Produced by Neville Allen, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOLUME 104.
JANUARY 7th 1893.
LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET, AND SOLD BY ALL
BOOKSELLERS.
1893.
LONDON: BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
* * * * *
PREFACE
SCENE--_The Elysian Fields, a flower-gemmed bank, by a flowing stream,
beneath the sylvan shade of unfading foliage._ Mr. PUNCH--_who is free
of all places, from Fleet Street to Parnassus--discovered, in Arcadian
attire, attempting "numerous verse" on a subject of National
importance--to wit, the approaching Royal Marriage._
_Mr. Punch._ Propt on this "bank of amaranth and moly,"
Beneath the shade of boughs _un_melancholy,
I meditate on AEstas and on Hymen!
Pheugh! _What_ a Summer! Torrid drought doth try men,--
And fields and farms; yet when our Royal MAY
Weds--in July--'tis fit that Phoebus stay
His fiery car to welcome her! By Jove,
That sounds Spenserian! Illustrious Love
Epithalamion demands, and lo!
We've no official Laureate, to let flow,
With Tennysonian dignity and sweetness,
Courtly congratulation. DRYDEN's neatness,
Even the gush of NAHUM TATE or PYE
Are not available, so PUNCH must try
His unofficial pen. My tablets, TOBY!
This heat's enough to give you hydrophoby!
Talk about Dog-days! Is that nectar iced?
Then just one gulp! It beats the highest priced
And creamiest champagne. Now, silence, Dog,
And let me give my lagging Muse a jog!
[_Writes, with one eye on the portraits of the_ Duke of YORK
_and the_ Princess MAY, _the other on the iced nectar-cup._
Humph! I do hope the happy Royal Pair
(Whose counterfeit presentments front me there,
Inspiring, in young manhood and frank beauty)
Will think their Laureate hath fulfilled his duty,
His labour of most loyal love, discreetly.
Compliments delicate, piled not sickly-sweetly,
Like washy WARTON's, nor so loud thrasonical--
Like Glorious JOHN's--that they sound half ironical!
'Tis hard indeed for loyal love to hit
The medium just 'twixt sentiment and wit----
[TOBY _barks, and a mellifluous voice soundeth, courteously
intervenient, as two splendid Shades steal silently through
the verdurous shadows._
_First Voice._ But you _have_ hit it, never-missing-One!
_Second Voice._ For fulsome twaddle finds best check in Fun!
_Mr. Punch_ (_with respectful heartiness_). What! Sweet-voiced SPENSER!
Chivalrous-souled SIDNEY!!
This _is_ a joy! For heroes of your kidney
PUNCH hath a heartier homage, as he hopes,
Than the most thundering Swinburnian tropes
Could all express!
_Spenser_ (_smiling mildly_). ALGERNON's one of Us!
In fierce superlatives, and foam and fuss,
He deals o'ermuch, but proof lies in his page.
_He_'s of the true Parnassian lineage,
And should be Laureate--if he care to be so.
_Sidney._ Would he but heed what HORACE wrote to PISO!
"The singing-skill of god APOLLO's giving"
Is his, however, and no lyrist living
Hath such a stretch of finger, or such tone.
_Mr. Punch._ Faith, but he sings immortal Fames--your own,
My PHILIP, latest and not least--in strains
That thrill our nerves and mount into our brains.
If he would study less in GOSSON's "School"
(That of "Abuse," o'er which you laid the rule
In your "Defence of Poesy"), and stay
Less in dim Orcus than Arcadia,
Then--well, I might have well been spared this task.
SPENSER, _you_ penned _your own_; now may I ask
Epithalamion-recipes from you?
_Spenser_ (_smiling_). Yes--when you need them! I was Laureate too!
There's enough inspiration in those faces
[_Pointing to portraits of the_ Duke of YORK _and the_ Princess MAY.
To bring the needful Muses, and the Graces,
All to your aid!
_Mr. Punch._ By Jove! That "takes the cake."
You great Elizabethans had the knack
Of courtly compliment. Young GEORGE, fair MAY,
Shall have your _mot_ upon their marriage day,
As a choice wedding gift, to pair with mine!
_Spenser and Sidney_ (_together_). What's that?
_Mr. Punch_ (_politely_). One you may share, if you incline.
TOBIAS, hand the new-bound Oracle here!
Take it, brave SIDNEY, take it, SPENSER dear!
It may enliven e'en this amaranth shore;
It is my new
VOLUME ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR!!!
* * * * *
"APPARENT FAILURE."
["The Private View was not a success.... The dresses which we noticed
were very ordinary indeed."--_"Art Notes" in a Ladies' Paper._]
NOT a success--for every toilet there
Was commonplace and stupid, more or less;
A fact which clearly made the whole affair,
Not a success.
"Were not the pictures good?" Well, we confess
We know not, neither do we greatly care;
As writers for the fashionable Press,
Artistic knowledge falls not to our share;
We saw no novelties in hat or dress;
Therefore the Show is plainly, we declare,
"Not a success."
* * * * *
Illustration: "LIGHT AND LEADING."
* * * * *
"BANG WENT SAX-PENCE!"--_A propos_ of the New Coinage, the _Pall Mall
Gazette_ is our authority for saying, that "The design for the reverse
of the half-crown has been prepared by Mr. BROCK." BROCK is a name
hitherto associated in the popular mind with fireworks; and if the work
be entrusted to this cunning artificer, he will make the New Coinage go
off splendidly. He has, we believe, already submitted illuminated
designs to the QUEEN.
***
THE KENDALS are announced to appear at the Avenue Theatre. They start
with _A White Lie_. This is the truth. Free admissions will not be heard
of, except when they give _A Scrap of Paper_. They are also going to
produce a new play entitled, _Prince Karatoff_. The plot, to judge by
the name, will be of interest to Vegetarians, as it is whispered that
the hero, _Prince Karatoff_, falls in love with _Princess Turnipon_.
***
CURIOUSLY APPROPRIATE CONJUNCTION OF NAMES.--On Friday last the _Times_
published an important letter on a certain fishery. The fish was the
Salmon, and the writer of the letter was FFENNELL. We do not remember
ever having seen Salmon on table without FFENNELL, which is a fanciful
way of spelling it. All information concerning Salmon may now be
obtained from a "FFENNELL source."
* * * * *
Illustration: THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.
(_Very Latest Version._)
["There is a grievance which has taken hold in the last few years, under
which we are all groaning and complaining, without, as far as I can see,
any present remedy. I allude to the shameful way in which our linen is
destroyed and knocked about by the existing race of Washerwomen in the
Metropolis."--_M. J. G.'s Letter on "London Laundries," in the Daily
Telegraph._]
With wristbands grubby and worn,
With collars ragged and frayed,
A man moaned over a shirt all rags,
Cursing the laundress trade.
"Scrub! Scrub! Scrub!
With lime for extracting the dirt;
With chemicals rot, and with wire-brushes rub!"--
_That_'s the new Song of the Shirt.
Buy! Buy! Buy!
Though I'm but a poor Clerk, with scant "oof,"
Yet it's buy--buy--buy!
(My hosier's bills furnish full proof),
And it's O! to be a slave
To my Laundress, who's worse than a Turk.
I seldom look nice, and I never can save;
And this is woman's work!
Rub! Rub! Rub!
Till they're rugged at edge and at rim;
Scrub! Scrub! Scrub!
Till with scissors the cuffs I must trim.
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam;
And all the buttonholes gape, and the studs
Drop out in a golden stream.
O Men with sisters who wash,
With housewifely mothers or wives,
Who "do up" your linen, and _don't_ "put it out,"
You lead endurable lives!
Wash--Starch--Iron!
_That_ may mean home dampness and dirt;
But at least your collars won't chafe your neck,
And you'll boast a wearable shirt!
But why do I dream of soap,
Or of honest knuckle-bone?
Now most men's shirts come home in a shape
That's dreadfully like my own--
That's dismally like my own,
Unless a home laundry they keep;
Great Scott! that shirts should be so dear,
And chloride and wire so cheap!
Scrub! Scrub! Scrub!
The wire-brush never flags;
And what's the result? A collar that's rough,
And a front that's ever in rags!
That frayed-out wristband worries me sore,
It catches--and shows--the dirt.
And as for the collar!!!--I'll bet you a dollar
You've never one _clean_ to your shirt.
Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of old country linen so sweet,
Wherein lavender was spread,
Which was dried on the grass at our feet!
For only one short week
To feel as I used to feel,
Before women washed with chloride of lime,
And scrubbed with brushes of steel!
Oh! but for one short week
Of the good old-fashioned wash,
Before a laundry meant utter rot,
Lime, wax, and such chemical bosh!
A little swearing would ease my heart,
At that ogress, false, inhuman;
So to the papers a line I'll drop,
On the Modern Washerwoman!
With fingers ready and fleet,
With features indignantly red,
A poor Clerk wrote of his linen in rags,
And this is what he said:--
"Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
Yet _I_ can't keep a decent shirt!
The thing has reached an unbearable pitch,
So--as an appeal to the poor and the rich--
I sing the new Song of the Shirt!"
* * * * *
Illustration: EUPHEMISM.
_Cab Tout (exasperated by the persistent attentions of Constable)._
"LOOK 'ERE, OLE LIGHTNIN'-KETCHER, W'ERE THE MISSIN' WORD ARE YER
SHOVIN' US TO?"
* * * * *
ROBERT ON THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE DAY.
JOLLY old Crismus being cum round agen, as ushal, we had our
Crismus-Heve supper, as ushal, and henjoyed owrselves till a rayther
latish hour, as ushal. Upon cumpareing notes, we didn't find as we had
werry much to complane about, the grand and nobel old wirtue of
horsepitality perwailing much as ushal.
Howsumdever, upon cumparin notes a second time as to the most poplar
subjecks of conwersashun at the warious Eleckshun Dinners, on Saint
Tommas' Day, or the day when the hole of the Common Counselmen has to go
to their Constittuents for to be elected--though what St. Tommas ewer
had to do with it I never could dishcover, no more can BROWN--we found
as they was amost all on 'em a torkin about sum grate change, as a lot
of outsiders called County Counsellors was a going for to try to get
made; the werry principellist being, BROWN said, that they might have
occashonal use of the Manshun Ouse, and so give grand Dinners to the
West-End Swells, and so get them to wote for their having jolly hansum
allowences with which to pay for 'em! But quiet ole JOE, who's one of
them rum fellers as don't say much, but thinks a deal, says, in his
quiet way, as how as it's werry much wus than that, for, from what a
werry ancient Deputty said, as he was a helping him to his jugged air,
he had werry little dowt but that County Counsellors was acshally a
going in for erbollishing the hold Copperashun altogether! if they can
git the Goverment to be fools enuff for to promise to 'elp 'em. And
then, from what he heard from others, they are a going to rob the nobel
and Charytable Liwery Companys of all the money as they spends so nobly;
and then, not contented with that, they are a going for to ask Parlyment
to give them the command of all the sixteen thowsand Policemen as there
is in the hole of London; and then, not content with that, they are a
going for to erbolish all the eight Water Companys, and manage it all
theirselves; and then, not content with that, they are a going to take
all the Meet Markets, and the Fish Markets, includin Ancient
Billingsgate, and the Fruit and Wegeral Markets; and then, just to fill
up sum of their lezzur time, they are a going to erbolish the Thames
Conserwaters, and manage the River theirselves; and then, as they think
as them little trifles ain't quite enuff for 'em, they are a going to
arsk to be aloud to take charge of all the Docks and Wharfs on the
River! And then, as they will naterally want plenty of emusement after
their ard work, they arsks to be aloud to take over the control of
All the London Theaters!
I had a chat the other day with one of the LORD MARE's Footmen, as I
allers likes to go to the werry hiest orthorities, and he finished by
saying, most emfatically,--"Mr. ROBERT, I arsks you this simple
quesshun--If it takes about two hunderd and thirty gents to keep the
grand old Citty in the bootiful condishun as it allus is, and to keep us
all in the helthy condishun as we allus is, and with the remarkabel fine
happytites as we allus has, its size being ony one square mile, and our
number ony about fifty thowsand sleepers, and about ten times as many,
as cums ewery day to hearn their living, how is it possibel for a much
smaller number of Gents, with werry littel hexperiens, to do the same
with a plaice about a hunderd and twenty times as big, and with about
five millions of peepel in it? And you may trust what I says, for I had
it from our Chapling."
"Why," I says, boldly, "I says at once as I don't beleeve as it's
posserbel for 'em to do a quorter of it."
"Rite you are, Mr. ROBERT!" says he. And so we parted.
ROBERT.
* * * * *
AT ANCIENT DRURY.
DRURIOLANUS MAGNIFICUS has given us something gorgeous this year in "The
Hall of a Million Mirrors," the tenth Scene of his Pantomime entitled
_Little Bo-Peep, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hop o' My Thumb_, who are
three very small people,--"small by degrees and beautifully less"--to
make so big a Show. In the Hall of Mirrors appear all the well-known
representatives of ancient Nursery Rhymes, and all the heroes and
heroines of the universally familiar Fairy Stories. Down the Palace
stairs they come, group after group, until the Stage, even of Old Drury,
can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much
less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of
the Ancient JOSEPH, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most
brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!--that is, until next Pantomime
Season, when Sir DRURIOLANUS will, in all probability, show us something
equally magnificent, and as perfect in design and colour.
There is such a galaxy of talent, specially of Music-hall talent, with
the two MARIES, LOFTUS and LLOYD, the CAMPBELL of that ilk, comical DAN
LENO (who looks so comically Thin O), and the amusing Brothers
GRIFFITHS, but without the donkey, and with no quadruped to equal him,
though they do make beasts of themselves by appearing as wolves, who
will not be kept from the door of _Granny Green_, Mr. JOHN D'AUBAN,
utterly unrecognisable. Besides these is a Variety Show of other Stars,
including ever-graceful EMMA D'AUBAN, and Miss MABEL LOVE, of the
"skirts-so movement," both rightly reckoned in the programme as among
"the Immortals." Only one fault can be found with the Pantomime, and
that is, that there are too many brilliant Stars in it. They can't all
of them, each and severally, get an opportunity of showing how he or she
can shine in his or her own particular bright way; and so it happens
that the earliest scenes, which are less crowded, are the best for fun,
though in the latter, and specially in the one just preceding the
transformation, there is some capital comic business, and "LITTLE TICH"
is at his best in his burlesque of the Skirt Dance. We wonder that this
clever diminutive person has never appeared as "_the_ Claimant _par
excellence_." But perhaps his name is not "TICH" at all, and so, on his
first appearance on the world's stage, he was not a "_Tich-born_."
The _Extravaganza_ portion of the Pantomime--formerly styled the
"Opening"--gave us great pleasure, and the two "Comic Scenes"--(what are
all the preceding ones? Are CAMPBELL, LENO, WILLIAMS, and "LITTLE TICH,"
all tragedians?)--gave us Great PAYNE--yclept HARRY PAYNE, the good old
Conservative "JOEY."
If the possibilities, "_per variation et mutation_" of gorgeous modern
Pantomime, are exhausted--"which," as EUCLID observes, "is
impossible"--except we may "add a rider" (as the Clown in the Circle
might observe) that Pantomime is, in itself, a _reductio ad
absurdum_--then, perchance, Sir DRURIOLANUS MAGNIFICUS may give us next
Christmas a Shorter Opening, say ten Scenes, to be followed by six
Harlequinade Scenes, treating, by way of "Review," all the leading
topics of Ninety-Three. _Nous verrons_--at least, such is our hope. And
so a Prosperous New Year to Sir DRURIOLANUS, and all his works.
* * * * *
NOVEL, BUT NOT NEW.
(_A Story of Romance in Town and Country._)
SCENE I.--_Publisher's Sanctum._ Amateur Author _discovered
in consultation with_ Enterprising Publisher.
_Enterprising Publisher._ Yes, my dear Sir, I think, if you pay all the
expenses, we can see our way to giving _An Oppressed Ophelia_ a chance.
_Amateur Author._ You would not take a small risk?
_Ent. Publisher._ Why no, my dear Sir. I do not see how _An Oppressed
Ophelia_ can be made a safe investment without your entire assistance.
Possibly we may treat about your next novel, which I understand you to
say is called _An English Hamlet_, on other terms. In the meanwhile, let
us hope that _An Oppressed Ophelia_ will be successful.
[_Exeunt_ Author _and_ Publisher _severally._