It is a great thing to know--and one must believe it if one believes,
as I do, in what the newspapers say--that every single male member of
the upper or fashionable ranks of society is at this moment engaged in
slaughtering grouse. It is of course well known that every member of
Parliament is, on his election, presented by a grateful country with
a large and well-stocked grouse-moor, situated in one of the most
picturesque and romantic parts of Scotland, and no one (not even a
brewer) is ever raised to the peerage unless he can prove that at
least three generations of his family have shot grouse regularly on
the 12th of August on a moor of their own. Thus is the connection of
both branches of our legislature with sport safeguarded.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Whenever the 12th of August, or, for the matter of that, the 1st of
September or the 1st of October, comes round with the revolving year,
we are informed in every newspaper that "Sportsmen were early
astir." There is about these words a halo of tradition so ancient and
venerable as to have become almost sacred. Imagination conjures up the
picture of happy bands of shooters all duly booted, gaitered, gunned,
cartridged and cigarred, sallying forth with dogs and keepers at 5
A.M., no doubt after eating, as condemned men do, a hearty breakfast.
Of course this may be so. I have read it so often that I hardly dare
to doubt it. My own experience, however, is that sportsmen are
not specially early even on the 12th, although keepers and other
professional guns who cater for the London market are often so early
as to anticipate by more than a few hours the recurring anniversary.
* * * * *
Now with black London's close and torrid street
Stern Caledonia's heathered moors compete.
Lo, well equipped with cartridge-bag and gun,
Concurrent streams of rank and fashion run
Where, though the birds be strong upon the wing,
Not unrewarded sounds the frequent ping;
Where dealing fate to feather (and to fur)
The early sportsman is perceived astir,
And in the lengthy language of the chase,
A bird's no bird, but merely half a brace.
Some skilful, some not fit to shoot for nuts,
Walk for their game or take their stand in butts;
And, wondrous fact, as all the scribes proclaim,
Each from a separate butt destroys his game.
At least it was so when the EMPEROR shot, so
With non-Imperials it perhaps is not so.
* * * * *
I am never irritable myself; I am sometimes justifiably annoyed by the
unreasonable conduct of a friend. But I have often noticed the most
melancholy irritability in others, and have wondered why they gave
way to it, and what it portended. Now I know. I have been reading
the _Medical Press and Courier_, and I learn from it that "this
hyperæsthesia of the temper is the direct outcome of overwork and want
of sleep; in fact, it is a morbid sensitiveness of the cells of the
cerebral cortex due to exhaustion or under-nutrition. Irritability is,
therefore a clinical sign of some importance, the more so because
it is often the premonitory indication of impending breakdown. Under
these circumstances, the condition is usually most marked during the
forenoon, and is associated with a distaste for food at breakfast
time. Later on, even the humanising effect of a good lunch fails
to raise circulatory activity to the standard required for adequate
cerebral nutrition, and the irritability becomes chronic, yielding
only to the influence of repeated doses of a diffusible stimulant,
such as brandy and soda. The remedy naturally only aggravates the
symptom, which is sooner or later followed by other manifestations of
cerebral exhaustion."
* * * * *
When you're lost in the whirl of a medical vortex,
You gasp and you grasp, and you'll struggle in vain;
For it seems you have cells in your cerebral cortex,
Which is somehow connected, I fancy, with brain.
Exhausted and panting with under-nutrition,
You dare not presume to declare yourself well,
And you rapidly tend to complete inanition,
Produced by a morbidly sensitive cell.
The result is a wound to the temper, a something
Not as deep as a well, but, no matter, it serves,
Perplexing your friends, who pronounce it a rum thing
That DICK--that's yourself--should have gone in the nerves.
You toy with your breakfast; the kidney, the kipper,
The egg that is buttered, the egg that is fried,
The tea that once found you a regular sipper,
Unsipped and untasted you push them aside.
Your lunch of cold beef with the gaff and the shandy,
You simply can't face it, your head is one ache:
A "diffusible stimulant" (alias brandy)
Is all that you wish for and all that you take.
A day or two back all your manners were courtly,
Alas, what a change is apparent to-day,
For you jump on your friends, and you take them up shortly,
With a quarrel a minute whatever they say.
Then, in spite of the canon that's set 'gainst self-slaughter
(In the language of verdicts it's _felo de se_,)
Some day you'll be found with your head in the water,
Six inches will do, or attached to a tree.
* * * * *
There have been some difficulties at Brierly Hill. At a recent meeting
of the Urban Council a letter was read from the Local Government Board
asking for information with regard to a communication which Dr. ELLIS,
the medical officer of health, had addressed to them. This referred to
the fact that Dr. ELLIS had ordered a "dumb" well at the Town Hall to
be cleared out. What is the use of a dumb well? Even if it contains
the truth it cannot speak it. Personally, I prefer a babbling brook.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
What is this? Is it a revolution or merely a mistake? Do I sleep, do
I dream, or is visions about? These questions occur to me on reading
that at Ironbridge the other day a clown, a member of a circus,
was brought up on remand charged with stealing £1 10s. and several
articles, the property of his landlady. And he was actually sentenced
to fourteen days' hard labour. All I can say is that I have rarely
allowed a year to pass without seeing at least one clown steal a
string of sausages, a lady's bonnet, two plump babies, half a dozen
fowls, the greater part of a general dealer's property, and the upper
half of a policeman. Nobody bothered him about it. In fact, everybody
expected him to do it, and there would have been great dissatisfaction
if he had observed the laws against larceny. And yet when a clown
at Ironbridge acts as clowns are intended to act, an unfeeling bench
visits him with a fortnight of hard labour. This is preposterous.
There ought to be an Amalgamated Union of Clowns to protect its
members from such an outrage.
* * * * *
Those who study the reports of meetings of Town Councils learn many
things. For instance, at Bristol the other day, during a discussion of
passenger tolls at the docks, Mr. GORE complained that they had been
hocussed by the chairman of the sub-committee that day. Mr. BAKER
objected to the word "hocussed" being applied to him, but added that
they had been hocussed out of a good deal of time to-day, and Mr.
GORE retorted that they were going to be hocussed out of another
quarter-of-an-hour yet. Mr. BAKER asked Mr. GORE to withdraw the word,
and Mr. GORE refused. Matters had apparently come to a desperate pass,
when it occurred to the Mayor to inquire what the word "hocussed"
meant. Mr. BAKER thought it was something akin to cheating, whereupon
Mr. GORE, in the handsomest manner, said that knowing the meaning
of the word he would now withdraw it. The only thing that was not
explained was why Mr. GORE had used a word of the meaning of which he
was ignorant. There is a fatal attraction about the sound of certain
words which forces speakers to use them entirely without regard to
their actual meaning.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A LESSON IN DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
_Laura_ (_to her rich Sister, who has been extravagant as usual_).
"I _DO_ THINK IT'S A MISTAKE TO BUY AN UGLY THING ONE DOESN'T WANT,
MERELY BECAUSE IT'S _DEAR!_"]
* * * * *
'ARRY ON HARRY.
(_A Rejoinder to "Harry on 'Arry."_)
Dear CHARLIE,--My eye and a bandbox! Wot next, and _wot_ next,
_and_ WOT next?
'Ere's a HARRY 'as mounted the pulpit, and taken poor _me_ as 'is
text![A]
'E bangs _Boernerges_ to bittocks, this lar-de-dar bagman--in silk--
And 'e's going to do me a fair knock-out as sure as a whale ain't
a whilk.
I larf, I do, CHARLIE, tremenjus! Wot's needled my nabs, it appears,
Is 'is being mistooken for Me!!! Well, 'e needn't 'ave no blooming
fears!
The public ain't _all_ of 'em mugginses, some of 'em _can_ twig a
joke.
Confound _'im_ with _me?_ Yus, they will--when they can't tell
_Bend Or_ from a moke.
'E calls me,--yus, _me_,--"the cad-cockney well known to the 'Eath
and the 'Arp."
Well, that's a fair challenge, old man, and I mean being on to
'im--sharp!
I'll take 'im--with 'is aitches chucked in--with one 'and
whensomever 'e likes;
And "Cads" do the road in smart dog-carts as well as afoot or on
bikes.
"'ARRY the Cad!" Great Jemimer! Jest fancy our HARRY'S disgust
At the thought of their knocking _'is_ aitch out! 'E's fair on the
bile and the bust.
Way oh, HARRY! Do keep yer 'air on, old pal, if you've _got_ any
thatch,--
For it's wonderful 'ow these swell HARRIES go in for the shiny
pink patch!
It's their brines working through--_or_ their bumptiousness.
_I_'ve got no hend of a crop,
As looks, when I've 'ad a close clip, like a fuzz-bush a sprouting
up top;
But lor! these 'ere munchy-mouthed mashers--_with_ aitches--as
gives theirselves hairs,
Carn't grow any, not arter thirty, the bladder-o'-lardy-dar scares!
'Owsomever, that ain't to the pint, CHARLIE. Wot _is_ a Gent?
That's the nip!
Well, it's partly a matter of "snap"-like, and partly a matter of
"snip."
If I've got the grit and the gumption, and know 'ow to tog like a
toff,
I've got the true gent in my nyture, and them as ain't got
it--they're hoff!
But "aitches" won't do it, my pippin! Yer grammar may be quite O K,
All yer parts o' speech proper as pie, and yer spellin' fust chop
in its way,
But if you can't rattle and patter, and 'old up your end like a man,
All yer mincey-wince mealy-mouthed has-p'rates is nothink but slop
and cold-scran.
You may garsp out yer aitches in spassums, until you 'ave got a
sore throat,
And it won't give you "clarss" arf as much as cool cheek and the
cut o' your coat.
Wot the mivvies call hinsolent _hotoor_, wot cocktails dub
cocksure conceit,
With snideness and "suitings" to match,--_that_, dear boy, is wot
makes the _eleet_.
There, HARRY, you've got it in once! And, now, dear boy, 'ow about
you?
Well, I guess, as the Yankees observe, you 'ave bit hoff a chunk
you can't chew.
Bit vulgar? Well, never mind that, mate, for, spite of _your_
finnickle fuss,
It's jest wot you guffins calls "vulgar" as swells love to borrer
from _hus_.
There's _chick_ in it, HARRY, and that's wot you chalk-witted
chowders ain't got.
Not one snappy snide phrase in your sermon, except that old gag
"tommy rot,"
Which _you_ didn't invent, nor your sort; it's hus aitchless ones
start all the fun,
And our yesterday's wheeze you freeze on to to-morrer, as sure as
a gun.
And the same with your sentiments, HARRY. Your loud "Rule,
Britannyer" sall right;
But _we_ gave you the patriot tip, years ago, in "_We don't want
to fight._"
You water it down, and then wave it as if 'twos your own privit
flag,
And then, arter nicking our principerles, slang us--_and with our
own gag!_
I'm one with you as to the furriner, leastways _you_ seem one with
_me_,
And when you rile up at the rot about "'ARRIES Abroad," I agree.
_I_ shan't discumfuddle myself if they _don't_ like my tystes or
my togs.
Let the Germans go 'ome and eat coke, Frenchies stick to their
snyles and stewed frogs.
But when you suggest as the "aitch" makes a 'a'porth o'
difference--Bosh!
You call me a "aitch-droppin' howler," whilst you are "a gent"! It
won't wash.
_Me_ a Rad,--arter all I 'ave written? 'Taint much on it _you_ can
'ave seen.
And to ask _Punch_ to give me the chuck!--yah! it's mean, Mister
HARRY, it's mean!
[Footnote A: See "Harry on 'Arry," p. 81.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "CALM AND PEACE."
LORD S-L-SB-RY (_Skipper_). "WELL, ARTHUR, WE'VE WON OUR RACES--AND
NOW WE CAN TAKE IT EASY!"
["I hope we shall have a period of calm and peace."--_Mr. Balfour's
Speech, August 12._]]
"A Battersea bounder," too! Rats!!! Do you think I'm a pal o' JACK
BURNS?
Mix _me_ with "the masses"? Great Scott! It's a thought as the
soul o' me spurns.
You jumped-up, cheap, Coventry bagman, silk-sampling, no doubt, is
your biz,
But sampling "the classes and masses" is _not_, blow me tight if
it is!
Yah! Pack up your ribbings, _and_ aitches, and don't aggranoy me
no more,
But jest mind your own interference! A bounder you are--_and_ a
bore.
You've borrered my patriot sperrit, you've borrered a slang phrase
or so,
But there's one thing, my boy, you _carn't_ borrer, and that is my
rattle and go!
There, CHARLIE, I've given _'im_ beans, this 'ere HARRY, as carn't
abear Cads,
And wants to put up a aitch-fence like to keep out us row-de-dow
lads.
Let 'im call 'isself 'ENERY at once, _that's_ the badge for sech
bounders to carry,
And then 'e may bet 'is larst bob as _'e_ won't be confounded with
'ARRY.
* * * * *