Punch (77.1879)

96 • PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [August 30, 1879.

A GREAT PAROCHIAL STORM.

. Editor !
Whenever
there comes a big
storm, there are
two or three gen-
tlemen who at
once write off to
■ . :- - the Times, just as

if it had rained,

hailed, thundered, and lightened for them alone. They always
seem to think that they have been on the very spot where the
storm was at its worst, and yet, after all, they never tell of more
than an inch or so of rain falling. In our part of the country we do
not think much of an inch, I can tell you. Why, I have often had
it knee-deep in the dip in the road by my house, and yet I have
never written to the Editor of the Times. However, the parish I
live in is as good as any other parish—for a particular breed of
Berkshire hogs I would back it against all England—and therefore
it is high time that it should get into the newspaper, for indeed we
did have a storm here on Saturday week. Were our good Parson
living I would get him to write, but he, has been dead these five
weeks, and they have not had time as yet to appoint another. I
suppose they have been too busy getting in their hay. I am, however,
the next best thing to the Parson, for I was his Warden, and have
lived here, man and boy, fifty years come next grass. Now, Sir,
what I want you people in London to understand is this. The worst
part of this storm was in this here parish. In fact it was the most
parochial storm I have known in my time, and I know as much
about parish matters as most people. Following the example of the
good folk who write to the papers, I have kept a kind of diary-like
of the storm, which may be you will care to print. If so, you are
welcome to it, for I don't see that if I keep it, it will be of any good
to me, and so you may as well have it. Here it is :—

Diary of the Great Parochial Storm of the night of Saturday,
August 2nd, 1879.

Five o'clock in the Evening.—I had my tea, with a Yarmouth
bloater for a relish.

5'30.—I smoked a pipe. A jackass began to bray and the Squire's
peacocks to scream. Depend upon it," said I to my wife, " we are
going to have a storm to-night;" for those animals do not make
noises for nothing. It is not in reason that they should.

6'30.—Neighbour Stokes came in, and I said to him, "Mark my
words. We are in for a storm to-night." He said it was not in the
forecasts in the newspapers. I said, "Blow the forecasts and the
newspapers too. My jackass does not bray for nothing, no more does
the Squire's peacock."

8'0._—I sat down to supper, and made as hearty a meal as ever I
have in my life. Heaven be praised for it!

9 0.—It begun to lighten, and I turned to my wife and to Neigh-
bour Stokes, who had stayed to supper, and said, "There! I told
you so. I knew how it would be ! "

9'30.—We had_ a glass of something hot to comfort us, and I
smoked another pipe. The storm grew worse.

10. —Neighbour Stokes set off home through as heavy a rain as
ever I have seen. However, it served him right for trusting those
forecasts.

1015.—As there was nothing to be got by sitting up, I went to
bed, and slept soundly till next morning.

Sunday, August 3rd.

8.—Up and out before breakfast to look about me. Met Neighbour
Stokes, and asked him whether I hadn't been right, after all ? Met
Mr. Jones, the curate, and told him as how I had told Neighbour
Stokes and my wife that I knew there was a storm coming. Mr.
Jones said that in all the years he was in the College of Oxford he
had_ never seen such lightning. This will show how bad it was, for
he is a very great scholar, and knows, they say, double Greek. It
had thundered so much, he said, that he had not been able to write
his sermon, and so would have to preach an old one. I told him
there was nothing wonderful in that, for I knew that all the milk in
the parish must have been turned sour, and so it was not to be looked
for that anyone could write a sermon on such a night as that.

11. —Neighbours coming to church told me of a sight of mischief
that had been done. A litter of pigs had been drowned. Three
barrels of beer turned sour, not to mention the milk. An old shed
had had the roof taken clean off. An old woman living in a hut
near the Common had been awakened by the water coming in at the
back-door, and had passed the night on the table. Another old
woman coming home late had had the lightning playing about her
umbrella for a quarter of an hour together. But I have not patience
to go through half the things I heard; besides, the bell left off
ringing as they were telling me about what had happened to the
Squire's new hayrick, and, being Warden, I had to hurry into the
vestry, only just in time to march into church behind the Curate.

There ends my Diary of the Great Parochial Storm so far as it
goes.

Perhaps some day, when I have got the corn in, I shall have time
to finish it, when you shall have the rest, should you like it.
I am, Mr. Editor, your obedient Servant,

John Weatherwise,
Fieldton, August 8th, 1879. Farmer and Churchwarden.

A TRIBUTE AND A TROUBLE.

What will Mr. Tract Turneretli do with the " Tribute," as he
calls the Wreath, which, instead of encircling the brow it was designed
to decorate, hangs upon his hands, and whereby he declares himself
a heavy loser? He public-spiritedly offers to hand it over to one
of our great national museums, to be preserved in perpetuity as a
specimen of English goldsmith's work of the Nineteenth Century,"
and proposes that, " to carry out this purpose, a suitable and costly
case should be procured ; " at a cost of about £100, at which it would
be considered, perhaps, a case of cost at least costly enough. This
cost, however, he seems to imagine might possibly be defrayed by
subscription ; and he hopes to be reimbursed for the expenses he has
contracted in getting the Tribute up, "but this" he leaves " to the
generosity of the British Public." He will be happy to receive
communications on this matter. Yery likely.
Being, as he says, out of pocket by the "Tribute," and that
Tribute," a Wreath of gold, having been thrown back in his face,
couldn't Mr. Tracy Turnerelli, by leave of his subscribers, pocket
the affront ?

Then he might still, perhaps, be enabled appropriately to carry
out the purpose of handing the " Tribute " over to a great national
museum, by disposing of it to the representatives of Madame
Tussaed. Clearly the most suitable place for it in all England
would be the popular Collection in Baker Street; where, having
himself also been added in wax, Mr. Tracy Ternerelli might
remain in perpetuity—his effigy posed in the act of crowning Lord
Beaconsfield with the tributary Wreath for ever.

Cookery and Culture.

To " English epicures " whose ideas of liver as a luxury for the
table are limited to calf's liver and bacon, the following extract
from a column of advertisements in the Times, may be somewhat
interesting:—

pUISINlERE FRANCAISE, pas moins de 30 livers. Age thirty-fire.
Bonne reference Anglaise. &c, &c.

This Cuisiniere may be very well worth full thirty livres sterling,
and is perhaps up to more in cookery than so many ways of cooking
liver, or of cooking so many different livers. Her skill as to livers
probably exceeds her knowledge of livres, although perhaps she may
carry the contents of no end of cookery-books in her head.

&W To Correspondents.— The Editor does not hold himself bound to acknowledge, return, or pay for Contributions. In no ease can these be returned unless accompanied £$■ 4

stamped and directed envelope. Copies should be kept.