Punch: Punch (60.1871)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

April 22, 1871.

FROM JOAN'S GHOST.

unch, Cher Confrere,—It has
been a sad year for me! With
the Prussians at Vaucouleurs,
the Uhlans making requisitions
in my own Domremy, and the
chassepots of a French garrison
broken and burned by Prince
Frederick Charles's soldiers
at the foot of my statue, in the
Place du Martroy, you may well
imagine I have passed a mauvais
quart d'heure in this other
world of mine.

But, for all that, my motto is
now, as it was of old, " Espe-
rance!" France was as low
when I came to raise her up ;
and I hope she may still have
in her the stuff out of which I
was made, though it may have
to be worked up after another
fashion.

But if I have not been allowed
to appear in France in her year
of humiliation, 1870, I have
appeared, you see, in London.
Your Rosbifs, I am told, have
been treating me in 1871 as you
did in 1431,—burning me alive.
But when your Warwick and
Winchester did it in the old
market-place of Rouen, John
Bull applauded them to the
echo. Now, that your Tom
Taylor and your Queen's
Councillors burn me, I learn, if I may believe your Daily Telegraph,
that John Bull hisses, and will not have it. It is true that, on
making inquiries of some of ray good-natured friends who attended
the ceremony on Easter Monday, and since—for you know one always
has some good-natured friends who can make a pleasure of one's
roasting—I cannot learn that John Bull did or does hiss, audibly,
on the occasion, or if he did or does, I am assured that the hiss was
and is drowned in applause, and that my burning seemed, on the
whole, as might be expected, to give great satisfaction to my
hereditary enemies.

But however this may be, I am anxious to assure you, and my old
and stout enemies, the Rosbifs, through you, that I bear no grudge
to the dramatist, or managers, who have thought proper again to
sentence me to the stake. In fact, I am obliged to them. I am
not ashamed of my martyrdom, but proud of it. The pile was my
stepping-stone to eternal bliss, and undying fame—if I cared for
that. No, my real enemies are those who have questioned if I ever
really was burnt, headed by the impostor who took my name, and
laid claim to my doings some seven years after my death, and I am
ashamed to say took in my king, and even some of my own family,
though she afterwards owned to her imposture, and so set me right
with my time and all time to come. The ill-turn she did me, has
since been renewed by the poets and dramatists, who have thought
fit, among many other gross and offensive liberties, taken with my
career, to end it, otherwise than on the pile, some by marrying me,
and some by killing me in battle. Like France, I owe the bitterest
grudge to Germany.

It is Mr. Schiller who has most cruelly wronged me, not only
by making me fall in love—a thing I never did, I am thankful to
say—and with an Englishman—the last man I should have thought
of falling in love with, had I been capable of such a womanly weak-
ness—but by depriving me of my martyr's crown, and shuffling me
ignominiously out of the world in the muddle of a melee, like a
common sworder!

I feel deeply grateful to my latest dramatist for at least presenting
the leading events of my life as they happened; for not saddling
me with a lover, and not sparing me the stake.

Your Daily Telegraph is a great Philistine, and may be expected
to take a Philistine's view of the matter. But in Mr. John Bull,
for all his Warwicks, his Winchesters, and in spite of the hard
treatment your Shakspeare has given me, I always owned a noble
enemy ; and I feel I have no reason to complain of his treatment of
me in this the latest chronicle of the Life and Death of

Yours ever, JoAN op Aec_

PLAY-HOUSE CHABGES.

The Correspondence about the extra charges, or as honest persons
call them, the Extortions at theatres is renewed, and there is a
miserable exposure of official greed. But we are happy to know
that the question is about to be set at rest. A Tariff of Charges has
been agreed upon, and it will shortly be promulgated, that is, hung
up in the entrances and lobbies, and visitors will at all events know
what an evening at the play will cost them. Mr. Punch has been
favoured with an early copy of the tariff, and he subjoins it:—

Booking plnces ........

Play-bill at box-office .......

Envelope for box-ticket ......

Badged Porter who opens Carriage-door at night . .
His fee, if Visitor walks ......

Deposit on leaving Great-coat ... . .

Ditto on leaving Umbrella ......

Deposit by Lady, whatever she leaves . . . .

If she have nothing to leave .....

Box-keeper, for each Visitor . . . . . .

Play-bill from him (each Visitor to take one) each

Book of the Words ........

Fee if Visitor's own Book brought ....

Footstools, each . . . . . . . .

Refreshments as per tariff. But for each visit of woman

to say " any refreshments ? " . . . .
Fee for information as to when the performances will

be over ........

Fee on resuming Great-coat, Cloak, &c. (deposit to be

retained by official) each article . . . .

Fee for walking about Lobby between Acts
Deposit on borrowing Opera-glass .....

Hire of same ........

Fee on returning same .......

For peeping through glass in Box-door
For reading Play-bills on Lobby wall . . . .

A Glass of Water, in box ......

Fee to Attendant bringing it ...
For Visitor's returning to see whether any article has
been left in box .......

Fee on any article so regained
Box of Cigar-lights .....

Badged Porter who calls Carriage .
His fee if he doesn't call it.
His fee for opening Carriage-door .
His fee for shutting Carriage-door
His fee if Visitors' Servant does both
Fee for waiting till Carriage arrives (each Visitor)
For waiting, if no carriage, and because it rains (each

£

6'.

d.

0

2

6

0

1

0

0

0

6

0

0

G

0

0

o
O

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

1

0

0

0

6

0

2

0

0

0

6

0

0

6

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

0

3

0

0

6

1

0

0

0

5

0

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

0

2

0

1

0

0

0

6

0

1

0

0

2

6

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

0

6

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

0

6

0

0

3

0

0

6

There may be a few trilling additions to tins list, but it is correct in
the main, and as soon as it has received the signatures of such
managers as approve the system, it will be hung up, as above said.

N.B. It is wished to meet a generous public in a liberal spirit, and
therefore the fee for reading the above tariff, when stuck up, will be
optional.

LITERATURE.
The Brighton Review. 1871. Grant & Co.

Public opinion on the last Revieiv acknowledges the goodness of
the material, but holds that the new Editors lack the faculty of
arrangement. There is little to be learned from columns of figures
drawn up without a definite purpose. Moreover, the imagination is
too much appealed to throughout. We do not know that there
should be congratulation on the singular absence of horsiness, as
there are times for all things. Still, the Number may be called
satisfactory, though needing many corrections.

A Grind for Examination.

Tutor. In your account of the Fathers of the Church, Sir, you
don't mention Polycarp
Pupil. No, Sir.

Tutor. No, Sir ! Why not, Sir ?

Pupil. Not Father of the Church, Sir, Pollycarp. Mother of the
Church, Sir.

Work and Play.—University athletic sports are said to develope
Pluck. Very likely they do.

"he rldes the whirlwind, not directs the storm.

The head of the Romanist party in the German Parliament is
appropriately named Herr Windhorst. Name and function toge-
ther, we are reminded of the Sternhold and Hopkins's famous

" On the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad."