Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor, and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom _Punch_ always had a soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the declaration of peace after the Crimean War, _Punch_ expressed his satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of _Punch's_ political and social creed in a time of transition. The occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take part in further measures of electoral reform. _Punch_ held that the collapse of the physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:-- THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue; I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung; Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo, Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow. At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true, But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through? I _am_ all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour; All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more. I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend, Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend. 'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot-- Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not. I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe, The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth; Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me; That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be. "Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst, Content men are with second best, in preference to worst: Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall; Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all! But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see, As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry, A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid, And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.