Punch (66.1874)

February 14, 1874.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

68

“IN MEDIO TUTISSIMUS”

Country Practitioner (about to go up to London on Business). “ I shan't be more
than Ten Days at the furthest, Mr. F aw ceps. You’ll visit the Patients

REGULARLY, AND TAKE CARE THAT NONE OF ’EM SLIP THROUGH YOUR FINGERS—

or get Well—during my Absence ! ! ”

WHAT IT MEANS, AND WHAT IT DOESN’T

(To W. JE. Cr., exeunti.)

“ How’s this ? All through our innings
We ’ve played our very best :

Won games, and scored our winnings,

Made runs, and ta’en no rest:

Our batting and our howling—

Over or under-hand —

Since the ball we set rolling,

Where 's the eleven could stand?

“Yet what's this strikes the hearing
With no uncertain sound ?

Quite the reverse of cheering,

From all about the ground ?

‘ Enough of your Eleven,’

It plainly seems to say—

‘ The loaf wants change of leaven ;

Your lot has had its day! ’

“ Fickle and fond beholders !

Whose late applausive shout
Is changed for shrugging shoulders,

And hints, ‘ we ’d best go out,’

We ’ve not changed men or manner;

Then, why your change of tone—

This crowding to the banner
By our opponents shown ? ”

So asks, of the gainsayers,

Who backed him, late, to win,

The Captain of the players,

Who’ve been these live years in.

But could these changed on-lookers
Speak their minds about the play—

Off ’rers of odds or bookers—

Perhaps, through Punch, they’d say—

“ Don’t think we want the game played
As they played it long ago,

What’s now played smartly tame played,
What’s now played fast played slow :
That we’d bring back the old wicket,

Any more than the old beaux—■

A hundred-years-since cricket,

Or a hundred-years-since clothes.

“ But the game we have been watching,

As abroad played all about:

And some foreign tricks are catching,

And, if caught, must be stamped out.
And we doubt if your eleven
On the qui vive would he,

’Gainst the first rise of the leaven
That’s fermenting over sea.

“ We don’t want hounds of order,

Social landmarks, overpast;

We ’d have cads kept to their border,

And cobblers to their last.

Swells and snobs no doubt are brothers,
Both could learn the bat to ply ;

But the one learns, while the others
Have other fish to fry.

“ Then there’s Paddy—that old trouble—
Seeking still what he can get;

Coaxing, carneying, flats to bubble,

Till his whine is changed for threat:
None can say that you’ve not put down
Wrongs he felt when you began ;

Now the time’s come to set foot down,

And we doubt if you ’re the man.

“ From the Russians, and the Yankees,
With their swagger, bounce, and frowns,
Have you earned a brace of thank-yes
By knock-unders, knuckle-downs ?
Captains should not be heady,

Quick to raise, or swell, a squall,

But you have been too ready
To fight shy, and sing small.

“You boast you’ve kept the Club up
At small cost, and all squared,

A trifle made us dub-up,

But all’s not saved that’s spared.

If in small matters meanly
You’ve behaved, as folks complain,
Better lose pence serenely,

Than by cheese-paring gain.

“ The crotchety hobby-rider
You had no great cause to fear,

Till some cute cry-provider
Linked “ our Bibles ” and “ our Beer ”!
Then Chapel was too keen
To deal Mother Chiirch a slap,

And your score had higher been
Had you run with the tap.

“ Then you’ve had the misfortune
In your team to undergo,

Some wlio’d neither keep time nor tune,
Whose each word was a blow :

They got you in hot water,

In scrapes they got themselves;

And those they gave no quarter,

Salute them, on their shelves !

“ This, or something very near it,

Your captaincy has cost:

For yourself—never fear it—

You will win back all you’ve lost.

But Outings, after Innings,

Are good for every side ;

If cricket were all winnings,

Games, not halls, would be shied.

“Captains, perhaps, more lucky,

Have had, ere now, their day,

But never one more plucky,

Or gamer in his play.

They talk about your blunders,—

We own them—so may you ;

But when all’s said, the wonder’s
That they have been so few ! ”