Punch (94.1888)

Jtos 9, 1888.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

273

PRIVATE VIEWS OF ACADEMY PICTURES,

No. 687. Mad. "I'll strike you with a
feather." Fan-cy portrait.

No. 712. Heavy Washing Day. Nos. 226 and 231.

Rahtits {to one another). "Don't be
frightened. It isn't a real Lion, or anything
like it."

No. 413. "Watch Dog with Telescope.

("An artistic joke.") No. 220. Football.

DOMESTIC MELODIES;

Ob, Songs op Sense and Sentiment.
By Sancho Preston Panza.
VI.—On the Eeceipt of a Photograph.
And is my hair as thin as that,

And are my feet so big.
And am I really getting fat,

With eyes like slumbrous pig ?
And does the smile, wherewith I thought

To show the peace within,
Appear with wreathed folly fraught
Like this insensate grin ?

Small wonder when, amid the dance,

I seek the young and fair,
They ask, with soft, confiding glance,

" Oh, would you mind a square ? "
While rage and wounded vanity,

Like mingled powders fizz,
I cry, "Is this dark daub like me?"

And conscience cries, " It is 1"

Ah! like the splash that makes you mad,

And Amaryllis scream,
When in swift launch the careless cad

Goes hurling up the stream,
Or when the cloudland crystals fleck

The air with feathery mazes,
A snowball bursts upon your neck

And makes you jump like blazes,—

Or when the booby-trap is sprung

Above your chamber door,
Or when the chairless weight is flung,

Unchecked, upon the floor,
Or like the street-door's sudden slam,

So is the shock to me,
Contrasting what I really am

With what I hoped to be.

Farewell the dreams of fond romance

Of wedding-bells and dresses,
The dear discomforts of the dance,
The fancied fondness of a glance,

False smiles and doubtful tresses.
Henceforth I spurn the worldling-crew,

Renounce my cousin Mabel,
And yield myself heart-whole unto

The pleasures of the table.

One Degree Better.—" Beg your par-
don— Grant your Grace "—the ten dissen-
tients haven't begged his pardon, but the
Senate has granted his Grace, and Gran-
dolph is to have his honorary D.C.L. at
the same time that it is conferred on
H.R.H. Prince Albert Victor.

MR. PUNCH'S GREAT DERBY CRYPTOGRAM.

Right again I Fr0Tn amongst the thousands of letters Mr. Punch
TiTfll6!;6! ■fr°m those of his readers who have deciphered—and
pronted by—his Great Derby Cryptogram, here is one :—

Dear Mr, Punch,
Chnm„ Grand Old Oracle! I drink your jolly good health in '74

of '°pa^> and I re taken care that you shall have the fullest opportunity
" Tin »• ng tne same splendid tipple. Tour Cryptogramic Derby
Thouaa <Pp °'ear as raud- 1 took ll like SQOt' an-d

am a Twenty

ArstarF inder to-uay in consequence. "First here will, of course, be
eivpi j^P80™' ' says the Tip, the verv first paragraph of Bacon's contribution
it Twname of "the absolute Win ler," as the advertising humbugs have
Words in Pt?raSraPh hath eight sentences. Put the first letter of the first
Kacini?—Sn I6 sentenees together—those first words being, As—Youth—
the „„,„/„?PS?y~How—It—fiEOiOMONTANua's—Eighty —and you have
DonniAtJs he Berby Winner of mi—Ayrshire ! ! ! !!! Wonderful!
^T 8 not in it. Tours, opulently, I. S. Pottem.

of "'tim^f' PoTT™; but that's not all. The Cryptogram is full
as n om beginning to end. Look a little lower down. "Not
scriDt6 I°!f» leth- but as tne Shallow wheeleth," says the mystic
and ™„ t eyes ™ght ready yet." Tat this and that together,

assnr™ a!e tte secon<l in the Derby, " Crowberry » to wit I To make
reverb 1 M1? mre< Mr- P™ch says, still further on, " See me
i In this way. ' yonder real runner evidently iears win-

ning or "realising" colours!'" Read the initials here in reverse
order, and you get a seoond, "Crowberry. And " Crowberry " was
second. And did not those who backed him for a place win or
realise ?

Yet again. Take the latter sentences of the Cryptogram. "The
van cannot be in the rear. Don't I evidently mean another nubi-
bustic secret Zacidly and not darkly to reveal ? " And there you
have " Van Dieman's Land," the third in the Derby I ft.E,F.I ! I
Was ever so complete a " Tip " as this of Mr. Punch's f

Bat even this is not all. The Cryptogram contains—as Donnelly
says Bacon's does—an elaborate arithmetical cypher. Here is a
specimen :—

The (1-7) Derby (3"80) Winner (3108) of (3'9) Eighty-eight
(3-89-90) is (113) A (61) Y (6'8) R (611) S (6'25) H (6 23) I (6'5)
R (6'37) E (6 9).

Like Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Punch means to "withhold the fall
explanation" of this bracketed-dotted-hyphenated-mathematico-
mystic cypher. His readers will, doubtless, prefer to work it out
themselves. He would simply, in conclusion, call their attention to
the significant warning already given in last week's Cryptogram :—
" And mind ye are not put off the scent of the veritable quarry by
obvious herring-trails, diverted from the true track by false clues!'

Hooray!