Punch (62.1872)

April 13, 1872.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

155

FLOURISH ON THE FRENCH HORN.

During the late siege of
Paris by the victorious Ger-
mans, the inhabitants of
that beleaguered city were
reduced to eat strange iiesh
— the least strange being
that of swans. Forty of
those birds have now been
distributed inpairs amongst
the Tuileries, Pare Mon-

which Paris replaces
France will, at any rate,
not find that all her swans
are geese.

Shoddy and Sand.

From a discussion which
lately occurred at a meet-
ing of the Manchester
Chambers of Commerce, it
appears that the adultera-
tion of American cotton
with sand has come to be
practised extensively. The
authors of this fr.aud deserve being doomed perpetually to fabri-
cate ropes of sand; or, which would answer the same purpose, to
manufacture that material into cotton twist. As duly, with
justice only rather less poetical, they might be sentenced to picking
oakum without end.

EVENINGS FEOM HOME.

[N.B.—Mr. Barlow, for himself and his young friends, takes the
earliest opportunity of contradicting the report that he, attended
by his beloved Pupils, has interviewed either Monseigneur
Claimant, at Antwerp, or the Monster Claimant in Newgate.^

A round of unexampled gaiety in London having somewhat im-
paired the usual excellent health of Master Tommy Mertox, Mr.
Barlow proposed that, as the time had arrived when the Holidays
were fast drawing to a close, he should take his young friends for a
change of air to the South of England. Tommy Meeton now
insisted upon defraying the expenses of the trip, and after Mr.
Barlow had judiciously written for and obtained apartments in the
Abbey Boarding House at Torcombe, the party set out for their des-
tination, their high spirits being somewhat damped by the remem-
brance that in a very few days they would have to return to the
routine of their ordinary studies.

Travelling by the night-train they beguiled the time with con-
versation, which naturally turned upon the diversions of which
they had so largely partaken during their sojourn in the Metropolis.
Mr. Barlow now desired to hear Harry's opinion upon Pantomimes
in general.

" Why, Sir," answered Harry, " I am very little judge of these
matters, but 1 protest that it seems to me that all honest folk can
but be of one mind with regard to this sort of theatrical entertain-
ment."

Tommy. I vow that I have always considered a Pantomime a
vastly comical and diverting performance.

Mr. Barlow. Your sentiments, my dear Tommy, remind me of
the story of Arsaees and the Unnecessary Infant, which, as neither
of you has heard it, I will now proceed to narrate. You must know
then-

Here Harry, with much modesty and compunction, informed
their beloved tutor that he had himself already recounted the tale
to Master Tommy, a statement which his young friend hastened,
with no little warmth, to corroborate.

Harry. As, Master Tommy, you appear to have a somewhat high
opinion of a Pantomime, let me ask you whether you consider it a
benefit for the uneducated to witness a virtuous, or a vicious,
example ?

Tommy. Indeed, it appears to me that to have perpetually before
our eyes such an exhibition of virtue as our revered tutor affords us
is vastly beneficial.

Mr. Barlow. Softly, Tommy, softly. For although your candour
and penetration do you infinite credit, yet I would rather be assured
that this frank and generous acknowledgment were made equally in
the absence, as in the presence, of the person to whom, you would
have us believe, you are so deeply indebted.

Mr. Barlow was then going to descend and enter another carriage,
but Tommy, with many tears and protestations, begged him to
remain and hear Harry's answer to the question which he had put
to him.

Harry. A Pantomime, then, Sir, appears to me to be filled with
little else but cheating, dissimulation, treachery of the grossest kind,
and cruelties of the most revolting and barbarous nature, practised,
I regret to say, upon those whose helpless condition, either by
ceaux, Buttes Chaumont, : reason of their sex or age, demands our utmost consideration and
and other public gardens | most chivalrous protection. The babe is remorselessly torn from
of the French Capital, _ to j its nurse's, or its mother's, arms, to be brutally doubled up, in
replace the swans which i order to accommodate its shape to the capacity of the Clown's
the Parisians _ devoured, j pocket, or it is bandied from one to the other, with less
Swans are _ institutions j care than would be bestowed on uncarting bundles of firewood;

and when outraged justice at length interferes to punish the
evil-doers, it is the innocent baby which serves the Clown as
a most formidable weapon in his effectual resistance to the police ;
and, when it is of no further use, either for defence or offence,
it is callously jerked aside, put into a pieman's can, or hurled
into the midst of some fearful street-fight, where its dismal
fate is sealed, and it is for ever lost to view. And, let me ask you,
did you, my dear Mr. Barlow, or you, my dear Tommy, see one
spectator of this series of inhuman crimes shed so much as a single
tear ; nay, on the contrary, did we not notice how the younger por-
tion of the audience vehemently applauded the while the elder
looked on in smiling satisfaction ? Not to multiply instances which
your own experience would suggest to you, you will remember what
roars of laughter greeted the cold-blooded decapitation of an un-
fortunate policeman, the ghost of whose head subsequently appeared,
horrible to relate, in the large pasty, with which both Clown and
Pantaloon were regaling themselves in their dishonestly-acquired
lodgings ? And therefore, not to detain you further, I could not
help wondering, during the last Pantomime at which we were pre-
sent, that people could throw away so much of their time upon
sights that can do them no good, and take their children and their
relations to learn fraud and insincerity, to behold the utmost
cruelty greeted with shouts of laughter, to see justice held up to
derision, the law triumphantly defied, and meanness, vice, chica-
nery, and trickery most vehemently and heartily applauded.

Mr. Barlow smiled at the honest bluntness of Harry ; and
Tommy, who had already commenced writing the first scene of a
Pantomime, hung his head and appeared not a little mortified.

However, as he could not contradict the charges which Harry had
brought, he thought it prudent to be silent. [Tommy's Pantomime
was founded upon a story of Mr. Barlow's, and was entitled
Harlequin Agesilaus and The Versatile Plumber, or the Convulsive
Fairies of the Silver Spoon and the Cow that Jumped over the
Moon, or the Little Dog of the Ottigamies and the Unaffected Scullion.
He had secretly purposed calling on the Lessee of Drury Lane, or if
no other way were open to him he was going to ask his father, who
was a very wealthy man, either to purchase for him a share in
Drury Lane Theatre, which would entitle him as a renter to compel
the attention of the Lessee, or to take the Opera Comique, for the
ensuing winter, to be opened, under the management of Master
Tommy Merton, with his new and original Pantomime. These
schemes he now determined to drop, having been much moved by
Harry's discourse.]

At Swindon, Mr. Barlow and his young friends refreshed them-
selves with a plentiful supper of buns and as much soup as they
could swallow without scalding their mouths in the few minutes
allotted for this repast.

Before re-entering their compartment, Mr. Barlow, ascertaining
that the Guard had not heard the story of Pharnabazus and the
Modest Buffalo, was forthwith about to recount it to him, when
the signal was given for the train's departure, whereupon Mr. Bar-
low, wishing to exhibit in his own person an example of scrupulous
punctuality, and exact adherence to the Rules, Regulations, and
Bye-Laws of the Company, at once stepped into his carriage, and,
with his usual happy expedition, was very soon fast asleep.

A Contradiction in Terms.

One thing Punch will say of the new Governor-General of the
Canadian Dominion, which all who know the late Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster will echo now, and to which the people he
governs will soon—we have no doubt, say ditto—that the Govern-
ment, having the most important and honourable post in any British
dependency, after the Governor-Generalship of India, to fill up, has
not put a duffer in !