Punch (75.1878)

July 13, 1878.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

FEUITLESS !

{A Groan from Susan Gingham.)

" The extraordinary fecundity of the United States in the matter of fruit
is proverbial; but it may not be generally known that three million peach
trees bloom every spring; on the sunny plains between the Delaware and
Chesapeake Bays. The details of the American fruit crop almost savour of
romance. The apple crop of the country is past counting ; the surplus fruit,
if properly saved, would keep all Europe in table luxuries. The birds on
New Hampshire hills are feasted with raspberries, the mountains of .North
Carolina and Tennessee are purple with blackberries which go to waste ; and
the time has been when an extra good crop of peaches m Delaware has meant
a million baskets of fruit untouched upon the trees."—Standard.

Me. Punch,

This startling- extrack, which I wenture to enclose,
Tom, my nephew, read out loud, in aggerawation, I suppose.
I wos picking a few gooseberries, with a eye to jam, and he
Said he thought it aperypo—whatever that may chance to be.

Which I call it downright riling. Gracious goodness! here am I
Paying sech a price for fruit as is enough a Saint to try,
While in Delaware by millions peaches waste upon the trees,
And on the New Hampshire hills the birds eats as much fruit as they
please.

Well, them Yanks is precious lucky. Things in England is gone
queer.

Fruits with us ain't wot they wos, but mostly poor, and likewise
dear.

Wot with blights and sopping summers, big jam-makers, and them
Clubs,

Little fruit ive gets, and wot we do is windfalls, specks, and scrubs.

Strorberries ain't got no sweetness; as for apples, bless yer 'art,
Not one sample in a dozen 's fit for pudden or for tart;
For cherries they 're all skin and stone, and as for ribsting apples,
lor!

They 're like good Cheshire cheese, a pleasink mem'ry, and no more.

True, there's lots of rum new-fangled things as they call forren
fruits,

Eatin' like raw scarlet-runners, or as tough as rhubarb roots,
Prickly pears and them bananas, tasting jest like sweetened soap,
But you won't find British housewives cottoning to sech, I hope.

England's fruits was England's pride, and 'ome-made jam our house-
hold boast;

0 the rare tucks-out I've had of gooseberry-fool and buttered toast!
Then the jars of raspberry-jam—but there, it doesn't bear a thought.
If there's any raspberries grow'd they 're all by Crosse and Black-
well bought.

Them shop-jams is hutter 'umbug; but we never has no sun,
And the fruiting season's over most afore it seems begun.
Tom declares Pomoner's cut us; wot he means I do not know,
But I'm sure our fruits to-day ain't like the fruits of long ago.

Apples ! Wy, the shams Ave gets is jest heartbreaking. I believe
If thev'd grow'd like that at fust, one never would have tempted
Eve;

Which I've always felt conwinced the fruit as caused that fatal
slippin'

Must a' bin that British pride, a reg'lar good old ripsting pippin!

Haven't seen one not for years, the fruiterers say they 're dying out.
Wy the dickens did they let 'em ? Wot must they have bin about ?
Now we've nowt but measley windfalls, tasteless and but seldom
sound,

Sold in open shops by Jews, and, like pertaters, by the pound.

Then to read about them Yankees, with their splendid apple-crop,
Their three million blooming peach-trees, and—but there I'd better
stop !

Which I'm a patriot, I 'ope, but a turn in Tennessee
Would, I fear, make half a Yankee of Yours sadly,

Susan G.

At the Berlin Banquet.

Little Poivers {at the door, ruefully). But are we to get no-
thing ?

Big Poivers {at the table, while the Turkey is being carved). Be
quiet, my little dears : you shall come down to your deserts.

oxeord V. cambridge cricket match, 1878.

A Light Blue, on being asked why Cambridge won the match,
replied, " Because we had no foemen worthy of our Steel."

vol. lxxv.