Punch (72.1877)

34

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

[January 27, 1877.

PERFECTLY UNNECESSARY.

Scene—Anywhere. Any Time.

Old Lady. " Don't deive Fast, Conductor. I'm very Nervous ! " Conductor. " No fear, Md'm ! "

{Old Gentleman, ivho wants to catch a Train, decides to walk!

carpet-dust is destruction. In fact, carpets are almost as bad as
wall-papers, and should be abolished.

Angelina. And I was so proud of my pretty bright Brussels !

Edwin. All wrong! Too bright a great deal. Sky-blue, grass-
green, the ashen grey of morning, the pink and daffodil of eve,
these are the only colours allowable in a healthy house. Carpets
are a malign mistake ; boards and beeswax the things. Gas again !
The Landlord informed us with misplaced—or Mephistophelian—
pride that it was "laid on" to every room in the house; which
means that every room is transformed into a sort of domestic Grotto
del Cane. Gas indeed! Giddiness, nausea, faintness, and cold
clammy perspirations, are its milder effects. Each additional jet
means so much more carbonic oxide and slow asphyxia.

Angelina. But, good gracious, Edwin, what can we do P

Edwin. Get back to candles and lamps, until Science perfects the
electric light. In fine, my dear, as regards atmosphere, tempera-
ture, and light, the three essentials to healthy life, this house is
radically deficient; while as regards its furnishings it is as prepos-
terously and poisonously wrong. Mithridates might have dined
on a toxicologist's drug-chest, but he could never keep his health in
a modern Villa.

Angelina. Oh, destraction! But surely, Edwin, if you knew all
this--■

Edwin. I did not—until this evening. Read this report of
Dr. Richardson's lecture on Health Improvements in Great Cities
—and-

Angelina {much relieved). Oh, Edwin, how could you? What a
scare you have given me, and all for nothing !

Edivin. For nothing ? Rash and ribald woman, are the edicts of
Hygeiopolis nothing ? Dr. Richardson-

Angelina, Oh, bother Dr. Richardson ! A—what do you call it ?
—Utopian, isn't he ?

Edwin. My dear, the Utopias of to-day are the commonplaces of
to-morrow.

Angelina. Oh, I hate such crotchetty alarmists, frightening

people till they dare not eat for fear of poison, or breathe for fear of
pestilence. Health, indeed ! Who's to hope for it, if we must turn
the world upside down, and one's house out of windows, before one
can get at it ?

Edwin (deprecatingly). My dear, there are difficulties, I admit.
Still we should thank Dr. Richardson for pointing out the condi-
tions of perfect health, however slow must be the process of realising
them.

Angelina [confidently). Well, all I know is, I'm not going to let
his whim-whams and whigmaleeries put me out of conceit with my
pretty new house. Why, how would you like to sacrifice all this
bright colour and cosiness for earthenware walls, bees-waxed floors,
and ashen grey rugs ?

Edivin (dubiously). W-e-e-1-

\_Scene closes—as many a domestic colloquy on the same suhject
will close. Nevertheless Dr. Richardson is doubtless on
the right track.

Dirt v. Dirt.

Great Thomas of Chelsea, by Darwinites hurt,

Declares Evolution " The Gospel of Dirt."

Nicknames sting and stick, but they scarcely confute,

Though conferred by a censor of splendid repute.

Truth's proof 'gainst hard names,—has true Thomas to learn it ?

If the New Gospel's false, by hard reason o'erturn it:

Therewith our true Thomas hath dealt many a stinger—

But scorn and invective recoil on the flinger.

Leave the parsons to ply the polemical squirt at it;

Dirt's Gospel it won't kill or cleanse to throw dirt at it.

Motto for a New Journal (from the Welsh, in more senses
than one).—" Truth against the World."