PEOPLE--Mr. IMPREY, Mr. GEORGE SMITH (of Coalville), and others--are
actually to be found contending for the barren honour of having
invented that terrible nuisance of a catch-phrase, "Three Acres and a
Cow!" Strange and morbid perversion of ambition! As well fight for
the deep discredit of having been the first to hit upon such kindred
controversial horrors as the boring and question-begging "gags" of
"Law and Order," "Patriot first, and Party-man afterwards," "Hand over
to the tender mercies, &c.," "Disintegration of the Empire," or even
that most hackneyed of political phrases, "Grand Old Man" itself. Now,
if any one took credit to himself for never, never having uttered
the "Acre and Cow" Shibboleth, or made use of any others of these
soul-sickening bits of polemical claptrap, _Mr. Punch could_ understand,
and admire, and envy. There be things that _everybody_--possessed of
sense and sobriety--would "rather not have said."
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