Dear Mr. Punch,--I am writing to you about uncles because you
are in a way a kind of general uncle. Uncles are much more useful than
aunts, because uncles always give money and aunts mostly give advice.
Only, as the Head always says when he jaws our form, "I regret to see in
this form a serious deterioration"--I mean in uncles. They come down
here and trot us round and say what a luxurious place it is compared
with the stern old Spartan days. They know something, though. They ask
us to have meals with them at an hotel. They take care not to face a
luxurious house-dinner. And while we dine they tell yarns about the
hardness of the old days and how it toughened a fellow. And then,
because about 1870 it was the custom to tip a boy five bob, they fork
out five bob and tell you not to waste it.
If the Head had any sense--only you can't expect sense from Heads--he'd
put up a notice at the school gates: "Parents, Uncles and Friends are
respectfully reminded that the cost of tuck has increased three hundred
per cent. since 1914." Why, old Badham, my bedroom prefect, who was a
fag in 1914, turned up the other day and declared that then he could buy
four pounds of strawberries for a bob, and that a fag could get enough
chocolate for two bob to give him a week in the sick-room.
Yet we have uncles coming down in trains (fare fifty per cent. extra),
smoking cigars (costing two hundred per cent. extra), cabbing it up to
school (a hundred-and-fifty per cent. extra) and then tipping as if the
old Kaiser was still swanking in Potsdam.
Now Sutton minor, who has a positive beast of a house-master and is
practically a Bolshevist, says that we ought to go on strike against the
tipping system and demand a regular living wage from relations. He says
that if a scavenger gets four quid a week a fellow who has to tackle
Greek aorists ought to get eight quid a week.
But I'm afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting
the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to
you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and
that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and whenever
high prices bothered them they should write us a bright cheerful letter
enclosing a postal order--they're still quite cheap.
Chalmers major, who has read this and leads a sad life, having only
aunts, says that the only hope for him is in fixing a standard tip of
9_s._ 11¾_d._ or, better still, 19_s._ 11¾_d._, that women couldn't
help giving.
So hoping that all uncles will put their hands to the plough--I mean in
their pockets--and then the bitter cry of the New Poor will cease in our
public schools,
Yours respectfully, Bruce Tertius.
* * * * *
"Notice.
My wife, Roxie M. ----, having left my bed and board, I will not
be responsible for any bills contracted after this date, June
21, 1920. Fred ----." _American Paper_.
"Notice.
The undersigned wishes to state I had just cause to leave, but I
left neither bed nor board as I furnished my own board, and the
bed being mine I took it. Roxie ----."
_Same Paper, following day._