_Punch_, as I have often been at pains to insist, was a Londoner, but he did not hesitate to pronounce the Manchester Exhibition as the "gem of the Jubilee," a "perfect article" and "a superb model." It was better than any of the shows at South Kensington, and _Punch_ rightly singles out as its special glory the magnificent Picture Gallery of Modern English Painters. On the other hand, provincial ideas of suitable Jubilee memorials come in for a good deal of ridicule. The list, which includes a central pig-market, a new town pump, a cemetery, a new sewage scheme, gasworks, etc., is clearly farcical, but an actual instance is quoted from the _Western Daily Mail_ of the decision of a village in Cardiganshire to celebrate Her Majesty's Jubilee by providing a public hearse. "The chairman, who originated the proposal, was congratulated upon his happy idea, and an Executive Committee was formed to carry it out," which prompted _Punch_ to suggest that they ought to get Mr. Hayden Coffin to sing their Jubilee ode. _Punch's_ own serious suggestion for a Jubilee memorial was the revival and extension of Queen Anne's Bounty to improve the lot of the poor clergy, in place of the Church House Scheme. [Sidenote: _How to Conciliate Ireland_] The visit of Prince Albert Victor (the Duke of Clarence) and Prince George (the present King) to Ireland in the summer of 1887 is taken as the text of one of _Punch's_ periodical appeals to the Queen to conciliate Ireland by going there herself, Hibernia being credited with a desire for her presence:-- Ah, then, if your Majesty's self we could see Sure we'd drop every grumble and quarrel; Stay a month in the year with my children and me, 'Twould be a nice change from Balmoral. The Prince of Wales's silver wedding fell in 1888, and furnished _Punch_ with a theme for loyal verse. It was also the momentous year in which three Emperors reigned in Germany, but of the significance of the change from Wilhelm I to Wilhelm II I have spoken elsewhere. _Punch's_ Jubilee fervour had now died down, and Prince Henry of Battenberg's appointment as Governor of the Isle of Wight is recorded in a semi-burlesque picture of the Prince "with new scenery and costumes," and the comment: "Old England is safe at last." On May 21 Prince Leopold of Battenberg (now Lord Mountbatten) had been born at Windsor: on the following day a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Lord Waterford to discuss the advisability of abolishing the office of Viceroy of Ireland. Accordingly, _Punch_, more in malice than seriousness, suggests as a solution of the Irish difficulty that a Battenberg Prince should be born in Ireland, and brought up as the future Viceroy, in imitation of the trick of Edward Longshanks as related by Drayton in his "Polyolbion":--