Punch: Punch (75.1878)

December 28, 1878.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

299

VESTMENTS."

High Church Housemaid (to Low Church Cook). " Lob, Cook, how can you

sit and listen to a man as wears nothin' but black alpaca ! you
should have seen our young priest this morning ! He had on a black

StLK Skirt with a white Cambric Tunic trimmed with reel Walan-
sheens Lace as Missis give him, a nat.rer 'Igh-Art green Scarf round
his Neck ; an' when he folded his Arms across his Buzzum, with his
'Air parted down the middle, oh, he looked puffeckly loy-e-ly !"

A NEW IDEA.

Dear Mr. Punch,

You can't think how awfully tired some of us
boys are getting of parties. What's the good of a con-
juror when we may see Maskelyne and Cooke any day,
besides lots of Pantomimes ? Then it's an awful bore to
dance with the little girls, and at one's own house they
make one take all that can't get partners. If two or
three fellows do get together, and have a wrestling match
or anything rational, there's sure to be a row about it.
Now, Mr. Punch, I tell you what I want, and that is to
have some little beggars who have never been to a Christ-
mas Party in their lives, and give them what somebody
calls a new sensation. I don't mean real beggars, you
know,—there's plenty of Board School children who
would do well enough. And I don't mean a school feast
either, with tea handed round in watering-cans, and
stodgy cake, and the school-master hoping the children are
" grateful to their benefactors," and all that bosh. No, I
want to have lots of real cake and bread and butter, and
I should not mind a Christmas tree, or bran tub (only I
should like to buy the things at some of those beggarly
little shops where they never get a customer). After tea,
we could let the girls dance, if they liked it, and, would
not one of the street barrel-organ fellows like to come in
and play ! And, to wind up, you, dear Mr. Punch, could
call round yourself, and Avouldn't that be a lark !

Do persuade mother to let us have this party. She
says, "there are the carpets." So there are. but she
takes them up for her ball, and so she might for mine.

Your constant reader, Fifth Form

Mottoes for Mr. Gladstone's Birthday-Axe.

[Some friends of Mr. Gladstone have presented him, en his
sixty-ninth birthday, with a model of the American axe he is in
the habit of using—the head of silver, and the handle of ebony.]

For the Silver Head.—" Speech is silvern, Silence is
golden."

For the Ebony Handle.—" Cut and come again."

A Great Unknown (who "has done good by stealth,
and blushed to find it fame").—The author of the Kho-
dope-Grant proposal.

Home-Rulers. —Our Wives!

" There's not a room in the house," he goes on deliberately, " that
isn't haunted. I don't »wish," he interrupts himself to say, turning
to me; "I don't wish you to repeat this to my Aunt, or she
would be frightened into fits, and wouldn't get a wink of sleep all
night."

I intimate that on no account would I mention the subject to his
Aunt, Mrs. Tupton ; and of course I feel bound to accept as a com-
pliment the fact of his confiding the ghost-stories of The Mote to me,
as much as to imply that I am dauntless, and my repose not to be
disturbed by a thousand ghosts.

I wish I could recollect my story of my friend who saw a ghost.
I can't even recollect his name ; and its credit depends on his per-
sonal authority. It's better than anything I have heard yet—ex-
cept, perhaps, Hoshford's, about the Headless Woman—which was
first hand._ I remark, however, curiously enough, that the general
tendency is to give implicit credit to second-hand stories, but to
question the good faith of anyone who relates something marvellous
that happened to himself. In fact, on our quitting the room, I over-
hear Aysford Synge asking Sandilands what the latter had
thought of Hoshford's story, and receiving the curt reply that in
his (Sandiland's) opinion, Hoshford was screwed, and didn't
know what he was talking about." How much better Hoshford's
story will come out when he himself isn't present. I shall tell it
myself, if I can recollect it, and, of course, shall add that the man
to whom it happened was as sober as a judge on the bench, and one
of the most sensible men I've ever met.

Josslyn Dyke informs us, that " There is one room in the house-
he would rather not mention which—where the wicked old lord, the
Earl of Depford—was murdered. The assassins, it was supposed,
entered either through a panel or from behind the bed ; and after the
deed, they managed to conceal the body in a closet, where it was
found some months afterwards. The figure of the old Earl is seen,

points to the wounds with one hand, and with the other to a dark
mark on the wall, where it is supposed he had secreted some impor-
tant papers. These have never been found."

"Have you ever seen the ghost—yourself P" I ask, for 1 don't
like to inquire if I am to sleep in the haunted chamber : and if I can
get him to start a good long ghost-story, it will give me time to
remember mine. Also I feel that if I can only tell a ghost-story
myself, I shall be less nervous.

" Oh dear ! yes," replies Josslyn, "often." <

Silence. We regard one another. Josslyn is perfectly sober, at
all events. On the other hand, he is our host, and no one likes to
question or contradict him.

" Isn't there a room here that hasn't been opened for centuries ? "
asks Pelkin Wadd.

"Yes," replies Josslyn ; " but the door is concealed, and we've
never been able to discover it. But what I've seen in this very room

where we are now sitting," he says, impressively, "would-"

Here he pauses.—So do I!

In Obitum Principissse Aliciae.

{From the Charterhouse.)

Filia cara, soror dulcis, fidissima conjux,
Mater, cui soboles vita pretiosior ipsa,
Te tua voce una gemit Anglia, te memor isdem
Prosequitur lacrymis, te nunquam oblita silebit.

quotation for frosty weather.

" In medio tutissunus ibis"—i.e. "The middle of the road is the
safest walking."