Punch: Punch (81.1881)

PUNCH, On THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 20, 1881,

THE PLEASURES OF "YOUTH."

Cruet Lane has got a hit that will last as long as The World—
even with two comets ahout. Messrs Harms and Meritt are to be
congratulated, especially Harris. The piece is of the Formosa type,
only without the Formosa epigrams. It depends upon its action
rather than on its dialogue, on good situations, striking tableaux—
they're always "striking" the tableaux—and, above all, strict and
careful drill, and intelligent rehearsal.

Act. I.—Exterior of Beechley Church—not at all a beechly church
to look at. Service with organ of course (never without an organ in
stage-worship) going on within. Mr. Ryder appears as the Vicar.
The last time we saw him was as a Mendicant Friar, but he
has now settled down as a prosperous Anglican Vicar, with, we
should say, judging from the cat of his coat, decidedly High Church
views. Were the height of his views to be measured by that of his
hat, they would be beyond anything at present known to Ultra-
Ritualists, but the notorious fact that these latter religionists never
wear tall hats, but have a weakness for black wide-awakes and a
clerical pot hat with very broad brim, which might be worn by a
cardinal in mourning, saves him from such an imputation. Unlike
Mr. W. S. Gilbert's Vicar in the Sorcerer, who sings of old Loves—
"Ah me, I was a pale young Curate then," the Rev. Mr. Darling-
ton has only to look back to his pre-ordination days, when, from his
own showing, he did go it rather, and knew his way about slightly.

It is rather hard on him
twenty-three years after
he has given up his
wicked ways, and become
a Vicar 'd man with a
wife and one son, that
he should be suddenly
confronted by Mrs. Wed-
singham (Miss Louise
Willes), whom, in his
pre-clerical days (we
hope it did happen be-
fore he was a pale young
Curate, though he never
distinctly states the fact)
he had—not to put too
fine a point upon it—
Tableau 1.—The Vigorous Yicar and the ruined and deserted.
Vickar'd old Voman. "After many changing ]}frSm Walsingham starts,
years, how sweet it is to come," &c. and calls him "Joseph! "

—he starts, exclaiming
"Hester!"—whereupon she becomes Hester-ical, but soon pulling
herself together, asks him very practically to let her the cottage
she was born in, in this very village of Beechley. Just think of that •
—and Mrs. Darlington—whom, probably the schoolboys (capital
schoolboys they are in Act. I., and quite capable of any lark of the
sort) call " Old Mother Darlington,"—within a stone's throw! And
what stones! what throwing there would be ! The Rev. Joseph
foresees it at a glance, and thinks to himself "JNTot for Joe!"
Mrs. Walsingham's request being refused, she, true to her name,
vows that she '11 lead him a pretty dance. Alas ! poor Joe.' Then
she leaves him—"old Joe kicking up ahind and afore, and the
yellow gal a kicking up behind old Joe / " But the Rev. Joe has
brought it on himself, and the audience to a woman are'down on

Tableau 2.—Very Moving. A Change of Scene strongly recommended
hy the Faculty. " Striking " effect.

him from the first, have no sympathy for him from this time forth,
think him a jolly old humbug, deride his excuses, and howl at his
sentiments. No matter what he says, religious, moral, or purely
sentimental, the audience " Joey" him, and form themselves into an
anti-humbug society on the spot. If the Rev. Joseph had only

behaved handsomely—if he had been "handsome Joe " in that early
amour—all might have been well; but he was " stingy Joe," and by
his own confession as mean a cuss as ever stepped, and so down
comes Mrs. Walsingham as his Nemesis. Poor Joe ! he can only
look back and say, " She was werry good to me, she was ; " but he
was werry bad to her, he was.

So his son Frank (Mr. Augustus Harris) goes wrong with Eve
de Malvoisie (Miss Marie Litton)—some relation perhaps of the
Sieur de Framboisie so celebrated under the Empire—and after a
scene in a canoe, and a good deal of canoodling in the Boat-Cottage
Garden, he marries her. But Eve is an adventuress, and really in
love with a Major Randal Reckley (Mr. W. H, Vernon), who is a
thorough-paced villain, and can't act cor-reckly on any occasion. At
any moment we were prepared for this nefarious person's being killed
by some one (probably the comic convict, Mr. Nicholls), who would
exclaim, " Die-reckley ! " and would then and there shoot him.
But no, he lived
to the end, to be
duly punished
with the other
wicked people.
Poor Frank is
run into fearful
extravagance by
Eve—they live in
what the Authors
modestly term
" Rooms," which
show us what, in
the opinion of
Messrs. Gillow
& Co., who de-
signed and fur-
nished them, a
young man's
"Rooms" should

be. We question Tableau 3.—Frank's Rooms—perhaps in Buckingham
the policy of this Palace. Figures to Scale. A Black Business,

advertisement on

the part of this eminent Firm. "Heavens!" any parent will
exclaim on seeing this small portion of a palatial Japanese residence
situated somewhere overlooking the Serpentine—though we never
remember to have noticed it—" My boy mustn't go to Gillow for
his rooms and furniture if this is the sort of thing ! Why, the lad's
only got a hundred-and-fif ty a year; and if this is the eminent
Firm's idea of Apartments Furnished in a Model Lodging-House,
why I shall be a Flat myself to let him go there ! "

The Rev. Darlington visits Frank, gives him coin, confides to
him that he has been a young dog himself once on a time, and boasts
that in those dog-days he had never trained a young gazelle to glad
him with her bright blue eye, but what, when she came to love him
well, he could always leave her at a moment's notice without the
slightest compunction. Heartless old Joe ! His morality receives a
severe shock when he hears that his son has actually married Eve,
Then Frank is condemned for a forgery which the Reckless Reckley
had committed, serves his time as a convict, where we see him in
prison condemned to the hard labour of, apparently, making mud-pies
on a tray, the proceedings being varied by a great deal of conversa-
tion and a murderous assault on a warder—which involves one of the

/ /

Tableau 4.—Mr. Harris emharks on his successful Stage-Manager-Ship.

best hand-to-hand realistic struggles between Mr.'Harris and Mr.
Estcourt that we've seen for a long time. Frank gets a ticket-of-
leave, enlists, goes off to India—in spite of Reckley, "who Indi-reckley
tries to stop him.