Punch (54.1868)

200

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 9, 1868.

sinia ? ” I wouldn’t let him laugh it off or treat it as a joke, “ Where
is Abyssinia ? ” 1 repeated sternly.

It was no good for him to say, “ Oh, you know,” jocosely. I was not
to be trifled with. Besides, I saw I was doing a good work, and
awakening the others to a sense of the nonsense they’d been talking,
so I pushed into the enemy’s country, crying no quarter, no parley,
“ Where is Abyssinia ? ”

If the carpet pattern could have opened and swallowed him up
(into the dining-room) he would have been thankful.

“ Well,” says he, rubbing his knees, “Abyssinia is—I can’t exactly
give you the latitude and longitude”—the humbug—I wouldn’t hear
of the latitude or longitude—where, I demanded was Abyssinia ?

The wretched impostor, who had sneered at our explorers and
learned travellers, hesitated, and then looking me full in the face, said
boldly, “ Africa.” I saw that even this was information for some of them.

“ North or south ? ” I asked, scarcely giving him time to breathe.

“ About the middle,” he replied, cautiously; “ perhaps a little more
south than north, if anything.”

He was uncomfortable : but I knew he would go home and consult,
his map : so I left him (he sneaked off when my back was turned), and
confronted the lady who had praised the Continental armies at our
expense.

“ What,” I asked, “did she see to prefer in their systems ?”

She murmured faintly, “ Vivandibres ! ” and looked so imploringly
at me that 1 hadn’t the heart to push the question further.

The rest were scattered, and at my mercy completely.

Sir, I hear a great deal of nonsense talked about many things, but about
none, at present, more than about our Abyssinian Difficulty. When,,
therefore, in future, the subject is started, a few home questions will
soon show who among the party are competent to talk upon it; and
if, after a few geographical inquiries, you ask the object of our Expe-
dition, you may be pretty sure that the respondent is not well posi.ed
up in the facts of the case if he replies, “ Well, I suppose that Old
Theodore locked Rassam up,—Rassam, don’t you know, the Shoho
Chief, and sent a letter to the Queen, which was replied to by Lord-
John Russell—the celebrated Durham Letter, don’t you know?—
and then Cameron, who was the Consul, went into the interior and
interfered, so he was imprisoned and beheaded;—no, he’s not be-
headed yet, and they’re advancing on Malaga, or some such place,
with one cannon; and Old Theodore is very fond of music, they say,
and not such a bad fellow, after all.”

In such a case remorselessly expose the conversational impostor,
and do Society a service.

Don Quickset.

ACROBATS IN PETTICOATS.

A GENUS “ NOT FOR JOSEPH.”

hough Mr. Punch is a Hercules
himself, he is fond of seeing the
performance of feats of strength by
others; and he has specially been
pleased by the Japanese performers,
who astonish weak minds nightly
at the Lyceum Theatre. Mr. Punch
dislikes all acrobats who aim to make
his flesh creep, or his hair to stand
on end, by the peril they are placed
in. These Japanese, however, only
make him stare and clap his hands
with admiration. All they do is done
with such apparent ease that there
never seems a chance of any accident
occurring. They fan themselves so
catmly in the middle of their feats,
that nothing they can do seems dif-
ficult or dangerous. No accountant
can be cleverer at balancing than
they : and in their feats of ledger-
de-main they would beat the best of
book-keepers. Climbing up a bam-
boo, and squatting cross-legged at
the top, appears as natural to them
as it would be to a monkey. To lie
flat on one’s back, and balance boys
and tubs and ladders on one’s feet,
seems as easy to these men as swim-
ming to a cod-fish.

Acrobats in petticoats have been
popular of late, and Mr. Punch by
no means admires their popularity.
It is bad taste in a woman to per-
form on the trapeze, and tumble,
and throw summersaults ; and it is
worse taste in the public to applaud
her exhibition. These Japanese,
however, are men who wear a petti-
coat as Scotchmen wear a kilt, and their novelty of costume adds a
charm to their performance.

Their children, too, look plump and pleasant, and not stunted and
deformed, like those who move our pity in our pantomimes and circuses.
One little chap climbs up a ladder, balanced by his father on the soles
of his feet, and then creeps along another at right angles to the first,
without a quiver in the balance. Another little fellow sits upon a tub
that is hoisted in the air upon half a score of others, all of which are
kicked away by the feet whereon they rest, which catch the lad as
deftly as players catch a cricket-ball. Both these little fellows seem
so perfectly at ease that nobody feels nervous at seeing their perform-
ance. Indeed the only fear that Mr. Punch experienced was the dread
lest Master Punch, who happened to be present, might be tempted to
perform some Japanese feats in his nursery, such as balancing the
baby on the spike of an umbrella, or spinning a big humming-top on
the edge of the best carving-knife, or breaking Mrs. Punch's most
valuable fan while attempting to perform the feat of flying paper
butterflies.

Question.—Can a Process Server legally be said to be a Writualist ?

In dancing-schools and music ’alls I’m runnin’ my career ;

Object to cultivate my mind : find study too severe.

But, mind yer, I’m well up to snuff ; what’s what I ravther know
But nothin’ ’eavy I can’t stand; that ’ere won’t do for Joe.

Chorus. Oh, dear ! no; not for Joe, not if he knows it—not for
Joseph.

Oh, dear ! no ; nothin’ slow—not for Joseph, oh, dear ! no.

The other night I met a pal ; he says to me, I say,

Old feller, come along with me : I’m goin’ to the play.

I’m goin’ to see ’Anilet done to-night at Drury Lane :

A play of Shakspeare’s—So-and-So performs the Royal Dane.

Spoken.—“ No, you don’t, my dear feller; you may go yourself, if
you like, and sit two hours listenin’ to sleepy old Sha.kspea.re, but you
don’t get Joseph—

Oh, dear ! no, &c.

Not long ago another pal whose taste ain’t yours nor mine,

Wot likes Mozart and ’Andel, and their music calls divine.

He offered me a ticket, which ’ad cost no end of tin.

To ’ear a horatorio and let me gratis in.

Spoken.—Hexeter ’All and Sims Reeves, Har ! That’s your stvle of
entertainment. Give me the Metropolitan Music ’All and Jolly Nash.
Thanks for kind intentions, but—

Oh, dear ! no, &c.

Just now in town there’s made a fuss about the pictures grand,
That’s open in Trafalgar Square ; things I don’t understand.

In sportin’ prints about my room my sense of Hart appears,

And funny-coloured photographs, and cartes of pretty dears.

Spoken.—What a splendid painter Turner was! What a wonder-
ful hartist is Millais ! Ah, yes, ’Igh Hart may be all very well for
them that likes that sort of thing; but as for this individual—

Oh, dear! no, &c.

And now, perhaps, you’ll wonder ’ow I manage to get through
The livelong day on Sundays ; what a cove can find to do.

A muff once to the Habbey recommended me to go.

And hear Dean Stanley preach. Says I, “ Don’t try that on with-
Joe.”

Oh, dear ! no, &c.

A Dish for an Ogre.

In the menu of a Court Banquet, given in the Galerie de Plane, on
the occasion of the marriage of Prince Humbert with the Princess-
Margaret, one of the items is that of "diets d'innocents a la Princesse-
MargueriteP

What can filets d’innocents be? The nearest things that we can
fancy, even for the banquets of people who were once believed to eat
frogs, and actually do eat horse, are slices of sucking-pig.

nay, a peer he should be.

Sir Robert Napier has been gazetted a G.C.B. Is this to be all ?
No pension ? No Barony ? Is the Peerage reserved exclusively for
Tory baronets who happen also to be County Members ?