Of course I don't kno how jolly Old Krismus affecks other peepel, but I
do kno how it affecks me, and that is, that I allus feels pertickler
kind to pore ragged littel children, such as we sees in sum of our
back-streets and sitch places, and eweryboddy can therefore understand
without werry much trubble how werry pleased I was at what append the
other day, and how jolly prowd I was at being alloud to have my little
share in it.
I offishyated the other day at a werry werry nice party of about twenty,
at one of our best Tavverns, and they was about as nice and brite and
jowial a set of Gents as I have had the honner of waiting on for sum
time parst. They larfed and they chatted away as I likes to see 'em, cos
I nos from my long experience that them's the sort of Gents as is allus
werry libberal to the pore Waiters. Well, one of the werry britest and
wittyest of 'em all, jest about the time as the sperrits is the highest,
wiz., about a hower after dinner, when the wine is a having its werry
best effect, pulls a paper out of his pocket that was ruled all over,
and had a lot of names on it, and he says, says he, with his werry
britest smile, "We've all had a jolly nice dinner, and plenty of good
honnest fun, and I now want you all to join me in a reel good lark;" and
they all looks at him quite hegerly. Then he says, "If you will every
one of you give me a shilling, I will let you have a chance in my
lottery, where they is all prizes and no blanks, and the prizes will
give as much plezzur and appyness," says he, "as the jolly good dinner
we has all just had."
So they all larfed at the funny idear, and they past the paper round,
and ewery one on 'em sined his name and cashed up a shilling.
"I now garrantees," I think he sed, "that for ewery shilling you have
given me no less than twenty-four pore little children shall have a good
dinner; and so, as there is jest twenty of us, we shall have purwided a
good dinner for no less than fore hunderd and hayty pore little hungry
children!"
I was that estonished at this wunderfull rewelashun that I was struck
dum for a minnet, while the jolly party rapped the table and cried,
"Bravo!" But I soon pulled myself together, and, going up quietly behind
the kind-arted Gent, I says, in a whisper, "Please, Sir, will you kindly
let me be a subscriber?" And he did, and I paid my shilling, and sined
my name, amid the cheers of the cumpny, and then retired, as prowd as a
Alderman. But what a fact for an Hed Waiter to ponder hover! A dinner
for a hapenny! and the dinner as this jolly party had bin a eating cost,
I dessay, quite thirty shillings a head, which I makes out to be, not
being a werry grand skoller, about enuff for some seven hunderd pore
children's dinners! I leaves to stronger heds than mine to calkerlate
how many pore children the bill for the hole twenty wood have paid for;
BROWN says ewer so many thousands; but BROWN does always xagerate so.
ROBERT.
* * * * *
"HER MAJESTY'S OPPOSITION."
AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS IMPERATOR, of course, represents "the Government,"
and Messrs. H. J. LESLIE and HARRIS (CHARLES of that ilk) are "Her
Majesty's Opposition," who are to be congratulated on their Pantomime of
_Cinderella_ at Her Majesty's Theatre. Having purchased the book,--which
must be classed among the "good books" of the season,--I can say
decidedly that there is a considerable, though not a material,
difference between the Pantomime _Cinderella_ "as she is wrote" by the
two pretty men "Messrs. RICHARD and HENRY,"--whose surnames, I am
informed, are synonymous with those of a great English theologian and a
still greater English astronomer,--and "the Pantomime _Cinderella_" as
she is now performed at Her Majesty's. "Cut and run" must ever be the
motto of the Playright's and the theatrical Manager's action; but what
astonished me, before I consulted the book, was the omission on the
stage of the striking dramatic climax,--especially striking, because a
clock is involved in it,--of _Cinderella's_ story.
Illustration: Portrait of Cinderella "Palmer quæ meruit." A Minnie-ture.
Could I believe my eyes, when, after a magnificent ball-room scene,
where the colours are grouped with consummate skill and taste, I saw the
handsome prince Miss ROBINA _remplaçante_ of Miss VIOLET CAMERON, lead
to her place in the centre of that glittering throng the _petite et
pétillante Cinderella_ in her Court dress, wearing her little glass
slippers (very little slippers, and very little glass), and then,
nothing happened, except that the next Scene descended, and hid them
from view.
But, Heavens! had the Clock in the Palace Yard stopped? Had its works
got out of order? Had it followed the example of the Dock and Gasmen,
and "struck," by refusing to strike? Ah! "Inventor and Producer," Ah!
Mr. H. J. LESLIE, "Ah!" to everyone who had a hand in this sacrilege;
"Ah!" on behalf of Messrs. RICHARD and HENRY, who could not have yielded
this point except under a strong protest,--please restore this. We would
all of us from eight years old (permitted by home licence to go to
theatres at night during Christmas holidays), and up to over fifty
(compelled to go to look after the others, and delighted to do so)--we
would all of us rather hear the clock strike twelve, see _Cinderella_ in
rags, running for bare life, see the Prince in despair at the flight of
his partner, on whose card his name was down for sixteen more valses and
galops, than witness a black-and-white dance, with fans, pretty in
itself, and set to very pretty Solomonesque music, but meaningless as
regards plot.
Here is the stage-direction--"_At the end of song_"--which should have
been a national song, by Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT, but wasn't--in fact, there
was no song at all, as well as I can remember, though I rather think the
crowd were always more or less singing a chorus,--"_clock strikes_." If
it did, I didn't hear it. If it did, why didn't the characters behave as
sich, and on _Cinderella's_ saying what the authors have written, and
which I am positive I didn't hear,
"What shall I do? the hour has struck at last!
I hope to goodness that that clock's too fast!"
why didn't they execute a "_Hurried Gallop_," and why wasn't the
stage-direction, "_The Ball breaks up_,"--the printer prefers "breakes
up,"--"_in wild confusion_" carried out? No one knows better than this
present scribe what changes are necessitated at the last moment, and
after the book is published. But an alteration which omits the point of
the story is scarcely an improvement. It does not affect me that the
demon _Scroogins_ was reduced comparatively to a dummy, for poor Mr.
SHIEL BARRY was suffering from dreadful hoarseness, and could hardly
speak, much less sing. There were originally too many plums in the
pudding. The knock-about scene by two ARMSTRONGS, in imitation of our
old friends the Two MACS, very ingeniously introduced as _Jeames the
First_ and _Jeames the Second_, Royal Footmen, is immensely funny.
_Cinderella's_ jödelling lullaby is pretty. All the music is bright and
lively, and I fancy that though there are the names of four or five
Composers to the bill, Conductor SOLOMON,--who keeps them all going, and
sticks to his beat with the tenacity of a policeman,--has done the major
part of it, and the minor too. Bravo, Mr. EDWARD SOLOMON! "What's a hat
without a head?" and what's a Norchestra without a NED? Mr. ALFRED
CELLIER is responsible for a charming minuet.
Extraordinary Omission from the Shakspeare Tableaux at Her
Majesty's, when they had the materials at hand--