IN THE NAME OF CHARITY—GO TO PRISON!
Last week Mr. Punch asked, "Oh, where, and oh where, is The Public Prosecutor?" and he has received an answer. It appears that the official has been recently engaged (his letter is dated the 30th of November) in suppressing an "illegal scheme" to aid the funds of the North-West London Hospital. It appears that, with a view to increasing the revenue of that most deserving charity, it was arranged to treat some presents that had been made to the Institution as "prizes," to be given to those who sent donations to the hospital. There was to be a "drawing," which was to be duly advertised in the daily papers. But this could not be tolerated. Sir A. K. Stephenson, Solicitor to Her Majesty's Treasury, after denouncing the scheme in the terms above set forth, informed the Secretary of the Hospital, "that all persons concerned therein subjected themselves to the penalties imposed by the Acts passed for the suppression of illegal lotteries." Well, the law is the law, and it would never do for Mr. Punch to dispute the point with so learned a gentleman as Sir A. K. Stephenson—the more especially as Sir A. K. S. has just been patented a Q.C.—but if the Public Prosecutor can stop "illegal schemes" for benefiting the sick, why can he not also deal with the professional perjurers, suborners of witnesses, and fabricators of false evidence? Mr. Punch pauses for a reply, but is disinclined to pause much longer!
Our Turn Now.—An excited paragraph in the morning papers announces that "two Doctors of Vienna have succeeded in discovering the Influenza bacillus after a series of experiments in the Chemical and Physiological Laboratory of the University." This is capital. Hitherto the Influenza bacillus has discovered us. Now the tables are turned, and the question is, What shall we do with our prize? A little transaction in boiling lead might not be bad to begin with.
