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PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 93
November 26, 1887.
PAPERS FROM PUMP-HANDLE COURT.
A Recollection of the Long Vacation.
During the Long Vacation (now happily over) I have been present at my
chambers a great deal more frequently than some of the men with whom I
share my rooms. In fact, I may say that I have been constantly the sole
occupant of the entire set. Chuckbob, the well-known authority
on International Law, has spent September and October in the Highlands,
and my other friends have been on the Continent. Even
Portington, my excellent and admirable clerk, has taken a
fortnight’s rest at Eastend-on-Mud (a pleasant watering-place not many
miles from Town), where I fancy he spent his well-earned holiday in
trying to get up a libel action against the Sanitary Board. It is just
to say that my presence at Pump-Handle Court has not been entirely
necessitated by my forensic labours. The fact is, that Jowler,
a very dear friend of mine, who has some mysterious supervisorship
(sanctioned by an eccentric will) over an Institution connected with the
Vegetarian Movement, was recently called away, by his duties as a
trustee, to Australia, to look after a number of sheep somehow affected
and inconvenienced by the increase of rabbits in that favourite colony.
Being thus for a season expatriated, he asked me to look after the
Institution connected with the Vegetarian Movement, in his place during
his absence.
“You will really find the work simple enough,” he said on bidding
me farewell. “You hold my power of attorney, and all you have to
do is not to quarrel with the Committee of Inspection, who, as you
know, can play the very dickens with us.”
“But what have the Committee of Inspection to do with the place?” I
asked rather anxiously, as I never like to accept responsibility, so to
speak, with my eyes blindfolded.
“Oh, you will soon find out,” replied Jowler. “You will pick it
up as you go along. I shall soon be back—perhaps in six months.”
The Institution connected with the Vegetarian Movement was within easy
distance of my chambers, so I came to the conclusion that I could
combine the vague superintendence it apparently required with my
ordinary legal engagements. I found, on a visit to the Institution about
a fortnight after Jowler had left, that all seemed to be right,
and the head employé assured me that if my services were needed,
he would send round to me.
“Fortunately since Mr. Jowler’s departure, Sir,” said the head
employé, “we have seen nothing of the Committee of Inspection.”
He lowered his voice to a tone of the deepest awe as he spoke of
the mysterious body.
“I am very glad to have seen you, Sir,” he continued; “the fact
is, there may be a number of things I should like to consult you
about, and I was loth to worry you.”
“Oh, not in the least,” I replied, airily; “consult me at any time;
only too glad to give you every assistance in my power.”
Upon this, I took my leave, saying as I did, to show that I really
knew what I was about, that whoever had broken the hall-lamp,
which I noticed was damaged, should have been made to pay for it.
On my return to my chambers, I found Portington in a great
state of excitement. He had actually got a brief for me! A real
brief marked with a real fee and endorsed by a real firm of Solicitors!
I was actually retained! Mordaunt Jones, Brown and Snobkins!
Perhaps the best firm in the profession! I was delighted!
“Portington,” I observed when I had regained sufficient control
over my feelings to speak calmly, “I do not think you will find the
names in my fee-book?”
“I fancy not, Sir,” replied Portington; “they wanted Mr.
Chuckbob, only I said he was in Scotland, and persuaded—I mean
told them you were in, and would be glad to look through the papers
instead.”
“Thank you, Portington,” I answered, as I took the bundle into
my own special room; “thank you, if they come for them, let me
know.”
“Certainly, Sir; Mordaunt Jones, Brown and Snobkins seemed
most anxious to have them back.”
Once alone I undid the tape and found the matter resolved itself
into a most delicate point of international usage. I went to my bookshelf
and hunted for authorities, and was soon deep in Mexican
Maritime Law. I was searching in its statutes for one dealing with
a ship detained by stress of weather in quarantine, when I was
disturbed by Portington ushering in the head employé from the
Institution connected with the Vegetarian Movement.
“Very sorry, Sir,” said my visitor, “but we are in sad distress.
We have just received twelve dozen cases of ginger-beer, when the
Committee of Inspection particularly ordered that only soda-water
should be supplied, and I really don’t know what we shall do.”
“Can they not be exchanged for the required liquid?” I asked,
looking up from my work, a trifle annoyed at the interruption.
“I am afraid that is impossible, Sir. You see that the Committee
of Inspection are so opposed to any alteration of procedure.”
“Well, well, you must do the best you can,” I replied. “You
see I am very much engaged at this moment.”
The chief employé, seeming greatly surprised at my lack of excitement,
bowed, and withdrew. I was once more deep in my Mexican
Maritime Law, when Portington put in his head.
“Suppose that opinion isn’t ready yet, Sir? Mordaunt,
Brown, Jones and Snobkins are waiting for it.”
“Ready directly. My compliments, and they can call for it in
half an hour.”
I had just got to the point where I thought I began to comprehend
the Mexican method of dealing with a fraudulent bill of lading,
when I was again interrupted. A small boy forced himself in.
“Please you are to come round at once. The chess-boards are out
of order, and want mending, and there is something wrong with the
lift, between the kitchen and the dining-room, and——”
“You had no right to intrude, sirrah!” I exclaimed, with
haughty impatience. “Begone!”
Murmuring something about the Committee of Inspection, “kicking
up a shindy” the urchin withdrew. Again I dived into Mexican Maritime
Law, and nearly got hold of the rules governing a sale of cargo for
the benefit of ship-repairs. I had jotted down a line or two upon the
brief-paper before me, when the door was again thrown open, and
a gentleman of immense presence entered.
“I believe you are Mr. Jowler’s substitute?” he began, without
removing his hat. I inclined my head and made a gesture with my
pen which was intended to convey to him the joint ideas that he was
to take a chair and not to disturb me until I was less preoccupied.
He ignored my dumb-show. “And that being the case, it is my
duty to call your attention to the unsatisfactory condition of the
chimney-pots of your Institution, and to mention the fact that a
pane of glass in the pantry has been broken, and is still unrepaired.”
“Really,” I replied, “I am exceedingly busy with a matter of the
greatest importance, and I must ask you to be so very kind as to call
again on an occasion when my time is more my own.”
The gentleman rose with an air of astonishment so profound that
it nearly approached an aspect of absolute terror. He gasped for a
moment, and then asked, in a bone-freezing whisper—
“Do you understand that I am a Member of the Committee of
Inspection?”
“I shall be delighted to make your acquaintance on some future
occasion,” I replied, with that easy courtesy that I hope is one of
my characteristics, and I opened the door for him to pass out.
He got up and with the same expression of profound astonishment
left my chambers. Once more I dived into Mexican Maritime Law,
and was only disturbed by a letter sent by hand from the Institution,
which I did not open, but threw carelessly on the desk before me.
I had just got to the last point in my opinion when the door was
again dashed open and Jowler himself rushed in.
“Why, my dear fellow,——” I began.
“No time to explain,” he cried, “Australian visit deferred.
Presentiment of evil. Came back. What about the Institution?”
I gave an account of my stewardship.
“And this is a letter I got a few minutes ago,” I said, when I had
finished my story, handing the document to my friend who hurriedly
opened it.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, “why it is from a Member of
the Committee of Inspection complaining of the hall-lamp! Oh!
what have you been doing?”
“They are all there, Sir!” cried the urchin, returning at the
moment out of breath from running, “and there’s a nice row
at the Institution!”
“What the Committee of Inspection!” exclaimed Jowler, seizing
his hat, “Oh, what have you been doing? Why the place will be
ruined!” And he hurried off followed by the urchin.
The next morning I got a letter from Jowler, saying that he
would never forgive me, as, by my “want of tact with the Committee
of Inspection, I had ruined a widow and five small children,” and, to
make matters worse, I have been subsequently informed, in a satirical
communication signed “Mordaunt, Brown, Jones and Snobkins,”
that my opinion is not one they can conscientiously adopt without
further advice, “as my knowledge of Mexican Law seems to be
of a superficial description.”
It is a painful experience, and none the less painful because I have
to add it to a number of experiences of a not entirely dissimilar
character.
“The Grand Old Man” in December.—Father Christmas.
THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY M.P.
By-the-Sea, Saturday.
Dear Toby,
I have been intending to write to you for some weeks past, but, really,
life passes so quickly here, with such gentle rotation of days and
nights, that a week is over before I realise that I have well entered
upon it. Besides, I find, in practical experience, that the writing of a
letter usually involves the receipt of one; and, though I am not bound
by any rule involving the necessity of reading, or even opening the
letters that reach me, it is as well to avoid, as far as possible,
little annoyances of that kind. I write to you because, in your case, I
make an exception to the rule of my epistolary conduct, and really want
to hear from you.
The occasion of this solicitude is, that I find chance references in the
local weekly paper (I never see a daily) to the Irish Question, which
seem to show that it is in a somewhat unusually perturbed state. I
daresay if I could make up my mind to open the pile of letters that have
been accumulating on my desk for the last month or so, I should be able
to inform myself on the subject? But, if I once began that practice,
whither would it lead me? I have found, in the course of my public life,
that the last thing to do with a letter received through the post, is to
open it. My correspondence, conducted in the main upon that principle,
answers itself, and thus much labour, and possible friction, are saved.
From the source of intelligence already alluded to, I gather hints that
the Government are “being firm” in Ireland, that evictions have been
going on, that there have been conflicts between the police and the
people, and that even some of my colleagues in the Parliamentary Party
have been arrested. One paragraph goes so far as to mention the really
interesting circumstance, that W-ll-m O’Br-n, has been cast
into gaol, where he sleeps on a plank bed, and that Arth-r
B-lf-r, emulating a historic political feat, has stolen his clothes
whilst he was sleeping.
This thing is probably an allegory, but it serves to support an opinion
I have always had with respect to the future of the Conservative
Government, and which enables me from time to time to stand aside from
the hurly-burly of active politics. I suppose that what the paragraphist
really means by the story of stealing O’Br-n’s clothes, is that
Arth-r B-lf-r, as representative of Lord S-l-sb-ry’s
Government, is coming out as an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland. If I
misread the allegory, the error has but temporary effect. If it is not
true to-day it will be true to-morrow, or the day after, if only the
Liberals have the ill-luck to be deprived of precedence in the
opportunity. If I never stirred finger or raised voice again, Home Rule
would be granted to Ireland by whatever English Party chances to be in
power when the moment is ripe. The ball is set spinning, and it would be
a mere accident, of no great import to me or the Irish people, whether
it is the M-rk-ss or Gl-dst-ne that kicks it into
goal.
Hence you will see that though it may strike a superficial observer as
odd that I, of all men, should, at such a juncture, absent myself from
the field of battle and hide no one knows where, the course is not so
unreasonable as it appears. Why should I run the risk of burning my
fingers by pulling chestnuts out of the fire, when the foremost men in
English politics vie with each other in the effort to do it for me?
Amongst the few people with whom I come in contact here I pass for a
curate of Evangelical views, who, for private reasons, has quitted his
family and congregation, and tries, ineffectually they slily think, to
disguise himself by dispensing with clerical garb. I encourage this
self-deception, and am left free to sit in the sun when there is
any—and there is really an astonishing amount on this Southern coast in
November—and when it rains I put up my umbrella. Sometimes I hear on it
the patter of distant conflicts in Ireland, and open revolt in London.
These echoes of wild disturbance only make the sweeter my retirement. I
know that I am foolish to imperil my pastoral peace by inviting a
communication from you which may confirm the vague reports I have
alluded to. Still, I am a little curious to know is it really
true that W-ll-m O’Br-n sleeps on a plank bed; that
W-lfr-d Bl-nt, wearied of the long repose of Egyptian affairs,
has had his head broken by the Royal Irish Constabulary; and that, with
a refined cruelty which testifies to the innate fiendishness of the
Saxon nature, the presiding Magistrate at Bow Street Police Court has
ruthlessly refused to commit for trial that truculent, dangerous
personage, Mr. S-nd-rs, whom I remember in the House as
formerly Member for Hull?
THE WAIL OF THE WIRE.
(With apologies to the Poet.)
“It is stated that Mr. Swinburne’s new poem was cabled to
New York.”
Had I wist, wailed the wire in sea’s hollow,
That thousands of lines I should list,
Pumped forth by a son of Apollo,
I would not have lain here, not I,
‘Twixt Briton and Yankee a tie:
No messages through me should fly,
Had I wist.
Had I wist, they would make me swallow,
Huge poems all moonshine and mist,
In addition to “speeches” all hollow;
They shouldn’t have cabled a thing,
They shouldn’t have used me to wing,
Leagues of rhymes that the word-spinners sing,
Had I wist.
Valuable Opinion.—We understand that the Authorities have
consulted Mr. Briefless, Junior, Q.C., (Queer Counsel) on the
right claimed by indifferent passers-by to stand between the police and
the mob, in view of the Chief Commissioner’s statement that such
passers-by cause the chief difficulty in quelling disturbance; The
learned Counsel has given a lucid opinion to the effect that any mere
sightseer may be arrested and imprisoned, unless he or she can prove the
having come to the spot for a riotous or other unlawful object.
May in November.
(At the Royalty Theatre.)
Pieces French they’re playing,—
Jane’s a pretty player,—
Come with me a-Maying,
Gaily sings the Mayer.
The Lesson for the Day.—At Lowestoft Mr. Mundella
spoke well and wisely on certain fishery questions. “With regard to
outrages,” said he, “in the North Sea, I counsel English fishermen to
suffer wrong rather than do wrong, as then they could demand the
protection of their industry by Government.” Why not get the start of
the Hartington and Goschen Travelling Co. (Limited),
and deliver these excellent sentiments in Ireland?
“The Grosvenor ‘Split,'” ought at once to be adopted
by the Restaurant of that establishment as a title for a
special mixed drink. Let Sir Coutts patent it.
“Special Constables.“—Those belonging to the Collection
in the National Gallery.
“In the Press.“—Mr. O’Brien’s clothes.
‘TWILL ILLUME.
(Poe applied.)
“Mr. Walt Whitman has just sent to Mr. Ernest Rhys,
a preface and some new material for a second ‘popular’ volume
of prose, to consist of ‘Democratic Vistas’ and other pieces.”
Then I pacified Psyche, and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom,
With the latest Walt-Whitmanish “Vista,”
Which Democracy showed as our doom;
Our unwelcome but obvious doom.
And I said, “How’s it written, sweet Sister?”
“Is it bosh? Will it be a big boom?”
She replied, “‘Twill illume, ’twill illume.
It is bosh, but quidnuncs ’twill illume!”
*** Mr. Poe, and not Mr. Punch’s Poet, is responsible for this
Cockney rhyme.
“Christmas Is Coming!“—”Tell me not in Christmas
Numbers,” that Christmas is coming. We wish the good old gentleman would
not announce his intended arrival so long beforehand. Everybody knows,
that, like one of his own Christmas books, he is “bound to appear” at a
certain fixed date. Among the first of the heralds on the bookstalls is
the Christmas Number of the Penny Illustrated, price threepence,
and well worth the money. Mr. Latey, Junior, arranges a
Christmas Literary and Artistic Banquet, and every plate has a plateful
of Christmas fare. The picture entitled “Spoons” and representing two
persons in evening-dress slipping downstairs—”such a getting
downstairs”—in a sitting position, probably two amateur Tobogganists,
is distinctly humorous. The coloured illustration, called The
Christmas Ball, will be a great favourite with boys. If the Early
Bird still catches the worm, the Latey one who is first in the field
with this Christmas number ought to pick up the three-pennies.
Literary.—It is announced that Mr. Snodgrass has
“thoroughly revised his translations from Heine.” We
expect next to hear that Mr. Tracy Tupman has
“Englished” Catullus, and that Mr. Winkle is preparing
a new edition of the Book of Sports.
Floral Appeal To November.—”Fog-get-me-not!”
THE NE PLUS ULTRA.
Jeames I. “Very dangerous Parties these Hunemployed! Why, they’re
a beginnin’ to denounce Hus!” Jeames II. “No!“
“‘Twas in Trafalgar’s Square.”
Nov. 20, 1887.
Nelson (as Special Constable) sings:—
“England expects that every man
This day will go on Duty!”
The Last of the Solomonses.—The final knockdown blow was given
to poor Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy by Mr. John
Morley, who, in his admirable discourse on Aphorisms, described it
as a “too famous volume,” which “had immense vogue, but it is so vapid,
so wordy, so futile, as to have a place among the books that dispense
with parody.” Alas! poor Tupper! Mr. Punch bids thee
adieu for ever!
Will Mr. Lockyer turn his attention Eastwards, and inform us if
the Corporation of the City of London is a “Self-luminous Body”? If so,
couldn’t it be utilised in a fog?
Describing the state of mind her Nephew was in on not being able to find
a stud at the last moment to put in his shirt-front, Mrs. Ram
said, “Oh, he was awfully iterated.”
A Mess.—What’s on the tapis in France? Grévy.
M. Wilson, who speaks Latin with English pronunciation, throws
all the blame on his father-in-law, and says it’s a “Grévy
delictum.”
“SPECIAL” REASONS:
Or, Why They were “Sworn In.”
Paterfamilias. “Because I think it’s my duty, as a law-abiding
citizen, to set a good example.”
Mister Tom (his son). “Because I must look after the old Governor,
and see he doesn’t come to grief.”
Mr. Brown, Q.C. “Because I’m not going to let those fellows,
Jones and Robinson,
think that I shirk the responsibility.”
Messrs. Jones, M.D., and Robinson, R.A. “Because we don’t
mean to be outdone by that fellow Brown.”
The West-end Young Man. “Because, you know, I think, on the
whole, it’s the correct thing to do.”
The Primrose-League Young Man. “Because I should very much
like to have a real chance of giving a Social Democrat a good whack
on the head.”
‘Arry. “Because it’s such a prime lark.”
The General Person. “Because everybody seems to be doing it.”
Mem. by a Hater of Premature “Christmassing.”
“Christmas comes but once a year”—
But it lasts three months at a stretch, that’s clear.
I should like to pass the whole quarter in slumbers,
To dodge the infliction of—Christmas Numbers!
The Great Ochipaway Chief says that he intends to continue
selling his chips. But he has a log by him with which, as he has
kept it for many years, he will not part on any account.
ON A RECENT CASTING VOTE.
What! How did Lytton get into the chair!
The usual way—he mounted by the Stair.
The Report on the Fire at the Exeter Theatre.—”Slow, but
Shaw.”
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
For the library shelves of those whom “Providence has not blessed
with affluence,” and who cannot afford first editions or expensive
bindings, and for the working Journalist’s library, the most useful
books, the most handy, though not belonging to the regular “Handy Volume
Series,” and the best adapted to the pockets of most men, specially of
the class above mentioned, are those forming Morley’s Universal
Library; published by Routledge and Sons, which now number
about fifty-five volumes. Butler, Bacon,
Cavendish, Cobbett, Dante, Goethe,
Goldsmith, Thomas-à-Kempis, Sophocles, and
De Quincey, are all well represented; and, following the
fashion of the day, were I asked to provide “the young man just
beginning active life” with a list of the best set of books for his
study and perusal, I should have no hesitation in referring him to
Morley’s Universal Library; and I know of no more useful present
at this Christmas time, or at any other time, than the neat and
convenient oak cases, a guinea each, made on purpose to contain fifteen
of the Morley volumes. I trust they will go on from year to
year, and so continue to deserve the title first given them by Mr.
Punch, of the “More-and-Morely Series,” which fully expresses a
constant supply to meet a growing demand.
Long expected come at last! The Henry Irving and Frank
Marshall Shakspeare, Vol. I., produced by Messrs.
Blackie (one of which Firm ought evidently to come out as
Othello) as the Manager of the Lyceum always gets up his plays
“regardless of expense.” The prefaces and introductions will delight
everyone who acknowledges the force of the common-sense opinion,
emphatically expressed more than once in Mr. Punch’s pages, that
Shakspeare if acted just “as he is wrote” would not suit the
taste of an audience of the present day. The taste of the modern
audience is corrupted by Sensationalism and Materialism in every shape
and form—and at some theatres Materialism in shape and form is one of
the main attractions—and so impatient is it of anything like
development of character by means of dialogue, that it would have most
plays, no matter whether comedies or melodramas (there are no tragedies
now, except Shakspeare’s), reduced as nearly as may be to mere
ballets of action. For the maxim of our audiences in this last quarter
of the “so-called” Nineteenth Century, as regards the drama, is Facta
non verba; before which imperious command those “who live to
please,” and who “must please to live,” are compelled, be they authors
or actors, to bow, and do their best, speaking as little as possible, so
as not to give offence.
“Break, break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue,”
“Hist, Romeo, hist!”
R. & J., Act II., Sc. 2.
is the cry of any author nowadays who aims at writing a true Comedy. Mr.
Irving marks clearly enough all the passages usually omitted in
representation, which of themselves would make a small volume, but we
are not shown the arrangement of scenes necessitated by the exigences of
the stage, or rather by the taste of the audience, and so in this
respect the plays remain pretty much as their author left them. Some
stage-directions have been introduced, but as Mr. Frank
Marshall denies that this is in any sense an “acting
edition”—while Mr. Irving in his preface rather seems to imply
that in some sense it is so,—I should be inclined to describe the work
as “a contribution in aid of an acting edition,” and I am delighted to
add, a most valuable contribution it is, at least so far. Ex uno
disce omnes, and if the other volumes are only on a par with this
first instalment, Irving and Marshall’s—it wouldn’t
do to put Marshall first in the Firm, because it would at once
suggest, “and Snelgrove” to follow—or this Henry and
Frank’s edition of Shakspeare will be one of the most
perfect and the most serviceable to the ordinary reader that has as yet
been given to the public. In order to illustrate the Messrs.
Blackie’s judicious liberality, Mr. Marshall tells us
that, with the view of making the work more complete by the introduction
of certain explanations, “they (Messrs. Blackie) entirely
recast all the notes to Richard the Second, though they (the
notes, not Messrs. Blackie) had been already stereotyped.” Oh,
that Theatrical Managers would be as wise in their generations as were
even these poor publishers, and when they see that a piece,
Shakspeare’s or anybody else’s, is in an unsatisfactory state
for representation, at once “recast it entirely,” in spite of all the
old “stereotyped” tie-wig objections. Mr. Irving in his preface
makes a sort of apology for the luxurious extravagance of modern stage
decoration. There is no necessity for this. The Stage reflects the
fashion of the day, and that fashion is Materialism. Mr.
Marshall’s critical remarks on The Comedy of Errors,
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry the
Sixth, Part I., are admirable, difficult subjects being most
delicately handled. He has no note on the appearance of an “Abbess,” and
on a scene “in front of a Priory,” in the first of these plays, of which
the action takes place about 300 B.C.; but I suppose that,
though seldom risking anything in a case of importance, he on this
occasion consulted the Dyce, and concluded that there was some
“a priory” argument in favour of the existence of Abbesses three hundred
years before they were invented. A genius like Shakspeare is
above time and place. Mr. Marshall is of opinion (in a
footnote, and I think he has here put his foot in it) that
Shakspeare never descended to sycophancy for the sake of
pleasing his royal patroness. I shall be curious to see what he has to
say on this subject when he comes to tackle the characteristic speech
given to Cranmer in the last scene of Henry the Eighth.
Mr. Marshall dealing with Joan of Arc, in Henry the
Sixth, notices how Shakspeare halts between two opinions,
but decides as a courtier and a man of business would have done. The
courtier remembers that Joan was not the only heroic virgin who
had cheered her troops on to victory, but that the masculine Queen
Bess had also mounted a cock-horse, like the lady of Banbury
Cross, and had encouraged her soldiers with brave words at Tilbury Fort.
Where the full-flavoured British Queen had succeeded, evidently the
humble Gallic peasant maid must fail, at least, on the stage. If
Gloriana was to be the pride of Old England, La Pucelle
must be held up to Gloriana’s subjects as a vile impostor, and a
witch. Shakspeare would not allow sentiment to interfere with
business. Most of Mr. Gordon Browne’s illustrations are
charmingly designed and executed, and the prefaces, introductions to
Shakspeare’s family (managed by F.A.M., Master of the
Ceremonies), and critical remarks, ought to satisfy the most exacting of
Shakspearian students.
“He bears him like a portly
gentleman.”
R. & J., Act I., Sc. 4.
Prince Lucifer (Macmillan & Co.) by Alfred Austin. I do not
wish to make an ostentatious—or rather, in this instance, Austin-tatious—
display of my unpoetic nature, but I cannot understand
why Alfred the Less chose this name of Lucifer for his hero. The
title, for advertising purposes, certainly arrests the eye. Of course,
as Alfred the Less would say, in his light Lucifer manner—
“Lucifer,” I own to liking; | Names are nothing, if not striking.
And Lucifer is nothing to speak of, if not intended to serve a striking
purpose. A second title might perhaps have assisted the public to
an explanation, Lucifer; or, The Love Match. Prince Lucifer
suggests something naughty, and worse—or naughty in werse—for
there is nothing to assure us beforehand that Mr. Austin’s “Prince
of Darkness is a gentleman” who wouldn’t shock our religious
or moral sentiments on any account, not even on his own. But
though the book could not, perhaps, be recommended by Mr.
Podsnap to the “Young Person,” yet I should carefully consider
the intelligent capacity of the Young Person before presenting her
with such a specimen of “light and misleading” literature as
Prince Lucifer, to judge it only from its title, might Austinsibly be.
It contains some of Mr. Austin’s best work, and when, in this foggy
weather, I call for “Light! More light!” I shall be perfectly
satisfied if they bring me Mr. Austin’s new patent Lucifer.
Albert Hall Concert, Wed., Nov. 16.
With Patti, and Santley, and Lloyd,
The attraction was great, and it drew
An audience muchly annoyed
By a fog they could scarcely see through.
“Big House”—it was choke-full … of fog,
Which kept a good many away.
Too bad, for a “dead-head” is Fog,—
Comes in free. Mister Fog doesn’t pay.
A Confessor’s Costume.—Under a system of prison discipline
admitting of no distinction of prisoners, Mr. W. O’Brien, confined
in Tullamore Gaol, complains that he has been deprived of the clothes
which he prefers to the prison uniform. Some sympathy is due to a
misguided gentleman divested of decent habiliments; but the
grievance which he has injudiciously brought upon himself is one
for which he will sooner or later, at least if he pleases, be enabled to
obtain redress.
L. C. & D. v. S. E.
Says Watkin, “This, Forbes,
Makes us open our orbs!”
“Your orbs,” Forbes replies,
“And your pockets likewise.”
OUR DEBATING CLUB.
With the fall of the leaf, and the first touch of fog in the atmosphere,
it has been the time-honoured practice of the “Gargoyle” Club, ever
since its establishment eighteen months ago, to resume the sittings,
temporarily suspended during the Summer. The “Gargoyles” are, I should
explain, an assembly of earnest, thoughtful young men, who arrange to
meet upon one evening in the week for purposes of mental friction, and
the discussion of the social questions of the day. We have a President,
an Honorary Secretary, a ballot-box, a balance-sheet, a printer’s bill,
and, in short, everything handsome about us. It is the custom to consume
tobacco, in some form, during our meetings—except in the case of a
member who is actually upon his legs addressing the house, when
etiquette, and indeed convenience, require him to abstain for the time
being. It is, perhaps, this rule which restricts several of us
(including the writer) from expressing our sentiments in any sustained
form. For myself, indeed, I am the victim of a diffidence at present
unconquerable; it costs me an inconceivable effort to say even as much
as “hear-hear,” and accordingly I listen and learn, making copious notes
for future edification, and coming away on each occasion with a strong
flavour of tobacco, and the consciousness that, intellectually speaking,
the evening has been by no means wasted. These notes I am now enabled,
by the express sanction of a majority of the members (who considered it
only right that some suggestive crumbs from our feasts of reason should
be conceded to the outer world) to communicate through the medium of
Mr. Punch. We could, perhaps, have preferred a journal with a
higher reputation for seriousness, but the truth is that the daily
papers declined, by common consent, to report our proceedings, on the
plea that they were “not of sufficient public interest;” and we
therefore decided to waive the obvious disadvantages of association with
a paper of whose tone we do not always or entirely approve, in
consideration of placing ourselves in touch with a section of the public
who are too little apt to give any serious attention to improving
topics.
The Editor, somewhat autocratically, has reserved the right of
condensation and selection, although it has been pointed out to him
that—without adding a single extra sheet to his number—ample space
could be afforded for a full report (which I would undertake to furnish)
of our debates were the simple expedient adopted of temporarily
discontinuing the Cartoon in our favour. Popular as we cannot but think
such a step would be, we gravely fear that it will not be taken—unless
some pressure is brought to bear from outside. It is something, perhaps,
even to have gained as much as we have; something that, amidst the
shrill squeak and frivolous chuckle of Punch, will be heard from
time to time the deeper, graver notes of the Gargoyle Club. We are not
enemies of fun; we only think that there may be many, like ourselves,
who consider it possible to have too much of it. The Editor, we are glad
to admit at once, seems quite to recognise the sincerity of our desire
to raise the tone of his periodical, and is willing to allow us to try
the experiment—though he expresses a doubt whether these contributions
will have quite the effect we anticipate. We shall see. In the meantime,
I must preface my first notes, taken last Session, by a short sketch of
Pinceney, our President.
Pinceney possesses a mind, perhaps the most comprehensive in all
Paddington. I have known him—I wish I could say intimately—now
for over nine months, and I can confidently assert that I have
never yet heard him confess to ignorance of any department of
human knowledge, of any branch of modern thought! In intellectual
stature he towers miles above us all, and weekly increases
that altitude under our very eyes by drinking two bottles of some
sparkling beverage composed of phosphates. He is coldly tolerant
of the world’s failings, and is understood to confine himself to a fish
diet. He speaks little, but that little falls with immense weight.
Pinceney is not genial, or, indeed social of manner—he suffers us,
but not gladly—listening to each speaker with conscientious attention,
as if it was always possible that he might utter something
not immeasurably below contempt before he sat down. He has a
little bell by which he warns the wanderer, and paralyses the prolix,
and his preliminary caress of this bell is a rebuke in itself. It would
be too much to say that Pinceney is popular amongst his fellow
Gargoyles; he neither courts nor desires popularity. Indeed, he
ranges somewhat too much apart, and goes home alone by the
Underground the moment his duties are concluded. But he is
greatly respected, and if we feel, as we sometimes do feel, that his
standard is rather too high and exacting, at other times the consciousness
acts upon us as a decided incentive.
Our Vice-President.
Hartupp, our Vice-President, is of a very different mental calibre
and disposition. He is of a warm and enthusiastic temperament, and
endowed with a lava-like flow of eloquence. Hartupp is showy,
but, as he would be the first to admit himself, a trifle superficial.
He is at present articled to a solicitor, but he is more calculated to
shine at the Bar, where fervour has a freer scope than in an office.
He melts and thrills us by turns, speaking without preparation and
without notes, for which he apologises in carefully constructed sentences.
Altogether, Hartupp is one of our most distinguished
Gargoyles. I may add that he lives at Notting Hill with his mother.
Our Honorary Secretary.
Mr. Frederick Fadell, is one of our most energetic and useful
members. He is the only one (except perhaps Pinceney) who
possesses anything like a working acquaintance with all the rules.
He is a Barrister-at-Law, and finds his chambers very useful for
preparing minutes and sending out notices relative to the business of
the Club. Fadell is no great orator, though he can speak with some
fluency to a point of order. What he really enjoys is superintending
an election by ballot. During our debates he steals about with an
air of mystery, conducting long conversations in a whisper with such
members as he wishes to induce to join in the discussion. His whole
existence is bound up in the Gargoyle Club, and he is deeply alive to
the responsibilities of his position.
With these preliminary introductions, the Public must be perforce
contented for the present. I hope, however, on future occasions, to
be permitted to give some further idea of the work we are doing, and
more especially of the manner in which it is performed—though the
ruthless compression to which, as I have hinted above, I have reason
to believe my notes will be subjected, may deprive them of much of
their interest and value.
SO SEASONABLE, YOU KNOW.
Sir,—I read a letter in the St. James’s Gazette, signed
“Page Hopps.” The gentleman stood for somewhere, and may be
standing still, were such a contradiction in terms between “standing
still” and “Hopps” reconcileable. Is he an Irreconcileable? I am no
politician, and don’t want to be, specially just now. But such a name as
“Page Hopps” must stand for something, and what struck me as a
sort of Christmassy idea was, what a cheery, suggestive name “Page
Hopps” really is! What a picture it conjures up of a true
old-fashioned Christmas jollification, where all distinctions are
obliterated, the Masses join with the Classes, and the Misses go with
the Kisses, under the sprig of mistletoe. “Page Hopps!” What a
delightful household! Page hops, Butler skips, Footman jumps, Cook
capers, Housemaid dances, Scullerymaid slides, while
Master plays the violin,
And Missus the guitar.
We are a merry family,
We are! We are! We are!!
I drink his health, the health of P. Hopps, Hop! Hop! Hooray!
in beer, of course. This comes hopping you’re well.
Spring Bank, Out of Bounds.
To the Unemployed.
“Remember Mitchelstown!”
And do not join a mob.
But if you do, you’re likely to
Get “one” upon your nob.
If not to get knocked down,
And squelched, you greatly care,
Remember, then, both Mitchelstown,
And eke Trafalgar Square!
Sports and Anecdotes of Bygone Days. By C. T. S. B. Reynardson.
Without four initials Reynard’s son ought to know by this
time as much about sport as sly old Reynard himself. Illustrated,
too, in colours, but not with his own brush.
The Powers that Be.
Against “One Man Power,” the cry is now raised,
By moralists noted for meekness.
Perchance the new protest were more to be praised,
If directed against “one man weakness.”
The partisan man is so given to glower,
At his bigger, or luckier, brother man,
One fears that this railing against “one-man power,”
Means craving the power for—another man.
Chief Item in a Gladstonian Menu.—”A Chop and Chips.”
A Perfect Pandemonium.—Demon-stration in Trafalgar Square.
THE “PONDS ASINORUM” AGAIN!
Cabby. “
Oh! yer thinks Seven-and-Sixpence too much, do yer, for comin’ all the way up to ‘Ampstead! Well—’ere
I stops till I’m paid, that’s all!“
EXTRA SPECIAL.
As many married men have recently been sworn in as supplementary
Policemen, and as ladies are usually entirely ignorant of law, it
may be as well to give a list of the statutory regulations of the
duties of Special Constables. Here they are:—
1. Special Constables will occasionally be expected to spend several
hours every evening in the card-room of the Club in search of
information.
2. Their duties may occasionally require them to pay a visit to
Paris for a fortnight, or even three weeks, to study for themselves
on the spot the working of the French Judicature Act.
3. It may be imperatively necessary for them to be present at the
“first nights” of new pieces, when, they will be expected to take
supper at the Club, so that they may have an opportunity of
confidentially exchanging notes with their fellow-constables.
4. At any time they may be required not to dine at home, but, for
purposes of the police, join a visit of inspection to dinners chiefly
associated with bachelors.
5. Every Special Constable (if not already in possession of one)
must be supplied with a latch-key, under a penalty of £20—payable
by his wife.
6. It is strictly forbidden (and the offence, when proved, will
entail a sentence of penal servitude for an indefinite period) for a
Special Constable to give any information as to his movements to
any one, inclusive of his wife.
7. It will be a part of his duty occasionally to come home with the
man bringing the early morning milk.
8. Lastly, on extraordinary occasions, when it is necessary that he
should be ready to return to his beat at a moment’s notice, it is
lawful that he should retire to bed in his boots.
Reasons Why.—The Chancellor of the Exchequer will accompany
Lord Hartington to Ireland, first because he thinks that
the latter’s stolid style of oratory will have no effect on the impulsive
Celt without a good deal of gushin’; and, secondly, because he wants
to have his share of the anticipated Harty reception.
PROMENADING.
I attended the Opening Night of the Promenade Concerts at Her
Majesty’s on Saturday week. A crowded house; everybody in the
best of humours. Mlle. Elly Warnots trilled her most brilliant
“variations,” Miss Florence St. John carried off the lioness’s share
of applause and bouquets. There was a new “Vocal valse,” entitled
“Laughing Beauties” in which a chorus of “ladies in costume”
invited us to buy what the programme waggishly described as:—
“Sweet violets for the meek, tra, la, la, la, la,
Fond ivory for the weak, ha, ha, ha, ha, ho!”
The programme, by the way, contained one or two other similar
eccentricities. Miss St. John was announced as inquiring in a
song of Behrend’s, “Why do your big tears fears fall, Daddy?”—hardly
a fair question to be addressed to any parent. Fortunately
she preferred to sing the line in a less enigmatical form, but the
gifted author of Daddy, should insist on correcting his own proofs next
time. Then we had a “descriptive Piece for Orchestra,”—The
Bulgarian Patrol, in which the melody began faintly, and came
nearer and nearer with the clank of metal, till it gradually died away
again in the distance. “Oh, wot a novelty!” as I heard a street-vendor
remark the other day concerning the “panorammer of the
Lord Mayor’s Show,” he was offering to a dubious public. But the
public at Her Majesty’s applauded the Bulgarian Patrol as impartially
as they did his Turkish forerunner.
Advice Gratis.—Young Hoffmann is Hoff! Gone from our gaze,
perhaps, with a Cook’s Ticket. But, anyhow, the Juvenile Phenomenal
Pianist has gone. Peace go with him—let him rest. Don’t
allow him to get within half a mile of a piano, or he is sure to go to
pieces. All work and all play will make young Hoffmann a dull
Young Man. Beware, O Parents and Guardians, in time.
À propos of a certain Illustrious Sufferer.—Who shall
decide when Doctors disagree? The Patient. This is the sad Moral,
Mackenzie.
THE GRAND OLD JANUS.
“QUITE RIGHT, CONSTABLE!”
“QUITE WRONG, CONSTABLE!!”
‘ARRY ON LAW AND ORDER!
Dear Charlie,
Ascuse shaky scribble; I’m writing this letter in bed.
Went down to the Square, mate,—last Sunday,—and got a rare clump on the ‘ed.
Beastly shame, and no error, my pippin! Me cop it! It’s too jolly rum.
When a reglar Primroser gits toko, one wonders wot next there will come.
It wos all Bobby’s blunder, in course; Mister Burleigh and me was “mistook.”
I went jest for a lark, nothink else, and wos quietly slinging my ‘ook,
Wen a bit of a rush came around me, a truncheon dropped smack on my nob,
And ‘ere I ham, tucked up in bed, with a jug of ‘ot spruce on the ‘ob.
‘Ard lines, ain’t it, Charlie, old hoyster? A barney’s a barney, dear boy,
And you know that a squeege and a skylark is wot I did always enjoy.
A street-rush is somethink splendacious to fellers of sperrit like me,
But dints and diakkylum plaster will spile the best sport, dontcher see.
Don’t you fancy the “Hunemployed,” bunkum has nobbled me; not sech a mug!
And as fer O’Brien and his breeches, I’m glad the fool’s fairly in jug.
No, no, Law and Horder’s my motter, but wen a spree’s on ‘Arry’s there;
And I thought, like a lot of the Swells, I should find one that day in the Square.
Lord Mayor’s Day with a scrimmage chucked in is a hopening too temptin’ to miss.
More pertikler wen all in “the Cause”—Law and Horder, I mean, mate—like this.
I despises the Poor and the Spouters; to see their ‘eds jolly well broke
Is fun, but a bash on one’s own—well, there, somehow it spiles the whole joke.
The Perlice wos too dashed hinderscriminate, that’s where it wos, my dear boy;
Wich they couldn’t take me for a Paddy or ‘umbugging “Out of Employ.”
Wen that cop got his hand on my collar he ought to ‘ave knowed like a shot,
By the Astrykan only, that I wasn’t one o’ the Socherlist lot.
I ‘ate ’em, dear Charlie, I ‘ate ’em! They wants to stop piling the pelf,
Wen that is wot every dashed one of us wants to be piling hisself.
No, Wealth is wot must be kep up and pertected, wotever goes wrong;
And to talk of abolishing Millionnaires, Charlie, is coming it strong.
They are like prize Chrysanthemums, Charlie; for, if you want them, don’tcher see,
You must nip off some thousands of buds to let one or two swell and grow free.
Jest you turn a lot loose in yer garden, and that ain’t the way as they’ll grow;
But if ‘undreds weren’t sacrificed daily to one, you would not get no Show.
That’s Life in a nutshell, my bloater! All wants to be fust, but they can’t;
Most on us is wasters; the game of the snide un’s to be a Prize Plant.
Then you’re mugged up to-rights and made muck of, but, oh, you must be a big ass,
If you fancies as daisies is dealt with like horchids, and grown under glass!
Ask Gentleman Joe. He knows better, he’s finding it out more and more,
And his Radical rot about “ransom” won’t turn up agen; it don’t score.
“Law and Horder’s” the tip I can tell yer. I’m on to it fairly for one,
And there’s ony one thing I finds fault with; they do rayther bunnick up Fun!
If heverythink’s on the Q.T., and a Peeler is always at ‘and—
And that’s Law and Horder you bet, as beknown to the rich and the grand—
It’s O.K. for the ‘olders of ochre, who, if they’ve a mind for a spree,
Can always palm-oil Mr. Peeler, and do it upon the Q.T.
But hus, Charlie, hus? I likes Horder, and likeways I’m partial to Law,
Wen it means keeping my swim all clear, and a muzzling my henemy’s jaw.
Wy, nothink could easy be nicerer, then, don’tcher see, dear old pal;
But supposing that game interferes with my larks, or my lush, or my gal?
Local Hopshun, for instance, or Betting Laws, Prize Fight pervention, and such
That some mealy-mouthed mugs are so sweet on; if they cop us, life ain’t wuth much.
Contrydicting myself? Oh, well, Charlie, I’ve sech a blarmed pain in my ‘ed,
And life looks a queer sort of mix wen you boss the whole bizness from bed.
Dan the Dosser, who knows the Square well, ‘aving slep in it night arter night,
Sez the Golden Calf safely railed in by the Law is a ‘eavenly sight.
Acos Horder is ‘Eaven’s first Law, and, in conserkense, Law Earth’s first horder;
The Calf may sit safely hinside, whilst Scapegoats is kep hout of the border.
I can’t git the ‘ang of his lingo; his patter’s all picter somehow,
And wot he quite means by that Calf, mate, I dunno no more than a cow.
But the Scapegoat, that’s him, I suppose, and he looks it; it’s rough, as he says;
No marbles, no lodging, no grub, and that sort o’ thing kep up for days!
But the Scapegoats must not kick up shindies, and stop up our streets and our squares,
That’s a moral. Perhaps there is grabbers as wants to swag more than their shares.
I ain’t nuts on sweaters myself, and I do ‘ate a blood-sucking screw,
Who sponges and never stands Sam, and whose motto’s “all cop, and no blue.”
Still, this ‘ere blooming Hanarchy, Charley, won’t do at no figger, dear boy.
A bit of a rorty romp round in the open a chap can enjoy,
But brickbats and hoyster-knives? Walker! Not on in that scene, mate, not me!
And a bash on the nob with a batton is not my idea of a spree.
To bonnet a lot of old blokes and make petticoats squeal is good biz,
But a Crusher’s ‘ard knuckles a crunching yer scrag? No, I’m blowed if that is!
Let ’em swarm “in their thousands”—the mugs!—and their black and red flags let ’em carry;
But wen they are next on the job they will ‘ave to look wide-oh! for
Cuttings and Slips.—The following were extracted
from the Manchester Evening News, Nov. 14:—
RESPECTABLE Woman WANTS WASHING, at Altrincham.
RESPECTABLE Widow WANTS WASHING for Tuesday.
The first one is not in a hurry; the second is, and
names the day. Then or never. At first we thought it
was a new form of advertising Somebody’s Soap.
TO HIS MISTRESS.
From a Distracted Grammarian with “To Be” in his Bonnet.
With you, O Superlative Maiden,
There can no Comparison be;
And though Grammar makes “You” Second Person,
You are first of all Persons to me.
At Present my life is Imperfect
(Not Irregular, nota bené),
But with you for Auxiliary, dearest,
How Perfect our Future might be.
Considering my Antecedents,
Your Relatives can but Agree;
And since I’m Defective in Number,
You cannot Decline me, you see.
I sigh; but by mere Interjections
My Case cannot influenced be:
Then grant the Conjunction I plead for,
And so with your Subject agree.
Among the books with which the Prison Authorities should have supplied
Mr. O’Brien ought to have been a copy of “The Breeches Bible.”
When he comes out, will he commence a suit against the Government?
AMERICAN CHORUS.
We’ll state what we think of your Brummagem Joe.
He’s “so English you know,”—yes, “so English, you know.”
“The Sleeper Awakened!” New Cantata, dedicated
to the Right Hon. Henry Matthews, the Not-Yet-Quite-at-Home
Secretary.
PROBABLE PICTURES FOR CHRISTMAS NUMBERS
BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS, R.A.
(Suggested by this eminent “Sporting and Dramatic” Artist’s “Portia” now being exhibited on all
the bookstalls.)
LADY MACBETH.
“Or Anybody Else. Doesn’t matter.
Quite a——J. E. M.“
SHYLOCK; or, The Masher of Venice.
“Companion Picture to my ‘Portia.’
A very brilliant——J. E. M.“
THE WOES OF THE WATER CONSUMER.
Dear Mr. Punch,—What Greek philosopher was it who held that
Water was the beginning and essence of all things? Our modern
Sanitarians appear to agree with him. At any rate, if they do not look
upon water as the great essence, they declare it to be the prime
essential, and present fearsome pictures of the results of any
deficiency in its plentifulness and purity.
But, Sir, between the Landlord who won’t put it on, and the Water
Company who will cut it off, what is a poor Tenant to do? In one day I
read, first, that Mr. William Christie is summoned by the
Sanitary Inspector of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, for obstinately refusing
to provide a suitable water-supply to twelve houses in Park Street,
Southwark; secondly, that the East London Waterworks Company is summoned
by a Mr. Ernest Bransemer for cutting off the water at his
house in Boundary Passage, Shoreditch, without lawful excuse. Looks
encouraging, doesn’t it? True, Mr. Kebbell, the Company’s
Solicitor, assured Mr. Hannay that the Company was really in
the right, and that the man had suffered from the fault of his Landlord.
Perhaps so, in this case. Anyhow it seems to be admitted that the man
suffered, and suffered unjustly. In this case, too, the Company (said
its Solicitor) had been “very good,” had paid the man and settled the
matter. Mr. Hannay is reported to have said, “Really!” which
seems almost to imply a mild surprise. Surprised at the “goodness” of a
Water Company!!! Well, it is a painful fact that the prevailing faith in
the proprietors of Waterworks is much of the complexion of Sam
Weller’s in the “Waterworks” of the Mulberry One. Only that the
Companies, as a rule, are not quite so ready to “turn it on at the
main,” as was the lachrymose and deceptive Job Trotter.
“The Company do not fear the Magistrate’s decision,” said Mr.
Kebbell, loftily. “It is the trial by newspapers which follows,
which is so objectionable.” Doubtless: from the Company’s point of view.
Whether the Consumer shares that opinion may be questioned, perhaps.
Anyhow, Mr. Punch, my own confidence in the “native worth” of
Water Companies and Landlords, being a plant of slow growth, which,
indeed, has hardly yet appeared above ground, I should like to call
attention to the dilemma which the “tub”-loving, fever-fearing Tenant is
liable to fall into between the two. If this savours of that obnoxious
practice, “trial by newspapers,” I am sorry; but really, Sir, the Tenant
has his “trials,” of another sort, which are very “objectionable”
indeed, and which, I fear, without the publicity afforded by the Press,
neither the justice of Landlords, nor the “goodness” of Water Companies
could be implicitly trusted to relieve him from. At least, such is the
experience of
KEPT IN;
OR, THE LEAGUER BELEAGUERED.
A Right-thinking Radical requests information.
Hast thou seen that lordly castle,
The home of Mr. Pyne;
How round its patriot portals
The Peelers prowl and whine?
I suppose those brutal butchers,
Without the slightest fail,
Would stretch the M.P. on the rack,
And afterwards impale?
An Unfeeling Unionist answers him—
Well do I know that castle,
The home of Mr. Pyne;
But of the Peelers with their rack
There’s not a single sign.
The Right-thinking Radical expresses surprise at
the intelligence—
Indeed! But at some high casement
Surely you saw him stand,
Or out from a towering rampart
Waving a mailèd hand?
The Unfeeling Unionist rejoins—
I did see him at the casement,
And he wore no armour at all,
But the Postman helps him haul the mail
Over his castle wall!
The Right-thinking Radical proceeds with his
questionings—
And sawest thou on the turret
How he paced to and fro,
All glorious in gold and purple,
Like a Knight of long ago?
The Unfeeling Unionist replies—
He had a modern frock-coat on,
Which wasn’t much of a fit;
And I think a Knight would have stopped to fight,
And not run away from a writ.
The Right-thinking Radical plies him once
again—
But do they not thirst, those Peelers,
To tear him limb from limb;
And level his antique castle,
If once they could get at him?
The Unfeeling Unionist ends the colloquy—
That would not result from his capture;
You seem to have been misled!
It would merely entail a month in gaol,
Or perhaps, like O’Brien, in bed.
In the Standard’s report of Mr. Labouchere’s
after-dinner speech to the members
of the Eleusis Club, the warier of the two
Northampton Members observed, “that we
lived in critical times, when it was absolutely
necessary that Radicals should hang
together.” Mr. Labouchere speaks trippingly,
but he is not often to be caught
tripping. The Conservative Standard
missed an opportunity.
Latest Addition to Fairy Land.—Mr.
Irish Secretary Balfour must be all over
the country at once. For this he requires
Seven (Land)-League boots.
The Real “Empire of the Hittites.”—The
prevailing passion for pugilists.
A sporting tandem-driving Doctor of our
acquaintance calls his leader the Hoss
frontis.
“‘HAD HIM THERE!”
Free Kirk Elder. “Eigh! Meenister, ah no
like t’see ye Talkin’ wi’ yon Epeescopalian Priest!“
Minister. “Oo—I jeest offered to swap Collections
wi’m, an’ he said, ‘Na, na! I ken your Flock ower weel!‘”
ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
Dear Mr. Punch,
As an impecunious Peer, whose entire existence consists of
one long struggle to provide for the necessities of a large family, need
I say that my eye chanced upon the subjoined advertisement with a
sense of relief and hopefulness that words almost fail to express? I
quote it for your perusal. Here it is:—
WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR SONS.—Journalism.—Mr. David
Anderson, 222, Strand, W.C., Author of Scenes in the Commons,
&c., from 1879, a principal Leader Writer, Special Correspondent, and Critic
of the Daily Telegraph, INSTRUCTS a limited number of YOUNG MEN
in the practical and literary branches of Journalism. Prospectus free.An ordinary trained Journalist earns from £300 to £1000 a year.
That, Mr. Punch, is the question I have been asking myself for
ever so long—”What on earth am I to do with my sons?” And this
Mr. David Anderson, with a message that seems almost too good to be
true, comes like the radiant genius on to the scene, and says, “Send
them to me, your Grace, and I’ll soon put ’em in the way of making
from £300 to £1000 a year. What do you think of that?” What do
I think of it? Well, all I can say is that it sounds to me like an
Anderson’s Fairy Tale!
Why, there’s my elder son, the Marquis, just opened a market
gardening business at Tooting in a small way, and though he drives
his cart up to Covent Garden twice a week himself, I know he’s not
making a good thing of it. Plantagenet, my second, I’m not
ashamed to own it, shoulders a butcher’s tray; Bertram is a linen-draper’s
assistant in the Tottenham Court Road; and Algernon is,
faute de mieux, loafing about railway stations, following cabs, in the
hope of picking up a stray sixpence now and then for carrying the
luggage upstairs when they arrive at their destinations. Poor boy!
I had always meant him to have a Commission in the Guards, but
hard times have rendered that project impossible—and he has come
to this!
With one hundred and seventy farms on my hands, the whole of
my property mortgaged, my house in Belgrave Square given up, and
my establishment confined to a couple of floors in a back street in
Islington, the family has, I need hardly say, to accept its altered
fortunes with equanimity. But, if Mr. David Anderson is to be
trusted, surely a brighter prospect opens before us! How he
manages his instructions “in the practical and literary branches of
journalism,” is to me a mystery. How does he teach his “limited
number” of pupils to report—say, an inaudible speech? Then there
is their practical training for a crowd. Does he lead them at the
present moment, to Trafalgar Square, and teach them, in the event
of a collision with the police, to continue their labours up a lamp-post?
Again, how about initiating them into the work of a correspondent
mounted on the field of battle? Would their experience on
a hired cab-horse let loose in the midst of a procession of the Unemployed
afford the many useful experiences in this direction? Then, how
about the leader-writing? I do not say that the journalist, like the
poet, need necessarily be born one, yet for all that, the art of literary
composition is not one that can be readily acquired by anybody.
Take my own case. I have written a lever du rideau in the shape
of a farce, a light thing that plays only an hour and three-quarters,
and though I have submitted it to seventeen managers in succession,
I have never been able to induce one of them to try it even at a
matinée. I have also written a pantomime and left it, endorsed with
my title at the stage-door of a leading Metropolitan Theatre, from
which however, notwithstanding that I have made repeated applications
for it in person, I have never yet been able to succeed in
getting it returned. But journalism is, I am aware, distinct from
dramatic literature, and this inspires me with confidence. Indeed I
shall lose no time in communicating with Mr. David Anderson and
placing my four sons unreservedly in his hands. Even if they did
not as “trained journalists” succeed in realising that brilliant level
of £1000 per annum, with which his advertisement so alluringly
concludes, they might possibly touch the figure half-way, and draw
their modest five hundred a-piece. Need I say, my dear Mr. Punch,
if they did, how they would restore the fortunes of a falling house,
and in so doing, gladden the heart of yours hopefully,
The Too-Complete Letter-Writer.—M. Wilson.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.
(A Cosmos Story.)
Chapter I.
Mr Noman Luckier, the eminent astronomer, was walking in his
garden. Suddenly he was staggered by a sharp blow on the head. Something
fell at his feet. It was not his head. He picked it up. It was a
meteoric stone. This set him thinking.
“Here,” said he, as he rubbed his newly-acquired phrenological
development with one hand and held the meteoric stone in the other, “is
a solid, ponderable body, which I can handle, examine, and analyse, and
it comes to me,” continued the eminent scientist, extending his arms and
looking round him, then directing his gaze upwards, his eye dilating
with the grandeur of the discovery,—”it comes to me direct from the
Cosmos!”
Chapter II.
There was a chuckle from behind the neighbouring hedge, and, as the Philosopher
returned to his sanctum to write a paper on the “Spectra of Meteorites,”
a small boy stepped cautiously out into the road, and hurried down the lane.
“Ooray!” muttered the small boy to himself; “the old gent don’t know my
name. What did he say about ‘Crismas’?” And he vanished into space.
Chapter III.
The Philosopher, with aching head, sat down to write, and penned these
words,—
“Cosmical space is filled with meteorites of all sizes, flying about with immense
velocities in all directions.“
“Good Heavens! or, rather, Bad Heavens!” exclaimed a simple-minded
visitor, to whom he read this statement, “why, ‘Cosmical space’ must be uncommonly
like a proclaimed district in Ireland, or Trafalgar Square during a
Socialist riot.”
The Philosopher perceived that he was not in the presence of a sympathetic
mind, and regretted having invited the visitor to lunch.
Chapter IV.
After lunch, Mr. Noman Luckier resumed his work. The
simple-minded friend followed him into his study, seated himself in the
most comfortable chair, lit a cigar, and produced from his pocket a
handy-volume edition of Pickwick. Oddly enough he commenced
reading the concluding portion of Chapter XXXVIII. of that immortal
work, which records how an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments
suddenly observed certain extraordinary and wonderful phenomena, which
he immediately concluded “it had been reserved for him alone to
discover, and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for
the benefit of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman
seized the pen” and began writing “sundry notes of these unparalleled
appearances … which were to form the data of a voluminous treatise of
great research and deep learning, which should astonish all the
atmospherical wiseacres that ever drew breath in any part of the
civilised globe.” Subsequently, after a sharp shock which “stunned him
for a full quarter of an hour,” produced by Sam Weller’s fist,
the scientific gentleman retired to his library, and there composed a
masterly treatise which “delighted all the Scientific Associations
beyond measure, and caused him to be considered a light of science ever
afterwards.”
The simple-minded friend, having finished his cigar, replaced
Pickwick in his pocket, and, smiling gently, stole out of the
study on tiptoe, leaving Mr. Noman Luckier profoundly absorbed
in his “Preliminary Notes.”
The boy, whose name was not Cosmos, is still at large,—and so
is Cosmos, very much so.
A LITERARY FIND.
Dear Mr. Punch,
A very intelligent threadbare man, evidently something of a scholar, has
just put me in possession of a manuscript of incalculable importance. It
is a drama called Piccoviccius, evidently of the Elizabethan era,
though brought into harmony with modern diction and orthography by a
later hand. A careful perusal of this priceless survival makes it
certain that Shakspeare was not only familiar with it, but that
he drew very largely from it even to “cribbing” the names of many of the
characters bodily. This is not so remarkable, considering the very
slight right Shakspeare has, in the opinion of the best
critics, to the authorship of his own plays, as the fact that
Dickens also had studied Piccoviccius, and founded upon it his
Pickwick Papers, with an effrontery almost worthy of the Swan of
Avon himself. Here is a slightly-edited selection from the First Act, so
your readers can judge for themselves.
P.S.—I have just founded a Piccoviccius Society. The subscription is £2 2s.,
paid in advance. Members can read their own papers at any time, and have
them printed, at a reduced price, in our “Transactions.”
Scene from Act I.—
Romeo’s Garden in Kent. Romeo, Bernardo.
Ber. News, news, my Romeo! The world’s upso down.
Duke Piccoviccius hath broke the law,
Is under guard, and will be banished.
Rom. Banished? Great Heaven!
Ber. Banished, certainly As eggs dissemble not their property.
Rom. But why, how, when and where? What did the Duke?
Ber. Thou knowest the scheme he long had pondered on,
To go among his people, like themselves,
As went through Bagdad’s streets the Caliph wise.
Rom. Yea, I remember; and the hour arrived,
When, having delegated his main pow’rs
To Jingulus, and the Exchequer’s charge
To careful Dodson and to subtle Fogg,
He, with no rites of State observ’d, set forth
With Tupman, Snodgrass, Winkle, in his train;
Tupman, who to experience in love
Still superadds the ardour of the boy;
Snodgrass, the poet-treasurer of thought,
And singer of an unexpressive song,
And Winkle, Nimrod’s peer. These four set forth,
Due to return the seventh day from hence;
But I that selfsame hour came hitherward,
And since have heard no news of Court at all.
Ber. Thus then I briefly tell thee what hath pass’d.
There came last week with ‘plaining to the Court
A comely widow, who made oath that one
Who sojourned as a lodger in her house
Had promised marriage, but had gone away;
Left her, and left his promise unfulfill’d.
Guided by her, the officers had gone
To seize the culprit, and had found ’twas none
But Piccoviccius, whom she claim’d with tears.
So he and those three lords were strait convey’d
Unto the Court, and put to interrogatories,
When this preliminary was advanced:—
The Duke had lodging in Bardella’s house—
So is the widow named; and on a day
Came these lords, usher’d by Bardella’s son,
Unto his chamber, but on the threshold stay’d
Still as Lot’s wife, in mere astonishment.
For there their staid and reverend leader stood,
Silent as they, supporting in his arms
The buxom widow, in a swoon of bliss.
Thus had they stood, confounded and amazed,
Till life returning gave Bardella speech,
But that the urchin, in a filial frenzy,
Butting like petulant kid, assailed the Duke,
And with the puissance of his puny arms
Avenged imagined injury. Then they,
Roused by the pious howlings of the boy
And agonised appeals of whom he smote,
Bore off the pigmy valour, and the mother,
Reviving, led away. The Duke averr’d
That, breaking to her of his new-found wish
To take into his service one Wellerius,
A shrewd and faithful henchman, she at once
Through rapid stages of affection ran,
And threw herself, in fine, upon his neck,
And thus was found, he speechless with surprise,
They, after, silent, striving to believe.
Ber. Why so thought many; but this Jingulus
Is all compassion for the widow’s case.
Dodson and Fogg, his seconds in the realm,
Albeit unuséd to the melting mood,
Do keep turned on, sans intermission,
Salt pity’s main. The people whisper change,
And what they whisper they are fain to make.
The nobles huddle in uncertainty,
Like sheep that meet a cart, the dog behind.
On the Rialto, ere I left this morning,
The hoarse-voiced makers of the books, whose leaves
Are I. O. U.’s to ruin, vainly laid
Long odds upon the widow.
Rom.‘Tis not death?
Ber. Nay, only banishment. Whoever breaks
A promise made to wed, to exile goes.
Rom. Will not the widow take a forfeiture?
Ber. It cannot be. There is no power in Brentford
Can alter a decree established.
Besides, the very object of the law
Is to prevent the payment of a price
For feelings wounded. The stern punishment
Makes flighty wooers careful, and restrains
The plots of scheming spinsters, who derive
No personal advantage from their suit.
Rom. Then am I shent!
But here the plot thickens, and we are plunged into
the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Hamlet, As You Like It,
and A Winter’s Tale, with a strong infusion of Dingley
Dell, and the Fat Boy floating round, like a materialised
Ariel. I ask, Who are the plagiarists?
NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions,
whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description,
will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and
Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.
Transcriber’s Note:
Alternative spellings were retained.
Punctuation was made consistent.