tain that the House of Commons exceeded its jurisdiction when it incommoded by inconvenient attentions will finally assume an "Well-er-fact is," said NICHOLAS, steadfastly keeping his eyes on end on't. Exit! it as "Sir," he said, bending angry brows on Chairman, "I am afraid my speech interrupted your conversation. Therefore I have moved further away." In revolt. That was all, but it was enough. HER- revolt of SYDNEY GEDGE. Friday.-Rather a disappointing evening from Opposition point of view. In advance, was expected to be brilliant field-night. Irish Administration to be attacked all along line; necessity for new departure demonstrated. SHAW-LEFEVRE led off with Resolution demanding establishment of Courts of Arbitration. Large muster of Members. Mr. G. in his place; expected to speak; but presently went off; others fell away, and all the running made from Ministerial Benches. SHAW-LEFEVRE roasted mercilessly. House roared at SAUNDERSON's description of his going to interview SULTAN, and being shown into stable to make acquaintance of SULTAN's horse. Prince ARTHUR turned on unhappy man full blast of withering rather be kicked than not noticed at all; but Liberals felt they had been drawn into ridiculous position, and mumured bad words. What's the use," they ask, "of winning Hartlepool out of doors, if things are so managed that we are made ridiculous within ?" Business done.-SHAW-LEFEVRE'S Resolution on Irish Land Question negatived by 213 Votes against 152. Not quite. STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, unaccustomed participant in debate, presented himself. Stood immediately behind OLD MOBALITY, by way of testifying to bis unaltered loyalty. At same time he suggested that, after all, would be as well to humour BRADLAUGH and his friends, and strike out Resolution. Then OLD scorn. Don't know whether SHAW-LEFEVRE felt it; some men MORALITY rose from side of SOLICITOR-GENERAL, and, unmindful of that eminent Lawyer's irresistible argument and uncompromising declaration, said, on the whole," perhaps NORTHCOTE was right, and so mote it be. "Thermidor" up to Date. The elect of Mid-Leicestershire gasped for air. Did his ears deceive him, or was this the end of the famous BRADLAUGH incidents? OLD MORALITY, in his cheerful way, suggested that, as they were doing the thing, they had better do it unanimously. General cheer approved. DE LISLE started to his feet. One voice, at least, should be heard in protest against this shameful surrender. Began in half-choked voice: evidently struggling against some strange temptation; talked about the Parnell Commission; accused House of legalising atheism, and whitewashing treason; argued at length with Mr. G. on doctrine of excess of jurisdiction. Observed, as he went on, to be waving his hands as if repelling some object; turned his head on one side as if he would fain escape apparition; House looked on wonderingly. At length, with something like sudued sob, DE LISLE gave way, and Members learned what had troubled him. It was dear old Mr. Dick's com- AN ARTIST AND A WHISTLER.-M. COQUELIN has summoned M. plaint. Standing up to present his Memorial against tergiversation LISSAGARAY for having thrown a whistle at him on the night of the of OLD MORALITY, DE LISLE could not help dragging in head of Thermidor row. It is to be hoped that by this time M. LISSAGARAY CHARLES THE FIRST. "As a Royalist," he said, "I should main- will have been made to pay for his whistle. Last Act-On the road to the Guillotine-Hero, instead of Heroine, NOTICE.-Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case he returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rula MODERN TYPES. (By Mr. Punch's Own Type Writer.) No. XXIII.-THE TOLERATED HUSBAND. Ir is customary for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated purity in every British household. The rude shocks which Mr. Justice BUTT occasionally administers to the national conscience are readily forgotten, and the chorus of patriotic adulation is stimulated by the visits which the British censor finds it necessary to pay (in mufti) to the courts of wickedness in continental capitals. It may be that among our unimaginative race the lack of virtue is not presented in the gaudy trappings that delight our neighbours. Our wickedness is coarser and less attractive. It gutters like a cheap candle when contrasted with the steady brilliancy of the Parisian article. Public opinion, too, holds amongst us a more formidable lash, and wields it with a sterner and more frequent severity. But it is impossible to deny that our society, however strict its professed code may be, can and does produce examples of those lapses from propriety which the superficial public deems to be typically and exclusively continental. Not only are they produced, but their production and their continuance are tolerated by a certain class, possibly limited, but certainly influential. Amongst these examples, both of lapse and of toleration, the Tolerated Husband holds a foremost place. Certain conditions are necessary for his proper production. He must be not only easy-going, but unprincipled, unprincipled, that is, rather in the sense of having no particular principles of any kind than in that of possessing and practising notoriously bad ones. He must have a fine contempt for steady respectability, and an irresistible inclination to that glittering style of untrammelled life which is believed by those who live it to be the true Bohemianism. He should be weak in character, he may be pleasant in manner and appearance, and he must be both poor and extravagant. If to these qualities be added, first a wife, young, goodlooking, and in most respects similar to her husband, though of a stronger will, and secondly a friend, rich, determined, strictly unprincipled, and thoroughly unscrupulous, the conditions which produce the Tolerated Husband may be said to be complete. The Tolerated Husband may have been at one time an officer in a good regiment. Having married, he finds that his pay, combined with a moderate private income, and a generous allowance of indebtedness, due to the gratification of expensive tastes, is insufficient to maintain him in that position of comfort to which he conceives himself to be entitled. He therefore abandons the career of arms, and becomes one of those who attempt spasmodically to redeem commercial professions from the taint of mere commercialism by becoming commercial themselves. It is certain that the gilded society which turns up a moderately aristocratic nose at trade and tradesmen, looks with complete indulgence upon an ex-officer who dabbles in wine, or associates himself with a new scheme for the easy manufacture of working-men's boots. An agency to a Fire and Life Assurance Society is, of course, above 'reproach, and the Stock Exchange, an institution which, in the imagination of reckless fools, provides as large a cover as charity, is positively enviable-a reputation which it owes to the fancied ease with which half-a-crown is converted into one hundred thousand pounds by the mere stroke of an office pen. upon, and his motives readily inferred. It can be none other than the husband's rich bachelor friend, the same who accompanies the pair on all their expeditions, who is a constant guest at their house, and is known to be both lavish and determined in the prosecution of any object on which he has set his heart. His heart, in this instance, is set upon his friend's wife, and the obstacles in his way do not seem to be very formidable. The case, indeed, is soon too manifest for any one but a born idiot to feign ignorance of it. The husband is not a born idiot-he either sees it plainly, or (it may be, after a struggle) he looks another way, and resigns himself to the inevitable. For inevitable it is, if he is to continue in that life of indolence and extravagant comfort which habit has made a necessity for him. So he submits to the constant companionship of a third party, and, in order to be truly tolerated in his own household, becomes tolerant in a manner that is almost sublime. He allows his friend to help him with large subventions of money; he lets him cover his wife with costly jewels. He is content to be supplanted without fuss, provided the supplanter never decreases the stream of his benevolence; and the supplanter, having more wealth than he knows what to do with, is quite content to secure his object on such extremely easy terms. And thus the Tolerated Husband is created. The Tolerated Husband tries all these methods, one after another, with a painful monotony of failure in each. Yet, somehow or other, he still keeps up appearances, and manages to live in a certain style not far removed from luxury. He entertains his friends at elaborate dinners, both at home and at expensive restaurants; he is a frequent visitor at theatres, where he often pays for the stalls of many others as well as for his own. He takes a small house in the country, and fills it with guests, to whom he offers admirable wines, and excellent cigars. His wife is always beautifully, dressed, and glitters with an array of jewels which make her the envy of many a steady leader of fashion. The world begins to ask, vaguely at first, but with a constantly increasing persistence, how the thing is done. Respectability and malice combine to whisper a truthful answer. Starting from the axiom that the precarious income which is produced by a want of success in many branches of business cannot support luxury or purchase diamonds, they arrive, per saltum, at the conclusion that there must be some third party to provide the wife and the husband with means for their existence. His name is soon fixed VOL. C. It is curious to notice how cheerfully, to all outward appearance, he accepts what other men would consider a disaster. Before the world he carries his head high with an assumption of genial frankness and easy good temper. "Come and dine with us to-morrow, my boy," he will say to an old acquaintance, "there'll only be yourself and a couple of others besides ourselves. We'll go to the play afterwards." And the acquaintance will most certainly discover, if he accepts the invitation. that the "ourselves" included not only husband and wife, but friend as well. He will also notice that the last is even more at home in the house, and speaks in a tone of greater authority than the apparent host. Everything is referred to him for decision, and the master of the house treats him with a deferential humility which goes far to contradict the cynical observation that there is no gratitude on earth. The Tolerated Husband, indeed, never tires of dispensing hospitality at the cost of his friend, and though the whole world knows the case, there will never be a lack of guests to accept what is offered. At last, however, in spite of his toleration, he becomes an encumbrance in his own house, and, like most encumbrances, he has to be paid off, the friend providing the requisite annual income. One after another he puts off the last remaining rags of his pretended self-respect. He haunts his Clubs less and less frequently, and seems to wither under the open dislike of those who are repelled by the mean and sordid details of his despicable story. And thus he drags on his life, a degraded and comparatively impoverished outcast, untidy, haggard and shunned, having forfeited by the restriction of his spending powers even the good-natured contempt of those who were not too proud to be at one time mistaken for his friends. LABOURS FOR LENT. Emperor of Germany.-To conciliate the great men who have had to prefix "Ex" to their official titles since he ascended the Throne. Emperor of Russia. -To find a resting-place safe from the Nihilists. King of Italy.-To do without CRISPI, and the Triple Alliance. The Emperor of Austria.-To master the subject of Home Rule as applied to Austria, Hungary, and the Bulgarian Nationalities. King of Portugal.-To settle the Map of Africa with Lord SALISBURY. The President of the French Republic.-To adapt Thermidor for the German stage. H The President of the American Republic.-To bless the McKinley Tariff. The Marquis of Salisbury.-To consider with his son and heir the Roman Catholic Disabilities Removal Bill. Mr. W. H. Smith.-To renew his stock of Copy-book proverbs. Mr. Gladstone.-To compile and annotate a new volume of Gleanings, containing the Quarterly Article on Vaticanism," " and the speech in support of the Ripon-plus-Russell Relief Bill. 66 Mr. Goschen.-To divide the coming Surplus to everyone's satisfaction. Mr. Balfour.-To learn to love both wings of the Irish Party. Mr. Justin McCarthy.-To discover his exact position. Mr. S. B. Bancroft.-To regard with satisfaction his gift to General Dealer BOOTH. Stately Sir FRANCIS! See how late-knighted Justice moves along, High, majestic, smooth and strong, Through Cupid's maze and Neptune's mighty main (O Wimpole Street, uplift the strain!) Toward that proudly portal'd door. Silk gowns and snowy wigs raise the applausive roar! O Sovereign of the Social Soul, Lady of bland and comfort - breathing airs, Enchanting hostess! Business cares And Party passion own thy soft control. In thy saloons the Lord of War Muffles the wheels of his wild car, And drops his thirsty lance at thy command. Smoothed by a snowy hand, Aquila's self, the fierce and feathered king, With sleek-pruned plumes, and closefurled wing Will calmly cackle, and put by The terrors of his beak, the lightnings of his eye.. Thee the voice, the dance obey; Tempered to thy pleasant sway, Blue and Buff, Orange and Green, In polychromatic harmony are seen, As on a bright Jeune day. TOMMY ATKINS'S HARD LOT. "TOMMY ATKINS," writing modestly enough to the Daily Chronicle of the 6th February, complains that the coal supplied by the Authorities for barrack-rooms, is so limited in quantity that "during the winter this, as a rule, only lasts about two days" in the week, and TOMMY and his comrades have to "club-up" to supply the deficiency out of their own microscopical pay. "In fact" (says T. A.) "I have been in barrackrooms where the men have had no fires after the first two days of the week." If this be 80, Mr. Punch agrees with TOMMY in saying, "Surely this ought not to be!" TOMMY ATKINS may reasonably be expected to "stand fire" at any season, but not the absence of it in such wintry weather as we have had recently! If this is poor TOMMY ATKINS's lot, As TOMMY might say, It is all Tommy-rot! COLUMBIA ON HER SPARROW. (With Apologies to William Cartwright.) ["The Americans have had enough of the Sparrow (Passer domesticus), and the mildest epithet reserved for him seems to be that of 'pest.'" -Daily Chronicle.] TELL me not of joy,-a hum! Across the sea, Advisers kind did flatter me, When he winged way o'er Yankee soil, My caterpillar swarms he 'd spoil; And oh, how pleasant that would be! He would catch a grub, and then It would never feed again. And peck, and nip, And on the caterpillars feed; And nought should crawl, or hop, or rin When he his hearty meal had dor. Alas! it was a sell, indeed! O'er my fields he makes his flight, In numbers almost infinite; A plague, alas!; That doth surpass The swarming caterpillar crew. Check him I can't. What shall I do? The British Sparrow won't depart, I would not, nay! About mere caterpillars fuss. Patience with grubs and moths were mine, Would he but pass across the brine. I call Passer Domestic Cuss! "HERE WE HARE AGAIN!"-There are two Johnnies on the stage. JOHNNY Senior being J. L. TOOLE (now on his way home from New Zealand), and JOHNNY Junior, JOHN And now JEUNE triumphs in no minor mea- HARE, both immensely popular as comedians, sure. Judicial Pomp and Social Pleasure Now indeed make marvellous meeting. See with suasion firmly sweet That brisk trio, gaily greeting To that portal guide his feet. Neptune's hoarse hails his friend's approach declare, Probate, the winged sprite, about must play; With wanton wings that winnow the soft air In gliding state Lord Cupid leads the way To where grave Law must mark, assay, reprove Wanderings of young Desire, and lures of fickle Love! and both in high favour with our most illustrious and judicious Patron of the Drama, H R.H. the Prince of WALES. It is gratifying to learn that, after the performance of A Pair of Spectacles at Sandringham, the Prince presented the Junior of these two Johnnies with a silver cigar-box. In the right-hand corner of the lid is engraved a hare looking through a pair of spectacles, and inside is a dedication to JOHN HARE from ALBERT EDWARD. "Pretty compliment this," as Sir WILL SOMERS, the Court Jester, might have said,-"to JOHNNY HARE from the Hare Apparent." SULLIVANHOE! BRAVISSIMO, Sir ARTHUR SULLIVAN of Ivanhoe, or to compress it telegraphically by wire, "Bravissimo Sullivanhoe!" Loud cries of "ARTHUR! ARTHUR!" and as ARTHUR and Composer he bows a solo gracefully in front of the Curtain. Then Mr. JULIAN STURGIS is handed out to him, when "SULLIVAN" and "JULIAN"-latter name phonetically suggestive of ancient musical associations, though who nowadays remembers "Mons. JULLIEN"?-the composer and librettist, bow' a duet together. Music 66 and Words 66 66 disappear behind gorgeous All Dicky with Ivanhoe; or, The Long and Short of it. about it until the situation where that slyboots Rebecca artfully threatens to chuck herself off from the topmost turret rather than throw herself away on the bad Templar Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbertsans-Sullivan. The Opera might be fairly described as "Scenes from Ivanhoe," musically illustrated. There is, however, a continuity in the music which is lacking in the plot. The scenic effects are throughout admirable, and the method, adopted at the end of each tableau, of leaving the audience still more in the dark than they were before as to what is going on on the stage, is an excellent notion, well calculated to intensify the mystery in which the entire plot is enveloped. The change of scene-of course highly recommended by the leech in attendance on the suffering Ivanhoe-from the little second-floorback in the top storey of the castle tower, where the stout Knight of Ivanhoe is in durance, is managed with the least possible inconvenience to the invalid, who, whether suffering from gout or pains in his side, and, judging by his action, he seemed to feel it, whatever it was, all over him,-found himself and his second-hand lodging-house sofa (quite good enough for a prisoner) suddenly deposited at the comparatively safe distance of some three hundred yards or so from the burning Castle of Torquilstone, in which identical building he himself, not a minute before, had been immured. So marvellous a flight of fancy is only to be found in an Arabian, not a Christian, Night's Entertainment. Bottle Imp did to his You must learn to love The game of "Becky my Neighbour." The I have not time to enumerate all the charming effects of the Opera, but I must not forget the magic property-harp, with, apparently, limp whip-cord strings, "the harp that once," or several times, was played by those accomplished musicians, King Richard, and Friar Tuck, the latter of whom has by far the most taking song in the Opera, and which would have received a treble [or a baritone] encore, had Barkis-meaning Sir ARTHUR-" been willin'." The contest between Richard and the Friar is decidedly "Dicky." Nor must I forget the magnificent property supper in the first scene, at so much a head, where not a ham or a chicken is touched; nor must "the waits" between some of the sets be forgotten,-"waits" being so suggestive of music at the merriest time of the year. Nor, above all, must I omit to mention the principal character, Ivanhoe himself, played by Mr. BEN DAVIES, who would be quite an ideal Ivanhoe if he were not such a very real Ivanhoe-only, of course, we must not forget that he "doubles" the part. There is no thinness about "Ben Mio," whether considered as a man, or as a good all-round tenor. I did not envy Ivanhoe's marvellous power of sleep while Miss MACINTYRE was singing her best, her sweetest, and her loudest. For my part I prefer to believe that the crafty Saxon was "only purtendin'," and was no more asleep than Josh Sedley on the eve of Waterloo, or the Fat Boy when he surprised As to the Music,-well, I am not a musician, and in any new Opera when there is no one tuneful phrase as in Aïda or Tannhäuser, which, at the very first hearing, anyone with half an ear can straightway catch, and reproduce next day till everyone about him cries, "Oh don't!" and when, as in this instance, the conducting The Tournament Scene is a very effective "set," but practically an elaborate " sell," as all the fighting on horseback is done "without." Presently, after a fierce clashing of property-swords, sounding suspiciously like fire-irons, Ivanhoe and Sir Brian come in, afoot, to fight out "round the sixth, and last." There is refreshing novelty in Mr. COPLAND'S impersonation of Isaac of York, who might be taken for Shylock's younger brother who has been experimenting on his beard with some curious kind of hair-dye. This comic little Isaac will no doubt grow older during the run of the piece, but on the first night he neither looked nor behaved like Rebecca's aged and venerable sire, nor did Miss MACINTYRE-who, by the way, is charming as Rebecca, and who is so nimble in skipping about the composer, Wagnerianly, will not permit encores - where am I? stage when avoiding the melodramatic Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert- Nowhere. I return home in common time, but tuneless. On the other sans-Sullivan, and so generally active and artful as to be quite a hand, besides being certain that Friar Tuck's jovial song will "catch Becky Sharp,-nor, I say, did Miss MACINTYRE seem to treat her on," I must record the complete satisfaction with which I heard the precocious parent (Isaac must have married very young, seeing that substantial whack on the drum so descriptive of Sir Brian de BoisBecky is full twenty-one, and Isaac apparently very little more Guilbert-sans-Sullivan's heavy fall" at the ropes." "This last effect, |