Punch (72.1877)

240

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[May 26, 1877.

AGAIN !

First Gent. "'Eard about the Sea-Serpent they've caught at Oban?"
Second Ditto. " Sea-Serpent caught in 'Olborn ! 'Must be an 'Oax ! ! "

THE SILVEB (LACE) BO AD TO THE ABMY.

Diary of a Training, by a Sub-Lieutenant of Militia.
First Week.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.—Spent my time in watching the men
exchanging their rags for ill-fitting uniforms, and assisted at a parade in which
the Articles of War were read to apathetic veterans and alarmed recruits.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday.—Grazed upon the men as they sleepily
learned the rudiments of squad drill. On Saturday, kit inspection ; dull work
and not particularly instructive.

Second Week.

3Tonday, Tuesday and Wednesday.—Devoted to musketry, position drill and
target practice. At the first, the men (without targets) were taught to aim,
theoretically, at something in particular. At the last, the men (with targets)
learned, practically, to fire at nothing in particular. The markers at the ranges
slept better than the scorers. General discomfort and discouragement of
everybody concerned.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday.—Wet weather. Three days out of the
twenty-seven spent in doing nothing.

Third Week.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday'.—The men for the first time took part
in battalion movements. Acted in a very subordinate position, to the great
honour and glory of my captain.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.—Battalion drill continued. Captain away
on leave, and thus had a first opportunity of learning something on my own
account.

Fourth Week.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.—Great excitement in preparation for the
Inspection Day. The regiment took violently to skirmishing, and. attempted
to get up in three days what Regulars would certainly have consumed six
months in learning.

Thursday.—The inspection. Cocked hats, bands, feasts and friends.

Friday and Saturday.—Nothing to do. Pleased to think that I had got through
one of the two trainings required by regulation as part of the requisite qualification
(plus a Civil Service Examination) for a Lieutenant's Commission in the Line,

IN THE NAME OP THE PROPHET—

"POTS!"

" Pots mean civilisation, and the history of pottery is the
history of culture. . . . For what would man be without a
pot of gome sort ? . . . The uniformity in human nature has
always shown itself manifest in pottery."—The " Daily News "
on Me. Gladstone's Address upon Tottery at the Cymro-
dorion Society.

"Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot,

i think a Sufi pipkin—waxing hot—

" All this of Pot and Potter ? Tell me then

" Who makes—who sells—who buys—who is the Pot ?"

Omar Khayyam,

Potless Humanity ! A pregnant thought

With much suggestion fraught,
Which Persian Omar in the Potter's House,
Surrounded by the ordered shapes of clay,
Somehow missed marking in his distant day,
For all his keen but pessimistic nous.
Man the Pot-shaper ! A new definition!

Oh, for an exhibition
Of Pots from Egypt's earliest to— ah ! What ?
That one ideal, final, transcendental,

Supreme Supernal Pot,
Which, on this view, should mark the culmination,
The highest tide-mark of Art-cultivation,

To which our Earth hath got.
Oh, what a Pot were that! Will Gladstone's self
Help us so far to soar in the ideal,
As to adumbrate that most rare, if real,
Result from centuries of clay and delf,
That fictile ultimatum ? Fancy faints
At the prodigious prospect. Memory paints
Pictures of recent raptures witnessed oft
In eyes of Ladies, heard from lips less soft
Of ardent greybeards, over bits of crockery
Of such amazing immature monstrosity,
Chaos chromatic, shapeless squat atrocity,

That it were surely mockery
To fancy they comprised one genuine quality

Of the great Pot-finality.
But if these wake such ecstasies, oh what
Delirium of unspeakable delight,

Supreme and infinite,
Should be the product of the Crowning Pot ?

Yes, Pots mean progress! Thoughtful souls must feel

The wheel of Fortune is a potter's wheel.

Khayyam drew doleful auguries from its twirl,

But then he was a poet and a Persian,

A sceptic too, at whom, with cold aversion,

The British Philistine's fine lip will curl.

Yet this new doctrine of the Daily News

Might fire a Western muse,
Not such as she who sat at Omar's suppers,
But cool, correct, and orthodox as Tupper's.
If life's a crux, a labyrinth, a lottery,
The clue, the key to it is found in Pottery.
How pleasant 'twere, did time allow, to trace
In pots and pans the progress of our race !
Each page of time the potter leaves his print on,
From Greek Hyperbius to Herbert Minton—

A longish stretch,
Through which a compass critical to fetch—
Displays in stereotype all human passions,
Utilities and tastes, prides, follies, fashions.
Thus, potted and preserved, lies record strange
Of human progress, in ceramic change—
(Or say Ceramic, since our classic day
Is very sweet on the initial " k ".)

The Epic of the Pot! Who '11 write it ? See,
Oh, versatile and vehement W. G.
When you have polished off such minor works
As utter demolition of the Turks,

Here is a task for you !
" Pots, and the man I sing." Yes, that will do.
Its title ? The Fictiliad. 'Tis a theme
To satisfy a Neo-Homer's dream.
Wire in, my William ! show the world what's what
In Epos. 'Twere a splendid consummation;
A nobler, wider subject is there not.
Since without Pots all Earth's Civilisation

Must—go to Pot!