Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 158.
February 25th, 1920.
CHARIVARIA.
"Another American," says a Washington despatch, "has been captured by
Mexicans and is being held to ransom." We deplore these pin-prick tactics.
If there is something about the United States that President CARRANZA wants
changed he should say so.
* * *
A contemporary states that the old theory, that when your ears burn it
means that people are talking about you, is accurate. Upon hearing this a
dear old lady at once commenced to crochet a set of asbestos ear-guards for
Mr. CHURCHILL.
* * *
The American gentleman who claims to have invented _revues_ is shortly
coming over to England for a holiday. Personally we should advise him to
wait until the crime wave has died down a bit.
* * *
It is pleasing to note that in spite of the recent spring-like weather the
POET LAUREATE is calmly keeping his head.
* * *
In their last Note to Holland on the subject of the ex-Kaiser's trial the
Allied Governments drop a hint that it was they and not Holland who won the
War. It is impossible to be too definite on this matter.
* * *
Cotton, it is announced, has gone up to tenpence a reel. The new American
whisky stands at the same figure.
* * *
"Boys sing automatically, like parrots," declares the choirmaster of St.
John's Church, Grimsby. His facts are wrong. The only thing automatic about
a parrot is its bite.
* * *
So thirsty were the Americans on board, it is stated, that on her homeward
trip the _Mauretania_ was drunk dry two days out. To remedy this
unsatisfactory state of affairs a syndicate of wealthy Americans is
understood to be formulating an offer to tow Ireland over to the New Jersey
coast if a liquor licence is granted to the tug.
* * *
There is no truth in the report that, as the result of a majority vote of
the Dublin Corporation, the sword and mace have been replaced by a pistol
and mitre.
* * *
We live in strenuous times. The MAD MULLAH has been reported in action and
Willesden has won the London Draughts' Tournament.
* * *
By the way, those who remember the MAD MULLAH'S earlier escapades are of
the opinion that it is high time for him to be killed again.
* * *
The HOME SECRETARY hopes to introduce an Anti-Firearms Bill. Under this Act
it is expected that it will be made illegal for criminals to shoot at
people into whose homes they break.
* * *
A postcard posted in 1888 has just been delivered to _The Leeds Mercury_,
and they ask if this is a record. Not a permanent one, if the Post Office
can help it.
* * *
A young lady told the Stratford magistrates that she gave up her young man
because he said he was a millionaire, and she had later learned that he was
a waiter. But there is nothing contradictory in this.
* * *
The ex-CROWN-PRINCE has written in the _Taegliche Rundschau_ on "How I Lost
the War." He pays a fine tribute to the British soldier, who, it appears,
helped him to lose it.
* * *
"How to Manage Twopenny Eggs" is the headline of a morning paper. A good
plan is to grip them firmly round the neck and wring it.
* * *
An article in _Tit-Bits_ tells readers how to make canaries pay. We have
felt for some time that there must be a better method than that of suing
the birds in the County Court.
* * *
"Useful wedding-presents are now the vogue," says a weekly journal. Only
last week we heard of a Scotsman who at a recent wedding gave the bride
away.
* * *
"The Jolly Bachelors" is the title of a new club at Nottingham. No attempt
has yet been made to start a Jolly Husbands' Club.
* * *
It is gratifying to learn that the workman who last week fell from some
scaffolding in Oxford Street, but managed to grasp a rope and hang on to it
till rescued fifteen minutes later, has now been elected an honorary member
of the Underground Travellers' Association.
* * *
A reader living in Hertfordshire writes to say that spring-like weather is
prevailing and that a pair of bricklayers who started building about three
weeks ago can now be seen daily sitting on three bricks which they laid
last week.
* * *
With such energy are the inhabitants of Leeds carrying out their campaign
against rats that it is considered unsafe for any rodent under three years
old to venture out alone after dark.
* * *
We are glad to learn that the Brixton lady who mislaid her husband last
week at one of these West-End bargain sales has now received him back from
the firm in fairly good condition.
* * *
During the recent spell of warm weather several wooden houses threw out new
shoots, some of which are already in bud.
* * *
We understand that the Government contemplate passing a Bill to forbid
silver-weddings unless a larger percentage of alloy is used with them.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE CRIME WAVE.
_Crank_ (_enlarging upon pet theory_). "I TELL YOU, SIR, WE ARE ALL OF US
BOLSHEVISTS AT HEART. THE ONLY THING THAT'S KEEPING YOU AND ME FROM A LIFE
OF CRIME IS THE THOUGHT OF THE POLICEMAN ROUND THE CORNER."]
* * * * *
"How utterly unimpressive for ceremonial purposes is the ordinary
episcopal habit.... What dignity it ever possessed has been most
successfully shorn off by the merciless scissors of ecclesiastical
tailors. The history of the chimere and rochet has been truly tragic."
--_Church Paper._
Fortunately, the hat and gaiters do something to relieve the gloom.
* * * * *
CLOTHES AND THE POET.
["The public will welcome an announcement that the standard clothing
scheme may be revived on a voluntary basis."--_The Times_.]
I do not ask for silk attire,
For purple, no, nor puce;
The only wear that I require
Is something plain and loose,
A quiet set of reach-me-downs for serviceable use.
For these, which I must have because
The honour of the Press
Compels me, by unwritten laws,
To clothe my nakedness,
Four guineas is my limit--more or (preferably) less.
Let others go in Harris tweeds,
Men of the leisured sort;
Mine are the modest, homely needs
That with my state comport;
I am a simple labouring man whose work is all his sport.
I covet not the gear of those
Who neither toil nor spin;
I merely want some standard clo's
To drape my standard skin,
Wrought of material suitable for writing verses in.
Something that won't pick up the dust
When rhymes refuse to flow;
And roomy, lest the seams be bust
Should the afflatus blow--
Say five-and-forty round the ribs and rather more below.
For poets they should stock a brand
To serve each type's behest--
Pastoral, epic, lyric--and
An outer size of chest
For those whose puffy job it is to build the arduous jest.
O.S.
* * * * *
THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.
(_An imaginary conversation._)
[In his lecture at the Royal Institution, to which Mr. Punch recently
referred, Mr. ALFRED NOYES said that "our art and literature were
increasingly Bolshevik, and if they looked at the columns of any
newspaper they would see the unusual spectacle of the political editor
desperately fighting that which the art and literary portions of the
paper upheld."]
SCENE.--_A Club-room near Fleet Street. The_ Political Editor _and the_
Literary Editor _of "The Daily Crisis" are discovered seated in adjoining
armchairs_.
_Political Editor._ Excuse me, but haven't I seen you occasionally in _The
Crisis_ office?
_Literary Editor._ Possibly. I look after its literary pages, you know.
_P.E._ Really? I run the political columns. Did you read my showing-up this
morning of the Bolshevik peril in the House of Lords?
_L.E._ I'm afraid I never read the political articles. Did you notice my
two-column boom of young Applecart's latest book of poems?
_P.E._ No time to read the literary columns, and modern poetry's as good as
Chinese to me. Who's Applecart?
_L.E._ My dear Sir, is it possible that you are unfamiliar with the author
of _I Will Destroy_? He's the hope of the future as far as English poetry
is concerned.
_P.E. (cheerfully)._ Never heard of him. What's he done?
_L.E. (impressively)._ He has overthrown all the rules, not only of art,
but of morality. He has created a new Way of Life.
_P.E._ Can't see that that's anything to shout about. What's his platform,
anyway?
_L.E._ Platform? To anyone who has tho slightest acquaintance with
Applecart the very idea of a platform is fantastic. He doesn't stand; he
soars.
_P.E._ Well, what are his _views_, then? Pretty tall, I suppose, if he's
such a high flier.
_L.E._ You may well say so. In the first place he discards all the old
artistic formulae.
_P.E._ I know; you write a solid slab of purple prose, scissor it into a
jig-saw puzzle, serve it with a dazzle dressing and call it the New Poetry.
_L.E._ Have your joke, if you will. But, more important still, Applecart is
a rebel against humanity and all its fetishes, social, ethical and
political.
_P.E. (startled)._ A Bolshie, I suppose you mean?
_L.E._ The artist is proof against all these vulgar terms of abuse, culled
from the hustings. Call him a Pussyfoot as well; you cannot shake him from
his pinnacle.
_P.E._ Yes, but look here--he's just the sort of pernicious agitator we're
out against in _The Crisis_--at least in my department. My special article
this morning--three thickly-leaded columns--actually revealed the existence
of a most insidious plot to undermine the restraining influence of the
House of Lords by the spread of Bolshevik propaganda masquerading as
literature. You see, there's a certain section of the Lords, mainly new
creations who've only recently been released from various employments, who
now for the first time in their lives have leisure for reading; then
there's the spread of education among the sporting Peers. Well, these
people are ready to succumb to all sorts of poisonous doctrines, if they're
served up in what I presume to be the fashionable mode of the moment; and I
expect your precious Applecart is one of the Bolsh agents who are laying
the trap. You'll have to stop booming him, you know. He's not doing the
paper any good.
_L.E._ My dear Sir, literature takes no account of the fads and fancies of
party politics. And I gather from you that party politics have no use for
literature except from a propagandist view. Let us be content to go our own
ways in peace.
_P.E._ Yes, that's all very well for you and me, but what about the Chief?
How does he reconcile these absolutely conflicting standpoints? And what
does the public think of it all?
_L.E. (confidentially)._ Between you and me, the Chief knows his public.
And the public knows its papers. The last thing it wants from us is
consistency, which is always boring. Besides (_still more confidentially_),
the public doesn't take us quite so seriously as we like to pretend.
_P.E._ H'm, maybe you're right. As a matter of fact (_lowering his voice_)
I sometimes think I'm a bit of a Socialist myself.
_L.E._ Really? As for me (_conspiratorially_), I adore TENNYSON, and EZRA
POUND fills me with a secret wrath. Still, the public--
_P.E._ Ah, the public--! Have a drink?
[_They pledge each other. NOYES without. They disperse hurriedly._
* * * * *
"In view of the serious shortage of female help, the United Boards of
Trade of Western Ontaria have been discussing proposals to encourage
the immigration of young women from Great Britain."--_Morning Paper_.
And have apparently feminized the Province in advance.
* * * * *
"If the Archdeacon of Coventry is correct in stating, as he did in
Convocation, that the word 'tush' found in the Psalter means 'bosh,' it
must in this sense be what the classical dons call a 'hapslegomenon'."
--_Evening Standard_.
Which, again, must be what the classical undergraduates call a "slipsus
languae."
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE IRREMOVABLES.
TURKEY (_to his old patron in Holland_). "SO, WE'RE BOTH REMAINING, WHAT?"
VOICE FROM THE OTHER END. "YES, BUT _YOU_'VE GOT TO BEHAVE."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Angry Father (of the Old School)._ "I SHALL CUT YOU OFF
WITH A SHILLING!"
_The Prodigal._ "NOT ONE OF THE NEW NICKEL THINGS, I HOPE, FATHER?"]
* * * * *
THE COWARD.
Cecilia was knitting by the fire.
"What on earth have you two been doing?" she asked as we came in. "John
looks as if he'd been in a boiler explosion."
"Hardly that," I said. "We've been playing with Chris--haven't we, John?"
John gasped.
"No, we haven't," he said. "On the contrary, _they_ have been playing with
_me_, Cecilia."
"Well, it's all the same thing, isn't it?" said Cecilia. "Anyhow, I heard
_you_ making a most frightful row."
"Of course I was making a row. So would you make a row if people suddenly
mistook you for a Teddy Bear or something and started bunging you about the
room."
"I haven't the least idea what you're talking about," said Cecilia, "but I
think you're being intensely vulgar."
"Vulgar! 'Vulgar,' she says." He laughed bitterly. "You'd be vulgar too if
you'd had that great hulking brute" (he pointed at me) "sitting on the
small of your back, and a hooligan of a boy--"
Cecilia sat up and took notice.
"Hooligan!" she said, "Hooligan! Who's a Hooligan?"
"Sh! sister," I murmured. "You'll strain the epiglottis."
John turned on me savagely.
"You keep quiet. It isn't your epi--epi--what you said--and, anyway, can't
I even have a quiet row with my own wife without--"
"John, calm yourself," said Cecilia crushingly. "Alan, tell me what you've
been doing."
"Yes," muttered John, "tell her." He subsided into an armchair.
"Well," I said, "you see, Christopher and I were up in the nursery and
getting on quite all right when John butted in--"
"I simply opened--"
"John, keep quiet," said his wife. "Well, Alan?"
"Well, the fact is, Chris and I were in the middle of a great war with all
his soldiers. I had just firmly established fire superiority and was
actually on the verge of launching a huge offensive--the one that was going
to win the war, in fact--when, as I said, in butted this great clumsy
elephant and knocked half of Christopher's army over."
"Purely an accident," said John.
"_Will_ you keep quiet, or must I make you?" asked Cecilia.
"Well, of course," I went on, "finding ourselves suddenly attacked by a
common foe, Chris and I naturally joined forces to defend ourselves."
"Defend!--" shrieked John. "No, I won't keep quiet another second. Defend!
Why, they rushed at me like a couple of wild hyenas."
"My dear John," said Cecilia, "_you_ attacked them first, and of course
they defended themselves as best they could."
"Precisely," I said.
"After all, John," said Cecilia, "you ought to be glad your son is so ready
to look after himself, instead of calling him a hooligan. You're always
shouting about the noble art of self-defence."
"Noble art of self-defence _rot_," said John. "There's nothing in the noble
art about pushing lead soldiers down a man's neck."
"Down your neck?" said Cecilia.
"Yes," said John. "I keep trying to tell you and you won't let me. That
brute sat on the small of my back while Christopher pushed 'em down. The
little beasts all had their bayonets fixed, too."
Cecilia and I laughed.
"Yes, laugh," said John bitterly. "It _is_ funny that our child should be
growing up a Bolshevist; trying to flay his own father. He'll be setting
fire to the cat in a week and then you'll have another laugh."
"John," shrieked Cecilia, "how dare you? If you say another word about the
darling--"
The door opened and Christopher came into the room.
He seemed to have washed his face or something. Anyway, he looked quite a
little angel and that's hardly--however.
"I shall tell Chris what you've been saying," said Cecilia.
John jumped.
"No, no, Cecilia," he said in a strangled voice. "Don't betray me. I--I'm
sorry; I withdraw everything. Cecilia, save me. Think of our courting days;
remember--"
"Christopher," said Cecilia clearly, "you see your father? Go and pull his
last remaining hairs out."
Christopher looked at her in amazement. Then he walked over to John,
climbed on his knee and put an arm round his neck.
"I wouldn't hurt you, dear old Dad, would I?" he asked affectionately,
looking at his mother in pained surprise.
John positively gasped with relief.
"Dear old Chris," he said.
"Oh, you hypocrite!" said Cecilia.
"Coward!" said I.
I was sitting on one of those dumpy hassock sort of things. John looked
down at me vindictively for a moment and then a horrid smile started
spreading about his nasty face.
"Christopher," he said very gently, "wouldn't it be a good thing if we
pushed Uncle Alan over and knocked his slippers off, and then I'll sit on
him while you tickle his feet?"
Now it sounds silly, but a cold prespiration came over me. Being tickled is
so hopelessly undignified. And, anyhow, I simply can't stand it on the
feet.
"John," I said severely, "don't be absurd."
Christopher gurgled.
"He's afraid," he said. "Come on, Dad."
I saw that they really meant it, and I can only suppose that I was carried
away by one of those panics that you read of as attacking the bravest at
times. Anyhow, quite suddenly I found myself moving rapidly round the
table, out of the door and up the stairs. Halfway up I stopped to listen.
Cecilia and John were laughing loudly and coarsely and Christopher was
chanting "Uncle's got the wind up" in a piercing treble. Not at all a nice
phrase for a small boy to have on his tongue.
It was all very galling for one who has fought and, I may say, bled for his
country. I almost decided to go back and fight if necessary. Then I heard a
stage-whisper from Christopher:
"Let's creep upstairs after him and tickle him to death. Shall we, Dad?"
Sheer hooliganism. It was impossible to fight with honour against such
opponents. I disdained to try. I went hastily up the remaining stairs and
locked myself in my room.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Polite Straphanger (to lady who has been standing on his
toes for a considerable time)._ "PARDON ME, MADAM, BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO GET
OFF HERE--THIS IS AS FAR AS I GO."]
* * * * *
THE INTERNATIONALIST.
"What on earth," I said to the waiter, who was standing a few yards off,
lost in a pensive dream of his native land--Switzerland, France, Italy?--
well, anyhow, lost in a pensive dream--"what on earth is a Petrograd
steak?"
The white napkin whisked like the scut of a rabbit, and he bounded to my
side. "Eet is mince-up," he said melodramatically. "Ze Petrograd steak ver
good. Two minute--mince-up."
"But isn't that a Vienna steak?" I asked.
A spasm of pain passed over his face. "Before ze War," he whispered, "yes,
Vienna steak. Now we call it ze Petrograd. You vill have one? Yes? Two
minute."
Memories came flooding back of that moment of crisis which had found so
many of our trusted statesmen ill-prepared, but, terrible as it was, had
not caught the managers of London restaurants napping. I remembered the
immense stores of Dutch lager beer which they had so providentially and so
patriotically held in anticipation of the hour of need. Dutch beer, both
light and dark, so that inveterate drinkers of Munich and Pilsener were
enabled to face Armageddon almost without a jerk. They had other things
ready too--Danish _pate de fois gras_, Swiss liver sausages, Belgian
pastries and the rest. It was in that dark hour, I suppose, that the Vienna
steak set its face towards the steppes. But this was in 1914, and a good
deal had happened since then. It appeared to me that the restaurant was not
exactly _au courant_ with international complications and the gastronomic
consequences of the Peace. I felt entitled to further illumination.
"I don't feel at all certain," I told the man, "that I ought to eat a
Petrograd steak. Is it a white steak?"
"Ah, no, not vite, not vite at all," he assured me. "Eet is underdone--not
much, but a little underdone. Ver good mince-up."
"I absolutely refuse to eat a Red Petrograd steak," I declared. "Have you
by any chance anything Jugo-Slavian on the menu?"
"Zere is ze jugged hare--"
"I think you misunderstand me," I interrupted; "this is a point of
principle with me. Supposing I consume this Czecho-Slovakian mince-up and
then have a piece of Stilton; there has been no war with Stilton, I
fancy--"
"Ver good, ze Stilton," interjected the chorus.
"And coffee--'
"Turkish coffee?" he said.
"There you go again," I grumbled. "Whatever my attitude may be towards
Vienna and Petrograd (and, mind you, I am not feeling at all bitter towards
Vienna), my relations with Turkey are most certainly strained."
"No, not strained, ze Turkish coffee," he cried eagerly; "eet has ze
grounds."
"So have I," I told him; "we will call it the Macedonian coffee. It is you
who insisted in obtruding these international relations on my simple lunch,
and I mean to do the thing thoroughly. Better a dish of Croat Serbs where
love is than a bifteck Petrograd--Never mind, go and get the thing."
When he returned with it I fell to, but my thoughts remained with the
waiter. What a man! With his dispassionate judgment, his calm sane outlook
on men and affairs, shaken a little perhaps in 1914, but since then
undisturbed, was he not cut out above all others to settle the vexed
frontier lines of Europe? I wondered whether Lord ROBERT CECIL might not
possibly make use of him. I was tempted to try him still further.
"Have you ever heard of Mr. J.M. KEYNES?" I asked him when he brought me
the Bessarabian coffee.
"Mr. KEYNES I not know. He not come here, I zink."
"Or the Treaty of London?"
"I vill ask ze manager."
"Or President WILSON?"
A brilliant smile of illumination lit up his features.
"American, is he not?" he said. "Ver reech, ze Americans."
This saddened me a little. He was not then absolutely complete. There was a
faint tarnish on the lustre of his innocence. He was scarcely perhaps
suited for the League of Nations after all. Lighting an Albanian cigarette
I asked him for my bill.
* * * * *
THINKING ALOUD.
LORD HALDANE _loquitur_.
"Tired of laborious days and nights
Spent on the intellectual heights,
I long to raise and educate
The masters of the future State.
Besides, the people in the plains
Are lamentably short of brains,
And I have even more than KEYNES.
Already in _The Herald's_ page
Am I acclaimed as seer and sage;
Mine be it then to teach my neighbour
To quit the lowly rut of Labour,
And scale the heights of Pisgah, Nebo,
Or some equivalent gazebo,
For even Labour must afford
To keep one competent Law Lord."
* * * * *
"WAR CRIMINALS DEMAND TO BE SUSPENDED."--_Evening Paper._
Too good to be true.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES.
A YOUNG GIRL HAS THE TEMERITY TO BRING A CHAPERON TO A DANCE.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.
"THIS IS WHERE HE SWIMS THE RAPIDS. HOW SHALL WE SEND HIM--UP OR DOWN?"]
* * * * *
COX AND BOX.
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Let us talk _Haute Finance_. In other words, let us
indulge in that good old Anglo-Saxon pastime of blackguarding COX AND CO.
It will remind us of the piping days of war. There is too much peace about,
and the gentle and ever-forgiving COX AND CO. expect their customers to be
men of force and character, showing temper from time to time. Everybody
else may be demobilised; I remain a soldier, and as such I have my special
bank. Ah, me! the battles in Charing Cross are not the easy things they
used to be. No longer, as of old, I come fresh to the attack against a mere
underling, worn down by the assaults of wave after wave of brother-officers
attacking, before me. I enter the Territorial Department alone and am taken
on by a master-hand, supported and flanked by a number of unoccupied
subordinates. About the Spring of 1925, when I expect to be the only "T"
left, I anticipate the decisive moment when I shall cross swords or swop
bombs with Sir COX himself. Having bravely encountered "AND CO." these many
years, I shall not be daunted by that gilded knight.
The war having once put me in possession of my COX AND CO., I had very
frequent recourse to them when in need of such solace as only money can
bring. The time arrived when I applied in vain; the money had disappeared.
Though I had no reason to suspect COX AND CO. of being dishonest I noticed
a tone of assuredness and self-complacency in their letters strangely
similar to that in my own, and I _knew_ that I was being dishonest, so I
demanded to see my pass-book. It was a horrid sight, and it gave me
seriously to think. How came it that the side of the book which showed my
takings was so clear and easily to be understood, but the side which showed
their takings wrapt in mystery and hieroglyphics such as not even the
world's leading financiers and mathematicians could hope to unravel? My
subaltern, being consulted, agreed with me; I would have had him carpeted
by the C.O. at once if he hadn't.