A WASTE OF SYMPATHY.
PUNCH has seen that much generous sympathy has been excited for an unfortunate Cab-driver, "said" to have been sent to prison for a month for the offence of not having five shillings in his pocket. One story is good till another is told; but unfortunately the police reporters tell so many stories, that it is almost impossible to keep pace with them. After several columns of indignation—more or less virtuous; after the expenditure of a rivulet of ink, having more than the usual quantity of gall in it; and after a little energetic questioning in the House of Commons, the plain truth comes out that the Cab-driver never said a word about "not having five shillings," and consequently was not sent to prison at all for his poverty, but because he was convicted of an overcharge, and because he declined the test of actual measurement which was offered to him.
We make every allowance for a reporter whose province it may be to exaggerate gooseberries, and give undue enormity to cauliflowers for paragraphical purposes, but it is rather too hard of him to indulge his imagination and allow it to run riot in getting up a monstrous case of magisterial oppression. The affair has, perhaps, answered its purpose, for it has given gigantic dimensions to a police report and made that productive of half-a-crown which would, if kept within the commonplace limits of fact, have yielded scarcely a shilling; it has given an opportunity to "able editors" to write admirable leading articles—admirable in every respect but the foundation, which has unfortunately given way; and it has permitted vigilant Members of Parliament to show their vigilance, by asking the Home Secretary what he is about, and why he doesn't reverse a few magisterial decisions every now and then, by way of keeping up the "independence" of the Bench and showing that he is not asleep in his office. So far as any good may result from these things, the fictitious report of the Cab case has answered its purpose; but the only real advantage we can see in it has been gained by the Cabman, for whom subscriptions have poured in which have enabled him to pay his fine, and perhaps leave him a handsome balance for future penalties. Whilst we firmly oppose the Cabman in all his delinquencies—and they are not a few—let him only come forward with a real wrong, and he shall have all the benefit of Punch's avenging bâton.
Well off for Soap.
In consequence of the reduction of the Soap Duties, an eccentric gentleman, who likes a smooth shaven lawn, has the lawn in front of his house lathered in order to be shaved.