Punch (70.1876)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [April 22, 1876.

BONNET.

Mr Dearest Punch,

Do pray hold up
to ridicule as severely as
ever you cau the stupid
satirical remarks on a
pretty fashion, which I
copy from a newspaper
that copies them out of
Land and Water—a ?nan,s
paper I never see, where
they appear as an extract
from a letter pretended to
be written by a Lady in
Westmoreland, Jamaica,
"in deprecation of the
cruel fashion of destroying
the humming-bird for the
sake of decorating Ladies'
hats." Speaking of some
flowering trees frequented
by those birds which look
so pretty in the hair, the
writer says:—■

" I see the humming-birds
darting about the branches
like sparks of emerald and
crimson fire; but unfortunately their number is being rapidly reduced by
the womankind of England, who will decorate their silly heads with the
lovely little bodies which ought never to be seen except on the wing."

Oh, as if any Lady would ever think of calling her own sex woman-
hind, and talking about their silly little heads ! Of course these are
the expressions of some horrid man; but what follows is beyond
anything :—

" Unfortunately, too, such is the course of fashion, the Negro women here
are adopting the same mode, and I fear there is not much doubt that the
humming-bird will soon be exterminated. It is, indeed, a shame to destroy
these little beauties in the ruthless manner they are being destroyed at the
present time."

The Negro women, indeed! 'As much as to say of course that our
fashion of trimming our hats with humming-birds is one which
their adopting it proves to be peculiarly adapted to a barbarous and
savage taste, which I call a most shameful sneer and only wonder
the icretch did not accuse us of having adopted the fashion from
them. And, as to ruthless, I should like to know what can be more
so than such nonsense as the above.

If they want to stop the destruction of humming-birds, there are
plenty ready killed and stuffed in that fusty old place the British
Museum, where they are of no use, but only to look at, and a great
many more than enough, and other birds besides, of the most
brilliant colours equally becoming and all well adapted for ornaments
to a head-dress, and do pray dear Punch exert your great influence
with Parliament or whoever it is to order all that are not absolutely
wanted to be disposed of for that purpose, and then as a fashion
soon changes unless when it is found fault with and abused, and
made fun of and caricatured, there would most likely be quite a
sufficient supply of humming-birds and others in use for hat and
head-dress trimmings to last as long as they are wanted and dispense
with the necessity oirgoitiq on killing any more.

Ever yours affectionately and devotedly attached,

Angelina.

P.S.—Better have humming-'bixds than bees in your bonnet.

GONE WRONG!

a new novel. by miss rhody dendron,

Authoress of " Cometh Down like a Shower," "Red in the Nose is She,"
" Good/ Buy Sweet Tart! " "Not Slily, But don't Tell."

Chapter Yll.— What the Author says.

Dusover Beljambe stretched out a strong, gentle arm, and pulled
her tenderly towards him. The moon steals up quietly, inaudibly,
and, looking down with its own sweet, shy, silent, askant yet
benignant gaze on the lovers, dashes some of her night light on his
grand, recumbent form and dark, hairy face, forming a sombre
ground against her pale, smooth one.

Let no one think that I am holding this pair up for imitation.
My opinion is that Dusover is an unmitigated scoundrel, and
Bella, to say the least of it, a Slyboots. I warn my readers against
falling in love with either of them, though I confess I do write this
sort of character con amove, and I admit that it is not a labour of

love for me to be obliged to introduce such a namby-pamby, wishy-
washy milksop—excellent moral character though he be—as the Rev.
Thomas Hassock. If we cannot all be saints, we can all be sinners;
if we cannot all be strong, and, what the world caUs, vicious, let us be
weak, and, what the world calls, virtuous. Am I all my fancy paints
others ? Am I all that the fancy of others paints me ? Do I recom-
mend you all to be Dusover Bel.tamb.es and Bella St. John
Villiarses ? Not I. If I write their characters so well, and
give novel-reading young ladies and gentlemen such graphic and
alluring descriptions of probable, but questionable, situations, as fire
your uninventive imaginations, do I thereby offer them a temptation
to rush off and imitate my heroes and heroines ? If I tell you that
Dusover, in kissing and hugging little Bella, and Bella, in
allowing herself to be kissed and hugged, were utterly and entirely
in the wrong, that such conduct, though represented as irresistibly
nice, was intrinsically naughty, am I not a Great Moral Teacher ?
And are not such great moral teachers always listened to with the
deepest attention ? Am I not, in fact, the great moral benefactor
of the present generation ? Certainly. Then, Liberavi animam
meam, and, on we go again, worse than ever.*

"Perhaps," said DtrsovER, painfully gnawing his heavy black
moustache, and looking up searchingly under her green eyes, "when
I have told you what I have to tell you—the secret of my life—you
will never speak to me again."

She threw her white arms round his neck, and stroked his hairy
face.

" Dusover," she said, steady and distinct, "if I were to have my
head cut off this moment without knowing anything about it, I
would not move for your sake."

He gazed on her with his dark, luminous eyes, that seemed aflame
with demoniac tenderness in their cavernous ghostly depths. Then,
in his deep, bell-like tone he spoke .

" You have noticed my rough-hewn massive features ? '

She had ; she could not deny it, had she indeed wished to do so.
She had scanned his features as often as she had scanned his poetic
spondaean feet, and so she answered, as in a happy, baleful trance,

Yes, my own, old, wicked, darling Dusoyer ! I have! "

He caught her to him, and held her as a strong man on the
edge of a precipice might grip a lamp-post that kept him from
destruction. Craning his long, sinewy neck over her head, he took
one deep, exhausting draught from his great, big, imperial-quarto-
brandy flask.

Then his voice came, sounding unsteady, and thick.

" You have observed my great thick moustache ? "

" Yes," she answered, with wondrous soothingness.

'' You have not forgotten when^you first saw me standing before
the hotel door at Wollum ? "

"Forgotten you ! " she exclaimed. " "Were it as many years, as it
is minutes ago, that I first saw you, I should not have forgotten the
moment when you were in your neat, gentlemanly dress, your
knickerbockers displaying those two full-rounded calves-

Dusover Beljambe stopped her almost savagely.

" Hush! " he said, as his penthouse brows drew together savagely,
and he bit his lips morosely. "Tell me, has any one dared to
breathe a word against me behind my back ? "

"Not a soul," answered Bella, with a pretty, dimpling laugh,
and closing her eyes so as to give Dusover scope to gloat over those
fringed wonders, while she, nervously, intertwined her pale, pink,
warm fingers.

Dusover gave a great sigh of relief.

" You must know all," he said, pulling at his grand quarto-flask,
under his bigj drooping moustache.

" I am not inquisitive," answered Bella, coldly ; " but go ahead,
dear boy, and tell me everything about yourself. t

Their faces are close together, and she can see the wild, honest
anxiety looking through those open windows.

" You have noticed my magnificent, big shoulders ? "

" Yes."

"You have observed my tawny, browruhair, and lion-coloured
beard ?"

"Yes," answered Bella, looking up wistfully into that haughty
face, and those wicked, miserable eyes. "Yes."

" Would you like to see me without these appendages ? "

Bella raised her chestnut-shaped head,'and slightly shrinking, as
if from a great loathing, said brokenly, " Go on. Don't mind me."

He nerved himself to the task, for task it was to him.

* By the Editing Committee. —It is with pleasure that we print the above
brilliant apology by the distinguished Authoress, inserted at our request. We
were quite sure she meant no harm, and we only wanted her to be explicit
upon that point. Our Maiden Aunt wishes to record that, in her opinion, the
apology was not in any way necessary, and is entirely useless. She is in the
minority.—Ed.

+ What the Editor says.—u Dear Madam, do young Ladies talk like this r
' Go ahead,' &c. We can't believe it."—Ed.

What the Authoress says.—"'Mine do. I don't follow a fashion, I lead.
Am I writing this Novel, or are you ? "—K. D.