Punch (77.1879)

October 11, 1879.] PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVAEI. 161

you're fond of music," lie says, leaning across the table to Sir
Andrew, who at that moment looks as if he could murder a song.
"You come over and hear him sing, 4 I've been photographed like
this.' You '11 like him awfully." Then he adds, pleasantly wink-
ing aside to me, " Scored off him there! "

Jim is irrepressible. Sir Andrew is longing for an opportunity to
take him down, or, as Jim would say, to "score off him." Sir Andrew
assumes a patronising air of intense superiority. He tries to treat
Jim as a mere boy. But it won't do. He catches Jim munching a
juicy pear in a most schoolboyish fashion, and says condescendingly,
hoping to turn the laugh against Jim with his mouth full,

" You seem to be well occupied."

"All rigbt up to now," is the instant rejoinder, and we laugh with
Jim, much to Sir Andrew's discomfiture.

"You'd like another pearp" says Sir Andrew, addressing him
as though he were a child of ten years old.

" Not this journey," replies Jim. " Full inside! All right! "

Henceforth he won't leave Sir Andrew alone, and we all feel that
the latter has brought it on himself. Jim offers to shoot him at
Bogardus balls for half-a-crown, to back himself to stand on his
head against Sir Andrew for the same amount, and, on similar
terms, he wishes to challenge him to compete in various other feats,
such as performing on the coach-horn, strokes at billiards, and play-
ing- the side-drum.

"I scored off him!" cries Jim, triumphantly, as Sir Andrew
drives away; for Jim evidently takes as much delight in giving
pride a fall, as did Jeames, when he slapped " Old Pompossaty " on
tbe shoulder and addressed him as Bareacres. old Back! "

Nephew Jim in the daytime appears in brilliant flannels, and a
planter's straw hat. As he is seldom without a rifle, or some mur-
derous weapon in his hand, he has the air of an amateur backwoods-
man. A faithful bulldog, of most unprepossessing appearance,
waddles in a slouching sort of way at his heels, scaring everyone,
but being really the most good-tempered gentle animal that ever
winked at a cat and passed on.

When Nephew Jim is not singing snatches of his favourite melo-
dies, he is either taking a light blow-out on the coach-horn—he
says, "You see I'm reading with a Coach, so I ought to play the
horn, else we shouldn't get on "—or practising bugle-calls, or, having
military proclivities, he is inspiring himself with a pas de charge on
the side-drum.

Sunday in Scotland is a dull day for everyone, but a very dull
day for Jim, who becomes dreadfully depressed.

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and consequently
Sunday is a real holiday for the unfortunate rabbits, who have led
a miserable sort of hunted-down, in-and-out-of-a-hole existence
since Jim's arrival. The rabbits, for six days in the week, are
perpetually playing a game of hide-and-seek with Jim and his gun,
but on Sunday they appear with quite a festive air in the fields,
sitting on the lawn, coming boldly up to the garden, and defying
Jim, as it were, under his very nose.

Music being prohibited in Scotland on Sunday, Jim, fortunately
imagining that his coach-horn, side-drum, and bugle come under
this denomination, finds his occupation gone'.

Uncle Allison appears in gorgeous apparel for the Kirk. Top
hat, frock-coat, and all ready for Hyde Park in the Season. This is
calculated to produce a fine moral effect on his Nephew, as from
this special costume, combined with a suitable air of sobriety,
lemon-coloured gloves, and an ornamental prayer-book, you may
gather something as to the importance of the " Sawbbath " in Scot-
land.

But all that it elicits from Nephew Jim, on seeing his Uncle thus
arrayed, is, " What a dawg! " which is not quite what was intended.

We are kept alive every day in the week by Nephew Jim, except
Sunday, when his melancholy is something touching to behold.

And the day comes when he has to return to his coach-horn,
Bogardus trap, glass balls, bugle, side-drum, and " the whole bag of
tricks," and we have to leave the land of Burrns, and, as we drive
away from Allison's, where we have spent such a pleasant time, we
take a last fond look at our old friend, Benjamin Lomond, in the
distance, wave our adieux to Btjrrns's Monument, and say farewell
to the genial hospitality of Ayr, hoping to return ere long.

P.S.—I am a little puzzled at the station by the following notice—

" The 9.7 train will leave at 8.55, and be earlier.

" The 8.45 train will leave at 8.48, and be later up to Dumdoddie.

" The 11.50 will not leave before 12."

We choose the last, and come up to Town by one of Burns's
Scotch lines, and, as I finish my holiday, I join most heartily in
Nephew Jim's parting statement, as he waves his hand to me out of
the cab window, "All right up to now! Good-bye ! "

New Recipe for Gooseberry-Fool.—First catch your Fool, and
then give him plenty of cheap Champagne.

A SCRAP FOR THE SEA-SIDE.

The subjoined
very season-
able caution
to bathers forms a
point which, hav-
ing been put forth
by Mr. Punch's
acute contempo-
rary, the Lancet,
Mr. Punch may
advantageously in-
sert :—

" ©nb Cause of
Bathing Acci-
dents.—It is very
generally believed
that the proper way
to bathe is to take a
header into the sea,
or, at least, to im-
merse the whole body
immediately. Theo-
retically this may be
fG^jjW ~^=r -^r—^Z ^-yZ. done so far as the most

vigorous organisms
are concerned, but it
must not be forgotten
that a man may be
perfectly healthy, and

yet not endowed with sufficient latent energy to recover from the ' shock'
which must in all cases be inflicted on the nerve-centres by suddenly plunging
the whole surface of the skin, with its terminal nervous twigs, into a cold
bath. For a time, at least, the central activity must be reduced in force, if
not in form. When, therefore, a man plunges, and immediately after strikes
out to swim, it is not only possible but probable that he may become exhausted,
and fail, from depression of energy, with cramp. It is important that this
should be noticed. We do not think sufficient attention has yet been given
to this cause of ' accident' in bathing."

Look before you leap head-foremost into the water, and see whether
or no it is deep enough to drown you in case you should be seized
with cramp. That is, unless you are quite sure that your own frame
is one of those vigorous organisms which are capable of _ sustaining
the shock of sudden immersion in a cold bath ; an organism such as
that of Captain Webb, or of a Polar Bear. If your organism is an
organism of doubtful vigour, you will perhaps do well never to take
a header at all unless in the presence of associates able to save you
in case you sink, and on no account whatever to attempt sea-bathing
in any society less worshipful than that of Companions of the Bath.

A BISHOP BEFORE THE CURTAIN.
Mr. Punch,

In the generally very proper address delivered the other day
by the Bishop of Manchester to the Social Science Congress, his
Lordship, speaking of public amusements, made the following ob-
servations, in a measure, actually giving Episcopal countenance to
the Stage !—

" In the present state of artistic and literary education, the taste of our
people is so coarse and unrefined, that it is almost impossible to prevent their
amusements from degenerating into vulgarity and indecency. Mrs. Theodoiib
Martin, with that generosity which is characteristic of her, is this very
night performing in the Theatre Royal, as a mark of respect to the memory
of the late Mr. Charles Calvert, who did so much, not in Manchester
only, but in other provincial towns, to uphold the character of the Stage.
I remember well, on one occasion, when I endeavoured to show in public
my approbation of his efforts—for which I am afraid I fell into the black
books of many sincerely good, but gloomy people—that in acknowledging
what I said, he told me what uphill work he found it, and bow constantly
his aims were defeated by the vicious public taste not of the lower class alone
—which preferred what was indelicate, and prurient, and revolting."

If, Mr. Punch, these remarks had fallen from a Layman, I should
have quite approved of them. But as for a Bishop, Society, Sir, has
voted that he ought to know nothing whatsoever about theatres, ex-
cept that, however unobjeotionably managed, they are places not fit
for him, or any other Clergyman to be seen in. Of course, if a
Bishop approves of the Stage, properly conducted, he is capable of
going to see a play; and now that the Bishop of Manchester has ex-
pressed himself as above, the next thing, I suppose, will be that his
Lordship will be seen in a private box at the Lyceum, setting all the
rest of the Bishops and the Clergy at large the example of sitting
and listening to Mr. Irving. I need scarcely say how extremely so
dreadful a defiance of Opinion would shock its acknowledged
Representative Woman, Ever yours, faithfully,

Martiia Grundy.