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!
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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.
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[Illustration: AN OLD FABLE.
_Frog._ "I MEAN TO BE AS BIG AS YOU, ONE DAY, AND
SWALLOW YOU UP. BUST IF I DON'T!"]
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