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In: Punch·Humour·British Literature
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"SUPPER TO CONVICTED FELONS.--On Tuesday evening a supper was given to one hundred and fifty convicted felons by NED WRIGHT, the well-known converted burglar, at the Mission Hall, Hales Street, High Street, Deptford. The candidates for tickets of admission were compelled to attend the night before the supper and give an account of themselves to prove that they really were convicted felons, and by the sharp and close questioning of MR. WRIGHT, about fifty were refused tickets as impostors."
The fifty impostors who were fain to palm themselves off as convicts for the sake of a supper, must have been poor knaves indeed. These supernumeraries, for whom there was no seat at the table of Society, constitute a spectacle on the stage of life which it may be painful to some people and pleasant to others to contemplate from the dress circle. It is too probable that this Capital contains very many more of these Esaus, as they might be called if they had anything of a character so valuable as a birthright to dispose of on ESAU'S terms, with the small extras undermentioned:--
"The recipients of this Charity were a very motley crew, and ranged in years from six up to fifty. They were each served with a quantity of soup and a bag containing bread and a bun, after which MR. WRIGHT addressed them in his own peculiar manner, being listened to with marked attention."
MR. WRIGHT, we may suppose, took care to preach in a "tongue understanded of the people" who constituted his hearers, and accordingly delivered a considerable portion of his discourse in the language which our great-grandfathers called thieves' Latin. A sermon in slang, however, would, perhaps, be more curious than edifying. Let us hope that MR. WRIGHT'S may possibly have had the effect of converting the guests who would once have been his pals from the error of their ways, formerly his own. Such, at least, appears to have been his laudable intention:--
"A large number of ladies and gentlemen interested in such work attended and gave the benefit of their advice and co-operation. In the course of the evening MR. WRIGHT announced his intention of taking under his patronage a number of the boys then present, who might be desirous of earning an honest livelihood, and furnishing them with money and clothes to make a fair start in life."
It would rejoice both ourselves and our benevolent readers to know that the acceptance of this offer by a considerable number of MR. WRIGHT'S young friends may be the commencement of a career of good living, wherein they will very soon attain to better fare than a quantity of soup, a bag of bread, and a bun, quite good enough as that is for convicted felons, besides being peculiarly suitable as precluding any necessity for knives and forks chained to the table.
HOW hardly will Judges, for the most part, admit the plea of insanity in exculpation from a charge of murder! How readily are they wont to entertain it as a reason for setting aside a will! How right they are in either instance! Suppose a maniac is hanged as a man of sound mind, his execution serves just as well, for the purpose of example, as it would if he were. But my Luds would make a mistake on the wrong side by misdirecting Jurors to determine insanity to have been sanity in a case wherein a lunatic might possibly have misdisposed of property.
A MOST determined act of self-inflicted torture has recently caused a considerable sensation in a fashionable quarter of Town. A lady, young, lovely, and accomplished, with troops of friends, and all that makes life enjoyable at her command, was detected deliberately "screwing up" her face!
Sunday, May 10, 1882. Heard a transcendent oration from Althea Duxmore on "Dogmas and Dogmatics." Bi-monthly levy for the expenses of the Temple. Stephanotis Hewleigh and I the eleemosynars who collected in the new Septentrional Vestibule, where the men are put. Their united contributions amounted exactly to half a Victoria! Several dimes in the salver. The new Act, limiting the personal expenses of Adult Males, may have something to do with this. Shall move in the Saloon for Returns showing the working of the Act. Alfred nowhere to be seen in the Vestibule; perhaps detained by the children's toilette. In the afternoon at the new Museum of Natural History opened this Spring, at Kensington. The Galleries crowded. Several of us, including Professors Sara Sabina Thewes and Caroline Gostrong, delivered extemporary lectures on the animals; the men very attentive. In the evening to St. Paul's; heard the new organist, Charlotte Bach Stopmore, Mus. Doc. The Cathedral a blaze of splendour with the Tyndaluminospectric light. We Women have yet something to learn in physical science.
Monday, May 11. Received, by appointment, a deputation from the electors of New Marylebone, inviting me to candidate that District at the next General Election. Mrs. Admiral Stenterton, and Miss Lydia Boss Wolloby, the dominant spokeswomen. Spread out my views on the Husbands' Regulation Movement, the Cigar-Tax, the Compulsory Inspection of Men's Clubs, and the Repudiation of the National Debt. All satisfactory, and I agreed to retire from Jutley. Deputation luncheoned with me. No place kept for Alfred, who had to sit at a side-table.
To the Club (the Gynecium), and flashed a long private cryptogram to the Chairwoman of my Committee at Jutley. Dined at the Club. After dinner in the Fumitory. Took a Cabriole to the Saloon. Driver an extortionist; but I knew the exact distance, to the tenth of a kilometre. Saloon debating the Juries Exemption (Women) Bill. Spoke, I think, with sensation. The venerable Earl of Hughenden came in as I was perorating. Alfred, in the Gentlemen's Gallery, in tears. I wore my black velvet and point lace pelerine, with the diamond star he gave me after the Jutley election. That tiresome, tedious, insufferable Hannah Longbore (how South-West Suffolk stands her so long I cannot imagine) prosed on against the Bill, and sided with the Men, but we fidgeted her down at last. She had on that old crimson satin which has seen three sessions at least! Maiden speech from Marian Spray--pretty enough. Forget what Men spoke. Mrs. Leader Donne, the lovely (!) and accomplished Member for Ironville, closed the debate. Rather too great a parade of learning; positively she quoted Lycophron in the original! But we all see through Mrs. Leader's schemes--she means the Educational Under-Secretaryship, when Bella Falayse goes to the Upper Saloon as a Peeress jure suo. Home by Twelve. Alfred sitting up for me. What a resource that Hortus Siccus is to him!
_Tuesday, May 12._--Card from Madge Bassingham, R.A., for her Inaugural Praelection, as Pigmentary Professor at the Royal Academy. Could not go, as I was engaged on a Committee at the Saloon--Metropolis Extension, Brighton Annexation Bill. Dined with Mrs. Abraham Skrooley, M.P. Woman's party. The Constantia exquisite. Discussed over our cigarettes the arrangements for the approximating Women's Cosmopolitan Congress. Alfred and one or two other Men came in the evening.
Wednesday, May 13. Not well in the morning. Flashed for Dr. Martha Walkingholme. She was detained at the Spleen Hospital, but her partner, Harriet Chamomile, came and applied the Magnetic Detonator to my spine and the backs of my ears. Instant relief. In the evening at the Biennial Banquet of the Indigent Widowers' Pension Fund at Willis's. The Duchess of Middlesex in the chair. After dinner the Indigent Widowers circuited the tables, and attracted much attention by their neat and respectable appearance. I proposed the toast of "The Gentlemen." Alfred responsed, and for a wonder did not break down.
Thursday, May 14. Gave Cook a lesson on the harp before breakfast. Sitting in the Library reading Mill's "Woman Triumphant," when my electric alarum rang. Message from Oxford from my youngest sister, Bianca, to say that she had that instant been elected Fellow of Carlyle College. Three hundred and ten competitors. Tremendous examination, lasting three weeks. Bianca's thorough domination of Russian, Japanese, political economy, statistics, aërostatics, electrology, hygiene and thermapeutics, gave her the victory. Hope some day she will stand for the University. For joy I took a half holiday. (Left Alfred quite happy with his silkworms.) Gymnastic relaxation at the Palaestra on the Expanse at Hampstead. Then by Tube to Dover. Tunnelled over to Paris, shopped, and back by the six rapid. Might have stayed later for we could not make a Saloon: seven short of the legal Quorum, a hundred--so many Members (men, I need hardly say) absent at the Great International Croquet Tryst at the Crystal Palace. Passed an hour pleasantly at the Diatomaceous Society, of which I have lately been balloted a Fellow.
Friday, May 15. Busy all the morning preparing my oration on the "Wise Sayings of Wise Women in all Countries and Epochs," for the Congress. (Interrupted twice by Alfred, who had got the housekeeping accounts and the washing-book into a fearful muddle.) Great meeting at 3'30 in Emancipation Hall, to welcome Mrs. Hale Columbia Spragg, the first female President of the United States. She has transited the Atlantic to attend our Congress, but can only be present at this evening's Inauguratory, as she must be in New York again before sundown to-morrow. Went to the Saloon, but it immediately adjourned, on the motion of Mr. Theodore Stuke, to enable the Lady Members to festinate to the Congress. Immense success. Fifteen hundred Delegates from every country in the world processed down the Hall, and then arranged themselves by Continents on the gilded dais. Twenty-five thousand women computed to be present in the Spectatorium. Our distinguished champion and unflinching Hegemon, Amelia Smackles, assumed the presidential throne. Incessant coruscations of enthusiasm, which culminated when a black sister moved the fourteenth resolution, demanding the total, immediate, and unconditional transfer of all menial labour from Woman to Man. Did not get home till 1 p.m. Left my key behind me, so obliged to rouse up Alfred, who was in bed, in great distress at the loss of one of his canaries, and had forgotten to order my stout. Vexatious!
Saturday, May 16. Dejeuned at the Constellation Hotel with dear Amelia, to meet Mrs. President Spragg, Chief Justice Roberta Cokestone (from Liberia), the Lady Warden of the Cinque Ports, the Lady Mayoress, the Mistress of the Mint, and other forward Members of the Congress. The President left us at noon. She would balloon over to New York in five hours and a half. Quiet dinner at Richmond in the evening. Only Amelia, two of the elder Sisters of the Trinity House, and the Delegates from Germany, Turkey, Greece, and China. Bianca joined us unexpectedly from Oxford, and introduced her bosom friend, the Professor of Anatomy, Henrietta Stott Trawsell. Delightful promenade by the river before dinner. Met Alfred fishing for gudgeon.
PUNCH shudders to see the Metric question raised again. Are we not in the thick of an Educational War already? Will our contemporaries abstain from putting new reasons for quarrel into the heads of fanatics. We shall certainly have the Decimal business taken up by Denominationalists and by Secularists. Ten fingers point out that the natural law is one of decimals. Also, there are ten commandments for the theologian. On the other hand, there are twelve signs of the Zodiac: this for nature; and twelve Apostles: this for theology. O, please let the matter alone, and let the little boys and girls be taught anyhow, so that they are taught at all.
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