Punch: Punch (89.1885)

September 12, 1885.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

123

"DOLLY" CHURCHILL AT SHEFFIELD, LECTURING BEFORE A VERY SHARP AUDIENCE.

Fountain Court.—Here, perhaps, will be found in perfection the
"improver's" work. Only a little while ago there used to rise
beneath, a canopy of trees a single jet of water, whose plash was
music to the ears of Dickens and Thackeray, and pleased hundreds
and thousands of their readers. The Benchers could not leave the
little fountain alone. They had spoilt many a picturesque spot,
and many a memory-hallowed corner, so why should they not
destroy the prettiest sight within a mile of Bow Bells ? So they
deliberately set to work to ruin the fountain. They built over the
pretty little jet of water a hideous affair of rock and stone, with
three melancholy Btorks standing back to back, and bowing down
their heads (very properly) in bitter shame. Having done this, and
Bet the jet, now converted into a squirt, a-playing, they enclosed the
whole in a square of about a dozen feet, composed of four beds of
invalid evergreens, and a stone path nine inches broad. Feeling that
some lunatic (only a lunatio could want to make such a promenade)
might wish to walk in this dreary wilderness, they next closed the
four entrances with wire network to keep him out. But somehow
the squirt was a failure, and wouldn't play, and two of the storks
(no doubt out of compliment to the Benchers) lost their heads. Thus

more "improvement" was needed. So the last addition to the
hideous dripping pile is the most extraordinary "arrangement in
metal" that ever yet was seen. The Benchers have hammered on to the
top of the fountain, close to the mutilated storks, a "something"
that looks like a mixture of a very vulgar nob of a brass bed-post,
the nozzle of a fireman's hose, and the cross on the top of St. Paul's !

Finis.—After looking at " the fountain," you will have had enough
of the Benchers and all their "works ! "

"Wild Spoets neak the Hoese-Guaeds.—Latest Paeticttlaes.
—Our " Tourist in Town " conjectured last week that the tiger, said
to have been left in the enclosure of St. James's Park, was kept for
the hunting of the Royal Ranger, whom he presumed to be H.R.H.
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Our Contributor was half
right in his supposition. There is a Royal Ranger of the St. James's
Park, and he does hunt. But the Duke of Cahbeidge, and not
Prince Christian, is the Ranger, and the sport is not driving from
their jungles the wildest of tigers, but chivying from their milk-stalls
a lot of poor old women!