At this culminating period of the summer season, it is natural that the
civic mind should turn itself to the contemplation of sweet rural
things, including shady groves, lunch-baskets, wild flowers, sandwiches,
bird songs, and bottled lager-bier.
The skies are at their bluest, now; the woods and fields are at their
greenest; flowers are blooming their yellowest, and purplest, and
scarletest. All Nature is smiling, in fact, with one large,
comprehensive smile, exactly like a first-class PRANG chromo with a
fresh coat of varnish upon it.
Things being thus, what can be more charming than a rural excursion to
some tangled thicket, the very brambles, and poison-ivy, and possible
copperhead snakes of which are points of unspeakable value to a picnic
party, because they are sensational, and one cannot have them in the
city without rushing into fabulous extra expense. It is good, then, that
neighbors should club together for the festive purposes of the picnic,
and a few words of advice regarding the arrangement of such parties may
be seasonable.
If your excursion includes a steamboat trip, always select a boat that
is likely to be crowded to its utmost capacity, more especially one of
which a majority of the passengers are babies in arms. There will
probably be some roughs on board, who will be certain to get up a row,
in which case you can make the babies in arms very effective as
"buffers" for warding off blows, while the crowd will save you from
being knocked down.
Should there be a bar on board the steamer, it will be the duty of the
gentlemen of the party to keep serving the ladies with cool beverages
from it at brief intervals during the trip. This will promote
cheerfulness, and, at the same time, save for picnic duty proper the
contents of the stone jars that are slumbering sweetly among the
pork-pies and apple-dumplings by which the lunch-baskets are occupied.
Never take more than one knife and fork with you to a picnic, no matter
how large the party may be. The probability is that you may be attacked
by a gang of rowdies and it is no part of your business to furnish them
with weapons.
Avoid taking up your ground near a swamp or stagnant water of any kind.
This is not so much on account of mosquitoes as because of the small
saurian reptiles that abound in such places. If your party is a large
one, there will certainly be one lady in it, at least, who has had a
lizard in her stomach for several years, and the struggles of the
confined reptile to join its congeners in the swamp might induce
convulsions, and so mar the hilarity of the party.
To provide against an attack by the city brigands who are always
prowling in the vicinity of picnic parties, it will be judicious to
attend to the following rules:
Select all the fat women of the party, and seat them in a ring outside
the rest of the picnickers, and with their faces toward the centre of
the circle. In the event of a discharge of missiles this will be found a
very effective _cordon_--quite as effective, in fact, as the feather
beds used in the making up of barricades.
Let the babies of the party be so distributed that each, or as many as
possible of the gentlemen present, can have one at hand to snatch up and
use for a fender should an attack at close quarters be made.
If any dark, designful strangers should intrude themselves upon the
party, unbidden, the gentlemen present should by no means exhibit the
slightest disposition to resent the intrusion, or to show fight, as the
strangers are sure to be professional thieves, and, as such, ready to
commit murder, if necessary. Treat the strangers with every
consideration possible under the circumstances. Should there be no
champagne, apologize for the absence of it, and offer the next best
vintage you happen to have. Of course, having lunched, the strangers
will be eager to acquire possession of all valuables belonging to the
party. The gentlemen, therefore, will make a point of promptly handing
over to them their own watches and jewelry, as well as those of their
lady friends.
Having arrived home, (we assume the possibility of this,) refrain,
carefully, from communicating with the police on the subject of the
events of the day. The publicity that would follow would render you an
object of derision, and no possible good could result to you from
disclosure of the facts. But you should at once make up your mind never
to participate in another picnic.
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