PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. XCVIII. FEBRUARY 22, 1890. [Illustration: THE SCIENTIFIC VOLUNTEER.] "If ever I have to choose.... I shall, without hesitation, shoulder my rifle with the Orangeman."--_See Professor Tyndall's Reply to Sir W. V. Harcourt._ "_Times_," Feb. 13, 1890. * * * * * 'ARRY ON EQUALITY. DEAR CHARLIE,--Bin down as a dab with that dashed heppydemick, dear boy. I 'ave bloomin' nigh sneezed my poor head orf. You know that there specie of toy Wot they call cup-and-ball! That's _me_, CHARLIE! My back seemed to open and shut, As the _grippe_-demon danced on my innards, and played pitch-and-toss with my nut. Hinfluenza be blowed! It licks hague and cholera rolled into one. The Sawbones have give it that name, I'm aware, but of course that's their fun. I've 'ad colds in the head by the hunderd, but _this_ weren't no cold, leastways _mine_. Howsomever, I'm jest coming round a bit, thanks to warm slops and QyNine. Took to reading, I did as I mended; that's mostly a practice with me. When I'm down on my back that's the time for a turn at my dear old _D. T._ A party named ROBERT BUCHANAN, as always appears on the job, Was a slating a chappie called HUXLEY. Thinks I, I'll take stock of friend BOB. Well, _he_ ain't much account, that's a moral; a ramblinger Rad never wos. Old HUXLEY's wuth ten on him, CHARLIE, though _he's_ rather huppish and poz. Are men really born free and equal? Ah! that's wot they're harguing hout. BOB B., he says "Yus;" HUXLEY, "No;" and BOB'S wrong, there's no manner of doubt. "Free and equal?" Oh, NEBUCHADNEZZAR! how _can_ they talk sech tommy-rot? Might as well say as Fiz and Four-Arf should be equally fourpence a pot. Nice hidea, but _taint so_, that's the wust on it. There's where these dreamers go wrong. Ought's nothink, and that as is, _is_; all the rest isn't wuth a old Song. Bad as BUGGINS, the Radical Cobbler, these mugs are. Sez BUGGINS, sez he, Wos it Nature give Mudford his millions, and three bob a day to poor me? Not a bit on it. Nature's a mother, and meant all her gifts _for_ us all. It's a Law as gives Mudford his Castle, and leaves me a poor Cobbler's Stall. All I've got to say, CHARLIE, is this. If so be Nature meant all that there, She must be a fair "J." as a mater. _I've_ bin bested out of _my_ share. So has BUGGINS, and nine out o' ten on us. _If_ the few nobble the quids Spite of Nature, wy Nature's a noodle as cannot purtect her own kids.