LONDON :
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET,
AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLER!?.
1896.
BRADBCRY, AONEW, & CO., LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDOK.
JUNE 27, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
iii
IXION himself, by all that 's wonderful ! " said Mr. PUNCH, addressing — in defiance of mere mundane injunction — the Man at the Wheel.
" Mr. PUNCH and none other, by all that 's delightful ! " responded the Thessalian, trimming his bicycle lamp as tenderly as a masher tittivates his budding moustache.
" Happy to meet you, I 'm sure — anywhere ! " smiled the omnivagant Sage, pleasantly. " But how on earth did you get out of Hades and into Heav well, say Olympus ? "
" On my Wheel," answered IXION. " It has proved a Wheel of Fortune to me — in the long run. I fancy I hold the record for long distance, anyhow."
" But how did you contrive to turn your wheel of torment into a Rota Fortuna, IXION ? "
" As DISRAELI — who was a man after my own heart — made me write in JUNO'S album, ' adventures are to the adven- turous.' MERCURY — who is not a bad fellow for a turnkey — first gave me the tip. In this epoch the Wheel rules the world ! Olympus is awfully Conservative. But Olympus is also dull — as your Philosopher said most Conservatives are. And Olympus, like the Greeks, is always glad of ' some new thing," if it be adroitly introduced. Now DISRAELI and I shared that useful know- ledge how to educate a Conservative party — like the followers of JOVE or DERBY — without scaring it into revolt. Olympus — especially the she-side of it — was awearying for some novelty which was not as old as the hills or as stale as the New Fiction. To be brief, I cleverly converted my wheel of torture, and the chains wherewith I was bound thereto — MERCURY winking while I worked — into a Safety Bike ! Then he whispered to JUPITER and JUNO that I was having quite a good time on my converted cycle. Curiosity did the rest, and now VULCAN and his Cyclops (floated as ' The Etna Cycle Company, Limited ') are so full of orders even JOVE has to give six weeks' notice when he wants a new Wheel. Ha ! ha ! ha ! "
" Ho ! ho ! ho ! " echoed Mr. PUNCH. " There seems to be a lot of human nature not only in humanity, but in divinity also. I presume you are quite a persona grata again — especially with the goddesses? "
" I believe you, my bhoy ! " said the Thessalian, with a wink. " Olympus now ought rather to be called Olympia. Your Miss PATTISONS, MARIE PAULES, and Miles. SOLANGES are not in it, either for zeal or pace, with JUNO, VENUS, MINERVA, and that tremendously tenacious long-distance championess, dear DIANA ! Are you a wheelman, Mr. PUNCH? "
" Am I not Everything in excelsis ? " queried the Sage, coolly. " I wonder at your asking such a question ! I '11 take you, or any of your Olympian ' cracks,' gods or goddesses, on at any distance you like ! "
" On a cloud- course ? " asked IXION, archly.
IV
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JUNE 27, 1896.
: " Well, I 'in better used to grass or asphalte," said Mr. PUNCH. " And perhaps I 'm not so sweet on clouds as you are — or were — my dear IXION. You, from long experience, are doubtless used to ' rolling in the air,' — on a wheel ! "
The bold Thessalian actually blushed, and his impudent eye fell before Mr. PUNCH'S significant glance. " I own that I prefer innubilus (Ether — now," said he. " But we Ve all sorts of tracks in Olympus. You pay your entrance fee, and you take your choice. If you like to enter for the Golden Apple Handicap, JUNO, VENUS, and MINERVA will run you a race on grass, or ATALANTA will give you a start, as a newer and swifter Milanion, over the Three Pippin Asphalte Track, at your pleasure. As for me, I 'm your man at any distance, over any track, from cloud-course to cinder-path ! "
" You always were a cheeky chap, IXION," replied Mr. PUNCH, drily. " But how do your Olympian ladies look on Wheels ? Do they don — well, Divided Skirts ; and do they go gracefully, or humped and awkward, like too many terrestrial she-cyclists ? "
" Look for yourself, Mr. PaNCH," responded IXION. " ' Here they come ! ' as your Derbyites yell, especially when a Popular Prince looks like to win. Peep through the cloud-rift, and you, Mr. PUNCH, like poor fPlNONE,
" Mays't well behold them unbeheld, unheard Hear all, and, like young- PARIS, judge of gods 1 "
Sure enough, there they came, Goddesses Three. " Great HERE," pearly-shouldered PALLAS, " Idalian APHKODITK, beautiful," all on the World-dominating Wheel, all in Olympian Cycling Costume, all working away at treadle and handle as for dear life, like mere she-mortals at a mundane Cycle Meeting.
" What think you of my Three Olympian Pupils, Mr. PARIS-PUNCH?" asked IXION.
" Humph ! " said the Sage. " Methinks, personally, I should have preferred them as they appeared of old on the piny top of ' many-fountained Ida.' Women on Wheels look less like goddesses than they do off them, in my opinion, and goddesses on Wheels more like ordinary — very ordinary women. But I suppose the Wheel has ' come to stay ' — for some time at least, in Olympus as in Hyde Park."
" You bet ! " laughed IXION. " Why, even that pompous upstart, PHCEBUS, is practising biking at night on the strict Q.T., and I expect soon will be putting down his stables, selling off his horses of the sun, and doing his daily round on Wheels ! But look out, Mr. PARIS-PUNCH ! This course is two laps to the mile, and the Illustrious Three will be back presently, when you will have to award the Apple "
" Not at all, IXION, my boy ! " retorted Mr. PUNCH. " I have a better and fitter prize for the Olympian winner than any Golden Apple. My work and my awards are not for a mere cycle, but for all cycles, and cycles of cycles, ' not for an age, but for all time,' like my friend, WILLIAM OF AVON'S."
" And what is that prize of prizes for the Olympian winner of winners or champion of champions ? " asked Ixrox, curiously.
" Not a mere Golden Apple, but a veritable Golden Book," responded PUNCH, displaying to the amazed and interested IXION his
ne Jimktlr anfr Catjr Itohraie ! ! 1
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
88 Hf.-or. I>av » S Sexat. 8.
10 M Q. Viet. m.
11 To l>eicarte« b.
12 W Cellini d.
13 Th Rt vol. 1638 HF Valentin*
B. Leiri.
AQUARIUS, PISCES. ARIES.
I Tu B. Merton 4W Timbi <L 6 Th Lay ard b. < F Iiu Mauri t
S et.Bent-dct S 6 8. in Lent
7 B B.r. en. 38m.!'ffliM Nat. Gal. 1.
8 S 3 8. in Lent 24 Tu Q. Elii. 4. • ..... kjjw ud -
4 M Cobbeti IOTuS.1. Sh.M 11 W Inc. T. im 12ThSt. Gr^tor 13F iPrie.tleT
lev •b»<
•A'JI, I>k. Cam. b. V-.V Cam. L.T. e. iOif. L. T. e.
1|W Hil. Sit. e. |16ThTh ZThfobdend. 17 F {Franklin 4. SF Good Frid. 1-8 ICam.E.T.b. 4 S S.r. Mi. 2Um.! 1'J S 2 S. af. Eai. t S Eaiter S. I2UM £pa. fl. dn. « M Uk. Holiday !21 Tu K<m«th b. 7T«8.i.eli.41m.!|2:;W Odeiaabom.
9Th Fire Iiii. e. li'J4 F Defoe d. F 111. Tiiulon.e U8 81. Mark 8 Canning d. j26 S S S. af. Eai. S 'Low Sun. |?7 M Gibbon b.
3 M iHandel d. h2-- Tu B. Toun
4 Tu Fait. Sit. b.iea W Enip.Rm.b. IS. W ,l)r.Burneyd,|30,Th D. Arjjll b.
1 F |8.r. 4h. 33m. 17 S |S.af. Ai 28 ig.i. 7I,.'ilm. 1>M lB<»wtll S S 4 S. af. Em. 19 Tu St. Dunian 4 M K. A. oixrni 20 W Ed. Yatei 4. STuiNapol- t d. 21 TLX'awnnore 6WiSt John 22 K IOif. E. T. «. 7 Th Roieberjr b. 2i8 M. lemon 4. 2-t S »'li t Sun. 2f. M lik. (lolidnf Rogation S'. S6T» I>ch.Yorkb. Chatham d. 27 W Yen. Bed« Douro '09 2».Th W. Pitt b. O. May Day1 29 F i liai.II.ru. Aicexiion Kins 1 upe d. 1744 O'Lonnelld. 31,S Trin. Bun.
M 1SlBiL.ml.il
8 M -I). Jerrold 9Tu!Paiton d. lOWjUeiliberg UTuStllarnabai 12 F Dr.Amold d S3 Haitgi.btid.
17 W 'St. Alba* 1- Th Waterlo* 19 F B. Warm 208 tQ. Vio. A«-
S S 8n. a(. Tr .
M Hajdon 4. 23 Tu B. PlaaiT •J4 W Cam.X.T.*. z;,Th li. AltiTia •XF GM. 1T.4. 278 Ouratks. is! S '4 8n. »f. IV. J'J M St. FcUr J Tu Koicoe i
TAURUS. GEMINI. CANCER.
CALENDAR. 1896.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
AUGUST mi Days.
W B. Borne Th,B. P«l .r.8h.M_
•. 8h.l7n> SB. »f. Ti
6 M D. York m
17 P IPunchb. '41 1818 Who. Cook d. iS S 7 Sn. af. Tr.
20 M St. Margaret
21 Tu Burnt a.
22! W Sal 23,Th I.yonct b.
6|W|Ld. Bowed 6 Th Tennyson b . Carol, d.
.r.4!i.;;Vm SIS'lOSn. af.T
•21V iMid.elctd. 22 8 IB. Boiworti
8. »f. Tr.
Barthoio.
7 Tu'J. Hu» b
8 W Shelley i 9!ThP
Bp. Pell 4
if.Tr.Tj Sn. af. Tr, D.Orleani d Tu lias tile del. W S. Swilhin Th Beran?er d
2'W Trin.Sit SThLd. Kib 4|P Ld. Clyde d
S W. Scott b. 6'S llS.af. Ti
SEPTEMBER zxx Days.
OCTOBER xxxi Days.
NOVEMBER xxx Days.
DECEMBER xxxi Days.
16 W Landor d. ITThYalunar.b. Is P Oeo. I. land. B8 IPoitierilSM 20 S 188. af. Tr.
Cam.M.T.b F Arago d. Allieri d. 8 S. •/. Tr.
7:3 Etheldreda 20 S. af. Tr.
ITlhiOxf. M.T.*. t iGrimaldi kx i. M.T.e. 20{S|4S. m Adr. 21 M iMich. Slt.e. 22TuG. Eliot d. 23.W Jas. II. abd.
« Th Cron, 4P W.La
B 8.r.5h.21m.
S I H 8. af . Tr.
B. Nayarino 21IW [Trafalgar J2,Th!B.Edge Hill
. .
21 M St. Matth.
22 Tu Aut' '23 W B. Am 24 Tli 8. Butl S5P iP
1268 HLueknowrL |W S IW 8. af. Tr. P-i JNioopolii 29Tu|Mich. Day Jerome
Tu8.i.6h-29m. W1B. Plodden Th B. Qveinoy
27Tu'Met ZS W IJ. Locke" d. 29Th!j. Leech d. MI ISheridanb.
All Hallows
12'8 O. P. Riots 13 S 15 8. af. Tr. H|M Holy Cron Rajghur
SCORPIO. SAGITTARIUS. CAPRICORN US.
Summer.
1896.
-JLu.-tu.xnn. .
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
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PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
SECOND LABOUR.— 'ARRY PLAYS BILLIARDS, AND
MAKES A FANCY STROKE.
"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
1 V
THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
THIRD LABOUR.— 'ARRY CATCHES A CRAB.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
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PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
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"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
FIFTH LABOUR.— 'AERY AT GOLF,
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
SIXTH LABOUR.— FISHING. 'ARRY GETS A BITE.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896,
v^ A <r~^b&*'J2.
.\
"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY.'
TENTH LABOUR. — 'ARRY HAS A DAY'S "GUNNING," AND BAGS SOMETHING AFTER ALL.
PUNCH'S
PUNCH'S
AFTEK SIIAKSPEJ
K FOR 1896.
CVPIP
AND ' r PSYCHE
/"EN AGE S."
ERY LONG WAD.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
\
"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
ELEVENTH LABOUR. — 'AERY OUT WITH THE 'OUNDS. (For the Twelfth Labour of 'Arry, which is a " Labour of Love," see find page of this Number. )
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
CONTRASTS.
No. I.— MEN AND MANNERS. THE PAST.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896,
CONTRASTS.
No. II.— MEN AND NO MANNERS. THE PRESENT.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896,
CONTRASTS.
No. III.— MEN AND NO MANNERS. TIME PAST. A CAROUSE AT A TAVERN.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
CONTRASTS.
No. IV.— MEN AND MANNERS. TIME PRESENT. SUPPER AT A RESTAURANT.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOE 1896.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
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PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
UNRECORDED HISTORY.— VII.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL INABILITY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON TO TELL A LIE WAS PROVERBIAL, AND THE HOPE OP SOME OF His SUPPORTERS
THAT LATE IN LIFE THIS PHYSICAL DEFECT MIGHT BE OVERCOME, WAS DOOMED TO DISAPPOINTMENT. A DIPLOMATIC HYPERBOLE WAS THB BEST HE COULD EVER DO IN SPITE OF MOST PRAISEWORTHY EFFORTS.
PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOR 1896.
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"THE TWELVE LABOURS OF 'ARRY."
TWELFTH AND LAST LABOUR.— 'ARRY WITH HIS 'ARRIET UNDER THE MISTLETOE.
JANUARY 4, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
m. PUNCH'S NEW YEAR PHILOSOPHY.
[HEHACLITUS was called " the mourner " from his weeping at the follies of mankind.]
WHAT, weep the world's follies? That's
playing the fool, Like a jester who droppeth his tears in a
pool;
'Tis like damming a deluge with water ! HEKACLITTJS had hardly the happy way hit, Tears will not check follies as well as gay wit,
"Which giveth those follies no quarter. "What use at the goose-flock to groan or to grizzle P [fizzle,
A laugh may succeed when a tear may mean And what is more dull than damp fire- works ?
DEMOCBITTJS, Laughing Philosopher, knew That a man make look blue over fools till
all's blue;
That 's just how all pessimist ire works. A laugh has a lash, wit an edge far from
blunt, They whip up, without wounding, when
grumble or grunt Will only add anger to folly. A fool under scolding is like your dull asp, Who won't mend his form for mere whopping,
alas!
So let's be, judiciously, jolly I Untimely heroics, and preachments sublime, Are t* mpting to juvenile censors, whom time
Will teach to be rather more rosy ; Not optimist boobies, nor pessimist bores, They will learn that wise gaiety oftentimes
scores When foiled fall the pompous and prosy.
And so at this solemn, yet soul-cheering
season, All wise men, like Punch, mingle laughter
with reason ; And though Eat t and West things look
darkish, Punch does not mean joining the fussy or
frantic,
He sends a gay greeting across the Atlantic, A blend of the loving and larkieh.
Sporting Underwriter. " WOULD YOU LIKE TO INSURE ? " Bold Bird. " No ; I 'LL TAKE THE RISK 1 "
At— somebody's— folly he laughs, and derides The notion of shindylbetween the two sides
Of one double-fronted fraternity. Faithful friends' falling-out— for a time— a
huge bore is ; But — here 's to the redintegratio amoris ! —
A love that should last to eternity. Away fly the doves with an olive-branch
each! Good temper and fun better lessons will
teach
Than many more high-sounding Messages. Keep faith, at this season, in Peace and
Goodwill ! Keep temper, and sure the New Tear will
fulfil
Mr. Punch's non-pessimist presages. HEBACLITUS, poor chap, was a little bit out ; A good hearty laugh may kill hatred or
doubt,
If 'tis not too bitterly mocking. " The Mourner" had best, on the whole, be a
Mute! Laugh I Laugh ! save at sorrow ; the man
is mere brute *
Who at misery chortles ; that 's shocking I But Punch's first tip for this next of New
Tears j£ — don't weep at men's follies, nor laugh at
their tears !
UP TO DATE.
SEEING that the New Woman proudly dreams
Of sharing Man's immunities and joys, The proper proverb for the period seems, " Girls will be-boys I »
VOL. CX.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 4, 1896.
JANUARY 4, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
DONE 'EM THIS TIME I
Huntsman (having galloped over rotten bridge, spanning deep drain, and kicked a large hole it). " Hi I KBEP OFF IT, YOU BBGGABS 1 BEAR YOU l ^Has hounds all to himself— the acme of blisi !
STUDIES IN MODERN JOURNALISM. No. III. — DORINDA'S DIARY.
Monday.— Oh dear I JEMIMA is such a nuisance 1 She has called three times in the last two days to implore me to spend next week at iwiddledum Towers. It is all very well for her to say that her husband— the Duke, you know -will be heart-broken if I refuse; but I put it to you, dear reader, how can I do as she wishes, and at the same time keep my solemn promise to the Countess of PENTON- VIILE r The Countess would never, never forsrive your poor DOBINDA LI she disappointed her. By the way, the Countess's new boots are not at all a success. But, as I told her, how could she expect them to tit well unless she bought them at Messrs. LACE AND LEATHEB'S well-known shop, three doors off the Monument P * By the strangest coincidence, this excellent firm has a full-page advertisement on the cover of this number, so that you can find out all about their goods by referring to it.
Tuesday.— I felt very dull and depressed this morning ; but a cup ol DIBBS cocoa at luncheon quite restored me. (You must notice the trade- mark carefully when you buy it— there are so many spurious imitations of DIBBS', you know.) After luncheon, CHABLES came in, and, since his tailor is SKIPS, of 540, Piccadilly, I need hardly say that he was dressed in faultless taste. He took me off to a very select At Home, where I was introduced to Lady SELTZEB.
Dear Lady SELTZRB," I said, immediately, " what charming gloves you are wearing ! And yet I can see they are not expensive. Do tell me where TOU got them, and how much you paid for them." " Oh," said Lady SELTZEB, with such a sweet smile, " that 's what every- one asks me! Why, I bought them at Messrs. SHODDY'S winter —which, by the way, ends in a fortnight's time, so you should o there at once— and I only paid 2s. llfrf. the pair for them."
* Having guilelessly undertaken to publish a certain number of these
elightfully entertaining articles, we would not for The "World fail in our
ition. But, as we did not bind ourselves to give the names and
resses of the tradesmen herein insidiously advertised, we have substituted
: our own invention. Aggrieved purveyors have their remedy.— ED.
Wednesday. — " Where did you get that hat?" wrote SHAKS- PEARE, and the question was repeated to me a dozen times at a fashionable luncheon-party to-day. How stupid people are, to be sure I For, of course, no one except Madame MODISTE, of 320A, Bond Street, could have created it. Indeed, I and all the other best- dressed people in London deal with her. TOMMY PLANTAGENET, my thirteen- year-old cousin, came in to tea. He told me that he had noticed a charming costume, worn by a lady in the row of stalls next to him at the Pantomime. I hasten to give the details of it, for the benefit of my readers. (Paper patterns of it can be obtained for six stamps from the office.) The dress is made of magenta-coloured sequins, embroidered with muroir velvet and piped passementerie. The bodice is composed of white fichu, draped round the hips with blue nainsook, and the arms are looped np above the basque with scarlet tulle, while the skirt is trimmed with yellow revers, edged with chiffon. The lining is of reseda-shot satin, with accordion- pleated buckles gathered very closely round the tunic. One could not easily imagine a more charming design.
Thursday, — " Arma virumque," as HOMEB says — which means, of course, that all knowledge is useful. So, darling reader, I hasten to impart to you a fact which I was told to-day. And this is, that no one in London has such splendid crocodiles as Mr. SHADBACH, of Upper Hollpway. This is worth remembering, as it is quite possible that crocodiles may become favourite drawing-room pets before long, and you could not offer your family a more acceptable Christmas
present. In fact, a certain Princess Bother I that dull old
Marchioness has called to take me for a drive, so I can write no more just now.
A Grammatical Question settled under the Mistletoe.
" Now a kiss, dear," he said, " is a noun we '11 agree, Bat common or proper, say which may it be ? " " Well, perhaps," she replied (to speak nothing loth), While she smiled and grew red—" Let us say it is both."
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 4, 1896.
ROBING-ROOM RUMOURS.
THERE is no truth in the report that, following the precedent about to be set by Mr. ASQUTTH, in appearing before Ms fellow Privy Councillors, many of the Judges of the High Court are accepting retainers to represent either Plaintiffs or Defendants in their own Divisions. At least this extension is not likely to be carried out just at present. *
* *
The proposed representation of "A New Pantomime," by the late Dr. KENEALLY, at Gray's Inn, will certainly not take place during the present Christ- mas. If the work is played at all, it will be without scenic accessories. *
* *
It is asserted that, at the recent r<eeting of the deputation from the Bar Cjmmittee with the LOHD CHANCELLOR, smoking was not permitted. As the proceedings, however, were of a semi- private character, it is uncertain whether liquid refreshments were dis- cussed with arguments of a less material
nature.
*
* *
It is not improbable that, with a view to removing the block of legal business, that some of the railway companies will run, during the present year, "High Court Saloon Carriages," in which ac- commodation will be provided for the Bench, the Bar, the solicitors, and their clients and witnesses. If the matter of venue can be satisfactorily arranged, causes will thus be ready for hearing during transit. There is already a re- corded precedent of a Judge granting an injunction from the front of his bathing- machine.
*
Now that the qualifications for mem-
THE FESTIVE SEASON.
ON THE LATCH-KEY VIVE 1
bership of the Inns of Court Volunteers have been relaxed, and others than counsel can be admitted to the famous corps, it is possible the parties concerned in Chancery proceedings will be accepted, as recruits. It is argued that by this means the regiment will retain the services of wealthy litigants and their personal representatives — "it may be for years it may be for ever." * * *
As nowadays only one or two rooms are used in the Royal Courts of Justice during term time, on account of the absence of most of the Judges in other places, it has been suggested to utilize the remainder of the building for the production of a grand realistic spectacle on the lines of the capital military entertainment at Olympia. If the idea is adopted, no doubt the initial item will be called "Fifteen Years of a Junior's Life; or, From Call to First Brief."
HEY, PEESTO!
A CABLE message from New York says : —
A fifteen- ton disappearing gun was mounted in the defences of New York Harbour this afternoon. Four more weapons of equal size and the same pattern will be placed in posi- tion next week.
Which thing is an allegory, neatly and picturesquely typifying President CLEVE- LAND'S famous message to Congress. For a moment, even for a day, there was the murderous armament, threatening the amity of two nations and the peace of Europe. People looked up again to see what further preparations were made, and lo! it was gone. It was a diplo- matic, or more precisely, an election- eering, disappearing gun.
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
ON NEPHEWS — AND "HUCKLEBERRY FINN."
IT has been granted to me during the last few days to study a soaring human boy face to face. The abstract " my nephew of whom I occasionally speak in passing has become the concrete "Guy, don't do this," or, "GuY, don't do that." Mv study is littered with paper darts of all sorts and sizes ; a clasp-knife is at this moment lying open on my favourite arm-chair, a catapult is on the floor (perhaps the safest place for it), and odd numbers of Chums are strewn about the house. The owner of these articles is dashing up and down the stairs, with a whole pack of dogs at his heels.
GUY is an atom of humanity, tottering on the brink of his eleventh birthday. His fond mother consigned him to my care, together with a long list of instructions. " His usual bed-time," she said, " is eight o'clock. Please, please see that he brushes his teeth morning and evening, and keeps Ms hands clean. When he goes out he must wear his overcoat and his little flannel comforter ; and when he comes in you must always insist on his changing his stockings. Keep him out of puddles, and see that he does at least an hour at his arithmetic and Latin Grammar. He is weak in arithmetic ; but in Latin Prose he got full marks at his last exami- nation^ Don't allow him to make himself a nuisance to you. If he does, give him a good book of adventures, and you '11 find him as quiet as a mouse." These were the more important items in the compendium drawn up for the guidance of a bachelor uncle.
So far I have done my best, but my best has stopped short of Latin grammar and arithmetic. I can remember how keenly I detested the genial old gentlemen who, on hearing that I had gone to school, asked me to decline mensa, and posed me with the perfect tense of /ero, and in my nephew's case I satisfied myself with his personal assurance that he had been able to translate into Latin these memorable sentences: — "C^SAK marched into Italy with a large army," and "We were seen by CATTTS, your slave." A boy who can do that, and obtain full marks for it, is obviously reserved for very great things.
For the rest, I found him fairly amenable. He jibs a good deal at his overcoat, and has contrived to lose his little flannel comforter ; his bedtime has been extended to nine o'clock ; I have utterly failed to restrain him from puddles (oar country roads, by the way, are nothing but eo many huge puddles) ; and I find it next to impossible to keep his hands clean, though he has immaculate intervals lasting for about three minutes at a time. But he brushes his teeth and he changes his stockings, so I feel that on the whole I have done pretty well. .
OF course he collects postage-stamps. He also takes a pro- found interest in smoking and all that pertains to it. He goes about bristling with cigarettes so as to oe ready to supply my needs at the shortest notice. He is never without a tray, into which he knocks the ash from my cigarette as I smoke it. He has just come in and has posted himself at my elbow. Whizz— bang, he has decided that I have finished my cigarette, he has seized it out of my mouth, hurled it into the fire, has jammed another between my lips and has struck a match and burnt the cigarette to a cinder before I have recovered from the shock. He has found a box of fifty cigars and clipped all their ends, and he has filled my ten pipes with tobacco so as to be ready for all emergencies. It is delightful to find a mere boy able and willing to make himself so useful.
Bur his usefulness goes further. Only this morning I found him in the pantry busily employed in helping the butler to polish up the forks and spoons, and yesterday he was allowed, as a great treat, to take a hand in the manufacture of a plum-pudding. To-morrow he is to wait at table, a prospect which seems to fill him with unutter- able joy. On the whole he is really a very good and cheerful little boy, with plenty of resources for his own amusement. One thing has struck me about him. He weighs about five stone, and his size, therefore, is not gigantic. Still, in his little knickerbocker suit, he looks quite big enough for his years. But in the evening he wears a full-dress Eton suit, which has the effect of reducing him to the merest ecrap ; the most diminutive shrimp, I warrant, that ever got full marks for Latin prose.
I PBAE there is a lack of reverence about the nephews of the
JANUARY 4, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
present day. This one— and I presume he is typical of the rest— calls me familiarly by my Christian name without the respectful prefix " Uncle." When asked why he did this, he said, 'rOh, I don't know, ' uncles ' are people with whiskers." As my whiskers did not survive my freshman's year at Cambridge, it appears that I am not qualified for the title, though I cannot shake off the responsibilities of the post. His ideas on age are also rather alarm- ing. " How old," I asked him, " is the head-master of your school ? " •« Oh, middle-aged—nearly thirty."
BUT my chief surprise has been his keen and appreciative enjoy- ment of Huckleberry Finn. I gave it to him to quiet him, and he was soon deep in it. This evening he has insisted on reading aloud to me the whole of that inimitable passage which relates how the two old frauds, the King and the Duke of Eridgetcater, pretended to be the brothers of Mr. Peter Wilks, deceased. At every other sentence that boy had to stop, convulsed with laughter, and, mind you, he laughed in the right way and at the right things. This is no mere piece of knockabout clowning such as one supposes would appeal to a small boy, but a bit of the most genuine and incisive humour ever printed. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion — still assuming GTTT to be typical — that the sense of humour amongst nephews of a tender age has become far keener and j aster than it used to be.
BTJT, after all, what a great book is Huckleberry Finn. With how lavish a hand has MAEK TWAIN scattered the riches of his humour and his observation and his sympathy over every page. There is enough in it to fit out twenty ordinary books with laughter. There are bits of description in it which bring a scene before your eyes as vividly as if you had seen it over and over again and fixed it on your mind. Characters are hit off in a few incisive touches, and the man stands before you as he must have lived.
TAKB this for description : — " It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely ; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked all dim and spider-webby ; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up ihe pale underside of the leaves ; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild ; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest — fst ! it was as bright as glory, and you 'd have a little glimpse of tree tops a-plungmg about, away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before ; dark as sin again in a second, and now you 'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the underside of the world, like rolling empty barrels downstairs, where it 's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know."
AND this: — " Colonel Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well-born, as the saying is, and that 's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, eo the widow Douglass said, and nobody ever denied she was of the first aristocracy in our town ; and pap he always said it too, though he warn't no more quality than a mud-cat himself. Colonel Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it any- wheres ; he was clean-shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep like they seemed they was looking out of caverns at you as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders. . . . Some- times he smiled, and it was good to see ; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners — everybody was always good- mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around too : he was sunshine most always — I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned into a cloud-bank it wag awful dark for half a minute and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week."
THEN for simple, unforced pathos you have the runaway nigger, Jim, one of the finest and purest gentlemen in all literature. And lor tragedy, can anything be more moving and terrible than the last stand of the Grangerfprds, or the death of Hoggs, with its sequel in Colonel Sherburn's imperturbable defiance of the cowardly mob, who propose to 1> nch him ? But I have not space to dwell on all the great points of this Homeric book— for Homeric it is in the true sense, as no other English book is, that I know of.
So I (and my nephew) send this message of goodwill across the sea to our friend MAEK TWAIN, at a time when messages of good-
will and friendship are sorely needed. That the countrymen of DICKENS and MAKK TWAIN should fight about Venezuela is an idea so fantastic and preposterous that imagination boggles at it ; and even the mind of the worst Jingo of either nation must revolt from it when it is fully realised.
P.S. — A week or two back I asked about the National Pension Fund for NurseSj and expressed a wish to know the address of its Secretary. A kindly correspondent, signing herself " An Admirer of Mr. Punch of Fifty Years' standing," gives me the necessary information, which I hereby convey to my readers in the earnest hope that the fond may benefit : —Royal National Fund for Nurses, 28, Finubury Pavement, London, B.C.
THE BEAUTYCIDES.
" A THING of beauty is a joy for ever," —
Until there comes an advertiser clever,
With paste, and poster, and some patent pill ;
And then by stream and meadow, vale and hill,
Taste feels, through greed's disease, by no pill curable,
A thing of ugliness is yet more durable.
Churls I they 'd foul Eden, or disfigure Arden,
With Trade 's new-fangled " Ugly Thing in the Garden " I
Shall they at Foyers carry on those feats
Whereby Philistia gives the lie to KEATS ?
"SOME OF THE BEST" OF REGULATIONS.
(Prepared by an Expert after witnessing the new piece at the Royal Adelphi Theatre.)
ALL officers belonging to the Portsmouth garrison will take tea with neighbouring parsons, and their daughters, in undress uniform. On such occasions the regiment of the subaltern, in attendance upon the Commander-in-chief, shall accompany their officer to the churches, belonging to said parsons, to the music of the fifes and drums.
A lieutenant of Highlanders shall be told off to prepare the plans of the new fortifications at Portsmouth, in the absence of Royal Engineers qualified to undertake the duty.
It shall be considered high treason if the lieutenant aforesaid takes the plans, he has himself prepared, from a safe with a view to acquainting himself of their contents, and im- parting the knowledge thus guiltily obtained to an anonymous enemy of his country.
When accused of the aforesaid crime, the lieutenant shall be tried by court martial, whereat ample accommodation shall be re- served for females in distress.
The office of prosecutor at suoh a court martial shall be assumed by a general officer senior to the Commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, and one who has been permitted to retain his A.D.C.-ship after promotion from field rank. The prisoner shall be allowed practically to conduct the proceedings of the court martial, and t hall have opportunities afforded him of taking part in several touching scenes^with the females in distress.
On being found guilty, the lieutenant shall have his sentence read to him in front of his regiment, and undergo the painful and novel indignity of degradation to the ranks.
Daring the execution of this newly-authorised punishment, the lieutenant shall be permitted to clasp his fiancee to his heart and to present her with the Victoria Cross.
On reinstatement to his rank the lieutenant shall obtain the control of his regiment, and shall use his regained freedom to harangue his superior officers, to pardon his accusing and perjured witness and reconcile her to her father, the general commanding, and finally to embracing the young lady destined shortly to become his wife.
The reinstatement of the lieutenant having been fixed to come off on the occasion chosen by the prosecutor at the court martial as one fitting for the presentation of new colours to the lieutenant's regiment, the prosecutor, in a neat speech, shall deliver the national flag to the ex-prisoner amidst the loudly expressed joy of all beholders.
Lastly. After the reinstated lieutenant has received the National Flag at the hands of the prosecutor aforesaid, he shall give satifao- tory statistics regarding the crime of high treason in its relation to the commissioned ranks of the British Army. Having done this, he shall be at liberty to allow it to be inferred by all sufficiently fortunate to be present at the aforesaid interesting ceremony, that it is the intention of himself and his bride to live honourably, and consequently happily, for ever afterwards.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUABY 4, 1896.
DIVISION OF LABOUR.
IT IS NOT THE BUSIKESS OF DUCAL FoOTMBN TO CLEAN THE FAMILY BICYCLES. THE LADIES ERMTNTRT7DE AND ADELGITHA
HAVE TO DO IT THEMSELVES.
A PEOPHET TOO PEEYIOUS,
(To the Author of the "Hill-top Novel.")
THE " Survival of the Fittest" we begin to understand,
(Though we sometimes doubt thejfacrf of the survival,) But the coming of GBANT ALLEN, with his notions queer, if grand,
Seems an instance of its premature arrival. Many hundred years ahead of us, and yet " dumped down" to-day
Among those who his far ancestry should be 1 It is really quite " too previous " and the Fates must be at play
To perch UDon our hill- tops such as he. When centuries get mixed up so, and there comes a saintly seer
From the twenty-fifth, six centuries in advance, What wonder if we find his hill-top theories wild and queer,
And decline at his new tunes to up and dance ? No. we don't want to catch up to him, and were he out of sight,
We could wait for him six centuries, contented, But his spectre— on the hill- tops —fills the timid with affright,
And drives advanced young ladies half-demented. Between good Mrs. GBTJNDY and Miss LANCHESTEK it seems
There are dangers in our novelist's new leaven, It drives one to hysterics, makes the other dream strange dreams,
But will it sweeten home or brighten heaven ? You dedicate your work to those who 've heart, and soul, and brain
Enough to understand it I Modest ! Meek, Sir ! Can't you move a leetle farther good GBANT ALLEN, and remain —
Weft— say about the middle of next week, Sir 1
AN UNPEEDICrED STOEM.
A STOBM of unusual violence, coming from the United Slates struck the British coasts on the 18th ult. The usual storm warning from New York had not preceded it. It was accompanied by loud thunder and blustering winds, and seemed likely to cause great damage. Happily a condition of great calmness prevailed over the British Isles, the cyclonic disturbance seeming to have little effect, unless to cause a temporary increase in the fog and gloom. Since then appearances give hope of greater clearness, with probably bright and settled conditions later.
It is believed that this storm originated in a violent outburst of
Mount Cleveland, a large volcano hitherto quiescent ; and of Mount Olney, a smaller, but equally active, centre of fiery disturbances. Until recently they were considered quite harmless. The Irish newspapers state that bath oraturs had bten for some days in a state of violent ebullition. Before this outburst the summit of Mount Cleveland was densely wooded, and produced a larger number of inferior planks, used in the construction of platforms, than any other headland in the United States. The present volcanic condition has, of court e, entirely superseded the production of these inferior planks.
"DR. BIECH AND HIS YOUNG FEIENDS."
JTTST before the holiday time a drawing-master was summoned before Mr. HADEN COBSEB by an indignant female parent for chastising her offspring. The master had merely anticipated the general season of gifts with a Christmas Box on the boy's ear. "The mother," observed Mr. HADEN COBSEB, with a staccato touch of HADEN' 8 surprise in his tone, "is within her right in complain- ing," and so HADEN the Politer — never "the Corser''— fined the drawing-master three guineas, for which he had to draw a cheque, and bound him over in five pounds to come up for judgment when called on. HADEN the Politer well and wisely remarked that it was beyond his powers (as a magistrate) to imagine what course the aggrieved parent would have taken had her son been a public school- boy at Eton, Harrow, Eugby, or Winchester, where the birch, in some form or other, and on some form or other, or some part of it, was the rule of punishment, where the boy would be swished, and where the head-master's swish over-ruled the parent's wish. At Eton, and at any other public school, the boy "could take it (the swishing) or leave it (the school)," and would be only too glad to accept the "post hoc propter hoc" instead of having to retire from public (school) life. Every boy ought to know how to take his whack and be glad of the chance. Also, on certain occasions, he should be able to return the whack with interest.
Mr. HADEN COBSEB is the Solomon of the Bench, and had he reminded the sensitive mother of that wise saying of the Wise King as to the sparing of the rod and the spoiling of the child (though in this case, it may be admitted that the rod was not in question, but only a handy mode of chastisement), it would not have been amiss. The " Block System " at public schools is a good one. Floreat !
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.— JANUARY 4, 1896.
JUST OFF!"
GUABD. " TICKET, SIR, PLEASE 1 "
LITTLE NEW YEAE. " SEASON ! "
UUABD. " TICKET, SIR, PLEASE ! " LITTLE NEW YEAE. " SEASON !
GUABD. " THANKEE, SIR I (Aside.) HOPE THE LAD WILL GET THAT LUGGAGE SAFELY THROUGH 1 »
JANUARY 4, 1896.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
EVERYTHING COMES
HIM THAT 'WAITS.'
THE HAUNTED HAT.
(Tag-end of a Ghost Story written for Christmas or any other time.)
ANGELINA could not understand the cause of her misfortunes. All through the day she had had the luck against her. She had visited her favourite spinster aunt (from whom she expected to inherit wealth untold), and that usually amiable old lady had treated her with marked coldness.
" I don't know what it is," said the venerable dame, "but there are voices in the air, ANGELINA, accusing you of murder, I can hear them, I can, indeed I "
14 My dear Aunt, what nonsense I But there, I only looked in to show you my new hat. Do you like it ? "
44 Well, no," returned the elderly spinster; 44 1 don't care for such a heap of feathers. The original material is completely hidden in a perfect nest of wings. The hat is suggestive of limitless slaughter."
44 It is the fashion," replied ANGELINA, rather angrily; "and what is the fashion must be nice."
And then the ruffled maiden, after a cold adieu addressed to her aged relative, took herself off. She visited several of her friends, hut one and all complained of the voices. They heard in the air accusations of assassi- nation. ANGELINA was " an accessory after the fact," and these cruel indictments quite eclipsed the success of the hat. The head-gear was pronounced here and there 44 stylish," but the cry of "murder" over- whelmed the praise. At last ANGELINA met EDWIN.
44 What is the matter P " cried the girl, as her betrothed turned away from her in horror.
14 Your hat I " cried the budding hamster. " Every feather accuses
you of erueltyl The voices »f the birds are chirruping out charges of brutality I "
4 'But it is the latest fashion!" urged the now weeping ANGELINA. '4 Feathers are all the vogue."
44 And to procure them the poor little songsters of the grove are massacred by millions I The parent birds are taken away from their young, and the fledgelings are allowed to die of starvation ! Your hat is eloquent of misery ! There is not a wing on it that does not suggest a tragedy 1 "
The young man spoke earnestly. He had been called to the Bar, and spoke as if addressing a jury.
44 Then you no longer love me 1 " sobbed ANGELINA.
44 How can I?" replied EDWIN. "The birds are witnesses against you. I am folly aware of the consequences. I know the dangers of breaches of promises of marriage. But, ANGE- LINA, in spite of those dangers, in spite of possible damages of untold amount, I must withdraw. 1 can no longer be yours I All is over between us ! "
"Oh, EDWIN!"
And then not an altogether strange thing happened — ANGELINA awoke. The retribution of the birds had been a dream I
More was the pity I It would be well for the feathered tribe if such a dream could become a reality !
SPORTIVE SONGS.
THE STEEPLE-CHASE RIDER TO HIS MISTRESS
THBBE'S never a sweetheart so dainty as mine,
Not a lady so loving and fair From the Rhone to the Rhine, from the Thames to the Tyne,
There 's not any with you to compare ! Your eyes are as bright as the sun's subtle light,
Yet as soft as the moon on the sea, And your form has the grace that belongs to the race
Of a damsel of long pedigree.
There 's surely no helpmate so willing as you.
Have you never refused me your aid ? In the world there are few hall so loyal and true
As you are, my honny brown maid. In the cruellest task I have only to ask —
You care not for danger or pain — When our fortune seem'd gone, you have challeng'd and won,
You have done it again and again.
There 's never a cross word between you and me,
And you listen to all that I say. If a point there should be on which you disagree,
And you show it — 'tis only in play. You 're the joy of my heart, and we never shall part,
Not e'en when we ve finished at last. Then the cap, jacket, belt, and the spurs you ne'er felt,
Will be memories glad of the Past I
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
EXCELLENT present for the present season — which, as our old friend WILLY SHAKSPEABE would have said, is " the season of presents," the New Year's gifts coming in as the Old Year, loaded with the good things of Christmas, goes out— is 2 he Vanity Fair Album, with its coloured caricaturical likenesses of " celebrities" of all sorts- more or less celebrated — drawn chiefly by " SPY," occasionally by " STUFF," and sometimes by
GA.TH," with notes written as an accompaniment hy JEHIT JUNIOB. Of the three artists named, "SPY," legitimate suc- cessor of poor 4t PELICAN," is facile princeps, although, even in his work, it is very rare to find one picture drawn in the ereuuine spirit of caricature. They are likenesses first, and caricature has to take its chance. Always you exclaim, How like I How good I " seldom " How inimitably funny I " The frontispiece introduces us to four sporting gentlemen, masters of fox-hounds in pink— " SPY" pwx-it— who, in their own persons, represent the hardy annuals of the winter season, who, as disdaining hares, and not caring for stags, would choose for their motto " Fox et prceterea nil."
10
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 4, 1896.
Mr. Boreham (who has already stayed over an hour and talked about himself the whole time).
"YES, I 'M SORRY TO SAY I 'M A MARTYR TO INSOMNIA. I 'VB TRIED EVERYTHING, BUT I CANNOT GET SLEEP AT NIGHT 1 "
His Hostess (sweetly]. "On, BUT I CAN TELL YOU A VEKY SIMPLE REMEDY. You SHOULD TALK TO YOURSELF — AFTER GOING TO BED 1 "
OUTSIDE I ( With Apologies to a Mellifluous Memory.}
IT chanced a song the Stoney-broke One sang Of Fortune and her wheel— m 8. E. slang : —
Tarn, Fortune, turn thy -wheel, as 'twere a
"bike,"
Now cutting records, now bust-up, belike, Thy wheel and thee I'll neither " bull " nor
" bear."
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, like a steam- pump ! [" slump," Now up, and 'tis a "boom," now down— a
I 'm neither Bear nor Bull, and so don't care. Smile, and behold a " Barney," and a swell 1 Frown, and 'tis still a " barney " but a sell !
An empty purse is master of man's fate. Turn, turn thy wheel before the crashing crowd, Fools who before the golden calf have bowed !
/'m stocey-broke, and so can't speculate I
AN INTERVIEW IN COMMON FORM.
(From a Note-book found in the land of Personalia.)
TUP: house of the great man did not differ very materially from the dwelling-places of his neighbours. The regulation portico, the customary area, the white-washed stucco front were all there to carry out the resem- blance. The hall, too, was not unlike other halls of other mansions. The butler, the footman, and the housemaids had nothing to distinguish them from fellow-menials filling like situations in other menages.
" Can I do anything for you ? " asked the Great Man, with a smile.
"Well," I replied, "it is only fair to tell you that I come in the character of an inter- viewer. To save time, I will not give you my opinion of things in general, and yourself in particular, for the simple reason that I can add it as padding when I come to the com- position of the article."
" Quite so," responded the Great Man, em- phatically ; " I commend your excellent good sense. And here let me say that this is not the first time I have been examined on behalf of the Press."
"Certainly, but not too often. Had you 1 been done to death,' to use a colloquialism, I should not have had the honour and pleasure of this introduction. In fact, you, from an editorial point of view, would have been regarded as valueless for copy."
"No doubt," returned the Great Man, laughing heartily and good-naturedly. ' ' But I have the advantage — thanks to my scanty but, for this purpose, sufficient experience— of knowing the sort of thing you want to learn. For instance, I have a cup of tea at seven, eat a hearty breakfast at nine, lunch lightly at two, and reserve eight o'clock for dinner."
"Thank you very much," said I, making the entry in my note-book; "and now tell me— do you take soup P "
" I have not for many years. I must con- fess, too, that I dilute the deadly cold of the morning tub with a little boiling water. I never eat sugar, ai d care nothing for pastry."
" Is the dislike medicinal or hereditary P "
" A mixture of both. As a child, the favourite punishment of n»v mother was the ;>rder of no pudding.' Thus, as quite an infant, I lost my appreciation of tarts. What was commenced by my maternal parent was completed by my doctor. I have been ordered fo give up fruit pies."
We laughed heartily at this quaint descrip- ion, and for a moment or two my pen was busy.
" Is there anything else I can tell you ? "
"I suppose you go to the seaside in the summer, and occasionally rim over to Swit- zerland in the autumn ? That you are fond f dogs and children ? That your wife takes i deep intfrett in your work? Then you have cozy corners in your house, and that kind of thing?"
" To be sure," replied the Great Man, who had been nodding affirmatively to my various queries. " But everything connected with the house you will surely leave to the photo- grapher ? 1 presume I shall have the pleasure of making his acquaintance ? "
It was my turn to bow, and bow I did, with a smile.
" And now," said my host, " I am going to ask a slight favour. All I have told you would probably be equally applicable to my (rood friends and neighbours, BROWW, JONES, SMITH, and KOBINSON? You acquiesce in the suggestion ? Quite so ; then give all the interesting particulars you have collected, but avoid mentioning my name."
" But your personality is what will interest the public."
" Yes ; but this sketch will do for any one else of eminence. Reserve it for the next comer."
And, as the idea was a novelty, I adopted the suggestion.
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. (Entirely New Version.)
BENEATH the Bridge I often sit and sigh,
So often, that I seem to grow indig- enous. May be you '11 want to ask me why Beneath the Bridge.
" A tunnel 's made to get you through a ridge. And o'er a bridge you keep afoot on high."
Bat I 'm aboard. Above me, on the Bridge, My lover officer scans sea and sky.
And though it grows as cold as the Refrig- • erator late at night, still there am I
Beneath the Bridge.
JANUARY 4, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
11
THE KALENDAR OF FRIENDSHIP.
(FOR 1896.)
January. — Mr. WILLIAM JOITES pre- sents his compliments to Mr. HENRY SMITH, and while apologising for the liberty he takes in addressing him, would be obliged, &o., &o.
February. — Sir, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter, and in reply beg to state, &o., &o. — Your obedient servant, WILLIAM JONES.
March.— Dear Sir, — I shall be very pleased to afford you all the information relative to the matter mentioned in your letter, &o., &o. — Yours faithfully,
WILLIAM JONES.
April. — Dear Mr. SMITH, — I much regret that I was not at home when you BO kindly- called on me the other day. Perhaps you will do me the honour to dine here one night at an early date? &o., &o. — Yours very sincerely, WILLIAM JONES.
May. — Dear SMITH, — Your letter is not at all "presumptuous," as you modestly express it. Pray be assured that you have my best offices in any thing that may tend to your advan- tage, &o., &c. — Yours most sincerely, WILLIAM JONES.
June. — My dear SMITHJ — Of course I shall be delighted to join your party. When does the picnic take place ? Pray give my compliments to Mrs. SMITH, &c., &c.
Yours ever, WILLIAM JONES.
July. — My dear old chap, — Just got yours. Of course, you dear old fellow, shall be delighted, and only too pleased, to come to the christening, and stand godfather to the olive branch. The idea of supposing that it would be a " bore " to me I «feo., &c. — Yours ever most affectionately, W. J.
AMBIGUOUS.
"SHALL I WAV* IT, Miss? IT DOBS AW AT WITH THE PLAINNBSS."
August. — My dear SMITH, — Have you forgotten my letter of yesterday week ? Pray let me nave an answer to it at your earliest convenience and oblige
Yours ever, WILLIAM JONES.
September. — My dear Mr. SMITH, — I cannot see that your tardy answer to my letters at all explains matters. What I wish definitely to know is, &c., &o. Yours sincerely, WILLIAM JONES.
October. — Dear Mr. SMITH, — I fail completely to understand how, &o., &o. Yours very faithfully,
WILLIAM JONES.
November. — Dear Sir t — I am surprised, &o., &o. Yours faithfully,
WILLIAM JONES.
December.— Sir, — I positively decline to do anything so ridiculous as to go to Belgium with you for the purpose of fighting a duel. On the other hand, you are certainly at liberty to go to Jericho, for all I care. — Sir, your obedient servant, WILLIAM JONES.
To Henry Smith, Esq.
N.B.— My solicitors' address is, &c., &c.
The Seven Against— Each Other.
SEVEN Minor Bards snatch, with an
eager glee,
At every chance of courtly minstrelsy ; 'Tis hard the Court (or Cabinet) will
have none of them ! They 're all AaJ/-fitted for the post, you
see ; Poets, of course, they none of them
may be. But they 're eff asive Laureates, every
one of them.
HAPPILY OBVIOUS. — That CLEVE- LAND need not be interpreted Land- cleaver.
"THE IMPEOVEMENT OF LONDON."
PEG away, Daily Graphic, and advocate weekly, And strongly, and daily, and gaily, your dreams
Of beautiful Londra. We bear much too meekly Discomfort and ugliness ; fight for your schemes.
Peg away, and keep showing that London needs greatly In buildings more beauty, in streets still more space,
Plan boulevards and squares, lined with houses more stately, Combining convenience, grandeur, and grace.
Then Eagland may rise to a wonderful level, The level of France, of old Greece, even more ;
" Schools of Art," as at present, may go to the — I mean, dogs — And art may be fostered as never b afore.
Then Wellington Statues, and Shaftesbury Fountains,
And Albert Memorials never would come, As mouse-like productions of labouring mountains,
To strike the intelligent foreigner dumb.
She would not put pictures by barracks, nor boast that South Kensington sheds show her architects' skill ;
She builds even now, and requires at the most that Some generou citizen settles the bill.
The bill I Daily Graphic, of what are you thinking ?
The bill ! Oh, my goodness, who ever will pay ? Is England so rich as to contemplate sinking
Such sums for mere beauty, hard cash thrown away ?
Note by a "New Novel" Reader. CERTAIN unsavoury social crimes of old
Were things on which pure ladies would not look. They 're not so sternly censured now, I 'm told,
But they 're (by women) oftener " brought to book."
NEW DICTIONARY.
(Being some occasional notes intended as a contribution towards a " Lady's Own Dictionary of Words and Phrases.")
' ' AGGRAVATE." This word, according to men's dictionaries, means " to exaggerate : to make enormous, &c." ; but the fair sex, not con- tent with this simple definition, have given it another, which is, to anger, to irritate. For instance, in women's language, the expres- sion, " an aggravating thing," is generally understood to signify a person who causes us anger or displeasure. If a man were to talk to a woman of an "aggravated iniury," she would probably not know what he meant. But if he were to describe her dearest friend's con- duct as aggravating, she would immediately understand him.
" So." This little adverb is a great favourite with ladies, in con- junction with an adjective. For instance, they are very fond of using such expressions as " He is so charming I " " It is so lovely I " &c. According to the rules of strict grammar, the use of the adverb "so," and of the adjectives "lovely" and "charming," requires to be followed, in both these sentences, by the use of the conjunction "that." "He is so charming!" is a purely feminine expression. "He is so charming that I have made a friend of him," is a purely masculine one, or should be so. It is satisfactory to know, however, that ladies have nothing whatever to do with the rules of strict grammar.
It is hoped that these two extracts will for the present suffice to show the exceedingly useful character of the forthcoming publication.
EAR! EAK!— The Daily News felicitates the country on its "Musical Year." But why drag in that "Y"? When it can congratulate England on the possession of a musical ear, it may indeed inspire a patriotic paean. But after hearing the Christmas holidays made hideous by inharmonious bowlings, in discordant keys, of " Glorious Seer!" Mr. Punch feels that the most seasonable greeting to his countrymen is " I wish you all a Happy New Ear I "
12
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 4, 1896.
LONG AGO LEGENDS. YE INNEHOLDERE AND HYS DRAWERE.
IN Cheape dwelled an Inneboldere, and one daye he dyd go downe in toe hys cellar toe watere ye ale, as was hys wante, when he espyede hys Drawere drynkinge sack out of a fla*ke which he bad tayken toe hys own use, and then place it in hys poke for bye-and-bye. So ye
inneholdere dyd lie in wate for hjra, and on hys coming oute dide taxe hym withe ye thefte. "Nay, goode master," sayde ye Drawere, "rtis not thefte, for you are payde for itte ; I dyd but no we deposite ye pryce of itte in ye tille whereyou will finde itte withall." But j e Innehol- dere, knowing thys toe be alle lese, dyd take a wave from hym ye 11 ask e and dyd boxe hym on >• eerys and bytte hym in ye iye, re- markynge}6 while, "Nay, 'tis you who are payde for itt«."
Then je Drawere
dyd retaliate malapertelie withe hys tcngue in such a waye that itte can notte here be chroniclede.
" Ho," cryed ye Inneholdere, " woulde you gyve me chyke in mine owne house ? Knowe, knave, that I pi aye firste fiddle here ! "
" And no marvelle," replyed ye Drawere, " conbyderinge it is suche a vile inne."
And dyd ye Inneholdere forgyve hym on account of thys plea- santerie? Peradventure ; for it is saide he dyd then and thtre give hjm y* eack.
HOW TO KEEP A DIARY.
(Taught by the Cotitents.)
January 1. — Intend to preserve in this little volume the written record of my life. Now and again I shall give my thoughts, my aspirations. Any event of commanding importance, of course, will appear in its proper sequence in these pages. I shall not omit refer- ence to domestic details of purely personal interest, for out of such seemingly homely materials many an interesting biography is ulti- mately carefully compiled. And now to commence. Went out to-day to have my hair cat. Later on, a family gathering. Present, my Uncle JACK, Aunt JEMIMA, and the boys. Dinner passed off pleasantly. The only discordant note was BOBBY'S allusion to Coufcin POTTEB'S will. I think the contretemps that followed was caused by thoughtlessness rather than by malice. Still, it was a bad omen for the otherwise glad New Year.
January 2. — And now to continue the story of my career from day to day. Obliged to go out. Will return to this volume when I get home.
January 12. — Had my hair cut. Gloves, 3s. &d. Fellow told me last night that the only way to get good cheroots was to write to Manilla direct.
January 31.— Afraid I have not kept this diary very regularly. However will make a fresh start, and not get into arrears again. This tTiorninsr I rose at seven, had breakfast (sausages, tea, and f ggs) at eight Off to chambers at ten. Led in an important case (Baulks versus Corkes) and obtained a verdict. TOMKINS, J., complimented me. On my way home met my Cousin CHABLIE. He dined with us, and tells me that GTTSSIE returned from Canada last Autumn. She is engaged to be married- Dear me! How time flies! It seems onlv the other day that she was playing with her doll !
March 5. — Had my hair out to-day. Must keep this diary more regularly. What is the benefit of a diary unless you use it ? Pause for a reply. Saw the BEVEBLEY ROBINSONS in the Park. It appears that it was not their fault that the silver epergne passed out of the family, The facts are these
March 6. — Was interrupted yesterday as I was giving the true story of the epergne. However it is just as easy and appropriate to enter it under this date as any other. Well, to commence
April 19.— Omnibus 2d. Cab 2s. Qd. Gingerbread nuts 4d. Re- payment of portion of loan at Bank £153 10s. 6d. Address of, the man with marble statues— 247, Araminta Avenue East, Lower Tooting Lane.
May 1.— Really ashamed to find how slack I have'been in keeping this diary. However, in future I will make entries daily. 'Ibis morning went to the British Museum to verify dates in my new book, Remembrances Recalled on the Stage-side of the Green Cur- tain. I was right. Professor Anderson was lessee of Covent Garden Opera-house when it was burned down after a bal masque. Met CHABLIE HOGABTH. The same as ever. Awfullv good fellow. Dined at the club, and went to see Sinbad up to Date. Quite like old times. A morsel of mild American cheese in a plain lettuce salad not half bad. CHABLIE'S recipe. Good chap, CHABLIE !
August 3. — Decided to go to Kiel.
September 9.— Braces, Is. §d. GUSSIE married the Captain. My present of a card-table, made of Japanese fans, pretty. Only fault, there were nine other duplicates. That's the worst of getting wedding-gifts from the Stores. Some other chappie is sure to choose the same !
October 25.— My birthday I I have been sadly remiss in keeping this diary hitherto, and will mend the fault for the remainder of the quickly passing year. To-day I reach my prime. Well, I have not done so badly ; my practice is fairly good— at any rate pays the rent of my chambers, and keeps me in gowns and wigs. Then my editor- ship of The Moon- Gazers Monthly Magazine has been entirely satisfactory to the proprietors. If I quarrelled with Bossy's ROSIK it is only because she was so extremely rude to poor dear TaixY in 'he train. However, in that matter, it 's more their loss than ours! So I can regard the situation with equanimity I
November 12. — Had my hair cut.
December 14.— Gloves 3*. 6d. Aunt MABIA'S day is first and third Fridays. Kidneys cut into thin slices, then covered with bread-crumbs, then broiled.
December 27.— Went to the play last night. Did not see very much, as my box appeared to be a sort of converted doorway. Per- formance (so far as 1 could judge) as per usual. Omnibus for us both, Is. \d. Gave blind crossing sweeper half-a-crown instead of a penny. It is a mistake of that character which disgusts one with charity.
December 28. — Had my hair cut.
December 30. — Soleing boots, 4s. 6d.
December 31. — And so this i* the last day of the 365 1 I find that I have not kept to my original intention in this volume. But I have bought a new diary, and will try to do better next year.
THE AUGUSTAN AGE AT OLYMPIA.
THE classic ground close to the elongated mile once known as " Punch's Railway" is again popular. Thanks to the efforts of the great DBUBIOLANTJS-CCM-ADDISONBODIAS, Olympia is very much to the fore. On Boxing afternoon and night crowds thronged to see the last thing in Derbys and the newest idea of the Chitral campaign. Both events are perfect mar- vels of realism. The mob that supplies a back- ground to the winning of the Blue Riband of the Turf could not be surpassed as a specimen of " the convincing." There are real '"'ABBIES" and "'ABBIETS,'' soldiers, sailors, acrobats, and, last but not least, police-constables. The horses, too, seem to enjoy the sport, and if they are not all "winners," they compare favourably with many a successful competitor for a Queen's Plate. But the feature of the equestrian show is unquestion- ably the crowd of spectators. With the assistance of many hundreds of auxiliaries, the hill is realised with its numberless vehicles, its series of booths, and, last and least, its poor, forlorn, forsaken, and much-chivied Derby dog. Then Olympia has, as is quite right and correct, races by ladies, bicycles and donkeys. Those who are to be responsible for the coming meeting in Athens might secure an object-lesson in West Kensington. If Greece follows in the wake of the Addison Road, all should be well at the international gathering of athletes.
And if the Race for the Derby is satisfactory, the Relief of Chitral is equally excellent. The soldiers who gallantly occupy the boards, once the home of the largest ballet troupe of the world, are reserve men, and members of that constitutional force, " the bold Militia." These fine fellows must delight the descendants of the Brook Green Volunteer, whose traditional training-ground, it will be remem- bered, was in the neighbourhood. For the rest, there is every prospect that the present excellent entertainment will diaw crowded houses twice daily to Olympia far into the glad New Year, and possibly into those years to come in the approaching century.
JANUARY 11, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
J3
To the President of the Royal Academy of Arts.\
MY LOBD,— On this auspi- cious Occasion I have the honour to offer mv Congratu- lations. My Friend, Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, of whose Literary Attainments vou have been informed by his Bio-
frapher, Mr. BOSWELL, would oubtless join me in my Felicitations to your Lordship, my successor, if he were not at present somewhat disturbed in mind by the Contemplation of the melancholy fact that his Dictionary is ripidly becom- ing obsolete. He passes many hours in lonelv Meditation, murmuring to himself words of some barbarous Jargon, such as "bike," "slumo." "jingo," and the like. This circum- stance is the more to be regretted, since he has com- mended several of vour Addresses, written in Lan- guage even more classic, more stately, and, perhaps, more beautiful than his own, and would, therefore, have felt assured that by your Lordship, in any case, his Dictionary is still consulted and admired. Mr. GOLDSMITH and Mr. GAKBICK request me to con- vey their Good Wi«hes. I have the honour to be, Your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant,
JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
HlGHWELLBOBN BABON, — At this, at the highests, joyish
CONGRATULATIONS1, FROM THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
/
learned I the english Speech. Now fee we a german Kaiser who him? elf to paint endea- vours. But what endeavour* he not to doP Thunder- weather, all things I If he only like you to paint could I
I have the honour yet again to congratulate you, High- wellborn Baron.
HOLBEIN.
„ , .,_., ,..„ The first P.E.A. (Sir Joshua Keynolds) pays his respects to Lord Leighton, P.B A. A uag yuu ,
Day send I my friendlyest Happinesswuhep. In the sixteenth Year le Baron, all my felicitations, and the assurance of _
hundred lived I to London, as HENEY THE EIGHTH King was, and so sentiments. AHTOIN'E WATIEAU.
ILLUSTBISSIMO SIGNOR BAKONE,— Not I have much studied the her language, but me permit to offer thousand happy auguries to Her, the first english painter who has become Baron.
I have the honour to say myself, of Your Excellency the humblest and devotedest servant,
RAITAELLO SANZIO.
MONSIEUB, LE BABON, — J come to make to you my felicitations the most warm a1 the occasion of the Day of the year, the day when you havt received a gift -une etrennt —of the most charmings, tlu title which you merit so well Since long time you have painted, as me, the nymi h- and the shepherds, but th yours are those of the old Greece, and the mine ar those of the court of the Great Monarch. But we have the same tastes and, if I may venture to eay it, the same talent. I beg you to agree, Monsieur
THEN AND NOW.— A TEBPSICHOBEAN CONTRAST. [The Countess of ANCASTER deplores the bad manners of the dancing
people of to-day.] OLD STYLE. NEW STYLB.
Gentleman. May I have the exquisite delight of being your ladyship's humble cavalier in the coming country dance P
Lady. Oh, Sir, you are vastly polite, and I am overwhelmed by your request !
Gent. Do I then make too bold ?
Lady. Oh, Sir, I would not have you misconstrue my words I
Gent. May I then reckon upon your treading the measure with your devoted servant ?
Lady. I may not say you nay, Sir- [Curtsey g.
Gerif. Madam, you are too con- de'cerdi g. I will not fail to claim your hand. [Retires toith courteous humility.
Gentleman. Ah, Lady FLO- BENCB, got an entry left, or is your b0ok full ?
Lady (looking at card). Well — here 's a quadrille running loose.
Gent. Oh, hang quadrilles! T 'm not out for walking exercise. Not on the square, twiggey vous ?
Lady (laughing). Yon funny old cripple I Here 's a polka I 'm not sure about.
Gent. A polka That's my form ! We '11 fire right into the brown of 'em, and have a glass of the boy afterwards, eh P
Lady. It 's a bet.
Gent. Done. So long. [Strolls off, humming a music- hall air.
SOMETHING FOR HIM TO DO.
AT this time of excitement, Mr. Punch drinks the new Laureate's health, and calls upon him for a song, impromptu, appropriate, and to be sapg immediately. Anything patriotic he may have handy will do. The moment is critical, which is more than his enthusiastic ludtence will be, if he only pitches it in the right key. But Lord SALISBUBT, who has made the piper, has a right to call the tune. By the way, according to a note in The Westminster, the new Laureate is entitled to receive, all in a lump, the salary due for the three past rs dunng which time the office has been vacant. So the first thing
IFBED, monarch of minor poets, will have to do is, not to sing, bat
VOL. ex.
to " draw." Hooray I for SALISBURY and Salary I Quite a Snnday- best-and-Top-Hat-ford Day ! Tune up! Twang the lyre I What rhymes to " Pretoria" if not "Victoria" P But rather less easy to get something neat to rhyme with "Venezuela," ehP Still, within the reach of practical poetry and the petit maitre.
A CASE IN COURT REHEARD.
ALL Abroad finds itself "quite at home" at the Court Theatre. Mr. WILLIE EDOUIN very funny, with hi* finein? and dancing, and with his phonographic business. Miss MAT EDOUIN is a charming ingenue, delighting the jury of the Court with a very pretty song, "Two Sweet Little Love Birds." Elle ira loin. Mr. SCGDEN appears as a witness to " character " : capital. Mr. FBED KATE is as ecoentrio as ever, and Mr. DAVID JAMES acting, dancing, and singing, follows in the footsteps of his father, especially in the dancing. Miss GJUCB PALOTTA makes a hit with the song of " The Business Girl.1" Altogether the amusing evening's entertainment has not suffered in its transit across London fr< m the Criterion — where it gained a favourable verdict at the bar of public opinion — to the Court, where, it having been already "part heard," it is being tried over again, until further notice, before new judges and juries, who have to pronounce upon several , new songs, of which not a few are encored, «/' and before whom is brought a mass of new evidence not produced at the previous trial. The verdict ought to be Success; and, at all events, the members of Miss CISSY GRAHAM'S Company at Manager CHUDLZIGH'S theatre "have the Court with them."
MOTTO, AT PBESENT, FOB SotTH AFBICAN DIFFICULTY. — " Post
' CBAUBSRLAIN' sedet atra euro."
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 11, 1896,
ALFRED THE LITTLE.
Sir Edw-n Arn-ld (bitterly). " ' FORTUNATUS 1 ' HA I HA I " Sir L-w-s M-rrs (moodily). " ' ENGLAND'S DARLIKG ? ' Hu ! HB 1
"The QUETN has been pleased to appoirt AIFBED AUSTIN, Erq., to be Poet Laureate to Her Majesty."— Daily Tapers, January 1, 1896.
JANUARY 11, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
15
OUR OVERWORKED BISHOPS.
The Rector's Wife. "HAVE YOU HEARD FROM THE BISHOP, DEAR, ABOUT THE ALTERATIONS YOU PROPOSED TO MAKE IN THE SERVICES?" The Rector. " YES ; I HAVE JUST GOT A POSTCARD FROM HIS LITTLE BOY. THIS is IT: —
' THS PALACE, BAROHXSTXR. — PAPA SAYS YOU MUSTN'T.' "
NEW YEAR'S DAY
(On Parnassus] — OR, THE APOTHEOSIS OF ALFRED THE LITTLE.
Alfred the Little tunes up on his new Official Harp to an old air of Alfred the Great1 s ; —
You must take and call me Laureate, Poet Laureate, brethren dear, For to-morrow I '11 be the happiest bard of all this glad New Year ; My glad Muse chimes, not "vapid rhymes," but the maddest,
merriest lay, For I am QUEEN'S Poet to-day, brethren, I am Court Minstrel
to-day 1
There's many a gushing muse, men say, but none can gush like
mine ;
There 's ARNOLD and there's MORRIS, both can lip the laureate line; Bat none so well as little ALFRED in all the land, thev say, So I 'm to be Poet Laureate, brethren, all upon New Year's Bay I
I '11 now sleep sound o' nights, from dreadful dreams no more I '11
wake,
lhat ALGERNON or WILLIAM they will Poet Laureate make. But I must gather flowery tropes and flatteries fine and gay, For I 'm ALFRED THE GREAT'S successor, brethren, dating from New
Year's Day I
As I came down the street called Fleet, whom think ye I should see, But EDWIN, bland and Japanesque, bard of the Daily T. ? He thought his chance was good, brethren, lord of the Orient lay, But I 've whipped him on New Year's Day, brethren, done him on New Years Day.
He looked pale as a ghost, brethren, exceeding weird and white, For the singer of " The Season " now had dimmed his Asian Light. They say I 'm a Party pick, brethren, but I care not what they say, For I 'm crowned upon New Year's Day, brethren, laurelled on New Year's Day 1
They say that limpid LEWIS is as mad as mad can be ; They say young ERIC is making moan— what is that to me ?
There's many a better bard than I, or so sour critics say,
But little ALFRED has taken the cake, all upon New Year's Day.
Little ALFRED has licked them all, as shall right soon be seen, The loy allest lyrist of all the lot to his Country and his Queen. I 've out-sonnetted WILLY WATSON in my Tory-patriot way, So I 've passed dear WILL up the " Sacred Hill," all upon New Year s Day I
For WILLY, with wild and whirling words, had pitched into the
Powers, And invoked the name of the old recluse who at Harwarden groins
and glowers ;
For he 's got a bee ia his bonnet about the woes of Ar-me-ni-a ; So I look down on him from Parnassian peaks, all upon New Year's
Day I
Yes, I am " Fortunatus," brethren, and "England's Darling"!
Hum!
This harp is big, and wide in stretch, and nef ds long arms to thrum. But if I stand a-tiptoe I shall manage it, I dare fay, And I 'm Poet Laureate, anyhow, all upon New Year's Diy I
I wonder now if ALFRED THE GREAT— and grufE— with joy would
thrill
If he saw me twanging the Laureate lyre on the Parnassian Hill ? He once was a leetle rude to me when on him I had said my say, Like LYTTON to him ; but J'm Laureate now, all upon New Year's
Day!
So you must take and call me Laureate, Poet Laureate, brethren
dear, And I 'm sure that EDWIN, and Liwi9, and WILLIAM will wish me
a Happy New Y< ar.
II My Satire and its Censors " have not stood in my upward wav ; "Ambition ended" I'm Laureate— at last— upon Ney Year's
Day!!! =====
As IT SHOULD BK.— The Foreign Committee of the American House of Representatives having reported in favour of Mr. BAYARD, he is now, like his prototype, tans reproche as w«ll as sans peur.
16
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 11, 1896.
JOTTINGS AND TITTLINGS.
(By BABOO HUBBY BUNGSHO JABBEBJEB, B.A.)
No. II. Some account of Mr. Jabberjee's experiences at the Westminster Play.
BEING forearmed by editorial beneficence with ticket of admission io theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at ^Westminster College, I presented myself on the scene of acting in a state_ of liveliest and frolicsome anticipation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of December last, about 7.20 P.M.
At the summit of the stairs I was received by a posse of polite and stalwart striplings in white kids, who, after abstracting large circular orifice from my credentials, ordered me^ to ascend to a lofty gallery, where, on arriving, I found every chair pre-occupied, and moreover was restricted to a prospect of the backs of numerous javenile heads, while expected to remain the livelong evening on the tiptoe of expectation and Shank's mare !
This for a while I endured submissively from native timidity and retirement, until my bosom boiled over at the sense of "Civis Romanus sum" and, de- scending to the barrier, I harangued the wicket-keeper with great length and fervid eloquence, informing nim that I was graduate of high-class Native University after passing most tedious and difficult exams with fugitive colours, and that it was injurious and dele- terious to my "mens sana in corpore sano" to remain on legs for some hours beholding wbat I practically found to be invisible.
But, though he turned an indulgent ear to my quandary, he professed his inability to help me over my " pons asinorum," until I ventured to play the ticklish card and inform him that I was a distinguished representa- tive of Hon'ble Punch, who was paternally anxious for me to be awarded a seat on the lap of luxury.
Then he unbended, and admitted me to the body of the auditorium, where I was con- ducted to a coign of vantage in near proximity to members of the fair sex and galaxy of beauty.
Thus, by dint of nude gumption, I was in the bed of clover and seventh heaven, and more so when, on inquiry from a bystander, I understood that the performance was taken from Mr. TERBJSS'S Adelphi Theatre, which [ had heard was conspicuous for excellence in fierce ccmbats, blood-curdling duels, and scenes in court. And I narrated to him bow I too, when a callow and unfledged hobbardy- hoy, had engaged in theatrical enterlain- ments, and played such parts in native dramas as heroic giant-killers and tiger players, in which I was an " au fait" and "facile princeps," also in select scenes from SHAKBPEABE'S play of Macbeth in English and being correctly attired as a Scotch.
But presently I discovered that the play was quite another sort of Adelphi, being a
" A golden-headed umbrella, fresh as a rose."
jocose comedy by a notorious ancient author of the name of TEBENCE, and written entirely k in Latin, which a contiguous damsel expressed a fear lest she should find it incomprehensible and obecure. I hastened to reassure her by explaining that, having
!»„,._ 4........J ««4. *. , „_ A.;.Ii _^A _ J T> A 1 T__ _i* At 11 T i
been turned out as a certificated B.A. by Indian College, I had
elderly gentlemen, appeared, they were all exclusively masculine in gender, and there was nothing done but to converse by twos and threes. When the third portion opened with a long-desiderated peep of petticoats, I told my neighbour confidently that now at last we were to see this dancing girl and the abduction; but the replied that it was not so, for these females were merely the mother of the wife of another of the youths and her attendant ayah. And even this precious pair, after weeping and wringing their hands for a while, vanished, not to appear again.
Now_as the entertainment proceeded, I fell into the dumps with increasing abashment and mortification to see everyone around me, ay, even the women and the tenderest juveniles I clap the hands and laugh in their sleeves with merriment at quirks and gleeks in which —in spite of all my classical proficiency — I could not discover le mot pour rire or crack so much as the cream of a jest, but must sit there melancholy as a gib cat or smile at the wrong end of the mouth.
For, indeed, I began to fear that I had been fobbed off with the smattered education of a painted sepulchre, that I should fail so dolorously to comprehend what was plain as a turnpike-staff to the veriest British babe and suckling I
However, on observing more closely, I dis- covered that most of the grown-up adults present had books containing the translation of all the witticisms, which they secretly perused, and that the feminality were also provided with pink leaflets on which the dark outline of the plot was perspicuously in- scribed. Moreover, on casting my eyes up to the gallery, I perceived that there were over- seers there armed with long canes, and that the smell youths did not indulge in plauda- tions and hilarity except when threatened by these.
And thereupon I took heart, seeing that the proceedings were clearly veiled in an obsolete and cryptic language, and it was (•imply matter of rite and custom to applaud at fixed intervals, so I did at Rome as the Romans did, and was laughter holding both his sides as often as I beheld the canes in a state of agitation.
I am not unaware that it is to bring a coal from Newcastle to pronounce any critical opinion upon the ludibriqus qualities of so antiquated a comedy as this, but, while I am wishful to make every allowance for its having been composed in a period of pre- historic barbarity, I would still hazard the criticism that it does not excite the simpering guffaw with the frequency of such modern standard works as, exempli gratia, Miss Brown, or The Aunt of Charley, to either of which I would award the palm for pure whimsicality and gawkiness.
Candour compels me to admit, however, that the conclusion of the Adelphi, in which a certain magician summoned a black-robed, steeple-hatted demon from the nether world, who, after commanding a minion to give a pickle- back to sundry grotesque personages, did castigate their ulterior portions severely with a large switch, was a striking ameliora-
acquired perfect familiarity aid nodding acquaintance with the
gratitude. When the performance commenced with a scenic repre- sentation of the Roman Acropolis, and a venerable elderly man soliloquising lengthily to himself, and then carrying on a protracted logomachy with another greybeard — although 1 understood sundry colloquial idioms and phrases such as " uxorem duxit," " carum mihi," "quid agis?" "cur amatf" and the like, all of which I assiduously translated viva voce—I could not succeed in learning the reason why they were having such a snip-snap, until the interval, when the lady informed me herself that it was because one of them had carried off a nautch-girl belonging to the other's son — which caused me to marvel greatly at her erudition.
I looked that, in the next portion of the performance, I might behold the nautch-girl, and witness her forcible rescue— or at least some saltatory exhibition; but, alaek! she remained sotto voce and hermetically sealed ; and though other characters, in addition to the
tion and betterment upon the preceding scenes, and evinced that TKRENCE possessed no deficiency of up-to-date facetiousness and genuine humour ; though I could not but reflect—" O, si sic omnia!" and lament that he should have hidden his vis comic a for so long under the stifling disguise of a serviette.
I am a beggar at describing the hurly-burly and most admired disorder amidst which I performed the descent of the staircase in a savage perspiration, my elbows and heels unmercifully jostled by a dense, unruly horde, and going with nose in pocket, from trepida- tion due to national cowardice, while the seething mob clamoured and contended for overcoats and hats around very exiguous aper- ture, through which bewildered custodians handed out bundles of sticks and umbrellas, in vain hope to appease such impatience. Nor did I succeed to the recovery of my nat and paraphernalia until after twenty-four and a half minutes (Greenwich time), and with
For which I was minded at first to address a sharp remonstrance and claim for indemnity to some pundit in authority ; but perceiv- ing that by such fishing in troubled waters I was the gainer of a golden-headed umbrella, fresh as a rose, I decided to accept the olive branch and bury the bone of contention.
MR. PUNCH'S ADVICE TO LADIES nr LSAP TEAR. — Look before.
PUNCH, OR THE LOB
ART.— JANUARY .11, 1896.
WAR
^-RL-N.)
JANUARY 11, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
21
HIGH LOVE BELOW STAIRS.
The Venus of the Servants' Hall. "Ms GETTING FOND OP RICHARD I
I SHOULD THINK I WAS.' WHY, BE 's ONLY GOT TO LOOK AT MB, AND I TBJSMBLB ALL OVEB LIKE AN ASPStl JBLLY!"
THE PEERS IN THE BACKGROUND.
(A Dramatic Fragment, improbable and all but impossible.)
SCENE — Studio of Illustrious Painter. The easel is occupied by a sketch of a classical subject— an idea from the Greek.
Illustrious Painter (consulting watch). Dear me I The time for the first arrival. Not a bad notion of mine to paint the portraits of my colleagues for one of the corridors. It may take some lime, but when the work is done— well — it will, at any rate, not shrink from comparison with the Diploma Gallery. (Knock.) Come in. (Enter Fir ft Peer.) Ah, my dear Viscount, glad to see you.
First Peer (returning salutation heartily). Thank you, so much. And now, as I have a great deal to do in Fall Mall, I am afraid I shall not be able to give you much time for a sitting.
lllus. Paint. I don't want you to sit at all. I propose roughing in the background to-day. What would you like for yours P Battle, I suppose ?
First Peer. You are most kind. But if I might suggest, that is scarcely my specialite. Of course, I have seen a fair amount of service, and all that sort of thing will be represented by my medals. But my real line is literature. I would propose that I should be taken in my library, putting the finishing touches to the proofs of the Soldier's Pocket Book. And now, my dear Lord, I must be off, as I have to see to all our little affairs — existent and pending — in Africa and America. But first of all I have to overhaul the working of the Islington Military Tournament. [Exit.
lllus. Paint, (making an entry in his Note-book). As a bookman I well, he is the author of his own fortunes. (Enter Second Peer.) Son jour, my dear Chancellor. I do not think we ought to have much trouble about your background. If you are painted in front of the robing- room
Second Peer (promptly}. I ihall be disgusted. I am prouder of my swordsmanship than anything else. So make me lunging (not Acting)— ha ! ha ! excuse the plaisanterie—in a School of Arms, and I shall be more than satisfied.
[Exit, as batch of Peers — numbers up to 20— enter.
Third Peer. We have come, my ^dear colleague, to say that we shall be most pleased to help in the work. Peers' Gallery ! Splendid notion !
lllus. Paint. What are to be the backgrounds P
Fourth Peer. Well, we have consulted together, ^and1 have thought of a novelty. As we attend the sittings, on the average, about once in five years, we fancied that perhaps if you placed us in the House itself it would be original and striking.
lllus. Paint, (after consideration). Yes. And then some 'of you might be in robes; presumably, you know, having put in an appearance on some State occasion.
fifth Peer. First rate ! What a clever fellow you are !
lllus. Paint, (showing them out). Thank you very much. And
now I think I may (Enter Twenty-first Peer) Ah, my dear
friend I Delighted to see you, as your creation chimes in with the date of my own. Not many years' difference between, them. Your background. I suppose, should be the manufactory
Twenty-first Peer (interrupting). Not at all! That kind of thing would be distinctly misleading. Of course I don't like to dictate, but as you have been so kind as to ask for a suggestion, I would propose that you should paint me looking at one of my ancestors assisting to win the Battle of Hastings. You must know that, without bothering at the Heralds' College, I have every reason to believe that one Sir SMYTHE DE BBOWNE DE ROBYNSONNE was
Illust. Paint. Quite so I I will turn it over in my mind.
Twenty-first Peer. And (if I might venture upon a hint), if you could make Sir SMTTHK DE BBOWNE DE ROBYNSONNE a bit like me, I should be more than delighted. You know a family likeness may be traced for generations, and dear old Sir SMZTHE DE BBOWNE DE
ROBYNSONNE Was
Illust. Paint. Yes, yes, I know all about that.
Twenty-first Peer. I am more than grateful. Not that I care about
it myself, but my wife You know ladies are different from men.
Illust. Paint, (drily). No doubt. (Courteously shows Twenty- first Peer the door.) And now to get upon safer ground than the Battle of Hastings and those who took part in it.
[Scene closes in upon the Illustrious Painter returning to his sketch of a classical subject— an idea from the Greek.
ROSEBERY'S RESERVE.
(See his late two Letters.)
To you, dear friends, I am much beholden,
( Why can't you let me alone, though ?) Speech is silver if silence is golden.
(The latter must be my own, though.) I 'm bursting, but I must not speak I
(Except to say that I must not.) The SULTAN 's wicked, the Powera are weak I
( Do you want me to say so f I trust not.) I 'm haunted by the Armenian news,
I have no trust in SOLLY. (T<> SAY so in public, I must refuse,
I am quite above such folly. ) That insulting SULTAN makes England his mock ;
He was always given to that form 1 (But I greatly fear I should greatly shock
If I told you so —from a platform ! ) I, of course, can write what I cannot say,
(And you can publish the letter,) But / must be silent I ( You' II find some way
To voice your Mute, which were better /) I rage, I burn, and the wrath I feel
My letters no doubt discover I /mustn't speak to the Man at the Wheel I
(But I hope you'll — chuck him over.')
MABVEILOUS AKD SUDDEN CUBE I— Mr. CH-MB-BL-N was unwell. Be took a dose of " Rhodesia." Salutary effect instantaneous I It is not improbable, however, that this treatment will have to be continued.
OLD FBIENDS.— It is said that in event of war between England and Venezuela, 100,000 Brazilians will join the latter country. Of course, for have not Brazil nuts always been associated with Caracas ?
ATTTHOK I ATTTHOB !— Mr. HAI.L CAINE has brought back a draft Act on Canadian Copyright. An open che que on Canadian publishers would have been more acceptable to British authors.
A LONG- VEXED QUESTION SETTLED.— In view of Lord SALISBURY'S appointment as Loid Warden, Walmer will of course become de facto Premier Port. The other towns may now sink their differences.
22
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 11, 1893,
"IMRS. STIRLING."
(THE LATE LADY GREGORY.)
ON M more star of Stagedom gone ! Peerless, bright Peg Woffington, Matchless Martha, perfect Nurse, Speaker witty, quaint, and terse I High Comedy and humorous grace Spoke in that most speaking face. Who forgets those sparkling
graces Oft difplayed in Masks and
Faces ?
Age-unwithered, and still dear, Passing with 1he passing year, She has left the Comic Stage Duller both for youth and age.
PAGE FROM EUROPA'S DIARY.
Sunday. — Calm of the most absolute character. Pulpit sub- jects of a purely perfunctory nature. Expected immediate ap- pearance of the Millennium.
Monday. — Continuation of the peace. The silence of harmony unbroken. Monarchs of all sorts live in charity with all men, and, in their dreams, exist only in Arcadia.
Tuesday. — Tranqn ility main- tained. Ambassadors deep, and Parliaments adjourn for want of work. Nothing stirring but stagnation.
Wednesday. — Political barome- ter at "Set Fair." A storm anywhere impossible. The lion has laid down with the lamb. The contents bills of the papers have to fall back upon tricky headlines to sell a copy of the periodicals they represent. Public consequently sold as well.
Thursday. — The world fast asleep. Dicky birds the only disturbers of the ubiquitous peace.
A HOME TRUTH.
Irate Stepfather. "I CAN'T THINK WHERE YOU LEABN SUCH MAN- NERS. You DON'T SEE MS SLIDING DOWN THE BALTSTEBS AM> TURNING SOMERSAULTS IK THE HALL 1 "
Friday.— Not a ripple any- where. Blue sky on view in every land of the universe. Tri- umph of the dove and the olive branch.
Saturday. — Sudden outbreak I Row everywhere 1 National strug- gles the order of the day! Fire and the sword take precedence in every civilized and uncivilized community ! Expected immediate approach of Pandemonium 1
CRY OF THE INCOME-TAX'D.
["It ought to be a fundamental principle of the next Budget to reduce the income-tax by at least a penny." — The " limes'' on " The Surplus."]
THAT policy were " penny-wise " Indeed, but not " pound- foolish." Let's hope that unto our loud
ones HICKS-BEACH will not prove
mulish.
My cry to him is (like the Pic- man's)
" Please give me a penny I " May his be not (like Simple
Simon's), 11 1 have not got any I "
PAX. — There is now prospect of peace and quiet in one placj, at all events, and that is immedi- ately at Osborne and at the Court generally, for Dean FAHRAR has " replaced the Rev. ROWE JOLLEY as Deputy Clerk of the Closet in Waiting." Sj in that locality there is temporarily no more to bd heard of a Jolley Rowe.
QUOTATION ADAPIED BY MR. CH-MB-BL-N. — " ' Bores1 et ' Pre- toria ' nihil ! "
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
THE LAST SHOOT OF THE SEASON.
SUBMITTING to the fate of all things bright and fair, the shooting reason of '95 '96 19 drawing to an end, lamented by all who love good sport and big bags. The combination is a common one in these days, when even keepers are beginning to understand that those who (hoot care less for a slaughter of easy birds than for a chance of exercising their skill in pulling down tall birds from the region of clouds. It may safely be asserted that all the big bags of pheasants are made by Runs placed well back from the coverts where the birds are likely to Da high up in the air by the time they aie shot at. The bhooting is made difficult, greater skill is necessary on the part of the shooter, and the bird shot at has a greater chance naturally of saving its lite.
THFPE wonll seem to be self-evident propositions; but I gather from the irjgenious ard accomplished "RAPIER'S" notes in the January nun, her of the Badminton Magazine, that there are still "papers of a certain class" in which one may read "sarcastic comments on the making of big bags of pheasants. The writers calculate how many birds are killed per minute, and after a little indulgence in statistics, wind up with a sneer at the 'sport'— in inverted commas." I have in my time read such comments, but not very lately. However, I must take "RAPIEB.'S" word for it that there still exist journalists sufficiently abandoned to make them, though I do not suppose even the most sarcastic of them would refuse to eat a pheasant which had been beaten over a distant line of guns, or would prefer to it a bird shot either by a " bone-scatterer " at the very edge of the covert, or by an old-fashioned " walker-up " within a few feet of the muzzle of his gun.
A KEEPER'S one object is to make the biggest bag he can. If the arrangement of the shoot is left to him — quod di avertant—he will place his guns as near as possible to the edge of the covert, so that they may smash the birds while they are still flying slow and low. This to a true sportsman, even if he is not a shot of the class of Lord
DE OBEY or l>rd WALSIKGHAM. is detestable. He would rather shoot at, even if he misses, one high bird flying strong, than blow ten easy ones to pieces. Therefore in a properly managed shoot the guns are placed well away, although often the keeper looks gloomy, and confides to his intimates that he doem't see the use of having taken " a peck o' trouble if they birds aint to be shot where, as you may say, a gun can shoot 'em."
BUT putting all that aside, what a glorious season this has been in nearly every part of the country. From all sides you hear the same story of fine, strong, hearty birds, and plenty of them. I^do not claim for pheasant-shooting the virtues of an athletic exercise, but it does require in the highest degree coolness, resource, precision and self-control—qualities that are not without their value in other and more important pursuits. Nor is his endurance to be despised who stands and waits in a cool and nipping wind, or in storm of rain such as the variations of our climate often send down upon our heads. Then it is, if you wear a mere cloth cap, that you envy the shooter whose hat has a brim, to guard his neck ; for first with a casual trickle, and then with a steady, relentless flow, the frosty water makes its way from the back of your head, down between your neck and your collar, and down, ever down along the channel of your spine. Ugh I the mere remembrance is enough to give you the influenza.
AND now the time of the last shoot has come or is coming. Onoe more, and for the latt time, the array of beaters is summoned. There they all are, those stolid, autochthonous British labourers, differing not so much in expression as in the signs of age; imper- turbable, slow, and as impervious to thorn- bushes as they are to the voice of the Keeper when he bids them keep the line, or come up faster on the one side or the other. But watch these same beaters when a rabbit appears in their midst, especially after lunch has made their mood merry, and you will see a wonderful change. Not otherwise does a maiden, shy with the reserve of her first season, enter a ball-room. Heedlessly her eyes travel round the room, till, on a sudden, lo they light upon young ALGERNON, the pride of Her
JANUARY 11, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
23
Friend. " HULLO, OLD CHAP I WHAT ON EAKTH "
Brute of a Husband (who has been to see ".Trilby"). '"Snl" (Sotto voce.) "IT'S ALL EIGHT. I'M JUST TRYING TO 'SUGGTST' TO
£ THE MISSIS — HYPNOTICALLY — THAT IT 's TIME FOR HER TO GO TO BED, AND FOR ME TO GO TO THE FANCY DRESS BALL 1 'SH f
SHE 's JUST 'OFF' I" [Chuckles.
Majesty's Horse Guards Bine; young AIGEENON, than whom none ties with more skill the hatter fly tie, none with more splendour wears the pointed pump, none drops his final g with a more careless certainty. She, looking upon him and seeing: him advancing1, feels the happy blush mantle her virgin cheeks, her eyes sparkle, her being becomes animated, and with ready favour she grants him the desired pleasure of a dance. So a beater having perceived a soft- furred rabbit in the underwood, his eyes flash fire, impetuously he moves his heavy legs now hither now thither, loud exclamations burst from his lips, his stick flies hurtling through the air, and the whole line rends the skies with joyous shouting. But afar off, and unharmed, the timorous rabbit seeks refuge, threading with swift feet the tracts that lie behind the beaters.
ALL hens, of course, are to be spared during the last shoot. And it is aggravating: to notice that the hen, ignorant of the edict that saves her life, rises with just as great a fluster as if she was to be shot at. A"d towards evening as the shadows fall, and distinction becomes difficult, the poor hen does often get shot and pays the penalty of her rashness. But hark! what shout is that? "Wood- cock forward, woodcock to the right, woodcock to the left. Mark, mark." Every voice in the covert and out of it seems to take up the cry. Are there a hundred woodcocks in the air. An electric shock seems to go through every shooter. Bang, bang, there he is ; bang, bang, mark to the left ; bang, bang, forwards, backwards, sideways, everywhere guns are going off .while the woodcock zig-zags through the trees and out into the open till he falls a victim to the youngest of the party, ^jhose hat henceforth wears the trophy of the bird's feathers.
AND so good-bye to the great season and to all its memories of sport and good fellowship and happy days. The 1st of February will eee its departure, but I bid it f die well to-day.
COMPANION TO "THE LATE MB. CASTELLO."— The Early M. CHATEAU.
TERPSICHORE TO DATE.
(The " Sitting Waltz " is stated to be the latest American novelty.)
THE Volte d Siege is an interesting development, which has been recently introduced for the benefit of engaged couples, flirts, hussars, gentlemen with wooden legs, sufferers from " housemaid's knee," and other persons who are averse to dancing exercise.
No floor to speak of is required, as it is only used in extreme cases for sitting on, when the stairs, window-sills, fauteuils d deux, and banisters are all occupied. Even then it is considered somewhat vulgar, and suggestive of hunt-the-slipper. It is better, if every available seat is taken, to stand the waltz out.
Very little preliminary training is necessary, though possibly a visit to Hampstead Heath on a fine Bank Holiday might supply a few useful hints on deportment.
The movements are quite simple. The partners engage them- selves in the ordinary way. The gentleman then conducts the lady to a suitable seat. This, of course, should accommodate two, and two only, and need not be aggressively public. In fact, if the ball- room is all conservatory, so much the better. He next passes his right arm round his partner's waist, and clasps her right hand with his left. Her left hand rests fondly on his shoulder, and they are now ready to keep time with the music.
At the first beat the lady puts out her left foot with a dainty and coquettish but almost imperceptible glissade, and the gentleman ever so plightly touches it with his own.
Second beat. The lady turns her head towards her partner, the gentleman simultaneously gazes yearningly into her left eye.
Third beat. Balancez, and set to corners. The couple thus chassent in the same direction without leaving their seat, swaying gently backwards and forwards in three-quarter time.
The decorations should consist largely of mistletoe and kissing comfits (whatever they may be).
And, lastly, the new waltz is as old as the hills, and was danced before ball-rr oms or Terpsichore were heard of.
24
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JAMJART 11, 1896.
HERE WE ARE AGAIN!"
the
AN elegant show ! a splendid spectacle ! a graceful grouping ! Fun, Fancy, and Frolic 1 Such is the summary of the Annual Pantomime provided for us all, young and old, by Master DBTJ- BIOLANTJS, semper virens nunquam viridis, Grand Master of Christmas Revels and Popular Pantomime. "With him attendant sprites CECIL RALEIGH and ARTHUR STURGESS, with stage-manager COLLINS, and J. M. GLOVEB, Master of
MUSIC to
IMI'ERATOR. Just take the programme and read the names of all the Pucks and Pixies obey- ing the magician's word. Six artistic elves do the scenery, who, together with the two principal costumiers, might be sung in two hexameter lines by the new Poet Laureate, if inclined that way.*
But there are nine more names to this depart- ment, and three are responsible for the " shoes," including the glass slippers of Cin- derella, of which the maker is not specially named. There is an Assistant Stage Manager, and, by CLABKBON! there are wigs I I But suffice it some fifty names appear as the officers of the Pantomime Army, marching and dancing (with JOHNNIE D' ATJB AN) to victory. _ Charming ballets; quite Original; which you mightn't expect from a maitre de ballet whose name is " COPPI." Beginners in the art of ballet- teaching will do well to copy COPPI. Two of the comic songs are capital; both sung by HEBBERT CAMPBELL; the first, " You know love it wouldn't be true" (or a catch line like it), being exceptionally good.
The GRIFFITHS Brothers in their wrestling match are immense. So earnest ! so serious ! so irresistibly comic ! Of course, DAN LEND,
* ScZnZr)/ HarkVr Bruce Smith CanSy Kaiitsly Sch'reitz&r tin' Dress&s by Mons. Alias and cSsturriigr Mist&r
inimitable as an elderly matronly shrew, IB facile princeps as aider- end's step-mother, and supremely ridiculous. HEBBBBT CAMPBELL seconds him excellently : upon these two, with the Brothers GRIFFITHS and Mr. LIONEL RIGNOLD (ordinarily a hook-nosed Hebrew villian in a melodrama, but now a comic Irish tutor with tiptilted nose, which just makes the difference), rests the fun of the pantomime; and
" rests" is not the word, for the fun is always kept moving.
Really splendid is Miss ALEXANDBA DAGMAB, who as Dandini, the Prince's valet, tops her royal master, Prince ADA. BLANCHE, considerably, and is much more of a Royal Highness, by her Royal T aline ss, than is the little prince. Surely ALEXANDBA ought to have been where ADA is. and the prince should have been the valet, as " Ada and abettor.' However, let us take the caste as it is, and be thankful. Petite et petil- lante <f esprit is the representative of the French Ambassador, Miss MARGUERITE COR- NILLE. ISA BOWMAN is an interesting Cinder- ella, [of whom the authors have not "made half enough." Poor Cinderella is just a bit out of it; as, by the way, she was in her kitchen. The show begins at&7.30, and is over about 11.30. The music is graceful throughout, and Conductor GLOVEB takes wonderful physi- cil exercise in directing the orchestra ; arms, hands, head, and all that is visible of him give practical illustration of the theory of perpetual motion. As much as he makes in money during his engagement, he must lose in weight. It is all good, and there are very few topical allusions, and not many political ones, thank good- ness ! as a Pantomime ought not to have anv thing of " party" about it, always excepting " Christmas party," of which seasonable mate- rial there is in this a plentiful supply. So success to the Seventeenth Annual ! F*>reat Druriolanus Mimut Imperator !
EVERY ONE'S GOOD HE1LTH!
As the festive season draws to a close, when the plum of the pudding is heard of no more, when the mines-pie lingers only in the memory, when the bear's head ceases to adorn the buffet in the castle hall, when the chemist has done his best and the doctor has departed, when elderly maidens begin to regret lost oppor- tunities afforded by now vanished mistletoe boughs, and when, by the disappearance of the sprigs of holly, the schoolboy is reminded of the rapid approach of the blossoms of the birch tree, then is the hour when the Lordly Baron solemnly bethinketh him that some change of air will be beneficial to his state of health. Opportunely he receiveth a copy of the Fortnightly Review for January, wherein the title of an essay, " The Climate of South Africa and its Curative Influence," attracteth his kindly regard. Of South Africa and its gold wotteth he somewhat : it needs no BABNATO to tell him this. Of the climate he hath heard, but as to its "curative influence" he hath received no information whatever. At a glance, and with half an eye, he grasps the fact that "consumption" is to be grappled with in South Africa and its baneful effects neutralised. The learned medico, yclept Dr. ROBSONITJS ROOSE, whose signature is to this brief but most interesting article, shows " how," " when," and "where" to go iu search of recuperating the vital forces at Frazer- burg, Victoria (West), Aliwal (North), and Kimberley, ranging from 4000 to 4500 feet up in air, places, alas, as far above the ordinary means of the ordinary patient as they are above the level of the sea. The benevolent doctor should tell us where the £4500 is to be ob- tained by the patient who would with pleasure ascend these 4500 feet I ! But even if the patient obtains the ways and the means, how about, the Rhodes, the CECIL RHODES ? Won't the climate, just now, be a little too hot for any Eaglishman P So, we must wait till, first, we get the £4500 -and then ?
STOPPED.
THE other day, when I was down in the country, I suffered from severe toothache. I decided to came up to town the next morning, see a friend of mine, a famous dentist, and get back by the 3 30 express after lunch at my club. He is a capital fellow, as kind as he is clever, and he touches one's aching jaw with a hand as gentle as a woman's. So, rather than consult a stranger in the country, I resolved on a three hours' journey to town, to see my friend.
Having some other business to do, I started early, breakfasting very lightly and hastily at 7.30, and catching the 8.23 train after a six-mile drive in the keen, bracing air. My business delayed me a little ; my friend delayed me more. He is so much occupied. When at last he was able to see me and had stopped my tooth, it was past two, and I was very hungry. " Come with me," I said, when he had taken out of my mouth his hands, his instruments, and other impediments to conversation, "and have lunch at the club. I'm ravenous."
"All right," he said. "I've half an hour; I'll come. Open your mouth once more. Wider, pleas?. Yep, I'm rather hungry, too. Had my breakfast very early, and very little of it. But you mustn't eat anything, you know." I almost bit his hand off in my effort to shout "What?" with mv mouth filled with a napkin, dentist's mirror, &c. "No," he said, "you mustn't bite anything for two hours at least, or you '11 spoil aU the stopping. You may have a little soup." "When we got to the club I had a little soup. And when he my friend had finished, and I had indignantly waved away the tooth-picks handed to me by the waiter, there was only just time to catch the 3.30 express, which doesn't stop anywhere, and doesn't carry any provisions.
To have no teeth must be very uncomfortable, but to have plenty, and to starve, so to speak, in the midst of them, is infinitely worse.
JANUARY 18, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
25
ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
"ARK YOU THE CARPENTER?" "YES, MISSY."
"WHERE'S THE WALRUS, THEN?",
JOTTINGS AND TITTLINGS.
(By BABOO HURRY BUNGSHO JABBEBJBE, B.A.)
No. III. Mr. Jabberjee gives his views concerning the Laureatship.
TT is " selon les regies " and rerum naturd that the QUEEN'S Most Excellent Majesty, being constitutionally partial to poetry, should desire to have constant private supply from respectable tip-top genius, to be kept snug on Royal premises and ready at momentary notice to oblige with song or dirge, according as High Jinks or Dolorousness are the Court orders of the day.
But how far more satisfactory if Right Hon'ble Marquis SALIS- BURY, instead of arbitrarily decorating some already notorious bard with this "cordon bleu" and thus gilding a lily, should throw the office open to competition by public exam, and, after carefully weighing such considerations as the applicant's res angusta domi, the fluency of his imagination, his nationality, and so on — should award the itching palm of Fame to the poet who succeeded best in tickling his fancy I
Had some such method been adopted, the whole Indian Empire might to-day have been pleased as Punch by the selection of a Hindoo gentleman to do the job— for I should infallibly have entered myself for the running. Unfortunately such unparalleled opportunity of throwing soup to Cerberus, and exhibiting oolour-blindnees, has been given the slip, though the door is perhaps still open (even at
Kst eleven o'clock^ P.M.) for retracing the false step and web of >nelope.
For I would respectfully submit to Her Imperial Majesty that, in her duplicate capacity of Queen of England and Empress of India, ehe has urgent necessity for a Court Poet for each department, who would be Arcades ambo and two of a trade, and share the duties with their proportionate pickings.
Or, if she would be unwilling to pay the piper to such a tune, I alone would work the oracle in both Indian and Anglo-Saxon departments, and waive the annual tub of sherry for equivalent in cash down.
And, if I may make the suggestion, I womld strongly advise that
this question of my joint (or several) appointment should be severely taken up by London Press as matter of simple justice to India. This is without pr»judice to the already appointed Laureate as a swan and singing bird of the first water. All I desire is that the Public should know of another— and, perchance, even rarer— avis, who is nigroque simillima cygno, and could be obtained dog cheap for a mere song or a drug in the market-place, if only there is made a National Appeal to the Sovereign that he should be promoted to such a sinecure and cere perennius.
As a specimen of the authenticity of my divine flatulence, please find inclosed herewith copy of complimentary verses, written by myself on hearing of Poet AUSTIN'S selection. Indulgence is kindly requested for very hasty composition, and circumstance of being — jatiy harrowed and impeded at time of writing by an excruciating
.l-sized boil on Iback of neck, infuriated by collar of shirt, poul- ticingp, and so forth.
CONGBATULATOBY ODE.
To Hon'ble Poet-Laureate Alfred Austin, Esq.
Hail I you full-blown tulip I Oh I when the wheezing zephyr brought glad news Of your judicious appointment, no hearts who did peruse, Such a long-desiderated slice of good luck were sorry at, To a most prolific and polacious Poet-Laureate I For no poeta nascitur who is fitter To greet Royal progeny with melodious twitter. Seated on the resplendent cloud of official Elysium, Far away, far away from fuliginous busy hum, You are now perched with phenomenal velocity On vertiginous pinnacle of poetic pomposity ! Yet deign to cock thy indulgent eye at the petition Of one consumed by corresponding ambition, And lead the helping hand to lift, pulley-hauley, To Parnassian Peak this poor perspiring Bengali I "Whose arspoetica (as per sample lyric) Is fully competent to turn out panegyric. What if some time to come, mrhaps not distant, You were in urgent need of Deputy- Assistant ! For two Princesses might be COE fined simultaneously — Then, how to homage the pair extemporaneously ? Or with Nuptial Ode, lack-a-daisy ! What a fix If with Influenza raging like cat on hot bricks ! In such a wrong box you will please remember yours truly, Who can do the needful satisfactorily and duly, Bv an epithalamium (or what not) to inflame your credit j With every coronated head that will have read it I And the quid pro quot magnificent and grand, Sir, Would be at the rate of four annas for every stanza. Now, thou who fcale sidereal paths afar dost, Deign from thy brilliant boots to cast the superfluous star-dust Upon
The head of him
Whose fate depends
On Thee I
(Signed) BABOO HUBBY BUNGSHO JABBEBJEE.
The above was forwarded (post-paid) to Hon'ble AUSTIN'S official address at Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey (opposite the Royal Aquarium), but — hoity-toity and mirabile dictu ! — no answer has yet been vouchsafed to yours truly save the cold shoulder of contemptuous inattention I
What a pity ! Well-a-day, that we should find such passions of envy and jealousy in bosom of a distinguished poet, whoee lucubrated productions may (for all that is known to the present writer) be no great shakes after all, and mere focd for powder I
The British public is an ardent lover of the scintillating jewellery of fair play, and so I confidently submit my claims and poetical compositions to be arbitrated by the unanimous voice of all who understand suoh articles.
Let us remember that it is never too late to pull down the fallen idol out of the gilded shrine in which it has established itself with the egotistical isolation of a dog with the mange I
"Jusi LIKE HYMN!" — SIB,— Mr. STEAD is sending circulars about asking everyone to give him a list of " Hymns that have helped him." Personally I am not going to be one of the " Hims who will help him (Mr. STEAD)," and shall not, if asked, mention the names of the " Hers that have helped me," though I have a grateful remembrance of a nurse and nursery governess, both of whom helped me uncommonly well at dinner, specially about Christmas time. They were, however, women equally capable of helping themselves. Wishing STEAD steadier than ever as he grows older,
I am, yours truly, Avis SENIOB.
CONCISE PBECIS OF THE SITUATION IN THE TBANSVAAL. result of robbing Pietermaritzburg to pay " OOM PAUL."
The
VOI. CX.
26
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 18, 1896.
k
A FREE HAND.
The Unspeakable Turk" (to himself). ' HA I HA. I THERE 's NO ONE ABOUT I I CAN GET TO BUSINESS AGAIN I "
JANUARY 18, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
27
THE FORCE OF HABIT.
Spai-ner (a great Cyclist, whose horse has been startled by Man on covert hack}. " Hi 1 CONFOUND YOU 1 WHY THE DKUCB DON'T
YOU SOUND YOUR BKLL 1 I"
BRITANNIA'S SOLILOQUY.
(On the New Bronze Coinage.)
OBCE upon my shield I sat, Gripptd my "fork" in graceful
manner ;
Now beside that shield I squat, Trident held like a stage-banner. Then a lighthouse and a ship, Flanked me either side "On*
Penny" ;
Now alone my spear I grip, And "supporters" have not any ! Really, 'tis exceeding funny,— But 'tis provt d by efforts recent,— Britons, good at making money, Cannot make a coin that's decent. Rule Britannia ? Rot sophistic ! Had I really sway I 'd rule No more duffers inartistic Withmy coins should play the fool
KOKOFUKU!
[An Ashanti Chief named KOKO- Ftrxu is said to have left Coomassi • with the submission of KingPuBMBi.] HE has started on his way,
KOKOFUKU ! And he 's bearing peace, they say,
KOKOFUKU !
If his tidings really bririg The sulmission of his king, Oh, how joyously we'll sing Of the fame And the name
Of KOKOFUKU I
SUGGESTED FOR NEW ENGLISH COINAGE Bi CERTAIN DESIGNING PERSONS.
PLEA. FOB THE LARK.
•' HA.BK. hark I the lark at Hea- ven's gate sings," But will it sing there long ? To market Mail ia thousands
brings,
These tiny sons of song. Now gourmets eat the morsels
sweet ;
They 're strung upon a string, With plumpy crops, at poulterers'
shops,
No more to soar and sing. A s harm t'ul sin I Will none begin
To ope the Public eyes? Let everything that pretty is Against this outrage rise !
Arise I Arise I My Public sweet, arise I
The kestrel and the sparrow-hawk,
The pole-cat and the shrike, Pursue the bird. But how absurd,
That Man should do the like I 0, SHAKPPEAKE'S shade; 0, SHEL- LEY'S sprite,
Arise and scourge base oits, Who 'd rob our sky of minstrelsy,
To fill their pies and spits I Kind Punch forswears the pretty dears,
On toast and eke in pie?, Let everything that gentle is
Against this horror rise. Arise I Arise !
My Public sweet, arise I
28
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 18, 1896.
QUITE A (NEW AND ORIGINAL SUGGESTION AS SUBJECT FOE GOLD MEDAL AT E. A. SCHOOLS, 1896:-" THE FINDING OF MOSES."
AT IT AGAIN?
Swiss authorities complain that Prince STJI GUGEA DABGUiii, of Abyssinia, has been kidnapped by Italians from Neuf chatel, and conveyed on board of a vessel bound for Mas- sowah. We understand, under all reserve, that the following telegrams have passed : —
(1) To President Surifs Republic, Berne. —Send ships to pursue Italians. Outrage indefensible. Have ordered Rhine gunboats to Basle in your support. WILHELM.
(2) To German Emperor, Berlin.— Im- possible. All our vessels laid up for winter. Crews engaged at London restaurants.
ZEMP, President S. R.
(3) To President.— Recall crews Can ar- range to supply places with my own subj ects. Make demonstration on Lago Maggiore while I occupy Teutonic-speaking Lucerne and Zurich as security for costs. Mas- sowah under my protection. Can sell — cheap — stock of obsolete cannon. WILHELM.
(4) To Emperor. — Your action would spoil summer season. Cannot spare Lucerne or Zurich. "Why not occupy Monte Rosa outside our sphere of benevolent neutrality. Propose introducing a Bill abolishing Italian organs and ices. ZEHF, President 8. R.
(5) To President — Amdisgusted. Abolish yourself. WILHELM.
(6) To Emperor.— Ditto.
ZEMP, President S. R.
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
ON PAYING BILLS.
I HAVE noticed with deep and genuine regret that in the month of December there is always a terrible mortality amongst tradesmen. Why this should be so I know not. It is not to be supposed that tradesmen are, as a class, weaker or more liable to deadly illness than the rest of their fellow-citizens. Many of them I have met in the flesh, and they have always struck me as a particularly healthy, well-clad, strong, comfortable, and energetic body of men— not at all the sort of men whom one would expect to be sent to their account unhouseled, disappointed, unannealed, and, above all, no reckoning made, by the fogs and chills of December.
BUT there is no getting out of it : tradesmen do die with an alarm- ing frequency and suddenness as the end of the year approaches. As I write there lie before me four communications from firms with whom I have from time to time had dealings which have been, I trust, mutually profitable. Two of these are trimmed with a delicate little mourning border, the other two are without any external sign of woe, but they all tell the same story: "Dear Sir," says one, "owing to the recent lamented death of Mr. JOSHUA TENPENNY (from heart disease) we have found ourselves compelled to call in all liabilities due to this firm of which he was a member. We beg with compliments to enclose your valued account amounting to £9 10s. 4<f., and shall feel honoured by receiving from you a cheque for same at your early convenience. Trusting to be favoured with your future commands, and assuring you of our best attention at all times, we beg to remain your obedient servants, TENPENNY, TWISTEB, & Co." In the remaining three the phraseology and the names, of course, vary, but the distressing purport is the same.
THEBE was something, however, about the document I have quoted which struck me as having a specially familiar air. I seemed to remember that other members of the same firm had also been called away in recent years. A search through my papers plainly revealed what I had only vaguely remembered. I found, to my horror, that, in the short space of five years, five members of this firm and family had submitted to fate. In December, 1890, it appeared that Mr. CALEB TENPENNY had died (of diphtheria), and that my account of £6 5s. 8d. had been called in. In December, 1891, Mr. ARTHUB JOHN IENPENNY went off (typhoid fever), and a request was made to me to pay £4 8s. 2rf. In December, 1892, Mr. HENBT PARKINSON TEN- PENNY was summoned (by internal complications), and the melan- choly event was, as usual, communicated to me, together with the statement that I owed the firm £5 Os. 3d. Mr. WILLIAM TENPENNT Junior, was the next to go, influenza proving fatal to him in December, 1893. My account then stood, as in the previous year, £5 Os. 34 Sorrow at the death of Mr. HENBY PABKINSON L EN PEN NY had evidently caused me to omit payment of what I then
id, and to abstain from further dealings with this death-stricken
firm during the ensuing year. In December, 1894, there was a break. No TENPENNY died; the TENPENNY plum pudding was not over- shadowed by calamity, and the TENPENNY Christmas tree, blazing with festal candles, was surrounded by a joyful and united family. Another result seems to have been that my account, although, doubtless, it was rendered, remained unpaid. Obviously, however, this luck was top good to last, and accordingly in December, 1895, as I have already said, heart disease struck down Mr. JOSHUA TENPENNY.
BUT this is not all. I was talking the matter over with a friend who also deals with TENPENNY, TWISTEB & Co. He shocked me by the information that the TWISTEBS were just as liable to December deaths as the TENPENNYS. GEOBGE, SYDNEY, NORMAN, ARCHIBALD, and CHABLE9 TWISTEB, junior, have all died since December, 1890, of a variety of illnesses and accidents, the most tragic incident, per- haps, being the fall downstairs which robbed the world of SYDNEY TWISTEB, and the railway collision in Spain which accounted for CHARLES TWTSTEB, junior. So close, in any case, is the connection between the component elements of this firm that no TENPENNY ever applies for a passage in Charon's ferry unless one of the TWISTEBS goes with him to mingle with the lamenting Shades.
I MUST confess that, stated as I have stated it here, the business begins to wear an ugly and sinister look. I am not at all satisfied that these respectable gentlemen came by their deaths in a natural and lawful manner. I am reluctant to say anything which may cause offence to a body of men whom I cordially respect, but it does seem to me that these regularly recurring deaths, amounting in one firm alone to ten since December, 1890, call for a searching investigation from the police authorities. What if it should be dis- covered that there exists, by the custom of the trade, in every branch of business a suicide club with a rule compelling a member of a firm to kill himself whenever the money owed to the firm exceeds a certain amount, and another rule authorising the other members to kill him if he fails to commit suicide within a reasonable time? Mind, I do not affirm as a fact that such a club exists. At present I have no sufficient evidence, but I must say that natural causes appear utterly inadequate to explain the dreadful annual mortality amongst my unfortunate tradesmen in December.
WITH this exception, there is something dull and prosaic about bills, when you can pay them. Formerly, of course, in one's under- graduate days for instance, things were very different. Then the end of every term brought its own special excitement in the shape of duns, who called in person to demand payment of their accounts. One was able to appreciate dimly the feelings of the fox when the feathering hounds thread through the covert and push him un- willingly from his lair. How artfully he slinks and glides amongst the trees, across the rides; until at last he slips away with the " yoick '' of the huntsman ringing in his ears. With equal art could the undergraduate mark the approach of the relentless dun and avoid
JANUARY 18, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
him. In the end the dun was usually baffled, and the under- graduate went home light of heart and lighter of pocket, leaving his sitting-room table littered with bills thick as leaves in Yallombrosa.
BUT the day of reckoning, of course, was only deferred. In the end a stern but forgiving parent was appealed to, and all the bills were settled. In my time this was called "going a mucker"; probably the term is still the same. One man I remember used to be pointed out with a certain amount of respectful awe as having ''gone a mucker" (i.e., appealed to his father, and had his debts
Said) three times in one year. In fact, the payment of one's just ebts, not by means of one's allowance, but by the interposition of a parent, was looked upon and spoken of as the very crown of disasters. And now there is no going of muckers for most of us. We are turned into clergymen, barristers, doctors, business-men ; two of us (with one of whom I, moi qui vous parle, have rowed a race in the same boat) are bishops ; we have wives, families, houses, and we pay our debts with a sober regularity which seems to preclude the exist- ence of a past when duns were avoided, and unopened bills were left to look after themselves. Yet the days of duns and of debt were the happier, in spite of occasional disaster.
PUNCH TO ME. W. D. HOWELLS.
MY DEAE SIR, — I have been reading an article from your pen in Harper's Weekly of January 4. It will give me genuine pleasure if you will count me henceforth as one of your devoted admirers, your servant to command in any matter in which it may be possible for me to oblige you. How temperately, how wisely, how humorously, with how broad and generous a humanity do you write of this diffi- culty which threatens to set our two peoples, the British and the American, into hostile camps. "I was greatly stirred the other day," you say, " in reading the President's Message concerning the Venezuela boundary dispute. I did not like his having four relative pronouns in one sentence towards the close of his message, and upon the whole the literature struck me as turgid and clumsy, but I accounted for that by the excitement he must have been in when he wrote it, and I felt a responsive thrill, which I took to be a patriotic emotion, as I read it. ... I pictured England reduced by land and sea to the last extremity through the powers of our army and navy . . . and the grass growing in the streets before the offices of the London newspapers which had noticed mv books unfavourably."
Well, we too have at times experienctd that sort of emotion, and like you we figure it all so dramatically that we do not fancy our- selves taking any part personally in the difficult ard perhaps dan- gerous work. We delegate it, as you did, to the poor fellows who are to fight and bleed, and continue to be poor fellows while we reap the honour and glory of it. Like you, we imagine our own exemption from all sorrow and suffering, " and the devotion of the sort of people who have mostly in all ages of the world been butchered for every came, good or bad." Here, too, are golden words : —
" What I chiefly object to in our patriotic emotion, however, was not that it was so selfish, but that it was so insensate, so stupid. It took no account of things infinitely more precious than national honour, such as humanity, civilisation, and —
' the long result of time ' —
which must suffer in a conflict between peoples like the English and the Americans. For the sake of having our ships beat their ships, our poor fellows slaughter their poor fellows, we were all willing, for one detestable instant at least, to have the rising hopes of mankind dashed, and the sense of human brotherhood blunted in the hearts of the foremost peoples of the world."
But is there, as you say, "in the American heart a hatred of England, which glutted itself in her imagined disaster and disgrace when we all read the PRESIDENT'S swaggering proclamation, in which he would not yield to the enemy so far as even to write good English ?" is there to be no forgiveness, are we never to cancel old scores and begin our international book-keeping, if I may so term it, on a clean page ? I do not think our people hate yours. Your dash, your pluck, your humour, your keen common-sense, your breezy and inexhaustible energy, your strength and broad capacity for government, all these qualities command and obtain from us a sincere tribute of admiration. If you hate us, we must submit to that melancholy condition, but never submit in such a fashion as to cease from honest effort to abate and in the end to remove all hatred. Blood, as one of your naval captains said on a memorable occasion, is thicker than water. So saying, he dashed in to the help of our sorely- pressed ships. Let us then call a truce to petty and malignant carping, and join hands in an alliance dependent not upon written treaties, but upon the noble sympathy of two great nations engaged in the same work of civilisation and progress. You, Sir, speaking for others, I trust, as well as for yourself, have set us an example. I grasp your hand, and wish you well in all your undertakings.
Believe me yours in all cordial friendship,
THE QUEEN'S LETTER TO THE GERMAN EMPEROR.
[We publish with all reserve the following letter, which has, we under- stand, been despatched from Osborne Castle to Berlin. From internal evidence we should judge that it was not written but suggested by the exalted lady bv whom it purports to be signed. There is a nautical breezi- ness about it tnat inclines us to attribute the actual authorship to the Duke of T-BK.— ED. Punch.}
MELN LIBBER WILLY,— Dies ist aber iiber alle Berge. Was be- deutet eigentlich deine Depesche an den alten KRUGER der f iir Dich doesn't care twopence. Solch eine confounded Impertinenz habe ioh nie gesehen. The fact of the matter is that Da ein furchtbarer
Schwaggerer bist. Warum kannstDu nie ruhig bleiben, why can't you hold your blessed row? Musst Du deinen Finger in jeder Torte haben ? Was it for this that I made you an Admiral meiner Flotte and allowed you to rig yourself out in einer wunderschonen Uniform mit einem gekockten Hut ? If you meant mir any of your blooming cheek zu geben why did you make your Grandmamma Colonel eines Deutschen Cavallerie Regiments? Du auch bist Colonel of a British Caval- lerie Regiment, desto mehr die Sjhade, the more 's the pity. Als Du ein ganz kleiner Bube warst habe ich Dich oft tiichtig ge- spankt, and now that you 're grown up you ought to be spanked too. Wenn Du deine Panzerschiffe nach Delagoa Bay schickst werde ich tie aus dem Wasser blasen, I '11 blow your ironclads out of the water ehe Da dich umkehren kannst, before you can turn round. And look here, if you'll come over to this country werde ich Dich anneh- men, I '11 take you on, und ich wette drei gegen eins dasz ich Dich in drei Runden aueklopfen werde, Queensberry rules, three minutes to a round. Also ich schnappe meine Finger in your face. Da weist nicht wo Du bist, you dunno where you are, and somebody must teach you. Is BISMARCK quite well? Das ist ein kolossaler Kerl, nicht wahr ? So lange I Don't be foolieh any more.
Deine Dich liebende GRANDMAMMA.
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN FAMILY TREE.
["After all, the English people are our people, and we are theirs."
New York "Morning Press," January 9.]
WILL said, Morning Press ! 'tis the root of the matter
You 've got at — your race and our race are the same ; Flung wide o'er the earth though our branches may scatter,
They spring from one stock, from one sapling they came. 'Twas a thousand long years, ere the trunk was divided,
Since Saxon in Britain first planted the seed ; Slow growing through storms and compact it abided,
The Oak-tree of Freedom— no wind-shaken reed ! Not as mother to child, but as brother to brother,
In age as in stature our nations are twin ; Side by side, not in anger confronting each other,
In face of the world let us thow we are kin I Yours and ours are King ALFRED, and CHAUCER, and BACON,
And SHAKSPEARE, and RALEIGH, and DBAKE, and Qaeen BESS ; Our heirship in common can ne'er be forsaken —
The glorious past we conjointly possess. Nowadays, too, we share with you athletes and actors,
And Trilby we share, and affairs of the heart : Each day of fresh ties o'er the Pond we 're contractors- There 's no MONROE Doctrine in marriage or art ! If Teuton with Russian and Gaul were preparing
To fly at our throat, we would face them all three I But attack Brother JONATHAN ?— No. we 're forbearing
To rend thus asunder the Family Tree !
LEGAL AND MEDICAL.— The time of the year is a troublesome one for those subject to gout and kindred complaints, but would it be correct for a lawyer to describe his symptoms as livery of seisin ?
THE KAISER'S FAVOURITE SONG. — " William '» sure to be right."
30
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 18, 1896.
'TOUT EST PERDU, FORS L'HONNEUR!"
Housekeeper (who has been describing the fire in the country house, and the destruction of all the books and family pictures, <&c., <fcc.). " YBS, MT LADY, IVERY SINGLE PICTURE BURNT TO ASHBS 1 Bur I 'VB on* THING TO TELL YOU THAT WILL PLEASE YOU:-/ MANAGED TU SAVE ALL LAST YEAR'S JAM!"
THE PILOT THAT WEATHERED THE STORM.
(Mr. Punch's Adaptation cf Canning's Celebrated Song to Mr. Chamberlain.)
IF hush'd the loud shindy that shattered our
sleep,
The sky if no longer dark shadows deform. If the worst of it's o'er, with the Boer, shall
we keep
Silent tongue on the pilot that weathered the storm ?
At the footstool of JOSEPH Punch never did
fawn, [cries ;
Against him he joined not in faction's dull
With those who abused, from their ranks
when withdrawn,
The man who till then they'd extolled to the skies.
But clever ODO! pluck to all Britons is dear, An example of which now the nations
behold.
A statesman unbiassed by bounce or by fear, Is worth, in a crisis, his weight in pure gold.
When wonder and doubt in the hearts of us
reigned,
When a semi-piratical flag seemed unfurled, He the honour and faith of our country main- tained,
And set us all right in the sight of the world.
We are thankful all round an enthusiast craze Did not set half the world in a deuce of a shine ; [owe praise,
It to CHAMBEBLAIN'S coolness and pluck we Where's the partisan fool who '11 that tri- bute decline ?
Not yet, Sir, the course of your botherraent 's
oer; [to all!
May your talents and virtues prove equal
Bat now we'll give praise both to you and
the Boer, [could fall.
With a tear for mad pluck which to folly
Take thanks for great dangers by wisdom
repelled,
For evils by coolness and readiness braved ;
For the Throne by considerate counsels
upheld, [saved.
And the People from perils precipitate
And, JOE, if again sudden ructions should
rise, [darkness deform,
The bright dawnings of peace should fresh
The trust of the good and the hopes of the
wise [storm !
Will turn to the pilot that weathered this
PENNY STEADFULS.
[Mr. STEAD is issuing a penny edition of standard works of fiction.]
ONLY a penny left of sixpence I had when I went into "Spotted Dog" 1 Not enough for glass of ale. Mate advises me to try a penn'orth of CHARLEY DICKENS. Here goes I
CHAKLEY is prime. Must sret more of him. Spend a bob on Pickwick. Why ain't there a penn'orth o' Sam Wetter ? Sam is prime, too. Find the missis wanted that bob for Sunday's dinner. Can't give it her. Wishes to know if I've spent it "on the booze"? No. only " on the read."
Pennorth of Tom Jones next. Tow's a ripper. Penn'orths of Monte Cristo, CHABLEY READE, Joshua Davidson, &c.
Don't like this half-and-half system. Prefer the " entire." Spend one week's wages on DUMAS. No more escapes from prison,
though. What a sell! Landlord wants n nt, and missis wants tin for food. Spent it all. Tell missis I'm bound to buy a penny She. She doesn't understand, and hints— wilh a saucepan— at a judicial separation. Better out of this I Off to " Spotted Dog."
Sat up all night over Charles 0"1 Medley. Head splitting. Wanted five glasses to make it right. Fined for being late at work. Told foreman it was all due to Mr. STEAD s penny novels. Foreman replied it was more likely Mr. BONG'S twopenny beer. How unjust !
Brokers in ! Seized all my novels ! Mistus in workhouse. Says novels are worse than drink. No money to get more. What shall I dp?
Just pawned children's boots. Got Vanity Fair — the whole hog, too. Disappointed. THACKEBAY ain't in it with the CHABLEYS. Read two chapters of the Fair — thought it rot —off to " Spotted Dog " again. Jolly evening.
No home. And no employment 1 Sleep in casual ward. And to think that it's half- pints of fiction that have brought me to this I
To "Daily News." ( A propos of an Interview recently reported. )
" J. B. ROBINSON, he,
Seems to know something of S. Afrikey."
Week-end Party in a Country House.
Ordinary Man of Forty. I see someone writes to the Times to sav that the KAISEB ought to be turned out of the Army and Navy.
Charming Girl (much affected by the pro- posed punishment — quite innocently). What! do they want him not to be allowed to ' ' shop " there ?
A NEW "LABOUB OF HEBCULES" (ROBIN- SON).— To struggle with the Boer- constrictor.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.— JANUARY 18, 1896.
KEADY !
COME THE THREE CORNERS OF THE WORLD IN ARMS,
AND WE SHALL SHOCK THEM: NOUGHT SHALL MAKE US RUE,
IF ENGLAND TO ITSELF DO REST BUT TRUE."— King John, Act V., Scene 7.
JANUARY 18, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
33
A FRIENDLY WORD WITH THE WAR-WIZARD.
[" It would require but the impetus of war to develop such a (food of destructive appliances as would astonish the world. I have invented a machine by which water charged with 5000 volts can be hurled to a great distance, which directed on an army would sweep it away like chaff." — Mr. Edison.'}
PHEUGH I The bow, and the sword, and the dagger,
The hundred-ton gnu and torpedo, — (If one may trust EDISON'S swagger.
And Science's ultimate credo),— Have been merely tentative trifles
On mankind's red highway of slaughter. Machine-guns and murderous rifles,
Must yield to — electrified water ! Oh, thankee, dear EDISON, thankee
Inventions like yours are " transcendent," And War, as improved by the Yankee,
Will be — as mere carnage — resplendent. How puny old Jupiter's bolts
Compared with your watery deluge, Which, charged up to five thousand volts,
" Will sweep armies away " ! Oh ! a yell Must rise from — well, regions below, [huge
For you 'ye licked the artillery Satanic. Whole armies you '11 smash at a blow I
No wonder JOHN BULL 's in a panic. Your dynamo-chains ''like great snakes,"
Your horrid electrical cables, Are terrible scientist fakes —
Unless they are journalist fables. Well, well, we must " keep on our har "
As well as we can in our terror. But snakes 1 Edisonian war
Would be Hades let loose, and no error. Aerial infernal machines,
Dropping dynamite down — what a benison I Yon '11 realise, doubtless, the means
Conceived by the fancy of TENNYSON ! Then your water- torpedoes I 0 lor I
We admit we are awfully frightened You 'd annihilate us, were it war,
Ere one could remark that it lightened I At least, so you kindly explain.
How friendly, dear boy, is your warning ! To your country you 'd give your big brain,
All work save for slaughtering scorning. Well, well, we are glad that we know :
We believe all your bounce— to the letter. And now you have had your big " blow,"
Punch hopes, my dear boy, you feel better I
JACKY AT THE MANSION HOUSE.
(An Intercepted Letter.)
MY DEAB BOBBY,— I promised when we said " good-bye" to one another at Old WHACKEM'S that I would write to you if anything particu- larly nice turned up. Well, I have been busy ever since. I have been to four theatres, a circus (Crystal Palace), eix children's "at homes," and one 'teen Cinderella. I said I would tell you how many ices I am taking, but I gave up counting when I got to nine hundred and ninety-seven. At the Mansion House the other night 1 had sixteen. And that reminds me the juvenile's fancy dress ball was simply first-rate. The LOBD MAI OB is no end of a good fellow. And the dance was A 1. And the supper 1 Well, it satisfied me, and you know I am a bit of an epicure.
And the dresses ? Well, some of them were nrst-rate. There were two young ladies with Christmas-trees on their heads, who were abso- lutely charming. Then CHAUCEB with a wreath, and Toreador with a sword, were quite the early English poet, and the latest fctyle of bull-fighter. There were all sorts of costumes, uniforms. Indians, Charley's Aunts, and jockeys. But, as I heard a grown- up say, the best realisation of the ball was
Bill Sykes (reading). "THERE ABE NOW TEN MEN OF THE BKCHUANALA.ND BORDER POLIO R
IN THE WHOLE BECHUANALAND PROTECTOBATE, FOUR OF WHOM ABE DOING CUSTOMS DUTY."
the LOBD MAYOB himself. Sir WALTEB WILKIN is no end of a good sort. He 's not only a Lord Mayor but has worn a barrister's wig and commanded a brigade of artillery I From this yon will imagine that he is a big gun himself. So he is, but also something better. He's a jolly good fellow. And so say all of us. Aud by all I mean everybody.
And now I must stop as I have got to be off to the pantomime.
Yours thoroughly enjoying himself,
JACKY.
CHORUS AT A MATINEE.
OH I Have you seen Robinson Crusoe t Lyceum ? If not, try and do so,
For LAUBI and STOBBY
Are both in their gloryj Sweet ALICE, Miss BBOOKKS, is young Crusoe.
"WtiLF, WULF!" — At Christmas time every effort is made to keep the wolf from the door. The rich help the poor, and the power- ful the weak. As practical men, the directors of the Crystal Palace have gone a step farther, and instead of closing the gates of the Syden- ham show, have opened its portals to the wel- come outsider. M. WULF is a host in himself, especially when represented by his circus.
THE LAUREATE'S FIRST RIDE.
(The New Poet-Laureate's verses appeared in the
"Times," Saturday, January 11.)
SONG, is it song ? Well —blow it I
Bat I'll sing it, boys, all the same Because I 'm the Laureate Poet,
That 's the worst of having a name I I must be inspired to order,
" Go, tell 'em, to save their breath : " I can rhyme to " order" with " border,"
And jingle to " breath " with " death."
" Let lawyers and statesmen addle
Their pates over points of law ; " Of Pegasus I 'm in the saddle,
But why does he cough " Hee-haw" ? Eight stanzas ! Inspired I Mad ones !
Sound well if sung to a band ! There 1 dash it I some good, some bad ones,
To finish with " crusbings" and " Rind." A. A.
"BUSINESS CABBIED ON AS USUAL DUBLNG THE ALTEBATTONS." — " Lord HA WKE'S Eleven playing the Johannesburg team according to previous arrangement."
A SCHOOLBOY'S QUEBY.— Are three police- men's feet equal to one Scotland Yard.
34
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 18, 1896.
AN ASTRONOMER.
Mrs. S. "Br THB WAT, I HEAR JUPITER — THE EVENING STAR — is •WORTH .SEEING JUST
NOW. CAN EITHER OF YOU GlRLS TELL HE WHERE TO LOOK FOR IT ? "
Bertha. "YES, I CAN. IT'S BXACILY TWO YARDS AND A HALF TO THE RIGHT OF THE GREAT BBAR!"
Mrs. S. "TWO YARDS AND A HALF I WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU MEAN t "
Bertha. " WBLL, I'VE MEASURED IT CAREFULLY WITH MY UMBRELLA!''
NURSERY RHYMES IN " BOOK » FORM
(Dedicated, without especial permission, to the Baron de Book- Worms.)
Am— " Jack Sprat."
WALTER SCOTT
Wrote no "rot"; DICKENS was ne'er obscene. For authors great As these we wait. To sweep onr Hill Top clean.
AIK— " Hi-diddle-diddle."
Hi-Kipple-Kipple !
Your rhymes no more ripple ;
Your prose, too, is getting abstruse. If you 've got more of Mowgli, Drown him in the Hoogli,
And banii-li the rest to the deuce.
AIR — " Baa, baa, black sheep."
" Mar-Mar-Relli, have you any rule P " " Yes, Sir, surely. ' Critic means a/oo/.' I have a grievance, Satan has as well ; A'though I think— and you'll agree — bis Sorrows are a sell."
AIR — " Humpty Dumpty"
GRANTIE ALLIE sat on the hill. GRANTIE ALLIE had a great spill. All gentle readers, both women and men, Hope he will never go there again.
AIB— " Three Blind Mice."
Three good books. See how thev sell ! Platform, Press, Play, by T. H. 8. E., Tall Talk by Sii ALLEY, and Blackwood't
"8hirl«e," They 've none of your modern morbid i tee These three good looks.
AIR — " Mary, Mary, quite contrary"
OUTDA, OUIDA, CORELL'S leader, How does your MS. grow t
Latin, Greek, quotations fleek. And epithets " all in a row."
AIR — "Little Jack Homer"
Little too Hardy, do not be tardy In mending your too-blue cake.
For, by scissors and paste,
'Tis not good to the taste, But a most injudicious " half-bake " I
BEBLIN WOOL GATHERING.
(A Page from Somebody1 s Diary.)
Sunday.— After preaching my customary sermon to the members of the Court, and putting an equerry under arrest for falling asleep before the end of it, took up my favourite book, The Life of Barnum, and sought for inspiration. Drew blank this time. How- ever, dashed off letters to the POPE and the Archbishop of CANTER- BURY, giving the first a few hints upon ritual, and the last a new pattern for lawn sleeves.
Monday.— Spent the morning pleasantly in trying on uniforms and being photographed in the whole thirty of them. Read in the papers that someone had found out a new star. Wired my personal congratulations to the observant savant, and desired him to call his astronomical discovery after me. Gave a lecture to my "veteran class." Fair attendance of elderly ecclesiastics, warriors, and diplo- matists. My subject- treated simply and literally—" How to empty eggs by suction," greatly appreciated. Sent a professor to gaol for danng to give a testimonial to a pill manufacturer — such recom- mendations should be endorsed with my signature. I cannot allow tampering with my prerogative.
Tuesday.— Noticing that the Little Pedlington football team has proved victorious in a contest with the Shoreditoh Outsiders, I sent messages of hearty congratulation to the one and sincere condolence to the other. Delivered another lecture to the " veteran class," a body which, on this occasion, had to be collected together at the point of the bayonet. My subj eot, ' ' My self as Universal Instructor," was full of interest. Spent the rest of the day in solving the problem " how to attain the maximum of interference in the minimum of time."
Wednesday. — Roughed out a scheme for an International Exhibi- tion. Should be sixteen times as big as Chicago. Central idea a colossal statue of myself. Should be twice as high as the Tour Eiffel. Another feature— a gigantic wheel four times the size of that at Earl's Court. In the hundred cars should be bands of nmt-ie playing a new National Anthem about me, composed by myself. Sent a message of congratulation to Drury Lane. However, next year must beat the record myself. Nothing I thould like better than producing a pantomime.
Thursday.— Rather neglected my fleet and army lately. ^ 0/dered off all the available vessels to the coast and organised an invasion. Prepared for a row anywhere. Filled in half-a-dozen telegrams of congratulation, and dispatched them in all directions'. Spent the remainder of the day in consultation with my tailor. Have schemed out a sort of combination uniform, composed of two-thirds field- marshal to one- third admiral of the fleet.
Friday. — Great fan ! I have been taken seriously I Friendly power says that I have insulted it I Must have international potters of mvself. Portrait, of course. One thousand double crowns. Try one thousand — ought to do as a commencement. Must have more stations than the soap people. Ought to bill from the Arc' ic to the Antartic. Sent message if congratulation to the proprietors of the Self-appreciative Savon.
Saturday.— Very much disturbed by a dream. Fancied in my sleep that I was at Eton. Just begun my customary game, when a fellow bigger than myself tdd me 1 "wanted the bumptiousness taken out of me," and gave me a good sound kicking I
NEW YEAR TITLES.— Turk :— Family Butcher.
JANUARY 18, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
35
SPORTIVE SONGS. THE YACHTSMAN TO HIS LASS.
THE breeze is blowing full and fair,
The billows danoe with glee, And sparkle 'neath the noonday glare
Like jewels of the sea. The schooner's bow begins to dip,
Her snowy wings are free ; The dinghy's waiting by the " slip "
For you, my lass, and me.
How nautical your pretty dress, Your hat with sailor brim,
The buttons lettered " R. Y. S." Upon your jacket trim ;
Your silken knot with burgee ring, Your shirt of navy blue.
Your dainty telescope in sling- All typical of you.
We 're off I and westward be our way
O'er Solent's flowing tide. "We'll race the sun till close of day,
As swiftly on we glide By Yarmouth's pier and Totland's strand,
By Alum's glowing bay. By where, mist-clad, the Needles stand,
White sentinels mid grey.
Hurrah I hurrah I the eager wind
Makes all the canvas fill. The lighthouse we have left behind —
On I on! to Portland Bill. Your Viking blood must feel the spell,
"With ecstasy must flow
Sp*ak louder I What ? Oh, very well,
You 'd better go below !
EQUALLY TRUE.— It is stated by a teetotal scientist that any man drinking plain hot water for a year or two will never again need whiskey. Dr. PUNCH confidently asserts that anyone drinking plain hot whiskey for the same period will never again require water.
QUERY (by One " who only asks for infor- mation "). — Was the President of the Orange Free State born in Belfast ?
TALENT v. GENIUS.
Bob (the man of genius). "GOOD HEAVENS! THEY'RE ADVERTISING THE TENTH EDITION
OF THAT CONFOUNDED BOOK OF YOURS WHICH I 'VE NEVER READ, AND NEVER MEAN TO 1
WHAT RUBBISH IT MUST BE, TO BE so POPULAR AS ALL THAT I "
John (the man of talent). "An, WELL — ONE MUST LIVX, YOU KNOW I LOOK HERE, OID
MAN, I DON'T WANT TO BRAG, BUT IF YOU *LL MAKE IT WORTH MY WHILE, I 'LL PROMISE TO WRITE IN LESS THAN A WEEK A THREE -VOLUME NOVEL THAT SHALL FALL AS STILL- BORN FROM THE PRESS AS IF YOU 'D WRITTEN EVERY WORD OF IT YOURSELF, AND SPBNT A COUPLE OF TEARS IN THE PROCESS I "
MARY ANNER ON MARBLE 'ALLS AND AMERICAN NOTIONS.
fin America it is customary to make forecourts and house-steps of marble, and clean them with long-handled swabs without the necessity of kneeling.]
" I DREAMT I dwelt in marble 'alls I " One thinks of that old ditty A-hearing of them Yankee steps. If people knowed they 'd pity The sorrows of a servant-girl a-kneeling and a-slopping, As might be done in cumfort-like by marble flags and mopping. Same as I ' ve eeed them sailors do ; wioh my young man 's a yotman, As caught my 'art — 'e is that smart ! — and cut out JEM the potman, Last Heaster-time as ever was. JACK, 'e sees me hearthstoning
This ain't no work in winter- time for pore young gals. 0 blow it I I '11 give your red-nosed dragon beans ! " Sez I, " No
stow it !
Now JACK, dear,
She's bossing through the blinds at yer this blessed moment,
drat 'er I You'd only make it wus for me a- faring on the matter.
" think they led to 'eaven, .e routs me up at seven, snow by breakfast-time ! "—'Ere JACKY
Let out a large-sized swear, and bunked, a-biting at 'is 'baccy As though it was the nubbly nose of that there Miss BELINDER. As e could twig a-piping on 'im through the parlour winder. Heigho ! 'Taint no use 'owling, but JACK'S right ; this 'ere step- cleaning Ain't woman's work by enny means. You'd understand my
meaning
J1K. a °JPPin? cold, east wind, some morning in December, Wltn chilblains on yer 'ands and 'eels, and aches in every member, A j »<r- 8< an^ a re<^er nose» an^ a 'ousemaid's knee a-coming, And Miss BELINDER at the blinds a-soowling and a-drumming,
You 'ad to clean those cold stone-steps and flags slap down the
garden. "•->0
" Fiddle I " sez Miss BELINDER. " It '11 brace yer up. and 'arden." 'Arden P 0 lor' ! If shivery, sore, numb feelings 'aiden anyone, /ought to be as 'ard as nails. A step-gal, now, a penny one, Or tuppenny touch, one o' them towzly, trollopy tramps as tout
about For morning jobs, and then run loose, are 'ard, that there's no doubt
about.
But decent gals as love fal-lals, mere flesh and blood ones, perishes A 'earthstoning them steps and stones our English missis cherishes. Therefore them marble steps and mops the Yankee 'ired 'elps uses, Makes my mouth water. JOHNNY BULL is stubborn, and refuses, Most times, to learn of f urriners ; but in their floors and pavings Them Yankees seem to beat us. 0, the comforts and the savings, In colds, and cramps, and 'ousemaid's knees, if scrubbings and cold
stoppings,
Could be did 'ere, as over there, without our 'ard knee-floppings I And if inwentors 'ere will take this lesson from the Yankee, UsEnglish servants gals will shout one loud tremeDJous "Thankee! 1 1 "
The Long and the Short of it.
SCENE— A Board School.
Pupil. Oh, prithee, teacher, tell to me,
Are we at war with Ashantee ? Teacher. On that my information 's scanty :
But, p'raps, my lad, you mean Ashanti ?
CURIOUS COINCIDENCE. — A reviewer contends in the Pall Mall Gazette that all books ought to be out. On the other hand, many, not absolutely thin-skinned, authors declare that reviewers ought to be treated in the same way.
THE LTNE WHICH is OFTEN DRAWN. — The Equator.
36
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUAEY 18, 1896.
"UNDER WHICH KING" (STEEET, ST, JAMES'S).
HOPE told a fluttering tale when he wrote his stirringly, highly- charged Sir-John-Gilbertesquian romance, The Prisoner of Zenda. Anyone fond of the lighter kind of music united to an extravagant plot, while reading ANTHONY HOPE'S romance, must have seen what a
sham King of Ruritania. It gives additional zest to the situation that Lord Topham, the English Ambassador, capitally played by Mr. GEORGE BANCROFT (who has quitted the Court (of law) to appear at St. James's), should be the impostor's uncle, but so blind as not to recog- nise his nephew. All this is pure extravagant fun. That the Princess Flavia should fall in love with the imposter, and he with
cnance there would have been in it f jr an opera after the style of ! her, is all part of " the humour of it." But that this should ever be
La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein, book by MEILHAC and HALEVY, ' i*1 :
and music by the late King of opera-bouffe composers, JACQUES OFFENBACH. It needed an OFFHNBACH; for anyone else, English, French, or German, touching this subject would have found himself woefully hampered and bothered by Oifenbacbian memories.
Here are all his characters to hand: here is his Grand Duke, his courtiers, his General Bourn conspiring to support the Young Pretender ; here is the pretty princess ready for a sweet song and a love duet ; here are evi- dently burlesque imitations of Wagnerian Ortrude and Telra- mond, immediately recognisable in Antoinette de Mauban and the Black Michael, fitted with grand situations for ultra comic duets, to be taken most seriously : while in opportunities for solos, trios, grand choruses, ballets, and spec- tacular effects, never could libret- tist's book be richer. There is for the librettist and composer a per- fect wealth of material; but for the playwright, choosing to take himself and this story seriously, all that is food for the comic opera librettist, is, to him, poisop. So much for the romance and the opera-bouffe, the King ofTooriru- ritania, as it might have been: and now for the play by EDWARD ROSE, the Blooming ROSE, as presented at the St. James's Theatre.
It is in a Prologue and four Acts. It commences at a quarter to eight, and is over t>y, or soon after, eleven. The Prologue is a little drama in itself ; it is admirably played by Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER
seriously— impossible ! "When in the last Act is seen the miserable victim of this light- hearted practical joke, the King, dying in the vault of the castle, the audience having thoroughly " entered into the humour of the thing," are on tiptoe of expectation for him to say something at which they
can laugh ; but suddenly they find that "this joke is no joke," that what is fun for the boys is death to the frog, and they discover that this tragic situation, rendered still more tratie by Mr. ALEX- ANDER'S forcible acting, is not by any means in keeping with the farcical antecedents.
Then when action commences, when the repentant Antoinette sympathises with the miserable monarch, when she has been res- cued from the obj Actionable atten- tions of one ruffian only to fall into the arms of another, when there has been a fight to rescue her, and when the castle has been taken by storm (that is, by troops only "heard without"), and everything somehow or another ( luht to end happily, then the author disappoints us, the lovers separate never to meet again, and down comes the curtain on the poor deserted Princess Flavia, the living •victim of a prepos- terous practical joke I And the
Trio of Conspirators, led by General Sapt-Boum ! Damons ! Chan tons ! " Petits pas ! Petits pas Petits, petite, petits pas ! " — Grande Duehei.se.
as "the Red Elphege," of 1733— which sounds like a peculiar wine of a good vintage year ; bv Mr. WARING as " the Black Elphege," which sounds a bit like the Original Bones of Christy Minstrelsy, with a song " The Waring of the Black" parody upon " The Wearing of the Green" ; by Mr. CHARLES GLENNEY, as the Heavy Husband, who, in company with Miss MABEL HACKNEY (a fresh yours: actress, in spite of her name), Mr FEATHERSTONE, Mr. BOYCE, and Mr. SIEBNHOYD, struts his short half-hour on the stage, and then is heard no more. In this Prologue, had Prince Rudolph, or the husband, been killed, we should have had a complete little one Act domestic tragedy, a lever du rideau of exceptional merit, well worth seeing on account of the acting. But those who come in at 8.30 may comfort themselves by the assurance that the Prologue they have missed is not essential to the plot, its incidents being recounted in about three lines during the progress of the First Act of the play.
And this first Act is excellent. The device by which a " double " is nibstituttcl for Mr. ALEXANDER, who, as the moustachioless, tippling King, topples over on the right-hand side of the stage when, almost at the same instant, he himself, as Rassendyll, the mouetachioed English tourist, enters on the left, is one of the best deceptions since Duboscq and Lesurques, the two single gentlemen rolled into one actor, startled the town. The change is effected with such neat- ness and precision as to defy' detection. The oldest stagers will be puzzled, and the youngest will scarcely believe their eyes.
In fact, the three first Acts are all as good as they can be ; but the question must arise, what sort of piece are we looking at P Is it not the dramatic representation of an extravagant practical joke, which the originators are taking with a light heart, and in which the author has been puzzled as to how it is to be taken, seriously or not P If seriously, then the motive is inadequate, and the striking tragedy notes of Miss LILY HAN.BTJRY as the handsome mistress of '"the Black Elphege" represented by Mr. HERBERT WARING, that double- dyed black villain, ought to give the tone to the piece ; in which case the merriment of the three practical jokers, Rassendyll, Colonel Sapt (Mr. W. H. VERNON), and Fritz (Mr. ROYSTOIT), is quite out of place. But, on the contrary, it is the light-hearted gaiety of the conspirators which carries the audience along and makes "our friends in front" participators in the jest, thoroughly enjoying the audacious humour of the situation. It is good fun to see all these magnificently haughty nobles, the Cardinal Primate, the Lords and Ladies, the representa- tives of the Great Powers, all taken in, and kissing the hand of the
audience, after paying just tribute to the excellence of the things had turned out rather
acting, go away wishing that differently.
Now. how ought this practical joke to have ended ? Thus :— The toper King should have been allowed, like Barnardine, the drunken convict, to have been spoken of as having drank hionelf to death ; he should not have been seen at all. The walls should have been battered down, the successful troops admitted, and Princess Flavia should have b^en proclaimed Queen, giving her hand to Rudolf Rassendyll as Prince Consort. Cheers, triumphant music, tableau, curtain, and everyone happy.
Of course it is not likely that this suggestion as to excision of Prologue and re- writing the finish will be acted upon ; hut had it been thus, then whatever the present success of this piece may be, interesting and amusing as it now is, its popularity would have been undisputed, and its run trebled. As it is, it may well be seen and enjoyed for the acting of all concerned in it ; but to ask either actors or audience to take seriously the characters aiding and abetting so ''comic- opera" a plot, is to demand an impossibility. And thus it is that anything like real sentiment, acted or spoken, is so much wasted force. This play is one thing, and Mr. HOPE'S original romance quite another. In effect, Mr. ROSE is " Hope-ing against Hope."
His Own Poetical Explanation of It.
WHY our linkman didn't appear for a week after the first of the New Year :—
So many tips 'e 'ad an' many " nips " 'e
Took down ! through these ere tips 'e got quite tipsee.
\_Forgiven, but 'e 'opes not to be forgotten next year.
" WALKER— LONDON." — Where are our diaries for this New Year P Where ? ' ' Echo answers, ' WALKER ' I " The question solvitur a mbu- lando. WALK KR has just published his diaries, of all shapes and sizes, to suit all pockets and all tastes, for taste must be included when a popular book is likely to be in everybody's mouth. Neat, not bulky, with patent pencils that need no cutting, and some of them with cavers that will last long and improve with age, so that all that will be necessary up to end of present century (whenever that may be, for already there is a difficulty as to when the next century is to commence) for the possessor of one of these handy pocket-books to do, is to follow the example of a good sporting landed proprietor, and preserve the covers, taking care to stock them afresh each year.
JANUARY 25, 1896.J
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
37
THE MODESTY
GENIUS.
Country Vicar (muck impressed by his new acquaintance). " PBAY TBLL ME, MR. WISPE, OF ALL THE GREAT POBTS, AKCIENT AND MODERN, WHICH DO TOTT REVERE AND AD- MIRE THE MOST?"
Svpr erne young Poet (the third that has appeared this week). "MYSBLF."
GABBY; OR, REMINISCENCES OF THE RANK AND THE ROAD.
(By " Hansom Jack.")
No. XIII.— CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS ON THE ROAD— LADIES AND GENTLEMEN— TIPS AND NIPS — TOFFY TINDAL'S TALE — MORAL FOR MTJNIFICENCE.
" 'OLIDAYS ? Fudge I " grumbles old BILLY BOGER, wropped up like
a turtle, and toasting 'is back At our bit of a fire, Christmas Day in the morning. " Wot 's 'olidays
mean to a 'nsky old 'ack, A stiff 'un like me, without ne'er a old stookin' for old Santa "Wot 'a it
e to fill foil o' toys ? 'Olidays P Gammon I They don't mean not nuffin', 'oept peiks to
the toppers and larks to the toys."
Bilious old BILLY is sour but not silly, truth in 'is talk.
"With some oily leaves tickling yer rose through the trap if you take a sly peep at the party inside,
With seventeen bundles, a cait, and a rockin'-'orse, swellin' like six with good- nature and pride.
Give me the gents for good fares and a tip or so. Lydies— lord love 'em I — sweet, sour, young or old, [though silver was gold.
Go mostly "according to COCKER" with cabbies. They 'andle their purse as
And copper was silver. Their neat- kidded fingers, though tiny and trim, 'aye no end of a grip, [a lip.
And not one in ten on 'em reckons 'er bundles kerrect, or is moved to give Cabby
Lydies not bizness-like ? Bless yer, the beauties just beat Mister Man at that game by a mile. [smile,
See a small fist twisted round a port-money, a pair o' red lips, as look made for a
Snap sharp upon " That 's your right fare, Cabman 1 " Scissors ! Nutcrackers not in it for nip with she- jaws.
And grumbling's about as much good against females as fists against granite, or tears against laws.
The worst o' the gents is, they will ply the liquor so I Don't mind a weed now and then, good or bad [awfully 'ad).
(And some of the toffs must buy tuppenny duffers, or be by their 'bacoynists
But seventeen whiskies took on seriatum will tell on the toughest ; and then such a mix, [a fix.
From Port to Old Tom, as you get at this eeason I— it puts sober coves in a bit of
To take 'alf the neat New Year nips out in tuppences, that would suit Cabbies, and likewise their wives. [strives.
London, you see 's a 'ard place to keep sober in, special at Christmas, 'owever one
That form of convivialness known as " treating," to cabbies and others is just a fair cuss,
Lots will stand you free drinks all the evening, and yet if you're broke for a tanner will raise a big fuss.
Rum thing, 'uman friendship 1 It often sticks close to mere self as its shadder.
For what can you think Of a "jolly good pal" whose sole notion of 'elping a stoney-broke chum is to —
stand Mm a drink P Just feels disposed for a booze-mate, that 's all, for a lot of big laps don't like
lapping alone, [a 'eart like a stone.
And there 's many a swaggercome treater-all-round who, away from the bar, 'as
So gents, remember when dealing with Cabby, andBobby, and others at'oliday time. Free standing of drinks isn't always a kindness, is frequent most selfish, and
sometimes a crime Wish you 'ud known TOFFY TINDAL I Ah, TOFFY, old pal, it is many long years
since you died, [at my side ?
But wouldn't I relish a crack with you now, or a rattle up west, lad, with you
Smart as they made 'em, and 'earty and gamesome, a swell — for those days before
FORDER- sound throueh, Except in the throttle .' Once flash that with liquor too much, and poor TOFFY
was in for a screw. Fought it, 'e did, with 'is pooty wife aiding, and me,— well, /didn't
'E stretches a bit, but there 's
Wot is Merry Christmas to BILL'S crippled gal, with a cough like a
creak and a face like grey chalk ; Who spends the great day with penwipers and pincushions, grinding
away at a few bob a gross, And wolfing 'er sag sige and mashed without stopping ? To drop it,
to 'er, would be no mighty loss.
Nevertheless, while you 're young, straight, and 'ealthy, the crush of
the 'oliday-makers all round, Though you're nailed to your box, makes the world a bit warmer.
There 's that in the scuffle and buzzy-wuz sound Of a number of people a flocking together, for 'olidays, shoppin', a
fog, or a fire, As makes you less lonesome, though you may be out of it. Carn't
quite say why. P'r'aps some gent will inquire.
So /like Christmas-time, spite of .old BILLY, who calls it all bunga-
ron-bosh ; poor old crock ! Lor', the rum cab-loads one 'as at this season ! Full from the floor to
the cab- roof, plum- chock,
shirk 'elping, you bet. 'Appy days f 'Appy days I We was young, 'earty, 'opef al ; and 'olidays then— ah I I think of 'em yet,
Especial that Christmas when TOFFY'S young missus 'ad brought 'im
TOFF was as proud as two
a present, — 'e called it a doll.
Along of its yellow-topped flunaaess.
Punches, and so was 'is POLL.
As luck would 'ave it the night afore Christmas we drove, TOFF and
me did, a couple o' fares Both going out Balham way. Lor ! 'ow we chatted and laughed as
— quite friendly — we raced our two mares. TOFF got the lead, and turned off at a corner. I 'eard 'im a shouting
for full arf a mile, And the click of 'is mare's 'eels sang back through the frostiness. I
trotted on with a phiz all a-smile. With friendship, and 'ope, and good thoughts of the morrow at
TOFF'S with 'is " doll" and 'is POLL and 'is pipe. And TOFF— well, that old gent just " treated " 'im— Christmassy I
Ah I and the drink got poor TOFF in its gripe. Ramped 'ome. ran wild, and run over a kiddy I It broke 'im, the
pain and disgrace of that drunk ; All tried to cheer 'im, and 'elp 'im, but no, it struck 'ome to TOFF'S
'eart, and 'e sunk and 'e sunk. 'Elpless, and 'opeless, and reckless.
[suicide. Gentlemen all, and ended a drink- sodden
That came of too liberal Christmassv " treating." And now, p'r'aps,
you '11 go and just keep up the ball ! Nevertheless, notwithstanding, for all that, at any rate, anyhow,
Christmas ain't folly, Despite bilious Billy ; and most people love it, and will do, whilst
jolly keeps rhyming with holly. Laughter's contagious, and tips do come 'andy, and Cabby's as fond
as 'is fares of good chef r ; But " nips "—well, / says pive their walue in cash, gents, and Cabby
will wish you a 'Appy New Year !
ex.
38
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 25, 1896.
JANUARY 25, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
39
"THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE."
(New Version.)
THE other morning; I was digging up my tulips, and trying to think of a rhyme to Clematis Jackmannii — what an unpoetio name 1 — when VERONICA brought me a large letter. Glancing at the envelope, I perceived that it came from the Lord Chamberlain's office. As I was anxious to finish my gardening, I exclaimed " Litera scripta manet," and continued digging.
" You had better open it," said VERONICA.
I did so. They wanted another Ode. How tiresome ! I was forced to leave my tulips, and, merely looking at my Gaillardia grandiflora, Selenium Pumilum, JSryn- gium amethystmum, and Centaurea macrocephela, to go indoors and write. It was a perfect afternoon, at the end of May, and I should have preferred to stay in the garden that I love, and think of some unofficial verses to my first Oloire de Dijon rose. Alas I " Autre temps, autres vers." It is all Official Odes now. I only wish " the Poet" was not a fiction, and then I could turn him on to the Lord Chamberlain's work. As I sauntered sadly to the house, I met LAMIA.
" Can you come for a walk P " she asked.
" Eheu ! " I answered, speaking to her in Latin, as I usually do, which sometimes appears odd, since she does not understand a word, " Eheu,non ego! Nunc temper scribo. Non eat omne beerus et skittlei."
" Another ode, I suppose. You don1 1 seem very cheerful since you became Laureate."
"An no I" I murmured. "I can say with DANTE, ' Lasciate ogni speranza, rot, cKentrate ! ' I get no time for gardening now."
" Never mind the Ode. Come and take a walk in the orchard, and do try to speak English."
It was a great temptation— I mean the walk. The weather was perfect ; my flowers were delightful ; my companion was more BO.
"Ah, LAMIA " I exclaimed ; " I use so much English in the official odes, that talking Latin is a relief. I fear I have no time. ' Tempt not a desperate man.' Would you wish me to defy the Lord Chamberlain ? "
I regret to say that she spoke disrespectfully of the Lord Chamberlain. At times she is frivolous. She said "Bother him I"
" Forgive me," I ventured to remark, " if I deprecate such language in reference to my official superior. He only does his duty. I wish it was not so irksome to me to do mine. Once I could enjoy otium cum dignitate, and now it is all dignitas with no otium whatever. I begin to hate poetry."
"Yes, but this ode can wait," she said; "you must come for a walk now."
" Dear LAMIA," I exclaimed, " odi et amo "
" I can guess what that means," she interrupted ; " odes and something."
" Not exactly," I said, " I will teach you the verb amo. It is a very pretty one. Let us begin now, as we walk in the orchard."
At that moment VEBONICA brought me a telegram, from the Lord Chamberlain, aa usual. It said " Please send immediately poem ordered this morninar." There was no help for it. LAMIA walked alone. She herself once said " Love is a literary invention." On this occa- sion, at least, literary invention was not love.
Street Serio (singing). "En— TEW WILL THINK
DIES HOV LONG AGO-
HOV ME AND LOVB ME HAS IN 0-0 I"
GOOD OLD DUTCH!
(A Song a la Chevalier, by a Cockney Cosmo- politan, whose patriotism is, perhaps, none the more vulgar for putting Queen Victoria's wisdom into the Vernacular.) ["The peace of South Africa and the har- monious co-operation of the British and Dutch races, which is necessary for its future develop- ment and prosperity." — Her Majesty's Message to President Kriiger.']
AIK— " My Old Dutch." PRESIDENT, old pal,
'Ere 's to yer I Some may doubt yer,
Boss of that Trans-va-al, Bat 7 likes some things about yer It 's many years since fust we met. We've rapppd and scrapped a bit— you bet ! Bat lor I rt We may be 'appy yet," Pipes my old gal.
Chorus. — We 've knowed each other now for many a year.
And each 'eld 'tother axed too much, But as we 're bound to live in the came land,
Let 's shake 'ands on it, Goal Old Dutch I
That Trans-va-of Ain't no Great Sahairer.
Let 's share, as pal with Go fair, and I '11 try fairer. We ain't quite hangels — I talks tart, At jawin' you 're a mite too smart ; Still, " Scrappers may be spoons — at 'eart I
Sings my old gal. Chorus. — We've got to live as neighbours,
yus for years :
Ain't we showed fists a mite too much P Let Boers and Britishers go 'and in 'and, Spite that real (crowned) " Outlander," Good Old Dutch I
WOMAN.
" FAIE woman was made to bewitch."— A pleasure, a pain, a disturber, a nurse, A slave or a tyrant, a blessing or curse ;
Fair woman was made to be — which P
ALTERATION OF SIGNATTJKE. — An inquiring mind wrote to the Daily News last Saturday asking when Plow Monday was P Is it always fixed for a certain date, which might fall on a Tuesday, or is it invariably the first Mon- day after Twelfth Day, and so forth, as almanacks, like lawyers, differ among them- selves on this point. The writer signed him- self ' ' ALFBED SUTTON." But in this in stance it would have been more appropriate had he signed himself either " Only 'Ar.w SUTTON," or " ALFHED Rather Un-SorroN."
40
PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 25, 1896.
MEEK MIKE AND HIS ARCH ANGEL.
NOTICE— During the run of the Reverend ENRY HAT/THOR JONES'S ecclesiastical drama, " Orders1' will be admitted if proved as having been regularly and canonicalJy conferred, Beadles-in- waiting to eject any brawler.
THE cumbersome title,' Michael and his Lost Angel, suggests an
Memorial window in the Reverend Michael's church. Irreverent muddle-headedness, as though ENBY HATJIHOR JONES had, with his goose-quill, aimed at a pun flying, and cleverly missed it. Was it the result of a Michaelmas-day feafct ? Did the author and manager-actor dine together on gODse day, and did the latter take in with a relish all the stuffing provided by the artful dramatist? The production of such a play as this must surely be the remit of some weird compact made between Forbes Robertson- Faust and Jones- Mephistopheles f Is it a strange case of hypnotism? Is Trilby- Robertson under the magnetic influence of Svengmli-Jones f Only on some such hypothesis is it possible to account for the ac- ceptance and production of so poor a play as this. Undramatic in its lack of action and situation and its flimsy sketchiness of character : uninteresting in its principal characters: and nonsensical when measured by probabilities. Had he devised a plot of Harlequin and MS Lost Columbine, founded on the Pagliacci, there would have been a great chance for genuine pathos ; but could ENRY HATTTHOR have touched the humour of it ?
The Reverend Michael makes the daughter of a humble depen- dent of his do public penance in church for the sin of having " gone wrong privately. ENRY HAUTHOR says he has authority for this ;
and I remember some such case being reported. I suppose '* the ' Bishop' would have had a word to say to that." In brief, Parson Michael, having compelled this modern JANE SHORE in the person of Rose Qibbard (very prettily played by Miss SARAH BROOKE) to do public penance, himself falls a victim to the wiles of a gay lady, Audrie Lesden} a married woman, living in single cussed ness, and presumably posing as a widow ; a most difficult part, very cleverly rendered by Miss MABION TEERY. In fact, throughout, the acting is excellent ; that of Mr. W. MACKINTOSH as the tit-for-tatting father of the doubly victimised girl being especially good.
The gay unattached lady pursues the innocent curate,— the mon- daine she- wolf determined to prey upon the innocent clerical lamb, — to a desert island, most difficult of access and only visited occa- sionally by excursion steamers, where the reverend gentleman, in order to devote himself more entirely to his parochial work at nome, has built himself a house containing two cosy bachelor rooms, one of which is the breadth, height, and half the depth of the Lyceum stage ; and in this snuggery of Little Michael-all- Alone suddenly appears Mrs. Audrie Lesden. There is no boat to take her away : the steamers have gore. They are alone together on the island. They are in the situation of Helen Rolleston and the Reverend Robert Penfold in READE and BOTJCICATJLT'S novel, Foul Play : in the situation, not for weeks or months, but " for one night only." There are two separate rooms ; and even if there were not, the Reverend Michael could have said to himself, " Outside, Sir, outside," and virtuously, in accordance with saintly precedents, could have walked about till daylight did appear, and then, with his excellent antecedents and an irreproachable reputation in his favour, he had only to return, tell his simple story, fetch the lady back, and be believed by all his parishioners. Isn't that clear? And it is at this point that I recalled the personality of Mr. PENLEY as the Reverend Robert Spalding (who like the Reverend Michael " didn't like London "), and wished that he could have been seen by a delighted public in the awkward predicament of Mr. JONES'S Curate, when (to quote the title of an old farce with a motive similar to that of the situation in this play) Locked in with a Lady.
Of course, when the Reverend Mike finds that the lady is a married woman, and that her husband is on the spot, he foresees that he may be landed in the Divorce Court. This is undoubtedly awkward ; but it forms no part of the motive of the play. Then he decides upon making a public confession of his guilt, in his own pirish church, before a congregation assembled to witness the ceremony of the " dedication. This ceremony is the occasion of a display of the most ornate ritual known in the highest of ritualistic churches, Mr. DOLLING'S not excepted ; but this simple- minded curate out-Dollies DOLLING, and "goes one better" by inducing a Bishop, presumably his own Bishop, to be present in full canonicals, mitred and moustachioed, and so|iully prepared for what the Reverend Michael, in a cope, is [going to do, that^his Right Reverence evinces no sort of surprise when the Reverend'Michael iteps forward, makes public confession of his sin, throws • >ff his cope (why "cope," which is only permitted in state cere- monies to the higher clergy, and on certain occasions in a college cha- pel ? ) , and stalks out of church, leav- ing the Right Reverend Super, atten- dant clergy, andMr.SiEAD- MAN'S tuneful choir to con- tinue the ser- vice as if nothing out- of-the-way had occurred I
Then the Reverend Michael visits his uncle, the
Tips for the Piece.
Last Act: Reverend Forbes Feversham-Robertson going for a " last buss to the Angel."
monk, at Msjanoinltaly, and hither, too, Game* Audrie Lesden, widow, and invalided. Her manner of death in her reverend lover's arms some- what resembles that of Frou-Frou. Her highly conscientious and
JANUARY 25, 1896.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
41
exceptionally religious lover allows this Frou- Frou to die in his arms without "the benefit of clergy," although his uncle, the priest, is within call, and quite ready for the office. "Take me and do with me what you will, so long as I may ultimately rejoin her wherever she has gone," are, in effect, his last words, which imply the condition on which alone he will become a convert to the ancient faith of his fathers— and of his uncle. But why not join the company of the faithful in Wellington Street, and become an "Irvingite" ?
That Mr. FORBES ROBEBTSON is as good as he can be, and far better than the part, goes without say- ing ; but how he arrived at pro- ducing this play will, it it proba- ble, remain a mystery until he favours the world with his remi- niscences. THE OTHER JOBES.
TO KATE.
IF you think me shallow, KATE, I myself must vindicate. All to you I '11 allocate ; We will form a syndicate.
Do not then prevaricate, If to wed you 're ready, KATE ; You I wish to marry, KATE, And my life to dedicate.
WHICH ACCOUNTS FOB. IT!— A "disappointed contributor" said that his editor was " subject to fils of rejection."
THE HIGHEST RULING POWEK IN U. S AMEBICA. — "Precedent MUSBOE."
THE LAST DAY OF THE MISTLETOE.
ADOLPHUS AND DOILY CONFIDE TO EACH OTHER THEIR OPINION AS TO "THE AGE OF LOVE."
RATTLIN', ROARIN' WILLIE.
(New Version. Communicated from the Shades "by that true British Patriot, if fervent Scots poet, Robbie Burns. )
0, BATTLIN', roarin' WILLIE,
Do pray keep on your hair I An' no wi' matters meddle
Which are your Grandma's care. Ye 're fain to play first fiddle,
Whertyer you may be ; Bat rattlin', roarin' WILLIE,
That's simply fiddlededeel
0 WILLIE, lay down your fiddle,
0 drop your fiddle sae fine ! Or else reserve that fiddle
For watches by the Rhine I Unless you drop that fiddle
The warl' may deem ye mad, For mony a rantin' day, WILLIE,
Your fiddle and you hae had !
As I cam down the Solent,
1 cannily keekit ben — Rattlin', roarin' WILLIE,
Was sitting at our board 'en. Sitting at BULL'S board 'en
Amang princely companie ; 0 rattlin', roarin' WILLIE
Your welcome was fair an' free!
0 rattlin', roaiin' WILLLE,
Is your return as fair If 0 drop that noisy fiddle,
An' buy some other ware ! But put by that first fiddle
la Uncle's companie, And rattlin', roarin' WILLIE,
Right welcome still ye '11 be I
Alas! SHE was a cruel, heartless lass,
As ever man could find ; Yet I suppose that she cooldpass
To all as woman kind.
P^ A KEVIEW OF LITEEAEY FORCES.
_AT the commencement of the year the Baron, having ordered out his Literary Forces and reviewed his noble shelves, issues this General Order: — "1 am struck with admiration for the development of what I may term the utility business in the publishing, not only of no\elp, but of all kinds of valuable literature. 1 have passed in review a splendid force of the 'Charles Kiugsley's Own,' organised and commanded by General MACMILLAN • while under General WABD, Colonel LOCK, and other distinguished officers appears a regiment, not the less valuable because showy, of ' Henry Kingsley's Light Horse.' The ' True Blues, or Charlotte Yonge Forces,' make a fine display in the service of the MACMILLAN Company. The ' William Black Watch ' march past with a breezy step to the tune of ' Far Lochaber,' and wearing their Three Feathers, with One White One. They are mar- si ailed in order by Lieut. -Col. SIMPSON Low, who personally leads tlat fine body of Horse Marine s, the ' Clark Russell Rovers.' But of all the regiments of volumes mi at serviceable for campaigning com- mend me," quoth the Baron, "to the Picked 'Pocket Volume Regiments.' They form a email, compact army in themselves, excel- lently officered, ready for outpost, skirmishing, eharpshooting, and any handy duties which heavier-weighted volumes could not perform. At the head, in deep red, with gold ornamentation on their backs, and light blue silken bookmarkers for colours, bearing proudly the motto ' Non SansDroictJ c jmes the ' Temple Shakspeare Regiment' ; perfect tjpe ; excellent notes ; ready to travel anywhere ; always handy by road, river, or rail, never in the way, brought into the field of prac- tical itinerary study by Colonel DENT of Aldine House, with invalu- able texted weapons from the Cantabrigian armouries of Messrs. MACMILIAN and ALDIS WEIGHT. Let the attention of all who love their SBAKSPEABE handy, and who are contented to travel about with one play at a time, turn their attention to this most useful series.
" Then march along, in a long line, the ' Dark Blue Guards,' or ' Literary Household Brigade,' started by CASSELL & Co., a gallant corps that admits volunteers from all regions of literature into its ranks, so that their range of marksmanryis world-wide, co-extensive with British Rule, and therefore might well bear the title of ' The Windsor Cassell Series.' These also are argumenta ad pocketa, and
within an eighth of an inch as pocketable as the Shakspearian Regi- ment aforesaid. And what names are to be foutd on these regi- mental lists? MACAULAT, DICKENS, SILVIO PELLICO, LA MOTTE FOTJQUE, PLUTABCH, BOCCACCIO, WASHINGTON IRVING, MARCO POLO (with, of course, direc ions how to play it), STEELE, and ADDISON. Then FRANKLIN, SWIFT, with BUNYAN (enough to make SWIFT limp), XENOPHON, and BACON (a real literary dish, as a treat), after which ask for MORE (Sir THOMAS), and see that you get it. ' There 's a picture for you ! ' And the price sixpence each in cloth ; three- penc3 in paper; which, with the usual discount for cash, means thirty volumes for half a sovereign ; and of such a whole sovereign reigning ovtr Utopia might be proud. All these are at the command of General Public, on the March of Intellect to join forces with General Knowledge. They defile pest, salute, and are saluted in torn most heartily by "F. M. THE BARON."
ARCHAEOLOGICAL MEM. — Great discoveries are coming to light as regards the Chapel 9f the Rolls. No doubt the Buttresses will soon be found. Its architectural construction would have been imperfect without these, which would have constituted it The Rolls and Butteresses Chapel. Here a full dole of rolls and butter was given to every unbreakfasted applicant. In Wagge's Ancient History, advertised as " Jest out," it is recorded how there was ' one Chap ill of the Hot Rolls and Butteresses ; and how after a ' full dole he became ' dole-ful.' "
CHANCE OF A NOVELTY KOT TO BE LOST. — From a recent number of the Manchester Guardian we extract this advertisement—
AKE You Giving a Party ?— Gentleman, accomplished musician, with un- exceptionable references, accepts invitations to professionally attend Evening Parties or Entertainments, to accompany soup, play dance music or solos, sing refined humorous songs a. la Grossmith, &c. — Address, &c.
" An accomplished musician " to " accompany soup " 1 There's a treat! What 's the tone ? What 's the instrument f
TlTIE FOR THE COLONIAL SECRETARY WHEN RAISED TO THE
PEERAGE. — "Lord JOE-HANNESBURG."
42
Oft THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[JANUARY 25, 1896
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.
Fair (and immensely successful) Novelist. "AND NOW THAT YOU 'vE BOUGHT MY NEW NOVEL, MR. BRADALL, AND WE'VE SIGNED THB AGREEMENT, MAY I ASK IF IT 's TBUB THAT YOU DON'T ALLOW YOUR WIFE AND DAUGHTERS TO READ MY BOOK* ? I WAS TOLD
80 LAST NIGHT."
Eminent Publisher. "A— A — A — MY DEAR YOUNG LADY — A— YOUR ADMIRABLY EXPRESSED BUT EXTREMELY ADVANCED VIBWS ON
THE — A — THE SXX QUESTION, DON*T YOU KNOW — A — RENDER IT 80MBWHAT INEXPEDIENT FOR ME TO — A — TO — A MY DAUGHTERS,
THOUGH MARRIED, ARE STILL YOUNG. MY WlFE IS NO LONGER SO — A — BUT ALTOGETHER, AS THE FATHER OF A FAMILY, YO(T KNOW — A — I THIBK THAT "
Fair Novelist. "You "RE QUITE RIGHT. I UNDERSTAND, AND AM VERY SORRY AND ASHAMED 1 BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU THERE 's
NOT A LINE IN THE BOOK YOU *VE JUST BOUGHT THAT MIGHTN'T BE READ BY A QlRL OF FlFTSSlf!"
[Hearing this, Eminent Publisher pulls such a long face that we 've been obliged to turn his head the other way.
A JOURNALISTIC JUBILEE.
[On the 21st inst. the Daily Newt completed its fiftieth year, celebrating the occasion of this anniversary by the issue of an extremely interest- ing Jubilee Number.]
".LIBEBAL Progress throughout the world I " Fine theme for a fifty years' retrospect,
verily I
DICKENS the Daily Newt flag first unfurled, To-day, under KOBINSON, floating light
merrily.
Long may it wave I Bright spirits and brave, Since genial "Boz," have fought under
that banner.
Green hang the laurels o'er many a grave Of friends who have fallen. In time- honoured manner
To all such loved memories silently drink,
But brim a brisk oup, with a cheer, to the
living I [brink.
Punch fills his own beaker to bubble-crowned
His toast of "Long Life to the Daily
News ! " giving.
He, too, had his Jubilee, — not long ago, — And knows the mixed feelings, triumphant
and tender, Of those who look back, with a choke and a
glow,
O'er all that a fifty years' service can render To Freedom and Progress, by wisdom or wit ; For liberal souls blend gooa sense with gay laughter ;
And follies by eloquence missed are hard hit, Sometimes, by the shaft of keen mirth that
flies after.
To wield blade and bauble is given to some, As proven by pens known to both of our
pages.
Political nous has no need to look glum,' And motley may sometimes be stooped to
by sages.
From DICKENS to LUCY, my dear Daily Newt,
Your columns of this furnish witness
perennial. [Muse
Punch drinks to your Jubilee now ! May his
Have as pleasant a theme when you touch
the Centennial I
QUERY. — A livery-stable keeper advertises: "^During the summer months the Coachmen wear Boots and Jireeches, for which one shitting extra is charged." Highly respect-