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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17596-8.txt b/17596-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85b6906 --- /dev/null +++ b/17596-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2241 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, +July 21, 1920, 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 + + +Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + +Release Date: January 24, 2006 [EBook #17596] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARIA. + +VOL. 159. + + +JULY 21, 1920 + + + +CHARIVARIA. + +To judge by the Spa Conference it looks as if we might be going to have +a peace to end peace. + + *** + +It will soon be necessary for the Government to arrange an old-age +pension scheme for Peace Conference delegates. + + *** + +It is difficult to know whom or what to blame for the exceptionally wet +weather we have been having, says an evening paper. Pending a denial +from Mr. Lloyd George, _The Times_ has its own opinion as to +who is at the bottom of it. + + *** + +Mr. Stanton pointed out in the House of Commons that, unless +increased salaries are given to Members, there will be a strike. Fears +are entertained, however, that a settlement will be reached. + + *** + +"The Derry shirt-cutters," says a news item, "have decided to continue +to strike." The Derry throat-cutters, on the other hand, have postponed +striking to a more favourable opportunity. + + *** + +The way to bring down the price of home-killed meat, the Ministry of +Food announces officially, is for the public not to buy it. You can't +have your cheap food and eat it. + + *** + +Harborough Rocks, one of the few Druid Circles in the kingdom, has been +sold. Heading-for-the-Rocks, the famous Druid Circle at Westminster, has +also been sold on several occasions by the Chief Wizard. + + *** + +A gossip writer states that he saw a man carrying two artificial legs +while travelling in a Tube train. There is nothing like being prepared +for all emergencies while travelling. + + *** + +"The ex-Kaiser," says an American journal, "makes his own clothes to +pass the time away." This is better than his old hobby of making wars to +pass other people's time away. + + *** + +"Danger of infection from Treasury notes," says _The Weekly Dispatch_, +"has been exaggerated." Whenever we see a germ on one of our notes we +pat it on the back and tell it to lie down. + + *** + +A West Riding paper states that a postman picked up a pound Treasury +note last week. It is said that he intends to have it valued by an +expert. + + *** + +An engineer suggests that all roads might be made of rubber. For +pedestrians who are knocked down by motor-cars the resilience of this +material would be a great boon. + + *** + +According to _The Evening News_ a bishop was seen the other day passing +the House of Commons smoking a briar pipe. We can only suppose that he +did not recognise the House of Commons. + + *** + +"We can find work for everybody and everything," says a Chicago journal. +But what about corkscrews? + + *** + +How strong is the force of habit was illustrated at Liverpool Docks the +other day when two Americans, on reaching our shores, immediately +fainted, and only recovered when it was explained that spirits were not +sold here solely for medical purposes. + + *** + +"Watches are often affected by electrical storms such as we have +experienced of late," states a science journal. Only yesterday we heard +of a plumber and his mate who arrived at a job simultaneously. + + *** + +We sympathise with the unfortunate housewife who cannot obtain a servant +because her reference is considered unsatisfactory. It appears she was +only six weeks with her last maid. + + *** + +A pedestrian knocked down by a taxi in Oxford Street last Tuesday +managed to regain his feet only to be again bowled over by a motor-bus. +Luckily, however, noticing a third vehicle standing by to complete the +job, the unfortunate fellow had the presence of mind to remain on the +ground. + + *** + +According to a local paper cat-skins are worth about 5½_d._ each. Of +course it must be plainly understood that the accuracy of this estimate +is not admitted by the cats themselves. + + *** + +"Too much room is taken up by motor-vehicles when turning corners," +declares a weekly journal. This is a most unfair charge against those +self-respecting motorists who negotiate all corners on the two inside +wheels only. + + *** + +An American named J. Thomas Looney has written a book to prove that +Shakspeare was really the Earl of Oxford. We cannot help thinking that +Shakspeare, who went out of his way to prove that _Ophelia_ was one of +the original Looneys, has brought this on himself. + + *** + +Fashionable Parisians, says a correspondent, have decided that the +correct thing this year is to be invited to Scotland for July. It may be +correct, but it won't be an easy matter if we know our Scotland. + + *** + +American women-bathers with an inclination to embonpoint, it is stated, +have taken to painting dimples on their knees. The report that a +fashionable New Yorker who does not care for the water has created the +necessary illusion by having a lobster painted on her toe is probably +premature. + + *** + +A Bridgewater, Somerset, man of eighty (or octogeranium) has cancelled +his wedding on the morning of the ceremony. A few more exhibitions of +that kind and he will end up by being a bachelor. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _First Indian Chief_ (_of travelling show_). "Brother +Bellowing-Papoose, which is the way back to the circus?" + +_Second Ditto._ "I know not. Let us ask this paleface."] + + * * * * * + + There was a young lady of Beccles + Whose face was infested with freckles, + But nobody saw + Any facial flaw, + For she had an abundance of shekels. + + * * * * * + +THE GRASSHOPPER. + +The Animal Kingdom may be divided into creatures which one can feed and +creatures which one cannot feed. Animals which one cannot feed are +nearly always unsatisfactory; and the grasshopper is no exception. +Anyone who has tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me. + +Yet he is one of the most interesting of British creatures. _The +Encyclopædia Britannica_ is as terse and simple as ever about him. +"Grasshoppers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their saltatory +powers, due to the great development of the hind legs; and also for +their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only." +To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hopping ("saltatory powers") +and chirping ("stridulation"). + +It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper stridulates by rubbing his +back legs together; but this is not the case. For one thing I have tried +it myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and for another, after +exhaustive observations, I have established the fact that, though he +does move his back legs every time he stridulates, _his back legs do not +touch each other_. Now it is a law of friction that you cannot have +friction between two back legs if the back legs are not touching; in +other words the grasshopper does not rub his back legs together to +produce stridulation, or, to put it quite shortly, he does not rub his +back legs together _at all_. I hope I have made this point quite clear. +If not, a more detailed treatment will be found in the Paper which I +read to the Royal Society in 1912. + +Nevertheless I have always felt that there was something fishy about the +grasshopper's back legs. I mean, why _should_ he wave his back legs +about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to +the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The same +phenomenon can be observed in many singers and public speakers. I do not +think myself that we need seek for a more elaborate hypothesis. _The +Encyclopædia Britannica_, of course, says that "the stridulation or song +in the _Acridiidæ_ is produced by friction of the hind legs against +portions of the wings or wing-covers," but that is just the sort of +statement which the scientific man thinks he can pass off on the public +with impunity. Considering that stridulation takes place about every ten +seconds, I calculate that the grasshopper must require a new set of +wings every ten days. It would be more in keeping with the traditions of +our public life if the scientific man simply confessed that he was +baffled by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. Yet, as I have +said, if a public speaker may fidget with his back legs while he is +stridulating, why not a public grasshopper? The more I see of science +the more it strikes me as one large mystification. + +But I ought to have mentioned that "the _Acridiidæ_ have the auditory +organs on the first abdominal segment," while "the _Locustidæ_ have the +auditory organ on the _tibia_ of the first leg." In other words one kind +of grasshopper hears with its stomach and the other kind listens with +its leg. When a scientific man has committed himself to that kind of +statement he would hardly have qualms about a little invention like the +back-legs legend. + +With this scientific preliminary we now come to the really intriguing +part of our subject, and that is the place of the grasshopper in modern +politics. And the first question is, Why did Mr. Lloyd George call +Lord Northcliffe a grasshopper? I think it was in a speech about +Russia that Mr. Lloyd George said, in terms, that Lord Northcliffe +was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. He said that Lord +Northcliffe was not only a grasshopper but a something something +grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping there--that sort of +thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and Lord +Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in fact, so far as I know, he has +never publicly stated that he is _not_ a grasshopper; for all we know it +may be true. But I know a man whose wife's sister was in service at a +place where there was a kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gardener +at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told me--the first man, I mean--that +Lord Northcliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed +in the garden from that day forth; no green that was at all like +grasshopper-green was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to +come upon his Lordship muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He +called me a grasshopper--me--a Grasshopper!" The gardener said that his +Lordship used to finish up with, "_I_'ll teach him;" but that is hardly +the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it. In fact I +don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story. + +But this crisis we keep having with France owing to Mr. Lloyd George's +infamous conduct does make the story interesting. The suggestion is, you +see, that Lord Northcliffe lay low for a long time, till everybody had +forgotten about the grasshopper and Mr. Lloyd George thought that Lord +Northcliffe had forgotten about the grasshopper, and then, when Mr. +Lloyd George was in a hole, Lord Northcliffe said, "_Now_ we'll see if I +am a grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at high speed about +Mr. Lloyd George. A crude suggestion. But if it were true it would mean +that the grasshopper had become a figure of national and international +importance. It is wonderful to think that we might stop being friends +with France just because of a grasshopper; and, if Lord Northcliffe +arranged for a new Government to come in, it might very well be called +"The Grasshopper Government." That would look fine in the margins of the +history-books. + +Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to think of an English +lord nursing a grievance about a grasshopper for months and months, +seeing grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about grasshoppers.... But +we must not waste time over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved +our principal problem. Why did Mr. Lloyd George call him a +grasshopper--a modest friendly little grasshopper? Did he mean to +suggest that Lord Northcliffe hears with his stomach or stridulates with +his back legs? + +Why not an earwig, or a black-beetle, or a wood-louse, or a centipede? +There are lots of insects more offensive than the grasshopper, and +personally I would much rather be called a grasshopper than an earwig, +which gets into people's sponges and frightens them to death. + +Perhaps he had been reading that nice passage in the Prophet Nahum: "Thy +captains are as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the +cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is +not known where they are." I do not know. But _The Encyclopædia_ has a +suggestive sentence: "All grasshoppers are vegetable feeders and have an +incomplete metamorphosis, so that _their destructive powers are +continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg until death_." + +A.P.H. + + * * * * * + + "The Mayor gave details showing how the Engineer's salary had + increased from £285 when he was appointed in 1811 to £600 at the + present time."--_Local Paper._ + +And think what he must have saved the ratepayers by not taking a pension +years ago. + + * * * * * + + "Mr. ---- thought that the whole Committee would wish to + associate themselves with the Cemeteries Sub-Committee in their + congratulations to Alderman ---- upon his marriage."--_Local + Paper._ + +We do not quite see why this particular sub-committee should have taken +the initiative. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: EVIL COMMUNICATIONS. + +The Telephone. "I'M GOING TO COST YOU MORE." + +Householder. "WHY?" + +The Telephone. "OH, THE USUAL REASON--INCREASING +INEFFICIENCY."] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: A QUESTION OF TASTE. + +_The Wife._ "You Must Get Yourself a Straw 'at, George. A bowler +don't seem to go with a camembert."] + + * * * * * + +AT THE PLAY. + +"French Leave." + +The Mandarins of the Theatre, who are no wiser than other mandarins (on +the contrary), have been long repeating the formula that the public +won't look at a War play. If I'm not mistaken it will for many moons be +looking at Captain Reginald Berkeley's _French Leave_. He +labels it a "light comedy." That's an understatement. It is, as a matter +of fact, a very skilful, uproarious and plausible farce, almost too +successful in that you can't hear one-third of the jokes because of the +laughter at the other two-thirds (and a little because of the indistinct +articulation of one or two of the players). Of course when I say +"plausible" I don't exactly mean that any Brigade Headquarters was run +on the sketchy lines of _General Archibald Root's_, or that the gallant +author or anybody else who was in the beastly thing ever thought of the +Great War as a devastating joke, but rather that if it be true, as has +been rumoured, that not all generals were miracles of wisdom and +forbearance; that British subalterns and privates sometimes put on the +mask of humour; that _Venus_ did wander, as the observatories punctually +reported she did occasionally wander, into the orbit of _Mars_--then +_French Leave_ is a piece of artistically justifiable selection. Its +absurdity seems the most natural thing in the world and its machinery +(rare virtue!) does not creak. + +_Rooty Tooty's_ brigade then was resting--if in the circumstances you +can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due, +his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being +cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters +was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet +landlady's, a _Mdlle. Juliette_, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly +coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly +consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by +reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the +old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and +counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the +Brigade Interpreter with Intelligence's reports; sorrowful conviction in +the Brigadier's mind that _Juliette_ is _Olga--Olga Thingummy_, the +famous German spy. Confusions; explosions; solutions. + +That's a dull account of a bright matter. The players were not, with the +exception of Miss Renée Kelly, of the star class and (I don't +necessarily say therefore) were almost uniformly admirable. I suppose +the honours must go to Mr. M.R. Morand's excellently studied +_Brigadier_--the most laughter-compelling performance I have seen on the +"legitimate" for some years. But the _Mess Corporal_ (Mr. Charles +Groves), the _Staff-Captain_ (Mr. Henry Kendall), the _Brigade-Major_ +(Mr. Hylton Allen), the _Interpreter_ (Mr. George de Warfaz) and the +_Mess Waiter_ (Mr. Arthur Riscoe)--all deserve mention in despatches. As +for the "business" it was positively inspired at times, as when the +_Mess Corporal_ retrieved the red-hat (which the passionate +_Brigade-Major_ had kicked in his jealous fury) with an address which +would have done credit to the admirable Grock. Miss Renée Kelly had her +pretty and effective moments, but somebody should ask her (no doubt in +vain) to be less tearful in the tearful and just a little less bright in +the bright parts--a little less fidgetty and fidgetting and out of key, +in fact. + +I should say in general that author and producer (Mr. Eille Norwood) +would do well to watch the serious passages--always the danger-points in +farce. As nobody on our side of the footlights takes these seriously the +folk on the other side must substantially dilute the seriousness. The +tragically uttered, "O God!" at the end of the Second Act ruined an +otherwise excellent curtain. But I must not end on a note of censure. I +was much too thoroughly entertained for that. Here's a quite first-rate +piece of fooling, with dialogue of humorous rather than smart sayings. +And humour's a much rarer and less cheap a gift than smartness. + +T. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _First Newly-Rich._ "It's a great secret, but I must +tell you. My husband has been offered a peerage." + +_Second ditto._ "Really! That's rather interesting. We thought of +having one, but they're so expensive and we are economising just now."] + + * * * * * + +Our Considerate Scribes. + + "Presumptious is a hard word that I would not readily apply to + any man."--_Daily Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "PASSIVE PESSIMISM. + + BERLIN'S ATTITUDE TO THE SPAR CONDITIONS." + + _Sunday Paper._ + +But, after all, Berlin does not seem to have taken them lying down. + + * * * * * + + "At the start he made most of his runs by clever strokes on the + leg side, but, once settled down, he drove with fin power." + _Sunday Paper._ + +Cricketers need to be amphibious in these days. + + * * * * * + +SONGS OF AN OVALITE. + + There was a young man who said, "Hobbs + Should never be tempted with lobs; + He would knock them about + Till the bowlers gave out + And watered the pitch with their sobs." + + There is no one so dreadful as Fender + For batmen whose bodies are tender; + He gets on their nerves + With his murderous swerves + That insist upon death or surrender. + + When people try googlies on Sandham, + You can see he will soon understand 'em; + With a laugh at their slows + He will murmur, "Here goes," + And over the railings will land 'em. + + I am always attracted by Harrison + When arrayed in his batting caparison; + If others look worried + He never gets flurried, + But quite unconcernedly carries on. + + All classes of bowlers have stuck at + Their efforts to dislocate Ducat; + Their wiliest tricks + He despatches for six, + Which is what they decidedly buck at. + + You should never be down in the dumps + When Strudwick is guarding the stumps; + His opponents depart + One by one at the start, + But later in twos or in _clumps_. + + "Like father like son," says the fable, + And is justified clearly in Abel; + No bowling he fears + And his surname appears + An extremely appropriate label. + + If I were tremendously rich + I would buy a cathedral in which + I would build me a shrine + Of a noble design + And worship a statue of Hitch. + + * * * * * + +Our Sleuths Again. + + "His wrists were tied together with a piece of webbing, two + bricks were in his coat pockets, and, most remarkable of all, + the soles of his boots were found to be nailed to his toes.... + The police theory is that somebody 'owed the dead man a + grudge.'"--_Provincial Paper._ + + * * * * * + +AUTHORSHIP FOR ALL. + +[Being specimens of the work of Mr. Punch's newly-established Literary +Ghost Bureau, which supplies appropriate Press contributions on any +subject and over any signature.] + +III.--Are we going to the Dogs? + +_By Vice-Admiral (Retd.) Sir Boniface Bludger, K.C.B_. + +I was standing the other day at the window of the only Club in London +where they understand (or used to understand) what devilled kidneys +really are, musing in post-prandial gloom on the vanished glories of +this England of ours. "_Ichabod!_" I cried aloud to the unheeding stream +of Piccadilly wayfarers; and echo answered, "_Bod_." + +What is wrong with us? Or what is wrong with me? Are we actually going +to the dogs, or is it merely that the Club kidneys are going to the +devil? Jeremiah or _Mrs. Gummidge_--which am I? Let the facts +attest and let posterity decide; thank Heaven I shall not be there to +hear the verdict. + +After our half-baked victory over the Hun the popular watchword was +"Reconstruction." We have now enjoyed a year and more of this +"building-up" process, and the net result is that houses for those that +lack them are as scarce as iced soda-fountains in the Sahara. + +In this work of restoration, we were told, our women voters and +legislators would play a leading part. What part are they in truth +playing? Their main object apparently is still further to embitter the +Drink question, although if they would only put a little more bitter +into our national beverage they might help to lubricate matters. Is it +not a significant fact that the slackness evidenced in every phase of +industry manifests itself at a time when it becomes more and more +difficult to get a decent drink? In this respect our progress is not so +much to the dogs as to the cats, who sneak along on the padded paws of +Prohibition. + +The crazy conditions to be observed in the industrial world are well +matched by the state of anarchy that prevails in the sphere of the arts. +Take music, for example. I do not lay claim to more than a nodding +acquaintance with Euterpe, and at a classical concert, I am afraid, the +nodding character of the relation becomes especially marked. To me the +sweetest music in the world is the roar of a fifteen-inch gun on a day +when the visibility is good and plentiful. But I do know enough to be +able to say that the wild asses who with their jazz-bands "stamp o'er +our heads and will not let us sleep" (slightly to amend my old friend +FitzGerald) are nothing less than musical Trotskys. + +Music was once regarded as the staple nourishment of the tender passion, +and in my younger days the haunting strains of "The Blue Danube" +assisted many a budding love-affair to blossom. But these non-stop +stridencies of the modern ballroom, even if they left a man with breath +enough to propose, would effectually prevent the girl from catching the +drift of the avowal. You can't roar, "Will you be mine?" into a maiden's +ear as if you were conversing from the quarterdeck, and if you did she'd +only think you were ecstatically emulating the coloured gentleman in the +orchestra with the implements of torture and the misguided voice. + +I will pass over in the silence of despair such other symptoms of +national decadence as zigzag painting, whirlpool poetry, cinema +star-gazing and the impossibility of procuring a self-respecting Stilton +(which assuredly is not "living at this hour"). Nor can I trust myself +to speak of the spirit of Bolshevism that seems to animate our so-called +Labour Party, though I comfort myself with the conviction that this +doctrine will not wash, any more than will its authors. + +I will conclude these few reflections by drawing attention to the +manners of the modern girl, who is so busily engaged in kicking over the +traces that formerly kept her in her proper place. Nowadays flappers who +should still be in the schoolroom consider themselves called upon to +teach their grandmothers how to conduct their lives; and, to complete +the chaos, the grandmothers are eagerly lapping it up, and in the matter +of dress and deportment are even bettering the instruction. _Si +vieillesse savait!_ + +Oh for a prophet's tongue to lash our visionless leaders into a +realisation of the rocks on to which we are drifting! We need the +scourge of a Savonarola, but all we get is the boom of a +Bottomley. + + "Gone are our country's glories. + _O tempora, O mores!_" + + * * * * * + +ALL SORTS. + + It takes all sorts to make the world, an' the same to make a crew; + It takes the good an' middlin' an' the rotten bad uns too; + The same's there are on land (says Bill) you'll find 'em all at sea-- + The freaks an' fads an' crooks an' cads an' ornery chaps like me. + + It takes a man for all the jobs--the skippers and the mates, + A chap to give the orders an' a chap to chip the plates; + It takes the brass-bound 'prentices--an' ruddy plagues they be-- + An' chaps as shirk an' chaps as work--just ornery chaps like me. + + It takes the stiffs an' deadbeats an' the decent shell-backs too, + The chaps as always pull their weight an' them as never do; + The sort the Lord 'as made 'em knows what bloomin' use they be, + An' crazy folks an' musical blokes an' ornery chaps like me. + + It takes a deal o' fancy breeds--the Dagoes an' the Dutch, + The Lascars an' calashees an' the seedy boys an' such; + It takes the greasers an' the Chinks, the Jap and Portugee, + The blacks an' yellers an' half-bred fellers and ornery folk like me. + + It takes all sorts to make the world an' the same to make a crew, + It takes more kinds o' people than there's creeters in the Zoo; + You meet 'em all ashore (says Bill) an' you find 'em all at sea-- + But do me proud if most o' the crowd ain't ornery chaps like me! + C.F.S. + + * * * * * + + "---- UNITED FREE CHURCH. + + Evening--Monthly Sermon for Young Men and Women. + + 'Love, Courtship, and Marriage.' + + Anthem--'And it shall come to pass.'" + + _Scotch Paper._ + +The organist seems to be a sympathetic soul. + + * * * * * + +"The fees for Burial will in the future be doubled, in order to meet the +increased cost of present-day living."--_Parish Magazine._ + +At this rate we shall soon be unable to afford either to live or to die, +and must try a state of suspended animation. + + * * * * * + + "As Lady ---- was stepping aboard she dropped a waterproof + satchel containing a pair of the Queen's shoes, and Their + Majesties laughed heartily at her Ladyship's discomfiture. One + of the sailors adroitly recovered the satchel with the aid of a + boot-hook." _Scotch Paper_. + +The handy-man! Prepared for all eventualities. + + * * * * * + +THE HOUSE THAT JACK WANTS BUILT. + +[Illustration: This is the house that Jack wants built.] + +[Illustration: This is the landowner who (if the talk of a railway +being made over this bit of land doesn't come to anything, and the +corporation cannot, after all, be induced to buy it as a +recreation-ground, and no one makes a better offer) is willing to sell +the ground to carry the house that Jack wants built.] + +[Illustration: This is the architect and surveyor who (as soon as he +has finished his designs for the new Town Hall, the proposed County +Hospital, the Cathedral Extension, the Borough power station and the +drinking-fountain, and provided that no more important commission turns +up) is going to design the house to go on the ground of the landowner +who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the local authority who (if he can obtain +details of the several requirements of the County Council, Parish +Council, Central Housing Authority, Ministry Of Health, Board Of +Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, Congested Districts Board, and any +other departments interested, either now in existence or contemplated +for the future) is going to inspect, revise, amend, and positively +finally approve the designs of the architect and surveyor who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the building contractor who (provided that +pressure of work allows him, and that he can get the materials, which is +doubtful, and the men, which is hardly probable, and the price, which is +practically out of the question) is going to carry out the designs, as +finally approved by the local authority who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the railway official who (on the supposition +that the congestion on the line will possibly be easier later, and that +the supply of goods wagons is very considerably augmented, and that new +loops and sidings not yet suggested will be constructed to relieve the +pressure, and that a reorganisation of the railway staff does not move +him elsewhere, as will almost certainly happen) has promised to do his +best to expedite the transport of the necessary materials to the +building contractor who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the merchant who (if prices are left entirely +to his discretion and time is of no importance, and if he finds that, +after all, it is to his advantage to sell in this country rather than to +export, and if he doesn't retire in the meantime, as he is thinking of +doing) has consented to try to send materials through the medium of the +railway official who ...] + +[Illustration: These are the representatives of the building trades +who (if all matters in dispute are satisfactorily settled by that time, +and provided that they can all get their own houses sited, designed, +passed, contracted for, supplied and built first) are going to erect the +materials provided by the merchant who ...] + +[Illustration: And this? This, incidentally, is Jack.] + + * * * * * + +CONVERTED CASTLES. + +Rural England, I learn, is rapidly changing hands--not for the first +time, by the way, but we cannot go into that just now. Excellent +treatises on feudal tenure, wapentake, the dissolution of the +monasteries and the enclosure of common lands may be picked up dirt +cheap at any second-hand bookshop in the Charing Cross Road with the +words "Presentation Copy" erased from the flyleaf by a special and +ingenious process. What is happening now is that farmers are buying up +the big estates in pieces, and Norman piles or Elizabethan manors are +beginning to be too expensive to maintain, what with coal and the rise +in the minimum wage of vassals and one thing and another. + + "The stately homes of England + How beautiful they stood + Before their recent owners + Relinquished them for good," + +as the poet justly observes. And even if there is enough money to keep +up the castle without the broad acres (though as a matter of fact an +acre is not any broader than it is long) there is no fun in having a +castle at all when the deer park has been divided into allotments and +the Dutch garden is under swedes. + +The question is then what is going to happen to Montmorency (pronounced +"Mumsie") Castle, and The Towers at Barley Melling? + +In London the difficulty of dealing with huge houses has been solved in +a very subtle manner by turning them into a couple of maisonettes +apiece, so that under the portico of what used to be 105 Myrtle Crescent +you discover two perfectly good doors, marked 105a and 105b. Into the +letter-box of the door marked 105a the postman invariably puts the +letters intended for 105b, and _vice versá_, but, as these are always +letters addressed to the last tenant but two, it does not really very +much matter. Both are desirable maisonettes, though the tenants of 105a +have the sole enjoyment of the lincrusta dadoes in the original +dining-room. In some cases there are as many as three maisonettes, and +the notice on the area gate says, "105c. _Mrs. Orlando Smith_," where it +used to say simply "No bottles." I never really understood that notice +myself, for whenever I am walking along with an empty bottle that I want +to get rid of I do not throw it down into an area, where it would make a +most horrible crash, but softly into the thick shrubs of the Crescent +Gardens. + +This brings me back to the country again. + +There will not be enough of the new rich to purchase a castellated +mansion apiece, partly because of the Excess Profits Duty, which is +crippling this kind of enterprise, and partly because so many baronial +seats, romantic and picturesque in their way, are terribly +under-garaged. On the other hand you cannot expect a farmer who happens +to be buying the fields round Badgery Mortimer to have any use for a +dungeon keep or the haunted picture-gallery in the west wing. No, there +is only one thing to do and that is to break these places up into a +number of self-contained homes. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MODERN AND ANCIENT. + +_Young Cricketer_. "Yes, I cocked one off the splice in the gully +and the blighter gathered it." + +_Father_. "Yes, but how did you get out? Were you caught, stumped or +bowled, or what?"] + + * * * * * + +HISTORIC FLATS TO LET + +is the house-agents' advertisement which I seem to see, and what you +will actually find will be a sort of concentrated hamlet where modern +improvements are mixed with ancient grandeur and the white-haired +seneschal is kept on to operate the electric lift. + +Let us take, for instance, the case of Soping Hall. There will be none +of that untidy straggling arrangement about it which detracts so largely +from the beauty of Soping Barnet, Little Soping and Soping Monachorum. +In Soping Hall the billiard-room will be the village club, the armoury +the blacksmith's shop, the housekeeper's room the place where you buy +buttons and balls of string and barley-sugar, the cellars the village +tavern, and very nice too. In the state-saloon, with a few trifling +alterations, such as the introduction of a geyser and a sink, will live +Mrs. Ponsonby-Smith, who will sniff a little at the Jeffries in their +attic suite and the Mutts who live in the moat. But Mrs. Jeffries will +have compensations, because the air is really so much more bracing, my +dear, on the higher ground, and on fine days one can walk about the roof +and peep through the boiling-oil holes, while as for the Mutts they are +protected, at any rate, from those bitterly piercing east winds and have +an excellent view of the draw-bridge. + +A further advantage of residing at Soping Hall will be that you can do +all your shopping and pay your calls without going out-of-doors on a wet +day, and, if you like, have a communal dining-room or restaurant, where +only those who have been recognised by the county should sit above the +salt. And if your friends come to visit you in expensive motor-cars they +will have the privilege of passing through the great iron gates on the +main road and up the large gravel drive planted on each side with the +cedars of Lebanon which Roger de Soping brought back in his haversack +from the Second Crusade. + +I am quite aware that when federal devolution becomes really infectious +and every county insists on a legislative assembly of its own it may be +necessary to turn some of these great houses into Parliament chambers, +and the rural civil service will also no doubt insist on having offices +comparable with the vast hotels which their parent bodies occupy in +London. But this will not account for nearly all the ancestral seats, +and, in calling the attention of the Minister of Health and Housing to +this little memorandum of mine, I would specially urge him to note how +it will solve some of the most difficult problems which confront him +to-day. + +There will be a rush upon these potted villages, and that will ease the +situation in towns and free a number of cottages for agricultural +labourers too. There will be a rush, not only because of the advantages +which I have already enumerated, but because all the people who live in +Soping Hall will be able to put "Soping Hall" on their notepaper, and, +if they like to pay for it, two _wyverns rampant_ as well, and everyone +outside the circle of their immediate friends will imagine that they +have not only bought the whole place but even become the possessors of +the flock of wyverns that used to be pastured on the Home Farm. + +Three acres and a cow was all very well in its way, but what about two +wyverns and a flat? Evoe. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Dame_ (_seeing the signpost_). "Stop, Jenkins--stop! +I think it would be safer to turn back. They may have catapults or +something dangerous."] + + * * * * * + +TIPS FOR UNCLES. + +Dear Mr. Punch,--I am writing to you about uncles because you +are in a way a kind of general uncle. Uncles are much more useful than +aunts, because uncles always give money and aunts mostly give advice. +Only, as the Head always says when he jaws our form, "I regret to see in +this form a serious deterioration"--I mean in uncles. They come down +here and trot us round and say what a luxurious place it is compared +with the stern old Spartan days. They know something, though. They ask +us to have meals with them at an hotel. They take care not to face a +luxurious house-dinner. And while we dine they tell yarns about the +hardness of the old days and how it toughened a fellow. And then, +because about 1870 it was the custom to tip a boy five bob, they fork +out five bob and tell you not to waste it. + +If the Head had any sense--only you can't expect sense from Heads--he'd +put up a notice at the school gates: "Parents, Uncles and Friends are +respectfully reminded that the cost of tuck has increased three hundred +per cent. since 1914." Why, old Badham, my bedroom prefect, who was a +fag in 1914, turned up the other day and declared that then he could buy +four pounds of strawberries for a bob, and that a fag could get enough +chocolate for two bob to give him a week in the sick-room. + +Yet we have uncles coming down in trains (fare fifty per cent. extra), +smoking cigars (costing two hundred per cent. extra), cabbing it up to +school (a hundred-and-fifty per cent. extra) and then tipping as if the +old Kaiser was still swanking in Potsdam. + +Now Sutton minor, who has a positive beast of a house-master and is +practically a Bolshevist, says that we ought to go on strike against the +tipping system and demand a regular living wage from relations. He says +that if a scavenger gets four quid a week a fellow who has to tackle +Greek aorists ought to get eight quid a week. + +But I'm afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting +the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to +you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and +that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and whenever +high prices bothered them they should write us a bright cheerful letter +enclosing a postal order--they're still quite cheap. + +Chalmers major, who has read this and leads a sad life, having only +aunts, says that the only hope for him is in fixing a standard tip of +9_s._ 11¾_d._ or, better still, 19_s._ 11¾_d._, that women couldn't +help giving. + +So hoping that all uncles will put their hands to the plough--I mean in +their pockets--and then the bitter cry of the New Poor will cease in our +public schools, + +Yours respectfully, Bruce Tertius. + + * * * * * + +"Notice. + + My wife, Roxie M. ----, having left my bed and board, I will not + be responsible for any bills contracted after this date, June + 21, 1920. Fred ----." _American Paper_. + +"Notice. + + The undersigned wishes to state I had just cause to leave, but I + left neither bed nor board as I furnished my own board, and the + bed being mine I took it. Roxie ----." + +_Same Paper, following day._ + +A good example of what _Touchstone_ calls "The lie with circumstance." + + * * * * * + + "To-Night at 9.30. + NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. + For the first time in Calcutta." + _Indian Paper._ + +Where was the Censor? + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Bridegroom-Elect_."--and we wants to have the hymn, +'The flag that waved o'er Eden.'"] + + * * * * * + +THE STATE AND THE SCREEN. + +(_By a Student of Film Politics._) + +Great satisfaction has been evinced in film circles over the conferment +of a signal honour on Signor Pavanelli, the outstanding Italian +screen luminary. The rank of Chevalier of the Crown of Italy is +equivalent to a knighthood in this country, and Pavanelli's +elevation is a gratifying proof of the paramount position which the +cinema is assuming in Italian national affairs. But gratification is +sadly tempered by the deplorable lack of State recognition from which +film-artists suffer in this country. The joint co-starring Sovereigns of +the Screen, though acclaimed by the populace with an enthusiasm +unparalleled in the annals of adoration, were allowed to depart from our +shores without a single official acknowledgment of their services to +humanity. No vote of congratulation was passed by the Houses of +Parliament; no honorary degree was conferred on them by any University; +no ode of welcome was forthcoming from the pen of the Poet +Laureate. + +The discontent caused by the indifference of the Government to the +wishes of the people is fraught with formidable possibilities. Already +there are serious rumours of the summoning of a Special Trade Union +Congress to discuss the desirability of direct action as a means of +compelling the Government to abandon their attitude of hostility to the +only form of monarchy which the working-classes can conscientiously +support. It is further reported that Lieutenant-Commander +Kenworthy, M.P., will seize the first opportunity to move the +impeachment of Dr. Bridges. The indignation in Printing House +Square has reached boiling-point, and it is reported that the +authorities are only awaiting the delivery of a huge consignment of +small pica type to launch a fresh and final onslaught on the Coalition. + +[Illustration: BAD FOR THE BULL.] + +The provocation has undoubtedly been intense. It was proved in an +article of studied moderation and exquisite taste that the time had come +to revise our estimates of bygone grandeur and substitute for the +devotion to a Queen of tarnished fame and disastrous tendencies the +spontaneous and chivalrous worship of her beneficent and prosperous +namesake. Yet in spite of this dignified and convincing appeal no +invitation was sent to the one person whose presence at the recent +proceedings at Holyrood would have lent them a crowning lustre. The +action or inaction of the Lord Chamberlain is inexplicable, +except on the assumption that Queen Pickford's engagement to attend the +Spa Conference would have rendered it impossible for her to accept the +invitation to Edinburgh. None the less the invitation should have been +sent. Besides, the resources of aviation might have surmounted the +difficulty. In any case this deplorable oversight has knocked one more +nail in the coffin of the Prime Minister. + + * * * * * + + "At the fifth each played a magnificent tea shot. Hodgson again + used his favourite spoon."--_Provincial Paper_. + +Obviously the right club for the purpose. + + * * * * * + + "'The Tongue Can no Man Tame.' + _St. Peter._" + _Heading in Daily Paper_. + +A clear case of robbing James to pay Peter. + + * * * * * + +ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. + +_Monday, July 12th._--Viscount Curzon's complaint about "crawling" +taxi-cabs was ostensibly based upon the obstruction thus caused to more +rapidly moving traffic. But I fancy that it was really due to an +inherent belief that the motor-car is a noble creature, only happy when +exceeding the speed-limit and dashing through police-controls, and that +to compel the poor thing to crawl is "agin natur'" and ought to be dealt +with by the R.S.P.C.A. + +As usual much of Question-time was devoted to Russian affairs. Colonel +Wedgwood wanted to know whether the Cabinet had approved a message from +Mr. Churchill to the late Admiral Kolchak, advising him how to commend +his Administration to the Prime Minister, who was described in the +telegram as "all-powerful, a convinced democrat and particularly devoted +to advanced views on the land question." Mr. Law, while provisionally +promising a Blue-book on Siberia, declined to pick out a single message +from a whole bunch. + +The news that the Soviet Government had accepted the British conditions +with regard to the resumption of trade and had thereupon been requested +to conclude an armistice with Poland did not seem particularly welcome +to any section of the House. Those whom Mr. Stanton in stentorian +whispers daily describes as the "Bolshies" evidently feared that the +request had been accompanied by a threat, while others were horrified at +the idea of recognising the present _régime_ in Russia, and drew from +Mr. Law a hasty disclaimer. The House as a whole would, I think, have +liked to learn how you can do business with a person whom you do not +recognise? + +The Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to accept Mr. George Terrell's +proposal to reduce the Excess Profits Tax from sixty per cent. to forty, +but, in reply to Sir G. Younger--who "has such a way wid him"--promised +that next year he would make the reduction. He admitted that it was in +many ways an unsatisfactory tax, but the Government could not afford to +part with it unless a substitute was provided. Somebody suggested +"Economy," and Sir F. Banbury proved to his own satisfaction that the +present estimates could be reduced by a hundred-and-fifty millions. But +unexpected support for the Government came from Mr. Asquith, who as the +original sponsor of the tax felt it his duty to support it. + +[Illustration: SIR FREDERICK BANBURY SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE. "To produce a +saving of one hundred-and-fifty millions you merely have to hold the hat +firmly in the left hand--thus."] + +There was a perfect E.P.D.mic of criticism, but it was brilliantly +countered by Mr. Baldwin, who declared that the Chancellor, far from +leading the country down the rapids, "was the one man who had seized a +rock in mid-stream and was hanging on to it with hands and feet." The +Amendment was rejected by 289 to 117, and the clause as a whole was +passed by 202 to 16. + +[Illustration: THE LIMPET OF THE EXCHEQUER. Mr. Baldwin portrays his +chief "hanging to a rock with hands and feet."] + +_Tuesday, July 13th._--Lord O'Hagan was one of the Peers who helped +to outvote the Government a few days ago on a motion excusing them +of extravagance. Yet that did not prevent him to-day from saying that +the War Office should be more generous in their financial treatment +of the Territorial Force, and particularly of the Cadet Corps. +Naturally Lord Peel did not refrain from calling attention to this +inconsistency--common to most of the financial critics of the +Administration--but nevertheless he made a reply indicating that the +grants for the Territorial Force were being revised, presumably in an +upward direction, since Lord O'Hagan expressed himself grateful. + +The Commons, like the Lords, are all for economy collectively, if not +individually. General cheers greeted Mr. Bonar Law's announcement that +all war-subsidies--save that on wheat--were to be brought to an end as +soon as possible, but then there were similar cheers for those Members +who urged the substitution of ex-service men for the less highly-paid +women in various Public Departments. + +The House enjoyed the unusual experience of hearing from +Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy an apology--and a very handsome one too--for +something that he had said in debate about Colonel Croft. It was +accompanied by a tribute to his military efficiency which made that +gallant warrior blush. It only now remains for the Leader of the +National Party to reciprocate by rescuing from the Naval archives some +equally complimentary reference to the services of Lieut.-Commander +Kenworthy. + +A new sport has been invented by Colonel Guinness. It consists in +sending two telegrams simultaneously to Paris, one _viâ_ London and the +other _viâ_ New York, and seeing which gets there first. At present New +York wins by twenty minutes. Mr. Illingworth excused himself from giving +an immediate explanation on the ground that he had not had time to check +the facts. No doubt he hopes that in the interim other Members will +follow Colonel Guinness's example and, by joining in the new pastime, +bring grist to the Post-Office mill. + +_Wednesday, July 14th._--Lord Milner must have thought he was back in +the era of "Chinese Slavery" when he found himself assailed on all sides +because the Chief Native Commissioner in Kenya Colony (late British East +Africa) had issued a circular instructing the chiefs to influence their +followers in the direction of honest toil. Lord Islington described this +as "perilously near forced labour;" His Grace of Canterbury facetiously +suggested that the chiefs' idea of influence would be the sjambok; and +Lord Emmott talked of "Prussianism." + +Taught by past experience Lord Milner did not make light of the +accusations, but set himself to show how little real substance they +contained. The Chief Native Commissioner was "not a Prussian"; on the +contrary the local white population thought him too great an upholder of +native privileges. But he was very keen on getting the black man to +work, and had therefore issued this circular, which was open to +misinterpretation. An explanatory document would be issued shortly. + +Echoes of the Dyer debate are still reverberating through the Commons, +and Mr. Montagu was put through a searching cross-examination regarding +his relations with Mr. Gandhi. Apparently that gentleman has a very +simple plan of campaign. He agitates more and more dangerously until he +is threatened with prosecution. Then he says "Sorry!" and Mr. Montagu +begs him off. After a brief interval of quiescence he starts again. Just +now he is once more nearing the imaginary line that separates proper +from impropa-Gandhism. + +[Illustration: B.C. 1920. _Sir Alfred Mond._ "What a topping idea! +They'll never get a more suitable design from the Office of Works--not +if they wait 3840 Years."] + +The House was delighted to see Mr. Devlin and Mr. MacVeagh back in their +places. A little honest Irish obstruction would be a refreshing change +after the feeble imitations of the Kenworthies and Wedgwoods. But the +Speaker could not accept the proposition that a speech delivered three +weeks ago, in which an Irish official was alleged to have prophesied +some dreadful things which as a matter of fact had not happened, could +be regarded as "a definite matter of urgent public importance." + +It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister was unable to get back from +Spa in order to assist in the final suppression of his famous +land-duties. Most of the speeches delivered were made up of excerpts +from his old orations of ten years ago--that almost prehistoric era +known as the Limehouse Period--and it would have been an object-lesson +in political gymnastics to see him explaining himself away. + +The land-taxers made a gallant effort to frighten their opponents away +by chanting the "Land Song" in the Lobby, but it is supposed that the +Government supporters had copied Ulysses' method with the Sirens, for +enough of them remained faithful to defeat the land-taxers by 190 to 68. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Neal._ "Your fares will cost you more."] + +_Thursday, July 15th._--Mr. Neal's announcement that the proposed +increase in rail way fares had been postponed until August 5th, in order +not to spoil the Bank Holiday, was far from satisfying the House. Mr. +Clynes pointed out that large numbers of the working-classes now took +their long holidays in August. Mr. Palmer was of opinion that the +working-classes could pay well enough; it was the middle-class that +would suffer most; and Mr. R. McNeill, following up this assertion, +suggested (without success) that for the sake of poverty-stricken M.P.'s +the House should adjourn before the fateful date. + +Sir H. Greenwood gave particulars of the Sinn Fein raid on the Dublin +Post-Office, but declined to give an opinion as to whether there had +been any collusion with the staff inside. Judging by the promptitude and +efficiency of the raiders' procedure it seems highly improbable that +postal officials had anything to do with it. + + * * * * * + + "Each day the barometer seems to drop a little lower, the rain + seems to drop a little more persistent and wet."--_Provincial + Paper_. + +It is this persistent wetness that is so annoying. Nobody would mind a +little dry rain. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Farmer._ "I wonder what some of these London folks +'ud say to this?" + +_Farm-hand._ "Zay? They'd zay as we must be makin' our fortunes out +o' mushrooms."] + + * * * * * + +TWENTY YEARS ON. + +We were sitting in the verandah, Ernest and I. On the greensward before +us Ernest Junior and James Junior (I am James) disported themselves as +became their years, which were respectively 1-3/4 and 1-5/8. In the +middle distance, or as middle as the size of our lawn permits, might be +seen the mothers of Ernest Junior and James Junior deep in conversation, +discussing, perhaps, the military prowess of their lords, though I +rather fear I caught the word "jumper" every now and then. + +A loud difference of opinion between James II. and Ernest II. as to the +possession of a wooden horse momentarily disturbed the peaceful scene. +It was left to Ernest and myself to settle it, our incomparable wives +being still completely engrossed with the subject of our military +prowess (or of jumpers). When quiet reigned once more Ernest said, "Have +you ever looked twenty years on?" + +"Practically never," I answered. "It is too exhausting." + +"It is exhausting, but with my usual energy I do it all the same," said +Ernest, who is as a fact the world's champion lotus-eater. "Last night I +was picturing a little scene in the year 1940. Shall I tell you of it?" +And without waiting for my assent he proceeded:-- + +"The scene is laid in an undergraduate's rooms. Ernest Junior and James +Junior are discovered in _négligé_ attitudes and the conversation +proceeds something like this:-- + +"_Ernest Junior._ What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.? + +"_James Junior._ I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives +being so terribly restricted. + +"_Ernest Junior._ Why restricted? + +"_James Junior._ Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell +you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or +Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the +first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never +stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in +the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I +should hardly get away before next term begins. + +"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long +story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself +captured a large number of Turks on the Somme. + +"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And +when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin +about Rouen and Etaples." + +I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all +funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if +only I'd thought of it first. + + * * * * * + +"CHAR-À"-VARIA. + + [_The Manchester Daily Dispatch_ gives a most distressing + account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more + rampant week by week among char-à-bancs trippers.] + + The patrons of the charabang + Employ the most outrageous slang + And talk with an appalling twang. + Their manners ape the wild orang; + They do not care a single hang + For sober folk on foot who gang, + But as they roll, with jolt and clang, + For parasang on parasang, + They cause a vulgar _Sturm und Drang_. + They never heard of Andrew Lang, + Or even Mr. William Strang; + They are, I say it with a pang, + A most intolerable gang; + In fact I wish them at Penang + Or on the banks of Yang-tse-Kiang-- + _Some_ folk who use the charabang. + + * * * * * + + "Wanted, a good, clean General, for private."--_Provincial + Paper_. + +Discipline is going to the dogs. + + * * * * * + +POINTS OF VIEW. + +The manager had seen to it that the party of young men, being very +obviously rich, at any rate for this night, had some of the best +attendance in the restaurant. Several waiters had been told off +specially to look after them, the least and busiest of whom was little +more than a boy--a slender pale boy, who was working very hard to give +satisfaction. The cynic might think--and say, for cynics always say what +they think--that this zeal was the result of his youth; but the cynic +for once would be only partly right. The zeal also had sartorial +springs, this eventful day being the first on which the boy had been +promoted to full waiter-hood, and the first therefore on which he had +ever worn a suit of evening dress; which by dint of hard saving his +family had been able to obtain for him. Wearing a uniform of such +dignity and conscious that he was on the threshold of his career, he was +trying very hard to make good and hoping very fervently that he would +get through without any drops or splashes to impair the freshness of his +new and wonderful attire. + +The party of young men, who had been at a very illustrious English +school together and now were either at a university or in the world, +were celebrating an annual event and were very merry about it. For the +most part they had, between the past and the present, as many topics of +conversation as were needed, but now and then came a lull, during which +some of them would look around at the other tables, note the prettier of +the girls or the odder of the men and comment upon them; and it chanced +that in such a pause one of the diners happened for the first time to +notice with any attention the assiduous young waiter. Although not old +enough to have given any thought to the anomaly of youth (though lowly) +attending upon youth (though gilded) at its meals in this way--not old +enough indeed to have pondered at all upon the relations of Capital and +Labour or of the domineering and the servile--he had reflected a good +deal upon the cut and fit of clothes, and there was something about the +waiting-boy's evening coat that outraged his critical sense. Nor did the +fact that the other's indifferent tailoring throw the perfection of his +own into such brilliant contrast--the similarity between the livery of +service and the male costume _de luxe_ fostering such comparisons--make +him any more lenient. + +"Did you ever see," he asked his neighbour, "such a coat-collar as that +waiting Johnnie's? I ask you. How can anyone, even a waiter, wear a +thing like that? Don't they ever see themselves in the glass, or if they +do can't they see straight? Why, it covers his collar altogether." + +His companion agreed. "And the shoulders! You'd have thought that in a +restaurant like this the management would be more particular. By George, +that's a jolly pretty girl coming in! Look--over there, just under the +clock, with the red hair." And the waiter was forgotten. Only, however, +by his table critics, for at that moment a little woman who had made +friends with the hall-porter for this express purpose was peering +through the window of the entrance, searching the room for her son. She +had never yet seen him at his work at all, and certainly not in his +grand waiting clothes, and naturally she wanted to. + +"Ah!" she said at last, pointing the boy out to the porter, "there he +is! At that table with all the young gentlemen. Doesn't he look fine? +And don't they fit him beautifully? Why, no one would know the +difference if he were to sit down and one of those young gentlemen were +to wait on him." + +E.V.L. + + * * * * * + +PIGLETS. + +While waiting for proof-sheets of my book on _The Dynamic Force of +Modern Art_ I thought I might get a certain amount of amusement out of a +little correspondence with my neighbour, Mr. Gibbs, small farmer and +dairyman, between whom and myself letters had passed a short time ago on +the subject of a noisy cow, since removed from the field below the study +window of the house that has been lent me by my friend Hobson. With this +end in view I wrote to Mr. Gibbs as follows:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--The field of the uproarious cow has, I +notice, suddenly become tenanted again, this time by what appears to be +a school, herd or murrain of swine. Their number seems to vary. +Sometimes I count ten younglings, sometimes as many as thirteen, and +once I made it as much as fourteen. + +Did you know they were there, or are they a crop? Or is the field +suffering from swine fever, of which they are the outward manifestation? +Anyhow, whether they are friends of yours or have merely just happened, +as it were, they are distinctly intriguing. + +My wife was remarking to me only yesterday how nice some pork would be +as a change from the eternal verities, beef and mutton, and I told her +that if she would look out of my window she would see the pork running +about, simply asking for it. There are so many of these piglets that I +don't think the old sow would miss one. Swine can't count, can they? + +But apart from food values they interest me as subjects for the Cubist, +the Vorticist and other exploiters of dynamic force in the Art of to-day +(I fancy I told you in a previous letter that I am engaged upon a tome +on this subject). + +Figure to yourself, _mon ami_, what delightful rhomboidal figures +Wyndham Lewis and his school would make of these budding +porkers with the sleek torso and the well-poised angular snout, and, +having visualised their treatment of the theme, compare it with the +painted effigies of such animals by George Morland, which were +merely pigs, Sir, and nothing more. No symbolism, no force. You get +me--what? + +But looking at these piglets from a more intimate point of view, don't +you think (if they should happen to be yours, and you have any influence +with their parents) that something should be done about their faces? +They have such a pushed-in appearance. Can this be normal? If so, it +must seriously interfere with their truffling. But perhaps this is not +good truffle-hunting country. I'm sorry if this is so, as I could do +with a nice brace of truffles now and again. + +Remember me kindly to our mooing friend, and believe me, dear Mr. Gibbs, + + Yours sincerely, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +How this early touch of Spring has got into the blood, to be sure. + +To this letter Mr. Gibbs replied thus:-- + +Dear Sir,--i cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole +about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one +another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out +like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you a +nice leg and remain + + Yours obedient + Henry Gibbs. + +My reply, given in the affirmative, resulted in the arrival of a +succulent-looking joint with a bill for leg of pork special 5½ lbs. +at 2_s._ per lb. 11_s._ + +As the price too was rather special I returned the bill with the +following:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--What a rapturous piece of pork! Lovely in +life, and oh, how beautiful in death. I count the hours till 7.30 +to-morrow. + +I am truly sorry you couldn't read my letter with comfort. I have +derived great pleasure from yours. You appear to have a strong leaning +towards phonetic orthography which is very refreshing and seems to bear +the same relation to the generally accepted rules of the art that the +modern dynamic art (a favourite topic of mine, as you know) does to the +academics of the late nineteenth century. + +When the proof-sheets of my book arrive I should be glad of your +assistance in going through them. My tendency, I think, is to +over-punctuate, and your proclivity would, I believe, counteract this. + +_Mais revenons à nos moutons_ (_mutatis mutandis_, of course). The +specialist who superintends my diet allows me to eat pork at 1_s._ 9_d._ +per lb., but does not approve of my indulgence in it at a higher figure. +If you will meet his views (and I am sure you will) I shall absorb my +full share of the dainty you have provided. Otherwise I must return it +with many exquisite regrets. + +Anticipating your favourable recognition of my specialist's absurd +prejudice, I enclose a cheque for 9_s._ 8_d._ + + Accept my word for it that I am + Yours ever most truly, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +To this Mr. Gibbs offered the following reply:-- + +Deer Sir,--i thought being a friend of mr Hobson you was a +gentleman as wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for something special like +this pork which these pigs was by Barnsley Champion III i cant charge +less. i dont know who your specialist is but he dont know much about +pork the bests the safest. please send ballance and remain + + Yours obedient, + Henry Gibbs. + +We were still in March and pork had not yet been decontrolled, so I +returned the bill again with this brief but incisive note:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--I have never met your friend from Barnsley, +but am surprised that you haven't come across my specialist, whose +address is the Local Food Control Office at Harbury. Would you like to +meet him? He is very interested in pigs, also in milk and other things +in which you specialise expensively, so you would have lots to talk +about, no doubt. + + Yours sincerely, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +The receipt in full, which reached me in reply, was very satisfactory. +The pork was delicious. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Country Postman._ "I'm sorry, Ma'am, I seem to have +lost your postcard; but it only said Muriel thanked you for the parcel, +and so did John, and they were both very well and the children are happy +and she'll give your message to Margery. That'll be your other daughter, +I'm thinkin'?"] + + * * * * * + + FLOWERS' NAMES. + + Lady's Bedstraw. + + Under two secret arching hedges + Masses of Bedstraw grow, + Silvery-white among the sedges, + Like drifts of fairy-snow; + Deep's the middle, fringed the edges; + Who sleeps there? Do you know? + Do you? Or you? + Hark! for the breezes know. + + "Oh, there my Lady Summer lies + Adream beneath cool April skies; + About her blossoms fall + On her long limbs and secret eyes. + Still she sleeps, virginal; + Then--hark! June's clarion call! + She lifts her wistful wilful eyes, + Springs light afoot and away she flies. + But her Bedstraw dies." + + * * * * * + + "We have received from ---- Manufacturing Company, New York, + makers of Distructive Stationery for Social Correspondence, + copies of their artistic Wall Calendars." _West Indian Paper._ + +The calendars don't interest us, but a few samples of the "distructive +stationery" would come in useful for answering bores. + + * * * * * + +NOCTURNE. + +Of course I suppose I ought to be grateful for the opportunity of having +a front seat at one of Nature's romances, but I imagine she reaps more +applause at matinées than at soirées. I know that I--But judge for +yourself. + +The _dramatis personæ_ were corncrakes, neighbours of mine. The +heroine--a neat line in spring birdings--I labelled "Thisbe," and she +had evidently inspired affection of no mean degree in the hearts of two +enthusiastic swains, Strong-i'-th'-lung and Eugène. I know all this +because Thisbe's home is a small tuft of grass not distant from my +bedroom, and her admirers wooed her at long range from opposite corners +of my field. + +Now, as a cursory study of ornithology will tell you, the corncrake's +method of attracting his bride is by song, and the criterion of +excellence in C.C. circles is that the song shall be protracted, +consistent and perfectly monotonous. To those who are unacquainted with +his note I would describe it as rather similar to the intermittent +buzzing noise which an inexperienced telephone operator lets loose when +she can't think of a wrong number to give you. It has also points of +resemblance to the periodic thud of the valve of a motor-tube when one +is running on a deflated tyre. But there is no real standard of +comparison. As a musical feat it is unique, and I for one am glad it is. + +It was night. Eugène was in possession of the stage when I began to take +an interest in the romance. I cannot say for how long he had serenaded +his divinity before I became conscious of his lay, but I do know that +thereafter he put in one and a half hours of good solid craking before +he desisted. I then felt grateful for the silence, rolled over and +prepared to get on with my postponed slumber. + +But Strong-i'-th'-lung decreed otherwise. With a contemptuous snort at +his rival's performance he opened his epic. He was splendid. For one and +three-ninths hours he descanted on the glories of field life, on the +freshness of the night, on the brilliance of the June foliage; for the +next two hours he ardently proclaimed the surpassing beauty of Thisbe's +eye, the glossiness of her plumage, the neatness of her claw, and he +wound up with a mad twenty minutes of piercing monotony as he depicted +the depth of his devotion for her. + +When he ceased, in a silence which was almost deafening, I could +visualise Thisbe dimpling with satisfaction and undoubtedly filled with +tenderness toward a lover capable of expressing himself so eloquently. I +turned over with a sigh of relief and closed my eyes in pleasurable +anticipation of rest. + +But Eugène felt it necessary to reply. I think his intention was to +crake disbelief of his rival's sincerity, to throw cold water on his +burning professions, perhaps even to question the excellence of his +intentions. But his nerve was obviously shaken by his competitor's +undoubtedly fine performance, and he craked indecisively. At 4.30 +a.m. I distinctly heard him utter a flat note. At 4.47 he +missed the second part of a bar entirely. Thisbe's beak, I must believe, +curled derisively; Strong-i'-th'-lung laughed contemptuously, and at +5.10 a.m. Eugène faltered, stammered and fled from the field +defeated. + +The sequel I have had to build up on rather fragmentary data, but it +appears that Eugène fled as far as Pudberry Parva, and endeavoured to +cool his discomfiture in a dewy hayfield. + +To him there came an old crone, the "father and mother" of all +corncrakes, who comforted him, cossetted him, and from a fund of deep +experience offered him hints on voice production. She also gave him of a +nostrum of toadwort and garlic, which mollified his lacerated chords, +and she prescribed massage of the throat by rubbing against a young +beech stem. + +Within two days Eugène was back in my field. In tones that feigned to +falter he craked a few bars to open the performance. Strong-i'-th'-lung +at once rose full of pitying confidence and craked for two and a half +hours the song of the practically accepted suitor. It was a good song, +and Thisbe seemed pleased, though I fancy she rather resented the note +of assurance which he imparted to his ballad. + +Then Eugène came on. Bearing well in mind all the instruction of his +recent benefactress, he commenced at 11.45 p.m. such a masterpiece as +has never before been heard in the bird world. His consistency of period +was masterly, his iteration superb and his even monotony incomparable. +Crake succeeded crake with dull regular inevitability. So far as I know +he carried his bat. He was still playing strongly when I fell on a +troubled sleep about 5.30.... + +The next day, walking through the field, I put up two birds which flew +away together. One was Thisbe. And the other? Well, not +Strong-i'-th'-lung. I stumbled across him a little later, dead without a +wound. + + * * * * * + + "Wanted Music Master for 2 girls; also Mincing + Machine."--_Local Paper._ + +One way or another they seem determined that the poor girls shall be +"put through it." + + * * * * * + +SHOULD MILLIONAIRES READ HOMER? + +The recent discovery of a London millionaire, who not only lives in a +small suburban villa, where his wife dispenses with servants, goes to +bed at 7.30 p.m. and rises at 3 a.m., but reads Homer in the Greek, has +caused a sensation. + +His endeavours to prove to a doubting world the truth of a favourite +British adage is admirable; and his modest establishment only bears out +what the millionaires keep on telling us, that, owing to high taxation +and the abnormal cost of luxuries, they must really be reckoned as poor +men. But his study of Homer provokes a difference of opinion. + +Our representative, in interviewing a venerable sociologist on the +subject, was told that the study of Greek for millionaires is, within +proper limits, comparatively harmless, but that Homer contains the +elements of danger. + +"It is in Homer's apotheosis of heroism in human combat that the peril +lies," he said. "Having regard to the part played in the past by +financiers in the wars between civilised nations, the security of the +League of Nations will be threatened if the millionaires of to-day come +under the spell of that great poet, who, with all his excellent +qualities, directed his genius so persistently to the praise of +warfare." + +One of the millionaire class was next approached, and was asked what he +thought of millionaires reading Homer. + +"Why not?" he asked. "Some millionaires are great readers. I am one +myself. There are not half-a-dozen of Oppenheim's I haven't read; and I +like Hall Caine--and Ethel Dell's not bad. Who is this Homer? If he's +any good I may as well order him." + +"Well, Homer was a poet, you know, a--" + +"I've no use for poetry," said the millionaire. + +"A Greek poet, who lived--" + +"Greek. A _Greek_, did you say?" A shrewd look came into his eyes. "Some +of the cutest devils I know are Greeks." He pulled down a shirt-cuff and +took a diamond-studded pencil from his waistcoat pocket. "How do you +spell it? With an H?" + + * * * * * + +"POULTRY AND EGGS. + + Belfast or Neighbourhood.--Locum Tenency or Sunday duty wanted + by well-known Rector during holiday."--_Irish Paper._ + +It looks as if he had been mistaken for a Lay-reader. + + * * * * * + + "Nothing is left of the knave of the church, but the choir still + remains."--_Scotch Paper._ + +We are glad they discarded the knave. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Country Cousin_ (_who suffers from his wife's elbow at +each crossing_). "Oo! lawks, Maria! Next time we've to cross lemme be +roon ower!"] + + * * * * * + +OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. + +(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) + +_Double Life_ (Grant Richards) is a story that unblushingly bases its +appeal on the love of almost everyone for a fairy-tale of good fortune. +The matter of it is to show how a lady amateur, wife of a novelist, +herself hardly knowing one end of a horse from the other, might make +forty thousand pounds in a year on the Turf, without even her own +husband so much as suspecting her activities. The thing isn't likely, is +indeed a fantasy of the wildest improbability; but, told with the zest +imparted to it here by Mr. Grant Richards, it provides first-rate fun. +Some danger of monotony there was bound to be in what is really a +variation upon a single theme. Though the author cunningly avoids this, +I think it might justly be observed that he has made _Olivia's_ plunges +almost too uniformly successful. But perhaps not; after all, while you +are handling fairy-gold, why be niggardly of it? The heroine's +introduction to horse-racing comes about through the unconscious agency +of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to Newmarket in search +of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The resulting situation reaches +its climax in what is the best scene of the book, when _Geoffrey_, +returning from a race that he has visited alone, but upon which +_Olivia_, unknown to him, has risked thousands, recounts its progress in +the best manner of realistic fiction, wholly ignorant of the true cause +of what seems such flattering agitation in the listener. Altogether a +happy if not very subtle story which I am glad that Mr. Grant Richards +could persuade himself to publish. + +To write, as Mr. R.W. Chambers has written, fifty-two novels, many of +them excellent and all readable, while still on the right side of sixty, +is an achievement of intelligent industry that entitles any novelist, at +the latter end, to take matters a little easily. _The Moonlit Way_ +(Appleton) has neither the imaginative qualities of _The King in +Yellow_, the humour of _In Search of the Unknown_, nor the adventurous +tang of _Ashes of Empire_, but it is a good live story that will carry +the reader's interest to the last page. Mr. Chambers is at his best when +dealing with spies and secret service agents and scheming chancellors +and the other subterranean apparatus of war and diplomacy; at his least +interesting when depicting affluent young America on its native heath of +New York bricks and mortar. _The Moonlit Way_ deals with all these +things and more. We are whisked from the Bosphorus to the Welland Canal +on the heels of Germany's "War in the United States," and French Secret +Service officers, German saloon keepers and Sinn Fein revolutionaries +jostle one another for a place in our interest. The novel-reading public +knows that it is quite safe in buying any story by Mr. Chambers, and, if +it does not expect too much of _The Moonlit Way_, it will not be +disappointed. + + * * * * * + +Lately, volumes of individual memorial to dead youth seem to have become +less frequent. Perhaps there was a suggestion that the making of them, +or rather their publication for the eyes of strangers, was in danger of +being overdone. However this may be, I think that, quite apart from the +appeal of circumstance, there would always have been a welcome for such +a bright-natured book as one that Father Ronald Knox has put together, +mostly from diaries and letters, about _Patrick Shaw-Stewart_ (Collins). +Eton and Balliol will agree that there could be no biographer better +fitted to record the life, as happy seemingly as it was fated to be +short, of one who combined success with popularity at both these places, +was caught by the War on the threshold of a wider career, served his +country with very notable distinction and was killed in the winter of +1917. Though he met death in France, the most of Shaw-Stewart's +war-service was on the Eastern front; in particular he saw more than +most soldiers of the whole Gallipoli adventure, to which he went as a +member of that amazing company--surely the very flower of this country's +war contribution--the _Hood_ Battalion of the R.N.V.R. Here he was the +comrade of many of those whom England has especially delighted to +honour: Rupert Brooke, Denis-Browne, Charles Lister and others, all of +whom figure in these vivid and most attractive letters; from which also +one gathers an engaging picture of Shaw-Stewart himself, a generously +admiring, humorous and entirely independent young Tory in a band of +brilliant revolutionaries. In fine a book (despite its theme of promise +sacrificed) full of laughter and a singularly charming character-study +of one who, in his biographer's phrase, was assuredly "not one of the +passengers of his generation." + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE SPECIALIST. + +_Eminent Botanist on scientific expedition_. "Dear me! Why didn't I +take up Zoology instead of Botany? This seems such an interesting +specimen."] + + * * * * * + +Miss Ella Sykes, after going with her brother and a camera on his +special mission to Kashgar during the earlier days of the War, has +detailed in charming fashion, under the title _Through Deserts and Oases +of Central Asia_ (Macmillan), their travels in lands still almost +unknown. Sir Percy Sykes himself has added some chapters on the history +and customs of the district in order to allow himself the pleasure of +referring affectionately to his hunting of the giant sheep--the _Ovis +poli_--of the Pamirs. Between them they have given me a good deal of +information, with a lot of really capital photographs, about a +country--Chinese Turkestan--that one may have just heard of before, +though it is impossible to be sure. Resisting a burning desire to pass +on newly-acquired learning to the first listener, I will be content to +say that a more readable volume of its kind has not come my way for a +long time, and incidentally the country itself seems surprisingly +desirable. For one thing it is free from the mosquitoes that spoil so +many books of travel, while the people are peaceful, reasonably +contented and not liable to jar on the reader's nerves, in the +time-honoured fashion, with spears and poisoned arrows. Even the yaks, +that one had supposed to be fearsome beasts, are mild benevolent +pacifists. The authors do not suggest that it is all Paradise, of +course, though for the Moslem there may be something of that sort in it. +"Praise be to Allah! I have four obedient wives, who spend all their +days in trying to please me," said a Kirghiz farmer to Sir Percy. But +even Paradise may be a matter of taste. + + * * * * * + +If _War in the Garden of Eden_ (Murray) cannot be numbered among the +books which must be read by a serious war-student it is in its +unassuming way very attractive. Captain Kermit Roosevelt made many +friends while serving as a Captain with the Motor Machine-Gun Corps in +Mesopotamia, and here he reveals himself as a keen soldier and a +pleasant companion. In style he is perhaps a shade too jerky; his +frequent failure to make his connections gives one a sense of being in +the hands of a rather rambling guide. But the important points are that +he is an engaging rambler, and that he can describe his experiences both +of war and peace with so clear a simplicity that they can be easily +visualized. When the American Army arrived in France Captain Roosevelt +naturally wished to join it, and his last chapter is called "With the +First Division in France and Germany." But for us the main interest of +his book lies in the work he did with the British in Mesopotamia, and to +thank him for this would seem to be an impertinence. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Arnold Bennett's _From the Log of the Velsa_ (Chatto) deals with +some vague period before the War (dates are most carefully concealed), +when the versatile author undertook certain cruises up and down Dutch +canals, the Baltic, French, Flemish and Danish coasts and East Anglian +estuaries with companions about whom he preserves an equally mysterious +silence. (Was it secret service, I wonder?) A delightful book, produced +with something like pre-war attention to æsthetic appearance--a pleasant +quarto with roomy pages faithfully printed in a fair type. You ought to +enjoy the owner's evident enjoyment (he was never bored and therefore +never boring), his charmingly ingenuous pride of possession, his shrewd, +humorous and excessively didactic utterances about painters, pictures, +architecture and female beauty, his zeal for water-colour sketching and +his apparently profound contempt of other exponents of the craft. +Nothing could be less like (I thank Heaven) the ordinary yachtsman's +recollections of his travels, and I get an impression that Mr. Bennett +was not ill-pleased to leave most of the work and the technical +knowledge to his skipper. + + * * * * * + + "Crêpe de Chine in oyster white will show the top of the dress + embroidered to the knees in some unconventional design of black + and a deeper shade of white."--_Daily Paper_. + + "The bridesmaid's dress was of heavy white crêpe-de-chine, of + pale apricot shade."--_Provincial Paper_. + +Canning must have had a premonition of the modern fashions when +he wrote in _The New Morality_, "Black's not so black, nor white so +_very_ white." + + * * * * * + +From a bookseller's advertisement:-- + + "Mr. ---- has the way of when you finish one of his most + interesting books that you really cannot help yourself by + reading all." _Newfoundland Paper._ + +Not being quite sure whether this is a compliment or not we have +suppressed the distinguished author's name. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. +159, July 21, 1920, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + +***** This file should be named 17596-8.txt or 17596-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/9/17596/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + +Release Date: January 24, 2006 [EBook #17596] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>PUNCH,<br /> + OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1> + +<h2>VOL. 159.</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2>July 21, 1920.</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[pg 41]</a></span> +To judge by the Spa Conference it looks as if we might be going to have +a peace to end peace.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>It will soon be necessary for the Government to arrange an old-age +pension scheme for Peace Conference delegates.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>It is difficult to know whom or what to blame for the exceptionally wet +weather we have been having, says an evening paper. Pending a denial +from Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span>, <i>The Times</i> has its own opinion as to +who is at the bottom of it.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Stanton</span> pointed out in the House of Commons that, unless +increased salaries are given to Members, there will be a strike. Fears +are entertained, however, that a settlement will be reached.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"The Derry shirt-cutters," says a news item, "have decided to continue +to strike." The Derry throat-cutters, on the other hand, have postponed +striking to a more favourable opportunity.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The way to bring down the price of home-killed meat, the Ministry of +Food announces officially, is for the public not to buy it. You can't +have your cheap food and eat it.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Harborough Rocks, one of the few Druid Circles in the kingdom, has been +sold. Heading-for-the-Rocks, the famous Druid Circle at Westminster, has +also been sold on several occasions by the Chief Wizard.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A gossip writer states that he saw a man carrying two artificial legs +while travelling in a Tube train. There is nothing like being prepared +for all emergencies while travelling.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"The ex-Kaiser," says an American journal, "makes his own clothes to +pass the time away." This is better than his old hobby of making wars to +pass other people's time away.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"Danger of infection from Treasury notes," says <i>The Weekly Dispatch</i>, +"has been exaggerated." Whenever we see a germ on one of our notes we +pat it on the back and tell it to lie down.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A West Riding paper states that a postman picked up a pound Treasury +note last week. It is said that he intends to have it valued by an +expert.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>An engineer suggests that all roads might be made of rubber. For +pedestrians who are knocked down by motor-cars the resilience of this +material would be a great boon.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>According to <i>The Evening News</i> a bishop was seen the other day passing +the House of Commons smoking a briar pipe. We can only suppose that he +did not recognise the House of Commons.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"We can find work for everybody and everything," says a Chicago journal. +But what about corkscrews?</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>How strong is the force of habit was illustrated at Liverpool Docks the +other day when two Americans, on reaching our shores, immediately +fainted, and only recovered when it was explained that spirits were not +sold here solely for medical purposes.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"Watches are often affected by electrical storms such as we have +experienced of late," states a science journal. Only yesterday we heard +of a plumber and his mate who arrived at a job simultaneously.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>We sympathise with the unfortunate housewife who cannot obtain a servant +because her reference is considered unsatisfactory. It appears she was +only six weeks with her last maid.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A pedestrian knocked down by a taxi in Oxford Street last Tuesday +managed to regain his feet only to be again bowled over by a motor-bus. +Luckily, however, noticing a third vehicle standing by to complete the +job, the unfortunate fellow had the presence of mind to remain on the +ground.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>According to a local paper cat-skins are worth about 5½<i>d.</i> each. Of +course it must be plainly understood that the accuracy of this estimate +is not admitted by the cats themselves.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"Too much room is taken up by motor-vehicles when turning corners," +declares a weekly journal. This is a most unfair charge against those +self-respecting motorists who negotiate all corners on the two inside +wheels only.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>An American named <span class="smcap">J. Thomas Looney</span> has written a book to prove +that <span class="smcap">Shakspeare</span> was really the Earl of <span class="smcap">Oxford</span>. We +cannot help thinking that <span class="smcap">Shakspeare</span>, who went out of his way +to prove that <i>Ophelia</i> was one of the original Looneys, has brought +this on himself.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Fashionable Parisians, says a correspondent, have decided that the +correct thing this year is to be invited to Scotland for July. It may be +correct, but it won't be an easy matter if we know our Scotland.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>American women-bathers with an inclination to embonpoint, it is stated, +have taken to painting dimples on their knees. The report that a +fashionable New Yorker who does not care for the water has created the +necessary illusion by having a lobster painted on her toe is probably +premature.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A Bridgewater, Somerset, man of eighty (or octogeranium) has cancelled +his wedding on the morning of the ceremony. A few more exhibitions of +that kind and he will end up by being a bachelor.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/041.png"><img width="80%" + src="images/041.png" + alt="Looking at black faced coal delivery man" title="Looking at black faced coal delivery man" /></a> + +<p><i>First Indian Chief</i> (<i>of travelling show</i>). <span class="smcap">"Brother +Bellowing-Papoose, which is the way back to the circus?"<br /></span> + +<i>Second Ditto.</i> <span class="smcap">"I know not. Let us ask this paleface."</span> +</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a young lady of Beccles</p> +<p>Whose face was infested with freckles,</p> +<p class="i4">But nobody saw</p> +<p class="i4">Any facial flaw,</p> +<p>For she had an abundance of shekels.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>THE GRASSHOPPER.</h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[pg 42]</span> +The Animal Kingdom may be divided into creatures which one can feed and +creatures which one cannot feed. Animals which one cannot feed are +nearly always unsatisfactory; and the grasshopper is no exception. +Anyone who has tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me.</p> + +<p>Yet he is one of the most interesting of British creatures. <i>The +Encyclopædia Britannica</i> is as terse and simple as ever about him. +"Grasshoppers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their saltatory +powers, due to the great development of the hind legs; and also for +their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only." +To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hopping ("saltatory powers") +and chirping ("stridulation").</p> + +<p>It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper stridulates by rubbing his +back legs together; but this is not the case. For one thing I have tried +it myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and for another, after +exhaustive observations, I have established the fact that, though he +does move his back legs every time he stridulates, <i>his back legs do not +touch each other</i>. Now it is a law of friction that you cannot have +friction between two back legs if the back legs are not touching; in +other words the grasshopper does not rub his back legs together to +produce stridulation, or, to put it quite shortly, he does not rub his +back legs together <i>at all</i>. I hope I have made this point quite clear. +If not, a more detailed treatment will be found in the Paper which I +read to the Royal Society in 1912.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless I have always felt that there was something fishy about the +grasshopper's back legs. I mean, why <i>should</i> he wave his back legs +about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to +the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The same +phenomenon can be observed in many singers and public speakers. I do not +think myself that we need seek for a more elaborate hypothesis. <i>The +Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, of course, says that "the stridulation or song +in the <i>Acridiidæ</i> is produced by friction of the hind legs against +portions of the wings or wing-covers," but that is just the sort of +statement which the scientific man thinks he can pass off on the public +with impunity. Considering that stridulation takes place about every ten +seconds, I calculate that the grasshopper must require a new set of +wings every ten days. It would be more in keeping with the traditions of +our public life if the scientific man simply confessed that he was +baffled by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. Yet, as I have +said, if a public speaker may fidget with his back legs while he is +stridulating, why not a public grasshopper? The more I see of science +the more it strikes me as one large mystification.</p> + +<p>But I ought to have mentioned that "the <i>Acridiidæ</i> have the auditory +organs on the first abdominal segment," while "the <i>Locustidæ</i> have the +auditory organ on the <i>tibia</i> of the first leg." In other words one kind +of grasshopper hears with its stomach and the other kind listens with +its leg. When a scientific man has committed himself to that kind of +statement he would hardly have qualms about a little invention like the +back-legs legend.</p> + +<p>With this scientific preliminary we now come to the really intriguing +part of our subject, and that is the place of the grasshopper in modern +politics. And the first question is, Why did Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span> +call Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> a grasshopper? I think it was in a speech +about Russia that Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span> said, in terms, that Lord +<span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. +He said that Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> was not only a grasshopper but a +something something grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping +there—that sort of thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of +course, and Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> made no reply at the time; in +fact, so far as I know, he has never publicly stated that he is <i>not</i> a +grasshopper; for all we know it may be true. But I know a man whose +wife's sister was in service at a place where there was a kitchen-maid +whose young man was once a gardener at Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe's</span>, and +this man told me—the first man, I mean—that Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> +took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed in the garden +from that day forth; no green that was at all like grasshopper-green was +tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to come upon his Lordship +muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He called me a +grasshopper—<span class="smcap">me</span>—a <span class="smcap">Grasshopper</span>!" The gardener said +that his Lordship used to finish up with, "<i>I</i>'ll teach him;" but that +is hardly the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it. In +fact I don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story.</p> + +<p>But this crisis we keep having with France owing to Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd +George's</span> infamous conduct does make the story interesting. The +suggestion is, you see, that Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> lay low for a long +time, till everybody had forgotten about the grasshopper and Mr. +<span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span> thought that Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> had +forgotten about the grasshopper, and then, when Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd +George</span> was in a hole, Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> said, "<i>Now</i> we'll +see if I am a grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at high +speed about Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span>. A crude suggestion. But if it +were true it would mean that the grasshopper had become a figure of +national and international importance. It is wonderful to think that we +might stop being friends with France just because of a grasshopper; and, +if Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> arranged for a new Government to come in, +it might very well be called "The Grasshopper Government." That would +look fine in the margins of the history-books.</p> + +<p>Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to think of an English +lord nursing a grievance about a grasshopper for months and months, +seeing grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about grasshoppers.... But +we must not waste time over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved +our principal problem. Why did Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span> call him a +grasshopper—a modest friendly little grasshopper? Did he mean to +suggest that Lord <span class="smcap">Northcliffe</span> hears with his stomach or +stridulates with his back legs?</p> + +<p>Why not an earwig, or a black-beetle, or a wood-louse, or a centipede? +There are lots of insects more offensive than the grasshopper, and +personally I would much rather be called a grasshopper than an earwig, +which gets into people's sponges and frightens them to death.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he had been reading that nice passage in the Prophet +<span class="smcap">Nahum</span>: "Thy captains are as the great grasshoppers, which camp +in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, +and their place is not known where they are." I do not know. But <i>The +Encyclopædia</i> has a suggestive sentence: "All grasshoppers are vegetable +feeders and have an incomplete metamorphosis, so that <i>their destructive +powers are continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg until +death</i>."</p> + +<p>A.P.H.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"The Mayor gave details showing how the Engineer's salary had +increased from £285 when he was appointed in 1811 to £600 at the +present time."—<i>Local Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>And think what he must have saved the ratepayers by not taking a pension +years ago.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"Mr.—— thought that the whole Committee would wish to +associate themselves with the Cemeteries Sub-Committee in their +congratulations to Alderman—— upon his marriage."—<i>Local +Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>We do not quite see why this particular sub-committee should have taken +the initiative.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[pg 43]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 80%;"> + <a href="images/043.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/043.png" alt="EVIL COMMUNICATIONS" title="EVIL COMMUNICATIONS" /></a> + +<h4>EVIL COMMUNICATIONS</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The Telephone.</span> "I'M GOING TO COST YOU MORE."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Householder.</span> "WHY?"</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Telephone.</span> "OH, THE USUAL REASON—INCREASING +INEFFICIENCY."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/044.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/044.png" alt="A QUESTION OF TASTE" title="A QUESTION OF TASTE" /></a> + +<h4>A QUESTION OF TASTE</h4> + +<p><i>The Wife.</i> "<span class="smcap">You Must Get Yourself a Straw 'at, George. A bowler +don't seem to go with a camembert.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h3>AT THE PLAY.</h3> + +<h4>"<span class="smcap">French Leave.</span>"</h4> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[pg 44]</span> +The Mandarins of the Theatre, who are no wiser than other mandarins (on +the contrary), have been long repeating the formula that the public +won't look at a War play. If I'm not mistaken it will for many moons be +looking at <span class="smcap">Captain Reginald Berkeley's</span> <i>French Leave</i>. He +labels it a "light comedy." That's an understatement. It is, as a matter +of fact, a very skilful, uproarious and plausible farce, almost too +successful in that you can't hear one-third of the jokes because of the +laughter at the other two-thirds (and a little because of the indistinct +articulation of one or two of the players). Of course when I say +"plausible" I don't exactly mean that any Brigade Headquarters was run +on the sketchy lines of <i>General Archibald Root's</i>, or that the gallant +author or anybody else who was in the beastly thing ever thought of the +Great War as a devastating joke, but rather that if it be true, as has +been rumoured, that not all generals were miracles of wisdom and +forbearance; that British subalterns and privates sometimes put on the +mask of humour; that <i>Venus</i> did wander, as the observatories punctually +reported she did occasionally wander, into the orbit of <i>Mars</i>—then +<i>French Leave</i> is a piece of artistically justifiable selection. Its +absurdity seems the most natural thing in the world and its machinery +(rare virtue!) does not creak.</p> + +<p><i>Rooty Tooty's</i> brigade then was resting—if in the circumstances you +can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due, +his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being +cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters +was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet +landlady's, a <i>Mdlle. Juliette</i>, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly +coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly +consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by +reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the +old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and +counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the +Brigade Interpreter with Intelligence's reports; sorrowful conviction in +the Brigadier's mind that <i>Juliette</i> is <i>Olga—Olga Thingummy</i>, the +famous German spy. Confusions; explosions; solutions.</p> + +<p>That's a dull account of a bright matter. The players were not, with the +exception of Miss <span class="smcap">Renée Kelly</span>, of the star class and (I don't +necessarily say therefore) were almost uniformly admirable. I suppose +the honours must go to Mr. <span class="smcap">M.R. Morand's</span> excellently studied +<i>Brigadier</i>—the most laughter-compelling performance I have seen on the +"legitimate" for some years. But the <i>Mess Corporal</i> (Mr. <span class="smcap">Charles +Groves</span>), the <i>Staff-Captain</i> (Mr. <span class="smcap">Henry Kendall</span>), the +<i>Brigade-Major</i> (Mr. <span class="smcap">Hylton Allen</span>), the <i>Interpreter</i> (Mr. +<span class="smcap">George de Warfaz</span>) and the <i>Mess Waiter</i> (Mr. <span class="smcap">Arthur +Riscoe</span>)—all deserve mention in despatches. As for the "business" +it was positively inspired at times, as when the <i>Mess Corporal</i> +retrieved the red-hat (which the passionate <i>Brigade-Major</i> had kicked +in his jealous fury) with an address which would have done credit to the +admirable <span class="smcap">Grock</span>. Miss <span class="smcap">Renée Kelly</span> had her pretty and +effective moments, but somebody should ask her (no doubt in vain) to be +less tearful in the tearful and just a little less bright in the bright +parts—a little less fidgetty and fidgetting and out of key, in fact.</p> + +<p>I should say in general that author and producer (Mr. <span class="smcap">Eille +Norwood</span>) would do well to watch the serious passages—always the +danger-points in farce. As nobody on our side of the footlights takes +these seriously the folk on the other side must substantially dilute the +seriousness. The tragically uttered, "O God!" at the end of the Second +Act ruined an otherwise excellent curtain. But I must not end on a note +of censure. I was much too thoroughly entertained for that. Here's a +quite first-rate piece of fooling, with dialogue of humorous rather than +smart sayings. And humour's a much rarer and less cheap a gift than +smartness.</p> + +<p>T.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[pg 45]</span> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 60%;"> + <a href="images/045.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/045.png" alt="Riverside conversation" title="Riverside conversation" /></a> +<p><i>First Newly-Rich.</i> "<span class="smcap">It's a great secret, but I must +tell you. My husband has been offered a peerage.</span>"<br /></p> + +<p><i>Second ditto.</i> "<span class="smcap">Really! That's rather interesting. We thought of +having one, but they're so expensive and we are economising just +now.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Our Considerate Scribes.</h3> + +<blockquote>"Presumptious is a hard word that I would not readily apply to +any man."—<i>Daily Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<blockquote>"PASSIVE PESSIMISM.<br /> + +<br />BERLIN'S ATTITUDE TO THE SPAR CONDITIONS."</blockquote> + +<p><i>Sunday Paper.</i></p> + +<p>But, after all, Berlin does not seem to have taken them lying down.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<blockquote>"At the start he made most of his runs by clever strokes on the +leg side, but, once settled down, he drove with fin power." +<i>Sunday Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>Cricketers need to be amphibious in these days.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>SONGS OF AN OVALITE.</h3> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a young man who said, "<span class="smcap">Hobbs</span></p> +<p>Should never be tempted with lobs;</p> +<p class="i2">He would knock them about</p> +<p class="i2">Till the bowlers gave out</p> +<p>And watered the pitch with their sobs."</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There is no one so dreadful as <span class="smcap">Fender</span></p> +<p>For batmen whose bodies are tender;</p> +<p class="i2">He gets on their nerves</p> +<p class="i2">With his murderous swerves</p> +<p>That insist upon death or surrender.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When people try googlies on <span class="smcap">Sandham</span></p> +<p>You can see he will soon understand 'em;</p> +<p class="i2">With a laugh at their slows</p> +<p class="i2">He will murmur, "Here goes,"</p> +<p>And over the railings will land 'em.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I am always attracted by <span class="smcap">Harrison</span></p> +<p>When arrayed in his batting caparison;</p> +<p class="i2">If others look worried</p> +<p class="i2">He never gets flurried,</p> +<p>But quite unconcernedly carries on.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>All classes of bowlers have stuck at</p> +<p>Their efforts to dislocate <span class="smcap">Ducat</span></p> +<p class="i2">Their wiliest tricks</p> +<p class="i2">He despatches for six,</p> +<p>Which is what they decidedly buck at.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You should never be down in the dumps</p> +<p>When <span class="smcap">Strudwick</span> is guarding the stumps;</p> +<p class="i2">His opponents depart</p> +<p class="i2">One by one at the start,</p> +<p>But later in twos or in <i>clumps</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"Like father like son," says the fable,</p> +<p>And is justified clearly in <span class="smcap">Abel</span></p> +<p class="i2">No bowling he fears</p> +<p class="i2">And his surname appears</p> +<p>An extremely appropriate label.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>If I were tremendously rich</p> +<p>I would buy a cathedral in which</p> +<p class="i2">I would build me a shrine</p> +<p class="i2">Of a noble design</p> +<p>And worship a statue of <span class="smcap">Hitch</span></p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr /> + +<h3>Our Sleuths Again.</h3> + +<blockquote>"His wrists were tied together with a piece of webbing, two +bricks were in his coat pockets, and, most remarkable of all, +the soles of his boots were found to be nailed to his toes.... +The police theory is that somebody 'owed the dead man a +grudge.'"—<i>Provincial Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[pg 46]</span> + +<h3>AUTHORSHIP FOR ALL.</h3> + +<blockquote class="note">[Being specimens of the work of Mr. Punch's newly-established Literary +Ghost Bureau, which supplies appropriate Press contributions on any +subject and over any signature.]</blockquote> + +<h4>III.—<span class="smcap">Are we going to the Dogs?</span></h4> + +<p><i>By Vice-Admiral (Retd.) Sir Boniface Bludger, K.C.B</i>.</p> + +<p>I was standing the other day at the window of the only Club in London +where they understand (or used to understand) what devilled kidneys +really are, musing in post-prandial gloom on the vanished glories of +this England of ours. "<i>Ichabod!</i>" I cried aloud to the unheeding stream +of Piccadilly wayfarers; and echo answered, "<i>Bod</i>."</p> + +<p>What is wrong with us? Or what is wrong with me? Are we actually going +to the dogs, or is it merely that the Club kidneys are going to the +devil? <span class="smcap">Jeremiah</span> or <i>Mrs. Gummidge</i>—which am I? Let the facts +attest and let posterity decide; thank Heaven I shall not be there to +hear the verdict.</p> + +<p>After our half-baked victory over the Hun the popular watchword was +"Reconstruction." We have now enjoyed a year and more of this +"building-up" process, and the net result is that houses for those that +lack them are as scarce as iced soda-fountains in the Sahara.</p> + +<p>In this work of restoration, we were told, our women voters and +legislators would play a leading part. What part are they in truth +playing? Their main object apparently is still further to embitter the +Drink question, although if they would only put a little more bitter +into our national beverage they might help to lubricate matters. Is it +not a significant fact that the slackness evidenced in every phase of +industry manifests itself at a time when it becomes more and more +difficult to get a decent drink? In this respect our progress is not so +much to the dogs as to the cats, who sneak along on the padded paws of +Prohibition.</p> + +<p>The crazy conditions to be observed in the industrial world are well +matched by the state of anarchy that prevails in the sphere of the arts. +Take music, for example. I do not lay claim to more than a nodding +acquaintance with Euterpe, and at a classical concert, I am afraid, the +nodding character of the relation becomes especially marked. To me the +sweetest music in the world is the roar of a fifteen-inch gun on a day +when the visibility is good and plentiful. But I do know enough to be +able to say that the wild asses who with their jazz-bands "stamp o'er +our heads and will not let us sleep" (slightly to amend my old friend +<span class="smcap">FitzGerald</span>) are nothing less than musical Trotskys.</p> + +<p>Music was once regarded as the staple nourishment of the tender passion, +and in my younger days the haunting strains of "The Blue Danube" +assisted many a budding love-affair to blossom. But these non-stop +stridencies of the modern ballroom, even if they left a man with breath +enough to propose, would effectually prevent the girl from catching the +drift of the avowal. You can't roar, "Will you be mine?" into a maiden's +ear as if you were conversing from the quarterdeck, and if you did she'd +only think you were ecstatically emulating the coloured gentleman in the +orchestra with the implements of torture and the misguided voice.</p> + +<p>I will pass over in the silence of despair such other symptoms of +national decadence as zigzag painting, whirlpool poetry, cinema +star-gazing and the impossibility of procuring a self-respecting Stilton +(which assuredly is not "living at this hour"). Nor can I trust myself +to speak of the spirit of Bolshevism that seems to animate our so-called +Labour Party, though I comfort myself with the conviction that this +doctrine will not wash, any more than will its authors.</p> + +<p>I will conclude these few reflections by drawing attention to the +manners of the modern girl, who is so busily engaged in kicking over the +traces that formerly kept her in her proper place. Nowadays flappers who +should still be in the schoolroom consider themselves called upon to +teach their grandmothers how to conduct their lives; and, to complete +the chaos, the grandmothers are eagerly lapping it up, and in the matter +of dress and deportment are even bettering the instruction. <i>Si +vieillesse savait!</i></p> + +<p>Oh for a prophet's tongue to lash our visionless leaders into a +realisation of the rocks on to which we are drifting! We need the +scourge of a <span class="smcap">Savonarola</span>, but all we get is the boom of a +<span class="smcap">Bottomley</span>.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"Gone are our country's glories.</p> +<p><i>O tempora, O mores!</i>"</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3>ALL SORTS.</h3> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It takes all sorts to make the world, an' the same to make a crew;</p> +<p>It takes the good an' middlin' an' the rotten bad uns too;</p> +<p>The same's there are on land (says Bill) you'll find 'em all at sea—</p> +<p>The freaks an' fads an' crooks an' cads an' ornery chaps like me.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It takes a man for all the jobs—the skippers and the mates,</p> +<p>A chap to give the orders an' a chap to chip the plates;</p> +<p>It takes the brass-bound 'prentices—an' ruddy plagues they be—</p> +<p>An' chaps as shirk an' chaps as work—just ornery chaps like me.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It takes the stiffs an' deadbeats an' the decent shell-backs too,</p> +<p>The chaps as always pull their weight an' them as never do;</p> +<p>The sort the Lord 'as made 'em knows what bloomin' use they be,</p> +<p>An' crazy folks an' musical blokes an' ornery chaps like me.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It takes a deal o' fancy breeds—the Dagoes an' the Dutch,</p> +<p>The Lascars an' calashees an' the seedy boys an' such;</p> +<p>It takes the greasers an' the Chinks, the Jap and Portugee,</p> +<p>The blacks an' yellers an' half-bred fellers and ornery folk like me.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It takes all sorts to make the world an' the same to make a crew,</p> +<p>It takes more kinds o' people than there's creeters in the Zoo;</p> +<p>You meet 'em all ashore (says Bill) an' you find 'em all at sea—</p> +<p>But do me proud if most o' the crowd ain't ornery chaps like me! C.F.S.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote> +"—— UNITED FREE CHURCH.<br /> +Evening—<span class="smcap">Monthly Sermon for Young Men and Women</span>.<br /> +'Love, Courtship, and Marriage.'<br /> +Anthem—'And it shall come to pass.'"<br /> +<i>Scotch Paper.</i><br /> +</blockquote> + +<p>The organist seems to be a sympathetic soul.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"The fees for Burial will in the future be doubled, in order to meet the +increased cost of present-day living."—<i>Parish Magazine.</i></blockquote> + +<p>At this rate we shall soon be unable to afford either to live or to die, +and must try a state of suspended animation.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"As Lady—— was stepping aboard she dropped a waterproof +satchel containing a pair of the Queen's shoes, and Their +Majesties laughed heartily at her Ladyship's discomfiture. One +of the sailors adroitly recovered the satchel with the aid of a +boot-hook." <i>Scotch Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>The handy-man! Prepared for all eventualities.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[pg 47]</span> + +<h3>THE HOUSE THAT JACK WANTS BUILT.</h3> + +<div style="float: left; margin-right: 3em;"> +<a href="images/047-1.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-1.png" +alt="The house that jack built" title="House plan" /></a> +<p>This is the house that Jack wants built.</p> +</div> + +<div style="float: right;"> +<p><a href="images/047-2.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-2.png" +alt="The Landowner" title="The landowner" style="float: right"/></a> +This is the landowner who (if the talk of a railway +being made over this bit of land doesn't come to anything, and the +corporation cannot, after all, be induced to buy it as a +recreation-ground, and no one makes a better offer) is willing to sell +the ground to carry the house that Jack wants built.</p> +</div> + +<div class="clearer"> </div> +<p> </p> +<div class="clearer"> </div> + +<div style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<p><a href="images/047-3.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-3.png" +alt="The Architect" title="The architect" style="float: left" /></a> +This is the architect and surveyor who (as soon as he +has finished his designs for the new Town Hall, the proposed County +Hospital, the Cathedral Extension, the Borough power station and the +drinking-fountain, and provided that no more important commission turns +up) is going to design the house to go on the ground of the landowner +who ...</p></div> + +<div class="clearer"> </div> + +<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<a href="images/047-4.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-4.png" +alt="The local authority" title="The local authority" style="float: right" /></a> +This is the local authority who (if he can obtain +details of the several requirements of the County Council, Parish +Council, Central Housing Authority, Ministry Of Health, Board Of +Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, Congested Districts Board, and any +other departments interested, either now in existence or contemplated +for the future) is going to inspect, revise, amend, and positively +finally approve the designs of the architect and surveyor who ... +</div> + +<div class="clearer"> </div> + +<div style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<a href="images/047-5.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-5.png" +alt="The building contractor" title="The building contractor" style="float: left" /></a> +This is the building contractor who (provided that +pressure of work allows him, and that he can get the materials, which is +doubtful, and the men, which is hardly probable, and the price, which is +practically out of the question) is going to carry out the designs, as +finally approved by the local authority who ... +</div> + +<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<a href="images/047-6.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-6.png" +alt="The railway official" title="The railway official" style="float: right"/></a> +This is the railway official who (on the supposition +that the congestion on the line will possibly be easier later, and that +the supply of goods wagons is very considerably augmented, and that new +loops and sidings not yet suggested will be constructed to relieve the +pressure, and that a reorganisation of the railway staff does not move +him elsewhere, as will almost certainly happen) has promised to do his +best to expedite the transport of the necessary materials to the +building contractor who ... +</div> + +<div class="clearer"> </div> + +<div style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<a href="images/047-7.png"><img width="35%" src="images/047-7.png" +alt="The merchant" title="The merchant" style="float: left" /></a> +This is the merchant who (if prices are left entirely +to his discretion and time is of no importance, and if he finds that, +after all, it is to his advantage to sell in this country rather than to +export, and if he doesn't retire in the meantime, as he is thinking of +doing) has consented to try to send materials through the medium of the +railway official who ... +</div> + +<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 1em"> +<a href="images/047-8.png"><img width="50%" src="images/047-8.png" +alt="The representatives of the building trades" title="The building tradesmen" style="float: right" /></a> +These are the representatives of the building trades +who (if all matters in dispute are satisfactorily settled by that time, +and provided that they can all get their own houses sited, designed, +passed, contracted for, supplied and built first) are going to erect the +materials provided by the merchant who ... + +<p><a href="images/047-9.png"><img width="15%" src="images/047-9.png" +alt="This is Jack" title="This is Jack" /></a> +And this? This, incidentally, is Jack.</p> +</div> + +<div class="clearer"> </div> + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>[pg 48]</span> + +<h3>CONVERTED CASTLES.</h3> + +<p>Rural England, I learn, is rapidly changing hands—not for the first +time, by the way, but we cannot go into that just now. Excellent +treatises on feudal tenure, wapentake, the dissolution of the +monasteries and the enclosure of common lands may be picked up dirt +cheap at any second-hand bookshop in the Charing Cross Road with the +words "Presentation Copy" erased from the flyleaf by a special and +ingenious process. What is happening now is that farmers are buying up +the big estates in pieces, and Norman piles or Elizabethan manors are +beginning to be too expensive to maintain, what with coal and the rise +in the minimum wage of vassals and one thing and another.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"The stately homes of England</p> +<p class="i2">How beautiful they stood</p> +<p>Before their recent owners</p> +<p class="i2">Relinquished them for good,"</p> +</div></div> + +<p>as the poet justly observes. And even if there is enough money to keep +up the castle without the broad acres (though as a matter of fact an +acre is not any broader than it is long) there is no fun in having a +castle at all when the deer park has been divided into allotments and +the Dutch garden is under swedes.</p> + +<p>The question is then what is going to happen to Montmorency (pronounced +"Mumsie") Castle, and The Towers at Barley Melling?</p> + +<p>In London the difficulty of dealing with huge houses has been solved in +a very subtle manner by turning them into a couple of maisonettes +apiece, so that under the portico of what used to be 105 Myrtle Crescent +you discover two perfectly good doors, marked 105<span class="smcap">a</span> and +105<span class="smcap">b</span>. Into the letter-box of the door marked 105<span class="smcap">a</span> the +postman invariably puts the letters intended for 105<span class="smcap">b</span>, and +<i>vice versá</i>, but, as these are always letters addressed to the last +tenant but two, it does not really very much matter. Both are desirable +maisonettes, though the tenants of 105<span class="smcap">a</span> have the sole enjoyment +of the lincrusta dadoes in the original dining-room. In some cases there +are as many as three maisonettes, and the notice on the area gate says, +"105<span class="smcap">c</span>. <i>Mrs. Orlando Smith</i>," where it used to say simply +"<span class="smcap">No bottles</span>." I never really understood that notice myself, for +whenever I am walking along with an empty bottle that I want to get rid +of I do not throw it down into an area, where it would make a most +horrible crash, but softly into the thick shrubs of the Crescent +Gardens.</p> + +<p>This brings me back to the country again.</p> + +<p>There will not be enough of the new rich to purchase a castellated +mansion apiece, partly because of the Excess Profits Duty, which is +crippling this kind of enterprise, and partly because so many baronial +seats, romantic and picturesque in their way, are terribly +under-garaged. On the other hand you cannot expect a farmer who happens +to be buying the fields round Badgery Mortimer to have any use for a +dungeon keep or the haunted picture-gallery in the west wing. No, there +is only one thing to do and that is to break these places up into a +number of self-contained homes.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/048.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/048.png" alt="" title="" /></a> +</div> +<h4>MODERN AND ANCIENT.</h4> +<p><i>Young Cricketer</i>. "<span class="smcap">Yes, I cocked one off the splice in the gully +and the blighter gathered it</span>."</p> + +<p><i>Father</i>. "<span class="smcap">Yes, but how did you get out? Were you caught, stumped or +bowled, or what?</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>HISTORIC FLATS TO LET</h3> + +<p>is the house-agents' advertisement which I seem to see, and what you +will actually find will be a sort of concentrated hamlet where modern +improvements are mixed with ancient grandeur and the white-haired +seneschal is kept on to operate the electric lift.</p> + +<p>Let us take, for instance, the case of Soping Hall. There will be none +of that untidy straggling arrangement about it which detracts so largely +from the beauty of Soping Barnet, Little Soping and Soping Monachorum. +In Soping Hall the billiard-room will be the village club, the armoury +the blacksmith's shop, the housekeeper's room the place where you buy +buttons and balls of string and barley-sugar, the cellars the village +tavern, and very nice too. In the state-saloon, with a few trifling +alterations, such as the introduction of a geyser and a sink, will live +Mrs. Ponsonby-Smith, who will sniff a little at the Jeffries in their +attic suite and the Mutts who live in the moat. But Mrs. Jeffries will +have compensations, because the air is really so much more bracing, my +dear, on the higher ground, and on fine days one can walk about the roof +and peep through the boiling-oil holes, while as for the Mutts they are +protected, at any rate, from those bitterly piercing east winds and have +an excellent view of the draw-bridge.</p> + +<p>A further advantage of residing at Soping Hall will be that you can do +all your shopping and pay your calls without going out-of-doors on a wet +day, and, if you like, have a communal dining-room or restaurant, where +only those who have been recognised by the county should sit above the +salt. And if your friends come to visit you in expensive motor-cars they +will have the privilege of passing through the great iron gates on the +main road and up the large gravel drive planted on each side with the +cedars of Lebanon which Roger de Soping brought back in his haversack +from the Second Crusade.</p> + +<p>I am quite aware that when federal devolution becomes really infectious +and every county insists on a legislative assembly of its own it may be +necessary to turn some of these great houses into Parliament chambers, +and the rural civil service will also no doubt insist on having offices +comparable with the vast hotels which their parent bodies occupy in +London. But this will not account for nearly all the ancestral seats, +and, in calling the attention of the Minister of Health and Housing to +this little memorandum of mine, I would specially urge him to note how +it will solve some of the most difficult problems which confront him +to-day.</p> + +<p>There will be a rush upon these potted villages, and that will ease the +situation in towns and free a number of cottages for agricultural +labourers too. There will be a rush, not only because of the advantages +which I have already enumerated, but because all the people who live in +Soping Hall will be able to put "Soping Hall" on their notepaper, and, +if they like to pay for it, two <i>wyverns rampant</i> as well, and everyone +outside the circle of their immediate friends will imagine that they +have not only bought the whole place but even become the possessors of +the flock of wyverns that used to be pastured on the Home Farm.</p> + +<p>Three acres and a cow was all very well in its way, but what about two +wyverns and a flat? <span class="smcap">Evoe.</span></p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/049.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/049.png" alt="Travellers" title="Travellers" /></a> +</div> +<p><i>Dame</i> (<i>seeing the signpost</i>). "<span class="smcap">Stop, Jenkins—stop! +I think it would be safer to turn back. They may have catapults or +something dangerous.</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>TIPS FOR UNCLES.</h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>[pg 49]</span> +<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Punch</span>,—I am writing to +you about uncles because you +are in a way a kind of general uncle. Uncles are much more useful than +aunts, because uncles always give money and aunts mostly give advice. +Only, as the Head always says when he jaws our form, "I regret to see in +this form a serious deterioration"—I mean in uncles. They come down +here and trot us round and say what a luxurious place it is compared +with the stern old Spartan days. They know something, though. They ask +us to have meals with them at an hotel. They take care not to face a +luxurious house-dinner. And while we dine they tell yarns about the +hardness of the old days and how it toughened a fellow. And then, +because about 1870 it was the custom to tip a boy five bob, they fork +out five bob and tell you not to waste it.</p> + +<p>If the Head had any sense—only you can't expect sense from Heads—he'd +put up a notice at the school gates: "Parents, Uncles and Friends are +respectfully reminded that the cost of tuck has increased three hundred +per cent. since 1914." Why, old Badham, my bedroom prefect, who was a +fag in 1914, turned up the other day and declared that then he could buy +four pounds of strawberries for a bob, and that a fag could get enough +chocolate for two bob to give him a week in the sick-room.</p> + +<p>Yet we have uncles coming down in trains (fare fifty per cent. extra), +smoking cigars (costing two hundred per cent. extra), cabbing it up to +school (a hundred-and-fifty per cent. extra) and then tipping as if the +old <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span> was still swanking in Potsdam.</p> + +<p>Now Sutton minor, who has a positive beast of a house-master and is +practically a Bolshevist, says that we ought to go on strike against the +tipping system and demand a regular living wage from relations. He says +that if a scavenger gets four quid a week a fellow who has to tackle +Greek aorists ought to get eight quid a week.</p> + +<p>But I'm afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting +the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to +you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and +that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and whenever +high prices bothered them they should write us a bright cheerful letter +enclosing a postal order—they're still quite cheap.</p> + +<p>Chalmers major, who has read this and leads a sad life, having only +aunts, says that the only hope for him is in fixing a standard tip of +9<i>s.</i> 11¾<i>d.</i> or, better still, 19<i>s.</i> 11¾<i>d.</i>, that women +couldn't help giving.</p> + +<p>So hoping that all uncles will put their hands to the plough—I mean in +their pockets—and then the bitter cry of the New Poor will cease in our +public schools,</p> + +<p>Yours respectfully, <span class="smcap">Bruce Tertius</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Notice</span>.</p> + +<blockquote>My wife, Roxie M.——, having left my bed and board, I will not +be responsible for any bills contracted after this date, June +21, 1920. <span class="smcap">Fred</span>——." <i>American Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Notice</span>.</p> + +<blockquote>The undersigned wishes to state I had just cause to leave, but I +left neither bed nor board as I furnished my own board, and the +bed being mine I took it. <span class="smcap">Roxie</span>——." + + <i>Same Paper, following day.</i></blockquote> + +<p>A good example of what <i>Touchstone</i> calls "The lie with circumstance."</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote> +"<span class="smcap">To-Night at</span> 9.30. +NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.<br /> +For the first time in Calcutta."<br /> +<i>Indian Paper.</i><br /> +</blockquote> + +<p>Where was the Censor?</p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/050.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/050.png" alt="Wedding arrangements" title="Wedding arrangements" /></a> +</div> +<p><i>Bridegroom-Elect</i>."<span class="smcap">—and we wants to have the hymn, +'The flag that waved o'er Eden.'</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>THE STATE AND THE SCREEN.</h3> + +<p>(<i>By a Student of Film Politics.</i>)</p> + +<p>Great satisfaction has been evinced in film circles over the conferment +of a signal honour on Signor <span class="smcap">Pavanelli</span>, the outstanding Italian +screen luminary. The rank of Chevalier of the Crown of Italy is +equivalent to a knighthood in this country, and <span class="smcap">Pavanelli</span>'s +elevation is a gratifying proof of the paramount position which the +cinema is assuming in Italian national affairs. But gratification is +sadly tempered by the deplorable lack of State recognition from which +film-artists suffer in this country. The joint co-starring Sovereigns of +the Screen, though acclaimed by the populace with an enthusiasm +unparalleled in the annals of adoration, were allowed to depart from our +shores without a single official acknowledgment of their services to +humanity. No vote of congratulation was passed by the Houses of +Parliament; no honorary degree was conferred on them by any University; +no ode of welcome was forthcoming from the pen of the <span class="smcap">Poet +Laureate</span>.</p> + +<p>The discontent caused by the indifference of the Government to the +wishes of the people is fraught with formidable possibilities. Already +there are serious rumours of the summoning of a Special Trade Union +Congress to discuss the desirability of direct action as a means of +compelling the Government to abandon their attitude of hostility to the +only form of monarchy which the working-classes can conscientiously +support. It is further reported that Lieutenant-Commander +<span class="smcap">Kenworthy</span>, M.P., will seize the first opportunity to move the +impeachment of Dr. <span class="smcap">Bridges</span>. The indignation in Printing House +Square has reached boiling-point, and it is reported that the +authorities are only awaiting the delivery of a huge consignment of +small pica type to launch a fresh and final onslaught on the Coalition.</p> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/051.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/051.png" alt="Bad for the Bull" title="Bad for the Bull" /></a> +</div> +<h4>BAD FOR THE BULL.</h4> + +<p>The provocation has undoubtedly been intense. It was proved in an +article of studied moderation and exquisite taste that the time had come +to revise our estimates of bygone grandeur and substitute for the +devotion to a Queen of tarnished fame and disastrous tendencies the +spontaneous and chivalrous worship of her beneficent and prosperous +namesake. Yet in spite of this dignified and convincing appeal no +invitation was sent to the one person whose presence at the recent +proceedings at Holyrood would have lent them a crowning lustre. The +action or inaction of the <span class="smcap">Lord Chamberlain</span> is inexplicable, +except on the assumption that Queen Pickford's engagement to attend the +Spa Conference would have rendered it impossible for her to accept the +invitation to Edinburgh. None the less the invitation should have been +sent. Besides, the resources of aviation might have surmounted the +difficulty. In any case this deplorable oversight has knocked one more +nail in the coffin of the <span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"At the fifth each played a magnificent tea shot. Hodgson again +used his favourite spoon."—<i>Provincial Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>Obviously the right club for the purpose.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"'<span class="smcap">The Tongue Can no Man Tame.</span>'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>St. Peter.</i>"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Heading in Daily Paper</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A clear case of robbing <span class="smcap">James</span> to pay <span class="smcap">Peter</span>.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h3>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h3> + +<p><i>Monday, July 12th.</i>—Viscount <span class="smcap">Curzon</span>'s complaint about +"crawling" taxi-cabs was ostensibly based upon the obstruction thus +caused to more rapidly moving traffic. But I fancy that it was really +due to an inherent belief that the motor-car is a noble creature, only +happy when exceeding the speed-limit and dashing through +police-controls, and that to compel the poor thing to crawl is "agin +natur'" and ought to be dealt with by the R.S.P.C.A.</p> + +<p>As usual much of Question-time was devoted to Russian affairs. Colonel +<span class="smcap">Wedgwood</span> wanted to know whether the Cabinet had approved a +message from Mr. <span class="smcap">Churchill</span> to the late Admiral +<span class="smcap">Kolchak</span>, advising him how to commend his Administration to the +<span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span>, who was described in the telegram as +"all-powerful, a convinced democrat and particularly devoted to advanced +views on the land question." Mr. <span class="smcap">Law</span>, while provisionally +promising a Blue-book on Siberia, declined to pick out a single message +from a whole bunch.</p> + +<p>The news that the Soviet Government had accepted the British conditions +with regard to the resumption of trade and had thereupon been requested +to conclude an armistice with Poland did not seem particularly welcome +to any section of the House. Those whom Mr. <span class="smcap">Stanton</span> in +stentorian whispers daily describes as the "Bolshies" evidently feared +that the request had been accompanied by a threat, while others were +horrified at the idea of recognising the present <i>régime</i> in Russia, and +drew from Mr. <span class="smcap">Law</span> a hasty disclaimer. The House as a whole +would, I think, have liked to learn how you can do business with a +person whom you do not recognise?</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Chancellor of the Exchequer</span> refused to accept Mr. +<span class="smcap">George Terrell</span>'s proposal to reduce the Excess Profits Tax from +sixty per cent. to forty, but, in reply to Sir <span class="smcap">G. Younger</span>—who +"has such a way wid him"—promised that next year he would make the +reduction. He admitted that it was in many ways an unsatisfactory tax, +but the Government could not afford to part with it unless a substitute +was provided. Somebody suggested "Economy," and Sir <span class="smcap">F. Banbury</span> +proved to his own satisfaction that the present estimates could be +reduced by a hundred-and-fifty millions. But unexpected support for the +Government came from Mr. <span class="smcap">Asquith</span>, who as the original sponsor +of the tax felt it his duty to support it.</p> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 30%;"> + <a href="images/052-1.png"><img width="80%" + src="images/052-1.png" alt="Sir Frederick" title="Sir Frederick" /></a> +</div> +<h4>SIR FREDERICK BANBURY SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE.</h4> +<p>"<span class="smcap">To +produce a saving of one hundred-and-fifty millions you merely have to +hold the hat firmly in the left hand—thus.</span>"</p> + +<p>There was a perfect E.P.D.mic of criticism, but it was brilliantly +countered by Mr. <span class="smcap">Baldwin</span>, who declared that the +<span class="smcap">Chancellor</span>, far from leading the country down the rapids, "was +the one man who had seized a rock in m<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[pg 50]</span>id-stream and was hanging on to it +with hands and feet." The Amendment was rejected by 289 to 117, and the +clause as a whole was passed by 202 to 16.</p> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 60%;"> + <a href="images/052-2.png"><img width="80%" + src="images/052-2.png" alt="The Limpet" title="The Limpet" /></a> +</div> +<h4>THE LIMPET OF THE EXCHEQUER.</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Baldwin portrays his +chief "hanging to a rock with hands and feet.</span>"</p> + + +<p><i>Tuesday, July 13th.</i>—Lord <span class="smcap">O'Hagan</span> was one of the Peers who +helped to outvote the Government a few days ago on a motion excusing +them of extravagance. Yet that did not prevent him to-day from saying +that the War Office should be more generous in their financial treatment +of the Territorial Force, and particularly of the Cadet Corps. Naturally +Lord <span class="smcap">Peel</span> did not refrain from calling attention to this +inconsistency—common to most of the financial critics of the +Administration—but nevertheless he made a reply indicating that the +grants for the Territorial Force were being revised, presumably in an +upward direction, since Lord <span class="smcap">O'Hagan</span> expressed himself +grateful.</p> + +<p>The Commons, like the Lords, are all for economy collectively, if not +individually. General cheers greeted Mr. <span class="smcap">Bonar Law</span>'s +announcement that all war-subsidies—save that on wheat—were to be +brought to an end as soon as possible, but then there were similar +cheers for those Members who urged the substitution of ex-service men +for the less highly-paid women in various Public Departments.</p> + +<p>The House enjoyed the unusual experience of hearing from +Lieut.-Commander <span class="smcap">Kenworthy</span> an apology—and a very handsome one +too—for something that he had said in debate about Colonel +<span class="smcap">Croft</span>. It was accompanied by a tribute to his military +efficiency which made that gallant warrior blush. It only now remains +for the Leader of the National Party to reciprocate by rescuing from the +Naval archives some equally complimentary reference to the services of +Lieut.-Commander <span class="smcap">Kenworthy</span>.</p> + +<p>A new sport has been invented by Colonel <span class="smcap">Guinness</span>. It consists +in sending two telegrams simultaneously to Paris, one <i>viâ</i> London and +the other <i>viâ</i> New York, and seeing which gets there first. At present +New York wins by twenty minutes. Mr. <span class="smcap">Illingworth</span> excused +himself from giving an immediate explanation on the ground that he had +not had time to check the facts. No doubt he hopes that in the interim +other Members will follow Colonel <span class="smcap">Guinness</span>'s example and, by +joining in the new pastime, bring grist to the Post-Office mill.</p> + +<p><i>Wednesday, July 14th.</i>—Lord <span class="smcap">Milner</span> must have thought he was +back in the era of "Chinese Slavery" when he found himself assailed on +all sides because the Chief Native Commissioner in Kenya Colony (late +British East Africa) had issued a circular instructing the chiefs to +influence their followers in the direction of honest toil. Lord +<span class="smcap">Islington</span> described this as "perilously near forced labour;" +His Grace of <span class="smcap">Canterbury</span> facetiously suggested that the chiefs' +idea of influence would be the sjambok; and Lord <span class="smcap">Emmott</span> talked +of "Prussianism."</p> + +<p>Taught by past experience Lord <span class="smcap">Milner</span> did not make light of the +accusations, but set himself to show how little real substance they +contained. The Chief Native Commissioner was "not a Prussian"; on the +contrary the local white population thought him too great an upholder of +native privileges. But he was very keen on getting the black man to +work, and had therefore issued this circular, which was open to +misinterpretation. An explanatory document would be issued shortly.</p> + +<p>Echoes of the <span class="smcap">Dyer</span> debate are still reverberating through the +Commons, and Mr. <span class="smcap">Montagu</span> was put through a searching +cross-examination regarding his relations with Mr. <span class="smcap">Gandhi</span>. +Apparently that gentleman has a very simple plan of campaign. He +agitates more and more dangerously until he is threatened with +prosecution. Then he says "Sorry!" and Mr. <span class="smcap">Montagu</span> begs him +off. After a brief interval of quiescence he starts again. Just now he +is once more nearing the imaginary line that separates proper from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[pg 51]</span> +impropa-Gandhism.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 60%;"> + <a href="images/053.png"><img width="70%" + src="images/053.png" alt="Sir Alfred Mond" title="Sir Alfred Mond" /></a> +</div> +<p>B.C. 1920. <i>Sir <span class="smcap">Alfred Mond</span>.</i> "<span class="smcap">What a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[pg 52]</span> +topping idea! They'll never get a more suitable design from the Office +of Works—not if they wait 3840 Years.</span>"</p> + +<p>The House was delighted to see Mr. <span class="smcap">Devlin</span> and Mr. +<span class="smcap">MacVeagh</span> back in their places. A little honest Irish +obstruction would be a refreshing change after the feeble imitations of +the Kenworthies and Wedgwoods. But the <span class="smcap">Speaker</span> could not accept +the proposition that a speech delivered three weeks ago, in which an +Irish official was alleged to have prophesied some dreadful things which +as a matter of fact had not happened, could be regarded as "a definite +matter of urgent public importance."</p> + +<p>It is unfortunate that the <span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span> was unable to get +back from Spa in order to assist in the final suppression of his famous +land-duties. Most of the speeches delivered were made up of excerpts +from his old orations of ten years ago—that almost prehistoric era +known as the Limehouse Period—and it would have been an object-lesson +in political gymnastics to see him explaining himself away.</p> + +<p>The land-taxers made a gallant effort to frighten their opponents away +by chanting the "Land Song" in the Lobby, but it is supposed that the +Government supporters had copied Ulysses' method with the Sirens, for +enough of them remained faithful to defeat the land-taxers by 190 to 68.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 30%;"> + <a href="images/052-3.png"><img width="80%" + src="images/052-3.png" alt="Mr. Neal" title="Mr. Neal" /></a> +<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Neal</span>.</i> "<span class="smcap">Your fares will cost you +more.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Thursday, July 15th.</i>—Mr. <span class="smcap">Neal</span>'s announcement that the +proposed increase in rail way fares had been postponed until August 5th, +in order not to spoil the Bank Holiday, was far from satisfying the +House. Mr. <span class="smcap">Clynes</span> pointed out that large numbers of the +working-classes now took their long holidays in August. Mr. +<span class="smcap">Palmer</span> was of opinion that the working-classes could pay well +enough; it was the middle-class that would suffer most; and Mr. <span class="smcap">R. +McNeill</span>, following up this assertion, suggested (without success) +that for the sake of poverty-stricken M.P.'s the House should adjourn +before the fateful date.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">H. Greenwood</span> gave particulars of the Sinn Fein raid on the +Dublin Post-Office, but declined to give an opinion as to whether there +had been any collusion with the staff inside. Judging by the promptitude +and efficiency of the raiders' procedure it seems highly improbable that +postal officials had anything to do with it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"Each day the barometer seems to drop a little lower, the rain +seems to drop a little more persistent and wet."—<i>Provincial +Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>It is this persistent wetness that is so annoying. Nobody would mind a +little dry rain.</p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/054.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/054.png" alt="Country weather" title="Country weather" /></a> +</div> +<p><i>Farmer.</i> "<span class="smcap">I wonder what some of these London folks +'ud say to this?</span>"</p> + +<p><i>Farm-hand.</i> "<span class="smcap">Zay? They'd zay as we must be makin' our fortunes out +o' mushrooms.</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>TWENTY YEARS ON.</h3> + +<p>We were sitting in the verandah, Ernest and I. On the greensward before +us Ernest Junior and James Junior (I am James) disported themselves as +became their years, which were respectively 1¾ and 1 <span style="font-size: smaller">5</span>/<span style="font-size: smaller">8</span>. In the +middle distance, or as middle as the size of our lawn permits, might be +seen the mothers of Ernest Junior and James Junior deep in conversation, +discussing, perhaps, the military prowess of their lords, though I +rather fear I caught the word "jumper" every now and then.</p> + +<p>A loud difference of opinion between James II. and Ernest II. as to the +possession of a wooden horse momentarily disturbed the peaceful scene. +It was left to Ernest and myself to settle it, our incomparable wives +being still completely engrossed with the subject of our military +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[pg 53]</span> +prowess (or of jumpers). When quiet reigned once more Ernest said, "Have +you ever looked twenty years on?"</p> + +<p>"Practically never," I answered. "It is too exhausting."</p> + +<p>"It is exhausting, but with my usual energy I do it all the same," said +Ernest, who is as a fact the world's champion lotus-eater. "Last night I +was picturing a little scene in the year 1940. Shall I tell you of it?" +And without waiting for my assent he proceeded:—</p> + +<p>"The scene is laid in an undergraduate's rooms. Ernest Junior and James +Junior are discovered in <i>négligé</i> attitudes and the conversation +proceeds something like this:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Ernest Junior.</i> What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?</p> + +<p>"<i>James Junior.</i> I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives +being so terribly restricted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ernest Junior.</i> Why restricted?</p> + +<p>"<i>James Junior.</i> Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell +you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or +Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the +first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never +stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in +the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I +should hardly get away before next term begins.</p> + +<p>"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long +story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself +captured a large number of Turks on the Somme.</p> + +<p>"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And +when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin +about Rouen and Etaples."</p> + +<p>I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all +funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if +only I'd thought of it first.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>"CHAR-À"-VARIA.</h3> + +<blockquote class="note">[<i>The Manchester Daily Dispatch</i> gives a most distressing +account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more +rampant week by week among char-à-bancs trippers.]</blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The patrons of the charabang</p> +<p>Employ the most outrageous slang</p> +<p>And talk with an appalling twang.</p> +<p>Their manners ape the wild orang;</p> +<p>They do not care a single hang</p> +<p>For sober folk on foot who gang,</p> +<p>But as they roll, with jolt and clang,</p> +<p>For parasang on parasang,</p> +<p>They cause a vulgar <i>Sturm und Drang</i>.</p> +<p>They never heard of <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span>,</p> +<p>Or even Mr. <span class="smcap">William Strang</span>;</p> +<p>They are, I say it with a pang,</p> +<p>A most intolerable gang;</p> +<p>In fact I wish them at Penang</p> +<p>Or on the banks of Yang-tse-Kiang—</p> +<p><i>Some</i> folk who use the charabang.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"Wanted, a good, clean General, for private."—<i>Provincial +Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>Discipline is going to the dogs.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>POINTS OF VIEW.</h3> + +<p>The manager had seen to it that the party of young men, being very +obviously rich, at any rate for this night, had some of the best +attendance in the restaurant. Several waiters had been told off +specially to look after them, the least and busiest of whom was little +more than a boy—a slender pale boy, who was working very hard to give +satisfaction. The cynic might think—and say, for cynics always say what +they think—that this zeal was the result of his youth; but the cynic +for once would be only partly right. The zeal also had sartorial +springs, this eventful day being the first on which the boy had been +promoted to full waiter-hood, and the first therefore on which he had +ever worn a suit of evening dress; which by dint of hard saving his +family had been able to obtain for him. Wearing a uniform of such +dignity and conscious that he was on the threshold of his career, he was +trying very hard to make good and hoping very fervently that he would +get through without any drops or splashes to impair the freshness of his +new and wonderful attire.</p> + +<p>The party of young men, who had been at a very illustrious English +school together and now were either at a university or in the world, +were celebrating an annual event and were very merry about it. For the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[pg 54]</span> +most part they had, between the past and the present, as many topics of +conversation as were needed, but now and then came a lull, during which +some of them would look around at the other tables, note the prettier of +the girls or the odder of the men and comment upon them; and it chanced +that in such a pause one of the diners happened for the first time to +notice with any attention the assiduous young waiter. Although not old +enough to have given any thought to the anomaly of youth (though lowly) +attending upon youth (though gilded) at its meals in this way—not old +enough indeed to have pondered at all upon the relations of Capital and +Labour or of the domineering and the servile—he had reflected a good +deal upon the cut and fit of clothes, and there was something about the +waiting-boy's evening coat that outraged his critical sense. Nor did the +fact that the other's indifferent tailoring throw the perfection of his +own into such brilliant contrast—the similarity between the livery of +service and the male costume <i>de luxe</i> fostering such comparisons—make +him any more lenient.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see," he asked his neighbour, "such a coat-collar as that +waiting Johnnie's? I ask you. How can anyone, even a waiter, wear a +thing like that? Don't they ever see themselves in the glass, or if they +do can't they see straight? Why, it covers his collar altogether."</p> + +<p>His companion agreed. "And the shoulders! You'd have thought that in a +restaurant like this the management would be more particular. By George, +that's a jolly pretty girl coming in! Look—over there, just under the +clock, with the red hair." And the waiter was forgotten. Only, however, +by his table critics, for at that moment a little woman who had made +friends with the hall-porter for this express purpose was peering +through the window of the entrance, searching the room for her son. She +had never yet seen him at his work at all, and certainly not in his +grand waiting clothes, and naturally she wanted to.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she said at last, pointing the boy out to the porter, "there he +is! At that table with all the young gentlemen. Doesn't he look fine? +And don't they fit him beautifully? Why, no one would know the +difference if he were to sit down and one of those young gentlemen were +to wait on him."</p> + +<p>E.V.L.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>PIGLETS.</h3> + +<p>While waiting for proof-sheets of my book on <i>The Dynamic Force of +Modern Art</i> I thought I might get a certain amount of amusement out of a +little correspondence with my neighbour, Mr. Gibbs, small farmer and +dairyman, between whom and myself letters had passed a short time ago on +the subject of a noisy cow, since removed from the field below the study +window of the house that has been lent me by my friend Hobson. With this +end in view I wrote to Mr. Gibbs as follows:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Gibbs</span>,—The field of the uproarious cow has, I +notice, suddenly become tenanted again, this time by what appears to be +a school, herd or murrain of swine. Their number seems to vary. +Sometimes I count ten younglings, sometimes as many as thirteen, and +once I made it as much as fourteen.</p> + +<p>Did you know they were there, or are they a crop? Or is the field +suffering from swine fever, of which they are the outward manifestation? +Anyhow, whether they are friends of yours or have merely just happened, +as it were, they are distinctly intriguing.</p> + +<p>My wife was remarking to me only yesterday how nice some pork would be +as a change from the eternal verities, beef and mutton, and I told her +that if she would look out of my window she would see the pork running +about, simply asking for it. There are so many of these piglets that I +don't think the old sow would miss one. Swine can't count, can they?</p> + +<p>But apart from food values they interest me as subjects for the Cubist, +the Vorticist and other exploiters of dynamic force in the Art of to-day +(I fancy I told you in a previous letter that I am engaged upon a tome +on this subject).</p> + +<p>Figure to yourself, <i>mon ami</i>, what delightful rhomboidal figures +<span class="smcap">Wyndham Lewis</span> and his school would make of these budding +porkers with the sleek torso and the well-poised angular snout, and, +having visualised their treatment of the theme, compare it with the +painted effigies of such animals by <span class="smcap">George Morland</span>, which were +merely pigs, Sir, and nothing more. No symbolism, no force. You get +me—what?</p> + +<p>But looking at these piglets from a more intimate point of view, don't +you think (if they should happen to be yours, and you have any influence +with their parents) that something should be done about their faces? +They have such a pushed-in appearance. Can this be normal? If so, it +must seriously interfere with their truffling. But perhaps this is not +good truffle-hunting country. I'm sorry if this is so, as I could do +with a nice brace of truffles now and again.</p> + +<p>Remember me kindly to our mooing friend, and believe me, dear Mr. Gibbs,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yours sincerely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Arthur K. Wilkinson.</span></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[pg 55]</span> +</p> + +<p>How this early touch of Spring has got into the blood, to be sure.</p> + +<p>To this letter Mr. Gibbs replied thus:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir,</span>—i cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole +about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one +another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out +like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you a +nice leg and remain</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yours obedient</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Henry Gibbs.</span></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>My reply, given in the affirmative, resulted in the arrival of a +succulent-looking joint with a bill for leg of pork special 5½ lbs. +at 2<i>s.</i> per lb. 11<i>s.</i></p> + +<p>As the price too was rather special I returned the bill with the +following:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Gibbs,</span>—What a rapturous piece of pork! Lovely in +life, and oh, how beautiful in death. I count the hours till 7.30 +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>I am truly sorry you couldn't read my letter with comfort. I have +derived great pleasure from yours. You appear to have a strong leaning +towards phonetic orthography which is very refreshing and seems to bear +the same relation to the generally accepted rules of the art that the +modern dynamic art (a favourite topic of mine, as you know) does to the +academics of the late nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>When the proof-sheets of my book arrive I should be glad of your +assistance in going through them. My tendency, I think, is to +over-punctuate, and your proclivity would, I believe, counteract this.</p> + +<p><i>Mais revenons à nos moutons</i> (<i>mutatis mutandis</i>, of course). The +specialist who superintends my diet allows me to eat pork at 1<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> +per lb., but does not approve of my indulgence in it at a higher figure. +If you will meet his views (and I am sure you will) I shall absorb my +full share of the dainty you have provided. Otherwise I must return it +with many exquisite regrets.</p> + +<p>Anticipating your favourable recognition of my specialist's absurd +prejudice, I enclose a cheque for 9<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Accept my word for it that I am</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Yours ever most truly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><span class="smcap">Arthur K. Wilkinson.</span></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>To this Mr. Gibbs offered the following reply:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Deer Sir,</span>—i thought being a friend of mr Hobson you was a +gentleman as wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for something special like +this pork which these pigs was by Barnsley Champion III i cant charge +less. i dont know who your specialist is but he dont know much about +pork the bests the safest. please send ballance and remain</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yours obedient,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Henry Gibbs.</span></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We were still in March and pork had not yet been decontrolled, so I +returned the bill again with this brief but incisive note:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Gibbs</span>,—I have never met your friend from Barnsley, +but am surprised that you haven't come across my specialist, whose +address is the Local Food Control Office at Harbury. Would you like to +meet him? He is very interested in pigs, also in milk and other things +in which you specialise expensively, so you would have lots to talk +about, no doubt.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yours sincerely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Arthur K. Wilkinson</span>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The receipt in full, which reached me in reply, was very satisfactory. +The pork was delicious.</p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/056.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/056.png" alt="Country Post" title="Country Post" /></a> +</div> +<p><i>Country Postman.</i> "<span class="smcap">I'm sorry, Ma'am, I seem to have +lost your postcard; but it only said Muriel thanked you for the parcel, +and so did John, and they were both very well and the children are happy +and she'll give your message to Margery. That'll be your other daughter, +I'm thinkin'?</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>FLOWERS' NAMES.</h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Lady's Bedstraw.</span></h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Under two secret arching hedges</p> +<p class="i2">Masses of Bedstraw grow,</p> +<p>Silvery-white among the sedges,</p> +<p class="i2">Like drifts of fairy-snow;</p> +<p>Deep's the middle, fringed the edges;</p> +<p class="i2">Who sleeps there? Do you know?</p> +<p>Do you? Or you?</p> +<p class="i2">Hark! for the breezes know.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"Oh, there my Lady Summer lies</p> +<p>Adream beneath cool April skies;</p> +<p class="i2">About her blossoms fall</p> +<p>On her long limbs and secret eyes.</p> +<p class="i2">Still she sleeps, virginal;</p> +<p class="i2">Then—hark! June's clarion call!</p> +<p>She lifts her wistful wilful eyes,</p> +<p>Springs light afoot and away she flies.</p> +<p>But her Bedstraw dies."</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"We have received from—— Manufacturing Company, New York, +makers of Distructive Stationery for Social Correspondence, +copies of their artistic Wall Calendars." <i>West Indian Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>The calendars don't interest us, but a few samples of the "distructive +stationery" would come in useful for answering bores.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>NOCTURNE.</h3> + +<p>Of course I suppose I ought to be grateful for the opportunity of having +a front seat at one of Nature's romances, but I imagine she reaps more +applause at matinées than at soirées. I know that I—But judge for +yourself.</p> + +<p>The <i>dramatis personæ</i> were corncrakes, neighbours of mine. The +heroine—a neat line in spring birdings—I labelled "Thisbe," and she +had evidently inspired affection of no mean degree in the hearts of two +enthusiastic swains, Strong-i'-th'-lung and Eugène. I know all this +because Thisbe's home is a small tuft of grass not distant from my +bedroom, and her admirers wooed her at long range from opposite corners +of my field.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[pg 56]</span></p> +<p>Now, as a cursory study of ornithology will tell you, the corncrake's +method of attracting his bride is by song, and the criterion of +excellence in C.C. circles is that the song shall be protracted, +consistent and perfectly monotonous. To those who are unacquainted with +his note I would describe it as rather similar to the intermittent +buzzing noise which an inexperienced telephone operator lets loose when +she can't think of a wrong number to give you. It has also points of +resemblance to the periodic thud of the valve of a motor-tube when one +is running on a deflated tyre. But there is no real standard of +comparison. As a musical feat it is unique, and I for one am glad it is.</p> + +<p>It was night. Eugène was in possession of the stage when I began to take +an interest in the romance. I cannot say for how long he had serenaded +his divinity before I became conscious of his lay, but I do know that +thereafter he put in one and a half hours of good solid craking before +he desisted. I then felt grateful for the silence, rolled over and +prepared to get on with my postponed slumber.</p> + +<p>But Strong-i'-th'-lung decreed otherwise. With a contemptuous snort at +his rival's performance he opened his epic. He was splendid. For one and +three-ninths hours he descanted on the glories of field life, on the +freshness of the night, on the brilliance of the June foliage; for the +next two hours he ardently proclaimed the surpassing beauty of Thisbe's +eye, the glossiness of her plumage, the neatness of her claw, and he +wound up with a mad twenty minutes of piercing monotony as he depicted +the depth of his devotion for her.</p> + +<p>When he ceased, in a silence which was almost deafening, I could +visualise Thisbe dimpling with satisfaction and undoubtedly filled with +tenderness toward a lover capable of expressing himself so eloquently. I +turned over with a sigh of relief and closed my eyes in pleasurable +anticipation of rest.</p> + +<p>But Eugène felt it necessary to reply. I think his intention was to +crake disbelief of his rival's sincerity, to throw cold water on his +burning professions, perhaps even to question the excellence of his +intentions. But his nerve was obviously shaken by his competitor's +undoubtedly fine performance, and he craked indecisively. At 4.30 +<span class="smcap">a.m.</span> I distinctly heard him utter a flat note. At 4.47 he +missed the second part of a bar entirely. Thisbe's beak, I must believe, +curled derisively; Strong-i'-th'-lung laughed contemptuously, and at +5.10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> Eugène faltered, stammered and fled from the field +defeated.</p> + +<p>The sequel I have had to build up on rather fragmentary data, but it +appears that Eugène fled as far as Pudberry Parva, and endeavoured to +cool his discomfiture in a dewy hayfield.</p> + +<p>To him there came an old crone, the "father and mother" of all +corncrakes, who comforted him, cossetted him, and from a fund of deep +experience offered him hints on voice production. She also gave him of a +nostrum of toadwort and garlic, which mollified his lacerated chords, +and she prescribed massage of the throat by rubbing against a young +beech stem.</p> + +<p>Within two days Eugène was back in my field. In tones that feigned to +falter he craked a few bars to open the performance. Strong-i'-th'-lung +at once rose full of pitying confidence and craked for two and a half +hours the song of the practically accepted suitor. It was a good song, +and Thisbe seemed pleased, though I fancy she rather resented the note +of assurance which he imparted to his ballad.</p> + +<p>Then Eugène came on. Bearing well in mind all the instruction of his +recent benefactress, he commenced at 11.45 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> such a +masterpiece as has never before been heard in the bird world. His +consistency of period was masterly, his iteration superb and his even +monotony incomparable. Crake succeeded crake with dull regular +inevitability. So far as I know he carried his bat. He was still playing +strongly when I fell on a troubled sleep about 5.30....</p> + +<p>The next day, walking through the field, I put up two birds which flew +away together. One was Thisbe. And the other? Well, not +Strong-i'-th'-lung. I stumbled across him a little later, dead without a +wound.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"<span class="smcap">Wanted Music Master</span> for 2 girls; also Mincing +Machine."—<i>Local Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>One way or another they seem determined that the poor girls shall be +"put through it."</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>SHOULD MILLIONAIRES READ HOMER?</h3> + +<p>The recent discovery of a London millionaire, who not only lives in a +small suburban villa, where his wife dispenses with servants, goes to +bed at 7.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> and rises at 3 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, but reads +<span class="smcap">Homer</span> in the Greek, has caused a sensation.</p> + +<p>His endeavours to prove to a doubting world the truth of a favourite +British adage is admirable; and his modest establishment only bears out +what the millionaires keep on telling us, that, owing to high taxation +and the abnormal cost of luxuries, they must really be reckoned as poor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[pg 57]</span> +men. But his study of <span class="smcap">Homer</span> provokes a difference of opinion.</p> + +<p>Our representative, in interviewing a venerable sociologist on the +subject, was told that the study of Greek for millionaires is, within +proper limits, comparatively harmless, but that <span class="smcap">Homer</span> contains +the elements of danger.</p> + +<p>"It is in <span class="smcap">Homer</span>'s apotheosis of heroism in human combat that +the peril lies," he said. "Having regard to the part played in the past +by financiers in the wars between civilised nations, the security of the +League of Nations will be threatened if the millionaires of to-day come +under the spell of that great poet, who, with all his excellent +qualities, directed his genius so persistently to the praise of +warfare."</p> + +<p>One of the millionaire class was next approached, and was asked what he +thought of millionaires reading <span class="smcap">Homer</span>.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked. "Some millionaires are great readers. I am one +myself. There are not half-a-dozen of <span class="smcap">Oppenheim</span>'s I haven't +read; and I like <span class="smcap">Hall Caine</span>—and <span class="smcap">Ethel Dell</span>'s not bad. +Who is this <span class="smcap">Homer</span>? If he's any good I may as well order him."</p> + +<p>"Well, <span class="smcap">Homer</span> was a poet, you know, a—"</p> + +<p>"I've no use for poetry," said the millionaire.</p> + +<p>"A Greek poet, who lived—"</p> + +<p>"Greek. A <i>Greek</i>, did you say?" A shrewd look came into his eyes. "Some +of the cutest devils I know are Greeks." He pulled down a shirt-cuff and +took a diamond-studded pencil from his waistcoat pocket. "How do you +spell it? With an H?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"POULTRY AND EGGS.</p> + +<blockquote>Belfast or Neighbourhood.—Locum Tenency or Sunday duty wanted +by well-known Rector during holiday."—<i>Irish Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>It looks as if he had been mistaken for a Lay-reader.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"Nothing is left of the knave of the church, but the choir still +remains."—<i>Scotch Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>We are glad they discarded the knave.</p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/058.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/058.png" alt="Perils of crossing the road" title="Perils of crossing the road" /></a> +</div> +<p><i>Country Cousin</i> (<i>who suffers from his wife's elbow at +each crossing</i>)."<span class="smcap">Oo! lawks, Maria! Next time we've to cross lemme be +roon ower!</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h3> + +<blockquote class="note">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</blockquote> + +<p><i>Double Life</i> (<span class="smcap">Grant Richards</span>) is a story that unblushingly +bases its appeal on the love of almost everyone for a fairy-tale of good +fortune. The matter of it is to show how a lady amateur, wife of a +novelist, herself hardly knowing one end of a horse from the other, +might make forty thousand pounds in a year on the Turf, without even her +own husband so much as suspecting her activities. The thing isn't +likely, is indeed a fantasy of the wildest improbability; but, told with +the zest imparted to it here by Mr. <span class="smcap">Grant Richards</span>, it provides +first-rate fun. Some danger of monotony there was bound to be in what is +really a variation upon a single theme. Though the author cunningly +avoids this, I think it might justly be observed that he has made +<i>Olivia's</i> plunges almost too uniformly successful. But perhaps not; +after all, while you are handling fairy-gold, why be niggardly of it? +The heroine's introduction to horse-racing comes about through the +unconscious agency of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to +Newmarket in search of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The +resulting situation reaches its climax in what is the best scene of the +book, when <i>Geoffrey</i>, returning from a race that he has visited alone, +but upon which <i>Olivia</i>, unknown to him, has risked thousands, recounts +its progress in the best manner of realistic fiction, wholly ignorant of +the true cause of what seems such flattering agitation in the listener. +Altogether a happy if not very subtle story which I am glad that Mr. +<span class="smcap">Grant Richards</span> could persuade himself to publish.</p> + +<p>To write, as Mr. <span class="smcap">R.W. Chambers</span> has written, fifty-two novels, +many of them excellent and all readable, while still on the right side +of sixty, is an achievement of intelligent industry that entitles any +novelist, at the latter end, to take matters a little easily. <i>The +Moonlit Way</i> (<span class="smcap">Appleton</span>) has neither the imaginative qualities +of <i>The King in Yellow</i>, the humour of <i>In Search of the Unknown</i>, nor +the adventurous tang of <i>Ashes of Empire</i>, but it is a good live story +that will carry the reader's interest to the last page. Mr. +<span class="smcap">Chambers</span> is at his best when dealing with spies and secret +service agents and scheming chancellors and the other subterranean +apparatus of war and diplomacy; at his least interesting when depicting +affluent young America on its native heath of New York bricks and +mortar. <i>The Moonlit Way</i> deals with all these things and more. We are +whisked from the Bosphorus to the Welland Canal on the heels of +Germany's "War in the United States," and French Secret Service +officers, German saloon keepers and Sinn Fein revolutionaries jostle one +another for a place in our interest. The novel-reading public knows that +it is quite safe in buying any story by Mr. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, and, if +it does not expect too much of <i>The Moonlit Way</i>, it will not be +disappointed.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Lately, volumes of individual memorial to dead youth seem to have become +less frequent. Perhaps there was a suggestion that the making of them, +or rather their publication for the eyes of strangers, was in danger of +being overdone. However this may be, I think that, quite apart from the +appeal of circumstance, there would always have been a welcome for such +a bright-natured book as one that Father <span class="smcap">Ronald Knox</span> has put +together, mostly from diaries and letters, about <i>Patrick Shaw-Stewart</i> +(<span class="smcap">Collins</span>). Eton and Balliol will agree that there could be no +biographer better fitted to record the life, as happy seemingly as it +was fated to be short, of one who combined success with popularity at +both these places, was caught by the War on the threshold of a wider +career, served his country with very notable distinction and was killed +in the winter of 1917. Though he met death in France, the most of +<span class="smcap">Shaw-Stewart's</span> war-service was on the Eastern front; in +particular he saw more than most soldiers of the whole Gallipoli +adventure, to which he went as a member of that amazing company—surely +the very flower of this country's war contribution—the <i>Hood</i> Battalion +of the R.N.V.R. Here he was the comrade of many of those whom England +has especially delighted to honour: <span class="smcap">Rupert Brooke</span>, +<span class="smcap">Denis-Browne</span>, <span class="smcap">Charles Lister</span> and others, all of whom +figure in these vivid and most attractive letters; from which also one +gathers an engaging picture of <span class="smcap">Shaw-Stewart</span> himself, a +generously admiring, humorous and entirely independent young Tory in a +band of brilliant revolutionaries. In fine a book (despite its theme of +promise sacrificed) full of laughter and a singularly charming +character-study of one who, in his biographer's phrase, was assuredly +"not one of the passengers of his generation."</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" + style="width: 90%;"> + <a href="images/059.png"><img width="90%" + src="images/059.png" alt="The Specialist" title="The Specialist" /></a> +</div> +<h4>THE SPECIALIST.</h4> +<p><i>Eminent Botanist on scientific expedition</i>. "<span class="smcap">Dear me! Why didn't I +take up Zoology instead of Botany? This seems such an interesting +specimen.</span>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Ella Sykes</span>, after going with her brother and a camera on +his special mission to Kashgar during the earlier days of the War, has +detailed in charming fashion, under the title <i>Through Deserts and Oases +of Central Asia</i> (<span class="smcap">Macmillan</span>), their travels in lands still +almost unknown. Sir <span class="smcap">Percy Sykes</span> himself has added some chapters +on the history and customs of the district in order to allow himself the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[pg 58]</span> +pleasure of referring affectionately to his hunting of the giant +sheep—the <i>Ovis poli</i>—of the Pamirs. Between them they have given me a +good deal of information, with a lot of really capital photographs, +about a country—Chinese Turkestan—that one may have just heard of +before, though it is impossible to be sure. Resisting a burning desire +to pass on newly-acquired learning to the first listener, I will be +content to say that a more readable volume of its kind has not come my +way for a long time, and incidentally the country itself seems +surprisingly desirable. For one thing it is free from the mosquitoes +that spoil so many books of travel, while the people are peaceful, +reasonably contented and not liable to jar on the reader's nerves, in +the time-honoured fashion, with spears and poisoned arrows. Even the +yaks, that one had supposed to be fearsome beasts, are mild benevolent +pacifists. The authors do not suggest that it is all Paradise, of +course, though for the Moslem there may be something of that sort in it. +"Praise be to Allah! I have four obedient wives, who spend all their +days in trying to please me," said a Kirghiz farmer to Sir +<span class="smcap">Percy</span>. But even Paradise may be a matter of taste.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>If <i>War in the Garden of Eden</i> (<span class="smcap">Murray</span>) cannot be numbered +among the books which must be read by a serious war-student it is in its +unassuming way very attractive. Captain <span class="smcap">Kermit Roosevelt</span> made +many friends while serving as a Captain with the Motor Machine-Gun Corps +in Mesopotamia, and here he reveals himself as a keen soldier and a +pleasant companion. In style he is perhaps a shade too jerky; his +frequent failure to make his connections gives one a sense of being in +the hands of a rather rambling guide. But the important points are that +he is an engaging rambler, and that he can describe his experiences both +of war and peace with so clear a simplicity that they can be easily +visualized. When the American Army arrived in France Captain +<span class="smcap">Roosevelt</span> naturally wished to join it, and his last chapter is +called "With the First Division in France and Germany." But for us the +main interest of his book lies in the work he did with the British in +Mesopotamia, and to thank him for this would seem to be an impertinence.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Arnold Bennett's</span> <i>From the Log of the Velsa</i> +(<span class="smcap">Chatto</span>) deals with some vague period before the War (dates are +most carefully concealed), when the versatile author undertook certain +cruises up and down Dutch canals, the Baltic, French, Flemish and Danish +coasts and East Anglian estuaries with companions about whom he +preserves an equally mysterious silence. (Was it secret service, I +wonder?) A delightful book, produced with something like pre-war +attention to æsthetic appearance—a pleasant quarto with roomy pages +faithfully printed in a fair type. You ought to enjoy the owner's +evident enjoyment (he was never bored and therefore never boring), his +charmingly ingenuous pride of possession, his shrewd, humorous and +excessively didactic utterances about painters, pictures, architecture +and female beauty, his zeal for water-colour sketching and his +apparently profound contempt of other exponents of the craft. Nothing +could be less like (I thank Heaven) the ordinary yachtsman's +recollections of his travels, and I get an impression that Mr. +<span class="smcap">Bennett</span> was not ill-pleased to leave most of the work and the +technical knowledge to his skipper.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote>"Crêpe de Chine in oyster white will show the top of the dress +embroidered to the knees in some unconventional design of black +and a deeper shade of white."—<i>Daily Paper</i>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[pg 59]</span> +<br />"The bridesmaid's dress was of heavy white crêpe-de-chine, of +pale apricot shade."—<i>Provincial Paper</i>.</blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Canning</span> must have had a premonition of the modern fashions when +he wrote in <i>The New Morality</i>, "Black's not so black, nor white so +<i>very</i> white."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>From a bookseller's advertisement:—</p> + +<blockquote>"Mr.—— has the way of when you finish one of his most +interesting books that you really cannot help yourself by +reading all." <i>Newfoundland Paper.</i></blockquote> + +<p>Not being quite sure whether this is a compliment or not we have +suppressed the distinguished author's name.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. +159, July 21, 1920, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + +***** This file should be named 17596-h.htm or 17596-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/9/17596/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + +Release Date: January 24, 2006 [EBook #17596] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARIA. + +VOL. 159. + + +JULY 21, 1920 + + + +CHARIVARIA. + +To judge by the Spa Conference it looks as if we might be going to have +a peace to end peace. + + *** + +It will soon be necessary for the Government to arrange an old-age +pension scheme for Peace Conference delegates. + + *** + +It is difficult to know whom or what to blame for the exceptionally wet +weather we have been having, says an evening paper. Pending a denial +from Mr. Lloyd George, _The Times_ has its own opinion as to +who is at the bottom of it. + + *** + +Mr. Stanton pointed out in the House of Commons that, unless +increased salaries are given to Members, there will be a strike. Fears +are entertained, however, that a settlement will be reached. + + *** + +"The Derry shirt-cutters," says a news item, "have decided to continue +to strike." The Derry throat-cutters, on the other hand, have postponed +striking to a more favourable opportunity. + + *** + +The way to bring down the price of home-killed meat, the Ministry of +Food announces officially, is for the public not to buy it. You can't +have your cheap food and eat it. + + *** + +Harborough Rocks, one of the few Druid Circles in the kingdom, has been +sold. Heading-for-the-Rocks, the famous Druid Circle at Westminster, has +also been sold on several occasions by the Chief Wizard. + + *** + +A gossip writer states that he saw a man carrying two artificial legs +while travelling in a Tube train. There is nothing like being prepared +for all emergencies while travelling. + + *** + +"The ex-Kaiser," says an American journal, "makes his own clothes to +pass the time away." This is better than his old hobby of making wars to +pass other people's time away. + + *** + +"Danger of infection from Treasury notes," says _The Weekly Dispatch_, +"has been exaggerated." Whenever we see a germ on one of our notes we +pat it on the back and tell it to lie down. + + *** + +A West Riding paper states that a postman picked up a pound Treasury +note last week. It is said that he intends to have it valued by an +expert. + + *** + +An engineer suggests that all roads might be made of rubber. For +pedestrians who are knocked down by motor-cars the resilience of this +material would be a great boon. + + *** + +According to _The Evening News_ a bishop was seen the other day passing +the House of Commons smoking a briar pipe. We can only suppose that he +did not recognise the House of Commons. + + *** + +"We can find work for everybody and everything," says a Chicago journal. +But what about corkscrews? + + *** + +How strong is the force of habit was illustrated at Liverpool Docks the +other day when two Americans, on reaching our shores, immediately +fainted, and only recovered when it was explained that spirits were not +sold here solely for medical purposes. + + *** + +"Watches are often affected by electrical storms such as we have +experienced of late," states a science journal. Only yesterday we heard +of a plumber and his mate who arrived at a job simultaneously. + + *** + +We sympathise with the unfortunate housewife who cannot obtain a servant +because her reference is considered unsatisfactory. It appears she was +only six weeks with her last maid. + + *** + +A pedestrian knocked down by a taxi in Oxford Street last Tuesday +managed to regain his feet only to be again bowled over by a motor-bus. +Luckily, however, noticing a third vehicle standing by to complete the +job, the unfortunate fellow had the presence of mind to remain on the +ground. + + *** + +According to a local paper cat-skins are worth about 51/2_d._ each. Of +course it must be plainly understood that the accuracy of this estimate +is not admitted by the cats themselves. + + *** + +"Too much room is taken up by motor-vehicles when turning corners," +declares a weekly journal. This is a most unfair charge against those +self-respecting motorists who negotiate all corners on the two inside +wheels only. + + *** + +An American named J. Thomas Looney has written a book to prove that +Shakspeare was really the Earl of Oxford. We cannot help thinking that +Shakspeare, who went out of his way to prove that _Ophelia_ was one of +the original Looneys, has brought this on himself. + + *** + +Fashionable Parisians, says a correspondent, have decided that the +correct thing this year is to be invited to Scotland for July. It may be +correct, but it won't be an easy matter if we know our Scotland. + + *** + +American women-bathers with an inclination to embonpoint, it is stated, +have taken to painting dimples on their knees. The report that a +fashionable New Yorker who does not care for the water has created the +necessary illusion by having a lobster painted on her toe is probably +premature. + + *** + +A Bridgewater, Somerset, man of eighty (or octogeranium) has cancelled +his wedding on the morning of the ceremony. A few more exhibitions of +that kind and he will end up by being a bachelor. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _First Indian Chief_ (_of travelling show_). "Brother +Bellowing-Papoose, which is the way back to the circus?" + +_Second Ditto._ "I know not. Let us ask this paleface."] + + * * * * * + + There was a young lady of Beccles + Whose face was infested with freckles, + But nobody saw + Any facial flaw, + For she had an abundance of shekels. + + * * * * * + +THE GRASSHOPPER. + +The Animal Kingdom may be divided into creatures which one can feed and +creatures which one cannot feed. Animals which one cannot feed are +nearly always unsatisfactory; and the grasshopper is no exception. +Anyone who has tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me. + +Yet he is one of the most interesting of British creatures. _The +Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is as terse and simple as ever about him. +"Grasshoppers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their saltatory +powers, due to the great development of the hind legs; and also for +their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only." +To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hopping ("saltatory powers") +and chirping ("stridulation"). + +It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper stridulates by rubbing his +back legs together; but this is not the case. For one thing I have tried +it myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and for another, after +exhaustive observations, I have established the fact that, though he +does move his back legs every time he stridulates, _his back legs do not +touch each other_. Now it is a law of friction that you cannot have +friction between two back legs if the back legs are not touching; in +other words the grasshopper does not rub his back legs together to +produce stridulation, or, to put it quite shortly, he does not rub his +back legs together _at all_. I hope I have made this point quite clear. +If not, a more detailed treatment will be found in the Paper which I +read to the Royal Society in 1912. + +Nevertheless I have always felt that there was something fishy about the +grasshopper's back legs. I mean, why _should_ he wave his back legs +about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to +the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The same +phenomenon can be observed in many singers and public speakers. I do not +think myself that we need seek for a more elaborate hypothesis. _The +Encyclopaedia Britannica_, of course, says that "the stridulation or song +in the _Acridiidae_ is produced by friction of the hind legs against +portions of the wings or wing-covers," but that is just the sort of +statement which the scientific man thinks he can pass off on the public +with impunity. Considering that stridulation takes place about every ten +seconds, I calculate that the grasshopper must require a new set of +wings every ten days. It would be more in keeping with the traditions of +our public life if the scientific man simply confessed that he was +baffled by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. Yet, as I have +said, if a public speaker may fidget with his back legs while he is +stridulating, why not a public grasshopper? The more I see of science +the more it strikes me as one large mystification. + +But I ought to have mentioned that "the _Acridiidae_ have the auditory +organs on the first abdominal segment," while "the _Locustidae_ have the +auditory organ on the _tibia_ of the first leg." In other words one kind +of grasshopper hears with its stomach and the other kind listens with +its leg. When a scientific man has committed himself to that kind of +statement he would hardly have qualms about a little invention like the +back-legs legend. + +With this scientific preliminary we now come to the really intriguing +part of our subject, and that is the place of the grasshopper in modern +politics. And the first question is, Why did Mr. Lloyd George call +Lord Northcliffe a grasshopper? I think it was in a speech about +Russia that Mr. Lloyd George said, in terms, that Lord Northcliffe +was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. He said that Lord +Northcliffe was not only a grasshopper but a something something +grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping there--that sort of +thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and Lord +Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in fact, so far as I know, he has +never publicly stated that he is _not_ a grasshopper; for all we know it +may be true. But I know a man whose wife's sister was in service at a +place where there was a kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gardener +at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told me--the first man, I mean--that +Lord Northcliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed +in the garden from that day forth; no green that was at all like +grasshopper-green was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to +come upon his Lordship muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He +called me a grasshopper--me--a Grasshopper!" The gardener said that his +Lordship used to finish up with, "_I_'ll teach him;" but that is hardly +the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it. In fact I +don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story. + +But this crisis we keep having with France owing to Mr. Lloyd George's +infamous conduct does make the story interesting. The suggestion is, you +see, that Lord Northcliffe lay low for a long time, till everybody had +forgotten about the grasshopper and Mr. Lloyd George thought that Lord +Northcliffe had forgotten about the grasshopper, and then, when Mr. +Lloyd George was in a hole, Lord Northcliffe said, "_Now_ we'll see if I +am a grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at high speed about +Mr. Lloyd George. A crude suggestion. But if it were true it would mean +that the grasshopper had become a figure of national and international +importance. It is wonderful to think that we might stop being friends +with France just because of a grasshopper; and, if Lord Northcliffe +arranged for a new Government to come in, it might very well be called +"The Grasshopper Government." That would look fine in the margins of the +history-books. + +Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to think of an English +lord nursing a grievance about a grasshopper for months and months, +seeing grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about grasshoppers.... But +we must not waste time over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved +our principal problem. Why did Mr. Lloyd George call him a +grasshopper--a modest friendly little grasshopper? Did he mean to +suggest that Lord Northcliffe hears with his stomach or stridulates with +his back legs? + +Why not an earwig, or a black-beetle, or a wood-louse, or a centipede? +There are lots of insects more offensive than the grasshopper, and +personally I would much rather be called a grasshopper than an earwig, +which gets into people's sponges and frightens them to death. + +Perhaps he had been reading that nice passage in the Prophet Nahum: "Thy +captains are as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the +cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is +not known where they are." I do not know. But _The Encyclopaedia_ has a +suggestive sentence: "All grasshoppers are vegetable feeders and have an +incomplete metamorphosis, so that _their destructive powers are +continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg until death_." + +A.P.H. + + * * * * * + + "The Mayor gave details showing how the Engineer's salary had + increased from L285 when he was appointed in 1811 to L600 at the + present time."--_Local Paper._ + +And think what he must have saved the ratepayers by not taking a pension +years ago. + + * * * * * + + "Mr. ---- thought that the whole Committee would wish to + associate themselves with the Cemeteries Sub-Committee in their + congratulations to Alderman ---- upon his marriage."--_Local + Paper._ + +We do not quite see why this particular sub-committee should have taken +the initiative. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: EVIL COMMUNICATIONS. + +The Telephone. "I'M GOING TO COST YOU MORE." + +Householder. "WHY?" + +The Telephone. "OH, THE USUAL REASON--INCREASING +INEFFICIENCY."] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: A QUESTION OF TASTE. + +_The Wife._ "You Must Get Yourself a Straw 'at, George. A bowler +don't seem to go with a camembert."] + + * * * * * + +AT THE PLAY. + +"French Leave." + +The Mandarins of the Theatre, who are no wiser than other mandarins (on +the contrary), have been long repeating the formula that the public +won't look at a War play. If I'm not mistaken it will for many moons be +looking at Captain Reginald Berkeley's _French Leave_. He +labels it a "light comedy." That's an understatement. It is, as a matter +of fact, a very skilful, uproarious and plausible farce, almost too +successful in that you can't hear one-third of the jokes because of the +laughter at the other two-thirds (and a little because of the indistinct +articulation of one or two of the players). Of course when I say +"plausible" I don't exactly mean that any Brigade Headquarters was run +on the sketchy lines of _General Archibald Root's_, or that the gallant +author or anybody else who was in the beastly thing ever thought of the +Great War as a devastating joke, but rather that if it be true, as has +been rumoured, that not all generals were miracles of wisdom and +forbearance; that British subalterns and privates sometimes put on the +mask of humour; that _Venus_ did wander, as the observatories punctually +reported she did occasionally wander, into the orbit of _Mars_--then +_French Leave_ is a piece of artistically justifiable selection. Its +absurdity seems the most natural thing in the world and its machinery +(rare virtue!) does not creak. + +_Rooty Tooty's_ brigade then was resting--if in the circumstances you +can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due, +his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being +cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters +was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet +landlady's, a _Mdlle. Juliette_, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly +coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly +consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by +reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the +old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and +counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the +Brigade Interpreter with Intelligence's reports; sorrowful conviction in +the Brigadier's mind that _Juliette_ is _Olga--Olga Thingummy_, the +famous German spy. Confusions; explosions; solutions. + +That's a dull account of a bright matter. The players were not, with the +exception of Miss Renee Kelly, of the star class and (I don't +necessarily say therefore) were almost uniformly admirable. I suppose +the honours must go to Mr. M.R. Morand's excellently studied +_Brigadier_--the most laughter-compelling performance I have seen on the +"legitimate" for some years. But the _Mess Corporal_ (Mr. Charles +Groves), the _Staff-Captain_ (Mr. Henry Kendall), the _Brigade-Major_ +(Mr. Hylton Allen), the _Interpreter_ (Mr. George de Warfaz) and the +_Mess Waiter_ (Mr. Arthur Riscoe)--all deserve mention in despatches. As +for the "business" it was positively inspired at times, as when the +_Mess Corporal_ retrieved the red-hat (which the passionate +_Brigade-Major_ had kicked in his jealous fury) with an address which +would have done credit to the admirable Grock. Miss Renee Kelly had her +pretty and effective moments, but somebody should ask her (no doubt in +vain) to be less tearful in the tearful and just a little less bright in +the bright parts--a little less fidgetty and fidgetting and out of key, +in fact. + +I should say in general that author and producer (Mr. Eille Norwood) +would do well to watch the serious passages--always the danger-points in +farce. As nobody on our side of the footlights takes these seriously the +folk on the other side must substantially dilute the seriousness. The +tragically uttered, "O God!" at the end of the Second Act ruined an +otherwise excellent curtain. But I must not end on a note of censure. I +was much too thoroughly entertained for that. Here's a quite first-rate +piece of fooling, with dialogue of humorous rather than smart sayings. +And humour's a much rarer and less cheap a gift than smartness. + +T. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _First Newly-Rich._ "It's a great secret, but I must +tell you. My husband has been offered a peerage." + +_Second ditto._ "Really! That's rather interesting. We thought of +having one, but they're so expensive and we are economising just now."] + + * * * * * + +Our Considerate Scribes. + + "Presumptious is a hard word that I would not readily apply to + any man."--_Daily Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "PASSIVE PESSIMISM. + + BERLIN'S ATTITUDE TO THE SPAR CONDITIONS." + + _Sunday Paper._ + +But, after all, Berlin does not seem to have taken them lying down. + + * * * * * + + "At the start he made most of his runs by clever strokes on the + leg side, but, once settled down, he drove with fin power." + _Sunday Paper._ + +Cricketers need to be amphibious in these days. + + * * * * * + +SONGS OF AN OVALITE. + + There was a young man who said, "Hobbs + Should never be tempted with lobs; + He would knock them about + Till the bowlers gave out + And watered the pitch with their sobs." + + There is no one so dreadful as Fender + For batmen whose bodies are tender; + He gets on their nerves + With his murderous swerves + That insist upon death or surrender. + + When people try googlies on Sandham, + You can see he will soon understand 'em; + With a laugh at their slows + He will murmur, "Here goes," + And over the railings will land 'em. + + I am always attracted by Harrison + When arrayed in his batting caparison; + If others look worried + He never gets flurried, + But quite unconcernedly carries on. + + All classes of bowlers have stuck at + Their efforts to dislocate Ducat; + Their wiliest tricks + He despatches for six, + Which is what they decidedly buck at. + + You should never be down in the dumps + When Strudwick is guarding the stumps; + His opponents depart + One by one at the start, + But later in twos or in _clumps_. + + "Like father like son," says the fable, + And is justified clearly in Abel; + No bowling he fears + And his surname appears + An extremely appropriate label. + + If I were tremendously rich + I would buy a cathedral in which + I would build me a shrine + Of a noble design + And worship a statue of Hitch. + + * * * * * + +Our Sleuths Again. + + "His wrists were tied together with a piece of webbing, two + bricks were in his coat pockets, and, most remarkable of all, + the soles of his boots were found to be nailed to his toes.... + The police theory is that somebody 'owed the dead man a + grudge.'"--_Provincial Paper._ + + * * * * * + +AUTHORSHIP FOR ALL. + +[Being specimens of the work of Mr. Punch's newly-established Literary +Ghost Bureau, which supplies appropriate Press contributions on any +subject and over any signature.] + +III.--Are we going to the Dogs? + +_By Vice-Admiral (Retd.) Sir Boniface Bludger, K.C.B_. + +I was standing the other day at the window of the only Club in London +where they understand (or used to understand) what devilled kidneys +really are, musing in post-prandial gloom on the vanished glories of +this England of ours. "_Ichabod!_" I cried aloud to the unheeding stream +of Piccadilly wayfarers; and echo answered, "_Bod_." + +What is wrong with us? Or what is wrong with me? Are we actually going +to the dogs, or is it merely that the Club kidneys are going to the +devil? Jeremiah or _Mrs. Gummidge_--which am I? Let the facts +attest and let posterity decide; thank Heaven I shall not be there to +hear the verdict. + +After our half-baked victory over the Hun the popular watchword was +"Reconstruction." We have now enjoyed a year and more of this +"building-up" process, and the net result is that houses for those that +lack them are as scarce as iced soda-fountains in the Sahara. + +In this work of restoration, we were told, our women voters and +legislators would play a leading part. What part are they in truth +playing? Their main object apparently is still further to embitter the +Drink question, although if they would only put a little more bitter +into our national beverage they might help to lubricate matters. Is it +not a significant fact that the slackness evidenced in every phase of +industry manifests itself at a time when it becomes more and more +difficult to get a decent drink? In this respect our progress is not so +much to the dogs as to the cats, who sneak along on the padded paws of +Prohibition. + +The crazy conditions to be observed in the industrial world are well +matched by the state of anarchy that prevails in the sphere of the arts. +Take music, for example. I do not lay claim to more than a nodding +acquaintance with Euterpe, and at a classical concert, I am afraid, the +nodding character of the relation becomes especially marked. To me the +sweetest music in the world is the roar of a fifteen-inch gun on a day +when the visibility is good and plentiful. But I do know enough to be +able to say that the wild asses who with their jazz-bands "stamp o'er +our heads and will not let us sleep" (slightly to amend my old friend +FitzGerald) are nothing less than musical Trotskys. + +Music was once regarded as the staple nourishment of the tender passion, +and in my younger days the haunting strains of "The Blue Danube" +assisted many a budding love-affair to blossom. But these non-stop +stridencies of the modern ballroom, even if they left a man with breath +enough to propose, would effectually prevent the girl from catching the +drift of the avowal. You can't roar, "Will you be mine?" into a maiden's +ear as if you were conversing from the quarterdeck, and if you did she'd +only think you were ecstatically emulating the coloured gentleman in the +orchestra with the implements of torture and the misguided voice. + +I will pass over in the silence of despair such other symptoms of +national decadence as zigzag painting, whirlpool poetry, cinema +star-gazing and the impossibility of procuring a self-respecting Stilton +(which assuredly is not "living at this hour"). Nor can I trust myself +to speak of the spirit of Bolshevism that seems to animate our so-called +Labour Party, though I comfort myself with the conviction that this +doctrine will not wash, any more than will its authors. + +I will conclude these few reflections by drawing attention to the +manners of the modern girl, who is so busily engaged in kicking over the +traces that formerly kept her in her proper place. Nowadays flappers who +should still be in the schoolroom consider themselves called upon to +teach their grandmothers how to conduct their lives; and, to complete +the chaos, the grandmothers are eagerly lapping it up, and in the matter +of dress and deportment are even bettering the instruction. _Si +vieillesse savait!_ + +Oh for a prophet's tongue to lash our visionless leaders into a +realisation of the rocks on to which we are drifting! We need the +scourge of a Savonarola, but all we get is the boom of a +Bottomley. + + "Gone are our country's glories. + _O tempora, O mores!_" + + * * * * * + +ALL SORTS. + + It takes all sorts to make the world, an' the same to make a crew; + It takes the good an' middlin' an' the rotten bad uns too; + The same's there are on land (says Bill) you'll find 'em all at sea-- + The freaks an' fads an' crooks an' cads an' ornery chaps like me. + + It takes a man for all the jobs--the skippers and the mates, + A chap to give the orders an' a chap to chip the plates; + It takes the brass-bound 'prentices--an' ruddy plagues they be-- + An' chaps as shirk an' chaps as work--just ornery chaps like me. + + It takes the stiffs an' deadbeats an' the decent shell-backs too, + The chaps as always pull their weight an' them as never do; + The sort the Lord 'as made 'em knows what bloomin' use they be, + An' crazy folks an' musical blokes an' ornery chaps like me. + + It takes a deal o' fancy breeds--the Dagoes an' the Dutch, + The Lascars an' calashees an' the seedy boys an' such; + It takes the greasers an' the Chinks, the Jap and Portugee, + The blacks an' yellers an' half-bred fellers and ornery folk like me. + + It takes all sorts to make the world an' the same to make a crew, + It takes more kinds o' people than there's creeters in the Zoo; + You meet 'em all ashore (says Bill) an' you find 'em all at sea-- + But do me proud if most o' the crowd ain't ornery chaps like me! + C.F.S. + + * * * * * + + "---- UNITED FREE CHURCH. + + Evening--Monthly Sermon for Young Men and Women. + + 'Love, Courtship, and Marriage.' + + Anthem--'And it shall come to pass.'" + + _Scotch Paper._ + +The organist seems to be a sympathetic soul. + + * * * * * + +"The fees for Burial will in the future be doubled, in order to meet the +increased cost of present-day living."--_Parish Magazine._ + +At this rate we shall soon be unable to afford either to live or to die, +and must try a state of suspended animation. + + * * * * * + + "As Lady ---- was stepping aboard she dropped a waterproof + satchel containing a pair of the Queen's shoes, and Their + Majesties laughed heartily at her Ladyship's discomfiture. One + of the sailors adroitly recovered the satchel with the aid of a + boot-hook." _Scotch Paper_. + +The handy-man! Prepared for all eventualities. + + * * * * * + +THE HOUSE THAT JACK WANTS BUILT. + +[Illustration: This is the house that Jack wants built.] + +[Illustration: This is the landowner who (if the talk of a railway +being made over this bit of land doesn't come to anything, and the +corporation cannot, after all, be induced to buy it as a +recreation-ground, and no one makes a better offer) is willing to sell +the ground to carry the house that Jack wants built.] + +[Illustration: This is the architect and surveyor who (as soon as he +has finished his designs for the new Town Hall, the proposed County +Hospital, the Cathedral Extension, the Borough power station and the +drinking-fountain, and provided that no more important commission turns +up) is going to design the house to go on the ground of the landowner +who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the local authority who (if he can obtain +details of the several requirements of the County Council, Parish +Council, Central Housing Authority, Ministry Of Health, Board Of +Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, Congested Districts Board, and any +other departments interested, either now in existence or contemplated +for the future) is going to inspect, revise, amend, and positively +finally approve the designs of the architect and surveyor who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the building contractor who (provided that +pressure of work allows him, and that he can get the materials, which is +doubtful, and the men, which is hardly probable, and the price, which is +practically out of the question) is going to carry out the designs, as +finally approved by the local authority who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the railway official who (on the supposition +that the congestion on the line will possibly be easier later, and that +the supply of goods wagons is very considerably augmented, and that new +loops and sidings not yet suggested will be constructed to relieve the +pressure, and that a reorganisation of the railway staff does not move +him elsewhere, as will almost certainly happen) has promised to do his +best to expedite the transport of the necessary materials to the +building contractor who ...] + +[Illustration: This is the merchant who (if prices are left entirely +to his discretion and time is of no importance, and if he finds that, +after all, it is to his advantage to sell in this country rather than to +export, and if he doesn't retire in the meantime, as he is thinking of +doing) has consented to try to send materials through the medium of the +railway official who ...] + +[Illustration: These are the representatives of the building trades +who (if all matters in dispute are satisfactorily settled by that time, +and provided that they can all get their own houses sited, designed, +passed, contracted for, supplied and built first) are going to erect the +materials provided by the merchant who ...] + +[Illustration: And this? This, incidentally, is Jack.] + + * * * * * + +CONVERTED CASTLES. + +Rural England, I learn, is rapidly changing hands--not for the first +time, by the way, but we cannot go into that just now. Excellent +treatises on feudal tenure, wapentake, the dissolution of the +monasteries and the enclosure of common lands may be picked up dirt +cheap at any second-hand bookshop in the Charing Cross Road with the +words "Presentation Copy" erased from the flyleaf by a special and +ingenious process. What is happening now is that farmers are buying up +the big estates in pieces, and Norman piles or Elizabethan manors are +beginning to be too expensive to maintain, what with coal and the rise +in the minimum wage of vassals and one thing and another. + + "The stately homes of England + How beautiful they stood + Before their recent owners + Relinquished them for good," + +as the poet justly observes. And even if there is enough money to keep +up the castle without the broad acres (though as a matter of fact an +acre is not any broader than it is long) there is no fun in having a +castle at all when the deer park has been divided into allotments and +the Dutch garden is under swedes. + +The question is then what is going to happen to Montmorency (pronounced +"Mumsie") Castle, and The Towers at Barley Melling? + +In London the difficulty of dealing with huge houses has been solved in +a very subtle manner by turning them into a couple of maisonettes +apiece, so that under the portico of what used to be 105 Myrtle Crescent +you discover two perfectly good doors, marked 105a and 105b. Into the +letter-box of the door marked 105a the postman invariably puts the +letters intended for 105b, and _vice versa_, but, as these are always +letters addressed to the last tenant but two, it does not really very +much matter. Both are desirable maisonettes, though the tenants of 105a +have the sole enjoyment of the lincrusta dadoes in the original +dining-room. In some cases there are as many as three maisonettes, and +the notice on the area gate says, "105c. _Mrs. Orlando Smith_," where it +used to say simply "No bottles." I never really understood that notice +myself, for whenever I am walking along with an empty bottle that I want +to get rid of I do not throw it down into an area, where it would make a +most horrible crash, but softly into the thick shrubs of the Crescent +Gardens. + +This brings me back to the country again. + +There will not be enough of the new rich to purchase a castellated +mansion apiece, partly because of the Excess Profits Duty, which is +crippling this kind of enterprise, and partly because so many baronial +seats, romantic and picturesque in their way, are terribly +under-garaged. On the other hand you cannot expect a farmer who happens +to be buying the fields round Badgery Mortimer to have any use for a +dungeon keep or the haunted picture-gallery in the west wing. No, there +is only one thing to do and that is to break these places up into a +number of self-contained homes. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MODERN AND ANCIENT. + +_Young Cricketer_. "Yes, I cocked one off the splice in the gully +and the blighter gathered it." + +_Father_. "Yes, but how did you get out? Were you caught, stumped or +bowled, or what?"] + + * * * * * + +HISTORIC FLATS TO LET + +is the house-agents' advertisement which I seem to see, and what you +will actually find will be a sort of concentrated hamlet where modern +improvements are mixed with ancient grandeur and the white-haired +seneschal is kept on to operate the electric lift. + +Let us take, for instance, the case of Soping Hall. There will be none +of that untidy straggling arrangement about it which detracts so largely +from the beauty of Soping Barnet, Little Soping and Soping Monachorum. +In Soping Hall the billiard-room will be the village club, the armoury +the blacksmith's shop, the housekeeper's room the place where you buy +buttons and balls of string and barley-sugar, the cellars the village +tavern, and very nice too. In the state-saloon, with a few trifling +alterations, such as the introduction of a geyser and a sink, will live +Mrs. Ponsonby-Smith, who will sniff a little at the Jeffries in their +attic suite and the Mutts who live in the moat. But Mrs. Jeffries will +have compensations, because the air is really so much more bracing, my +dear, on the higher ground, and on fine days one can walk about the roof +and peep through the boiling-oil holes, while as for the Mutts they are +protected, at any rate, from those bitterly piercing east winds and have +an excellent view of the draw-bridge. + +A further advantage of residing at Soping Hall will be that you can do +all your shopping and pay your calls without going out-of-doors on a wet +day, and, if you like, have a communal dining-room or restaurant, where +only those who have been recognised by the county should sit above the +salt. And if your friends come to visit you in expensive motor-cars they +will have the privilege of passing through the great iron gates on the +main road and up the large gravel drive planted on each side with the +cedars of Lebanon which Roger de Soping brought back in his haversack +from the Second Crusade. + +I am quite aware that when federal devolution becomes really infectious +and every county insists on a legislative assembly of its own it may be +necessary to turn some of these great houses into Parliament chambers, +and the rural civil service will also no doubt insist on having offices +comparable with the vast hotels which their parent bodies occupy in +London. But this will not account for nearly all the ancestral seats, +and, in calling the attention of the Minister of Health and Housing to +this little memorandum of mine, I would specially urge him to note how +it will solve some of the most difficult problems which confront him +to-day. + +There will be a rush upon these potted villages, and that will ease the +situation in towns and free a number of cottages for agricultural +labourers too. There will be a rush, not only because of the advantages +which I have already enumerated, but because all the people who live in +Soping Hall will be able to put "Soping Hall" on their notepaper, and, +if they like to pay for it, two _wyverns rampant_ as well, and everyone +outside the circle of their immediate friends will imagine that they +have not only bought the whole place but even become the possessors of +the flock of wyverns that used to be pastured on the Home Farm. + +Three acres and a cow was all very well in its way, but what about two +wyverns and a flat? Evoe. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Dame_ (_seeing the signpost_). "Stop, Jenkins--stop! +I think it would be safer to turn back. They may have catapults or +something dangerous."] + + * * * * * + +TIPS FOR UNCLES. + +Dear Mr. Punch,--I am writing to you about uncles because you +are in a way a kind of general uncle. Uncles are much more useful than +aunts, because uncles always give money and aunts mostly give advice. +Only, as the Head always says when he jaws our form, "I regret to see in +this form a serious deterioration"--I mean in uncles. They come down +here and trot us round and say what a luxurious place it is compared +with the stern old Spartan days. They know something, though. They ask +us to have meals with them at an hotel. They take care not to face a +luxurious house-dinner. And while we dine they tell yarns about the +hardness of the old days and how it toughened a fellow. And then, +because about 1870 it was the custom to tip a boy five bob, they fork +out five bob and tell you not to waste it. + +If the Head had any sense--only you can't expect sense from Heads--he'd +put up a notice at the school gates: "Parents, Uncles and Friends are +respectfully reminded that the cost of tuck has increased three hundred +per cent. since 1914." Why, old Badham, my bedroom prefect, who was a +fag in 1914, turned up the other day and declared that then he could buy +four pounds of strawberries for a bob, and that a fag could get enough +chocolate for two bob to give him a week in the sick-room. + +Yet we have uncles coming down in trains (fare fifty per cent. extra), +smoking cigars (costing two hundred per cent. extra), cabbing it up to +school (a hundred-and-fifty per cent. extra) and then tipping as if the +old Kaiser was still swanking in Potsdam. + +Now Sutton minor, who has a positive beast of a house-master and is +practically a Bolshevist, says that we ought to go on strike against the +tipping system and demand a regular living wage from relations. He says +that if a scavenger gets four quid a week a fellow who has to tackle +Greek aorists ought to get eight quid a week. + +But I'm afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting +the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to +you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and +that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and whenever +high prices bothered them they should write us a bright cheerful letter +enclosing a postal order--they're still quite cheap. + +Chalmers major, who has read this and leads a sad life, having only +aunts, says that the only hope for him is in fixing a standard tip of +9_s._ 113/4_d._ or, better still, 19_s._ 113/4_d._, that women couldn't +help giving. + +So hoping that all uncles will put their hands to the plough--I mean in +their pockets--and then the bitter cry of the New Poor will cease in our +public schools, + +Yours respectfully, Bruce Tertius. + + * * * * * + +"Notice. + + My wife, Roxie M. ----, having left my bed and board, I will not + be responsible for any bills contracted after this date, June + 21, 1920. Fred ----." _American Paper_. + +"Notice. + + The undersigned wishes to state I had just cause to leave, but I + left neither bed nor board as I furnished my own board, and the + bed being mine I took it. Roxie ----." + +_Same Paper, following day._ + +A good example of what _Touchstone_ calls "The lie with circumstance." + + * * * * * + + "To-Night at 9.30. + NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. + For the first time in Calcutta." + _Indian Paper._ + +Where was the Censor? + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Bridegroom-Elect_."--and we wants to have the hymn, +'The flag that waved o'er Eden.'"] + + * * * * * + +THE STATE AND THE SCREEN. + +(_By a Student of Film Politics._) + +Great satisfaction has been evinced in film circles over the conferment +of a signal honour on Signor Pavanelli, the outstanding Italian +screen luminary. The rank of Chevalier of the Crown of Italy is +equivalent to a knighthood in this country, and Pavanelli's +elevation is a gratifying proof of the paramount position which the +cinema is assuming in Italian national affairs. But gratification is +sadly tempered by the deplorable lack of State recognition from which +film-artists suffer in this country. The joint co-starring Sovereigns of +the Screen, though acclaimed by the populace with an enthusiasm +unparalleled in the annals of adoration, were allowed to depart from our +shores without a single official acknowledgment of their services to +humanity. No vote of congratulation was passed by the Houses of +Parliament; no honorary degree was conferred on them by any University; +no ode of welcome was forthcoming from the pen of the Poet +Laureate. + +The discontent caused by the indifference of the Government to the +wishes of the people is fraught with formidable possibilities. Already +there are serious rumours of the summoning of a Special Trade Union +Congress to discuss the desirability of direct action as a means of +compelling the Government to abandon their attitude of hostility to the +only form of monarchy which the working-classes can conscientiously +support. It is further reported that Lieutenant-Commander +Kenworthy, M.P., will seize the first opportunity to move the +impeachment of Dr. Bridges. The indignation in Printing House +Square has reached boiling-point, and it is reported that the +authorities are only awaiting the delivery of a huge consignment of +small pica type to launch a fresh and final onslaught on the Coalition. + +[Illustration: BAD FOR THE BULL.] + +The provocation has undoubtedly been intense. It was proved in an +article of studied moderation and exquisite taste that the time had come +to revise our estimates of bygone grandeur and substitute for the +devotion to a Queen of tarnished fame and disastrous tendencies the +spontaneous and chivalrous worship of her beneficent and prosperous +namesake. Yet in spite of this dignified and convincing appeal no +invitation was sent to the one person whose presence at the recent +proceedings at Holyrood would have lent them a crowning lustre. The +action or inaction of the Lord Chamberlain is inexplicable, +except on the assumption that Queen Pickford's engagement to attend the +Spa Conference would have rendered it impossible for her to accept the +invitation to Edinburgh. None the less the invitation should have been +sent. Besides, the resources of aviation might have surmounted the +difficulty. In any case this deplorable oversight has knocked one more +nail in the coffin of the Prime Minister. + + * * * * * + + "At the fifth each played a magnificent tea shot. Hodgson again + used his favourite spoon."--_Provincial Paper_. + +Obviously the right club for the purpose. + + * * * * * + + "'The Tongue Can no Man Tame.' + _St. Peter._" + _Heading in Daily Paper_. + +A clear case of robbing James to pay Peter. + + * * * * * + +ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. + +_Monday, July 12th._--Viscount Curzon's complaint about "crawling" +taxi-cabs was ostensibly based upon the obstruction thus caused to more +rapidly moving traffic. But I fancy that it was really due to an +inherent belief that the motor-car is a noble creature, only happy when +exceeding the speed-limit and dashing through police-controls, and that +to compel the poor thing to crawl is "agin natur'" and ought to be dealt +with by the R.S.P.C.A. + +As usual much of Question-time was devoted to Russian affairs. Colonel +Wedgwood wanted to know whether the Cabinet had approved a message from +Mr. Churchill to the late Admiral Kolchak, advising him how to commend +his Administration to the Prime Minister, who was described in the +telegram as "all-powerful, a convinced democrat and particularly devoted +to advanced views on the land question." Mr. Law, while provisionally +promising a Blue-book on Siberia, declined to pick out a single message +from a whole bunch. + +The news that the Soviet Government had accepted the British conditions +with regard to the resumption of trade and had thereupon been requested +to conclude an armistice with Poland did not seem particularly welcome +to any section of the House. Those whom Mr. Stanton in stentorian +whispers daily describes as the "Bolshies" evidently feared that the +request had been accompanied by a threat, while others were horrified at +the idea of recognising the present _regime_ in Russia, and drew from +Mr. Law a hasty disclaimer. The House as a whole would, I think, have +liked to learn how you can do business with a person whom you do not +recognise? + +The Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to accept Mr. George Terrell's +proposal to reduce the Excess Profits Tax from sixty per cent. to forty, +but, in reply to Sir G. Younger--who "has such a way wid him"--promised +that next year he would make the reduction. He admitted that it was in +many ways an unsatisfactory tax, but the Government could not afford to +part with it unless a substitute was provided. Somebody suggested +"Economy," and Sir F. Banbury proved to his own satisfaction that the +present estimates could be reduced by a hundred-and-fifty millions. But +unexpected support for the Government came from Mr. Asquith, who as the +original sponsor of the tax felt it his duty to support it. + +[Illustration: SIR FREDERICK BANBURY SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE. "To produce a +saving of one hundred-and-fifty millions you merely have to hold the hat +firmly in the left hand--thus."] + +There was a perfect E.P.D.mic of criticism, but it was brilliantly +countered by Mr. Baldwin, who declared that the Chancellor, far from +leading the country down the rapids, "was the one man who had seized a +rock in mid-stream and was hanging on to it with hands and feet." The +Amendment was rejected by 289 to 117, and the clause as a whole was +passed by 202 to 16. + +[Illustration: THE LIMPET OF THE EXCHEQUER. Mr. Baldwin portrays his +chief "hanging to a rock with hands and feet."] + +_Tuesday, July 13th._--Lord O'Hagan was one of the Peers who helped +to outvote the Government a few days ago on a motion excusing them +of extravagance. Yet that did not prevent him to-day from saying that +the War Office should be more generous in their financial treatment +of the Territorial Force, and particularly of the Cadet Corps. +Naturally Lord Peel did not refrain from calling attention to this +inconsistency--common to most of the financial critics of the +Administration--but nevertheless he made a reply indicating that the +grants for the Territorial Force were being revised, presumably in an +upward direction, since Lord O'Hagan expressed himself grateful. + +The Commons, like the Lords, are all for economy collectively, if not +individually. General cheers greeted Mr. Bonar Law's announcement that +all war-subsidies--save that on wheat--were to be brought to an end as +soon as possible, but then there were similar cheers for those Members +who urged the substitution of ex-service men for the less highly-paid +women in various Public Departments. + +The House enjoyed the unusual experience of hearing from +Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy an apology--and a very handsome one too--for +something that he had said in debate about Colonel Croft. It was +accompanied by a tribute to his military efficiency which made that +gallant warrior blush. It only now remains for the Leader of the +National Party to reciprocate by rescuing from the Naval archives some +equally complimentary reference to the services of Lieut.-Commander +Kenworthy. + +A new sport has been invented by Colonel Guinness. It consists in +sending two telegrams simultaneously to Paris, one _via_ London and the +other _via_ New York, and seeing which gets there first. At present New +York wins by twenty minutes. Mr. Illingworth excused himself from giving +an immediate explanation on the ground that he had not had time to check +the facts. No doubt he hopes that in the interim other Members will +follow Colonel Guinness's example and, by joining in the new pastime, +bring grist to the Post-Office mill. + +_Wednesday, July 14th._--Lord Milner must have thought he was back in +the era of "Chinese Slavery" when he found himself assailed on all sides +because the Chief Native Commissioner in Kenya Colony (late British East +Africa) had issued a circular instructing the chiefs to influence their +followers in the direction of honest toil. Lord Islington described this +as "perilously near forced labour;" His Grace of Canterbury facetiously +suggested that the chiefs' idea of influence would be the sjambok; and +Lord Emmott talked of "Prussianism." + +Taught by past experience Lord Milner did not make light of the +accusations, but set himself to show how little real substance they +contained. The Chief Native Commissioner was "not a Prussian"; on the +contrary the local white population thought him too great an upholder of +native privileges. But he was very keen on getting the black man to +work, and had therefore issued this circular, which was open to +misinterpretation. An explanatory document would be issued shortly. + +Echoes of the Dyer debate are still reverberating through the Commons, +and Mr. Montagu was put through a searching cross-examination regarding +his relations with Mr. Gandhi. Apparently that gentleman has a very +simple plan of campaign. He agitates more and more dangerously until he +is threatened with prosecution. Then he says "Sorry!" and Mr. Montagu +begs him off. After a brief interval of quiescence he starts again. Just +now he is once more nearing the imaginary line that separates proper +from impropa-Gandhism. + +[Illustration: B.C. 1920. _Sir Alfred Mond._ "What a topping idea! +They'll never get a more suitable design from the Office of Works--not +if they wait 3840 Years."] + +The House was delighted to see Mr. Devlin and Mr. MacVeagh back in their +places. A little honest Irish obstruction would be a refreshing change +after the feeble imitations of the Kenworthies and Wedgwoods. But the +Speaker could not accept the proposition that a speech delivered three +weeks ago, in which an Irish official was alleged to have prophesied +some dreadful things which as a matter of fact had not happened, could +be regarded as "a definite matter of urgent public importance." + +It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister was unable to get back from +Spa in order to assist in the final suppression of his famous +land-duties. Most of the speeches delivered were made up of excerpts +from his old orations of ten years ago--that almost prehistoric era +known as the Limehouse Period--and it would have been an object-lesson +in political gymnastics to see him explaining himself away. + +The land-taxers made a gallant effort to frighten their opponents away +by chanting the "Land Song" in the Lobby, but it is supposed that the +Government supporters had copied Ulysses' method with the Sirens, for +enough of them remained faithful to defeat the land-taxers by 190 to 68. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Neal._ "Your fares will cost you more."] + +_Thursday, July 15th._--Mr. Neal's announcement that the proposed +increase in rail way fares had been postponed until August 5th, in order +not to spoil the Bank Holiday, was far from satisfying the House. Mr. +Clynes pointed out that large numbers of the working-classes now took +their long holidays in August. Mr. Palmer was of opinion that the +working-classes could pay well enough; it was the middle-class that +would suffer most; and Mr. R. McNeill, following up this assertion, +suggested (without success) that for the sake of poverty-stricken M.P.'s +the House should adjourn before the fateful date. + +Sir H. Greenwood gave particulars of the Sinn Fein raid on the Dublin +Post-Office, but declined to give an opinion as to whether there had +been any collusion with the staff inside. Judging by the promptitude and +efficiency of the raiders' procedure it seems highly improbable that +postal officials had anything to do with it. + + * * * * * + + "Each day the barometer seems to drop a little lower, the rain + seems to drop a little more persistent and wet."--_Provincial + Paper_. + +It is this persistent wetness that is so annoying. Nobody would mind a +little dry rain. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Farmer._ "I wonder what some of these London folks +'ud say to this?" + +_Farm-hand._ "Zay? They'd zay as we must be makin' our fortunes out +o' mushrooms."] + + * * * * * + +TWENTY YEARS ON. + +We were sitting in the verandah, Ernest and I. On the greensward before +us Ernest Junior and James Junior (I am James) disported themselves as +became their years, which were respectively 1-3/4 and 1-5/8. In the +middle distance, or as middle as the size of our lawn permits, might be +seen the mothers of Ernest Junior and James Junior deep in conversation, +discussing, perhaps, the military prowess of their lords, though I +rather fear I caught the word "jumper" every now and then. + +A loud difference of opinion between James II. and Ernest II. as to the +possession of a wooden horse momentarily disturbed the peaceful scene. +It was left to Ernest and myself to settle it, our incomparable wives +being still completely engrossed with the subject of our military +prowess (or of jumpers). When quiet reigned once more Ernest said, "Have +you ever looked twenty years on?" + +"Practically never," I answered. "It is too exhausting." + +"It is exhausting, but with my usual energy I do it all the same," said +Ernest, who is as a fact the world's champion lotus-eater. "Last night I +was picturing a little scene in the year 1940. Shall I tell you of it?" +And without waiting for my assent he proceeded:-- + +"The scene is laid in an undergraduate's rooms. Ernest Junior and James +Junior are discovered in _neglige_ attitudes and the conversation +proceeds something like this:-- + +"_Ernest Junior._ What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.? + +"_James Junior._ I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives +being so terribly restricted. + +"_Ernest Junior._ Why restricted? + +"_James Junior._ Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell +you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or +Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the +first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never +stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in +the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I +should hardly get away before next term begins. + +"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long +story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself +captured a large number of Turks on the Somme. + +"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And +when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin +about Rouen and Etaples." + +I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all +funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if +only I'd thought of it first. + + * * * * * + +"CHAR-A"-VARIA. + + [_The Manchester Daily Dispatch_ gives a most distressing + account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more + rampant week by week among char-a-bancs trippers.] + + The patrons of the charabang + Employ the most outrageous slang + And talk with an appalling twang. + Their manners ape the wild orang; + They do not care a single hang + For sober folk on foot who gang, + But as they roll, with jolt and clang, + For parasang on parasang, + They cause a vulgar _Sturm und Drang_. + They never heard of Andrew Lang, + Or even Mr. William Strang; + They are, I say it with a pang, + A most intolerable gang; + In fact I wish them at Penang + Or on the banks of Yang-tse-Kiang-- + _Some_ folk who use the charabang. + + * * * * * + + "Wanted, a good, clean General, for private."--_Provincial + Paper_. + +Discipline is going to the dogs. + + * * * * * + +POINTS OF VIEW. + +The manager had seen to it that the party of young men, being very +obviously rich, at any rate for this night, had some of the best +attendance in the restaurant. Several waiters had been told off +specially to look after them, the least and busiest of whom was little +more than a boy--a slender pale boy, who was working very hard to give +satisfaction. The cynic might think--and say, for cynics always say what +they think--that this zeal was the result of his youth; but the cynic +for once would be only partly right. The zeal also had sartorial +springs, this eventful day being the first on which the boy had been +promoted to full waiter-hood, and the first therefore on which he had +ever worn a suit of evening dress; which by dint of hard saving his +family had been able to obtain for him. Wearing a uniform of such +dignity and conscious that he was on the threshold of his career, he was +trying very hard to make good and hoping very fervently that he would +get through without any drops or splashes to impair the freshness of his +new and wonderful attire. + +The party of young men, who had been at a very illustrious English +school together and now were either at a university or in the world, +were celebrating an annual event and were very merry about it. For the +most part they had, between the past and the present, as many topics of +conversation as were needed, but now and then came a lull, during which +some of them would look around at the other tables, note the prettier of +the girls or the odder of the men and comment upon them; and it chanced +that in such a pause one of the diners happened for the first time to +notice with any attention the assiduous young waiter. Although not old +enough to have given any thought to the anomaly of youth (though lowly) +attending upon youth (though gilded) at its meals in this way--not old +enough indeed to have pondered at all upon the relations of Capital and +Labour or of the domineering and the servile--he had reflected a good +deal upon the cut and fit of clothes, and there was something about the +waiting-boy's evening coat that outraged his critical sense. Nor did the +fact that the other's indifferent tailoring throw the perfection of his +own into such brilliant contrast--the similarity between the livery of +service and the male costume _de luxe_ fostering such comparisons--make +him any more lenient. + +"Did you ever see," he asked his neighbour, "such a coat-collar as that +waiting Johnnie's? I ask you. How can anyone, even a waiter, wear a +thing like that? Don't they ever see themselves in the glass, or if they +do can't they see straight? Why, it covers his collar altogether." + +His companion agreed. "And the shoulders! You'd have thought that in a +restaurant like this the management would be more particular. By George, +that's a jolly pretty girl coming in! Look--over there, just under the +clock, with the red hair." And the waiter was forgotten. Only, however, +by his table critics, for at that moment a little woman who had made +friends with the hall-porter for this express purpose was peering +through the window of the entrance, searching the room for her son. She +had never yet seen him at his work at all, and certainly not in his +grand waiting clothes, and naturally she wanted to. + +"Ah!" she said at last, pointing the boy out to the porter, "there he +is! At that table with all the young gentlemen. Doesn't he look fine? +And don't they fit him beautifully? Why, no one would know the +difference if he were to sit down and one of those young gentlemen were +to wait on him." + +E.V.L. + + * * * * * + +PIGLETS. + +While waiting for proof-sheets of my book on _The Dynamic Force of +Modern Art_ I thought I might get a certain amount of amusement out of a +little correspondence with my neighbour, Mr. Gibbs, small farmer and +dairyman, between whom and myself letters had passed a short time ago on +the subject of a noisy cow, since removed from the field below the study +window of the house that has been lent me by my friend Hobson. With this +end in view I wrote to Mr. Gibbs as follows:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--The field of the uproarious cow has, I +notice, suddenly become tenanted again, this time by what appears to be +a school, herd or murrain of swine. Their number seems to vary. +Sometimes I count ten younglings, sometimes as many as thirteen, and +once I made it as much as fourteen. + +Did you know they were there, or are they a crop? Or is the field +suffering from swine fever, of which they are the outward manifestation? +Anyhow, whether they are friends of yours or have merely just happened, +as it were, they are distinctly intriguing. + +My wife was remarking to me only yesterday how nice some pork would be +as a change from the eternal verities, beef and mutton, and I told her +that if she would look out of my window she would see the pork running +about, simply asking for it. There are so many of these piglets that I +don't think the old sow would miss one. Swine can't count, can they? + +But apart from food values they interest me as subjects for the Cubist, +the Vorticist and other exploiters of dynamic force in the Art of to-day +(I fancy I told you in a previous letter that I am engaged upon a tome +on this subject). + +Figure to yourself, _mon ami_, what delightful rhomboidal figures +Wyndham Lewis and his school would make of these budding +porkers with the sleek torso and the well-poised angular snout, and, +having visualised their treatment of the theme, compare it with the +painted effigies of such animals by George Morland, which were +merely pigs, Sir, and nothing more. No symbolism, no force. You get +me--what? + +But looking at these piglets from a more intimate point of view, don't +you think (if they should happen to be yours, and you have any influence +with their parents) that something should be done about their faces? +They have such a pushed-in appearance. Can this be normal? If so, it +must seriously interfere with their truffling. But perhaps this is not +good truffle-hunting country. I'm sorry if this is so, as I could do +with a nice brace of truffles now and again. + +Remember me kindly to our mooing friend, and believe me, dear Mr. Gibbs, + + Yours sincerely, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +How this early touch of Spring has got into the blood, to be sure. + +To this letter Mr. Gibbs replied thus:-- + +Dear Sir,--i cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole +about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one +another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out +like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you a +nice leg and remain + + Yours obedient + Henry Gibbs. + +My reply, given in the affirmative, resulted in the arrival of a +succulent-looking joint with a bill for leg of pork special 51/2 lbs. +at 2_s._ per lb. 11_s._ + +As the price too was rather special I returned the bill with the +following:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--What a rapturous piece of pork! Lovely in +life, and oh, how beautiful in death. I count the hours till 7.30 +to-morrow. + +I am truly sorry you couldn't read my letter with comfort. I have +derived great pleasure from yours. You appear to have a strong leaning +towards phonetic orthography which is very refreshing and seems to bear +the same relation to the generally accepted rules of the art that the +modern dynamic art (a favourite topic of mine, as you know) does to the +academics of the late nineteenth century. + +When the proof-sheets of my book arrive I should be glad of your +assistance in going through them. My tendency, I think, is to +over-punctuate, and your proclivity would, I believe, counteract this. + +_Mais revenons a nos moutons_ (_mutatis mutandis_, of course). The +specialist who superintends my diet allows me to eat pork at 1_s._ 9_d._ +per lb., but does not approve of my indulgence in it at a higher figure. +If you will meet his views (and I am sure you will) I shall absorb my +full share of the dainty you have provided. Otherwise I must return it +with many exquisite regrets. + +Anticipating your favourable recognition of my specialist's absurd +prejudice, I enclose a cheque for 9_s._ 8_d._ + + Accept my word for it that I am + Yours ever most truly, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +To this Mr. Gibbs offered the following reply:-- + +Deer Sir,--i thought being a friend of mr Hobson you was a +gentleman as wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for something special like +this pork which these pigs was by Barnsley Champion III i cant charge +less. i dont know who your specialist is but he dont know much about +pork the bests the safest. please send ballance and remain + + Yours obedient, + Henry Gibbs. + +We were still in March and pork had not yet been decontrolled, so I +returned the bill again with this brief but incisive note:-- + +My dear Mr. Gibbs,--I have never met your friend from Barnsley, +but am surprised that you haven't come across my specialist, whose +address is the Local Food Control Office at Harbury. Would you like to +meet him? He is very interested in pigs, also in milk and other things +in which you specialise expensively, so you would have lots to talk +about, no doubt. + + Yours sincerely, + Arthur K. Wilkinson. + +The receipt in full, which reached me in reply, was very satisfactory. +The pork was delicious. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Country Postman._ "I'm sorry, Ma'am, I seem to have +lost your postcard; but it only said Muriel thanked you for the parcel, +and so did John, and they were both very well and the children are happy +and she'll give your message to Margery. That'll be your other daughter, +I'm thinkin'?"] + + * * * * * + + FLOWERS' NAMES. + + Lady's Bedstraw. + + Under two secret arching hedges + Masses of Bedstraw grow, + Silvery-white among the sedges, + Like drifts of fairy-snow; + Deep's the middle, fringed the edges; + Who sleeps there? Do you know? + Do you? Or you? + Hark! for the breezes know. + + "Oh, there my Lady Summer lies + Adream beneath cool April skies; + About her blossoms fall + On her long limbs and secret eyes. + Still she sleeps, virginal; + Then--hark! June's clarion call! + She lifts her wistful wilful eyes, + Springs light afoot and away she flies. + But her Bedstraw dies." + + * * * * * + + "We have received from ---- Manufacturing Company, New York, + makers of Distructive Stationery for Social Correspondence, + copies of their artistic Wall Calendars." _West Indian Paper._ + +The calendars don't interest us, but a few samples of the "distructive +stationery" would come in useful for answering bores. + + * * * * * + +NOCTURNE. + +Of course I suppose I ought to be grateful for the opportunity of having +a front seat at one of Nature's romances, but I imagine she reaps more +applause at matinees than at soirees. I know that I--But judge for +yourself. + +The _dramatis personae_ were corncrakes, neighbours of mine. The +heroine--a neat line in spring birdings--I labelled "Thisbe," and she +had evidently inspired affection of no mean degree in the hearts of two +enthusiastic swains, Strong-i'-th'-lung and Eugene. I know all this +because Thisbe's home is a small tuft of grass not distant from my +bedroom, and her admirers wooed her at long range from opposite corners +of my field. + +Now, as a cursory study of ornithology will tell you, the corncrake's +method of attracting his bride is by song, and the criterion of +excellence in C.C. circles is that the song shall be protracted, +consistent and perfectly monotonous. To those who are unacquainted with +his note I would describe it as rather similar to the intermittent +buzzing noise which an inexperienced telephone operator lets loose when +she can't think of a wrong number to give you. It has also points of +resemblance to the periodic thud of the valve of a motor-tube when one +is running on a deflated tyre. But there is no real standard of +comparison. As a musical feat it is unique, and I for one am glad it is. + +It was night. Eugene was in possession of the stage when I began to take +an interest in the romance. I cannot say for how long he had serenaded +his divinity before I became conscious of his lay, but I do know that +thereafter he put in one and a half hours of good solid craking before +he desisted. I then felt grateful for the silence, rolled over and +prepared to get on with my postponed slumber. + +But Strong-i'-th'-lung decreed otherwise. With a contemptuous snort at +his rival's performance he opened his epic. He was splendid. For one and +three-ninths hours he descanted on the glories of field life, on the +freshness of the night, on the brilliance of the June foliage; for the +next two hours he ardently proclaimed the surpassing beauty of Thisbe's +eye, the glossiness of her plumage, the neatness of her claw, and he +wound up with a mad twenty minutes of piercing monotony as he depicted +the depth of his devotion for her. + +When he ceased, in a silence which was almost deafening, I could +visualise Thisbe dimpling with satisfaction and undoubtedly filled with +tenderness toward a lover capable of expressing himself so eloquently. I +turned over with a sigh of relief and closed my eyes in pleasurable +anticipation of rest. + +But Eugene felt it necessary to reply. I think his intention was to +crake disbelief of his rival's sincerity, to throw cold water on his +burning professions, perhaps even to question the excellence of his +intentions. But his nerve was obviously shaken by his competitor's +undoubtedly fine performance, and he craked indecisively. At 4.30 +a.m. I distinctly heard him utter a flat note. At 4.47 he +missed the second part of a bar entirely. Thisbe's beak, I must believe, +curled derisively; Strong-i'-th'-lung laughed contemptuously, and at +5.10 a.m. Eugene faltered, stammered and fled from the field +defeated. + +The sequel I have had to build up on rather fragmentary data, but it +appears that Eugene fled as far as Pudberry Parva, and endeavoured to +cool his discomfiture in a dewy hayfield. + +To him there came an old crone, the "father and mother" of all +corncrakes, who comforted him, cossetted him, and from a fund of deep +experience offered him hints on voice production. She also gave him of a +nostrum of toadwort and garlic, which mollified his lacerated chords, +and she prescribed massage of the throat by rubbing against a young +beech stem. + +Within two days Eugene was back in my field. In tones that feigned to +falter he craked a few bars to open the performance. Strong-i'-th'-lung +at once rose full of pitying confidence and craked for two and a half +hours the song of the practically accepted suitor. It was a good song, +and Thisbe seemed pleased, though I fancy she rather resented the note +of assurance which he imparted to his ballad. + +Then Eugene came on. Bearing well in mind all the instruction of his +recent benefactress, he commenced at 11.45 p.m. such a masterpiece as +has never before been heard in the bird world. His consistency of period +was masterly, his iteration superb and his even monotony incomparable. +Crake succeeded crake with dull regular inevitability. So far as I know +he carried his bat. He was still playing strongly when I fell on a +troubled sleep about 5.30.... + +The next day, walking through the field, I put up two birds which flew +away together. One was Thisbe. And the other? Well, not +Strong-i'-th'-lung. I stumbled across him a little later, dead without a +wound. + + * * * * * + + "Wanted Music Master for 2 girls; also Mincing + Machine."--_Local Paper._ + +One way or another they seem determined that the poor girls shall be +"put through it." + + * * * * * + +SHOULD MILLIONAIRES READ HOMER? + +The recent discovery of a London millionaire, who not only lives in a +small suburban villa, where his wife dispenses with servants, goes to +bed at 7.30 p.m. and rises at 3 a.m., but reads Homer in the Greek, has +caused a sensation. + +His endeavours to prove to a doubting world the truth of a favourite +British adage is admirable; and his modest establishment only bears out +what the millionaires keep on telling us, that, owing to high taxation +and the abnormal cost of luxuries, they must really be reckoned as poor +men. But his study of Homer provokes a difference of opinion. + +Our representative, in interviewing a venerable sociologist on the +subject, was told that the study of Greek for millionaires is, within +proper limits, comparatively harmless, but that Homer contains the +elements of danger. + +"It is in Homer's apotheosis of heroism in human combat that the peril +lies," he said. "Having regard to the part played in the past by +financiers in the wars between civilised nations, the security of the +League of Nations will be threatened if the millionaires of to-day come +under the spell of that great poet, who, with all his excellent +qualities, directed his genius so persistently to the praise of +warfare." + +One of the millionaire class was next approached, and was asked what he +thought of millionaires reading Homer. + +"Why not?" he asked. "Some millionaires are great readers. I am one +myself. There are not half-a-dozen of Oppenheim's I haven't read; and I +like Hall Caine--and Ethel Dell's not bad. Who is this Homer? If he's +any good I may as well order him." + +"Well, Homer was a poet, you know, a--" + +"I've no use for poetry," said the millionaire. + +"A Greek poet, who lived--" + +"Greek. A _Greek_, did you say?" A shrewd look came into his eyes. "Some +of the cutest devils I know are Greeks." He pulled down a shirt-cuff and +took a diamond-studded pencil from his waistcoat pocket. "How do you +spell it? With an H?" + + * * * * * + +"POULTRY AND EGGS. + + Belfast or Neighbourhood.--Locum Tenency or Sunday duty wanted + by well-known Rector during holiday."--_Irish Paper._ + +It looks as if he had been mistaken for a Lay-reader. + + * * * * * + + "Nothing is left of the knave of the church, but the choir still + remains."--_Scotch Paper._ + +We are glad they discarded the knave. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Country Cousin_ (_who suffers from his wife's elbow at +each crossing_). "Oo! lawks, Maria! Next time we've to cross lemme be +roon ower!"] + + * * * * * + +OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. + +(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) + +_Double Life_ (Grant Richards) is a story that unblushingly bases its +appeal on the love of almost everyone for a fairy-tale of good fortune. +The matter of it is to show how a lady amateur, wife of a novelist, +herself hardly knowing one end of a horse from the other, might make +forty thousand pounds in a year on the Turf, without even her own +husband so much as suspecting her activities. The thing isn't likely, is +indeed a fantasy of the wildest improbability; but, told with the zest +imparted to it here by Mr. Grant Richards, it provides first-rate fun. +Some danger of monotony there was bound to be in what is really a +variation upon a single theme. Though the author cunningly avoids this, +I think it might justly be observed that he has made _Olivia's_ plunges +almost too uniformly successful. But perhaps not; after all, while you +are handling fairy-gold, why be niggardly of it? The heroine's +introduction to horse-racing comes about through the unconscious agency +of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to Newmarket in search +of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The resulting situation reaches +its climax in what is the best scene of the book, when _Geoffrey_, +returning from a race that he has visited alone, but upon which +_Olivia_, unknown to him, has risked thousands, recounts its progress in +the best manner of realistic fiction, wholly ignorant of the true cause +of what seems such flattering agitation in the listener. Altogether a +happy if not very subtle story which I am glad that Mr. Grant Richards +could persuade himself to publish. + +To write, as Mr. R.W. Chambers has written, fifty-two novels, many of +them excellent and all readable, while still on the right side of sixty, +is an achievement of intelligent industry that entitles any novelist, at +the latter end, to take matters a little easily. _The Moonlit Way_ +(Appleton) has neither the imaginative qualities of _The King in +Yellow_, the humour of _In Search of the Unknown_, nor the adventurous +tang of _Ashes of Empire_, but it is a good live story that will carry +the reader's interest to the last page. Mr. Chambers is at his best when +dealing with spies and secret service agents and scheming chancellors +and the other subterranean apparatus of war and diplomacy; at his least +interesting when depicting affluent young America on its native heath of +New York bricks and mortar. _The Moonlit Way_ deals with all these +things and more. We are whisked from the Bosphorus to the Welland Canal +on the heels of Germany's "War in the United States," and French Secret +Service officers, German saloon keepers and Sinn Fein revolutionaries +jostle one another for a place in our interest. The novel-reading public +knows that it is quite safe in buying any story by Mr. Chambers, and, if +it does not expect too much of _The Moonlit Way_, it will not be +disappointed. + + * * * * * + +Lately, volumes of individual memorial to dead youth seem to have become +less frequent. Perhaps there was a suggestion that the making of them, +or rather their publication for the eyes of strangers, was in danger of +being overdone. However this may be, I think that, quite apart from the +appeal of circumstance, there would always have been a welcome for such +a bright-natured book as one that Father Ronald Knox has put together, +mostly from diaries and letters, about _Patrick Shaw-Stewart_ (Collins). +Eton and Balliol will agree that there could be no biographer better +fitted to record the life, as happy seemingly as it was fated to be +short, of one who combined success with popularity at both these places, +was caught by the War on the threshold of a wider career, served his +country with very notable distinction and was killed in the winter of +1917. Though he met death in France, the most of Shaw-Stewart's +war-service was on the Eastern front; in particular he saw more than +most soldiers of the whole Gallipoli adventure, to which he went as a +member of that amazing company--surely the very flower of this country's +war contribution--the _Hood_ Battalion of the R.N.V.R. Here he was the +comrade of many of those whom England has especially delighted to +honour: Rupert Brooke, Denis-Browne, Charles Lister and others, all of +whom figure in these vivid and most attractive letters; from which also +one gathers an engaging picture of Shaw-Stewart himself, a generously +admiring, humorous and entirely independent young Tory in a band of +brilliant revolutionaries. In fine a book (despite its theme of promise +sacrificed) full of laughter and a singularly charming character-study +of one who, in his biographer's phrase, was assuredly "not one of the +passengers of his generation." + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE SPECIALIST. + +_Eminent Botanist on scientific expedition_. "Dear me! Why didn't I +take up Zoology instead of Botany? This seems such an interesting +specimen."] + + * * * * * + +Miss Ella Sykes, after going with her brother and a camera on his +special mission to Kashgar during the earlier days of the War, has +detailed in charming fashion, under the title _Through Deserts and Oases +of Central Asia_ (Macmillan), their travels in lands still almost +unknown. Sir Percy Sykes himself has added some chapters on the history +and customs of the district in order to allow himself the pleasure of +referring affectionately to his hunting of the giant sheep--the _Ovis +poli_--of the Pamirs. Between them they have given me a good deal of +information, with a lot of really capital photographs, about a +country--Chinese Turkestan--that one may have just heard of before, +though it is impossible to be sure. Resisting a burning desire to pass +on newly-acquired learning to the first listener, I will be content to +say that a more readable volume of its kind has not come my way for a +long time, and incidentally the country itself seems surprisingly +desirable. For one thing it is free from the mosquitoes that spoil so +many books of travel, while the people are peaceful, reasonably +contented and not liable to jar on the reader's nerves, in the +time-honoured fashion, with spears and poisoned arrows. Even the yaks, +that one had supposed to be fearsome beasts, are mild benevolent +pacifists. The authors do not suggest that it is all Paradise, of +course, though for the Moslem there may be something of that sort in it. +"Praise be to Allah! I have four obedient wives, who spend all their +days in trying to please me," said a Kirghiz farmer to Sir Percy. But +even Paradise may be a matter of taste. + + * * * * * + +If _War in the Garden of Eden_ (Murray) cannot be numbered among the +books which must be read by a serious war-student it is in its +unassuming way very attractive. Captain Kermit Roosevelt made many +friends while serving as a Captain with the Motor Machine-Gun Corps in +Mesopotamia, and here he reveals himself as a keen soldier and a +pleasant companion. In style he is perhaps a shade too jerky; his +frequent failure to make his connections gives one a sense of being in +the hands of a rather rambling guide. But the important points are that +he is an engaging rambler, and that he can describe his experiences both +of war and peace with so clear a simplicity that they can be easily +visualized. When the American Army arrived in France Captain Roosevelt +naturally wished to join it, and his last chapter is called "With the +First Division in France and Germany." But for us the main interest of +his book lies in the work he did with the British in Mesopotamia, and to +thank him for this would seem to be an impertinence. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Arnold Bennett's _From the Log of the Velsa_ (Chatto) deals with +some vague period before the War (dates are most carefully concealed), +when the versatile author undertook certain cruises up and down Dutch +canals, the Baltic, French, Flemish and Danish coasts and East Anglian +estuaries with companions about whom he preserves an equally mysterious +silence. (Was it secret service, I wonder?) A delightful book, produced +with something like pre-war attention to aesthetic appearance--a pleasant +quarto with roomy pages faithfully printed in a fair type. You ought to +enjoy the owner's evident enjoyment (he was never bored and therefore +never boring), his charmingly ingenuous pride of possession, his shrewd, +humorous and excessively didactic utterances about painters, pictures, +architecture and female beauty, his zeal for water-colour sketching and +his apparently profound contempt of other exponents of the craft. +Nothing could be less like (I thank Heaven) the ordinary yachtsman's +recollections of his travels, and I get an impression that Mr. Bennett +was not ill-pleased to leave most of the work and the technical +knowledge to his skipper. + + * * * * * + + "Crepe de Chine in oyster white will show the top of the dress + embroidered to the knees in some unconventional design of black + and a deeper shade of white."--_Daily Paper_. + + "The bridesmaid's dress was of heavy white crepe-de-chine, of + pale apricot shade."--_Provincial Paper_. + +Canning must have had a premonition of the modern fashions when +he wrote in _The New Morality_, "Black's not so black, nor white so +_very_ white." + + * * * * * + +From a bookseller's advertisement:-- + + "Mr. ---- has the way of when you finish one of his most + interesting books that you really cannot help yourself by + reading all." _Newfoundland Paper._ + +Not being quite sure whether this is a compliment or not we have +suppressed the distinguished author's name. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. +159, July 21, 1920, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + +***** This file should be named 17596.txt or 17596.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/9/17596/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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