Punch (65.1873)

172

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHAPIVARl. November 1, 1873.


FELICITOUS PHRASEOLOGY.

uo\r one whom local
journalism would
call a Good Sama-
ritan, “ P. J. W.,”
otherwise anony-
mous, the Manager
of the Hanover
Square branch of
the London and
County Bank, Mr.
T. W. Walker,
has received “the
handsome dona-
tion of £1000 on
behaLf of the North
London Consump-
tion Hospital.”
Another excellent
citizen of Samaria,
“G. H. G.;” has
sent a contribution
of the same amount
to the Board of

Management of the East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for
Women, Ratcliff Cross. These bounties are announced by a contemporary in a

paragraph headed “ Munificent Benevolence.” A dis-
tinctive precision in the employment of an epithet is
remarkable in this apt heading. Benevolence is not
necessarily munificent. The veriest pauper may be as
benevolent as Lady Burdett Coutts, but in order to be
munificent, he must have at least a farthing, or some
other thing of some use, advantage, or value, to make a
gift of, and. he must actually give it away. Benevolence
is the will; munificence the deed. Alas, dearly beloved,
how many of us there are who can only beseech appli-
cants for subscriptions of any kind to take the former
for the latter! Whilst benevolence is boundless, munifi-
cence may be nil, and the benevolence which forks out a
thousand pounds to a charitable institution is charac-
terised as munificent with an accuracy unusual in any
but the leading columns of the best edited newspaper.

Singular Feat of Strength.

The other day a Railway Accident evoked this bit of
evidence:—

“ Having put my great-coat inside the carriage, I got upon
the step to go inside myself.”

We have heard people described as being “self-con-
tained,” and this epithet we fancy is the right one to
apply to a person who is able to gh inside himself.

OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS.

(.From Boulogne to Folkestone. By Night.)

I kind that there is only one thing against returning at night,
which is, that there is no Night Passengers’ Boat.

There is a boat at 1 p.m. to London, all the way direct. Sea
passage, about eight hours.

Chinton says, “ It’s a first-rate way of going.”

Barnley admits it, “if,” he adds, “ you ’re not in a hurry.”

“ And if,” I say, “ you happen to be a good sailor.”

“ Aren’t you?” asks Chinton.

“ I don’t know,” I reply. “ I don’t know whether I am or not.”

This indecision is the result of years’ experience. I consider it
safer to give myself out publicly as a bad sailor, on the chance of
turning out a remarkably good one, and astonishing everyone on
board ; among others no one more than myself. My sea-sickness,
or, to use a more cheerful phrase, my sea-wellness, depends upon
all sorts of things at different times, and can’t be reduced to a cer-
tainty. I have known myself well and hearty during a seventeen
hours’ voyage, enjoying sleep, enjoying meals, enjoying cigars. or
pipes (this is very rare), and enjoying the vessel’s lurch, delighting
in the waves, revelling in the breezes, and smiling in pity on the
miseries of my fellow-passengers.

I have known myself—but not recognised myself at all as the bold
sailor above described—well, up to a certain point. This “ certain
point” was where somebody said, “Now we’re on the bar.” I
replied faintly, feeling suddenly pale and staggery, “Are we?”
and, in another second, for no sort of reason that I could make out,
except that this confounded man had told me ‘ ‘ we were on the
bar,” I was groaning in agony, with my head in the wrong direction
over the ship’s side.

i I have known myself (again quite as somebody else in no way
related to the foregoing portraits) come on board, feel ill immediately,
long before the vessel was even in motion, foresee a fearful passage,
make all my arrangements, calmly, beforehand, even down to an
anticipatory tip to the steward to look after me as soon as possible,
and be very kind to me in particular, and then, on our leaving the
harbour and being fairly started, all qualms have nearly vanished,
and, finally, I have dropped off into a fitful and unrefreshing slum-
ber, only to be thoroughly aroused by being told, “ Here we are ! ”
and finding myself at my destination without ever having been ill
at all.

I have found that sometimes the place for me was “ below,” on a
couch at once, and stay there. More often that “ below ” wouldn’t
do at all.

Sometimes I have found that reading was an excellent preven-
tive ; at others, that I couldn’t read a line.

The conclusion of this is, without adducing further painful
instances, the Less of the Sea the Better.

The idea of a Tunnel is charming, if quite safe, and carried out
with taste.

Happy Thought.—On the model of the Burlington Arcade. Train
up and down the middle: promenade on both sides with shops. To
make the Tunnel itself quite secure, it should be the central part of
an enormous ,building, a submarine palace, as big as the Royal

Exchange, and the top should be elevated several feet above the
level of the Channel, forming a handsome bridge, across which
pedestrians, who preferred this route, could, in fine weather,'walk,
merely paying at one end, as at Waterloo bridge, for example. I
make a present of this suggestion to the English and French
authorities who have the scheme in hand. I cannot see why this
can’t be done. Why isn’t it feasible ?

Chinton says, “My dear fellow, if you were an engineer, you’d
soon see its utter impracticability.”

But I am not an engineer, anil, if it were left to me, I should
begin it—in my own way, I admit—but at once.

An engineer has his profession to think of, his rules to go by, his
precedents, and so forth. None of these considerations would have
a pin’s weight with me. I have often found that knowing nothing
of gardening, I have made such suggestions to Gardeners as have
perfectly staggered them by their originality, and they have
hastened to adopt them. I recollect one instance about grapes. A
Professional Gardener, very high up in his art, and always on a
ladder nailing something up, insisted that grapes wouldn’t grow
where flowers were.

Happy Thought.—I said “ Try.”

As it was my own garden I did try. The grapes grew beautifully,
so did the flowers. The High-art Gardener shook his head over it,
and said he’d never heard of such a thing before. It upset all his
theories, all his precedents, and from that moment he went in for
eccentric cultivation. He is now perfectly harmless.

“ But what I mean is,” I say to Barkley and Chinton, to whom
I propound my theory, “if the engineers won’t do it, give the job to
some one who will strike out a new line, or at all events give some
one who has got a clear idea on the subj ect, and an interest in it,
the entire direction of the engineers, and let them simply carry out
his design.”

Happy Thought.—Myself. Director of the Submarine Tunnel Co.
Why not ? I can tell a tailor how I want a coat made, a coat which
he had never thought possible before, though I can’t make it myself.
I can tell a builder the kind of house I require, a house which up to
that time he wouldn’t have ventured on building, and he ’ll erect it
under my guidance. There at once is the division of Labour, i. e.,
The Director and the Erector.

This discussion takes us to the Steam Packet Boat Office. . There
is a boat going to-night, but it’s only a merchandise boat; it takes
bales, cargo, and luggage.

“No Passengers? ”

“ 0 yes, if you like to go by it.”

I would like to go by it certainly, as it starts at 10.15 p.m., and
arrives at 12.30 at Folkestone ; and I do not object to being booked
as bales, cargo, or luggage. I will, if necessary, enter myself as
Mr. Bales, or Mr. Portmanteau.

I take my ticket, and descend.

Dodge that—making you take your ticket on shore before you ’ve
seen the boat. It is not inviting. Packages and boxes everywhere.
Sloppy deck : barely room to walk, and almost impossible to avoid
puddles. Below, small, close, and dull. Evidently it is not intended
for passengers, of whom there are about half-a-dozen, and is
intended for bales and boxes, of which there are some hundreds.

Down-stairs, I mean “below,” clearly won’t do for me, or rather