Volume 25 — ST. CECILIA AND ST. HELEN.
Reading edition
Touching the subjoined newspaper advertisement:—
ORGANIST.—A VACANCY IN THE APPOINTMENT of ORGANIST for the parish of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, London, having been created by the death of Dr. Bexfield, candidates for the office are requested to forward their letters of application and testimonials on or before the 23rd day of November instant, addressed to Mr. Churchwarden Richardson, 2, Great St. Helen's, London, by whom all inquiries as to the duties and salary will be answered.
Mr. Punch begs to ask Mr. Churchwarden Richardson a question. Would Cecilia Punch be eligible for the vacant situation of organist to St. Helen's parish? For Mr. Punch has heard that it is the practice of many vestries to exclude female candidates from competition for the organist's office. Need Cecilia apply? Has it been, by the parochial powers,
"Resolved, that female candidates be excluded."
Cecilia would be thankful to be spared the anxiety and trouble of making an application, in doubt whether or not it has been predestined to be fruitless. One would think that the church of a female saint would admit a female musician—or can it be that St. Helen would have closed her doors against her sainted sister, the namesake of Miss Punch, herself?
To multiply, not to diminish, the means of honourable maintenance for women ought to be the object of all Churchwardens and Vestries; as it certainly is the interest of all rate-payers.
A Whipping Recorder.
Mr. Samuel Warren, Recorder of Hull, loves to season his sentences with plenty of whipcord. This propensity of Samuel's has been significantly rebuked by Lord Palmerston, who has remitted whippings and shortened terms of imprisonment. We understand that the judicial poet of The Lily and the Bee will—in self-justification—forthwith produce another poem, to be called The Cat and her Tails.
A DIRTY BUSINESS.
The Magistrates of the City of London can scarcely be expected to come out of the present Commission with clean hands, after having fingered every ton of coals within a circuit of twenty miles.