Punch (53.1867)

September 28, 1867.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

125


CROWN FOR CROWN.

A NURSERY SAW.

ne good turn, they say,
deserves another : so,
let us say, does one had
joke. A joke of that
description, a practical
joke, was played the
other day at Dinan, in
Britanny, by one of our
youth, an Oxford under-
graduate. It was a very
bad joke indeed, but
still it was only a joke.
It broke no bones, was
played upon a statue,
and did not the slight-
est injury even to that
statue—offended senti-
ment merely, and out-
raged taste. On its
«• •&'- — ~ perpetrator, however,

brought before the

Tribunal of Correctional Police, it drew down from the President of that Court
an indignant reprimand of the profoundest gravity, the preface to a sentence
of a fortnight’s imprisonment. Surely the memory of Du Guesclin would
have been sufficiently avenged, the honour of France amply redeemed, and the
public fury of Dinan would possibly have been appeased, if the irreverent but
puerile offender had been visited with a milder penalty, and one at the same time
more suitable to the misdemeanour of subjecting a statue to an ignominious coro-
nation. To have been punished in exact proportion to the enormity of his mis-
conduct, he ought simply to have been served as he served the statue.

{New set 'or Mr. Punch’s Grown Children.)

Let Lowe delight to tackle Bright,

’Tis what he’s born to do :

Let Beales and Potter growl and fight,
For ’tis their nature to.

But saw-grinders, and brickmakers.

Let not your passions rise :

Your Unions were never meant
For blacking knob-sticks’ eyes.

* Still less for “needling,” “rattening,”
And cracking “ blacksheep’s ” skulls,
And flinging powder-cannisters
Into each other’s “ hulls.”

Thus to raise Union arrears,

And enforce Union laws,

Brings penal servitude on you,

And shame upon your cause.

Eating1 and Eating.

Arrangements have been made for a Conservative
Banquet to be given at Edinburgh, in honour of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and in celebration of the
passing of the Reform Bill. The partakers of this feast
will enjoy a fare somewhat more substantial than the prin.
ciples and professions which their leaders have just eaten.

A DAWDLE AT DIEPPE.

Dear Punch,

“ Did you ever send your wife to Camberwell,” or any other
quiet suburb, to visit her Mamma, and then selfishly yourself siope
off and spend a week at a French watering-place ? Don’t say I recom-
mended you to such a brutal act, but, if you feel tempted next season
to commit it. let me hint that, at Dieppe a man may spend a week
without much being bored by it.

There are few sights to be seen, which I think is a great comfort;
for I rather admire the tourist who stayed a month in Egypt without
seeing the Pyramids. Indeed, except to bathe and breakfast, to
dawdle and to dine, to dance and go to bed, and next day to get up
again, there is nothing to be done that can be viewed as worth the
doing. But Dieppe is for a dawdler a pleasurable place. Unlike most
English sea-sides, it gives you a breeze blowing almost daily from the
sea, with a larger share of sunshine than is common on our coasts.
When you are tired of basking in it, and of sprawling on the pebbles,
you can lounge along the harbour, and reflect upon your chance of
getting any smelts for dinner. You will see them caught by hundreds
by the fishers, who, like Hindoos, are the devotees of cast-e; but if you
see them at the table d’hote you will be luckier than I was. Then you
may go to a French play, or at least, what is as good as one, may watch
the squabbles of the women who tug vessels into port, or hear the
farces which are played every morning in the fish-market, and laugh to
see the white caps waggle to and fro, while their wearers wave their
hands in horror at the offer they are really glad to grab at. Then you
can saunter up the street, where the bathing-dresses swing, like scare-
crows, overhead ; and you can stand and feast your eyes at the ivory-
shop windows, which, unless you leave your purse at home, are dan-
gerous to stop at. Or you may stroll along the Plage, and see men of
five-and-forty gravely flying kites—for who shall say the French are
frivolous in their sports ?—or you may go to the Casino, and hear a
half-franc concert, which is really not so bad as many a half-guinea one
you have been forced to sit through.

Here, while your ears are charmed with Gounod, Auber and
Mozart, your eyes will be enchanted with fashionable costumes.
High-heeled shoes, short dresses and Chinese-shaped straw hats are
chiefly now conspicuous for their presence at Dieppe, and good taste
and simplicity are conspicuously absent. The costumes are as fanciful
as at a fancy ball, and every lady seems to try to make herself as
hideously vulgar as she can. Like a brute you may feel glad that you
sent your wife to Camberwell, for in that slow-going suburb she will
never learn to imitate the swellesses of France. At the sea-side they
now change their dress at least six times a day, and I should think a
fortnight’s costumes for a fashionable lady would cover half-a-dozen
acres, or be equal, if inflated, to the dome of St. Paul’s.
i There was a steeple-chace one Sunday while I was at Dieppe, and
French ladies went in shoals to it, and English, too, in sprinklings. At
present here in England the only sort of steeple-chace permissible on
Sundays is hunting for a church where one may hear some new pet |

|

parson. But observance of the Sunday is a mere matter of latitude ;
and though many English ladies said they thought it a great shame to
make poor wretched horses race in such hot sunshine, there were none
who looked ashamed to see them made to do so. I noticed that the
French folk cared but little for the sport, and I fancy the few betting-
men who bawled out, “ Jer pane’’ did not pocket many winnings by
leaving their backslums in Birmingham or Brighton.

Besides dawdling, Dieppe is a good place, too, for dancing. After
doing nothing busily for half-a-dozen hours, it refreshes one to go and
do a little at a dancing place ; and as this exercise has not yet lost it s
fascination for my legs, I often went to have five-pennyworth of waltz-
ing. Lest my wife should hear of this, I had better say, perhaps, that
a live princess was present at this half-franc hop, and that I plunged
through my first polka with the daughter of a parson. Conceive the
horror of a Clapbamite at hearing that a clergyman had been seen at a
Casino, and, moreover, even was attended by his wife and family! The
sight is frequent at Dieppe, and it pleased me much to see it. A
clergyman does good by “ assisting,” as the French say, at all harm-
less recreations, and excepting for the fact that it makes you very hoi,
the dancing at Dieppe is certainly quite harmless.

French boys like a dance as much as English mostly hate it; and a
French girl at eleven is most thoroughly mature in all the manners of
the ball-room. So a bal d’enfants is held each Tuesday afternoon, and
it entertained me hugely to watch their small flirtations. Tastes
nationally differ, and I had rather see my children dirty and digging
on the beach, than decked out in their finery and dancing in broad
daylight. A children’s ball is doubtless a vastly pretty sight, but I
think that bat-and-ball is a far preferable pastime for them.

Having expended a good deal in the course of my short absence
from you,* I shall be very glad indeed to see your handwriting
again—at the bottom of a cheque. Meanwhile, receive the most
distinguished assurance of my welfare, and believe me. Your (in guide-
books) extremely well READ Rover.

* As a rule Dieppe hotels are not remarkable for cleanliness, but they contrive
to clean you out in a manner quite remarkable. At the Hdtel de la Charge, as my
friend Funniman re-christened it, we had to pay four francs for five-and-twenty
biggish shrimps ; and at the Grand Otel day Bang, as I heard some Cockneys call
it, the charge which was imposed (in every meaning of that word) tor supplying us
with “ lumtire” you will not think a light one—the price for haif-a-dozen candles
being four-and-thirty francs.

The Broad Anglican Rule.

(Settled by the great English Pope.)

“ On Sundays preach and eat his fill.
And fast on Fridays—if he will.”

A Gravamen.—The Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop op
i Natal (according to the Denisonian view.) His Grace and His Dis-Grace.