Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 99 September 6 1890 by Various

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PUNCH,

VOL. 99.

September 6, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

The race of daughters is large, but their characteristics, vocations, and aptitudes, are but little understood by the general public. It is expected of them by their mothers that they should be a comfort, by their fathers that they should be inexpensive and unlike their brothers, and by their brothers that they should be as slaves, submissively attached to the fraternal car of triumph. The outside public, the mothers and fathers, that is to say, of other daughters, look upon them vaguely, as mild and colourless beings, destitute alike of character, of desires and of aspirations. And it must be said that daughters themselves, before matrimony absorbs their daughterhood and relieves them of their mothers, seem to be in the main content with the calm and limited existence which their relations and the voice of tradition assign to them. Most of them after they have passed through the flashing brilliance of their first season, and the less radiant glow of their second, are happy enough to spend the time that must elapse ere the destined knight shall sound the trumpet of release at the gates of the fortress, in an atmosphere of quiet domestic usefulness. One becomes known to fame, and her friends, as being above all others, "such a comfort to her mother." She interviews the cook, she arranges the dinners, she devises light and favourite dishes to blunt the edge of paternal irritability by tickling the paternal palate, she writes out invitations, presides at the afternoon tea-table, and, in short, takes upon herself many of those smaller duties which are as last straws to the maternal back. Another becomes the sworn friend and ally of her brothers, whom she assists in their scrapes with a sympathy which is balm to the scraped soul, and with a wisdom in counsel, which can only spring from a deep regret at not having been herself born a boy, and capable of scrapes.

But there is often in families another and an Undomestic Daughter, who aspires to be in all things unlike the usual run of common or domestic daughters. From an early age she will have been noted in the family circle for romantic tendencies, which are a mockery to her Philistine brothers, and a reproach to her commonplace sisters. She will have elevated her father to a lofty pinnacle of imaginative and immaculate excellence, from which a tendency to shortness of temper in matters of domestic finance resulting in petty squabbles with her mother, and an irresistible desire for after-dinner somnolence, will have gradually displaced him. One after another her brothers will have been to her Knights of the Round Table of her fancy, armed by her enthusiasm for impossible conflicts, of which they themselves, absorbed as they are in the examination and pocket-money struggles of boyhood, have no conception whatever. The effort to plant the tree of romance in an ordinary middle-class household was predestined to failure. Her disappointments are constant and crushing. Desires and capacities which, with careful nurture, might have come to a fair fruit, are chilled and nipped by the frost of neglect and ridicule. Her mind becomes warped. The work that is ready to her hand, the ordinary round of family tasks and serviceableness, repels her. She turns from it with distaste, and thus widens still more the gulf between herself and her relatives. Hence she is thrown back upon herself for companionship and comfort. She dissects, for her own bitter enjoyment, her inmost heart. She becomes the subtle analyst of her own imaginary motives. She calls up accusing phantoms to charge her before the bar of her conscience, in order that she may have the qualified satisfaction of acquitting herself, whilst returning against her relatives a verdict of guilty on every count of the indictment. In short, she becomes a thoroughly morbid and hysterical young woman, suspicious, and resentful even of the sympathy which is rarely offered to her. In the meantime, two of her younger sisters are wooed and won in the orthodox manner by steady-going gentlemen, of good position and prospects. The congratulations showered upon them, and the rejoicings which attend them on their wedding days, only serve to add melancholy to the Undomestic Daughter, who has already begun to solace herself for her failure to attract men by the reflection that matrimony itself is a failure, and that there are higher and worthier things in life than the wearing of orange-blossoms, and going-away dresses. It must be said that her parents strive with but little vigour against their daughter's inclination. Her father having hinted at indigestion as the cause of her unhappiness, and finding that the hint is badly received, shrugs his inapprehensive shoulders, and ceases to notice her. Her mother, persuaded that sanity is to be found only on the maternal side of the family, lays the peculiarities of her daughter to the charge of some abnormal paternal ancestor. Having thus, by implication, cleared herself from all responsibility, she feels that she is better able to take a detached and impartial view of errors which, seeing they are those of her own flesh and blood, she professes herself utterly unable to understand or to correct.

The Undomestic Daughter thus acquires the conviction that she herself is the most miserably crushed member of a down-trodden sex. In this, and in the agreement which she exacts from two or three melancholy friends, she seeks a solace for her sufferings. After a time, however, she discovers that this is insufficient. It must be said to her credit that her energies find the outlet of a passive sorrow inadequate. She burns to prove that one who is misunderstood and despised cannot only find useful work to do, but can do it better than her humdrum domestic sisters. Unfortunately, however, she overlooks the obvious and easy duties of her home. She scans the remote corners of the world. Her bruised spirit flutters about the bye-ways of charitable effort, and at length she establishes herself as a visitor, a distributer of tracts and blankets, and an instructor of factory girls. It is unnecessary to insist that these occupations are useful and praiseworthy in the abstract. It may be doubted, however, whether they should be undertaken by one who has to neglect for them equally necessary but less attractive labours.

The Undomestic Daughter, however, rejoices in the performance of work, which, as it were, sets a seal to her wretchedness, and stamps her as a being apart from the ruck of her sex. She now takes her meals alone, and at her own hours. She probably breakfasts at half-past seven, and dashes out to interview the Secretary of the Society for Improving the Cultivation of Mustard and Cress on the Desert Patches of the Mile End District. After this she will hasten to Lambeth, in order that mothers residing in that teeming quarter of the town may be blessed with mittens and mob-caps, and returning thence she devotes an hour or so to lectures which are to make her expert in tending the ailments of humanity. Occasionally the family arrangements are upset, in order that she may have her dinner at an hour which will make it convenient to her to attend the meeting of an Institute for Reading Historical Novels to Working Girls, and her father will lose all his available stock of good temper on finding that the moments generally devoted by him to soup are occupied to his exclusion by the apple-tart provided for his busy daughter. Hence come more storms and misunderstandings. Paternal feet are put down--for a time, and neglected excellence pines in bed-rooms.

Shortly afterwards the Undomestic Daughter discovers that nature intended her to be a hospital nurse, and she takes advantage of a period when her mother, being occupied in tending a younger brother through scarlatina cannot offer a determined opposition, to wring an unwilling consent from her father, and to leave her home in order to carry out her plan. This phase, however, does not last many weeks, and she is soon back once more on the parental hands. Thus the years pass on, the monotony of neglecting her home being varied by occasional outbursts of enthusiasm which carry her on distant expeditions in strange company. During one of these she falls in with a lay-preacher, who to a powerful and convincing style adds the fascination of having been turned from an early life of undoubted dissipation. She sits at his feet, she flatters him as only a woman can flatter a preacher, and having eventually married him, she helps him to found a new religion during the intervals that she can spare from the foundation of a considerable family. Warned by her own experience, she will never allow her daughters to be seen without their sewing or their knitting. Her sons will all be forced to learn useful trades, and it is quite possible that as time passes she may irritate even her husband, by constantly holding herself up to her somewhat discontented family as a pattern of all the domestic virtues.

NURSERY RHYME.

Bah! bah! Blackleg! Have you any pluck? Backing up the Masters when the Men have struck! You're for the Master, we're for the Man! "Picket" you, and "Boycott" you; that is BURNS's plan!

PRIZE EPITAPH.

"Beneath this slab the bones of this great boss are. Can Ossa speak? And would they say 'Canossa?'"

A would-be Competitor sends this,--

A Correspondent writes:--"I haven't an epitaph handy about BISMARCK, but here's one on a billiard-marker, buried, of course at Kew:--

"'Rem acu tetigi,' let this attest, Now he has gone away for his long rest."

Yours,

NIL DE MORTUIS."

"P.S.--I'll think over the BISMARCK one, specially if he offers a prize of anything over a sovereign, as of course it ought to be, since the Ex-Chancellor always went in for an Imperial policy, which, however, didn't insure his life. This is very nearly an epitaph--praps you'll arrange it for me."

Another says, "This is simple:--

"Ci g?t, P.B."

Yes, very simple, but not good enough. Perhaps our Correspondents will improve when the amount of the prize is fixed.

FOUND IN A RUM PLACE.--The Latest Spice discovered in Jamaica--the SPEAKER's Mace.

THE DAMSELS OF DIEPPE;

The Douane found him circled round by all the fairest fair, The while he said, in lofty tones, he'd nothing to declare; He turned to one girl who stood near, and softly whisper'd, "Fly, O NELL!" But all the others wildly cried, "Give us a chance, O LIONEL!" And thus he came to shore from all the woes of Father Nep., With fatal fascinations for the Damsels of Dieppe.

And day by day, and year by year, whene'er he sought the sea, The waves were running mountains high, the wind was blowing free. At last he died, and o'er his bier his sweethearts sang doxology, And vowed they saw his ghost, which came from dabbling in psychology. And to this hour that spook is seen upon the pier. If scep- tical, ask ancient ladies, once the Damsels of Dieppe.

MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.

ELECTIONEERING.

IN THE SMOKING-ROOM.

SHAKSPEARE's "deeds" going to America? The World is the richer for his words, and certainly to the country of his birth belong the records of his deeds.

JOURNAL OF A ROLLING STONE.

Still endeavouring to earn an honest, but unpleasant, penny as a Private Tutor. Begin to be vaguely conscious that my grasp of the Latin Grammar is not as firm as it might be. Will my classical training see me through, or will "ERNIE" see through my classical training?

Happily my presence of mind does not desert me. I reply, severely,--

"What! Don't you know your Roman History better than that?"

Yells from HERBIE. Go in and send the Governess to him. Relief from children for about ten minutes.

I do, after a good preliminary smoke. HERBIE and JACK present themselves at the same time. I send them off to the Governess, and lock the door; Governess sends them back to me; result is, that they play about outside library all morning, so that we can hardly hear ourselves speak.

What! Two-and-two! Never!

"But--er--" I say, addressing the little girls, in a pleasant tone, "aren't you going out with your Governess?"

The situation is becoming more and more embarrassing. I can't, in politeness, refuse the Governess's society for a walk. I solve the problem, temporarily, by telling all five children to run up to Miss MYRTLE, and ask her which way she thinks we had better go.

I am fated, however, to hear from him pretty soon; and, when I do, his communication is surprising. It comes in the form of a telegram, addressed to me. It runs thus:--

"Just heard President asked you to take tutorship. Misunderstanding. Very sorry, but have myself engaged another tutor. He will arrive this evening. Shall I tell him not to come? Awkward! Wire reply."

I telegraph briefly to the effect, that, under the circumstances, I will go at once.

So ends my Tutorship! And I've never once set eyes on my employer all through!

TRICKS UPON TRAVELLERS.

MISLED BY A MANUAL!

When on my Continental tour preparing to depart, I bought a Conversation-Book, and got it up by heart; A handy manual it seemed, convenient and neat, And gave for each contingency a dialogue complete.

I landed full of idioms, which I fondly hoped to air-- But crushing disappointment met my efforts everywhere. The waiters I in fluent French addressed at each hotel Would answer me in English, and--confound 'em!--spoke it well.

Those phrases I was furnished with, for Germany or France, I realised, with bitterness, would never have a chance! I swore that they should hear me yet, and proudly turned my back On polyglots in swallowtails, and left the beaten track....

A PRODUCT OF THE SILLY SEASON.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,

A CRITIC, LURED TO TOWN FROM THE COUNTRY.

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