Punch (80.1881)

130

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 19, 1881.

"DUCKS" AT DURHAM.

Cambridge is going to admit
Ladies to the Tripos Examina-
tions, and Oxford will one day-
have to imitate the liberality of
the sister University by the side
of the sluggish Cam. But more
startling news comes from the
North. Cambridge is not going
to grant degrees, so that the
"Sweet Girl Graduate" would
be an unrealised dream, were it
not that Durham has come to the
rescue. The little University
nestling under the shadow of that
great Cathedral of St. Cuthbert
which looks so majestically down
upon the Wear, is chivalrously
coming forward to allow the
young lady of the day to write
the magic letters " B.A." after
her name, and in due time, we
suppose, to proceed to a Master's
degree. An application has been
made to the Senate of Durham
University to allow women to
compete for entrance Scholarships
and to take a degree in Arts. If
this is carried out, and it is said
that there is every chance of it,
we shall see a reform indeed.
Saint Cuthbert's rest will be dis-
turbed by the silvery laughter of
lady Undergraduates, and the
ghost of the venerable Bede will
be on the look-out to prevent
flirtations between the fair scho-
lars and their masculine competi-
tors. And when the Ladies go to
Durham, won't there be a large
increase in the number of male
Undergraduates? Fortunate
Tutors ! Lucky Dons ! Happy
Durham !

oxford aesthetes.

Undergraduates going in for
the Peacock's Feathers must re-
collect the fate of the Daw in the
fable. He was plucked.

PUNCH'S FANCY PORTRAITS.-No. 23.

THE GO-TO-BED QUESTION.

It is a great relief to Londoners
to hear that the new Licensing
Bill, said to be cut and dried in a
pigeon-hole of the Home Office,
is officially stated to be a rumour
"without foundation." A new
Licensing Bill that would ho-
nestly grapple with a great social
question, that would destroy the
worship of the Sacred Jackass at
Clerkenwell, and take the regula-
tion of public amusements out of
the hands of a mob of reactionary
Nincomformists, would do some-
thing for the most Dismal City in
the world. Such a Bill, however,
was never stated to have been in
existence. Our governors were
said to be contemplating another
curtailment of personal liberty
under which no London tavern
was to be kept open after eleven
o'clock at night. A return to
the curfew-bell system would, no
doubt, be agreeable to certain
Nincomformist fanatics, but the
country, we hope, is hardly in
the humour for more Puritanical
restriction. The Liberal Party
will probably find out, one of
these days, that the Nincomform-
ist party are not their best allies,
andthat people want to do some-
thing more than pay taxes and go
to bed.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S., L.S.D.,

Professor of Natural History, Naturalist, Inspector of

Fisheries, etc.

" There is more in heaven and earth, 0 ratio, than is dreamt of in
your philosophy "-(so perhaps he '11 find it in the rivers).

A Return much Needed.

The Postage-Stamp Savings'
Bank scheme of Mr. Fawcett is
an acknowledged success, and a
vast amount of money—the result
of smaR thrift—has been depo-
sited with the Government. We
question whether any of this
money has been deposited by the
Post-Office servants, and espe-
cially by the telegraph clerks.
Perhaps some Hon. Member will
ask the question ?

THE KAISERINN WITH THE CHESHIRE CAT

HOUNDS.

(By the Veteran.)

It has been hard work, Sir, recently for the Old Man, keeping up
with Her Imperial and Royal Majesty, Elizabeth Amalie Eugenie,
Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, over the whole county
of Cheshire, to say nothing of the Dukeries, the Weald of Kent, the
Lake Country—(ah! what a splendid run that was over Scarsdale
FeR, and Rydal Mount, till Master Reynard craftRy took water, and
swimming right across Windermere, left us aR, including myself
and the Empress, like Lord Ilelvellyn in the ballad; lament-
ing)—Dartmoor, Cannock Chase, and the YaRey of White Horse.
The Yeteran and the Kaiserinn (strange that the names of both
should so nearly rhyme !) have been aR but ubiquitous. But they
are both game, Sir ; and to be " gamy" is to attain the height of
success, as my good friend, the Cellar vinarice curatoris vicarius (fine
old monastic term*) says (downstairs) at Combermere Abbey. Ah!
I remember the heroic old Field-Marshal weR! How he '' Cottoned''
to me ! " Yeteran," he said to me one night after dinner, " pass the
Chateau-Lafitte. 1 never spare my Chateau-Lafitte." " You spared
it, my Lord Field-Marshal," I answered, with a low bow, "in 1814
when you marched through the Bordeaux country with your divi-
sion of Peninsular heroes." Aha ! I had him there ! Fine old
Chateau-Lafitte! Fine old Field-Marshal Lord Combermere ! Fine
old times ! Fine old Yeteran !

But touching seR' and the Empress. I and her Majesty have
scarcely been out of the pigskin during the last month. I cannot
answer for the Kaiserinn; but the Nestor of the Chase has frequently

* For an under-butler ?

gone to bed in his boots lately. So well known is my hunting cos-
tume in the Cheshire Cat county that they caR me "The Globe,"
because I'm " the Pink'un." Ha ! Ha ! Not so good, though, as
that joke of mine about the Chateau-Lafitte. The young 'uns are not
in it, Sir,—not in it.

Nothing more thoroughly superb and bang-up, and highgeewoa-
rollicking, than the run which the Evergreen, the Empress, and one
of the finest shuffled, most carefully cut, and most neatly spotted
packs in England (I need scarcely say that I aRude to the Cheshire
Cat Hounds, of which my old and highly respected friend, Sir Hila-
rious Gratmalkin, Bart., is Master) had last Tuesday. The run
itseR was of the cheeriest I have ever known ; and we woke up the
saltpits, I can teR you, considerably. I headed the first fox for at
least four miles. I could hear the din of the couteaux de chassex
the hoarse shouts of the Empress's Pandour, Magyar, and Tsigani
grooms, the language, (unfit for publication) of the fox, the yelping
of thepack, and a passing remark (in the prettiest platt Deutsch)
from Her Majesty. " I compare the Yeteran and his grey horse,"
she said to Count Braddlescroggsheim O'Shindy (he is a descendant
of ancient Irish Kings), "to the moon ; the longer and faster I ride,
no nearer can I get to either." I heard another voice (surely it was
not that of the M.F.H.) roaring, "Will nobody give that dash TaRor
who has ridden over the hounds, a dashed good double-thonging, and
run him out of the dashed field." Whom could Sir Hilarious have
meant ? I saw no TaRor in the field. Her Majesty's graceful com-
pliment touched me, I need scarcely say, to the double quick. Yes:
my mount was indeed a spick-and-span, out-and-out, nobby and
Corinthian one : none other, indeed, than Buster by Bunkum out of
Bogus, and a lineal descendant of the Bate Coffee Arabian, the
Polish Barb, the Unspeakable Turk, and the Teetotal Mare. Such
a magnificent "prad. Head like a violonceRo-case. Beef to the
heels, like a MuRingar heifer. Crest aR covered with mottoes.