DOI issue:
December 18, 1880
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17764#0295
288
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 18, 1880.
LABORARE EST ORARE.
Senior Surgeon. “I wish particularly to see Case Ho. 36 in your Ward
BEFORE I LEAVE. I FEAR THE SYMPTOMS ARE NOT SO FAVOURABLE-”
Nurse. “ You cannot enter now, Sir George. We are just going to
have Evensong ! ’’
“ THE MISSIS.”
(an idyl in an attic.)
Twelve ! He ’ll be blundering borne by now, and I ’re let tbe fire burn low,
Along of visions I seem to see in the embers’ ruddy glow.
Me dream ? Well, I used to dream of him once, long ago, so long ago!
Ten years ! ’Tis a little eternity, and I look so fur away,
A girl, with a red ribbon knot in her hair, and a laugh as the laverock gay.
And I ’re hardly laughed since he struck me first, and the roots of my hair are
grey.
At thirty ! ’Tisn’t the thing I thought when he left me there at the gate,
With the bit of gold and forget-me-not on my finger. Though it was late,
I watched, the stars till they faded in dawn,—the stars that to-night I hate !
Look at them glimmerin’ coldly there, as lovely as ladies’ eyes
When they shine on me out of a smooth, calm face, in their beautiful hard
surprise
That all is not right in a world they light. Ah! beauty’s the biggest of lies !
I was pretty once, but you can’t keep looks in a London alley long ;
And he was the smartest lad in the shop—so straight, and square, and strong.
If a man had offered to strike me then, had his life been worth a song ?
But you see when a hand that has fondled once is lifted to bruise and maim,
There’s a somethin’ snaps in a woman’s heart that the clever ones may name.
I know it seems bitterer fur than death, and I think it is worse than shame.
Bah ! Me whimper ?—the “Missis,” old—for my heart is old—and grey,
As though I was nought but that gay soft girl I see so fur away ?
Me,—who have fought it with red-faced Moll, and can toil at the tub all day P
As that rag of curtain shakes in the draught, so I shook when he struck me
first.
It wasn’t the pain, though he smote the breast that his bantlings four had nurst;
But now I am hard as the hand that strikes—and I know not which is worst.
It’s the smell o’ that spray o’ laylock there that softens
me so to-night;
A bush of it stood by our cottage gate. I will lling it
away. That’s right!
The gin-whiff is better, after all, for in that one can live
—and fight.
But love and flowers are folly, toys for the great ones,
fur as I see.
Why I’m hardly sure that I love my brats when
they ’re clamouring at my knee,
Cry, cry, cry ! They ’re in bed at last; but when is
there rest for me ?
How, in the silent chill night hours in this squalid stuffy
room ?
Waiting my Man, as the “Missis” must, though he linger
till crack o’ doom P—
And he was the lad who kissed me, kissed me under the
laylock bloom.
Rest? When the black thoughts tear my heart, and I
think could I strike one blow
Through his heart and mine as we lay at night, it were
better fur to go.
But leave him, leave him to red-faced Moll, and her
broad-mouth’d laughter ? No 1
Sweetheart—Missis ! Two wide extremes to touch in
one little year;
The petted darling, the beaten drudge; and the law,
that stands so near
To the starved bread-stealer or straying girl, seems so
terrible fur from here.
It made this ring; can it do no more in the way o’ bind-
ing lives P
Can’t it tie a man to the bit o’ work, can’t it break the
drunkard’s gyves ?
You are pulled if you starve or beat a beast. Are horses
better than wives ?
I must stir his supper. Poor stuff, poor stuff! Will he
taste it P Why should I care ?
Beaten flesh hardens, and why should souls keep soft ?
Cold hearts can bear,
Big Ben’s a booming—and there’s his step a-stumbling
loud on the stair!
A GROWL FROM A KERR.
One day last week at the City of London Court, during
the hearing of a disputed claim, Mr. Commissioner Kerr
is reported to have said, “ Don’t talk to me about the
working man. I have a very strong opinion about him,
and that is, that he is one of the greatest impostors
of the day.” If the Commissioner alluded to the loafer
who calls himself a working man, the rough who never
has and never wants any work to do, and fellows of that
stamp, he is perfectly right. But the condemnation was
too sweeping. Isn’t the Commissioner himself a working
man ? Aren’t all who honestly labour in any rank of
life working men ? and, above all, aren’t journalists
the most hard working, the most hard-worked and
least complaining of all rightly-called working men ?
With these exceptions Commissioner Kerr’s remark is
quite kerr-ect.
Telephone v. Telegraph.
It must be a painful task for Mr. Fawcett to appear
as the Champion of a Government Monopoly, and the
Opponent of Scientific Progress. The improvident bargain
made with the Telegraph Companies in 1869 is now bear-
ing bitter fruit. A man who has done so much for his
Department, whose economical principles are above sus-
picion, is compelled to do battle for the worst form of
Protection. The public, as usual, are the sufferers.
Private enterprise would have given them sixpenny
telegrams—the Government charges a shilling. Private
enterprise and human ingenuity will probably supersede
the telegraph, unless burked by Government and a more
than Liberal Minister.
An FEsthltic Philosopher.—Sage Green.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 18, 1880.
LABORARE EST ORARE.
Senior Surgeon. “I wish particularly to see Case Ho. 36 in your Ward
BEFORE I LEAVE. I FEAR THE SYMPTOMS ARE NOT SO FAVOURABLE-”
Nurse. “ You cannot enter now, Sir George. We are just going to
have Evensong ! ’’
“ THE MISSIS.”
(an idyl in an attic.)
Twelve ! He ’ll be blundering borne by now, and I ’re let tbe fire burn low,
Along of visions I seem to see in the embers’ ruddy glow.
Me dream ? Well, I used to dream of him once, long ago, so long ago!
Ten years ! ’Tis a little eternity, and I look so fur away,
A girl, with a red ribbon knot in her hair, and a laugh as the laverock gay.
And I ’re hardly laughed since he struck me first, and the roots of my hair are
grey.
At thirty ! ’Tisn’t the thing I thought when he left me there at the gate,
With the bit of gold and forget-me-not on my finger. Though it was late,
I watched, the stars till they faded in dawn,—the stars that to-night I hate !
Look at them glimmerin’ coldly there, as lovely as ladies’ eyes
When they shine on me out of a smooth, calm face, in their beautiful hard
surprise
That all is not right in a world they light. Ah! beauty’s the biggest of lies !
I was pretty once, but you can’t keep looks in a London alley long ;
And he was the smartest lad in the shop—so straight, and square, and strong.
If a man had offered to strike me then, had his life been worth a song ?
But you see when a hand that has fondled once is lifted to bruise and maim,
There’s a somethin’ snaps in a woman’s heart that the clever ones may name.
I know it seems bitterer fur than death, and I think it is worse than shame.
Bah ! Me whimper ?—the “Missis,” old—for my heart is old—and grey,
As though I was nought but that gay soft girl I see so fur away ?
Me,—who have fought it with red-faced Moll, and can toil at the tub all day P
As that rag of curtain shakes in the draught, so I shook when he struck me
first.
It wasn’t the pain, though he smote the breast that his bantlings four had nurst;
But now I am hard as the hand that strikes—and I know not which is worst.
It’s the smell o’ that spray o’ laylock there that softens
me so to-night;
A bush of it stood by our cottage gate. I will lling it
away. That’s right!
The gin-whiff is better, after all, for in that one can live
—and fight.
But love and flowers are folly, toys for the great ones,
fur as I see.
Why I’m hardly sure that I love my brats when
they ’re clamouring at my knee,
Cry, cry, cry ! They ’re in bed at last; but when is
there rest for me ?
How, in the silent chill night hours in this squalid stuffy
room ?
Waiting my Man, as the “Missis” must, though he linger
till crack o’ doom P—
And he was the lad who kissed me, kissed me under the
laylock bloom.
Rest? When the black thoughts tear my heart, and I
think could I strike one blow
Through his heart and mine as we lay at night, it were
better fur to go.
But leave him, leave him to red-faced Moll, and her
broad-mouth’d laughter ? No 1
Sweetheart—Missis ! Two wide extremes to touch in
one little year;
The petted darling, the beaten drudge; and the law,
that stands so near
To the starved bread-stealer or straying girl, seems so
terrible fur from here.
It made this ring; can it do no more in the way o’ bind-
ing lives P
Can’t it tie a man to the bit o’ work, can’t it break the
drunkard’s gyves ?
You are pulled if you starve or beat a beast. Are horses
better than wives ?
I must stir his supper. Poor stuff, poor stuff! Will he
taste it P Why should I care ?
Beaten flesh hardens, and why should souls keep soft ?
Cold hearts can bear,
Big Ben’s a booming—and there’s his step a-stumbling
loud on the stair!
A GROWL FROM A KERR.
One day last week at the City of London Court, during
the hearing of a disputed claim, Mr. Commissioner Kerr
is reported to have said, “ Don’t talk to me about the
working man. I have a very strong opinion about him,
and that is, that he is one of the greatest impostors
of the day.” If the Commissioner alluded to the loafer
who calls himself a working man, the rough who never
has and never wants any work to do, and fellows of that
stamp, he is perfectly right. But the condemnation was
too sweeping. Isn’t the Commissioner himself a working
man ? Aren’t all who honestly labour in any rank of
life working men ? and, above all, aren’t journalists
the most hard working, the most hard-worked and
least complaining of all rightly-called working men ?
With these exceptions Commissioner Kerr’s remark is
quite kerr-ect.
Telephone v. Telegraph.
It must be a painful task for Mr. Fawcett to appear
as the Champion of a Government Monopoly, and the
Opponent of Scientific Progress. The improvident bargain
made with the Telegraph Companies in 1869 is now bear-
ing bitter fruit. A man who has done so much for his
Department, whose economical principles are above sus-
picion, is compelled to do battle for the worst form of
Protection. The public, as usual, are the sufferers.
Private enterprise would have given them sixpenny
telegrams—the Government charges a shilling. Private
enterprise and human ingenuity will probably supersede
the telegraph, unless burked by Government and a more
than Liberal Minister.
An FEsthltic Philosopher.—Sage Green.