Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 98 January 25th 1890 by Various Burnand F C Francis Cowley Editor

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Ebook has 260 lines and 30989 words, and 6 pages

"Gar'n!" she replied, in her pretty school-girl slang. "What are yer getting at?"

"Suppose the boiler blew up, what then?"

"Ah!" she replied, sadly; "Mademoiselle will blow me up if she finds us out. Listen! she's calling."

"Then it's all right, because if she calls now she'll find us in."

At this moment the steamer reached its destination, and I was compelled to leave Miss SMITH. However, I followed her and the Governess until they entered the gates of Plumfields, a large school for young ladies. Why should I go back to Southampton? I think I will remain at Ryde.

THE PRINCE "STARRING" AT POOLE.--His Royal Highness was just as successful last week at Poole in Dorsetshire as he was at Pyramids in Egypt.

"COUNTING THE CHICKS!"

DAME PARTLET broods in reverie beatific Over as nice a "sitting" Of golden eggs as ever fowl prolific Tended, untired, unflitting. Sound eggs and of good stock, there is no doubt of them. What will come out of them?

That question interests nor PARTLET only; No; while the speckled beauty Sits in quiescent state, content though lonely, The poultry-yard's prime duty Filling her soul, how many minds are watching That hopeful hatching!

Worthy Exchequer Hen! Layer and sitter Of really first-rate quality. Though rival fowls are enviously bitter, That doth not bate her jollity. Her duties CAQUET BONBEC'S game to tackle, Without much cackle.

And then, what luck! A "run" unprecedented, Or almost so; and fodder With which the Laureate's Bird had been contented: Fortune has freaks far odder Than e'en a poet's whimsies, any day, Her rivals say.

She must, they swear, have "raked in golden barley," Like the great Fleet Street "Cock." Their jealous jeremiads, sour and snarly, PARTLET'S prim feelings shock. "Luck! Not at all: but the reward emphatic Of skill villatic."

"Of course 'tis obvious that the Tory rooster Has 'crammed a plumper crop' Than Grand Old Chanticleer, that barn-yard boaster, Whose crowings now must stop, He thought his 'Surplus' none would nearly equal. Behold the sequel?

"Not quite as many eggs? No, but far finer, And not one will be addled. He, in his day, was a Distinguished Shiner, But then the yard he saddled With cross-bred cocktail chicks, unprofitable For nest or table."

So PARTLET, in her own complacent musings; And as for the outsiders, Reckoning up their probable gains and losings, Some fain would be deriders Of her, her fortune, and the brood forthcoming, Which she seems summing.

Meanwhile complacent PARTLET sits and broods, Blandly anticipative. As for the Public, well, of all the moods They clearly love the dative; And, so the brood be good, won't greatly bother As to who's mother!

Shall Women Smoke?

I SEE, by an advertisement, that a cork tip put to a cigarette prevents tongue irritation. I have no objection to my wife's smoking, if she will use these cigarettes. Her "tongue irritation" is something too trying to

Yours truly,

SOCRATES.

P. S.--Might call these cigarettes the "Xan-cork-tipp? Cigarettes."

STREET MUSIC.--If the sole musical solace of the children of the back slums be the Italian organ-grinder, let him remain there; but don't let him emerge thence to worry and drive to distraction authors, composers, musicians, artists, and invalids. It was mainly the organ-grinding nuisance that killed JOHN LEECH.

THE SOUNDS OF THE STREETS.

MR. PUNCH'S Special Nuisance Commissioner continued yesterday afternoon this adjourned inquiry, which, having now arrived at the stage of dealing with "street-music," at present attracting so much public notice, invested the proceedings with an unusual amount of interest.

The Commissioner, on taking his seat, said that, since they last met, he had been rather puzzling himself with the distinction that might be drawn between a "particular" and a "general" or a "pretty general" nuisance, and he had come to the conclusion that he much doubted whether this latter kind had any definite existence, as there were always to be found disagreeable people, themselves the most intolerable nuisances, ready to support and encourage anything that might prove a source of annoyance or even distraction to their more rational neighbours. It was by these growling and cantankerous philanthropists that German "Bands of Three," or even damaged bagpipes, were invited by halfpence to make hideous noises in quiet back-streets. He merely offered these remarks for what they were worth, in passing, and he would now proceed to listen to such fresh evidence as might be forthcoming.

THE COMMISSIONER . Dear me! this is very distressing! Can the Police be of no use? Indeed! Ah! that's very awkward. However, we had better proceed with the evidence. Is there anyone to be heard on the other side?

A Big Drum of the Salvation Army hereupon said he had something to say.

The Big Drum said he had been frequently charged with creating a disturbance. This charge he utterly repudiated. Of course, if such trifles as destroying the tranquillity of an English Sunday, disturbing the peaceful worship of other denominations, creating a street obstruction or two, frightening an occasional omnibus horse into a fit of kicking, and perhaps leading up to some local excitement culminating in a possible riot, be regarded as "disturbing the public peace" then, of course, the Salvationists must plead guilty. As to "making a noise," their mission was to "make a noise," and he flattered himself that the "Big Drum" was not behind-hand, at all events, in that business. As far as "making a noise" was concerned, all processions accompanied by bands aimed at this. The Salvation Army was only in the same boat with the rest.

A Flute-player, who from his habit of playing, in the dim twilight, Scotch airs without sharps or flats, but with sudden turns and trills, had become the terror of several quiet suburban squares, was here about to be heard in his own defence, when the proceedings were interrupted by strains of a German Band that had taken up its station in the street outside, and commenced an imperfect rehearsal of an original valse composed by the Conductor.

On the Commissioner having given orders that it should be stopped forthwith, and it being intimated to him that, in the absence of any policeman, it declined to move off or cease playing under eighteen-pence; he thereupon expressed himself strongly on the present unsatisfactory condition of the existing law, and, explaining at the top of his voice, that it would be no use continuing his remarks through a noise in which he could not possibly make himself heard, hastily adjourned the meeting. And thus the business of the day came suddenly to an unexpected and abrupt conclusion.

A VERY SILLY SONG.

But sudden brilliance reaches The playwright's mouthing shams, And the long-winded speeches Grow brisk as epigrams. My heart, in sudden clover, With smiles adorns my face, For, when the Act is over, I need not keep my place. I'll chase my fears, like foxes, When next the curtain falls-- I'll then be in the boxes, Though now I'm in the stalls.

DIARY OF A JOLLY PARTY.

CALLS FOR THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR?

STATESMEN AT HOME.

"Quite so," says the MARKISS, evidently struck by your readiness of rejoinder.

You approach Hatfield House by the gateway near the Church, and enter an oblong court bounded by the west wing of the Bishop's Palace, now a stately wreck, with horses stabled in the Hall where one time Bishops and Princes sat at meat. You feel inclined to linger here, and moralise upon the theme. But you perceive your noble host awaiting you on the broad steps of the magnificent Jacobean mansion, a picture worthy to be set in such a framework. It is like a portrait of one of the earlier CECILS stepped out of the frame in the Long Gallery. The stately figure is attired in white doublet, trunks, and hose, embroidered with pearls. On the purple surcoat, lined with red, gold buttons gleam. The white ruff is fastened at wrist and throat with gold buttons: the black cap is solely adorned with a knot of pearls; a golden cord hangs from the neck; the right hand rests upon the head of a large dog, that has, perhaps, a rather stuffed look; whilst the left negligently lounges on the hip above the ready sword.

Is it THOMAS, Earl of Exeter? Or is it his half-brother, ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury, joint ancestor of the two great branches of the CECIL family? Or is it, perchance, ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury, or JAMES CECIL, first MARKISS?

A familiar voice breaks the charm, and discloses the secret.

"Welcome to Hatfield, TOBY, dear boy; but don't suppose that every day I am got up in this style. It is only in honour of your visit, and as soon as you are gone, I doff my doublet and hose, put on an old coat, and go down into my workshop, where I have a little tinkering to do with one of the electric wires which has gone wrong, and threatens to burn up the premises. So glad to see you. Always think these informal conferences between individual members of the two Houses are not only personally agreeable, but may be fraught with the greatest benefit to the State, which we both serve. Wait till you see my dog move."

The noble MARKISS, stooping down a little stiffly , turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved out of the way.

"Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he."

On to the Summer Dining-room through the Winter Dining-room, into the Drawing-room, and thence into the Chapel where you admire the painted window of Flemish work, representing in compartments various scriptural subjects.

You have been so interested in the journey, that there has been no time for ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOIGNE-CECIL, P.C., K.G., Third Marquis of Salisbury, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister of England, to tell you the story of his life. This you the less regret, as the MARKISS is manifestly growing increasingly uncomfortable in his doublet and hose. So he conducts you to the hall, and bids you a friendly farewell. As you walk down the Avenue--"The Way to London," as CECILS dead and buried used to call it--you turn to take one last look at the noble pile, Italian renaissance in character, of two orders, the lower Doric, the upper Ionic, with a highly-enriched Elizabethan central gate-tower, and stepped gables.

TOMMIUS ETONENSIS LOQUITUR.

VULTNE Gubernator rursus spoliare Hiemales Holidies? Durum debet habere jecur! Nunc iterum versus--pejor Fortuna--Latinos concoquere ille jubet. Fecit idem quondam; nunc et--cogitatio laeta!-- Stratagem? veteri vendere eum potero. Materiae sors ulla, puto, descendit e?cum; Namque Latina illi "mortua lingua" manet. De quo nunc scribam?--Vidi spectacula Barni, Et res, considero, non ita prava fuit. Sed quia Neronem atque Romam introducere oportet? Est socio prorsus sat dare caerulea! Tunc vidi Dominum Silvae Coventis ad Hortum, Et Circum Hengleri, Pantomimosque simul. Ad scholam redco--lamentor dicere--mox nunc; Notio nuda manet bestialissima mi! O utinam tactum possem capere Influenzae! Cuncta habeo morbi symptoma, dico patri. "Undique mortalitas "--addo--"excessiva videtur. In valli est Tamesis particulare malus!" "Russigenus morbus! Frigus commune cerebri;" Ille ait arridens. "Hoc Russ in urbe vocas?" "Sed pueros per me fortasse infectio tanget; Oh, nonne in cera Busbius erit!" Jingo! Gubernator respondit--"Shammere cessa! Aut aliquid de quo vere dolere dabo!" Hei mihi! Deposuisse pedem nunc ille videtur. Sunt lineae durae!--Terminat Holidies.

NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.

In 1832, when Walt was studying the world through the keen eyes of thirteen, and the windows of a Brooklyn printing shop, Democratic South Carolina was offering a stubborn resistance to the Federal tariff. Theoretically, and one may add ethically, any tariff was contrary to the Jeffersonian doctrine of universal freedom; and practically, it was disastrous to the special interests of the South. Carolina, under the poetic fire and genius of Calhoun, was the Southern champion against Northern, or, let us say, Federal aggression. She stood out for the rights of a minority so far as to propose secession. The South was aggrieved by the tariff, for, roughly speaking, its States were cotton plantations, whose interests lay in easy foreign exchange; they grew no corn, they made no machinery, they neither fed nor clothed themselves. The North on the other hand was industrial, anxious to guard its infant manufactures against the competition of Great Britain. The West was agricultural, demanding roads and public works which required the funds provided by a tariff. Now even these public works, these high roads and canals, were calculated directly to benefit the Northern manufacturers rather than the planters of the South whose highway to the West was the great river which had formerly given them all the Western trade to handle, and whose cheapest market for machinery and manufactured goods lay over the high sea whither its own staple was continually going.

The tariff imposed for the benefit of the Northern section was, then, opposed by the South on grounds of industrial necessity as well as of political theory. And it may be noted the argument of the Southerner was equally the argument of many an artisan in the metropolis, who saw in free trade the sole guarantee of cheap living.

Thus there was a certain antagonism between the interests of the two geographical sections of the American nation; and this was emphasised by another cause for hostility. Every statesman knew that, although unacknowledged, it was really the question of slavery which was already dividing America into "North" and "South". And recognising it as beyond his powers of solution, he sought by maintaining a compromise to conceal it from the public mind.

The "Sovereign States," momentarily united for defence against a domineering king, had at the same hour been swept by Tom Paine's and Jefferson's versions of the French Republicanism, and North and South alike adhered to a doctrinaire equality. The negro, they were willing to agree, should be voluntarily and gradually emancipated.

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