Punch: Punch (60.1871)

March 18, 1871.1

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

107

Isn't it a stock thing to say that Jtjbal, or Handel, or somebody
fainted away with ecstasy when he first heard these Charity Children
sing ? Moreover, Me. Winterbotham requested Mr. Forster not
to oppose the teaching good music, not in fact to go.down to pos-
terity as an Uncouth Barbarian. Mr. Forster asserted that he was
nothing of the kind, and Punch really thinks that Mr. Fobstee
is neither uncouth nor barbarous. It will be thought that the
debate (which ended in the utter overthrow of an attempt to spoil
the new system) if not venomous, elicited—well—some little
Personality.

THE BLESSINGS OE PEACE.

(As described in a Letter from a fashionable Young Lady.)

Dear Mr. Punch,

0, I am so glad the dreadful War is over! Those poor
French! my heart bleeds for them! I declare for the last six-
months I have been made miserable by thinking of their misery,
and fancying what ever should we do without them, if they were
aneantis, as some of them predicted. Why, I haven't seen a_ pretty
bonnet all the winter ; and only think what frights our milliners
would make of us, if there were no Paris to instruct them in the
fashions! Luckily for me, I had some patterns sent me by balloon
at the beginning of the siege, and so I've managed pretty well by
making my own dresses. But all the girls I know have been looking
perfect guys ever since September. And there r-eally is no knowing
what dreadful things might possibly have happened in society, if
peace had not been settled. It was, of course, entirely owing to the
War that those hideous long coats were invented for you gentlemen,
for no doubt you thought it didn't matter how you dressed, while
everyone was thinking too much of the War to notice you. And
see what frightful changes in costume these long coats might have
led to !—

'' These garments are perhaps more comfortable than picturesque; but they
are interesting to behold, inasmuch as they are a symptom of courage in
respect of dress which leads to the hope that a mighty revolution is at hand
productive of convenience to all mankind. A man who is brave enough to
walk down Kegent Street enveloped in a wrapper so long, so ample, that spec-
tators are obliged to trust to his honour that he has any clothes beneath it,
surely would not be afraid to discard the uncomfortable hat which has so long
interfered with human happiness, and wear in its stead a wideawake or
' billycock.' "

Already shooting-coats and hobnail boots are not uncommon in a
drawing-room * and had the War gone on, I dare say wideawakes
would have been worn in Rotten Row, and horrid Berlin woollen
gloves instead of nice French kid! Nor would it have contented
you to look hideous by daylight, but dreadful novelties are darkly
here in print foreshadowed for London after dark :—

"A great revoluti< i is urgently required in what is called ' evening dress'
for both men and wtmen. Some costume, perhaps, will one day be discovered
enabling the wearer to be independent of cabs and carriages. Society will
really never be comfortable until people can walk to it."

Only see what a misfortune it must be to a fashionable mind to be
cut off from all fashionable intercourse with Paris! Who would
ever dream of "walking to society," or of feeling oneself "com-
fortable," in a fifty guinea evening dress of M. Worth's invention ?
Yet this is what this scribbling revolutionist desires for us :—

''Ladies ought to be able to walk to their balls and parties through orderly
streets, clothed in long wrappers something like those which have covered the
divine form of man this winter, wearing overshoes, and, if need be, carrying
umbrellas over their heads."

Imagine me in a long wrapper, looking something like a dressing-
gown, trudging through the slushy streets at twelve o'clock at
night, with those nasty-smelling, sticky goloshes on my feet, and a
great big cotton umbrella overhead ! For economy, of course, would
make me always take a cotton umbrella to a party, to say nothing
of the chance there would be of one's losing it ii it were a silk
one. Fancy, too, the footman coming up to one, and saying,
" Miss, your gingbam 's at the door! " or announcing on the stair-
case that "Lady SWellington's goloshes and wrapper stop the

Avay! " Fancy, too-but I forbear! The picture* is too terrible !

Only some one of your clever artists ought to do it, just to show
what horrors there might happen in the fashionable world if Eng-
land were debarred from copying French fashions, and adopted
what some Englishmen would call reforms in dress.

Meanwhile, believe me your most constant reader and admirer,

Lavender House, Sarah Selena Sophonisba Smith.

Tuesday.

"The Joint High Commission."

A tjseetjx body would be the "High Joint Commission," whose
duty it shoidd be to visit cheap eating-houses during the season,
and if Joints were High, to condemn them.

WHAT MASTER M'GRATH SAID TO THE QUEEN.

had the honour of being presented to Her Majesty at Windsor.—Court Journal.

Ah thin, when was hound, anny time, anny where,

Be he hound that bunts foxes, or hound that hunts hare,

Be he Saxon, Gael, Cymru, or Irish, like me,

That was asked a Queen's guest in her palace to be ?

Had his mate wid Her Majesty—divil a less!

And was kissed by Louise, my own darlin' Princess !

Sure a Knight of the Garther, or Knight of the Bath,

Is the next thing that's in it for Masther M1, Grath !

I've heerd say that Cats may look Oueens in the face ;
Thin why wouldn't hounds of the raal ould race ?
Sure it's our breed that coorsed for King Brian Boroo,
King Cormac, King Deemot, and King Phill-a-loo,
In the days the Milasian blood had the land,
Whin a boy kept his head wid the strinth of his hand,
And the King and his men took what came in their path,
As if subjects was hares, the King Masther Ml Grath.

But now times is changed, and some say for the worse,
And they, tell you Ould Ireland's been crassed wid a curse.
But to spake wid a Queen av' a hound might make bould,
I'd say, " Don't you lave poor Pat out in the could :
Niver mind all thim editors' bunkum and brags,
Nor thim Fenian sunbursts, green ribbons, and flags;
You've froth widout fury, and wind widout wrath,
There's a dale such in Ireland—trust Masther Mi Grath.

" You b'lieve one knows the place, from Lough Foyle to Cape Clear,

Let the Queen on the Green Isle look in once a-year;

On the Hath Riogh* at Tara the palace restore,

And in Erin sit crowned, Erin's monarch once more—

Let Saxon and Gael of their loyalty crow,

But warmer than theirs Erin's warm heart would glow,

And like mists in the sun would melt hatred and wrath,

In the light of your presence—trust Masther M1, Grath.

" In Westmeath there's Ribbon-men, Fenians in Cark,

Tipperary improvers are best home by dark :

There's blackguards who '11 pay what they've not pluck to do,

Who murder and thraison by proxy purshue ;

But now we have justice in Church and in Land,

On thim spalpeens let Law lay the weight of her hand :

Once show them her swoord is no dagger of lath,

They '11 not play with that edge-tool—trust Masther Ml Grath.

'' They may vow that the Saxon they '11 push from his shtool,

Talk of Ireland for Irish and National Rule.

There's an ould savin'., ' Every dog has his day'—

And here's one Irish dog's gettin' his, any way—

But I doubt if the day of tbe Saxon's gone by,

While Irishmen think ' Dish needn't apply.'

Let but Ireland once put her bright brains to her task,

And soon of the Saxon no favours she'd ask.

David wasn't so strong as Goliath of Gath—

Pluck, and wits—that ;s the chat!—so says Masther Ml Grath.'"

* The "Fort Eoyal," or inclosure within which rose the palace of the
Kings of Leinster, on the Hill of Tara.