Punch: Punch (76.1879)

192 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [April 26, 1879.

"BOYS AND GIRLS. COME OUT TO PLAY!"

uk irrepressible wags, the
happy Managers of the
Vaudeville, with a fine
irony, announce to their
friends that, '' notwith-
standing the continued
popularity of the new
Comedy of Our Boys, its
career must be ' cut short,'
to make room for Our
Girls."

"New" Comedy is a
relative term. Most people
would call Our Boys the
oldest Comedy recorded in
the dramatic register of
births. It is all very well
for Messrs. James and
Thorne to talk of cutting
short its career, after they
have cut it longer than
any career ever run on the
boards since theatres came
into being. "We do not
know that we should wish
kindly in wishing that
Our Girls may live as
long ; nor are we sure that
such a life would be the likeliest to bring in the largest harvest,
either of gain or glory, to Our Girls' parents, authorial and
managerial.

" Old Girls " are not, as a rule, so popular as " Old Boys." At a
certain stage they pass, per force, into the disagreeable category
of " Old Maids." Better A short life, and a merry one," than as
long a one as 3Iiddlewick,s or Methuselah's, with that terminus
at the end of it. Is it not so? Punch puts it to "Our Girls"
throughout the kingdom.

ART-MEDICINE !

(Cuique in sua arte.)

A Meeting of the Members of the General Scientific and Artistic
Association for the Promotion of Mixed Occupations Avas held a few
nights ago to listen to the reading of a Paper by Mr. Herries
Sctteky (the well-known painter), upon " Medicine from the point
of View of an Outsider." The room was well filled. 3Ir. Punch
occupied the Chair.

The Chairman expressed his great pleasure in joining that
evening's gathering. He dearly loved a joke, and considered the
Association, in whose name they were met, one of the best jokes
of the day. The idea that persons eminent in one profession should
lecture upon matters connected with other professions was a very
happy one, and could not fail to subserve the higher purpose of
amusement, if not promote the lower object of instruction. They had
lately heard a distinguished General Practitioner upon Art; to-night
they would hear a not less eminent Artist upon Medicine. He
believed that it was in contemplation to follow up the present
evening's entertainment with others of an equally mixed character.
An Indian puisne Judge had promised to lecture upon English
farming ; the clerical head of a College at Oxford was about to give
his views upon manoeuvring an army in the field in a country in-
fested with hostile savages; and a distinguished lawyer of well-
known yachting proclivities had consented to jot down his ideas
upon the best manner of manning and navigating a P. and 0.
steamer from Southampton to Bombay. It would thus be seen that
a rich harvest of amusement, if not instruction, was in store for the
members of the Association. "Without further preface, he begged
to introduce Mr. Herries Scurry, a gentleman of wide-spread
popularity and distinction in the world of Art.

Mr. H. Scurry said, that in his opinion, it might be said of the
Doctor, as truly as the poet, nascitur non fit. He must be born
to the business, or he is never fit for it. Although Art was his profes-
sion, he was satisfied he was a born doctor. He had given as much
of his time as he could spare from the practice of his own laborious
and singularly exacting profession to the study of physic and
surgery, in some of what were often called their minor branches, but
which he took to be, if not exactly their trunks, some of their most
important ramifications. Thus it was often said that a fever patient
should be fed, rather than bled. Though this opinion had been
maintained of late by the most celebrated practitioners, he felt
himself unable to agree with it. Why should you feed a fever
patient? When a man is ill, he surely is not hungry—at least,

he ought not to be. If John Hunter, Abernetiiy, Benjamin
Brodie, Astley Cooper, Erasmus Wilson, Morell, Mackenzie,
Harvey, Andrew Clarke, and Prescott Hewett, were called
in consultation-

The Chairman here interposed. Did the Lecturer mean that the
eminent men he had mentioned could be called in consultation
together? "Would it not be rather a difficult matter to get them
into the same room ? Chronology was so absurdly exigeant.

Mr. Scurry did not quite understand the force of the Chairman's
remark. He was speaking without notes, and did not profess to
talk by the chronological card. The meeting would see the idea he
wished to convey. To resume—some surgeons said, that in per-
forming an operation, it was better to administer chloroform before,
instead of after, using the knife. He must say, emphatically, that
he found himself unable to agree with them. As a draughtsman
upon wood for many years, it was his deliberate opinion, that
chloroform might more safely be administered after, than before, an
operation. The patient would by this means, at least, secure a
comfortable sleep when he most wanted it.

The Lecturer then gave some very interesting practical demon-
strations, upon a lay figure, of his views as to the best methods of
amputations, bandages, and treatment of gun-shot wounds, with his
ideas of the principles on which such operations should be con-
ducted, after which the proceedings terminated.

The audience, composed largely of artists, showed throughout the
most respectful, if at times somewhat puzzled, interest.

Altogether, it is difficult to convey an idea of the vigour and
sustained energy which animated alike Mr. H. Scurry's oral ex-
planations, and his practical demonstrations, so singularly interest-
ing, as the work of one, the serious business of whose life has lain
in so entirely different a channel.

RANK AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES.

Mr. Punch, Sir,

As a strenuous supporter of the British Aristocracy, a
firm believer in the Blue Blood of England, and one who counts
legitimately upon "The Upper Ten," I cannot sufficiently express
my regret at the publication, in a recent trial, of a letter from Her
Grace the Duchess of Westminster giving a character to a person
bearing the extremely plebeian name of Jones. Why, Sir, that
note might have been written by ninety-nine middle-class mis-
tresses of a house out of every hundred. There was nothing in
it, I regretted extremely to observe, showing that Her Grace
adequately appreciated the duties and privileges of her exalted
station. This is not the way, Sir, to preserve the gloss and glory
of the strawberry leaves! Were every Duchess to write in the
same quiet, lady-like, if slightly ungrammatical manner, we might
expect soon to find the levelling institutions of America acclimatised
amongst us. What is the use of the Morning Post, and other
organs of the Old English Aristocracy, if Ladies of real rank
are to stoop in their epistolary correspondence to the level of
Mrs. Brown, Jones, or Robinson ?

You will, perhaps, ask what is the use of diagnosing the disease,
unless you can suggest the remedy? Allow me, therefore, to jot
down my idea of the sort of letter that should have been sent on the
occasion to which I have alluded. Of course, it ought not to have
been written by the Duchess herself, but by her Servants' Hall
Secretary's Assistant Secretary, in something like this form:—

Madam,

I am desired by the Secretary of the Servants' Hall of Her
Grace the Duchess of Westminster to inform you that Her Grace
has a faint recollection of having once had a person in her service
of the name you mention. To the best of Her Grace's belief, she
was, &c. &c. [The character to come in here.]

This letter would have been sent earlier, had Her Grace had
leisure to give her direction in the matter.

I am, Madam, yours, &c.

{Signed) - -,

Assistant Servants' Hall Secretary of Her Grace
the Duchess of Westminster.

Had Her Grace directed such a letter as the above, the prestige
of our Old Nobility would have been maintained, and I should have
been satisfied. Yours, indignantly,

Plantagenet Montmorency Figgins.
Pinchbeck Lodge, Good Queen Anne's Road,
Kensal Green, North Kensington.

"Another Star Gone Out, I Think."

At Berlin, Dizzy's star, in the ascendant,
On tinsel '' Peace with Honour " shone resplendent;
Now with Zulus and Bartle Frere to master,
His star is dimmed, and must be spelt Diz-aster !

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