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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 98 January 25th 1890 by Various Burnand F C Francis Cowley Editor
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Editor: Francis Cowley Burnand
PUNCH,
VOLUME 98.
JANUARY 25, 1890.
UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.
"Tr?s volontiers," repartit le d?mon. "Vous aimez les tableaux changeans: je veux vous contenter."
"'The Humours of the Town!' Archaic phrase, Breathing of BRUMMEL and the dandy days Of curly hats and gaiters! 'Humours' seem rarer now, at least by night, In this strange world of gilt and garish light, And bibulous wits and waiters."
"In Council, Caucus, Causerie, there's an aim Which many know and some might even name; But see yon motley muster, Like shades in Eblis wandering up and down! Types there of every 'Show Class' in the Town Elbow and glide and cluster."
Cold rock-hewn countenances, shaven clean, Hard lips, and eyes alert with strength and spleen; Visages vain and vapid, All wreathed with the conventional bland smile That covers weary scorn or watchful guile, Shift here in sequence rapid.
"Why is this well-dressed mob thus mustered here?" I asked my guide. "On every face a sneer Curls--when it is not smirking. Scorn of each other seems the one sole thing In which they sympathise, the asp whose sting Midst flowery talk is lurking."
"Royston's Reception,--ah! yes; beastly bore! But must drop in for half an hour, no more. The usual cram,--one knows it. Big pudding with a few peculiar "plums". Everyone kicks, but everybody comes. Don't quite know how he does it!'
"So SNAGGS, the slangy cynic. See him there With pouching shirt-front and disordered hair, Talking to CRAMP the sturdy, Irreverent R. A. And he,--that's JOYCE, The shaggy swart Silenus, with a voice Much like a hurdy-gurdy.
"You see him everywhere, though none knows why; Every hand meets his grip, though every eye Furtively hints abhorrence. Society's a gridiron; fools to please, Wise men must sometimes lie as ill at ease As might a new St. Lawrence."
A buzz, a bustle! How the crowd makes way, And parts in lines as on some pageant day! 'Tis the Great Man, none other, "Bland, beaming, bowing quick to left and right; One hour he'll deign to give from his brief night To flattery, fuss and pother.
"Crouched in yon corner, huddled chin to knees, Like some old lion sore and ill at ease Left foodless in the jungle, Sits GRUMPER, growling oaths beneath his breath At CLEON, who--to him--sums party-death And diplomatic bungle.
"Hosts of the nameless, fameless, 'Small Unknown'; Men who can form a 'corner', float a loan, Wire-pull a local Caucus, But cannot paint poor pictures, write bad plays, Or on a platform wildly flame or praise In rolling tones or raucous.
"'In these Saturnian days Amphitryon spreads His meshes wide, and counts not brains but heads. The Tadpoles and the Tapers Are scorned by the few Titans; true; but aims Differ; to some 'tis much to see their names Strung in the morning papers.
"So Private Views are popular, and men Meet just to prompt the social scribe's smart pen. Taste too austerely winnows Town's superflux of chaff from its scant wheat: Our host prefers to mix, in his Great Meet, The Tritons and the minnows!"
"With mutual scorn!" I cried. "Has Fashion power Thus to unhumanise the 'Social Hour,' Theme of old poets' vaunting? Gregarious spites and egotisms harsh!-- Foregathering of frog-swarms in a marsh Yields music as enchanting."
HOLIDAY CATECHISM.
"SPEED THE PARTING."--The last four weeks of BARNUM at Olympia are announced. If this is a fact, won't there arise a chorus of general jubilation from Theatrical Managers? Rather!
THE DITTY OF THE DAGGER.
ETHELINDA hath a dagger; IRVING gave it; calmly there, As the fashion is, she sticks it in her coronal of hair.
Whomsoever she approaches, that three-cornered dagger prods, And a hecatomb of corpses follows when her head she nods.
KATE and MARGARET were wounded as if they'd been to the wars, HILDA too and OLGA owe her very aggravating scars.
If the fashion thus continues of stilettos worn like this, Men must case their heads in helmets, or ne'er go near girls, I wis.
Nathless, were I ETHELINDA'S mother, I would say, "Beware! If you must keep such a dagger, leave it upstairs--with your hair."
ETHELINDA fiercely would repel the base insinuation, But the hint might save her neighbours any further laceration.
SET DOWN FOR TRIAL.
DEAR MR. PUNCH,
THE OLD, OLD STORY.
There was a hoodwinked Man Who, in buying his big guns, Very often by the nose was deftly led, led, led. For when he fired them first They did everything but burst, Though guaranteed by Whitehall's Naval head, head, head!
So when by foes defied At length in action tried 'Tis found that they won't fire a single shot, shot, shot. Let us hope, at any rate, Though the Nemesis come late, That some party who's to blame will get it hot, hot, hot!
AT THE TUDOR EXHIBITION.
IN THE CENTRAL HALL.
KICKED!
I HAD come back from India. I was in Southampton. Only a few months before I had been teaching whist to the natives on the banks of the Ganges, and I had made my fortune out of the Indian rubber. I wonder if they remember the great Sahib who always had seven trumps and only one other suit. Tailoring is in its infancy over there, and the natives frequently had no suit at all. I had not placed my money in the Ganges banks, because they are notoriously unsafe. I had brought it with me to Southampton. I was rich, but solitary. Yet I was a dashing young fellow, especially in my printed conversation. When it rained, I said "dee." Just smack your lips over the delightful wickedness of it, and then proceed.
There was nothing to do. I couldn't go to Ryde, although the waiter assured me it was a pleasant trip. Neither did I care to go for a walk. The situation was at a dead-lock, and I said so.
"Well," said the waiter, "there's the quay."
So I went to the quay. I heard a sweet young voice remark, "What a shocking bad hat!" I fell in love with her at once. She was with a governess--obviously French--who remonstrated.
"'Ush! Naughty! Signor will overhear you, Mees SMITH. Then I give you spanks."
"Well, he shouldn't wear such a bad hat, Mademoiselle."
I was just turning round to introduce myself, when I saw that they had both stepped on to the steamer. I followed them. The French Governess seemed to be in doubt about the boat.
"Antelope of the western horizon," she said, to a surly onlooker, "I will give you three piastres and a French halfpenny if you have ze goodness to tell me if this is ze Ryde steamer."
"How the dickens am I to know whether it's the right steamer or not, when I don't know where you're going to?" asked the man.
I knocked him down at once, and as he rose to return the compliment my hat fell off. Miss SMITH caught it on the tip of her toe as it was falling, sent it twenty feet into the air, caught it again in her large beautiful hands, and pressed it firmly down over my eyes.
"Don't!" said Miss SMITH, looking very shy and pretty.
"Certainly not," I replied. "Of course you will have some tea with me?"
"Oh, my!" she murmured, in her sweet, refined voice. "Well, I must first go and look after poor Mlle. DONNERWETTER."
"And is that something--er--marriage?" I ventured to ask.
"Gar'n!" she replied, in her pretty school-girl slang. "What are yer getting at?"
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