Punch: Punch (81.1881)

August 20, 1881.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 83

CRUMBS OF COMFORT.

A great many people have
left town, and many more are

Jreparing to take holiday,
n a great majority of cases,
too, arrangements have been
made for repairs, papering
and the like to be executed
during the vacation. How
sweet a thought then for the
holidays is suggested by the
evidence given in a burglary
case the other day. It appears
that the chief accomplice of a
gang of burglars was a car-
penter, whose share of the
swag was earned by the in-
formation he gave as to the
fastenings of the doors and
windows on premises where
he had been employed. " He
also kept a general look-out,"
it was said, " as to where the
valuable property was kept."
We should be curious to know
whether there are many men of
this stamp keeping a " general
look-out" on plate-boxes and
jewel cases, and with an eagle
eye to the spoons. How plea-
sant for Paterfamilias when
taking his ease by the sea to
reflect that the British work-
man at home is picking up
information regarding the
doors and fastenings, and
keeping a " general look-out"
as to the situation of the
strong box! Such a case
ought to make people quite
comfortable when they go
away from home, and leave
the carpenters in possession.

A Shooting-Box.—An In-
fernal Machine !

PUNCH'S FANCY PORTRAITS.-NO. 45.

W-~ _' 'J rA

OTJIDA.

" 0 fie ! 'tis an imweeded garden."—Hamlet, Act I., Scene 2.

POLICEMEN AT PLAY.

Local Hampshire papers
record an event no less aus-
picious for all whom it con-
cerns than a Police Cricket
Match; a game recently played
at the Southampton Cricket
Ground between the members
of the Borough Police force
and those of the Metropolitan
(Portsmouth Dockyard) Police.
This, too, was a return match,
the first having taken place at
Haslar. Not only, therefore,
on one day but on two days,
and that during the present
year, the Portsmouth Dock-
yard Police and the South-
ampton Borough Police have
had sufficient leisure to admit
of eleven of their number on
either side being told off to
exercise their muscular ener-
gies in manly sport. Happy
Dockyard, and happy Bo-
rough, in which the dangerous
classes require so little looking
after that, at least on two
distinct days, there was no
occasion for anybody to cry
"Where are the Police ?r'
and receive for answer, in-
cluding both sides, " Twenty-
two of them gone to play
Cricket! "

A Sally by a Scot. — The
Militia, as well as the Regular
Army, said Lord Morley, in
the House of Lords, will be sub-
ject to summary jurisdiction.
Even, observes Auldjo, during
the Autumn manoeuvres.

The End of the Seas-ox.
-Getting to Calais!

HOW A BREACH OP PROMISE WAS AVERTED.

{A Story with a Moral to it.)

The church was crowded with townsfolk eager to witness the
ceremony. The bride looked sparkling and triumphant. And
Hogsbrizzel, the German animal-painter, who was then engaged on
a series of scriptural frescoes for the ancestral home of Mr. Lewis
Moss, the agreeable money-lender, declared that never until he saw
the Rev. Adolphus Spoonlet's countenance at the altar, had he been
exactly able to do justice to the face of a sheep, at the moment that
that meek animal was being sacrificed. The happy pair departed for
their honeymoon, and the honeymoon was eclipsed by their return
home. With love on neither side, hilarious domestic happiness was
scarcely to be hoped for. The Curate found himself growing
younger, instead of older, every day. Seven-and-twenty when he
married, he was four-and-twenty at the end of the honeymoon.
When he endeavoured to become master in his own house, he sank
back to the age of nineteen. When he would attempt to argue with
his wife, he knew himself to be a schoolboy. Instead of a wife he
had married a step-mother. He was afraid to ask twice for tart,
lest it should look childish, and was more than once discovered by a
churchwarden gazing in at a pastrycook's window. He had been
noticed for playing a neat hand at whist, but he gave up that game.
Not at the request of his wife solely, but because he felt that
he would be more at home with marbles. The Sonatas, which
had been his delight, he now found dry, and he would secretly
whistle " Billy Barlow," and " The Dark Girl I) ressed in Blue,"
melodies which had been popular in his youth. He suffered no more
from his liver, and a weak heart gave him no concern, but he was
nervous by apprehension of the measles, and painfully afraid of the
mumps. The younger he grew, the older became his wife. The loss
of spmsterhood had given her a good ten years increased age, the
fact of her being mistress in somebody else's household another five.
When they entered a friend's drawing-rooms together, the husband
timidly followed behind. At the Rector's Adolphus had nearly

told a new butler to announce them as " Mrs. and Master Spoonley."
She took up fads. At one time it was ferns, which she dried in her
husband's best folios of Divines, at which he felt that he had been
painting the engravings in the choicest gems of his grandfather's
library. Then it was dogs, and when her poodle bit him in the leg,
he was as obsequious to the animal as he would be to a Bishop on
whose toe he had trodden. Then it was photography, and he looked
in the pulpit as if he had just rushed away from St. James's Hall to
do a second "turn," without having the time to get all the black off.
Then it was nerves, and he longed for a quiet pipe in the Powder
Magazine. Then it was neuralgia, and he envied those of his
parishioners who laid in a good headache on Saturday night at the
" Bull and Bottle." Then it was sleeplessness, and he sat up all night,
till he wished he was the parish doctor, administering soporifics.
Then it was a wrong bottle, and then it was a coroner's inquest.

" Of course," said young Flashley, in the billiard-room of the
" Spotted Leopard," " the verdict was accidental death. He didn't
mean to poison her, being a Clergyman, but if it had been one of
us-"

"Wars and rumours of wars,-" said old Brown, thinking that

something biblical was demanded of him for the occasion.

*#****

Canon Spoonley is one of the most deservedly popular men in the
Church. His wife, whom he married for money, is a charming
companion, and a most able helpmate. He has risen high, the atten-
tion of a great personage having been called to him after the delivery
of his touching sermon on the death of his first wife, and gossip
points him out as the next likely Bishop. He is beloved by his
flock, on whom he inculcates the beauties of youthful marriages,
and he is never so severe, so caustic, as when a breach of promise
case comes under his notice.

Toast for Ireland.—" May the Land Bill (when passed) super-
sede the principle of laissez-faire by the rule of fair rent."