MELBOURNE PUNCH TO DOCTOR PERRY PROTESTANT BISHOP OF MELBOURNE. Y LORD,- When an ignorant and loose-tongued ruffian drags into conversation the name of the Supreme Being to emphasize an oath, or to strengthen an impre. cation, you rebuke him for his blasphemy, and shudder to hear a sacred appellation associated with an infamous malediction. Good! I participate in the feeling which impels your Lordship to reprobate such foul-mouthed profanity. But, when a Bishop of the English Church has the temerity, not only to make a light and irreverent use of the Holiest name in the Universe, but to profess his cognizance of the secretest counsels of the Supreme Being, what rebuke sufficiently severe can be administered to the episcopal delinquent? I have just read in the Herald of the 4th instant an extract from the Argus of the 7th ult. It is a portion of a speech (which escaped my attention at the time) delivered by you in the Synod. According to this report, you expressed yourself as follows, in reference to the death of Sir William Molesworth, regarded as the providential removal of an insuperable impediment to the passing of a certain Act in the Imperial Parliament : "You will all remember the circumstance of the introduction of that bill, and of its passing by the Assembly, and I have on a recent occasion on my return from England, at a public meeting, explained to you the difficulties which attended my endeavours to obtain the Queen's assent to it in England, so that I need not enter into them at length again. There were, however, ONE OR TWO VERY REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, indicating, as I trust I may say, the goodness of the Lord our God towards us. The bill was submitted in the ordinary course to the law officers of the Crown, for their opinion, and some time elapsed before the opinion was officially given. In the interval some of them held communication with the then Secretary for the Colonies, Lord John Russell, and I was privately Lord John informed that there was no chance of the bill being assented to. Russell shortly afterwards resigned, and was succeeded by Sir Wm. Molesworth, so that all his purposes respecting the Church in the colonies were abandoned. After a short interval the opinion of the law officers of the Crown was given. It was unfavourable to the bill; and Sir William Molesworth, without inquiring more particularly into the subject, expressed to me his regret that he could not recommend it to her Majesty for her approval. As I mentioned at the public meeting already alluded to, he wrote a despatch to Sir Charles Hotham, stating that he could not advise her Majesty to assent to the bill. IT IS A MOST REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCE THAT THAT DESPATCH WAS NEVER SIGNED; AND SHORTLY AFTERWARDS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH DIED, and was succeeded by Mr Labouchere, when the matter again came before her Majesty's government." Now, my lord, what is the plain English of all this? Does it mean anything more or less than that the death of Sir William Molesworth was the result of a direct interposition of Providence, having for its object the removal of an evil adviser from the Cabinet Councils of the Queen of England, thereby facilitating the enactment of a measure believed to be advantageous to the interests of the Church of which you are a spiritual ruler? I am a professional jester, my lord, but, like the banished Duke in Arden "I have with holy bell been knoll'd to church." And have lost no jot of my strong reverence for things sacred and divine; and, therefore, when I read the foregoing pa-sage in your speech, I was shocked and staggered by its audacious impiety. Framed out of the same dust of which we are all composed, and subject to the infirmities of judgment and errors of belief, from which none of us are exempt, how is it that you, my lord, dare to offer so presumptuous an interpretation of the motives which influence Infinite Wisdom in shaping its inscrutable decrees? What warrant have you for the attempt-what excuse for the act? Sir William Mclesworth "could not recommend" a certain bill to the approval of her Majesty, and "he wrote a despatch to Sir Charles Hotham" to that effect. "It is a most remarkable circumstance," " you pointedly observe, "that that despatch was never signed; and that shortly afterwards Sir William Molesworth died;" and therein you discern an indication of the "goodness" of the Supreme Being, and ejaculate Laus Deo, just as usurers were formerly wont to inscribe those words on the first leaf of their ledgers. A great scholar, a conscientious statesman, and an estimable man was struck down by the hand of death. The nation deplored his loss, and all who knew him hold his memory dear; but even those who most lamented his decease never thought of challenging Providence to show cause why so valuable a member of the human family was prematurely removed from the sphere of his beneficent labours. You, however, my lord, "rush in where angels fear to tread ;" and having, as you believe, penetrated the arcana of Heaven's most awful mysteries, instruct us to infer, with thankfulness, that death was the dread agency employed to inhibit Sir William Molesworth from attaching his signature to a certain document; and that for this "remarkable" interposition on the part of the Most High, all good churchmen should be devoutly grateful! Irreverence and profanity in the ignorant and unbelieving are deplorable enough; but they are doubly deplorable in a scholar and a divine. Avoid them, my lord, and cultivate in their stead the Christian graces of charity and humility; so shall you win the admiration and respect of MELBOURNE PUNCH. PUNCH'S ADVICE TO CIVIC COUNCILLORS. The City Council, by universal consent, having been pronounced a nuisance, it must become the object of your especial care, to deepen to yourselves. complimentary and confirm an impression so The most effectual method of, doing so, will be to be-spatter your colleagues with charges of jobbery and corruption; and to dissipate as much of the public time as possible in the exchange of personalities-the reciprocation of rancorous abuse, and the discharge For these objects you of coarse invectives against your opponents. were sent into the Council, and, in fulfilling them, you earn the gratitude and admiration of your consti.uents; who turn to the reports of your proceedings in the daily papers, just as sporting men used to turn to the columns of Bell's Life in London, for the exciting record of the last prize fight, and derive a similar amount of amusement from it. You will of course avoid the imputation of being mealy-mouthed in debate; and if a colleague is suspected of prevarication or equivocation you will bluntly stigmatise him as a liar. A different practise prevails in assemblies composed of gentlemen; but as it has been your consistent and successful endeavour to demonstrate that the City Council is essentially "of the public, publicans," the more broadly you draw the line of demarcation between yourselves and every such assembly as is above alluded to, the more faithfully will you fulfil the expectations of your constituents, and the more truthfully will you sustain the characters which nature has conferred upon you. Remember that strong prejudices exist in Europe, against the tone and manners of colonial society; and do not forget, upon all public occasions, when your sayings and doings are reported by the press-to prove that those prejudices are well founded, and to show how much coarseness, vulgarity, ignorance, and insolence, are capable of being combined in the person of one city Councillor. People in England are foolish enough to imagine that the Civic Parliament of Melbourne is a reflex of the intelligence and respectability of the Victorian capital. The delusion affords you a favourable opportunity of degrading our metropolis in the eyes of our fellow-country men at home; and, to do you justice, you have made the most of the opportunity. To assist you in so just and laudable an undertaking," PUNCH offers you the foregoing modicum of gratuitous, but not the less valuable advice. M. 44 ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. P. KILMORE.-There is no law whatever against writing the personal pronoun with a small i. In your communication be ginning deer sur i ashure U that" we at once perceived your acquaintance with the courteous German custom. No doubt a new edition of Johnson's Dictionary would pay well. PREPARING FOR THE BALL. (Shewing the application of the new vulcanised India-rubber substitute for crinoline.) LY-IN-TUNG IN MELBOURNE TO SEE-SOR IN PEKIN. Verily, oh See-Sor, is this barbarian land the abiding place of marvels, and the pleasures of the golden city arise unto my soul like incense. Tell me no more of the terraced gardens of Pekin, with your porcelain walks, amidst a wilderness of roses, and the fruitbedizened foliage of the orange trees. No orange blossoms litter the footways here; no bloom-scented zephyrs, oppressively fragrant, go wandering about like unquiet spirits of some desert flowers that had bloomed and perished uuregarded. Have I not seen Cremorne, the summer palace of the great mandarin Coppin, who is a prophet and a teacher among his people; and there have I wandered with the allthoughtful Twang, whose soul is apparelled in knowledge. Truly, See-sor, is the pleasure garden of Cremorne beautiful exceedingly, and a dwelling-place of all delights; and thither flock the round-eyed barbarians to dance and make merry with the light-footed daughters of the land. And hither have I roamed at the evening hour, and Twang hath sat with me upon the grassy slopes, and smoked the pipe of opium that enliveneth the soul, and told the strange histories of the land and of the mighty warriors of old, and the thousand and one knights of the round table, who dined together every day on baked babies and preserved ginger, and were fiery-tongued fellows, and terrible to look upon. Now is the mandarin Coppin a great public instructor, and he bath a pagoda of pearl and ivory, wherein is enshrined the barbarian god, Tweedle Dum, who is the deity of mirth. And round about this temple of jollity throng the pleasure-seeking people, and silently and solemnly they perform their mystic devotions, to the clanging sound of cymbals and trumpets. But never, on pain of death, dare anybody, indulge in a smile, relax the ponderous gravity befitting the occasiont or show the least unmindfulness of that seriousness of deportment which should accompany the performance of a religious duty. And there is in the garden a warning representation of the place of punishment prepared for evil doers, a huge burning mountain, which smelleth vilely of brimstone. "Look at that and weep," said Coppin unto Twang, and Twang expounded the sage remark, and I saw and trembled and a horrible sound, as if a legion of fat sinners were frizzling in the fire, arose upon the night, and the wretched spirit of some lawyer in torment was heard above the din to cry "hold on," and I closed my eyes in terror, and the noise was as of a roaring temp est. And suddenly was heard from the top of the mountain a sound like a burst of thunder; and, as I looked, was the sky filled with glittering fire, like sparks of gold, and all this (Twang told me) was to typify the wretched end of a banker fellow, who had spent his lifetime in raking together riches, and was blown up with his money-bags at last. There also are seen some strong iron cages,, containing ill-favoured birds of soul-subdued appearance, who are 'chained for ever to a rock, and sit, grim, ominous, and spectral-looking, to symbolise the purgatorial condition of the iniquitous hereafter. And, according to the creed of Confucius, in which Twang is deeply versed, is the severity and extent of the durance proportioned to the gradations of flagrancy in the crime. There, for instance, was a beak-fallen, wing-clipped, blear-eyed, plume-be-draggled, spirit-withered vulture, heavily fettered on his perch, to indicate the punishment awaiting those who lead a life of persevering turpitude, guilty perhaps of highway robbery, hode. breaking, of borrowing Melbourne Punch persistently without taking one of their own, or of any other glaring exhibition of moral depravity. And here, oh See-Sor, are rich and fragrant pastures, which the prophet Coppin has planted with snowy blossomed clover-the barbarian type of abundance; and the silky grass hath the hue of the emerald and the softness of down, and slopeth gently to the shore of a silver lake, which is filled with ginger-beer, and shineth softly in the moonlight as a double emblem of tranquillity and temperance. And Coppin, the good mandarin, thoughtfully provident for all, hath a multitude of cats of the native kind, fattened up in cages, and Twang says they are passing good in a pie, with puppy sauce; and in one remote province do the people eat nothing else, and are said to live a cat and dog life. Moreover did the nimble-tongued Twang aver that he had dwelt in this land of abundance, where food for the hungry was showered from the skies, and had he not seen it rain cats and dogs; and to all this he swore lustily, and drank a tumbler full of strong water in form of solemn affirmation. Here, too, are diversions adapted to every order of mind. Those who retain attachment to the marbles of their youth can recreate their matured intelligence in the bowling alleys, and the warrior fierce, whose soul rejoiceth in gunpowder, can fire away his money in the rifle gallery. And Twang, the artful Twang, hath truly a right understanding of the barbarian provender, and did procure me boiled peacock and pickled rats, and sparkling waters that would have gladdened thy heart, Oh, See-Sor-and the memory of Cremorne is graven into my soul. A FOGGY AUDIENCE. The Ballarat Star, in noticing the performances at the Montezuma Theatre, says : prior to the rising of the curtain for the first act, when Mr. Hydes came upon The smoking nuisance was fast filling the house with a dense and stifling fog, the stage, and requested that the smokers would at once desist; as, independently of the annoyance to ladies and others in the audience, it was impossible for Miss Quinn to speak in such a suffocating mist of narcotic vapors, and the curtain would not be raised until the smoking had ceased." It is not unusual, PUNCH is informed, for the whole of the perform. ances at the Montezuma to be gone through without the actors and actresses being once visible to the audience; or, if the speakers are seen, they loom dimly through the mist, like the spectres of the Brocken. The play-going public of Ballarat appear to think actors resemble certain pictures, which require to be well smoked, in order to improve their "tone." A Genoese paper publishes the following letter, addressed to it by General Garibaldi : "Genoa, August 6, 1856. "SIR,-From the hour of my leaving Rome (in 1849 to this day I had flattered myself that Ciceroacchio and his sons had found a refuge in some gorge of the Appenines. I have this day acquired the painful conviction that the gallant Roman was shot at La Contarina, near the mouth of the Po. by Austrian soldiers, under the command of an officer of the Imperial family. The victims were seven in number: Cicer acchio, his two sons (one nineteen, the other thirteen years of age); a young priest, Ramorino Stefano Parodi, Lorenzo, a captain in the Italian Legion at Monte Video, and two others whose names I have not been informed of I request of your courtesy to demand, in the name of society, an account of these individuals, to the authors of this crime. This is of the greatest importance to the families of the deceased It may at the same time be kept in mind that none of the Austrian prisoners taken at Luino or in the Romagna were put to death It should be remarked that Ciceroacchio, his younger son, and Ramorino, though they accompanied me in my retreat, had never borne arms. "With respect, yours, "GARIBALDI." General Garibaldi, whilst writing to another friend respecting the execution of Ciceroacchio and his family, says that after the first volley fired by the Austrians the youngest son and the boy Ramorino struggled so long that their murderers had great difficulty to despatch them with kicks and the butt ends of their guns.ENGLISH PAPER, Aug. 20. Craven-hearted, bloody-handed Ruler of the Lombard plains,→ Crowned culprit, villain viler Than e'er wore the felon's chains; It was like thee, German cut-throat, Secretly to murder men ; And for seven long years to keep it Shrouded from all human ken. It was like the spawn of Hapsburgh, Canker'd shoot of canker'd tree, Guiltless youth and helpless childhood, To condemn to butchery. Thy remorseless heart would gloat o'er As he saw his children writhing In the throes of mortal strife, And beheld their brutal butchers Beating out the ling'ring life. Not in vain their blood has fallen On a soil that's red with gore; Not unto the list of victims Shall be added many more. Francis Joseph, heartless tyrant, Robber of the Lombard crowu, Soon will dawn the hour that sees thy Pow'r and empire stricken down. 'Neath the vine, and 'neath the olive, Glows the fierce volcanic fire; When it bursts and overwhelms thee, Think of slaughtered sons and sire. For the death-cry of the younger Shall thy craven heart appal, When upon thy doom'd dynasty, The avenging bolt shall fall. |