Volume 25 — THE STARVED-OUT COMMISSION OF SEWERS.
Reading edition
Everybody is attacking the unfortunate Commissioners of Sewers, who are said to be standing still with their hands in their pockets, and who reply that they are obliged to stand still because they have nothing in their pockets but their hands. It is true their hands seem to get very deeply into the public pocket occasionally, but however large the sum that may be extracted, the cry of the Commissioners is "We have no funds." If a neighbourhood, thirsty for a good, wholesome fall of water, applies to the Commissioners, their answer is "We can't stand a dram." Their song is always to one tune, and that is the tune of "I've no Money."
I've no money! so you see Nothing can be done by me; I own it to my sorrow; But if I were rich, you'd see Wonders would be done by me; So call again to-morrow.
The fact is that the Commissioners of Sewers have such grand ideas that execution is impossible. The imagination of the Commissioners riots in such a sea of sullage, that nothing short of an arched avalanche of refuse water presents itself to the minds of the functionaries who will not stoop to anything short of an aqueduct, and consequently have souls above the making of a common useful drain. Everything must be on such a scale of grandeur, that unless London can be altogether excavated a few serviceable pipes cannot be laid down. We are quite willing to admit the difficulties of the position of the Commissioners with all the sewage of London on their hands, and some people feel naturally tempted to throw mud upon those who are in a degree responsible for getting rid of it. The Chairman, however, seems to take the affair with a sort of philosophic good nature, as if he felt himself somewhat in the position of a glass bottle or a plaster bust perched on an eminence for everybody to take a shy at him.
Art in the City.
Why not—if Temple Bar must be removed—why not to mark and preserve the sacred boundary of the City, bring bodily Gog and Magog from Guildhall to either side of Fleet Street? They would only make two ugly statues the more: and in so large and such a city, what are two?
A Hint for the Consumers of Coal.—The most cheerful kind of fuel:—Keeping up a constant fire—of jokes.
MIGHT IS RIGHT.
Van Driver. "I don't know nothun about no right sides, nor wrong sides. You get out of the way, if yer don't want to be made a wafer of!"
[Where are the Police?]
THE FALLACY OF EXTERNALS.
In the Times' report of the final meeting of the Peace Conference at Edinburgh, it is remarked that
"Messrs. Cobden and Bright were the great lions of the evening."
Apparently it is probable that they were; although some may consider them to have been figuring as lambs rather than lions: but then the lamb is not the only creature typical of passive endurance. Appearances, however, are not realities, and the reporter, in inferring the animal from the integument, made a mistake which has occurred before. Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden were going about in lions' skins; but, as those who had just heard them might have perceived, they were not exactly lions.
The Cry of the British Husband.—"Do you bruise your wife yet?"