Punch (71.1876)

38

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 29, 1876.

GANTS DE PARIS.

"What's this we hear about Kid Corselets for Ladies ? Can they be anything

like this ?

their Lordships' fingers. But it is an improvement on old ways for all that, and is>
and ought to be, increasing.

(Commons.)—Mr. D. Jenkins would like to know why the Thunderer''s boiler
burst, so asks Mr. "Ward Hunt if he can tell him. Mr. Ward Hunt would be glad
if he could, but he is waiting for the result of the inquiry that is to tell him.

Mr. Bourke has to tell Sir C. Dilke that Koumania—like Oliver Twist—is asking
for more.

" Flemishing off " the Elementary Education Bill. An important new Clause for
Establishing Day Industrial Schools where wastrel children will receive industrial
teaching and one meal a day. Mr. Torr, supporting the Clause, said there were
170,000 such children in Liverpool.

Mr. Forster doubted the effect in tempting hard-working parents to transfer the
support of their children from the family table to the School Board.

Mr. Lowe protested against the school. Even Punch cannot but feel some fear-
ready as he is in this cause to face all Lions in the Path. It is a bold experiment
—bold enough to please even Birmingham. A ijew Clause in the Bill will give the
smallest schools extra grants independent of their earnings. This is right, and shows
a wise independence of doctrinaire pedantry.

Wednesday.—Contagious Diseases Bilk Though the House did not clear the
Ladies' gallery, Mr. Punch must clear his columns of all except the announcement
that the repeal of the statute was defeated by 224 to 102.

Thursday.—Nil in the Lords.

In the Commons: settlement of
paper, with the names of the Bills ordered for
execution.

Mr. Disraeli clings to his innocents; but they
must die, and the fewer words over them the
better.

" OUR REPRESENTATIVE " AT THE
CHISWICK GARDEN PARTY.

July the 18th, Tuesday last week.
Dear Sir,

When I was last in Town you said you'd.
"give anything for some fashionable information
really authentic."* Here it is. I hold you to
your_ word. I came up from Cumberland, and
deprived myself of some rare sport, on purpose to
be present at the Chiswick Garden Party. My
Royal and Illustrious Friend had written to me
privately (of course), and said, " You must come.
Awfully hot. Regular Indian season this, isn't
it ? " I replied, " Yes, and, oddly enough, when
the Dctchess of Edinburgh came over here, we
had quite Russian weather. Weather and Royalty
go together. God save the Queen, and long may
she rain."

In former times, for these little jeux de mots I
should have been rewarded with a sinecure at
Court worth £10,000 a-year, paid quarterly in
advance, sans Income-tax deducted, or I should
have been Baronetted with a pension; but now
the joke is repeated by somebody without the name
of the author, then given out as somebody else's, or
perhaps said as "a doosid good thing " by some
unblushing aristocrat (who will probably leave out
the point), and I, the original inventor, am left to
wither away in a dry corner like a neglected rose.
That last simile is worth a poet's attention. But
I don't believe the Laureate would stand me an
iced drink, even in this weather, were I to go to
his place in the Isle of Wight, and say, "Look
here, here's an idea for you." No ! even he would
answer that "he had already thought of it" : and
there would be " another good thing gone wrong."
Bah! I am aweary of the world, and, had it not
been for your expressed wish, which to me is law,t
I should not have stirred a tent-peg to come up
to such a tiresome, slow, ennuyant, and, between
ourselves, such a very mixed affair, as a Garden
Party at Chiswick. Not that the fete itself is
tiresome to novices ; no. But to me—to me, the
roue, the use, the blase—to me, who now doat on
the blue, the fresh, the ever free ; who prefer the
bloom on the heather to the rouge on the cheek, the
horizon softening in the evening shades (pretty
this, isn't it P—no extra charge) to the delicately
pencilled eyebrow to which a poet could write a
sonnet—(if paid for it—fy suis)—or for which a
Pomatumist could pen an advertisement.

Oblige me by stopping to consider the word
Pomatumist. You see what it means at once.
It out-Carlyles Carlyle; it out Germans Ger-
man. To have invented such words as "pessi-
mist," optimist," " pantomimist," " positivist'
—bah! nothing! A mere smattering of Latin,
and le feu est fait.' But a Pomatumist ! Just
think over it; because if I write very fully on
this subject, it will only cost you more, and my
wish is to save you all expense possible, and yet
give you full details about the Chiswick Garden
Party. [But, clearly, there are words yet to be
invented. A Pomatumist, i.e., a man who deals in
pomata. A Teetotumist, i.e., a man who deals
in Teetota. With power to add to their number.]

Sir Augustus Sala Jung wanted me to make
one of his party. Couldn't. By the way, he
does not drop the "J." I don't mean that he

* We need scarcely remind our readers, and Our
Kepresentative, that the expression "we would give any-
thing " admits of more than one interpretation.—Ed.

t And it shall be " Law," if we find we have been
deceived. We were taken in once, and now the burnt
Editor consults a Solicitor.—Ed.