Punch: Punch (70.1876)

A DREAM OF MAGNIFICENT UGLY MEN.

Dear Me. Puxch,

In the admirable novel, Gone Wrong, which is now appearing in your columns, the Hero is described as "a magnificent ugly man,"
a favourite type with certain lady-writers of the period. Being anxious to obtain work as a book-illustrator, I beg to send you a few specimens
of that particular kind of hero ; they are all carefully drawn from Nature, as far as the face is concerned, several of my friends having kindly
volunteered to sit to me with their features flattened against a window-pane, and otherwise distorted. The torsos and legs have been copied
from an anatomical lay-figure, dressed in appropriate costume,—and I owe the hirsute appearance of the neck, hands, &c. (so dear to some lady-
novelists), to a stuffed ape in my possession. I have also conscientiously laboured to imbue their physiognomies with as much vice, selfishness,
and ferocity, as the size of the drawing will admit, and I think you will own they are not the kind of persons to be trifled with.
Trusting that you will accord me the favour of publicity in your widely circulated journal,

P.S.-I enclose my card. 1 remain> y°ur °^dient servant, Stickleback.

THE SONG OP THE NIGHTINGALE.

{A Matter-of-fact Idyll.)

It was a lovely spring day. The sun was shining brightly in a
cloudless sky, and the bushes were green with early leaf-buds. It
was during the recess, and Punch was enjoying his holiday. He
was lying on his back near a silvery stream. In his right hand he
held a tiny cigarette, and in his left he clasped a newspaper. As he
looked up into the cloudless sky, and heard the murmur of the
running brook, he could not help contrasting the pleasant peace of
the country with the reckless riot of the town. And as he pondered,
he heard the sweet voice of the Nightingale.

" Welcome, thrice welcome, charming song-bird! " he whispered.
"You are early this year. You seldom make your appearance
before May. lou are very early."

"Not too early, Mr. Punch," replied a gentle voice. "Now
don't move ! " it continued, as the Sage was about to turn. " You
cannot see me. Enough that you hear my words. Not too early, I
say; for my voice is needed as an advocate for the sick poor—the
sick poor who linger and die in the great city over yonder."

"My dear Madam, I am all attention," Punch answered. "I
call you ' Madam,' because I know I am talking to a lady."

" Yes, you know me, Mr. Punch. Twenty years ago, when they
talked about the Guards' Memorial, you sent in a design of which I
was the central figure."

" I made a mistake just now, Madam. I gave yon a wrong title.
In the hospital at Scutari you were called an angel."

" I am satisfied to call myself a Nurse, and as a Nurse—a Nurse of

large experience—I wish to speak to you, to ask you to add your
efforts to my own in the cause of the suffering poor. Do you know
what illness means when it reaches the homes of the labouring
classes ? "

" Yes. I have read the newspapers."

" Ah, but you must see the misery yourself to understand the full
meaning of the word. When disease enters the poor man's dwelling,
what was once a little better than a hovel becomes a pigstye. And
it is the District Nurse (whose cause I plead) who must lead the van
in the crusade against dirt and fever-nests—the crusade to let light
and air and cleanliness into the worst rooms of the worst places of
sick London. It is she who must show the poor how to make their
rooms clean. She must sweep and dust away, empty and wash out
all the appalling dirt and foulness. She must rub the windows,
sweep the fireplace, carry out and shake the bits of old sacking and
carpet, and lay them down again, fetch fresh water and fill the
kettle, and make the bed. And when she has done all this, her real
work commences as a sick nurse."

" Never-ending, thankless toil," murmured Punch.

" Not so," replied the gentle voice. "It may be never-ending,
for it may begin again and again in new room after new room ; but
it is not thankless. To give the poor a clean home is to bestow as
great a benefit as can be conferred upon them. This is the way to
depauperise them. When a poor woman's house is once clean, it is
her pride to keep it clean. She has been taught by the District
Nurse what to do, and the lesson is not thrown away upon her. In j
one case, where a Nurse had tidied up one of the most loathsome dens
imaginable, on the day following the cleansing, the eldest girl, a !
child of eight, scoured the place, and was found perched on a three-