MATTER AND ACCIDENTS.

IN one of the letters lately addressed by MONSIGNORE CAPEL to the Times, the subjoined definitions are quoted from a work whose author was the late DR. NEALE, advanced Ritualist. The Monsignore adopts them as a "clear exposition" of a dogma-with which Mr. Punch has nothing to do. In themselves, however, they are simply statements concerning science, a subject which is quite within the province of Mr. Punch :

"All matter is divided into the accidents and the substance. Accidents of matter are those which make a thing appear to be what it is. Substance is that which makes a thing to be what it is. The accidents remain; the substance is changed."

Now Mr. Punch begs to submit the following questions to MONSIGNORE CAPEL, or anybody else who thinks he can answer them. If substance is that which makes matter to be what it is, then is substance anything else than power? And then is not the substance

of matter immaterial?

Are accidents of matter absolutely and invariably those which make a thing appear to be what it is? Do not certain Doctors, including DOCTOR CAPEL, on the contrary, most strenuously maintain that accidents may possibly, and occasionally do, make a thing appear to be what it is not?

What are the substances, respectively, of a piece of bread and a piece of beef? Is there any such thing as a simple substance of

IV.

JACK SPRAT

Could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean;
This way went SPRAT,
His wife went that-
Both crooked ways, I ween.

To Church JACK went,
As he was bent,

His wife she went to Mass;
That they fell out,
Was just about

What soonest came to pass.

either? Are not the only known or conceivable substances of beef and of bread certain substances supposed to be elementary, principally carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen? What difference is there between bread and beef other than that of the chemical and mechanical arrangement and relative quantities of those substances in the beef and in the bread? If bread is converted into beef, as through being eaten by an ox, what change from bread to beef takes places besides the decomposition of the elementary substances of bread and their recomposition in the form of beef?

Is not the science which divides matter into substance and accidents as above defined, science of the same character as that which once divided it into four elements, earth, air, fire, and water? Lastly, as to the accidents of matter, has matter really any accidents at all, except those which it is liable to meet with, such as the breakage of cups and saucers, glasses, dishes, plates, windows, heads, limbs, ribs, collar-bones, and all the other various casualties too numerous to mention, which are wont to befal, annoy, exasperate, hurt, or damage, men, animals, and things.

Something Like a Work of Art.

CANOVA'S is a name famous in Fine Art, but of all CANOVAS' works where is there one to be compared with the re-erection now in progress under the auspices of that famous name at Madrid, with the title of "Government ousting Anarchy.

With such right Royal bidding. May each Wise Man from the West,
Who finds himself so lucky as to be your welcome guest,
Resolve that one eclipse at least shall ne'er dim British brightness,
Eclipse of English courtesy by Siamese politeness.

WHY I GO TO CHURCH.

FEMININE REASONS.

BECAUSE the REV. VOLUBLE COPE intones so delightfully, and looks so interesting and emaciated, and preaches such delightfully high sermons-and so sweet and short too.

Because the little boys in white surplices chant so angelicallyand one somehow feels it all so delightfully wrong and Roman Catholic.

Because my bonnet is the loveliest in the village, and it is a duty to show the country girls what a really tasteful thing in dress means. Because one likes to look at other peoples' bonnets and dresses; and nothing but seeing could make one believe what execrable taste most English girls have!

Because CHARLIE is sure to be there, with that inevitable white flower and fern leaf in his button-hole (the ridiculous fellow !), and Mamma will probably ask him home to lunch.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL FREE-FIGHT.

WHEN Will Clericals settle
Clash of Church-pot and kettle,

To the tinkle of cymbals emphatic ?
The dogmatic free-fight,

At no time too polite,

Is fast growing cat and dog-matic.

Fed with Ritual oil,

Clerie fires counter-coil

Round the Church-pot, high-bubbling their mid on; CAPEL hoping that first

It will boil, and then burst,

If by Law's stress it must keep its Lid on.

NESTOR-NEWMAN now claims
To pour oil on the flames-

Patristic, plain, pure, præter-human:
While Rome, half-askance,

Marks him cross GLADSTONE'S lance-
GLADSTONE-impar congressus to NEWMAN!

Brutum fulmen forth flashes
In clerical clashes

Of in-com-per-trans-sub-stantiation:
And its senseless sounds rattle,
Till, tired of their brattle,

Both the Churches one gives to cremation:

And admires the wise Bishop, Who, when asked to help dish-up GURNEY'S Bill by a vote hot and hearty, Replied he was quite

Off the cards for a fight,

Being booked for a snug garden-party.

Better spirting at hockey,
Or spooning at croquet,

Or flirting, or fun, or lawn-tennis,

Than 'twixt High Church and Low Church,
Breach-widening for No Church,

Suffragiis, linguis, et pennis."

FESSLER, DÖLLINGER, SCHUMANN,
MANNING, CAPEL, and NEWMAN,

GLADSTONE, LIDDON, both Churches' free-fighters,

In his garden could Punch,
But once gather at lunch,

Disarmed of pens, books, robes, and mitres

His Sense, Wisdom, and Wit,
For them some clue would hit

From their maze, fenced by dogma and creed in,
And his garden they'd own,
Had a right to be known

As a genuine Garden of Eden!

HERE WE Go" UP, UP, Up!"-The most successful example of "Levitation "-the Daily Telegraph.

Because I want to see how my Christmas decorations look. Because it's Sunday, and it would look so strange to stay away.

MASCULINE REASONS.

Because CANON MANLEY is safe to utter some home-truth from the pulpit which nobody dare say out of it, and one likes to see how awfully scandalised the old fogies of both sexes are safe to be at it. Because one feels curious to ascertain to what lengths of rot old BOSHVILLE can go in the pulpit.

Because one likes to see how near that young RUBRICK can get to Rome without actually crossing the Rubicon.

Because, unless I go to-day, the opportunity may be lost, as-if one is to believe my Liberationist neighbour, old JAWKINS-the Church is safe to be disestablished, if not next week, next year at latest. Because one likes to set a good example.

Because one catches glimpses of all the pretty girls in the parish.

Because most respectable people go.

Because I really should like to believe in something or other, only I haven't time to decide for myself what that something should be, and a fellow might get a lead at church some Sunday, perhaps.

LA

AN ANCIENT CLERK.

AW.-WANTED by a CLERK with (twenty years' experience), a permanent SITUATION. Advertiser is acquainted with Conveyancing, Accounts, Book-keeping, and the General Routine of a solicitor's office; also competent to conduct magisterial business in the occasional absence of the principal. Aged ninety-three, married; salary moderate."-Law Times.

THIS venerable gentleman must have discovered the Elixir of Life, and in the most unlikely place for it-an attorney's office! At ninety-three he still seeks a permanent situation! He ought, certainly, to be an authority on "long leases" and "life interests." But of all the undesirable "tenancies for life," we should have imagined a managing clerk's stool in an attorney's office about the most untempting. The application is all the stranger as the applicant's experience of similar situations only extends over twenty of his ninety-three years, so that he must have been sixtythree when he began office-work. Perhaps his sense of right and wrong was already too strong to be shaken, or his sensibilities were so blunted by age that he did not feel any conscience-prick from the work he must have had to do.

Memo.

THE Pall Mall Gazette informs us that a Form of Prayer is to be read out on the launching of Men of War and a Service specially compiled for the purpose by His Grace the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTER BURY. We understand that Woolwich Infants are in future to be christened, torpedoes to be sprinkled with holy water, gunpowder to be blessed by the ton, and shells by lots of fifty.

BON MOT.

(To be read Sardou-nically.)

QUELLE bonheur pour la race humaine

A Paris on supprime La Haine!

To MR. PUNCH,

99

THE MAN AT THE HELM.

Saturday, January 16. SIR,-What do I read in the Spanish correspondence of this morning's Times?

"With all possible allowance for the flattery which, like Providence, doth 'hedge a King,' so long as he is fortunate, there seems to be good evidence in all the sayings and doings of ALFONSO THE TWELFTH, as reported hitherto, to induce one to believe either that he is led by very wise instincts, or that he is most prudently advised."

66

Prudently advised" is it? Bedad, I believe you! Look at this, a few sentences farther on

"The Prince's Manifesto on his birthday, the happy words spoken by him, or at least attributed to him, in his intercourse with his friends and with strangers, and even the letter of thanks addressed to the President of the Ministry of Regency himself, come before the public under the inspiration of CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO and of those whom this wary counsellor had placed by the Prince's side, among whom we hear of one MURPHY, who has been DON ALFONSO's tutor, and who, in the quality of the young King's gentilhomme de chambre, is his constant attendant." There you have it! MURPHY's the man! Hurroo for Ould Ireland!