Punch (80.1881)

June 11, 1881.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

265

ROO-" TOO-TOO "-ING IT.

" G. A. S." in his Echoes tells
us an anecdote of what two little
black-stockings said when seeing1
the iEsthetes at the Prince of
Wales's Theatre. Here's an-
other nannygoat. Mamma and
two daughters, all quite too ut-
terly Too-Too, sat in the Stalls,
and after expressing a languid
monosyllabic interest in the play,
said, one to the other, " Such too
absurd people can't possibly exist
in what we know as ' real life.' "
Mamma observed that Mrs. Mur-
ray as Lady Tompkins, was a
" monstrous abnormalism." The
youngest ventured to remark that
she had heard of a certain de-
signing person called Mr. Du
Maubieb, who caricatured " The
Beautiful" in a Philistine jour-
nal called Punch; and then the
three having settled, during the
entr'acte, that the entire dra-
matis persona were but'' the gro-
tesque reflections of a deformed,
cracked, and blurred mirror,"
composed themselves to listen to
the remainder of the piece with
painful, joyless pleasure.

PUNCH'S FANCY PORTRAITS.-No. 35.

The Bee-Division.

A swabm of bees appeared in
the Strand last week, and col-
lected close to the stage-door of the
Gaiety Theatre. Mr. Tegetmeteb
was sent for, and he succeeded in
hiving them with little difficulty.
Later on in the evening the usual
swarm of stage - door loungers
assembled at the same place, ob-
structing the traffic and causing a
public scandal. The police au-
thorities were sent for—not for
the first time—and they declined
to remove the nuisance. Negotia-
tions are pendingwith Mr. Teget-
meiee to restore the bees, mixed
with a few wasps and hornets.

THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.

And did you never hear of a jolly young Waterford ?

Ask at the CarltoD, and then you will know ;
A thorough good sportsman—he can time and thought afford

As Judge of the horses at Islington Show.

"A HALL! A HALL!"

Borneo and Juliet.

Quotation- from the Bard ap-
plicable to Mr. Charles Hall,
the Prince of Wales's Attorney-
General for the Duchy of Corn-
wall, lately added to the
splendid collection of Legal Silk
Worms, and made a Q.C. Aha!
"How dost thou, Chables?"
vide the Bard—toujours the Bard
—in As You Like Lt. But Wil-
liam did not write the following
lines, which just now are far
more appropriate :—

" And ye shall walk in silk attire,
And siller ha'e to spare."

Would that, for the sake of the
Bar and the Duchy, the author of
this had been Bae-ey Cobnwall.
That would have been perfect.
But it cannot be so—'tis too late
—he hien, voild tout ! c'est a
dire,—That's Hall !

Elegance with. Economy.

The Rational Dress Society has
great raison d'etre. What can be
much more reasonable than trying
to promote individual taste, in
the choice of attire ; to improve
feminine costume with respect to
health, comfort, and beauty ; and
to limit the fashions to changes
requisite on those grounds alone ?
Fathers and husbands, and bache-
lors also of moderate means who
would fain marry but fear to,
think how considerably domestic
happiness would be cheapened by
the success of the Rational Dress
Society—granted its real ration-
ality and the entire difference of
its Associates, in that point, from
those ancient Bloomers whose
grotesque attempts at Dress
Reform were as blossoms nipped
in the bud.

NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A CITY WAITER.

Robert on- the Thames.

I don't think I was ever so thorowly disapinted and disgusted in
all my life as I was last week, and I reelly was not so shoct as I no
doubt ought to ha' been, when I herd a werry rispectable but egsited
Waterman observe, "if this sort of thing's a going to be aloud, the
sooner we has a sangwinary revolution the better ! "

A werry old friend of mine is what I should call a reglar desperate
fishmonger. I don't mean a Billingsgate cormorant nor a Charing
Cross Grove, but a man who gives hisself up art and sole to catching
fishes in the water. Well, he asked me the other day to go and have
a day's fishing with him, witch of course I was only too glad to
except, as a change of life is always agreeable.

Well, we went by train to a nice clean little plaice quite beyond
Stains, and there we hired a Punt, and off we set, and my friend having
arranged all the tackling, there we sat for about 2 hours, watching
the notes, ! think they calls 'em, bobbing up and down in the water,
and tho it warn't howdashusly egsiting, as we didn't get more than
2 nibbles and 1 bite, yet still, as the sun was a shining like one a
clock, and the banks of the river was that lovely that you might
almost think that it was just a little bit of Paradise left out as a
sample, specially as Ned hadn't forgot to put an Amper on board
with lots of cold beef and a gallon of beer, I enjoyed myself quite as
much as if I'd din a dining off the Poultry near Cornhill.

Well, about 4 o'clock it begun to cloud ever, and then it begun to
mizzle, and I natrally thort that, as the wulgar say, we should mizzle
too, but Ned said oh no, that was just wot we wanted to make the
fish bite, for it seems they are such precious fools that they think
that no sensible fellow would ever be such a Ideot as to set in a wet
boat in the pouring rain just for the chance of catching a few her-

rings, and a moral certainty of catching cold. And so it turned out,
for by the time we had both got jolly well wet through, the fish began
to bite like fun oh, and I had just hooked my first 'un, quite a beauty,
nearly 6 inches long I should think, when a Gent, on one of the
lawns that runs down to the river, shouts out to us, " Now then, you
fellers, just you be off with you, or I '11 spile your sport for you."

Of course we treated him with all the contemp one can manage to
show when one's wearing a Sow Wester and is wet through. So
what did he do but calls up a large New Foundling Dog, and throw-
ing a stick into the water close to our punt, sends in the Dog to fetch
it out!

Well, to shorten my tail, there was no use our fishing no more
after that, so, wet as we was, we just showered a few blessings on
that Gent's honerd head, to which I added a pious ope that I might
some day have the honner of waiting upon him at dinner, wen
p'raps he'd hardly know which was the reel waiter of the 2, and so
to town, just in time for a grand Bangwet at the Fishmongers Haul.

This is a plane unlackerd tail of wot took plaice only last week,
and now comes the only little bit o' consolashun I has in eluding to it.

I sumtimes hears, but oftner reads, a tax upon the old Coppera-
tion ; with that of course I've nothink to do as it isn't in my line,
and I'm naterally predejuiced in their favour from my perfeshnal
avacations. But I'm axshally told by Brown-, who has it from a
Mr. Ledgee (he ort to be a Marchant or a sporting man with that
name he ort) that the Copperation has promised as they '11 look into
this matter, and if any amount of trubble, or money, or law, can
put a stopper on it, or rayther as I should say in it, it shall be done.

Well, if that's how they spends their leisure time and their sur-
plice cash, fust in saving open spaces and then in saving open rivers,
why aU I can say is, I believes there are tens of thousands of Lon-
doners who will jine me in saying, " More power to their elbow ! "

{Signed) Robeet.

VOL. LXXX.

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