THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID.
Genial Host (meaning to plead for poor Jenkins, who has complained that he can’t find a Partner). “Let me introduce Mr. Jenkins to you, Miss Jones. I’m sure your Card can’t be full ! ’’
THE IRISH SOCIETY.
The Honourable the Irish Society of the City of London, seems’to he a very fine specimen of an Institution, that having done a good amount of work in its time is now rather worse than useless.
Founded some 280 years ago to restore the County of Londonderry from the state of desolation and misery to which it had been reduced by Civil War, they appear to have set to work with hearty good will, and to have thoroughly accomplished the somewhat difficult task set before them.
But, having done all they were created to do, they seem to have dawdled on for some years past, coddling up the prosperous Citjr of Londonderry, and the thriving Town of Coleraine, as if they still needed in their mature manhood, the same kind of nutriment and grandmotherly nursing that was so necessary to them in the days of their adversity.
Fancy subsidising the Mayor and Corporation of Londonderry with a few hundreds a year towards their expenses, poor fellows, as if they could not afford to pay for their own Turtle Soup, especially as Conger Eels are so plentiful in their neighbourhood, and subscribing five pounds to this School, and four pounds to that Boat Club and three pounds to a flower show, and eighteen pence a week to two or three poor widows, and of course finding it absolutely necessary that some 20 or 30 of their number should go all the way to Londonderry every year to distribute these and similar miserable doles,
and thereby pauperising the whole community by relieving them from the duties incident to their prosperity.
_ To such a pitch of degradation was the Corporation at one time reduced by this miserable and contemptuous treatment, that it is stated by the Governor of the Sooiety, that they actually pawned their Mace, and the Irish Society were silly enough to redeem it for them! However, a better spirit seems to be coming over them :
and if they go heartily and thoroughly into the new scheme that is being submitted to them, Mr. Punch, with his accustomed generosity, will condone the past, and look hopefully to the future.
It appears that some £5000 of their annual income is derived from their Salmon Fisheries: and, by one of those “ Happy Thoughts,” for whioh Mr. Punch is so
celebrated, but which he disdains to monopolise, it is proposed to dedicate that amount annually to developing the fisheries on the South and West Coasts of Ireland.
It is said by those best qualified to know, that at Baltimore, and off the neighbouring island of Cape Clear, fish swarm in almost incredible quantities. Hundreds of vessels from numberless parts of Europe visit the coast every year to reap the golden harvest. The poor Irish labourers, who exist on the produce of their little patches of land, are unable to share in it for want of boats.
A few have been supplied by the kindly help of a gracious Lady, whose very name breathes of charity, and supplied in so careful and so wise a way, as to take from the welcome help any taint of degradation. The money is lent for ten years,
without interest, repayable by instalments of onetenth per annum. So one man so assisted has ever failed to pay his amount when due, and, Cape Clear, which a very few years ago was a nest of paupers, is now inhabited by a population of prosperous and happy and contented people. Not only are they better educated, better clad, and better fed, but such a change has come over their habits as makes them altogether a different race of people.
Well now, Gentlemen of the Irish Society, you have such an opportunity of condoning past offences as comes hut seldom to public men who have wasted, if not abused, the trust confided to them.
Your predecessors nobly performed the difficult and important task committed to them. You succeed to their goodly heritage without their grave responsibilities. Show yourselves worthy of your name—the Honourable the Irish Society.
It is not honourable to waste trust-funds in absurdity or extravagance.
It is honourable, most honourable, to assist in a noble work which, while increasing the supply of wholesome and delicious food for the hungry poor of London, will at the same time enable thousands of poor Irishmen to raise themselves from the degraded state of poverty and misery in which the people of Cape Clear existed a few years ago, to the comparative comfort and contentment they now enjoy.
May this Honourable Society prove itself worthy of. its appellation, and by so doing reap a rich reward in the blessings of those they will have benefited!
THE COMING MAN!
Thf. School Board Boy. who, according to the Times report, gave this as an answer in examination
“ Magna Charts was ordered by the King to be beheaded. He fled to Italy, but was captured and executed ”—
ought to have received a special prize. He is clearly a Genius ; for genius is above history, and above all rules. Is this a youthful Milton, a coming Shakspeahe, or the greatest ltomancer that England has ever seenf We shall watch his career (if wo ’ve time and opportunity) with deep interest. He is a Genius; and being so, what an awfully school-bored Boy he must be !
Sentimental Music-Halls.
TnE Coffee Music-Halls Association aro paving the New Cut, Lambeth, with good intentions. Like most well-meaning people who go into a p
eculiar business they know nothing about, they have sunk the greater part of their capital. They ask for more, and propose to carry on the Coffee Music-Hall without any Music-Hall features. If the “Vic” is to become a Temperance Lecture- Boom, it would be as well to say so at once. Lam
beth has already a Music-Hall where better coffee and no spirits are sold, and where a more popular entertainment is given to a working-class audience. It is not managed by a Committee.
Genial Host (meaning to plead for poor Jenkins, who has complained that he can’t find a Partner). “Let me introduce Mr. Jenkins to you, Miss Jones. I’m sure your Card can’t be full ! ’’
THE IRISH SOCIETY.
The Honourable the Irish Society of the City of London, seems’to he a very fine specimen of an Institution, that having done a good amount of work in its time is now rather worse than useless.
Founded some 280 years ago to restore the County of Londonderry from the state of desolation and misery to which it had been reduced by Civil War, they appear to have set to work with hearty good will, and to have thoroughly accomplished the somewhat difficult task set before them.
But, having done all they were created to do, they seem to have dawdled on for some years past, coddling up the prosperous Citjr of Londonderry, and the thriving Town of Coleraine, as if they still needed in their mature manhood, the same kind of nutriment and grandmotherly nursing that was so necessary to them in the days of their adversity.
Fancy subsidising the Mayor and Corporation of Londonderry with a few hundreds a year towards their expenses, poor fellows, as if they could not afford to pay for their own Turtle Soup, especially as Conger Eels are so plentiful in their neighbourhood, and subscribing five pounds to this School, and four pounds to that Boat Club and three pounds to a flower show, and eighteen pence a week to two or three poor widows, and of course finding it absolutely necessary that some 20 or 30 of their number should go all the way to Londonderry every year to distribute these and similar miserable doles,
and thereby pauperising the whole community by relieving them from the duties incident to their prosperity.
_ To such a pitch of degradation was the Corporation at one time reduced by this miserable and contemptuous treatment, that it is stated by the Governor of the Sooiety, that they actually pawned their Mace, and the Irish Society were silly enough to redeem it for them! However, a better spirit seems to be coming over them :
and if they go heartily and thoroughly into the new scheme that is being submitted to them, Mr. Punch, with his accustomed generosity, will condone the past, and look hopefully to the future.
It appears that some £5000 of their annual income is derived from their Salmon Fisheries: and, by one of those “ Happy Thoughts,” for whioh Mr. Punch is so
celebrated, but which he disdains to monopolise, it is proposed to dedicate that amount annually to developing the fisheries on the South and West Coasts of Ireland.
It is said by those best qualified to know, that at Baltimore, and off the neighbouring island of Cape Clear, fish swarm in almost incredible quantities. Hundreds of vessels from numberless parts of Europe visit the coast every year to reap the golden harvest. The poor Irish labourers, who exist on the produce of their little patches of land, are unable to share in it for want of boats.
A few have been supplied by the kindly help of a gracious Lady, whose very name breathes of charity, and supplied in so careful and so wise a way, as to take from the welcome help any taint of degradation. The money is lent for ten years,
without interest, repayable by instalments of onetenth per annum. So one man so assisted has ever failed to pay his amount when due, and, Cape Clear, which a very few years ago was a nest of paupers, is now inhabited by a population of prosperous and happy and contented people. Not only are they better educated, better clad, and better fed, but such a change has come over their habits as makes them altogether a different race of people.
Well now, Gentlemen of the Irish Society, you have such an opportunity of condoning past offences as comes hut seldom to public men who have wasted, if not abused, the trust confided to them.
Your predecessors nobly performed the difficult and important task committed to them. You succeed to their goodly heritage without their grave responsibilities. Show yourselves worthy of your name—the Honourable the Irish Society.
It is not honourable to waste trust-funds in absurdity or extravagance.
It is honourable, most honourable, to assist in a noble work which, while increasing the supply of wholesome and delicious food for the hungry poor of London, will at the same time enable thousands of poor Irishmen to raise themselves from the degraded state of poverty and misery in which the people of Cape Clear existed a few years ago, to the comparative comfort and contentment they now enjoy.
May this Honourable Society prove itself worthy of. its appellation, and by so doing reap a rich reward in the blessings of those they will have benefited!
THE COMING MAN!
Thf. School Board Boy. who, according to the Times report, gave this as an answer in examination
“ Magna Charts was ordered by the King to be beheaded. He fled to Italy, but was captured and executed ”—
ought to have received a special prize. He is clearly a Genius ; for genius is above history, and above all rules. Is this a youthful Milton, a coming Shakspeahe, or the greatest ltomancer that England has ever seenf We shall watch his career (if wo ’ve time and opportunity) with deep interest. He is a Genius; and being so, what an awfully school-bored Boy he must be !
Sentimental Music-Halls.
TnE Coffee Music-Halls Association aro paving the New Cut, Lambeth, with good intentions. Like most well-meaning people who go into a p
eculiar business they know nothing about, they have sunk the greater part of their capital. They ask for more, and propose to carry on the Coffee Music-Hall without any Music-Hall features. If the “Vic” is to become a Temperance Lecture- Boom, it would be as well to say so at once. Lam
beth has already a Music-Hall where better coffee and no spirits are sold, and where a more popular entertainment is given to a working-class audience. It is not managed by a Committee.