The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1,
July 24, 1841, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841

Author: Various

Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14920]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 24, 1841.

* * * * *

A MODEST METHOD OF FORMING A NEW BUDGET

SO AS TO PROVIDE FOR THE DEFICIENCY OF THE REVENUE.

[Illustration: P] Poor Mr. Dyer! And so this gentleman has been dismissed
from the commission of the peace for humanely endeavouring to obtain the
release of Medhurst from confinement. Two or three thousand pounds, he
thought, given to some public charity, might persuade the Home Secretary to
remit the remainder of his sentence, and dispose the public to look upon
the prisoner with an indulgent eye.

Now, Mr. Punch, incline thy head, and let me whisper a secret into thine
ear. If the Whig ministry had not gone downright mad with the result of the
elections, instead of dismissing delectable Dyer, they would have had him
down upon the Pension List to such a tune as you wot not of, although of
tunes you are most curiously excellent. For, oh! what a project did he
unwittingly shadow forth of recruiting the exhausted budget! Such a one as
a sane Chancellor of the Exchequer would have seized upon, and shaken in
the face of "Robert the Devil," and his crew of "odious monopolists." Peel
must still have pined in hopeless opposition, when Baring opened his plan.

Listen! Mandeville wrote a book, entitled "Private Vices Public Benefits."
Why cannot public crimes, let me ask, be made so? you, perhaps, are not on
the instant prepared with an answer--but I am.

Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer forthwith prepare to discharge all the
criminals in Great Britain, of whatever description, from her respective
prisons, on the payment of a certain sum, to be regulated on the principle
of a graduated or "sliding s