Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 159.
August 25th, 1920.
CHARIVARIA.
"What we have got to do," says Lord ROTHERMERE, "is to keep calm and mind
our own business, instead of worrying about the affairs of every other
nation." It seems only fair to point out that _The Daily News_ thought of
this as long ago as August, 1914.
* * *
Gooseberries the size of bantams' eggs, says a news item, won a prize at
the Deeside Horticultural Show. When we remember the giant gooseberries of
a decade ago it rather looks as if the nation were losing its nerve.
* * *
With reference to the messenger seen running in Whitehall the other day a
satisfactory explanation has now been given. He was doing it for the
cinema.
* * *
The average Scot, says an Anti-Prohibition writer, cannot stand many
drinks. Our experience supports this view; but he can be stood a good many.
* * *
A picture-paper gossip states that Mr. CHURCHILL enjoys very good health.
Just a touch of writer's cramp now and then, of course.
* * *
In a recent riot in Londonderry, it is stated, a number of inoffensive
neutrals were set upon and beaten by rowdies of both factions. We have
constantly maintained that Irish unity can always be secured when there is
something really worth uniting over.
* * *
A lighthouse is advertised for sale in _The Times_. It is said to be just
the kind of residence for a tall man with sloping shoulders.
* * *
A correspondent asks in the weekly press for a new name for charabancs. We
wish we could think there was any use in calling them names.
* * *
Seaside bathers are advised not to enter the water after a heavy meal. The
seaside visitor who could pay for such a meal would naturally not have
enough left to pay for a bathing-machine.
* * *
A Thames bargee was knocked down by a taxi-cab at Kingston-on-Thames last
week. A well-known firm has offered to publish his remarks in fortnightly
parts.
* * *
The West Dulwich man who struck a rate-collector on the head with a
telephone claims credit for finding some use for these instruments.
* * *
Sir ERIC DRUMMOND has purchased the largest hotel in Geneva on behalf of
the League of Nations. It is said that he has been taking lessons from Sir
ALFRED MOND.
* * *
Following closely upon the announcement of the noiseless gun invented in
New York comes the news that they have now invented some sound-proof bacon
for export to this country.
* * *
It is stated that the man who last week said he understood the Rent Act was
eventually pinned down by some friends and handed over to the care of his
relatives.
* * *
According to a morning paper another Antarctic expedition is to be
organised very shortly. We understand that only those who can stand a
northern wind on all four sides need apply.
* * *
It is reported that a poultry-farmer in the West of England is making a
fortune by giving his hens whisky to drink and then exporting their eggs to
the United States.
* * *
A golf-ball was recently driven through the window of an express train near
Knebworth. We are informed however that the player who struck the ball
still maintains that the engine-driver deliberately ignored his shout of
"Fore."
* * *
An amazing report reaches us from Yorkshire. It appears that a centenarian
has been discovered who is unable to read without glasses or even to walk
to market once a week.
* * *
The unveiling of one of the largest Peace memorials in the country is to
take place on Armistice day this year. We hear that both the PREMIER and
Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL have expressed a desire to attend unless prevented by
the War.
* * *
Smart furriers, declares a fashion-paper, are pushing Beveren blue rabbit
as one of the chic furs for the coming winter. The rabbit, our contemporary
goes on to explain (superfluously, as it seems to us), is naturally blue.
* * *
On a recent occasion a meeting of the Dolgelly Rural Council had to be
postponed, the members being absent hay-making. Parliament, on the other
hand, has had to stop making hay owing to the Members being away in the
country.
* * *
The Ministry of Food states that the period of normal supplies seems to
come round in cycles of four years. Meanwhile the period of abnormal prices
continues to come round in cycles of once a week. A movement in favour of
postponing the cycle of payment till we get the cycle of plenty is not
receiving adequate support from the provision trade.
* * *
Agricultural labourers near Peterborough have refused to work with Irishmen
on the ground that the latter are troublesome. We always said that sooner
or later someone would come round to Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S view on this point.
* * *
A newspaper reports the case of a waiter who refused a tip. It is said that
the gentleman who offered it is making a slow recovery and may be able to
take a little fish this week.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Caller._ "EXCHANGE? GET ME DOUBLE-SIX DOUBLE-FIVE NINE
CENTRAL--AND GET IT QUICK, LIKE THEY DO IT ON THE PICTURES."]
* * * * *
THE GROWTH OF THE SIDE-CAR.
"MOTOR CARS, CYCLES, _&c._
ARGYLL.--2 Bedrooms and sitting-room, with attendance."--_Scotch
Paper._
* * * * *
"BRIGHTON ELECTRIC RAILWAY.
PALACE PIER AND KEMP TOWN CARS EVERY FIVE YEARS."--_Local Paper._
It is inferred that the Ministry of Transport has assumed control.
* * * * *
AN APOLOGY TO THE BENCH.
_Humbly addressed to T.E.S._
If ever, where you hold the Seat of Doom,
I stand, my Lord, before you at the Bar,
And my forensic fame, a virgin bloom,
Lies in your awful hands to make or mar,
Let it not prejudice my case, I pray,
If you should call to mind a previous meeting
When on a champion course the other day
I gave your Lordship four strokes and a beating.
I own it savoured of contempt of court,
Hinted of disrespect toward the Bench,
That I should chuckle when your pitch was short
Or smile to see you in the sanded trench;
But Golf (so I extenuate my sin)
Brings all men level, like the greens they putt on;
One common bunker makes the whole world kin,
And Bar may scrap with Beak, and I with SCR-TT-N.
Nor did I give myself superior airs;
I made allowance for defective sight;
"The bandage which impartial Justice wears
Leaves you," I said, "a stranger to the light;
Habituated to the sword and scales,
If you commit some pardonable blunder,
If" (I remarked) "your nerve at moments fails
With grosser ironmongery, where's the wonder?"
So may the Law's High Majesty o'erlook
My rash presumption; may the memory die
Of how I won the match (and further took
The liberty of mopping up the bye);
Remember just a happy morning's round,
Also the fact that this alleged old fogey
Played at the last hole like a book and downed
The barely human feat of Colonel Bogey.
O.S.
* * * * *
IF WE ALL TOOK TO MARGOTRY.
[Mrs. ASQUITH'S feuilleton, which for so many people has transformed Sunday
into a day of unrest, sets up a new method of autobiography, in which the
protagonist is, so to speak, both JOHNSON and BOSWELL too. Successful
models being always imitated we may expect to see a general use of her
lively methods; and as a matter of fact I have been able already, through
the use of a patent futurist reading-glass (invented by Signer Margoni), to
get glimpses of two forthcoming reminiscent works of the future which, but
for the _chronique egoistique_ of the moment might never have been written,
and certainly not in their present interlocutory shape.]
I.
FROM "FIRST AID TO LITERATURE."
By _Edmund Gosse_.
... Not the least interesting and delicate of my duties as a confidential
adviser were connected with a work of reminiscences which created some stir
in the nineteen-twenties. How it came about I cannot recollect, but it was
thought that my poor assistance as a friendly censor of a too florid
exuberance in candour might not be of disservice to the book, and I
accepted the invitation. The volume being by no means yet relegated to
oblivion's dusty shelves I am naturally reluctant to refer to it with such
particularity as might enable my argus-eyed reader to identify it and my
own unworthy share therein, and therefore in the following dialogue,
typical of many between the author and myself, I disguise her name under an
initial. _Quis custodiet?_ It would be grotesque indeed if one whose
special mission was to correct the high spirits of others should himself
fail in good taste.
_Mrs. A. (laying down the MS. with a bang)._ I see nothing but blue pencil
marks, and blue was never my colour. Why are you so anxious that I should
be discreet? Indiscretion is the better part of authorship.
_EDMUND (earnestly)._ It is your fame of which I am thinking. If you adopt
my emendations you will go down to history as the writer of the best book
of reminiscences in English.
_Mrs. A. (with fervour)._ I don't want to go down to history. I want to
stay here and make it. And you (_with emotion_)--you have cramped my style.
I can't think why I asked you to help.
_EDMUND._ Everyone asks me to help. It is my destiny. I am the Muses'
_amicus curiae_.
_Mrs. A._ Oh, blow Latin! (_Lighting two cigarettes at once_) What's the
good of reminiscences of to-day, by me, without anything about L.G.?
_EDMUND._ Dear lady, it would never have done. Be reasonable. There are
occasions when reticence is imperative.
_Mrs. A._ Reticence! What words you use!
(_Caetera desunt._)
II.
FROM "A WEEK IN LOVELY LUCERNE."
By _D. Lloyd George_.
... I do not say that the mountains hereabout are not more considerable
than those of our own beloved Wales, but as material to be employed in
perorations they are far inferior. There is not the requisite mist (which
may symbolise ignorance or obstinacy or any temporary disturbance or
opposition), later to be dispelled by the strong beams of the sun
(representing either progress generally or prime-ministerial genius or pure
Coalitionism). Other local features I felt, however, I might find
rhetorically useful, such as THORWALDSEN'S Lion, so noble, so--so leonine,
but doomed ever to adhere to the rock, how symbolic of a strong idealist
unable to translate his ameliorative plans into action! The old bridge too,
uniting the two sides of the city, as one can attempt to link Radicalism
and Coalitionism--how long could it endure? And so on. One's brain was
never idle.
It was while we were at Lucerne that LORD RIDDELL and I had some of our
most significant conversations. I set them down just as they occurred,
extenuating nothing and concealing nothing.
_LORD RIDDELL (with emotion)._ You are in excellent form to-day. Lucerne
now has two lions--one of them free.
_DAVID (surprised)._ I free? (_Sadly_) You forget that GIOLITTI is coming.
_LORD RIDDELL._ But that is nothing to you. Try him with your Italian and
he will soon go.
_DAVID._ You are a true friend. You always hearten me.
_LORD RIDDELL (with more emotion)._ But you are so wonderful, so wonderful!
And now for to-day's amusements. Where shall we go? Up Mount Pilatus or to
WILLIAM TELL'S Chapel?
_DAVID._ There is something irresistible to a Welshman in the word chapel.
Let us go there. And WILLIAM TELL, was he not a patriot? Did he not defy
the tyrant? I am sure that in his modest conventicle I can think of a
thousand eloquent things. Let us go there.
_LORD RIDDELL._ My hero! my dauntless hero!
E.V.L.
* * * * *
"Even with a round of 73 in the morning Ray fell behind Vardon, who
accomplished a remarkable round of 17 to lead the field."--_Provincial
Paper._
This is believed to be the first occasion on which any golfer has
accomplished two holes in one shot.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THE LION OF LUCERNE."
MR. LLOYD GEORGE (_having jodelled heavily_). "NOT A SINGLE DISSENTIENT
ECHO! THIS IS THE SORT OF PEACE CONFERENCE I LIKE." (_Continues to
jodel_.)]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Mabel (in barefaced attempt to detain Mother when saying
"Good-night")._ "OH, MUMMY, I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT THREE
LITTLE BOYS."
_Mother._ "NO, NO; GO TO SLEEP. THERE'S NO TIME TO TELL A STORY ABOUT THREE
LITTLE BOYS."
_Mabel._ "WELL, THEN, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT _TWO_ LITTLE BOYS."]
* * * * *
THE RABBITS GAME.
"Don't forget to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow," said Angela. Angela is aged nine
and my younger sister; I am thirteen and my name is Anne.
We both looked inquiringly at Father, and, as he didn't seem to remember,
Angela in pained surprise began to explain. "If you say 'Rabbits' before
you say anything else on the first day of a month you get a present during
the month, but you mustn't say anything else first, or you won't."
It all came out in one breath and, though it looks clear enough now, Father
was very stupid.
"I dislike rabbits," he said, "and I am very busy; your Mother will
probably be glad of them for the servants."
The rebuke in Angela's eyes was severe. "We haven't got any rabbits," she
said; "we are only going to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow morning when we wake up
and we thought you might like to do the same."
"Oh, I should," said Father; "thank you very much, I won't forget." And he
wrote "Rabbits" down on his blotting-paper. "Now go and tell your Mother;
she would like to say 'Rabbits' too, I know."
That seemed to terminate the interview, so we left him; but altogether it
was not very satisfactory. You see, when we had "Bon-jour-Philippines,"
Father used to provide the presents; at least that was some time ago; we
haven't had any "Bon-jour-Philippines" lately. The last time we did, Jack,
that is my brother at Oxford, found one and split it with Father, and the
next morning he said, "Bon-jour-Philippine" first and then asked for a
present. Father asked him what he wanted, and he gave Father a letter that
he had had that morning. Father got very angry and said that it was a
disgrace the way tailors allowed credit to young wasters nowadays. He
didn't say it quite like that, it was rather worse, and Mother said, "Hush,
dear; remember the children," and Father said that they were all as bad and
in the conspiracy to ruin him, and he went out of the room and banged the
door.
Mother told Jack that he should have chosen a better moment, and Jack owned
he had made a mistake and said that he ought to have got it in before
Father had looked at the paper and seen the latest news of LLOYD GEORGE. I
don't quite know what he meant, but Father often talks about LLOYD GEORGE,
and he must be a beast.
I asked Jack later if he got his present, and he said that he had, but--and
here he copied Father's voice so well that I had to laugh--"It is the very
last time, my boy; when I was at Oxford I used to consider my Father, and I
would have worked in the fields and earned money sooner than have given him
bills to pay." Jack said that he knew one of the dons at Oxford who knew
Father, and from what he said he thought that Father must have spent as
long in the fields as NEBUCHADNEZZAR did.
I remembered all this as I went to find mother about "Rabbits," and I
wasn't quite sure that we should get our present even if we did say it, so
I told Angela, and she had a brilliant idea. "We will make Father say
'Rabbits' and give him a present ourselves, and he is sure to give us
something in return." Angela is younger than I am, but she often thinks
quite clever things like that, and they come in very useful sometimes.
We went to the summer-house in the garden to make plans. First we thought
what would be the best present to give Father. Last Christmas we gave him a
pipe, and he said that it was just what he wanted; it cost ninepence and
was made like a man's head, and you put the tobacco in a hole in his hat.
Father lit it at once after breakfast, but two days after I saw Jakes the
gardener smoking it. We thought at first that he had stolen it, and I went
to Father, but he said that Jakes had thirteen children, and when a man was
in trouble like that you ought to give up what you valued most to try to
make that man happy, and that Jakes was awfully pleased when he gave him
the pipe.
You see that made it very difficult, as we had to get something that Father
would like and Jakes too, as he still had thirteen children; and then I
remembered that Mrs. Jakes had once looked at a woollen jumper that I had
on, and said that it would be just the thing for her Mary Ann, who had a
delicate chest, and Jakes would be sure to like what Mrs. Jakes liked, or
else he wouldn't have married her. Of course a jumper wasn't really the
sort of thing that Father could wear, but I thought he might wrap his foot
up in it when he next had gout, and besides I shouldn't be wanting it much
more myself, as the summer was coming on.
Angela said that she thought that would do well, and she wouldn't mind
giving Father her jumper next month if he said "Rabbits," and it would do
for Mrs. Jakes' next little girl.
So that was decided, and then we had to arrange the plan. The most
important thing was for us to wake before Father, so that we could wake him
and remind him before he had time to say anything else, and Angela
remembered that Ellen, that's the housemaid, had an alarm clock, which she
used to set at a quarter to six each morning. We waited until Ellen had
gone downstairs and then took it and hid it in Angela's bed.
Next morning the clock went off. We were both rather frightened, and it was
very cold and the room looked funny, as the blinds hadn't been pulled up,
but we put our dressing-gowns on. Then Angela said that she had heard that
if you woke a person who was walking in their sleep they sometimes called
out, so I took a pair of stockings from the basket that had just come back
from the wash to hold over Father's mouth while we woke him. They were
waiting to be mended and had a hole in them, but that didn't matter much,
as I screwed them up tight, and then we went into Father's room. They were
both asleep, and Father had his mouth open all ready for the stockings,
which was very lucky, as I was wondering how I could get them in.
We crept up to the bed, and I know I shivered, and I think Angela did too,
as I was holding her hand. Then she called out "Boo" as loud as she could,
and I stuffed the stockings into Father's mouth, and then they both woke
up, and everything went wrong.
Mother thought the house was on fire and screamed, and it made Angela begin
to cry. I quite forgot to tell Father to say "Rabbits," and just pressed
the stockings further into his mouth.
Father struggled and made awful noises, and when he did get the stockings
out the things he said weren't a bit like "Rabbits," and the only thing
that he did say that I could write down here was that he thought he was
going to be sick. The rest was dreadful.
We were both sent back to bed, and that morning as a punishment we were not
allowed into the dining-room until Father and Mother had finished their
breakfast; and Angela, who often thinks quite clever things, said that we
had better not do "Rabbits" again for a good long time. But after all it
didn't matter much as the weather got a great deal colder, and I wore my
jumper a lot, and so did Angela.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "LOOK 'ERE--THIS ARF-CROWN WON'T DO. IT AIN'T GOT NO MILLING
ON ITS HEDGE."
"BLIMY! NOR IT 'AS! I _KNEW_ I'D FORGOTTEN SOMEFINK."]
* * * * *
FLOWERS' NAMES.
DAME'S DELIGHT.
There was a Lady walked a wood;
She never smiled, nor never could.
One day a sunbeam from the South
Kissed full her petulant proud mouth;
She laughed, and there, beneath the trees,
Fluttering in the April breeze,
Spread tracts of blossom, green and white,
Curtseying to the golden light--
The broken laugh of Dame's Delight.
* * * * *
FIRST LOVE AND LAST.
[It is pointed out by a contemporary that the dressmaker's waxen model
has quite lost her old insipid air. The latest examples of the
modeller's art show the "glad eye" and features with which "any man
might fall in love."]
In the days when I started to toddle
I loved with a frenzy sublime
A dressmaker's beauteous model--
I think I was three at the time;
She was fair in the foolish old fashion,
And they found me again and again
With my nose in an access of passion
Glued tight to the pane.
But I thought they were gone past returning
Till Time should go back on his tracks,
Those days of a child's undiscerning
But fervent devotion to wax;
Could a heart, though admittedly restive,
Recapture that innocent mood
At sixty next birthday? I'm blest if
I thought that it could.
But Art, ever bent on progression,
Has taken the model in hand,
And brought in the line of succession
A figure more pleasingly planned;
Her eyes with the gladdest of glances,
Her lips and her hair and her cheek
Can puncture like so many lances
A bosom of teak.
* * * * *
HARD TIMES FOR HEROINES.
"Oh, Bertram," breathed Eunice as she glided into his arms, "if Ernest
knew, what would he think?"
At this point of my story I admit that I was held up. I myself couldn't
help wondering how Ernest would regard the situation. He was a perfectly
good husband and, personally, I preferred him to Bertram the lover. I might
get unpopular with my readers, however, if they suspected this, so I
continued:--
"Ernest can never appreciate you as I do, dearest," Bertram whispered
hoarsely; "he is cold, hard, indifferent--"
Again I paused. If Eunice had been the really nice girl I meant her to be
she would have asked Bertram what on earth he meant by saying such things
about her husband, and would have told him the shortest cut to the
front-door. In which case she might never have got into print.
The fact is the poor heroine of fiction has a hard time of it nowadays.
Someone ought to write a treatise on "How to be Happy though a Heroine," or
uphold her cause in some way. Twenty-five years ago she lived in a halo of
romance. Her wooers were tender, respectful and adoring; she was never
without a chaperon. Her love-story was conventional and ended in wedding
bells. To-day--just see how her position has altered. Generally she begins
by being married already. Then her lover comes along to place her in
awkward predicaments and put her to no end of inconvenience, very often
only to make her realise that she prefers her husband after all. Or, on the
other hand, the modern writer does not mind killing off, on the barest
pretext, a husband who is perfectly sound in wind and limb and had never
suffered from anything in his life until the lover appeared. The poor girl
will tell you herself that it isn't natural.
Then there is the compromising situation. Magazine editors clamour for
it--in fiction, I mean. We find the heroine flung on a desert island, with
the one man above all others in the world that she detests as her sole
companion. It is rather rough on her, but often still more rough on other
people, as it may necessitate drowning the entire crew and passengers of a
large liner just in order to leave the couple alone for a while to get to
know each other better. And not until they find that they care for one
another after all does the rescue party arrive. It will cruise about, or be
at anchor round the corner, for weeks and weeks, so that it can appear on
the horizon at the moment of the first embrace. This situation is so
popular at present that it is surprising that there are enough desert
islands to go round.
Again, the lonely bungalow episode is pretty cheerless for the heroine. She
accepts an apparently harmless invitation to spend a week-end with friends
in the country. When she arrives at the station there is no one to meet
her. After a course of desert islands this ought to arouse her suspicions,
but she never seems to benefit by experience. At the bungalow, reached in a
hired fly and a blinding snowstorm, she finds the whole household away. The
four other week-end guests, her host and hostess and their five children,
the invalid aunt who resides with the family, the three female servants and
the boot-boy who lives in--all have completely vanished. The only sign of
life for miles is the hero standing on the doorstep looking bewildered and
troubled, as well he might, for he knows that he must spend the night in a
snowstorm to avoid compromising the heroine.
And when the family return next morning and explain that they went out to
look at the sunset, but were held up at a neighbour's by the weather,
nobody seems to think the excuse a little thin.
The heroine can never hope for a tranquil existence like other people. I
read of one only recently who, just because she strongly objected to the
man her parents wanted her to marry, was flung with him on an iceberg that
had only seating capacity for two. And when the iceberg began to melt--
writers must at times manipulate the elements--it meant that she must
either watch the man drown or share the same seat with him. The rescue
party held off, of course, until the harassed girl was sitting on his
knees, and then received the pair as they slid down, announcing their
engagement.