Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, December 4, 1841Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, December 4, 1841
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
The supporters of the rights of man would indeed pour forth their eloquent
denunciations against the oppressors of the absent. The poetry of passion
would be exhausted to depict the frightful state of the crimeless and
venerable victim of tyranny, bowing his grey hairs with sorrow to the
grave; while the wailing of the helpless innocents _different indeed in
colour_, but in heart and spirit like ourselves, being sprung from the one
great source, would echo throughout the land, and find responses in every
bosom not lost to the kindly feelings of good-will towards its fellows!
Had the would-be esteemed philanthropists but these "_foreign cues_ for
passion," they would indeed
"Drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free;
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears."
But, alas! there is no such motive; these most destitute of Destitution's
children are simply fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians. Sons of the
same soil, and worshippers of the same God, they need no good works in the
way of proselyzation to save them from eternal perdition; consequently
they receive no help to keep them from temporal torture.
To convince themselves that these remarks are neither unwarrantably
severe, nor in the slightest degree overcharged, let our readers not only
refer to the revolting doings chronicled in the _Times_, but let them find
the further illustration of this _foreign penchant_ in the recent doings
at the magnificently-attended ball given in behalf of the _Polish
Refugees_, and consequently commanding the support of the humane,
enlightened, and charitable English; and then let them cast their eyes
over the cold shoulder turned towards a proposition for the _same_ act of
charity being consummated for the relief of the poverty-stricken and
starving families of the destitute and deserving artisans now literally
starving under their very eyes, located no farther off than in the
wretched locality of Spitalfields! An opinion--and doubtless an honest
one--is given by the Lord Mayor, that any attempt to relieve _their
wants_, in the way found so efficacious for _the Polish Refugees_, would
be madness, inasmuch as it would, _as heretofore_, prove an absolute
failure. Reader, is there anything of the cuckoo and the sparrow in the
above assertion? Is it not true? And if it is so, is it not a more than
crying evil? Is it not a most vile blot upon our laws--a most beastly
libel upon our creed and our country? Is no relief ever to be given to the
immediate objects who should be the persons benefited by our bounty? Are
those who, in the prosperity proceeding from their unceasing and ill-paid
toil, added their quota to the succour of others, now that poverty has
fallen on them, to be left the sport of fortune and the slaves of
suffering? Do good, we say, in God's name, to all, if good can be done to
all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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