OUR NEW KNIGHT HOSPITALLER.
["We must regard it (Guy's Hospital) as an institution aiming at the most Christian ends, of elementary necessity, never too rich for the work it had to do, and now, through no fault of its own, cut down to one half of its means."—Mr. Gladstone's Letter on Guy's Hospital.]
"'Twere good you do so much for charity."
"Merchant of Venice," Act IV., Sc. 1.
Knight of St. John or Malta? Nay!
But needs of a less knightly day
The new Knight Hospitaller pleads.
Once foremost in the press of fight.
We find to-day the good grey knight
Militant still—for human needs.
No more with levelled lance in rest,
But, the Cross still upon his breast,
A knightly almoner is he.
Not as of old with flashing steel,
But flashing words, he makes appeal
In the great Cause of—Charity.
Punch seconds it with warm goodwill.
It sends a most unwelcome chill
Through every generous heart to think
That the great gift of Thomas Guy
Should suffer stint, or seem to die,
Because lands fail and rentals sink.
One hundred empty beds! Whilst wealth
Swells in the west, and shaken health
And sudden anguish scourge the east?
It must not be, or how may we
Who hold full stock and store in fee
Enjoy the coming Christmas feast?
Think! Fifteen hundred poor kept out,
And left in lonely pain and doubt,
Because the funds of Guy's so fail;
The sufferer's peace, the surgeon's skill
Checked, because Charity feels a chill!
Punch on his Public would prevail
To step into the breach, and brim
Guy's store again, as urged by him
Who now no party plea prefers,
But a far wider, higher plea,
In the great cause of Charity,
Newest of Knight Hospitallers!*
* "Those who respond to Mr. Gladstone's appeal will not merely be ministering to the needs of a charity, and supplying the wants of the poor, but they will be strengthening the hands of the medical profession in its life-long battle with disease, and will be assisting to secure the blessings of health to all who are in danger of being deprived of them."—The Times.
A Member of the Public who may be expected to attend the Lecture on Criminal Law.
[The Lord Chief Justice suggests the opening of the Lectures on Legal Subjects to the general public.]
Mr. K-r H-rd-e.—No one has ever looked upon him other than as a perfectly harmless low-comedian with a highly developed mania for caps and knickerbockers. And this, probably, is the reason why we are told, in the Liverpool Courier's "Labour Notes," that he is "an influential gentleman in England and very much run after for lecturing purposes." But alas! it appears—from the same source of information—that, in the United States, "the running after" is all on the erewhile West Ham representative's side; though, being "rationally" garbed, this ought not to cause him much inconvenience. It is almost pathetic to learn that the poor gentleman was in the position of a Mahomet before a mountain of Fall River miners, from whom he was compelled to ask permission before a lecture could be arranged. Ichabod! or—more appropriately—Knicker-bod!