Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Shackleton's Last Voyage: The Story of the Quest by Macklin A H Alexander Hepburn Wild Frank
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 259 lines and 12725 words, and 6 pages
PUNCH,
VOL. 147.
OCTOBER 21, 1914.
CHARIVARIA.
We hear that, in addition to lowering the lights at night, the authorities intend, in order to confuse the enemy, to alter the names of some of our thoroughfares, and a start is to be made with Park Lane, which is to be changed to Petticoat Lane.
The KAISER is reported to have received a nice letter from his old friend ABDUL , pointing out that it is the fate of some kind and gentle souls to be misunderstood.
Matches, it is stated, are required at the front--to put an end, we believe, to Tommy Atkins' reckless habit of lighting his cigarette by applying it to the burning fuse of a bomb.
"Property insured in London is valued at ?1,320,000,000," according to an announcement made by Lord PEEL last week. One can almost hear the KAISER smacking his lips.
At last the authorities have acted, and the premises of a German firm with concrete foundations have been raided. This bears out the promise of certain high officials who declared that they would take action when a concrete example was brought to their notice.
The official "Eye-Witness" in a recent despatch tells us how a British subaltern saw, from a wood, an unsuspecting German soldier patrolling the road. Not caring to shoot his man in cold blood, he gave him a ferocious kick from behind, at which the startled German ran away with a yell. This subaltern certainly ought to have figured in "Boots' Roll of Honour" which was published last week.
Why, it is being asked, do not the French retaliate for the damage done by the Germans to their cathedrals and drop bombs on Berlin? The persons who put this question have evidently never seen Berlin or they would know that you cannot damage its architecture if you try.
The KAISER has announced his intention of eating his Christmas dinner in London. We trust that Mr. MCKENNA and his men will see to it that His Majesty will, anyhow, find no mince pies here.
According to one report which reaches us the KAISER is now beginning to quibble. He has pointed out that, when he said he would eat his Christmas dinner at Buckingham Palace, he did not mention which Christmas.
TO THE ENEMY, ON HIS ACHIEVEMENT.
Now wanes the third moon since your conquering host Was to have laid our weakling army low, And walked through France at will. For that loud boast What have you got to show?
Paris, that through her humbled Triumph-Arch Was doomed to see you tread your fathers' tracks-- Paris, your goal, now lies a six days' march Behind your homing backs.
Pressed to the borders where you lately passed Bulging with insolence and fat with pride, You stake your all upon a desperate cast To stem the gathering tide.
Eastward the Russian draws you to his fold, Content, on his own ground, to bide his day, Out of whose toils not many feet of old Found the returning way.
And still along the seas our watchers keep Their grip upon your throat with bands of steel, While that Armada, which should rake the deep, Skulks in its hole at Kiel.
So stands your record--stay, I cry you grace-- I wronged you. There is Belgium, where your sword Has bled to death a free and gallant race Whose life you held in ward;
Where on your trail the smoking land lies bare Of hearth and homestead, and the dead babe clings About its murdered mother's breast--ah, there, Yes, you have done great things!
O. S.
TOMMY BROWN, RECRUITING SERGEANT.
Though the pervading note of Mr. Smith's report upon Tommy was gloom, deep gloom, he must have had some dim hopes of him, for, at the end of the Summer Term, he had placed his hand upon Tommy's head and said, "Never mind, my boy, we shall make a man of you some day."
A new term had begun; Tommy Brown had mobilised two days late, but he was in time for Mr. Smith's lecture on "The War, boys."
The orator spoke for an hour and a quarter, and at the end he wiped his brows with the blackboard duster under the impression that it was his handkerchief. Meanwhile Tommy had eaten three apples, caught four flies, written "Kiser" in chalk on the back of the boy in front of him, exchanged a catapult with Jones minor for a knife, cut his finger, and made faces at each of the four new boys. Mr. Smith caught him in one of these contortions, but he was speaking of Louvain at the moment and took it as a compliment.
Suddenly Tommy found himself confronted with a number of sheets of clean paper. "The essay is to be written on one side of the paper only," said Mr. Smith.
Tommy asked the boy next to him what they had to write about, and the reply, "The War, you fool," set him thinking.
A deathlike stillness fell upon the room; Tommy Brown looked round, frowned heavily, dipped his pen in the ink and then in his mouth, and thought hard.
Then, after much frowning, he delivered himself of the following, the ink being shared equally between himself and the paper:--
"The wor was becose the beljums wouldent let the jermens go over there fields so they put minds in the sea and bunbarded people dead with airplans. It was shokkin. The rushens have got a steme roler. We have got a garden roler at home and I pull it sometimes. I dont like jermens. Kitchener said halt your country needs you and weve got a lot of drednorts. The airplans drop boms on anyone if your not looking it isnt fare yours truly T. Brown."
The essay completed to his satisfaction, Tommy Brown conveyed to his mouth a sweet the size and strength of which fully justified the name "Britain's Bulwarks" attached to it by the shopkeeper.
He then leaned back with the air of one who had done his duty in the sphere in which he found himself and proceeded to survey the room.
The other boys were still writing, and for fully half a minute Tommy looked at them in pained surprise.
He then read his own essay again and, finding no flaw in it, frowned once more on his fellow pupils and wrote: "My father won the Victoria Cross Meddle." Having written this he looked round again somewhat defiantly. His eye caught one of the new boys beginning another sheet.
Tommy studied this for a minute, and then, as the appeal seemed directed to himself, he wrote: "I'm not old enuf or I'd go my brothers gone I'm not a funk I let Jones miner push a needle into my finger to show him."
It seemed to Tommy Brown that the other boys possessed some secret fund of information, even the new boys. He'd show those new boys after school. Having made up his mind on this point he printed at the bottom of his essay, "Kitchener wants men." As an after-thought he added, "My father was a man."
He let his gaze wander round the room until it fell upon the face of his master, and then, under some impulse, he wrote the fateful words, "Mr. Smith is a man."
"Finish off now!" rang out the command from Mr. Smith.
No one ever read Tommy Brown's essay excepting Mr. Smith, and he burnt it.
"A number of shells burst together and almost at the same moment he saw a large cigar-shaped cigar fall to the earth."
The unusual shape of it struck him at once.
MR. PUNCH . "NO DOUBT YOU CAN MAKE MONEY IN THIS FIELD, MY FRIEND, BUT THERE'S ONLY ONE FIELD TO-DAY WHERE YOU CAN GET HONOUR."
THE SUNDAY EVENING EDITION.
Mrs. Henry looked up. "I think I hear that boy again selling evening papers," she said. "I suppose they must come off the 9.5 train. But it's a strange thing to happen on a Sunday--here."
The Reverend Henry was already at the window. He threw it up and leaned out.
"One can't approve of it, but I suppose in war time--" Mrs. Henry was beginning when her husband cut her short. "Hush--I'm trying to hear what he is saying. I wish boys could be taught to speak distinctly." There was a pause.
"I can't make him out." The Reverend Henry's head reappeared between the curtains. "It's really most exasperating; I'd give a lot to know if the Belgian army got out of Antwerp before it fell."
"Couldn't you shout down and ask him?"
"No, no. I cannot be discovered interrogating urchins about secular affairs from a second storey window on Sunday evening. Still, I'd like to know."
The Reverend Henry perambulated the room with knitted brow.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page