Punch (78.1880)

Mat 22, 1880.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE POETS.

To Lady Florabella de Brabazon on her -th Birthday.

“ We shift and bedeck and bedrate tjs ;

Thou art noble and nude and antique.”

Swinburne—“ Our Lady of Pain."

TWIN SCREWS: TOO LOOSE AND TOO TIGHT.

Last week the Undergraduates of University College, Oxford (some eighty
in number), were rusticated, en ?nasse, in consequence of an “outrage” com-
mitted by a tipsy fraction of the body.

After a “ Bump-Supper,” at which the bumpers seem to have too freely
indulged in kindred bumpers, some of the boys, screwed themselves, determined
on screwing up a tutor, who was senior Proctor into the bargain. That doubly
dignified dignitary was therefore forced to make an ignominious exit through
the window. This was very bumptious behaviour on the part of the hoys, a
wicked, hut not altogether unnatural wind-up of a bump-supper, as Bunch
remembers such entertainments.

The names of the offenders were demanded, and as they were not given up,
the whole College has been sent down. Thus for the sake of the silly few, the
steady many have been punished. Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi—“The
fast men make fools of themselves, the common lot are rusticated.” The foolish
delinquents should, of course, have come forward ; but as they had not the
pluck to plead guilty, and take their punishment like men, it seems rather
hard that three-score unoffending undergraduates should be made to pay the
penalty of a stupid freak perpetrated by a handful of feather-brained and
chicken-hearted asses.

Surely silly sport need not have been dealt with in such serious earnest-
above all, should, not have entailed such an indiscriminate distribution of
punishment.

The Head of the College is an old school-master, which, perhaps, accounts
for the weight with which he has come down on his “children of a larger
growth.” Respect for Tutors, who are senior Proctors, must be maintained, but
it is a pity, all the same, to set everybody asking—“ Would not some sentence
less severe and less sweeping have better met the importance, as well as the
justice of the case ? ”

ONLY A DONKEY.

At Birmingham a man was charged with allowing his donkey
to starve to death in its stable, where it was found dead after
the lapse of a foodless week, having eaten up nearly the whole
of its wooden manger, and gnawed some brick-ends. The
Defendant’s excuse was that he had been too busy about the
Elections to remember a donkey. The case created great mirth
in Court, and the Defendant was ultimately fined five shillings.

He-haw !

I’m getting scant of breath and slack of jaw,

That bray would scarce evoke
The chuckle of the cad who spies a joke,

In everything about me, takes my voice
As type of a stupidity more crass
Than his, who oft hath made me much rejoice
That I was but an ass.

He-haw !

Who was it said that no one ever saw
A donkey dead ? Some minutes hence, at rest
For the first time since I was foaled,

I fancy that my body stiff and cold

Will somewhat blunt the point of that rare jest.

Here have I starved for a whole week at least,

No, stop! Shall an ass lie F I’ve made a feast
On brick-ends and the timber of my manger.

More mirth, my masters ! There is little danger
Of failure in materials for mirth
Whilst despot man—and donkeys—walk the earth,
Two or four-footed.

Long-suffering Issachars are sweetly suited
To sharpen jest’s keen tooth on—better even
Than brick-ends! Seven days, and long nights seven,
Alone and foodless, save for timber rotten,

Simply forgotten!

Howshould Man think ’midst the Election’s Babel
Of a mere donkey starving in a stable ?

Stick and short commons, labour and low diet,

Are donkey’s destiny—’tis Wisdom’s fiat—

Shall a thick-hided brute, long-eared and humble,
Presume to grumble,

Or hope by Man—that humorist!—to be pitied ?
And yet—he-haw !—had destiny but fitted
Asses for drudgedom’s duties more completely,
Hunger and cudgelling had come more sweetly.
There seems, I know not where? a slight mistake.
Man can’t imagine how thick hides can ache,

And as for sheer starvation, pang and prick,

Not much allayed by gnawing wood or brick,

They ’re really quite ridiculously real.

I wonder is it Heaven’s or Man’s ideal
Of donkey life—and death—that is awry ?

He-haw ! I think I ’ll try
Just one more munch. The manger timber’s dry,
Why did I dream of thistles ? Of the grass,

Close cropped, yet juicy, whereon I, when young,

In fact, a long-shank’d little baby ass,

So many happy, happy hours did pass!

Oh, out on dreams! They add a pang to hunger,
And spoil these last tough splinters. Ah ! my eyes
Grow dimmer, and how’s this ?, « I cannot rise,

E’en to the manger’s height.

A sound ? A step ? A light ?

Is it my master’s foot ? He-e-hee-aw ! Alas !

All’s silence, which that last faint feeble bray
Scarce breaks. I’m dying. Crowning jest, they’ll
say,

Who see a sight men don’t see every day,

Just a dead Ass !

A “R-a-i-1” Miracle.

Since the apparitions at the Chapel at Knock, County
Mayo, the shares of the “ Midland,” which has a station
not far off, have improved nearly twenty per cent., and
their receipts have risen to nearly one thousand pounds
a week!

TWO EDGES OF AN OLD SAW.

“ England’s necessity is Ireland’s opportunity ” (for
evil).—Daniel O’Connell.

“Ireland’s necessity is England’s opportunity” (for
good).—Frances Marlborough.