Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Legend of Kupirri or The Red Kangaroo An Aboriginal Tradition of the Port Lincoln Tribe by Cawthorne W A William Alexander
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 226 lines and 17692 words, and 5 pages
Punch, or the London Charivari
Volume 158, Jan-Jul 1920
June 2, 1920
CHARIVARIA.
Some idea of the heat experienced in this country last week can be deduced from the fact that several bricklayers were distinctly seen to wipe their brows in their own time.
It is all very well for LENIN to talk about Great Britain recognising Russia, while his followers are doing their best to render the place almost unrecognisable.
Normally, says Dr. GEOFFREY KEYNES, a person has fifteen thousand millions of blood corpuscles circulating in his body. People suffering with insomnia might try counting them in bed.
According to a scientific journal, tests recently made show that microbes cannot live long on coins. "Middle Class" writes to say this is nothing new to him, as no germ could live on his salary.
The promoters of the Milk and Dairies Bill hope to ensure clean milk for the public. They seem to have thought out an improvement on the present system by which certain dairymen are in the habit of washing their milk.
A gold wedding-ring has been found inside a large doe rabbit which was shot recently in a wheat-field near Wilbury. The question arises, "Do modern rabbits go through the marriage ceremony?"
The latest fad of the American golfer is to have a small painting made of himself in the act of driving. We feel, however, that it will be some time before English golfers will place orders for plaster casts of their language.
Nearly all the extra firemen required for the London Fire Brigade have been engaged. Clients are assured that arrears of fires will now be worked off with all speed.
According to a daily paper a severe thunderstorm which recently visited Luton was not heard by the audience in a local concert hall. It is rumoured that a performer was at the time reciting a chapter of Lord FISHER'S autobiography.
A strike of incubator-makers is threatened and many grocers who stock breakfast-eggs fear that a lot of chicks may come out in sympathy.
According to an evening paper a young lady who was chased by a bull in a provincial meadow ran a quarter of a mile and jumped a stream sixteen feet wide before gaining safety. Not much of a jump, surely, considering the long run she took.
"Whilst motoring between Baldock and Grantham one is struck by the greenness of the growing wheat and barley," states a writer in a motor journal. The regularity with which these cereal grasses adopt this colour is certainly worthy of attention.
Our heart goes out to the American travellers who set foot on our shores at Southampton one day last week just five minutes after closing-time.
In their recent match against Sussex the first four Middlesex batsmen each scored a century. We understand that in order to obviate a recurrence of this sort of thing a movement is on foot to increase the number of runs in a century to a hundred and fifty.
We are informed that "a man arrested by Dutch fishermen in the belief that it was the CROWN PRINCE making his escape turned out to be a notorious jewel thief." The error seems to have been excusable.
The case of the dock labourer who appeared at a County Court in a tail coat and white waistcoat is now explained. The man's valet, who usually looks after these things for him, had gone on strike for more wages.
Charged with taking one hundred and forty-five pounds of his employers' money a Newcastle office-boy was stated to have been reading trashy novels. It was thought to be only fair to the financial papers that the public should know where he got the idea from.
"I reckon I can drink fifty pints a day, easy," a witness told the Portsmouth magistrates. He may do it for a while, but sooner or later his arm is bound to go back on him.
"Under British guidance," says a contemporary, "Persia's future is bright with promise." We know nothing of its future, but its present seems to be scintillating with performance under Bolshevik direction.
Owing to the increased cost of living it is said that burglars will now only book jewel robberies of two thousand pounds and over.
"NEW POLICY IN IRELAND.
NO TRIALS WITHOUT ARRESTS."
A good idea, but it was anticipated in the matter of jugged hare.
We shall be careful not to register.
ODYSSEUS AT THE DERBY.
Oh, "many-counselled" hero! if a horse Your attributes may also borrow, Lend him your cunning round the Derby course, Teach him a thing or two to-morrow, That at the end it may be said: "He did a great performance with his head."
As you contrived by tricks of crafty skill Ever to down your foes and flatten 'em, So may he lie low going up the hill, Secure the inside berth at Tattenham, And do a finish up the straight Swift as your shafts that sealed the suitors' fate!
Fortune attend his name, though some deplore Its pedantry, and I assume it is Likely, from what I know of bookies' lore, That on the rails he'll be "Poloometis"; For me, I do not care two pins How they pronounce him, if he only wins.
O. S.
THE SERENE BATSMAN.
It is a common fallacy among cricketing coaches and their pupils that when the young batsman has mastered all the strokes that can be imparted to him at the nets his education is complete. So far from that being the case, it has barely begun. Under the prevailing system, the psychological factor, the most important of all, is entirely neglected. The most trying moment of a cricketer's life is when he first steps forth alone from the pavilion of a public ground. In that moment all that the old pro has taught him of cuts and drives, forward play and back play, will not prevent his knees from weakening as he totters to the wicket, whereas the following hints may enable him to face the occasion with confidence if not contempt.
Remember that for a public performer a good entrance is more than half the battle; the first impression on the spectators is the most lasting.
Nothing looks worse than a batsman hurrying out at a furtive trot, as if he were going to pawn his bat. When your turn comes to go in, take care to be just within the regulation two minutes, but school yourself to emerge from the pavilion at a leisurely stride with more than a suspicion of swagger in it. The bat should not be carried as a shy curate carries a shabby umbrella, but either boldly across the shoulder, like a rifle, or tucked under the armpit, so that you may do up your batting-gloves in your progress across the greensward. An excellent effect will be produced if you pause half-way and execute a few fancy strokes at an imaginary ball. Besides, you may not have another opportunity of displaying your accomplishment.
Having, as it were, reported yourself at the wicket, it is a good plan to discover that you need a new batting-glove. This will afford you an excuse for a return journey to the pavilion, during which your gait will lose nothing in stateliness if you can manage to adopt the goose-step. On your return to the wicket you will probably find, if the weather is mild and the grass dry, that the fieldsmen are reclining on the ground; it will enhance your reputation for nonchalance and good-fellowship if you can contrive to give one of them a playful pat with your bat in passing, especially if he is a total stranger to you and much your senior.
On your second arrival at the wicket, you might get the wicket-keeper to take his gloves off and adjust the straps of your pads. This is one of many subtle ways of demoralising the fielding side and whetting the interest of the onlookers.
After taking middle with such scrupulous exactitude as to imply that you suspect the umpire's eyesight, take one of the bails and scratch a block deep enough to plant something in. Then beckon to the square-leg umpire to come and replace the bail. In this you will be strictly within the law, and nobody can suspect you of the surreptitious use of a little cobbler's wax.
Your next move should be to summon the other batsman to a whispered conference in the middle of the pitch. It doesn't much matter what you say to him; a new funny story or the plot of a play you saw last week will serve to make him assume an air of thoughtful attention.
After a chat of about five minutes, you will return slowly to your crease, there to scrutinise the slip fieldsmen, and then to gaze all round the ground as if to make sure that the other side is not playing more than eleven men.
When taking your stance you will do well to give full effect to some such mannerism as Mr. WARNER'S trick of hitching up the left side of the trousers and tapping the ground seven times. And just as the bowler is about to start his run you can disconcert him by suddenly whipping round to see if they have moved another man over to the leg side while your back was turned.
As soon as the bowler has covered half his course to the wicket you should raise your hand to arrest his career. Then you must stroll about a third of the way up the pitch and give the ground a good slapping with the face of your bat.
If you feel so inclined, there is no reason why you should not repeat this manuvre. Nothing is more calculated to upset a highly-strung bowler. And when the ball does come down the chances are that it will be a wide, in which case you will have earned one run for your side. If, on the other hand, it should happen to knock your middle stump out of the ground, there is nothing more to be done, but you will have the satisfactory feeling that your little turn in the limelight has not been utterly inglorious.
CECIL CLAY.
THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMATEUR EXAMINER.
The Nabobs is, I suppose, one of the best girls' schools in England. Anyhow it is perhaps the most exclusive unless you have money enough. But, as the prospectus says, "it commands an extensive view of the English Channel," and I suppose these things have to be paid for. At all events there is no doubt that the principal, Miss Penn-Cushing, has her heart in her work and is a splendid disciplinarian, and so I sent my niece Mollie there to be finished .
I have an idea at times that it is Mollie who will finish Miss Penn-Cushing, but I try to preserve a benevolent neutrality combined with a regular supply of food parcels to my niece.
Miss Penn-Cushing is LL.A. of one University and LL.B. of another, and, I think, LL.C. of a third, so that she ought to be more than a match for six Mollies.
I have always had the impression that Miss Penn-Cushing regarded me as a humble entomological specimen until the other day when she paid me a staggering compliment. She herself teaches all the English literature in her academy, and each class in turn goes up to her room to receive its daily dose. Mollie says that when she grows up she is going to give up English literature for ever and read something interesting.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page