Customer. "Have you my Pass Book?"
Overworked Cashier. "Did you leave it with us?"
Customer. "I don't know, but I thought you might as well look for it
before I do."
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 150, May 17 1916, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 150, May 17 1916 Author: Various Release Date: May 30, 2012 [EBook #39852] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH OR THE LONDON *** Produced by Jane Robins, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
"We can never talk of the theatre without harking back to the play itself," says "The Matinée Girl" in The Evening News. Funny how these irrelevant trifles will obtrude themselves into the most facile critic's train of thought.
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So simple and successful has been the progress of the Daylight-Saving Scheme, under which the clock is to be put forward an hour during the summer months, that a movement is on foot to help the War Office prophets by putting the War back a couple of years.
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It is not generally known that during the week ending May 7th a fourth Zeppelin was sunk by H.M.S. Feuilleton.
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A tremendous boom in canaries is reported from New York. The colour is believed to be a favourite one with the hyphenated.
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Breconshire County Council is proposing to abolish Sunday fishing. It is felt, however, that the demands of the Sabbath will be met if the fishermen can be prevented from describing their exploits till Monday morning.
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An evening contemporary has the following heading:—
"Hindenburg Seedy.
Petrograd tale of a gloomy 'Papa' and an angry Below."
Can the Prussian idol have contracted so vulgar an ailment as a pain in his underneath?
**
*
Sabadilla, it appears, is a plant of the Lily family, from which is extracted a poison that forms the basis of the German "tear" shells. An allied form, "Crocodilla," also possessing lachrymatory properties, is likewise extensively used by the German Government.
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It is observed that the Committee to investigate the administration and command of the Royal Flying Corps is composed of four lawyers and two engineers. The large proportion of "doers" to "talkers"—nearly half the total—is a startling innovation in British public affairs and a satisfactory sign that the Government is thoroughly awake to the gravity of the situation.
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"Pawn-tickets are evidences of real poverty—when a man pawns his shirts and so on," said Judge Cluer recently at Whitechapel. "And so off" would have been a more logical way of putting it.
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A Camberwell recruit has taken a white mouse in his pocket as a mascot. It is to be hoped that he will not get into a tight corner and be compelled to hoist the white mouse in token of surrender.
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A sackful of comatose flies has been taken from the Coronation clock tower at Surbiton. The authorities are said to be contemplating the removal of a similar deposit from underneath Big Ben.
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A German scientist has expressed the opinion that the product obtained by mixing chaff or finely-chopped straw with pig's blood scarcely deserves to be called bread. It is, however, expected that the German trader, ever resourceful, will get over this little difficulty by calling it cake and charging a little more for it.
**
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A Dublin office boy, returning to his employment after a fortnight's absence, informed his employer that he had been fighting and a prisoner; whereas, of course, in similar circumstances an English lad would have contented himself with explaining that he had merely been taking the letters to the post.
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The sports programme to be contested at Blackheath on May 20th will include various events open to attested men. We wish the management could have seen their way to include a Consolation Sack Race (with water hazards) for Conscientious Objectors.
No. XXXIX.
(From James J. Saltontale, of New York City.)
Kaiser William,—I guess you'll remember who I am when I tell you that the Jay-Jay Lecture Agency and the Pushalong Dramatic Show Company were invented by me and that I'm the sole possessor of these two world-wide organisations. I wasn't always in with the high-brow crowd of the lecturing business. To tell you the truth I began quite low down with a six-legged pig that could spell out the word "pork" by touching the letters with his snout on a big cardboard alphabet. He didn't last long. Times were hard during his second winter, and—well, I never knew till then how much bacon there is to a pig, even when it's a learned one with six legs to it. It was always some trouble tying on them two extra legs, and it was nervous work watching them while the show was open to see they didn't work loose. So on the whole I wasn't altogether put into mourning when old six-legs joined the dear departed and left me free to speculate in Mexican dwarfs and a Bolivian giantess with a rich contralto voice.
After that we rose to lions and tigers and a very massive elephant and a few comic bears and a gorilla from Africa. It was profitable but tiring, and after I'd saved a dollar or two I was able to retire from the Mammoth Antediluvian Menagerie and devote myself to Lectures and the Pushalong stunt, which is living pictures of an historic and improving sort. So now you remember me, don't you?
Well, the fact is, Kaiser, that a notion's come into my head, and it's this. When peace comes with all its horrors, you won't want to go on every day explaining to the German people how you lost the War by being too kind or by not having prepared yourself enough. And you won't want to keep telling them why you spent so much time over Verdun and why the British Fleet didn't make things as easy and comfortable for you as you reckoned it ought to have done. The German people won't want to listen to talk of that kind. They've been there and they'll know all about it without being told. No, what you'll want to do will be to get into a new atmosphere, with people all round you listening to you just as if you were the only man in the world. You'll find all that in the United States if you'll only put yourself in the hands of the Jay-Jay Lecturing Agency and the Pushalong Dramatic Show Company. We shall engage the halls and get together the audiences by our unique system of advertisements, and all you've got to do is to appear at the time fixed and address the meeting for an hour to an hour and a-half on such subjects as "Why Belgium started the War," and "How Serbia used Poison Gas," and "A Dozen Proofs that the Lusitania was Sunk by the British out of Spite," and "Turkey, the Saviour of the Armenians." There'll be plenty of others, but these four will do as a good working basis, and we can fill out the list later on, not forgetting the Monroe Doctrine and how Germany is going to knock everyone who attacks it into pie.
Then, there can be living pictures of yourself, in all kinds of uniforms, deciding reluctantly to issue an ultimatum, or packing your valise for the Front, or leading two millions of men in a charge and bringing back four millions of prisoners or setting an example to your people by eating War-bread by the crumb. And then you can wind up the evening's entertainment by showing yourself making a speech in which you bring in that bit about the good old German God who has always been your ally. And then the audience will stream out very devoutly, and all of them will shake you by the hand and say they're pleased to meet you. I tell you, William Hohenzollern, it will be great, and the dollars will come pouring in. Leave it all to me, and I'll guarantee a success that'll make you grateful to me for ever. If we could only get Uncle Francis Joseph to join—but no; that might distract attention from you, and it's you I'm banking on. All I ask is a miserable twenty per cent. on the profits. Is it a bargain?
Yours, James J. S.
"Taking the star and ribbon from the hand of an aide-de-camp, General Mahon placed the latter round the neck of the French General."—Balkan News.
"A lady wishes to recommend her lady-nurse who has lived with her for 14 years, to take entire charge of a boy; not under 31."—Morning Post.
Will the "Old Boys" Battalion please note?
Our unparliamentary correspondent states that the Daylight-Saving Scheme had a narrow escape. The Daily Mail could not for some time see its way to sanction a proposal under which on the first day (new style) the actual number of hours would be twenty-three—the total of the Cabinet.
"Bucks Vllge.—Fur villa to let. 3 mths."—Daily Mail.
Personally, when we take a Fur Villa, we object to even three moths being left on the premises.
Which is the most valuable—life, comfort or self-respect? A little while ago I should have said, without a moment's hesitation, life. But now——
To begin at the beginning, let me say that before the Sussex was torpedoed by the Quixotic Hun I had decided to go to France. Then came that tragedy, and as a result letters from friends and the relatives whose affection I still retain, urging first that the French enterprise should be abandoned altogether, and, second, that, if not, a life-preserving device should be instantly obtained. Advertisements cut from newspapers accompanied some of these letters containing testimonials in favour of this belt and that.
Having no particular reason for losing my life, at any rate without a struggle—provided always that the operation was not too expensive—I gave more attention to these advertisements than to any others since at school, too long ago, the entrancing and persuasive firm of Theobald spread his lures before us; and having done so I obediently obeyed their instructions and wrote for illustrated pamphlets. [Does anyone, I wonder by the way, collect illustrated pamphlets? The illustrated pamphlets of this War alone should make a valuable exhibit some day.] Having studied them, I found very quickly that, though the belts were of various kinds, all were alike in two or three points, one being the description of themselves as vests or waistcoats rather than belts; and another the claims of each to be the best. Some relied for their buoyancy on the element upon which Mr. Pemberton-Billing has floated to notoriety, if not fame, and had to be blown up; others trusted to some mysterious fibre several times more buoyant than cork; a third—but these two will serve as types of all.
Each, as I say, was the best; and, however different in material, all were alike too in one effect, for each in saving one's life saved it the right way up. There are, it seems, buoyant belts, or vest, so lost to shame as to submerge the wearer's head and shoulders and leave only his legs exposed. But not so with these; these had no such tricks; these undertook to maintain me topside up with care. The pictures in the pamphlets were invariably of gentlemen of vaster proportions even than myself, all riding buoyantly and securely on the waves, like Dr. Burney in Barry's fresco at the Society of Arts—and all dressed more or less becomingly in the best vest.
Each being of superlative excellence, I had to apply other principles of selection, and fell back upon the most usual of those, which is financial. I had to answer the question. At what sum do I value my life?—the range of price being from seven-and-six to two pounds ten. Was my life worth two pounds ten? I inquired of myself. It's a lot of money, I replied. Should it not rather go into Exchequer Bonds? What would Mr. McKenna say? You see how complex the situation suddenly became.
After long deliberation and taking into consideration the circumstance that the vest which was priced at fifty shillings had to be inflated before it was of any use and that the arrival of a torpedo would probably deprive me of all breath, or at any rate, of all blowing power, I decided that two pounds ten was excessive. No life could be worth that. I was therefore, after further communings, driven back on the astonishing fibre at fifteen shillings; and one of these vests I ordered to be sent to the boat. So far, so good.
Now I do not say that the advertisement and the illustrated pamphlet had exactly called the vest a stylish addition to ordinary attire, but there was reticence as to any unsightly effect upon the figure. So little emphasis was laid on this that one quite naturally expected something rather like a vest. Not of course such an article as that historic waistcoat which Dickens borrowed from Macready, but a vest not devoid of vestiness—something that a gentleman could negligently pace the deck in, without being too ostentatiously engaged in the task or pastime of saving his life; or sleep in with comfort, all ready for the water when the Hun arrived.
Imagine then my surprise on finding in my cabin a parcel that might by its size have contained an assortment of pumpkins, from which I extracted an article no doubt many times more buoyant than cork, but adapted far less to walking a deck in or wooing reluctant slumbers in than for (obviously its real purpose) assisting Sir Herbert Tree to make up as Falstaff.
Carefully locking the door, I put it on and tied its tapes and fastened its buckles. The result was more than comic—it was grotesque; and with an overcoat to cover it I looked like one of the two Macs of blessed memory. Could life be saved thus? Only by sitting up in my cabin all night, for as to going on deck in it—not for a ransom! And as for sleeping in it—that was beyond all question. I therefore took it off, and sadly I climbed the companion to see how the rest of the passengers looked in their various vests; but either they had found a trimmer build than mine, which I doubt, or they too had shirked the ordeal. The result was that all our lives—even my fifteen-shilling one—were at the disposal of the Hun. So is it to be English.
Anyhow, the saving of my own life is not, I am convinced, my forte. My forte is fatalism and trust in a star that hitherto has not been too capricious. Perhaps that is England's forte too.
In announcing their production as "One of those musical things," the authors of the new Comedy revue have given a lead which it is hoped may end in the establishment of happier relations between the advertiser and the consumer. For a long time signs have not been absent that the star of the mere hustler is set, and that the public are no longer to be cowed into obedience by the Prussianism of Blank, who commands, "Buy my soap and step lively about it. You'd better!"
The following essays in the less assertive mode of publicity are offered by way of intelligent anticipation:—
Messrs. Dance, Gay & Punter announce the successful ballad, He wears my Image next to his Identification Disc, by William B. Blitherly.
"Another of Mr. Blitherly's naïve little efforts."
Call at our studios and try it over. It goes better with the music.
You might do sillier things than read Right Now, the new Thesaurus of Satire. Twopence bi-weekly. Shernard Bawl contributes to the current issue five columns on "Myself and England."
"Bawl at his amusing worst. Tosh, of course, but it tickles."
"If the motion is carried on Monday, and a similar resolution is passed by the Lords, the new system might be adopted on Sunday, May 13, or Sunday, May 30."—Star.
We never realised that it was going to upset the calendar as well as the clock.
"The doctor stated he might have to go himself, but the position just now was that he was not allowed to go until he could find someone to undertake his work. Personally, he would far sooner join the colours than keep on with his present work, which was 'simply killing.'"—Birmingham Daily Post.
"A graduate in Divinity in these days ought to have sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to be able at any rate to hold the word with one hand while he looks it out in the lexicon with the other."—Guardian.
The B.A., like the A.B., has to be a handy man nowadays.
Extract from Company Orders:—
"Strength.—Lieut. G——, having reported himself for temporary duty, is taking on the strength of this Company from the —th April."
"The grave, gentle, but enormous Miss —— ——, whose dainty tripping to the famous Apache melody makes it worth while having a spell in hospital to witness."—Egyptian Gazette.
"Sir Robert Chalmers, to be Permanent Under Secretary for Ireland pro tem." —Daily Mirror.
A typically Irish appointment.
"Masses of spectators crowded the pavements, filled windows, and occupied every inch of space, even to getting astride the Lions in Trafalgar-square, all of whom cheered themselves hoarse and flung flowers to the stalwart, hard-set Anzacs as they swung past."—Daily Paper.
This is not the only time the Anzacs have roused the British Lion to enthusiasm.
XIII.
My dear Mr. Punch,—Since landing in India about 200 years ago we have had many novel and remarkable experiences, but I think in my case none has been more strange and disconcerting than my transformation into a civilian or a dufter wallah (as we who sit at desks are contemptuously termed by the fighting men).
Table manners are a great trial to me in my new employ. In barracks, if you want bread, you merely shout in the queer jargon of the British soldier in India, "Hao up the roti there!" You then duck quickly, brush the crumbs out of your hair and get on with the meal. As a civilian I have to count ten, take myself firmly in hand, prepare a courteous little speech and deliver it with care and precision, trying hard to avoid glancing over my shoulder to see if a lump is likely to catch me under the ear.
And every night, though it is now over two months since I left the regiment, I carefully feel the legs of my bedstead before retiring to rest. For in barrack life, when you lie down unsuspectingly on a bed which has been "set," it instantly collapses into a shapeless mass of wreckage and shoots you out violently on the floor.
In the office itself my new life is full of difficulties. Soon after my arrival I thoughtlessly celebrated the completion of a rather troublesome task by bursting into song, as we always did in barracks. Shortly afterwards I received a frigidly polite message from my superior officer, saying, if I had any complaint to make, would I be so good as to put it into writing and to refrain from any vocal advertisement of my grievances.
But even office life has its compensations. There are moments of pure delight, such as that in which I discovered "Cemeteries" classified under the general heading of "Accommodation for Troops."
And the Babu is always with us to make our days joyful. Babu English is perhaps rather vieux jeu at this time of day; nevertheless it is a privilege to read on the spot a supplication for permission to "prostitute myself daily to your holy feet this time without fail whereby to beseech to Heaven to send to your Honour many posthumous olive branches"; or a request that "your Highness will not cause to nip in the Bud my unworthy yet fragrant hopes by the December cold snap of your august displeasure."
In conversation, excellent fellow as he usually is, the Babu is easily misunderstood. It was only yesterday that one of them was giving me an account of an old Sikh monk he had come upon during a walk in the woods. I had not known before that there were monks among the Sikhs, but then there are quite a number of facts about India that I have yet to learn.
I had no difficulty in picturing the aged hermit sitting at the foot of a tree in a religious trance. But it seemed strange that when the Babu approached he should have shown his teeth and gibbered. This, however, might be due to the eccentricity of a recluse or to some caste difficulty. I could not share the Babu's surprise that he refused the acorns proffered to him, but it did seem odd that when the Babu callously shook his stick at the old man and said "Huh!" he swarmed with great agility up the tree and made faces.
It was only when the limpness of his tail was mentioned that I suddenly realised we were talking about a sick monkey.
Letters from the Battalion, 7000 feet below, drift up to me occasionally, but they contain little beyond the old sentiment, expressed hundreds of times daily by Territorials from the Himalayas to the Nilghiris. India is a marvellous and unique country; to have lived in it is an education and a joy; to have guarded it a proud Imperial privilege. But most of us would give something to get out of it and into Europe. Yours ever,
One of the Punch Brigade.
XII.—The Strand.
A brother-officer attached to the King's Shropshire Light Infantry writes from the Front:—"I thought you would like to hear some details of the death in action of Lieutenant Alec Johnston, who used to write 'At the Front' in Punch. I knew him well and we were rather especial friends.
"On the night of the 21st of April the Battalion, which was resting at the time, was suddenly ordered to attack some six hundred yards of trenches which the enemy had taken two nights previously. Johnston's Company was in the centre, and, after the O.C. had been severely wounded just before we attacked, Johnston led the Company and captured the position most gallantly with the bayonet. He then went on himself and personally reconnoitred the ground up to the German line. He found them massing for a counter-attack and came back and gave warning. When the enemy attacked they were driven off with heavy loss. He was indefatigable all night consolidating the recaptured position, exposing himself on top all the time in order to move about more quickly.
"At dawn, he sent the only other officer then remaining unwounded to the safest part of the trench, saying that when it got too light to stay on top he himself would get into 'the first old crump hole.' He stayed up too long, and was shot through the heart by a German sniper.
"He was a general favourite and loved by his men. He had done more dangerous patrol work than any two other officers in the battalion, and the hotter the situation the cooler he got.
"The way he used to write his articles was very characteristic of the man. I have seen him lying flat on his face in a tiny dug-out no bigger or higher than the underneath of a small dinner-table, in the front line trench, dashing off the first half of one of his quaint articles to Punch. He would have to stop in the middle and crawl out on patrol up to the German wire, have a scrap out there with a Bosch patrol at a few yards' range, stay out for two or three hours, and crawl back, soaked to the skin and covered with mud, to finish his article in time for the post.
"His name had already gone in for distinction, and if he had lived he certainly would have had a decoration conferred for his work in this last show.
"As you probably know, his articles were awfully appreciated by every one out here, and in his quaintly witty way he caught perfectly the spirit 'at the Front.'"
"I can only add that neither total prohibition nor no prohibition will have any more effect on the course and conclusion of this war than Mrs. Malaprop's besom had on the Atlantic Ocean."—Letter in a Provincial Paper.
Mrs. M. should have called in the assistance of Mrs. Partington.
"It should be as widely known as possible that if people found a baby when there was the slightest possibility of a person being still alive, it was their duty to cut it down if hanging, or take it out of the water, if it was a case of drowning."—Provincial Paper.
But what is one to do if it is merely squalling in a perambulator?
Monday, May 8th.—It was a relief to pass from the sombre theme of judgment passed on Irish rebels to the quiet humours of Daylight-Saving. Sir Henry Norman was perhaps a little over-anxious to be playful; and some of his rather ancient jokes gave obvious pain to Mr. Pearce, who once carried a Daylight-Saving Bill through its second reading without any such frivolous aids.
There was little opposition. Sir Frederick Banbury once more appeared in his favourite character of the conscientious objector. He was not on this occasion "the champion of the suffering rich," as Mr. Duke called him the other day, but the defender of the humble milkman, who already had to rise before dawn for the greater part of the year, and might, I gathered, be subject to unworthy suspicions if he performed his functions before the dew was off the grass. Lord Hugh Cecil, who thought the proposal to put on the clock smacked of "the tricks of the lowest class of journalism," is understood to have been referring to those remarkable examples of advanced literature, the "6.30 News" and "7.0 Star."
The Infant Samuel, as my esteemed predecessor used to call him, disclaimed the idea that he had become "a presumptuous Joshua." The Government only supported the proposal because it would help us during the War by saving coal.
Sir Henry Dalziel is the proprietor of a newspaper, one of whose most piquant features is a column entitled "Secret History of To-day," in which one may read dark hints of Society scandals and political intrigues. Naturally enough he objects to the new regulation forbidding reference to the proceedings of the Cabinet. He had effective backing on this occasion from Mr. Walter Roch, who in a speech admirable alike in tone and substance appealed to the Government in their own interests to withdraw a ukase, under which, if strictly applied, Ministers themselves would be the first to suffer. The Government lived too much in a balloon (have they not just appointed a quartette of lawyers to overhaul the Royal Flying Corps?), and would be the better for anything that brought them into closer touch with their fellow-citizens.
After an excited protest by Mr. O'Brien against the executions in Ireland it was not, perhaps, a fortunate moment for Sir John Lonsdale to suggest that the Military Service Bill should be extended to Ireland. Mr. Asquith was sympathetic in principle to the idea, but made it plain that in practice it was impossible, since Mr. Redmond was opposed to it. Sir Edward Carson thought the fact deplorable while recognising its cogency; but he suggested that if the Nationalist leader was the indirect Governor of Ireland he should be given the responsibility instead of exercising it second-hand. Mr. Redmond promptly denied that he had either power or responsibility; otherwise the recent occurrences in Ireland would, he alleged, not have happened. Mr. Churchill, now home from the Front on unlimited leave, drew from these two speeches the[331] inference that the future of Ireland depended upon their authors sinking their differences and acting together, and expressed the sanguine view that the Irish Question was nearing a settlement. Members, recalling similarly sanguine prophecies from the same source about Gallipoli and the German Navy, were not so much impressed as they were meant to be.
(How the lower creation threatens to ignore it).
Wednesday, May 10th.—Among the Distinguished Strangers in the Gallery was a deputation from the Russian Duma, led by its Vice-President. Unfortunately M. Protopopoff and his colleagues did not see our Parliament at its best. In the Commons the Nationalist factions were noisily assailing the Prime Minister with protests against the executions of the rebel leaders, and ultimately succeeded in inducing him to give them a day for what must in the circumstances be a premature discussion.
Then our Russian friends went to the Lords, where they found a discussion on Ireland actually in progress. It was started by Lord Loreburn, who accused the Government of having neglected the elementary duty of protecting the law-abiding population, and urged upon them collectively the necessity of being as candid as Mr. Birrell had been individually. The War had furnished many instances of the danger to national interests of silence carried to excess. Then Lord Midleton rehearsed a grim catalogue of cases in which the Irish police had been instructed to shut their eyes to seditious offences.
Happily the Russian visitors had left before Lord Crewe rose to make the Government's defence, for I am afraid that they would not have carried away a high impression of Ministerial eloquence or Ministerial statesmanship.
Thursday, May 11th.—To Mr. Redmond's obvious annoyance Mr. Dillon developed a savage attack on the military authorities. They, one gathered, were brutal murderers; the Sinn Feiners, on the contrary, were gallant if misguided patriots of whom he was proud. The Prime Minister, mildly observing that Mr. Dillon had forgotten some of the elementary rules of justice, brought the debate back to the level of common sense by contrasting the small number of executions with the heavy toll of military and civilian life that the rebels had taken. Repeating his coup of two years ago, when he went to the War Office after the Curragh incident, he now announced his immediate intention to go to Ireland, in the hope of discovering some arrangement for the future which would commend itself to all parties. Some of the difficulties that Mr. Asquith will encounter in his laudable enterprise were indicated by Mr. Healy, who hoped that he would put an end to Dublin Castle and the jobbery that had been carried on there by Mr. Redmond and his friends.
In the Lords the Government's Irish policy was again assailed from all sides; but more damaging even than the attacks was Lord Lansdowne's defence. He actually blamed Lord Midleton for having contented himself with warning the Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister of the dangerous happenings in Ireland, and not having come to him (Lord Lansdowne), or to Mr. Balfour, or to Mr. Long. This new doctrine of collective irresponsibility seems fairly to justify the definition, "A Coalition is something that does not coalesce."
"Imports in truth have been so small that the run on home produce has been more or less forced."—Eastern Daily Press.
The Press Bureau will have to be more economical with it than ever.
"Wellington said that the battle of Waterloo was won upon the cricket fields of England. Later—decades later—the bronzed and lithe-limbed athletes of the island kingdom gazed in open-eyed bewilderment upon the flaming indictment of Kipling, 'The muddled oafs at the wicket; the flannelled fools at the gate,' and seeking vainly to follow the poet's logic."
New York Times.
Presented in this form it would baffle anybody.
Matters are getting worse between Petherton and myself; in fact if any friendship had ever existed between us I am afraid one would say that we are now in a state of complete estrangement, resulting from the invasion of my premises by his parrot, and the ensuing correspondence. My opening gambit was as follows:—
Dear Mr. Petherton,—My immediate object in addressing you is to ask whether by any chance you have lost a parrot, because a bird of that species flew through an open bedroom window of my house this morning without invitation or encouragement from us.
I am inclined to think that the bird is yours, but have nothing but what I might term the synthetic process of reasoning for arriving at this conclusion. If you have lost anything of a parroty nature, and will write me a description of it, I will see whether it tallies with the bird in whose possession we are. I describe the situation in this way because it more truly expresses it than the converse would do.
Yours faithfully,
H. J. Fordyce.
Petherton countered with the following:—
Sir,—In reply to your absurdly worded letter I have lost a parrot, a grey one. I do not know why you should have inferred that the bird at your place belongs to me, unless you had already heard that mine is missing, in which case I should have thought the proper course would have been to return it.
I suppose, however, that to a person of your nature such a simple procedure would have been impossible. The writing of unnecessary, stupid and rather annoying letters seems to be an obsession with you.
I shall be obliged by your giving the bird to the bearer of this note.
Yours truly,
Frederick Petherton.
The yeast of controversy was evidently beginning to work, and I kept it going with:—
Dear Petherton,—What a noble literary effort is yours, but, if I may be allowed to criticise it, it seems to me that while your technique is almost faultless there is lack of a sense of values in the composition. Word-painting is a delightful art, but surely in this case the most important feature should have been a telling description of your missing bird. The mere outward hue of the parrot is not sufficient; I wanted you to describe its habits, accomplishments and the colour of its language; and in face of your meagre description I should not feel justified in handing over this bird to you, in spite of its being a grey one.
Mind you, I believe you belong to this parrot, but I should like further proof. I have made no other inquiries in Surbury, but possibly someone else in the neighbourhood may have a grey parrot on the loose.
Trusting to have a satisfactory reply at your leisure,
I am, Yours faithfully,
H. J. Fordyce.
Petherton by this time was up on his hind legs. He wrote:—
Confound you, Sir! The bird is undoubtedly mine. It is grey, talks a little, and puts its head on one side after the manner of its kind. I need not give you a fuller description of it; you know perfectly well the bird is mine, and if you do not return it at once I shall take legal steps for the recovery of my property.[333]
Frederick Petherton.
Dear Fred,—I am sorry you should be so upset by the loss of a bird that must have been a cause of considerable embarrassment to you at times, that is if the bird which at present conducts our ménage is yours.
If you would only provide me with a list of the phrases most favoured by your parrot I should be able to come to a definite conclusion on the point of ownership. In a general way the bird here tallies with your description.
As you practically ask for their name, my solicitors are Messrs. Smith, Smith, Smith & Jones, which may be algebraically expressed (though not on the envelope) as 3 (Smith) + Jones.
In the event of your going on the war-path these gentlemen would accept service of any billets-doux on my behalf.
Yours,
Harry J. Fordyce.
P.S.—If you have any sort of book explaining how to subpœna a parrot, do lend it me like a good chap. If I find it necessary to call it (the parrot), its evidence will have to be heard in camerâ, I fancy.
This elicited from Petherton:—
Sir,—As my parrot has now been in your possession for several days it is more than possible that it has acquired a taste for strong language. It certainly was a model of propriety before it strayed on to your premises.
Unless the bird is back in my possession before the 29th inst. I shall instruct my solicitors to serve a writ upon yours, without further warning or intimation of any kind, as I consider your behaviour most unwarrantable, though characteristic.
Fflly. yours,
Fredk. Petherton.
I sent the bird back the next morning, the 28th, with a note:—
Dear Freddy,—The bird itself has at last provided me with the proof which you were unable or unwilling to supply. Among a string of other rather fruity remarks which it made while we were at breakfast this morning it indulged—vicariously, one assumes—in a hope as to my future which has removed any traces of doubt lingering in my mind as to the bird's ownership.
My wife and maid-servant were present, and as the remark was a very comprehensive one and indicated me by name I am not sure that an action for libel would not lie against you.
But I am not vindictive, so return the bird to a more fitting milieu.
Yours,Harry.
I am still waiting for Petherton's letter of thanks.
"The majority of the blockading officers are drawn from the Royal Naval Reserve, whose skill in seamanship is a byeword."
Bournemouth Daily Echo.
From "Mrs. Gossip's" account, in The Daily Sketch, of the audience at the Serbian matinée at Drury Lane:—
"Every one I knew was there. Queen Alexandra looked dignified and gracious in black and white. With her were the Princess Royal, Princess Victoria, Princess Maud of Fife ... and Princess Arthur of Connaught."
We trust that Her Majesty and the four Princesses were conscious of this friendly recognition.
From a description of Mr. Lloyd George's meeting at Conway:—
"This gathering was originally fixed for Saturday, the 29th ult., but was postponed for a week to meet the right hon. gentleman's convenience.
The interval of waiting was spent in listening to songs and choruses."
What lungs these Welsh folk have!
"The Gardens and Deer Park will be thrown open to the Public ... Children under 14 unaccompanied by their Parents and Dogs not admitted."—Gloucester Citizen.
We understand that some parents consider the wording of this notice a little derogatory.
Mr. Martin Harvey has evidently approached this high matter of the Shakspeare Tercentenary celebration with the sincerity and thoughtfulness which have so often laid us under debt to him. He makes you feel that his heart is more with his "darling" author than with any other lesser man. It is only an implacable public that has attached him so persistently to the steps of a guillotine against a blood-red sky.
It shows a considerable virtue in him to have adopted, without straining after a perversely original and disquieting effect, the very sensible simplifications of our modernist school. To play substantially the whole of Hamlet in under three and a-half hours is a highly creditable feat of stage direction. But the curtain method does more than give speed. Its rich simplicity provides an excellent foil for the jewel of this wonderful stage play. Of course it has its disadvantages. It tends to muffle the voice. On the other hand it lets through a certain amount of unrehearsed effect. I noted, for instance, even as Polonius was being pinked behind the arras, the voice of a stage carpenter complaining to his mate.
It showed wisdom, too, to confine the curtains to the interiors. The built-up crenellations of the battlement scenes, with the series of broad steps in front of them, was admirable for grouping and for movement, though it may be doubted whether the parapet would have provided adequate cover against the slings and arrows of a tough enemy; or even if it would have sufficed to prevent the Danes, when under the influence of wassail, from toppling into the moat. In the play scene the setting of the "Mouse Trap" against the "fourth wall," whereby the audience had a fuller view of the principals, entirely justified itself. The lighting was effective without being fussy.
The costumes call for little comment, which is as it should be. I fell to wondering in the last Act about what I took to be a team of local base-ball players—the four stout fellows with the black raven on their sweaters. And most distinctly would I counsel Mr. Harvey, at his entrance in the graveyard scene, to show a leg. In the murky gloom, with his inky cloak and proudly feathered bonnet, he was dangerously near giving the impression of a very smart young widow walking out with Horatio.
Mr. Harvey seemed at his very best in the earlier phases of the play. The reflective passages were excellent; the homelier bouts of dialogue were easy and varied; and his fine voice often enriched the splendid text. As the plot thickened and the eternally unsolvable in the reading and rendering of Hamlet's malady became more pressing, he seemed a little to lose grip. As, certainly, he lost the essential pace—the death scene unquestionably limped. His slurs, his impetuous accelerandos, his rather violent sforzandos, perhaps challenge criticism. But let us acknowledge them to be trifles. Mr. Harvey filled three short hours with the glory of a great name, and that should be reward enough for him.
I see no reason to protest against Mr. Rutland Barrington's unusually whimsical Polonius. True it did not fit that noblest of purple passages, the homily to Laertes. But then neither does the Polonius of the rest of the text—our Will is like that. Mr. Ross's notable bass and admirable elocution lent mystery and majesty to the Ghost. A full audience applauded long and heartily at the curtain's fall. No one would be less inclined than Mr. Martin Harvey to keep back grudgingly any share of that applause which was meant as a tribute to the memory of the exalted dead.T.
(A soliloquy in view of approaching leave.)
(Suggested by the perusal of some recent works on the duties of dominies.)
(1) Describe in detail the best methods of tormenting a master (a) with discretion, (b) without regard for the consequences.
(2) Estimate the disciplinary and moral efficacy of the booby-trap, and give reasons for preferring the liquid to the solid form, or vice versâ.
(3) Shakspeare abandoned poaching for writing plays. Is this a proof of insanity or sheer stupidity?
(4) Give a table of the relative adhesive strengths of cobbler's wax, glue, butter-scotch, caramels and chewing gum.
(5) Milton received £5 for Paradise Lost. Estimate the benefits that would have accrued to this country in the last 250 years if he had been paid £500 to suppress his epic.
(6) Describe the best games suitable for playing in chapel.
(7) Should corporal punishment be inflicted on masters by the head of the form or by the whole form?
(8) Give some account, with dates, of The Jubilee Juggins, Larranaga, Opoponax, Polly Perkins of Paddington Green, Montezuma, Benvenuto Cellini, the Baroness Orczy and Charlie Chaplin.
(9) Explain the mechanism of the saloon pistol, and distinguish between lampoon and lamprey, gargle and gargoyle, catapult and cataclysm.
(10) In what circumstances is a Headmaster justified in running away from school?
"Locum Tenens wanted for 3 months at least. Little or no week-day work. Offered: comfortable village, 6 or more bedrooms, garden produce: possibly small stipend.
"Wanted Retired or Invalid Clergyman to accept nice house, stable, fowl-run, picturesque village, in return for one service on Sundays,"—Church Times.
"News by Telegraph and Telephone.
Napoleon died 95 years ago to-day."—Daily Mail.
Delayed in transmission.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. H. A. Vachell is to be congratulated upon having evolved in The Triumph of Tim (Smith, Elder) one idea that is as ingenious as it is novel. Tim, who had no legal right to any particular name, started life as a blameless schoolboy under the designation of Tim White. Subsequent events having necessitated his retirement to the New World, he began again there as Tim Green, and so on, through a period of prosperity as Brown, one of adversity as Black, into the tranquil conclusion of Grey. Of course this did make it a little confusing for the other characters, one of whom (not without justice) called him "parti-coloured." Also, while providing a pleasant variety of interest, it goes rather against one's chance of forming any definite idea of Tim as a coherent being. But, despite this, Mr. Vachell's longest novel is in many ways his best yet. There are obviously personal touches in his pictures of Californian life; and he seems equally at home in dealing with every phase of his hero's chameleon career. The other characters also are well drawn, notably Ivy, the unrepentant little wanton through whom came Tim's first lapse in the colour scale. And the end, which restores him to England, home and unexpected fatherhood (unexpected, that is, to those whom familiarity with Mr. Vachell's methods had not kept on the watch for precisely this development), is both sincere and moving.
In choosing The Road to Nowhere (Allen and Unwin) as the title to his novel, Mr. Eric Leadbitter sounds, at any rate, a note of warning to those who like their heroes to repose in the last chapter upon a bed of roses. Joe, of Camberwell and very humble origin, has social ambitions and some natural aptitude for fulfilling them. He is an intriguing study, though I cannot believe in him as firmly as I can in his vulgar relations. That he may arrive at the point where the snares of wealth are to encompass him round about he is allowed to win a prize in the Calcutta Sweep, and then to have a successful flutter in options. In this way he wins his complete emancipation from Camberwell. The process is so absurdly easy that one imagines Mr. Leadbitter to have said to himself, "Money is not worth much, any way, so it doesn't matter how Joe gets it." As far as filthy lucre is concerned one can only commend this attitude, but unfortunately the reader may suspect that he also is the object of a certain measure of contempt on the part of the author. This suspicion, however, is not going to deter me from expressing my approval of the work of a writer who is more concerned with his main idea than with the method by which he gets to it. In the end I was left with a real admiration for his courage and ability.
Riches and Honour (Smith, Elder) tells of the kind of thing our Empire-builders had to face on the Gold Coast of a quarter-century ago. It is good for us to learn these things, and Mr. W. H. Adams' rather dry catalogue method of filling in the local colour seems to vouch for honest knowledge. The story, not in the least dry, is packed with adventure, rebel chiefs, fetishes and fevers, and a dash of love. It is Captain Tarleton, of H.M. Gold Coast Constabulary, whose riches and honour are in question. Eagerly expecting the death of a rotten brother and the pouching of a fat inheritance, he so allows this to prey on his mind that, when the great chance comes of an important cutting-out expedition of the kind for which he, keenest and most resourceful of soldiers and adored leader of his fearless Hausas, is widely famous, his nerve just goes to little bits. I suppose there are men who think it so desperately important to succeed to money they haven't earned that they go off their feed and throw aside habits of courage long fortified by rigorous self-discipline; but I must say it doesn't seem very convincing. But then the author may have met poor Tarleton in the flesh.
Josiah, head of the family whose name, Chapel, Mr. Miles Lewis has given to his South Wales story (Heinemann), realised quite suddenly in middle life that if he was ever to restore the fortunes of his house, then unhappily depressed, he must wake up and stir about a bit; must in fact seize fate and the world by the throat and demand his own. In this laudable intention he is entitled, I suppose, to one's sympathies, though it hardly seems necessary for him to have adopted the manners of a bear along with its strength; but when in the course of his wrestlings with destiny he descended to paltry sharp-practice over a business bargain, and Griff, his son, followed suit, one began to wonder whether, after all, the County would benefit much by the restoration of the old stock. Yet there was something likeable about Griff that made one at any rate half glad to see him back in the ancestral seat; but even then the marriage that put him there had a little too much the air of good strategy, though the author, it would seem, has no uneasiness in regard to these little meannesses of his heroes. This, however, may be a matter of taste; but there is less excuse for the way I in which he has cut his book up into two parallel stories which really have very little to connect them. He does tie them together after a fashion when he effects a reconciliation between father and son in the last chapter; but seeing that this is so long delayed, and results in a rather horrible anti-climax, there is not much gained. In spite of all these grumbles you are not to infer that there is nothing to appreciate in this book; there is much that is good, the minor characters being about the best of it.
"The parade on Tuesday, the 11th April, 1916, will be compulsory for all ranks stationed in Colombo. Only medical certificates will be accepted in lieu of absence. This will be a practice Ceremonial Parade. Officers will swear words."—The Ceylonese.
Very probably; but we don't think they ought to advertise it in advance.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Volume
150, May 17 1916, by Various
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