Punch: Punch (75.1878)

July 27, 1878.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIVAEI

33

CAUTION.

E, Punch, having received
four hundred and sixty-four
variations on—

" Oh, lady, twine no wreath forme,
Or twine it of the cypress tree,"

d propos of the Queen and
Lord Beaconseteld, hereby
give notice that any contri-
butor repeating the offence
will be proceeded against with
the utmost rigour of the
waste-paper basket.

PLAY AND WORK.

In a paragraph headed
"Play" in our last week's
Number, Punch pleaded for
subscriptions towards the pur-
chase of a play-ground f©r
poor children in the far East.
When we are about taking
on ourselves a large responsi-
bility_ for great Eastern ame-
liorations, here is a small one
quite at our own door on which
Ave might try our 'prentice
hands.

To facilitate the gifts of
those who wish to give in aid
of what is a good work if ever
there was one, Punch now
states, what he shoidd have
stated in his last week's para-
graph, that subscriptions for

the purpose^of providing"the gutter children of St. Peter's, London Docks, with a pleasanter
play-place than the gutter, may be sent to that hardest-worked of dock-labourers, the

Rev. Robert Linklater, M.A., St. Peter's
Clergy House. Every subscription will be
a Link, later, we hope, to be strengthened
still more, between the wealth of the West
and the wants of the East.

PARLIAMENTARY REPORT.

{By anticipation)

" Lord Gr-nv-lle.—I wish to ask the
Noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's
Government if there is any truth in the
report in this evening's Globe that a Bill is
shortly to be introduced providing that Her
Majesty may assume the titles of Empress
of Asia and Defender of Islam ?

"Lord B-conse-ld.—The report to which
the Noble Lord alludes is utterly unworthy
of your Lordships' confidence." {Aside to
Lord S-l-sb-ry : '' Cover up that draft lying
on the table there ! ") "I am surprised that
after the experience your Lordships have
had of the reckless mendacity of the public
prints, any of you should think it necessary
to trouble Her Majesty's Government with
inquiries of this nature. As I am on my
legs, I may observe that if Her Majesty's
Government entertained any scheme similar
to that referred to in the Noble Lord's ques-
tion, they would not think it necessary to
advise Her Majesty to await the expres-
sion of any opinion from Parliament before
taking any step which might enhance the
dignity of her Crown, and give more exalted
expression to that supreme right of con-
trolling the faiths and peoples of the East
which has now, in consequence of our ex-
ertions, been recognised as her undisputed
attribute."

MAIDS AND MERMAIDS.

Punch,

In reading over my Advice to Young Men and Incidentally
to Young Women you must have often noted, amongst the valuable
directions which I give in that most useful work to a Young Man on
the choice of a Young Woman for a Wife, my particularly sensible
and sagacious lessons on the necessity of looking to her bodily powers
and conditions. As, for instancej when I tell, him to get to see her
at work on a mutton-chop or a piece of bread-and-cheese, and to be
sure that if she deal quickly with these she will not be slow about
anjudring else. Also, when I advise him to look behind her ears, and
between her fingers, so as to satisfy himself of the absence from those
situations of what Old Pam since defined '' matter in the wrong
place." Tubbing and scrubbing was less common in my life-time
than they are now, and few persons of either sex, I believe, ever
washed their skins much farther than was visible, except perhaps
now and then when the doctor ordered them a bath.

Now, however, "young ladies" are not only supposed to tub
and scrub every morning, but recommended to venture still
further into the water. The Medical Press and Circular counsels
them to learn to swim, and says that a gentleman named Mac-
gregor has a swimming-class for the instruction of girls, thirty
in number, of whom he taught twenty-five to swim in six lessons
last season. I quote a portion of the above-named paper's remarks
on this subject, because they are almost as instructive as any that I
could offer myself :—

"Swimming fob. Girls.—The public are continually reminded of the
numerous contrivances, supports, stays, shoulder-straps, &c, and the various
exercises that are best calculated to prevent round shoulders, a stooping awk-
ward gait, contracted chests, and so forth; but, perhaps, there is no kind of
exercise for girls more calculated to attain those desirable objects than that
of swimming. During the act of swimming the head is thrown back, the
chest well forward, while the thoracic and respiratory muscles are in strong
action, and both the upper and lower extremities are brought into full play."

How much better calculated to expand the chest is the exercise of
swimming than all the confounded " corsets," straps, andjiron frames
devised by quack machinery-mongers for that purpose ! Oh, but
some namby-pamby nincompoop vvill object to the exercise of swim-
ming for women because it is too " masculine." Let any such fool,
then, know that as swimmers

" Females would often have the advantage over the stronger sex, as, owing
to the large amount of adipos e tissue covering their muscles, and the comparative

smallness and lightness of their bones, they not only have greater powers of
flotation than men, but, as a rule, can continue much longer in the water."

It is, perhaps, necessary to explain, for fools' information, that
" adipose tissue " means the same as " blubber," which is so advan-
tageous for "flotation" to the whale, the porpoise, and that great
sea-slug, the Manatee, which they call a " mermaid," now on view
at your Westminster Aquarium. A swimming girl would be
something more like what we fancy a Mermaid than that great ugly
beast.

As blubber, in moderation, gives Beauty buoyancy—
"It is to be hoped, that girls will not be debarred from learning this
graceful and healthful accomplishment, either through lack of baths or of
teachers. Such a practice is particularly called for at the present day as a
set-off against the growing tendency in the ' girls of the period ' to indulge in
those literary and sedentary pursuits which are anything but favourable to
the development of a healthy physique."

Yes, and if they have not that, they are unfit to be wives and
mothers. A husband with an ailing wife, coming home to supper,
and expecting her to fill his pipe and pour out his beer, is more often
than not told by the servant girl that " Missis is gone up-stairs_to
lay down"—with a headache. Nothing like their learning to swim
with legs and arms for prevention of swimming in their heads. Now
then, you try and beat that into their heads with that cudgel of
yours—the most instructive instrument the world has ever seen,
except of course the famous gridiron of your renowned predecessor
as a political and social reformer in the visible world,

Barn Elms, Elysium: William Cobbett.

P.S.—It is on land, not on water, that I hate to see women get out
of their depth, as s© many of them are doing nowadays.

A Strike that should be a Hit.

Among the bad news of the week must be classed the announce-
ment that a strike has occurred in

" The Nail Trade.—At a mass meeting of the nailers at Sedgley yester-
day it was resolved to carry on the strike previously determined on against
the proposal of the employers to reduce wages. Nearly 12,000 operatives are
now out."

Whether a strike," in the Nail Trade will or will not turn out
a more judicious proceeding than most strikes, we shall see. Of all
workmen, in striking. Nailers, ©ne would think, should know how to
hit the right nad on the head.