude of the Spanish Government." agreed to take. Until they had clutched the treasure in the streets of Cadiz, and were well on their way back to their haunts with their money in their bags, no sign of force was made. Then, in a moment retribution fell on the guilty band, and they were nearly all slain, while a portion of the price of their villainy was recovered." "A portion?" Yes, £700, out of £5000. Again we ask, where is the rest of the money? It seems that ŞIR RICHARD AIREY advanced the amount to MR. BONELL Senior out of the military chest at Gibraltar. Let us hope, when our Government tries to get the money back from the Spanish it won't find its claim "an airy nothing." Possibly the BONELLS may be made to pay up. But the least probable solution, of all probable solutions, we will answer for it, is the one suggested the Times :— "We imagine that SIR RICHARD AIREY will demand the repayment of his loan from MR. LAYARD, and that MR. LAYARD will not be slow in recovering it from the Foreign Office at Madrid." Punch has the greatest respect for MR. LAYARD, and a large faith in his power of dealing with uncivilised Governments, but we fear, it will be beyond even MR. LAYARD'S power, to make a Spanish Government stump up to the tune of £5000-witness the Tornado case. A Spanish Government can bully-can bluster-can lie-can cheat, with or without forms of law-above all, it can rob-even its own robbers. But one thing it won't do-whether it can or no-and that is pay its debts, above all to Englishmen. It acts upon, whether or not it avows, the patriotic reason, that it can't bear handing over the Spanish" to English hands. "In Greece, and especially in the Greek Foreign Office, we found nothing but vacillation at a period of the negotiations when firmness was required, and nothing but obstinacy when a temporising and conciliatory policy should have been pursued. In Spain it was quite otherwise. The brigands were tracked and watched from a distance. Their proceedings ASTRONOMERS are the Sun's "good-natured friends." were every one of them observed and known, without their being aware of the fact. They They are never tired of talking about him, and pointing were encouraged by negotiation to demand and even to grasp the ransom which they had out his black spots. THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL. EES, wonderful weather we've had as you zay, Wuss weather for farmun there hardly could be, There's farmun and farmun; some farmers there's, too, They pinches the most they can out o' their keep, But we British farmers med truly declare And now I can't tell 'ee how thankful I feels O' this here new Bill for to gie their minds meals, This here pocket into I'll put this here hand, Le Sport. A COCKNEY sportsman, wishing to introduce hare-hunting into France, is seriously meditating a work on the subject, to be entitled, Arrière-pensées; or, Thoughts on Keeping 'Ariers. His nom de plume will be Le petit Jean du Jockey-Club. SLEEP-DRIVING. Two poor diables of Essex carters were fined, the other day, for being asleep on their carts on the Bow Road. The defence of the unhappy drivers deserves attention. It seems these men have no regular hours for sleep allowed them by their masters. In the day they work in the market-garden, or on the farm: at night they have to drive their carts up to London with the produce, and back. The only sleep they get, according to their own account, from Monday morning to Sunday night, is in the litter of the stable, or atop of the loads in their carts, or the manure they carry back in them. How comes it that men submit to such conditions? Are the Essex clodhoppers really so much duller than their neighbours, as to give two days' work for one day's wages? Or, are the relations of labour and capital so distorted, that the master can really, in this case as in that of the London bakers, impose any hours and conditions of toil he pleases, on the poor wretches whom he employs ? The case is worth looking into. We recommend it to MR. TREMENHEERE, who is always inquiring and making blue-books about somebody or something or other that is out of joint. Sleep-walking only harms the somnambulist. But sleep-driving is apt to endanger the lives and limbs of passengers. We can't have the population of Bow run over; but it seems hard to lay the carters of Essex under hours of labour which make it impossible for them to keep their eyes open. We recommend the East-End Magistrates, if the law allows them, to let off the men, and to bleed, instead, those Essex calves, their masters. Mrs. Ramsbotham on Laws. A GENTLEMAN of republican tendencies observed to MRS. RAMSBOTHAM that in England there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. "Of course there is," returned MRS. RAMSBOTHAM, who has been lately reading history," there's the Poor Law, and the Sumptuary Law; and quite right too." GRINNING AND BEARING IT. "WE all owe something to our country," said the Briton who went abroad without having paid his Income-tax. NEW DIVISION OF TIME." The Rest of the Week." Sunday. Little Girl (at South Kensington). "OH, DO LOOK, MISS SKIMBLE ! THERE'S A FUNNY THING!!" Governess. "MY DEAR, HOW OFTEN HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO USE THAT WORD HERE. GOVERNMENT OBJECT TO IT. YOU SHOULD SAY 'CURIOUS' OR 'REMARKABLE.' RECOLLECT THAT!!" ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. LEARNED MR. PUNCH, As a social philosopher I am much struck by this description of a pair of foreign birds, lately added to the charming Gardens of the Zoological Society : "The male has a strong, short, curved beak; the female, a much longer bill. The naturalists tell us that the male breaks open the bark of the tree, within which lies hid the grub on which they feed; and the female pulls out the worm and presents her mate with half the meal." In watching featherless bipeds, I have noticed some with habits hardly differing from those ascribed to these two birds. Little ducks have, to my knowledge, been found with a much longer bill (for articles of finery) than that which has been given to their gander of a husband; and, though a little duck of the kind may daily share her grub with him, it is first of all on the effort of the male that she depends for her support. I would recommend your scientific readers to pursue the analogy by paying an early visit to this interesting couple. I believe it will be found to be considerably more interesting than many interesting couples they may elsewhere meet. Yours obediently, OBADIAH CROWSFOOT. The Rookery, Tuesday. HYDE PARK IN ECLIPSE. WHAT ails Hyde Park ? 'Tis not as 'twas of yore, The concourse is less dense, the show less gay; A change, O Ring, thy splendour has come o'er : And Rotten Row shows symptoms of decay. Do Rank and Fashion, like to Capital Timid, and touchy as the plant which feels, Shrink from a spot, the now habitual Resort of threatening mobs convoked by BEALES? Or can it, as Hope whispers it may be, But for awhile their sun disdains to shine, Where Chaos reigns, in seedy majesty, O'er the bare bed of the dry Serpentine ? Would it not be a graceful bit of fun If, during the work's progress, for a lark, The happier classes, till the job be done, With their calm smiles would bless Victoria Park ? Aurora was in high spirits, amusing herself with a whip. "What are you doing, child?" asked deorum pater, good-humouredly. He was always 'good-humoured when in his dressing-gown and slippers; he had just soaked a petit pain in chocolate. "Spinning the top of the morning,' answered the goddess, archly. She had recently visited Ireland, and had brought away with her the slightest brogue in the world. "To the Styx wid the brogue,' she retorted on the Son of Ops remarking her accent--'Don't you see I wear sandals?' "Jupiter. ... but at this moment Juno entered, and Mercury followed with the morning paper." A PROVERB OF NO VALUE "MAKE Hay while the Sun Shines." Can't. ANOTHER HAPPY THOUGHT. SCENE-Mr. Punch's Library. Beshrew me!" answered the elder, archly, ""twould be better an 'twere recorded." [And they went by the next train. PEERS PECKING AT PEERS. Law Lords always had a tendency to pull each other's Bills to pieces. EARL GRANVILLE, the other day, had occasion to remark that the Doves bill and coo; but a different sort of billing is natural to birds of prey. Anathema Sit, 75 Anchovies and Capers, 30 Archiepiscopal Grammar, 123 At the Academy-Perplexed, 191 Awful Mallard ! (An), 103 Awful Menace, 188 Awkward Name (An), 13 BABOO Keshub Chunder Sen, 155 Ballad for Dawson Burns (A), 127 Barrel of Barrels (A), 155 Beadles at Brussels (The), 64 Better Day, Better Deed, 81 Betting Blackguard's Ballad (The), 169 Bishops to Make! Bishops to Mend! 14 Blessing on an Old Broome (A), 46 British Blessing for India (A), 195 'Bus-Driving and its Critics, 36 CAB of the Future (The), 160 Chadian Volunteers' Song (The), 234 Candidates for the Carnificate, 71 Capital Investment (A), 93 Charity of the Stage (The), 269 Check upon the Trade Cheats (A), 44 Fall of Hausmann (The), 21 Farewell to the New Forest, 171 Christmas Keeping and Christmas Break- Fears of Female Emancipation, ing, 2 Church Artillery, 146 Few Predictions (A), 188 157 Fearful Rite at Rome (A), 137 Fenian's Quick March from Canada, 241 Clergyman who Keeps a Conscience (A), 7 Fenians' Raging Fury (The), 100 Coercion for the Ladies, 149 Collarado, 200 Collegiate Charity (A), 103 Columbus in the Calendar, 227 Comfort for the Lowly, 169 Coming Legislation, 94 Competition for a Crown, 34 Competitive Cabmen, 85 Converted Revolvers, 158 Constabulary Destitution, 200 Coronation in France, 128 Corporeal Enlightenment, 127 Corrected Edition of the Hon. Hamilton Cramming at Home and at School, 3 Cry of the Commoners (The), 168 Fine Times for Madame Tussaud, 220 First Night and other Dramatic Criticisms, 143 Fish Nipped in the Spawn, 143 Flunkeyisms in Excelsis, 149 Found at Richmond, 29 Fountain of Honour in France, 176 Historical Manuscripts' Commission, 144 Hyde Park in Eclipse, 258 Important Cabinet Revelation, 22 Io Paan! 147 Irish Treasonmonger to Himself (The), 135 Is Tight-Lacing Injurious? 185 Jovial" Reading" Party (A), 209 Justice Holding her Own, 124 KING Maw or Another, 189 LACONIC Reform in Parliament, 168 La Mode and La Misère, 77 "Fourth R" Question Composed (The)," Leap of Quintus Curtius " (The), 188 145 Learning for Ladies, 96 Getting Butter out of a Dog's Mouth, 257 Long Step in the Right Road (A), 76 Give a Dog, &c., 148 Give him a Stone, 196 EARTH hath Bubbles as the Water has Gladstone at the Derby, 233 (The), 171 Echo Ecumenicalis, 113 Effects of the Irish Land Bill, 78 Card Delivery Company Wanted (A), 187 Example to Greece (An), 249 Cat and the Council (The), 61 Chant to the Council (A), 65 Charity and Cookery, 42 Charity for Girls of Fashion (A), 211 Experiment on John Bull (An), 250 FAITES Votre jeu-Le jeu est fait ! 157 Good News for Bad Travellers, 53 Gracious Evans, and a Charming Dick Whittington (A), 27 Grave of Charles Dickens (The), 253 Great Anglo-Gallic Amalgamation Company (The), 19 Great Meeting in the City, 167 High, Low, Broad, or Narrow? 208 Look at the Clock, 86 Lords and Commons, 198 Mediumship, Home and Foreign, 149 |