You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to reign _because_ there has been no People's Palace! We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on. "The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will be said, and _then_ they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can _that_ do? Just all the harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin myriads!" _Punch_, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning service. _Punch's_ views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality. Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with affluence, and, therefore, belonging to the better classes, continue to legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the rest of the worse--that is the worse off." [Sidenote: _Punch at the Palace_] Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday, June 10, 1854. _Punch_ describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the inaugural ceremony:--