Punch (76.1879)

June 28, 1879.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

280

TO SARAH!

{By an exuberant Enthusiast.)

MlSTEESS of Hearts and Arts,
all met in you !
The Picturesque, informed
by Soid of Passion !
Say, dost thou feed on milk
and honey-dew,
Draining1 from goblets deep
of classic fashion
Champagne and nectar,
shandy-gaff sublime,
Dashed with a pungent
smack of eau-de-Marah,
Aspasia, Sappho, Circe of
the time!
Seductive Sarah !

"Muse"? All Mnemosyne's
bright brood in one !
Compound of Psyche,
Phryne, Britomarte,
Ruler of storm and calm,
Euroclydon
And Zephyr ! Slender Sy-
rian Astarte !
With voice the soul of music,
like that harp
Which whilom sounded in
the Hall of Tara.
How dare Philistines at thy
whimsies carp,
Soul-swaying Sarah! !

" Puseuse " f Pooh ! pooh ! Yet who so well can pose

As thou, sweet statuesque slim sinuosity ?
" Stagey " ? Absurd! " The death's-head and the rose " ?

Delicious ! Gives the touch of tenebrosity
That lifts thee to the Lamia level. Oh !

Shame on the dolts who hint of Dulcamara,
A propos of levee and picture-show,
Serpentine Sarah !! !

Clinging enchantress, supple siren, sweep

In lithely languorous attitudes for ever,
Bewitch my gaze, and make my pulses creep !

So Naiads glide—save thee, gross mortals never !
About thee plays the brightness of Queen Mab,

Dashed/with romance of the girl-page in Lara.
Common-place snobs who chaff thee I could stab,
Suggestive Sarah !!!!

0 idol of the hour and of my heart!

Who calls thee crazy, half, and half-capricious ?
A compound of Lionne's and Barnum's part,

In outrecuidance rather injudicious ?
Ah! heed them not! Play, scribble, sculp, sing, paint,

Pose as a Plastic-Proteus, mia cara ;
Sapphic, seraphic, quintessential, quaint,
Semillante Sarah !! ! !!

THE CLERKS OF THE WEATHER.

Every morning in this summer we can now find out what sort of a
day it is going to be. A great boon to everyone, of course. No one
will be wearing thick clothes when he ought to have put on light
materials ; and Ladies will not come out in muslins when they
should have been in cloth and furs.

But how about " changeable " ? Suppose the forecast of the day
to be to the effect that it will be bitterly cold up to twelve, then
excruciatingly warm up to one, then a snowstorm from one to two,
then sun from two to three, rain from three to four, four to five
summer weather, and five to seven the depth of winter !

For those who have to be out all day, this will be a difficulty. We
shall have to carry bags with changes of costume for every hour,
like an entertainment, including shoes, thick and thin, and a
newly-inrented crutch-handled stick, which will develope into an
umbrella.

Weather Offices are to be multiplied everywhere ; and instead of
one Clerk of the Weather—an official who has long ago ceased to be
a joke—we shall have hundreds of them with the weather under
direct control. Won't they be abused when anything goes wrong ?

What correspondence there will be !!

"Look here!" some indignant person will write—"you said it

would be fine yesterday, and it wasn't. I went out in thin shoes,
and shall bring an action against you for damages."
Ladies will write—

"Dear Mr. Clerk,—Do, please do, there's a dear, order a nice
clear, fine, dry day, not too hot, you know, but just nice, for the
next Botanical Fete. You know, in former years, at least so I am
told, it always used to rain, and then—oh, such a dreadful mess!
quite too awfully shocking, you know ! So, please do arrange it,
and I shall be so much obliged, and so will several other Ladies with
whom, I can tell you, you are such a favourite ! "

Of course, all fetes, all Bank holidays, instead of being on fixed
clays, should henceforth be Moveable Feasts, the dates to be fixed by a
forecast of weather.

The Times, which has lately been arguing against a moveable
Easter holiday, will be compelled to argue in favour of this common-
sense scheme, which puts the best day at the disposal of those who
have so few good days for real out-of-door enjoyment.

At present I back the forecast of one or two experienced Ramsgate
boatmen against all the scientific prognostications of all the Clerks of
the Weather at so much per annum. Who practically cares "how
it's done " as long as the result is correct, and the effect beneficial ?

The Shepherds inland, and the Boatmen for the coast, are at
present the cheapest schoolmasters for our Clerks of the Weather.
But we are getting on ; and soon we '11 just have whatever weather
we want. That is, when we can all be unanimous on the point.

MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PRtEVALEBIT.

At the Meeting of the Select Committee on Co-operative Stores,
Mr. Turntable, a tradesman living in Piccadilly', Oxford Street,
Regent Street, Strand, was called in, and examined.

The Chairman. I believe you wish to make a statement ?

Mr. Turntable. I am a tradesman with a large establishment in
the West End of London. I have a little place in the country, a
town-house in South Kensington, and pay as much as twelve hundred
a year in income-tax—or rather did until four years ago. I have
made my business myself. My father lived over his own shop, and
served his own customers. I have one son in the Army and another
at Oxford reading for the Church. My profits are large, but cer-
tainly not too large considering my capital and expenditure. I object
to Civil Service trading, as I consider it disgraceful that I should pay
out of my own pocket men to rob me.

The Chairman. You &re aware that the salaries of Civil Servants
are not, as a rule, large P

Mr. Turntable. They are larger than they earn, anyhow. I know,
of course, they're no great things. But look at the style of men.
Civil Servants, indeed ! Poor sneaking, half-starved wretches !

The Chairman. And yet you would not allow them to curtail their
expenditure by co-operation ?

Mr. Turntable. Certainly not. Don't I pay their salaries out
of my own pocket ? Why should I allow them to pick it in any
other way ?

The Chairman. I do not see how they do that by giving no more
than money for money's worth ?

Mr. Turntable. I have nothing to do with the way they spend their
money. I say I pay their salaries out of my own pocket.

The Chairman. I presume that the profits on your business are
far greater than they were in your father's time ?

Mr. Turntable. Of course they are. I dare say he didn't realise
more than fifteen per cent. People in his time didn't half know
their business.

The Chairman. Do you object to co-operation in the abstract ?

Mr. Turntable. Not when it doesn't interfere with my own profits.

The Chairman. Do you object to adulteration ?

Mr. Turntable. That depends. I don't see what harm it can do if
the ingredients used are wholesome ?

A Member of the Committee. But supposing that the ingredients
are unwholesome ?

Mr. Turntable. That opens a large question-

The Chairman. Perhaps we had better not go into it.

Mr. Turntable. Perhaps not.

The Witness then withdrew.

Swift, but not Sure.

We find the following in the Daily Telegraph, Wednesday,
June 18th :—

TO MASTER TAILORS.—A competent Foreman, understands all
branches, cuts by geometry (Kb'rpermass), is open to fin ENGAGEMENT
with a respectable order trade. Address, &c.

It will be remembered that the tailor who took Gulliver'1 s measure
by trigonometry in the island of Laputa produced a misfit. Let us
hope cutting by geometry may be more successful.

vol. lxxvt, c c