(_By Mr. Punch's Own High-Class Police News Reporter._)
At the Grosvenor Square Criminal Court the case of Lady D'EDBROKE came
on for hearing at the head of the list. Interest in this alleged crime
in high life drew together a vast galaxy of Society women, and His
Worship was with difficulty accommodated with a seat on the bench.
Opera-glasses ruled from one-and-sixpence-in-the-slot. The first charge
brought against her ladyship was that of refusing alimony to her
husband. A second dealt with the desertion of her children.
The prosecution undertook to prove that Sir BENEDICK had been found at
night on the doorstep of the d'Edbroke Mansion without a latchkey or
other visible means of subsistence. Lady D'EDBROKE (_née_ SWAG) was
described as the daughter of a wealthy Birmingham manufacturer of
antiques. By her marriage into the ancient and honourable house of the
D'EDBROKES she had relieved the fortunes of the three-and-twentieth
baronet, whose assets at the moment had been _nil_. Two children had
been born of the marriage, and these had recently been discovered in a
state of emaciation in a Park Lane _crèche_.
Counsel would call her ladyship's maid to give evidence of the kind of
literature to which her mistress had been addicted. That domestic would
admit that she (the domestic), being bored by the feeble and fatuous
character of the Penny Dreadful as a guide to immorality, had been in
the habit of utilizing her mistress's left-off thirty-one-and-sixpenny
and other expensive shockers. He hoped to show that this class of work,
though not above the level of the Penny Dreadful in point of literary
qualities, was of a mere seductive piquancy. At the time of the
prisoner's arrest her drawing-room and boudoir were littered with
printed matter, from the titles of which he would select four specimens:
_A Melodrama of Spasms_, _The Superfluous Male_, _A Neo-Platonic
Passion_, _An Edenless Adam_. From the last of these he ventured to read
an extract or two, in the selection of which he had been assisted by the
pencil marks and marginal comments of the prisoner. The book, he might
add, was from a lending library.
"A veritable Dian, flame-red with the shame of maternity, the young
mother of twins faced her cowed and miserable husband. Mentally she
threw up the sponge ready for the next round, for she had still a shot
in her locker with which to run a mucker."
Council here explained that the writer, a simple woman, was still
feeling her way in the use of sporting language.
"'JAMES,' she said, 'I was an ignorant girl when I married you for your
wealth, you me for my beauty of soul. There I thought that the bargain
had ended. How was I to know that women have a tendency to bear
children? No one ever pointed out to me any precedent for this. In my
innocence it had never occurred to me that I might myself have been
originally born.'"
Here a Juror intervened to request that he might, as a family man, be
allowed to retire. Leave being refused, he then asked if ladies ought to
listen to such extracts. His Worship thereupon ordered all decent women
to leave the court. No one moved, and the extract was resumed.
"'And now, in the full pride of my sexlessness, I have had a painful
fall. I am branded with the mark of servitude. The laughing-stock of my
emancipated sisters, I shall go down to posterity as _a mother!_'
"Lord JAMES winced. The mother of twins continued.
"'Had mine been the wealth and yours the beauty of soul--and of this you
can never have even been suspected--my course would be plain. I should,
by the right of the Married Women's Impropriety Act, banish you from
this house. Never should you darken these doors again, though you might
linger on the doorstep, an Edenless ADAM, a worm, a periwinkle at the
gate of Paradise! As it is, being compelled from lack of filthy lucre to
tolerate existence under your roof, I insist that these signs of my
degradation'--here she pointed defiantly at the twins, who howled--'be
kept for ever from my eyes under the tutelage of hired menials, in a
nursery with padded walls to be built out over the billiard-room.
Otherwise I propose to leave you and become a _Tableau Vivant!_'"
At this point the usher rebuked applause in the galleries.
A second extract ran as follows:--"A year later, in the height of the
season at Battersea Park, a remarkable tandem was the object of
universal comment. It consisted of Lord and Lady JAMES, or, more
strictly, Lady and Lord JAMES, for Lady JAMES steered from the front,
clad in high collar, starched shirt, breeches and gaiters, while Lord
JAMES followed in a blouse and divided skirt, doing all the work. A
symbol this of the conditions under which he was now admitted to the
privilege of communion with her. That the man should be compelled to do
the work, itself a mark of serfdom, was but one of many conditions laid
down by the predominant partner. Another was that he should not offend
decency by appearing in the recognised costume of a woman. Hence the
blouse and divided skirt, lately relegated to male use."
Here His Worship observed that this extract failed to bear upon the
issue, and it was then shown that the pencil-mark, with the comment
"Good again!" was the work of another subscriber to MUDIE'S. A third
extract, taken from a new book of the Six-Shilling-Shocker series--_A
Melodrama of Spasms_--began: "I am glad that these sins of your magenta
breeding are no irony of fate." The foreman of the jury demanded an
elucidation, which Counsel was unable to produce. Court still working at
enigma when report left.
* * * * *
A HYDE-OUS DANGER.--"Hyde Park" should be our Show Park. At present it
is the Hiding Park for all the scum of the town. _Mr. P._ summons First
Commissioner of Works, Commissioner of Police, and "GEORGE RANGER," who,
he believes, has not yet retired from this office, to step out at once
and do their duty.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Brother Jonathan._ "SAY, JOHN! YOU'D BETTER GO INTO
TRAINING AGAIN!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: EASILY EXPLAINED.
_Huntsman_ (_having just drawn large covert blank_). "WELL, MR. LEGGINS,
WE CAN'T FIND THAT LITIER YOU'VE BEEN BRAGGING ABOUT!"
_Keeper_ (_who objects to being styled "Leggins"_). "YOU SURPRISE ME,
MR. TOOTLE! MOST EXTRAORDINARY!"
_Huntsman._ "OH, NOT AT ALL! YOU SEE THERE IS SUCH A SHOW OF PHEASANTS
AND HARES--I EXPECT THEY MUST HAVE EATEN THE POOR LITTLE BEGGARS BETWEEN
THEM!"]
* * * * *