Punch (85.1883)

306 PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 29, 1883.

ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE!

Mamma {a Widow of considerable personal, attractions). “I want to tell you something, Tommy. You saw that Gentleman
TALKING TO GRANDMAMMA IN THE OTHER ROOM. WELL, HE IS GOING TO BE YOUR NEW PAPA. MAMMA ’s GOING TO MARRY HIM !’
Tommy {who recollects something of the life his old Pa,pa, used, to lead). “ D-d-does he know it yet, Mamma * ”

STRANGERS YET.

{A Suggestion for the Season.)

In many a dreary and desolate place has our Annual Guest in his
travellings found him,

In Tartar steppes, and in Lapland wilds, in fenny flats where the
wild-fowl cluster ;

i In snowy wastes where the frozen watch from the “ Crow’s Test”
gloomily gazes round him,

And where on the edge of the Arctic pack the ice-bound wanderers
mutely muster,

But where and when and in what chill clime has he ever chanced on
a scene so cheerless

As this of the opulent City’s slums, from our pallid sun by the
brick-bulks hidden?

A scene to soften the cynic soul, to moisten eyes that are mostly
tearless,

And bring the cry of a bitter shame to laughter-loving red lips
unbidden.

Good Cheer ? Old friend with the jovial front, you may take your
shibboleth old and pleasant

To warm-housed wealth and to humble ease, to labour brisk and to
age lone-stranded;

To prince and pauper, to C'it and clown, to lolling lady and toiling
peasant,

But here are those it is strange to, strange as your bounty royal
and open-handed.

These know you not, oh, snow-lock’d Sire! save jierchance bn
pictures that tell them little,

E’en less than the show of the glittering shops, with their piled
| good fare and their gilt and greenery,

In which they have other part nor lot, of which, they may share
no jot or tittle.

Say, genial Greybeard, what think you of our Loudon waste and
its winter scenery ?

Good cheer? The dwellers in these dim courts are the Troglodytes
of our Civilisation.

Tell them of sunny Italian skies, of Lakeland’s verdure, of Cash-
mere’s roses !

They ’ll understand you as well as when you prattle of Yuletide jolli-
fication.

Among them semi-starvation stalks, around them vice-curst
poverty closes

A cordon stern as the lazar’s ban against the coming of cheer and
gladness, A

Or if there’s aught that shall waken mirth in their palsied souls,
’tis the liquid devil

That draws their lips with resistless lure, and wakes their spirits to
dreadful madness ;

And breaks as with hideous scoriae fire their life’s monotonous low
dead level.

A Slum Child, Father ! What do you think of this childish shape ?
On your rounds this morning

You ’ll meet with many a lad and a lass, their well-known visitor
gleefully greeting,

What of this one though, who knows you not! Is there anything,
think you, of woeful warning

In this poor, pallid and pitiful waif, your jolly old self with
astonishment meeting !

Eh? Must be altered? Why, verilyyes. Punch holds that same
opinion—precisely.

“ Peace and goodwill ” has some meaning still, but here, Father
Christmas, we seem to have missed it.

How to expound it to outcasts like this were good work for the
Season if set about wisely.

Come, carol-invoked “Merry Gentlemen” all! Mr. Punch starts
that work ! Gentles, will you assist it f

Mr. Charley says that when he in future addresses an assemhl y,
it will he in some place where “the people most do conger-regate.”