Punch (75.1878)

September 7, 1878.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

97

THE SILLY SEASON SILLIER THAN EVER.

{With Mr. Punch)s compliments to the "Paragraphists.")

xplorations in the Moon, recently
made, have, it is reported in scien-
tific circles, proved beyond a doubt
that the extinct volcanoes found
there must have been composed at
one time entirely of green cheese,
and not of frosted sugar, as hither-
to believed.

It "will be interesting to our
readers to learn that the next
transit of Venus across the Moon
and the Sun via Neptune, Uranus,
and Jupiter, will take place on
the 23rd of February, 1984. Those
who wish to see it at its best,
should take apartments in Heme
Bay. If the weather is fine, the
phenomenon will be distinctly
visible through a good telescope.

We deeply regret to have to
announce the death of Her Majesty, Queen Anne, who expired on the 1st of
August, 1714, greatly lamented by those to whom she was personally unknown.

The well-authenticated report that a lady supporter of Woman's Rights has
been torn to pieces by wild horses in Cheapside, is contradicted on the most
reliable authority. _

Mr. Brown, the popular and well-known Author of Jones—a Romance, is
engaged upon a new work entitled liobinson—a Mystery.

Now that the Session is over, most of our Officials are on the wing. Mr.
Henry de Snooks, of the Treasury, is at Ramsgate, and Mr. Tentereotjr, of
the War Office, will shortly leave Pall Mall for Boulogne.

We give the following important item of intelligence, which has been going
the rounds of most of our contemporaries, with all reserve:—"There is no
news. Nothing is moving but stagnation."

cads and counterparts.

In "Parliament out of Session" generally we miss the "Obstructives."
None such are present except now and then certain cads behaving like those
who, the other day, interrupted Mr. Mundella at Sheffield.

ritualist

Why do " Priests " of the Established Church burn incense ? To lead their
dupes by the nose ?

BIETHS AND BEGGING-LETTERS.

Mr. Punch, Sir,

Biennially, or thereabouts, an addition is
usually made to my domestic happiness. I ought to be
a happy man. Well, I don't find a birth always so great
a bore as it is in some households. In my newspaper I
observe, "A Mother of a Family" complains that the
"arrival of a newly-born infant," announced amongst
the "Births," invariably subjects her to a troublesome
influx of letters and parcels enclosing a variety of goods
such as babies' shoes, knitted shawls, embroidered pocket-
handkerchief s, and useless articles of fancy-work. Some
of them purport to come on behalf of churchbuilding
and charities from "clergymen's wives," others from
" ladies in reduced circumstances," and all request a re-
mittance of stamps, or of business orders, in return.

I can corroborate all this. My own wife's experience
is always exactly the same as "A Mother of a
Family's." But it never annoys either her or myself
in the least. On the contrary, we make both profit and
fun out of it. I will tell you what I do with all the
commodities poured in upon us.

All of those things that are in anywise useful, I use,
or keep.

All that are useless I burn, unless they are postable.
In that case I carefully return them to their senders,
without reply, in unstamped envelopes.

In like manner enclosed I take particular care to post
back the whole of the begging-letters.

Applications for payment or return of consignments,
how frequently soever repeated, I take no notice of.

This, Sir, is how I, for my part, systematically deal
with duffers accustomed, of course, cynically to scan the
"Births, Marriages, and Deaths" (the "Deaths" as
well as the "Births" and the "Manages," and also
the Guide-Books and professional Directories), for the
purpose of getting at people by name and address, pre-
sumably in positions and circumstances which lay tnem
open to have a rise taken out of them, and be preyed
upon by means of playing on their softer feelings, and
still more soft intellects, such as they have. Let me
recommend those that have any, to try and cope with
their crafty correspondents in the same way that I tackle
the like who attempt to put a plant on me. Some people
may consider it unscrupulous ; let them. I myself, mean-
while, enjoy the sanction of inward self-complacency,
and remain, serenely,

Ever your ancient Friend,

Mens Sibi Conscia Rectt.

TO THE FINEST OF FRUITS.

{Sung in August, by a Sub-Editor.)

Let others praise the mellow peach,

The luscious grape, the golden pine ;
But oh, within my modest reach,

I know a fruit that's more divine.
'Mid fragrant groves of orange flower

Let bridegroom roam ! But weave my crown
Of gooseberries that, sweet or sour,

Bloom when the world is out of town!

When silence holds the Lady's Mile,

And daily sheets, grown empty too,
Hail, with a glad and greeting smile

The little earthquake from Peru—
The avalanche—the hot pursuit

Of luggage lost—all things that bore !
Say, what can match the cheery fruit

That blooms till Town is full once more !

The Blue Riband of Diplomacy.

The best reply yet made by Lords Beaconsfield and
Salisbury to those who disapprove of the Salisbury-
Schouvalofl Agreement, the Treaty of Berlin, _ and the
Anglo-Turkish Convention,—" Honi soit qui mal y
pense."

How to Procure an Eclipse of the Son.—Cut him
off with a Shilling.

vol. lxxv.