Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920
Bright coloured as his orient car,
Piled high with autumn splendours,
The pageants of the sweetstuffs are
At all the pastry-vendors;
From earliest flush of dawn till eight
The Maenad nymphs in masses,
With lions' help upbear the freight
Of marzipan and chocolate
And stickjaw and molasses.
The poet from whose lips of flame
Wine drew the songs, the full sighs,
Performs the business just the same
When masticating bull's-eyes;
The knight who bids a fond "Farewell,
Love's large, but honour's larger!"
Shares with the Lady Amabel
One last delicious caramel
And leaps upon his charger.
The rake inured to card-room traps,
Yet making fearful faces
Because his foes, perfidious chaps,
Have always all the aces--
"Ruined! the old place mortgaged! faugh!"
(The guttering candles quiver)--
Instead of draining brandy raw
Clenches a jujube in his jaw
And strolls towards the river.
O happier time that soothes the brain
And rids us of our glum fits
(Eliminating dry champagne)
With candy and with comfits!
The oak reflects the firelight's beam,
In song the moments fly by,
Till the old squire, his face agleam,
Sucking the last assorted cream,
Toddles away to bye-bye.
EVOE.
* * * * *
From a P.S.A. notice:--
"Subject: 'A RENEWED WORLD--No Sorrow. No Pain. No Death.' No
Collection."--_Local Paper._
The last item sounds almost too good to be true.
* * * * *
"The proposed changes were discussed with the captain of the
England side and one or two prominent crickets who had visited
Australia."--_Expensive Daily Paper._
Hitherto it had been supposed that these cheerful little creatures
only sought the kind of "ashes" that you get on the domestic hearth.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "WE AIN'T A BIT AFRAID, ALFY 'IGGINS. YER OWN FICE IS A
LUMP UGLIER."]
* * * * *
=A STRIKE IN FAIRYLAND.=
The fairies were holding a meeting.
"They grumble when we send the rain," said a Rain-fairy, "and they
grumble when we don't."
"And we get no thanks," sighed a Flower-fairy. "The time we spend
getting the flowers ready and washing their faces and folding them up
every night!"
"As for the stars," said a Star-fairy, "we might just as well leave
them unlit for all the gratitude we get, and it's such a rush
sometimes to get all over the sky in time. They don't even believe in
us. We wouldn't mind _anything_ if they believed in us."
"No," agreed a Rainbow-fairy, "that's true. I take such a lot of
trouble to get just the right colours, and it has to be done so
quickly. But I wouldn't mind if they believed in us."
"I wonder what _they_'d do," said the Queen, "if no one believed in
them?"
"They'd go on strike," said the Brown Owl (he was head of the Ministry
of Wisdom). "They always go on strike if they don't like anything."
"Then we'll go on strike," said the Queen with great determination.
They all cheered, except the Flower-fairies.
"But the flowers," they said, "they'll get so dusty with no one to
wash them, and so tired with no one to fold them up at nights."
"I hadn't thought of that," said the Queen. "When _they_ go on
strike," she said to the Brown Owl, "how do things get done?"
The Brown Owl considered for a moment and everyone waited in silence.
"Of course there are sometimes blacklegs," he began.
"I don't know what blacklegs are," said the Queen cheerfully, "but
we'll appoint some." And she did.
"Is that all?" said the Queen.
"Someone ought to have a sympathetic strike with us," said the Brown
Owl. "_They_ always do that."
So a fairy was sent off to the Court of the Birds to request a
sympathetic strike.
"Is _that_ all?" said the Queen.
"You ought to _talk_ more," said the Brown Owl. "_They_ talk ever so
much."
"Yes, but they can't help it, can they?" said the Queen kindly.
And so the strike began that evening.
None of the birds sang except one little blackleg Robin, who sang so
hard in his efforts to make up for the rest that he was as hoarse as a
crow the next morning. The blackleg fairies had a hard time too. They
hadn't a minute to gossip with the flowers, as they usually did when
they flew round with their acorn-cups of dew and thistledown sponges
and washed their faces and folded up their petals and kissed them
good-night.
"But what's the matter?" said the flowers sleepily.
"We're on strike," said one of the other fairies importantly "not for
ourselves, but for posterity."
The Brown Owl had heard _them_ say that.
Meanwhile the rest of the fairies sat silent and rather mournful,
awaiting developments.
Then a Thought-fairy flew in. Thought-fairies can see into your heart
and know just what you think. They get terrible shocks sometimes.
"I've been all over the world," she said breathlessly, "and it's much
better than you think. _All_ little girls believe in us and--" She
paused dramatically.
"Yes?" they said eagerly.
"All fathers of little girls believe in us."
The Queen shook her head.
"They only pretend," she said.
"No, that's just it," said the Thought-fairy. "They _pretend_ to
pretend. They never tell anyone, but they really believe."
"Then we'll end the strike," said the Queen.
Here the Brown Owl bustled in, carrying a little note-book.
"I've found out lots more," he said excitedly. "We must have an
executive and delegates and a ballot and a union and a Sankey
Commission report and a scale of the cost of living and a datum line
and--"
"But the strike's over," said the Queen. "It was a misunderstanding."
"Of course," he said huffily. "All strikes are that, but it's correct
to carry them on as long as possible."
"And the blacklegs are to have a special reward."
"That's illogical," muttered the Brown Owl.
He was right, of course, but things _are_ illogical in Fairyland.
That's the nicest part of it.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Salesman_. "IT IS POSSIBLE THAT IT MAY INTEREST YOU
TO KNOW THAT OUR CAR WAS DRIVEN UP ALL THE FLIGHTS OF STEPS AT THE
CRYSTAL PALACE."
_Inquiring Visitor_. "WELL--ER--NOT MUCH. YOU SEE, I LIVE IN A
BUNGALOW."]
* * * * *
"Fears are entertained that the chalice, which is of silver-gilt,
may have been broken up and investments profaned."--_Daily
Herald._
We should have thought that our Communistic contemporary was the last
paper that would have considered investments sacred.
* * * * *
"K. T. B---- and T. W. H----, both of Liverpool, who were in
company with Mr. L---- in the car, agreed that the speed was about
fifty-one miles an hour. On the gradient and at the turn it was
not safe to travel faster."--_Provincial Paper._
One of those examples of "Safety First" which we are always pleased to
chronicle.
* * * * *
=THE OPENING RUN.=
The rain-sodden grass in the ditches is dying;
The berries are red to the crest of the thorn;
Coronet-deep where the beech-leaves are lying
The hunters stand tense to the twang of the horn;
Where rides are refilled with the green of the mosses,
All foam-flecked and fretful their long line is strung;
You can see the white gleam as a starred forehead tosses,
You can hear the low chink as a bit-bar is flung.
The world's full of music. Hounds rustle the rover
Through brushwood and fern to a glad "Gone away!"
With a "Come along, Pilot!"--one spur-touch and over--
The huntsman is clear on his galloping grey;
Before him the pack's running straight on the stubble--
"_Toot-toot-too-too-too-oot!_" "_Tow-row-ow-ow-ow!_"
The leaders are clambering up through the double
And glittering away on the brown of the plough.
The front rank, hands down, have the big fence's measure;
The faint-hearts are craning to left and to right;
The Master goes through with a crash on "The Treasure;"
The grey takes the lot like a gull in his flight;
There's a brown crumpled up, lying still as a dead one;
There's a roan mare refusing, as stubborn as sin;
While the breaker flogs up on a green underbred one
And smashes the far-away rail with a grin.
The chase carries on over hilltop and hollow,
The life of Old England, the pluck and the fun;
And who would ask more than a stiff line to follow
With hounds running hard in the Opening Run?
W. H. O.
* * * * *
IN PRAISE OF THE PELICANS.
The pelicans in St. James's Park
On every day from dawn to dark
Pursue, inscrutable of mien,
A fixed unvarying routine.
Whatever be the wind or weather
They spend their time in peace together,
And plainly nothing can upset
The harmony of their quartet.
Most punctually by the clock
They roost upon or quit their rock,
Or swim ashore and hold their levee,
Lords of the mixed lacustrine bevy;
Or with their slow unwieldy gait
Their green domain perambulate,
Or with prodigious flaps and prances
Indulge in their peculiar dances,
Returning to their feeding-ground
What time the keeper goes his round
With fish and scraps for their nutrition
After laborious deglutition.
Calm, self-sufficing, self-possessed,
They never mingle with the rest,
Watching with not unfriendly eye
The antics of the lesser fry,
Save when bold sparrows draw too near
Their mighty beaks--and disappear.
Outlandish birds, at times grotesque,
And yet superbly picturesque,
Although resignedly we mourn
A Park dismantled and forlorn,
Long may it be ere you forsake
Your quarters on the minished Lake;
For there, with splendid plumes and hues
And ways that startle and amuse,
You constantly refresh the eye
And cheer the heart of passers-by,
Untouched by years of shock and strain,
Undeviatingly urbane,
And lending London's commonplace
A touch of true heraldic grace.
* * * * *
RING IN THE OLD.
There is a shabby-looking man who (I read it in _The Times_) rings the
bell of London hospitals, asks to see the secretary, presumes (as is
always a safe thing to do) that the establishment is grievously in
need of funds, and without any further parley hands to the startled
but gratified official bank-notes to the tune of five hundred pounds.
He then vanishes without giving name or address. This unknown
benefactor is dressed in top-boots, riding breeches of honourable
antiquity, a black coat green with age and a "Cup Final" cap. At the
same time (this too on _The Times'_ authority) there is an oddly and
obsolescently attired lady going about who also makes London hospitals
her hobby. She begins by asking the secretary if she may take off her
boots, and, receiving permission, takes them off, places her feet on
an adjacent chair and hands him two thousand pounds.
The result of the activities of these angelic visitants is that all
the other hospital porters have had instructions from their eager
and hopeful secretaries to be careful to be polite to any and every
person, even though he or she should be in rags, who expresses the
faintest desire to enter on business; more than polite--solicitous,
welcoming, cordial; while all the secretaries are at this moment
polishing up their smiles and practising an easy manner with ladies in
last century costumes who put sudden and unexpected requests.
_The Times_, in limiting the effect of these curious occurrences
entirely to hospital servants, seems to me to lose a great
opportunity. Surely the consequences will be more wide-reaching than
that? To my mind we may even go so far as to hail the dawn of the
golden age for old clothes; for in the fear that shabbiness may
be merely a whimsical disguise or the mark of a millionaire's
eccentricity the whole world (which is very imitative and very hard
up) will begin to fawn upon it, and then at last many of us will enter
the earthly paradise.
But the gentleman who puts ease before elegance and the lady who
prefers comfort to convention have got to work a little harder yet.
They must not fold their hands at the moment under the impression that
their labours are done. The support of hospitals is humane and only
too necessary, and all honour to them for their generosity; but other
spheres of action await exploration.
I had hoped that the War was going to reform ideas on dress and make
things more simple for those whose trouser-knees go baggy so soon and
remain thus for so long; but, like too many of the expectations which
we used to foster, this also has failed. It is therefore the benign
couple who must carry on the good work. Let them, if they really love
their fellow-creatures, go to a wedding or two (having previously
given a present of sufficient value to ensure respect) and display
their careless garb among the guests, and then in a little while old
garments would at these exacting functions become as fashionable as
new and we should all be happier.
I was asked to a wedding last week, and should have accepted but for
the great Smart Clothes tradition. If _The Times'_ hero and heroine
were to become imaginatively busy as I suggest, I could go to all the
weddings in the world. (Heaven forbid!) Receptions, formal lunches,
the laying of stones, the unveiling of monuments, private views--these
ceremonies, now so full of terrors for any but the dressy, could be
made endurable if only the gentleman in the black coat green with age
and the lady with the elastic sides would show themselves prominently
and receive conspicuous attentions.
And then, if any more statues were needed for the police to keep
their waterproofs on, one of them should be that of an unknown
philanthropical gentleman who wears venerable top-boots, and another
that of a philanthropical lady who would rather be without any boots
at all, and the inscription on the pedestals would state that their
glorious achievement was this: They made old clothes the thing.
E. V. L.
* * * * *
THE OLD BEER FLAGON.
(_Many old English flagons are adorned inside with grotesque figures
of animals_.)
Within my foaming flagon
There crawls on countless legs
A lazy grinning dragon
That wallows in the dregs;
Of old I saw him nightly
Look up with friendly leer,
As if to hint politely,
"I share your taste in beer!"
Through merry nights unnumbered
(From Boxing Day to Yule)
He'd greet me, ere I slumbered,
From out his amber pool;
But now he is beginning
To look a trifle strange;
His smile, once wide and winning,
Has undergone a change.
No more, as pints diminish
(I wish the price grew less)
He hails me at the finish
With wonted cheeriness;
For, as I drain my mellow
Allowances of ale,
He seems to sigh, "Old fellow,
_Will_ PUSSYFOOT prevail?"
* * * * *
=Commercial Candour.=
"Cleaning and pressing suites, $3. Dyeing and pressing suits, $6.
Clothes returned looking like now."
_Advt. in_ "_Standard_" (_Buenos Aires_).
* * * * *
From an election address:--
"As a woman and a ratepayer, I realise the importance
of eliminating all unavoidable expenditure in Municipal
undertakings."
_Local Paper._
We trust she will be elected and show how it's done.
* * * * *
"After an interval of seven years, the 'Beasts' Ball, a pre-war
popular annual event in aid of the Royal Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, is to be held at the Guildhall, on Wednesday,
November 10. Tickets can be obtained from Mrs. Bushe-Fox and from
Mrs. Wolf."--_Cambridge Review._
It sounds just like _Uncle Remus_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: =ECHOES OF THE COAL STRIKE.=
"WHAT'S THE KID SHOUTING ABOUT? THERE AIN'T NO RACING."]
* * * * *
=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
"Two households, both alike in dignity...." I ask you, could the
novel, of which this quotation is the text, have been written by
anyone but Mr. JOHN GALSWORTHY? Actually indeed the disputants belong
to two branches of the same family, that grim tribe of _Forsytes_,
whom you remember in _The Man of Property_, and of whose collective
history the present book is a further instalment (not, I fancy, the
last). I should certainly advise anyone not already familiar with the
former work to get up his _Forsytes_ therein before attacking this;
otherwise he may risk some discouragement from the plunge into so
numerous a clan, known for the most part only by Christian names, with
their complex relationships and the mass of bygone happenings that
unites or separates them. This stage of the tribal history is called
_In Chancery_ (HEINEMANN), chiefly from the state of suspended
animation experienced by the now middle-aged _Soames_ ("Man of
Property") with regard to his never-divorced runaway wife _Irene_.
Following the ruling _Forsyte_ instinct, _Soames_ wants a son who
will keep together and even increase his great possessions, while
continuing his personality. The expiring generation, represented by
_James_, is urgent upon this duty to the family. You may imagine what
Mr. GALSWORTHY makes of it all. These possessive persons, with their
wealth, their hatred and affections and their various strongholds in
the more eminently desirable parts of residential London, affect one
like portions of some monstrous stone-fronted edifice, impressive but
repellent. I have some curiosity to see, with Mr. GALSWORTHY'S help,
how the _Forsyte_ castle stands the disintegration of 1914-18.
* * * * *
What with the scientists who explain things on the assumption that we
know nearly as much as they do and those who explain things on the
assumption that we know nothing, it is very difficult for you and me
to persevere in our original determination to learn _something_. But I
have always felt that Sir RAY LANKESTER is one of the very few who do
understand us, and I feel it still more strongly now that I have read
his _Secrets of Earth and Sea_ (METHUEN). He is instructive but human;
he does not take it for granted that we know what miscegenation means,
but he does credit us with a little intelligence. And he realises how
many arguments we have had about questions like "Why does the sea look
blue?" Personally I rushed at that chapter, though I must say that
I was a little disappointed to find that the gist of his answer was
"Because water _is_ blue." You see, if you had a tooth-glass fifteen
feet high and filled it with water--But you must find out for
yourself. Then I went on to the chapter on Coal, and discovered that
"it is fairly certain that the blacker coal which we find in strata of
great geological age was so produced by the action of special kinds of
bacteria upon peat-like masses of vegetable refuse." I wonder if Mr.
SMILLIE knows that. It might help him to a sense of proportion. The
author is constantly setting up a surprising but stimulating relation
between the naturalist's researches and the problems of human life, as
when he observes that "the 'colour bar' is not merely the invention of
human prejudice, but already exists in wild plants and animals," and
in his remarks on mongrels and the regrettable subjection of the males
of many species. There are chapters on Wheel Animalcules, Vesuvius,
Prehistoric Art--everything--and all are admirably illustrated. A
fascinating book.
* * * * *
_The Diary of a Journalist_ (MURRAY) is a volume of which the title is
its own sufficient description, save that it leaves unsuggested the
interest that such briskly written and comprehensive comments as these
of our old friend, Sir HENRY LUCY, must command. His book differs from
most of those in the flood of recollections that has lately broken
upon us in being a selection from "impressions of the moment written
without knowledge of the ultimate result." In these stray moments
between the years 1885 and 1917 I find at least two examples in which
this ignorance of the final event adds much to the interest of the
immediate record--the startling forecast of the EX-KAISER'S destiny,
entered in the Diary under November '98; and the mention, long before
the actual illness of KING EDWARD declared itself, of the growing
belief in certain circles that his coronation would never take place.
It is at once obvious that not even "TOBY'S" three previous volumes
have by any means exhausted his fund of good stories, the scenes of
which range from Westminster to Bouverie Street, and round half the
stately (or, at least, interesting) homes of England. Of them all--not
forgetting DISRAELI and the peacocks and a new W. S. GILBERT--my
personal choice would be for the mystery of the Unknown Guest, who not
only took a place, but was persuaded to speak, at a private dinner
given by Sir JOHN HARE at the Garrick Club, without anyone ever
knowing who he was or how he came there. A genial lucky-bag book,
which (despite unusually full chapter headings) would be improved by
an index to its many prizes.
* * * * *
Mr. JAMES HILTON is very young and very clever. If, as he grows older,
he learns to be clever about more interesting things he ought to write
some very good novels. _Catherine Herself_ (UNWIN) has red hair, but
then she has a rather more red-haired disposition than most red-haired
heroines have to justify it, so this is not my real objection to
the book. My quarrel is that, though I cannot call it an ugly story
without giving a false impression, it is certainly a quite unbeautiful
one, and at the end of its three hundred and more pages it has
achieved nothing but a full-length portrait of an utterly selfish
woman. Mr. HILTON has dissected her most brilliantly; but I don't
think she is worth it. Catherines, whether they marry or are given in
marriage, or do anything else, are really stationary; and, since the
persons of a story, if it is to be worth telling, must move in some
direction, Mr. HILTON will be well advised in future to choose a
different type of heroine. I want to say too that I don't believe that
it is either so easy or so profitable to become a well-known pianist
"not in the front rank" as he seems to imagine it is. I wish I could
think that no one else would believe him.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Knight_ (_to his henchman_). "EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT,
PERKINS? YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ANYTHING? WHAT'S THAT?"
_Henchman_. "IT'S THE PORTRAIT OF YOUR LADY, SIR, THAT YOU PROMISED TO
TAKE INTO BATTLE WITH YOU, SIR."
_Knight_. "DID I? WELL, I MUST E'EN KEEP MY WORD. FASTEN IT ON MY
BACK. ONE NEVER KNOWS--IT MAY BE USEFUL IN CASE OF A REVERSE."]
* * * * *
It seems rather a bright idea of C. NINA BOYLE to dedicate "to THEA
and IRENE, whose lives have lain in sheltered ways," a seven-shilling
shocker about ways that are anything but sheltered. Perhaps the
sheltered in general, and Thea and Irene in particular, will take it
from me that the villainies of _Out of the Frying Pan_ are much
larger than life or, at any rate, much more concentrated, and that
pseudo-orphans like _Maisie_ usually have a better chance of getting
out of frying-pans into something cool than the author allows her
heroine. I also submit that there was nothing in _Maisie's_ equipment
to suggest that she would have been quite so slow in separating goats
from sheep. But let me say that THEA and IRENE have had dedicated to
them an exciting and amusing _fritto misto_ of crooks, demi-mondaines,
blackmailers, gamblers, roues, murderers, receivers and decent
congenital idiots of all sorts. The characterisation is adroitly done
and the workmanship avoids that slovenliness which makes nineteen out
of twenty books of this kind a weariness of spirit to the perceptive.
I wonder if _Maisie_ with such a father and mother would have been
such a darling. Perhaps Professor KARL PEARSON will explain.
* * * * *
The _Hon. William Toppys_ (pronounced "Tops"), brother of _Lord
Topsham_, left Devonshire and retired to an island in the Torres
Straits. There he married a Melanesian woman and became the father of
a frizzy-haired and coffee-coloured son. It is a little strange to
me, who think of Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE as Devonian to the tip of his
pen-finger, that the _Hon. William_ is not rebuked for so shamelessly
deserting his native county. Instead he is almost applauded for his
wisdom, and this despite the fact that he quite spoilt the look of the
family tree with his exotic graft. For in the course of time his
son, insularly known as _Willatopy_, inherited the title and became
twenty-eighth (no less) _Baron of Topsham_. Mr. COPPLESTONE does not
realise the vast difference between light comedy and broad farce, but
apart from this substantial reservation I can vouch that his yarn of
_Madame Gilbert's Cannibal_ (MURRAY) is deftly spun. Should you decide
to follow the famous _Madame Gilbert_ when she visits the island where
the twenty-eighth baron lived you will witness a lively and unusual
entertainment.