Punch: Punch (69.1875)

January 1, 1876.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

283

WHY NOT?

Cook {come after Situation). "Br the bye, Ma'am, is there a Rink in tour Neighbour-
hood ? for I shouldn't like to GIVE up my SkATIUG I "

TERENCE AT WESTMINSTER.

On a night not long ere Christmas Day,

Doctor Punch, who is sapiens et vqfer,
Takes the book of the very first play

Of Publius Terentius Afer :
He looks at the Westminster boys,

Judges, big-wigs, and ladies in satin,
Then, ere fact all illusion destroys,

He buries his nose in the Latin.

Good stuff, 0 Terenti ! Although

It is not a critical slander
To say, that We very well know,

That you borrowed your plot from
Menander.
But are we not borrowers too ?

Why the critics are raving in chorus
That nought now-a-days can be new,

Since the Ancients were authors before
us.

Be it so. Let our wine and our wit
Be famed, if you will, for antiquity :

But why should that lessen a whit
Our enjoyment of Davits1 iniquity Y

Not, though, while the best fun's astir,
Our neighbour, Sir Mark Megathe-
rium,

Says, " The play has no heroine, Sir!
Where the deuce have they hidden
Glycerium f "

" Play without' leading lady,'—too bad!"
Yerdant Greens in loud protest may
mutter,

Who for stage-sirens go to the bad,
On the shoal where short petticoats
flutter.

For their sake Mr. Punch must declare
That our stage would be often less
quizzible,

If the heroine, foolish as fair,
Could all through the play be invisible.

The Actress her "h's " who drops,

The Actress who shrieks in her passion,
The Actress who won't mind her stops,

The Actress who will set the fashion ;
Just think of them, playwright of nous,

And say is't not very much safer
To shut the sweet thing in her house,

As did Publius Terentius Afer ?

BIRDS AND BONNETS.

One of those evils which work their own cure will, it is to be
hoped, prove to be the present barbarous fashion of wearing 'little
birds or portions of them as trimmings of bonnets. In "Fashions
for December " Le Follet announces that: —

"The birds and wings are getting very common, and are superseded in the
bonnets made by fashionable modistes by kmg plumes and curled feathers.
As many of these can be supplied from one victim, the small ornithological
species must be very grateful for this new decree of Fashion."

By " getting common," Le Follet means that cockrobins, gold-
finches, and tomtits, have commenced appearing in the head-dresses
adopted by the wives and daughters of small tradesmen, and by
servant girls, whence again they will disappear in due time after
they have been "superseded in the bonnets made by fashionable
modistes" for the superior classes. Thus all orders of the sex
will, in succession, figure as feather-headed, but, in succession,
we trust, to return to less objectionable Irimmings and humaner
head-gear.

In the meantime Punch grieves to learn that, so far from this
being the case as yet, the Chairman of the Avon and Stour Far-
mers' Club has lately brought under the notice of the Club a new
cruelty springing from the same source—viz., the plucking out the
wings and feathers of birds while still alive, the offenders in their
defence averring that the feathers were more valuable when so
plucked, as longer retaining their natural hue.

Baroness Burdett-Coutts has been on the qui vive, as usual, in de-
fence of her poor little feathered friends, and writes to the Secretary
of the Club a letter which Punch is glad to reprint in extenso :—

"Sir, "Heron Court, Bee. 19th.

" Please convey to the members of your excellent society the sense of
pleasure it gave me to learn that there was an unanimous desire on their part

to put down the cruelty which has been extensively practised in tbis and
other districts, in wantonly killing, and (as I learn from the Christchurch
paper of the 1st inst.) actually torturing small birds. That three men should
be charged with plucking the wings and feathers of these most harmless of all
God's creatures while still alive seems incredible at this period of the nine-
teenth century; but as it appears that these feathers are intended for the
adornment of Ladies' attire, it is time that the sense of Englishwomen should
be quickened to the enormity of the crime which they are virtually encouraging.
I have already communicated with many of the leaders of fashion in this
country on the subject, but, in a truly sympathetic letter I received from
Madame Louise I am grieved to learn that, repugnant to womanly feeling
as this kind of decoration should be, there is still an increasing demand for it.
English Ladies will incur a serious responsibility, and gain an unenviable
reputation, unless they discard a practice attended with so much pain and
cruelty as this is now shown to be. u JJxjkdett-Coutts."

JUSTICE .TO A HEAD-MASTER.

On "Speech Day" at Highbury College the usual festivities
were observed in Highbury New Park in the presence of some two
hundred Ladies and Gentlemen.

" Bishop Claughton took the chair, and proceeded to the presentation of
the prizes, making some excellent remarks commendatory of Db. Kimmo and
his staff of masters, who had, during the past twenty years, imparted so sound
an education to so many pupils."

Here, now, was just the right man in the right place, saying just
the right thing. No one, perhaps, is better qualified to appreciate
the services of a Head-Master who has creditably conducted a Public
School for the last twenty years, than Bishop Claughton. Recently
published correspondence and remarks have probably impressed him
with a sense of such services, which, had he been endowed with it a
little sooner, would have enabled him to do justice to the Head-
Master of Felstead School, Mr. Grignon.