Punch (73.1877)

193 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Ooto3*b 27, 1871.

QUESTIONS FOR TRAVELLERS.

[Coming Home.)
In Italy.

ee if you cannot get a very
good idea of Venice by pat-
ting your head in a wasp's
nest and floating down the
K,egent's Canal? The stings
of the first will faintly sug-
gest the bites of the mos-
quitos, and the atmosphere
of the latter will feebly re-
call the glories of the liialto.

If you visit the Italian
Picture Galleries, is it not
as well to choose a Guide
who objects to garlic P

On the whole, does a Guide
tell you more than your
guide-book i

Does the fact that the
Guides of Milan wear chim-
ney-pot hats and glovts
when on duty compensate
for the drawback that they
are all so imperfectly ac-
quainted with the English
language that you cannot possibly understand them r
Is the Lago Maggiure so very much finer than the Serpentine ?
Do not both look very much alike by moonlight—especially the
Serpentine ?

Is it worth while to be jostled and jumped about in a carriage
over the Simplon for the sake of seeing a few tints and inspecting
Brigue from various altitudes ?

When you have seen the Inns at Duomo Dossola, and have
exclaimed "How Italian!" do you notice anything else in Italy
particularly characteristic of the country ?

Is it any wonder that you never find organ-grinders in the land of
their birth ?

Is it not a proof of national amiability that Italian shop-keepers,
when detected in gross fraud, receive your imperfectly expressed
abuse with bland smiles ?

After seeing Rome and its obelisks, can you care very much about
the site of Cleopatra's Needle P

Minus the Art Galleries, the scenery, the Palaces, the Cathedrals,
and the shops, would Italy be worth seeing P

This granted, can't you see the Art Galleries and the other &cs.,
in any photographer's shop without leaving your native Strand P

En Eotjte foe London.

When you are not able to stay in Paris, does not the French capital
look more inviting than ever P

Do you not hate the man in evening dress who is smoking his
cigar and looking at the theatre-bills, in the courtyard of the Grand
Hotel, as you enter your remise bound for the station P

Is a bundle of umbrellas and sticks much improved by a couple of
alpenstocks P

Are the three hand-bags belonging to your wife as convenient to
her as they are certainly inconvenient to you ?

Having left Paris bathed in sunshine, is it pleasant to find
Boulogne drenched in rain ?

Is it particularly delightful to be detained at a French watering-
place out of the season for three days, when you might have stayed
on in Paris had you only known the state of the weather ?

Does not your bitterness reach its climax when the man in the
only English newspaper shop you can find in Boulogne tells you
that you may not purchase a Times in advance, but must take your
chance with the other customers ?

When you at last venture on board the boat, are you pleased to
find that sunshine and a white crested sea do not mean a calm
passage ?

And, finally, when you are utterly bored with foreign parts and
the discomforts _ of travel, do you not come to the conclusion that,
after all, there is no place like'home ?

The Potato Norfolk-Howard.

At the entrance to the South Kensington Museum there have
been placed four drawings of the Colorado Beetle in its different
stages, magnified. As are this vagabond's dimensions, thus depicted,
so, by some accounts, is the alarm which he has excited. But, be
that as it may, let nobody who captures him give him any more
quarter than Bashi-Bazouks and Cossacks give one another.

A BARD FOR BUCKMASTER.

Poetical Me. Punch,

As the late Mr. Weight, performing Muster Grinnidge in
Green Bushes, said—" Things isn't as they used to was." Among
those things may be specially mentioned potatoes. They are not
the things they were in the pre-potato-blight period. Where are
the red-nosed kidneys of our youth? Echo answers, "youth!"
Nevertheless, the first time for ages, I have just eaten some really
very good potatoes, and feel impelled by gratitude to record the
fact. Others of the same sample had proved indifferent. But
those others had been " steamed." The rust were cooked after the
manner prescribed in a lecture delivered by Mr. Buckhastee.
For the benefit of the many, I have ventured to versify that truly
great Teacher's recipe for

TIAIN BOILED POTATOES.

" now d' ye like your 'taters done ? "
Howe'er done, of course done well.
Learn then, how to do, my son,
Pommes de terra au yiaturel.

Choose your tubers, with good heed,

Of a size and of a sort;
Different sizes difference need,

Jn the boiling, long or short.

Scrub them clean, but peel them not;

Let not knife go nigh their skin ;
Pack them, ready for the pot,

Tight as possible therein.

In a quart of water throw
. A teaspoonful of salt, and pour
On your tubers, till they show,
Just each eye the water o'er.

Bring them to a boil; so brought,

For a simmer set them by.
When you think them soft, your thought

With a probing skewer try.

If you find them tender, boil
A moment, and then strain the lot;

Cover with a cloth awhile,
Then to table send them hot.

The foregoing poem, if not exactly worth a laurel crown, may
perhaps be allowed to deserve a wreath of garden-stuff intertwisted
with cabbage-leaves, carrots, and specimens of Irish wall-fruit. In
relation to the latter, permit me to subscribe myself

Your most obedient and humble Servant to command,

Philo-Meephy.

A TALE OF TITLES.

{A Dream of the Athenceum Advertisement Cohtmns.)

Held in Bondage,
She Trod the Thorny Path,
South by East,—
A Year in South Africa,—
Five Years in Bulgaria;—■
Through France and Bel-
gium—
With Harp and Crown,
Storm-Driven,
Crying for Revenge.
What He Cost Her !
What She Came Through !

Br the Elbe,
One Golden Summer,
It Might Have Been
Two Years Ago,
Cripps the Carrier,
A Woman-Hater,
Wooed and Won
Madcap Yiolet,
His Second Wife,
Against Her Will.
Did She Love Him ?
As Long as She Lived,

Books—"in Buckram Suits."

Shakspeake.

At the Conference of Librarians a paper was read " On Buckram
as a Binding Material." We will make the able writer a present of
an appropriate name for the style of binding which he advocates-
let it be called the " Falstaff " binding.

wills's new histoey.

Drury Lane Notes.—England in the Daze, &c, has yielded to
Amy liobsart. Mr. Chatteeton having already said something to
the effect that Shakspeabe spells Ruin, and Bybon Bankruptcy,
now adds that Wills spells Won'ts.