Thank Heaven the War is ended! That is the general voice, But let us feign no splendid Endeavours to rejoice. To cease from lamentation We may contrive--but--pooh! Can't rise to exultation, And cock-a-doodle-doo!
We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter, Like supernumeraries on the stage, To smiling happiness from settled rage; We look before and after. Before, to all those skeletons and corses Of gallant men and noble horses; After--though sordid the consideration-- Unto a certain bill to pay, Which we shall have for many a day, By unrepealable taxation.
Yet never fought we in a better cause, Nor conquered yet a nobler peace. We stood in battle for the eternal laws; 'Twas an affair of high Police, Our arms enforced a great arrest of State; And now remains--the Rate.
Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the cause of Italian liberty, _à propos_ of the advance of a million pounds to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a trade offer." _Punch_, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."
Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856--in the recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque in the shape of an imaginary article from the _Morning Herald_ on the execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over "Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead. Here, as so often time has proved, _Punch_ was a prophet as well as a critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France; wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced _Punch_ to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:--