DOI Heft:
March 25, 1882
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17752#0141
*34 PUNCH, OK THE LQNDON CHAKIVABI. [Maroh 25, 1882,
“THE QUESTION OF-CANE”
Deputy Chaironan of Countvy School Board (there had been a row about a Child having been corrected). “ These ’erb Masters aih’t no
CAiii. to Cane the Children. Dame Crawly teached Me, and teached all my Fam’ly, for ’Ears and ’Eaes, without ever
a Beatin’ of tjs, and she thrned oht pooty good Schollards, she did ! ”
OTJIDA PLAY-GIARISED; OR, HOW WOTJLD IT ACT ?
Scene—Manager's room, Royal Propriety Theatre. Manager dis-
covered keeping appointment to hear Distinguislied Authoress
read an unvulgarised stage-adaptation of one of her own novels.
Manager. Ah.! You open the play in tlie smoking-room of a
London Club ? Excellent idea. Proceed, my dear Madam, with
your description of the scene. I am all attention.
Distinguished Authoress (continuing the reading from her MS.).
“ The scene represents a spaciouseasy chamber, iined with the laziest
of divans, seen through a fog of smoke, and tenanted by nearly a
score of men in every imaginable loose velvet costume. Some are
puffing away in calm meditative comfort, others are talking hard
and fast, while through the air, heavily weighted with the varieties
of tobacco, from tiny cigarettes to giant cheroots, from rough bowls
i full of cavendish, to Sybaritic rose-water hookahs, a Babel of
! sentences rises together. As these rush in amoDgst each other, and
are tossecl across the eddies of smoke in the contlicting of tongues,
loosened in tbe tabagie and made eloquent, though slightly inarticu-
j late by pipe-stems, the Curtain rises.
Enter a tall fair man, with the limbs of a Hercules, the chest of
a prize-fighter, and the face of a Raphael angel-”
[ Continues reading for forty minutes pages of brilliant dialogue
about horse-racing, monkeys, gambling, training on venison
and champagne, demi-monde broughams, welshers, muscle,
“ the Guards’ crack,” and other edifying trifles, carefidly
selected icith a mew to high-class come 'dy.
Manager {shghtly bewildered). Hum ! A littlelong, for a Prologue,
a little long. fium—yes ! Are we near the end ?
Distinguished Authoress. The End ? Here you are—the last line.
(Peads.) “ Davis (muttering with a mastiff’s savage growl). Curse
him. The d—d swell—he shan’t live long.” There, that brings
the Curtain down well—eh ?
Manager. Yes: hum : ha—very good—very good. But [reflecting),
do you know, I’m afraid a good deal of all that, excellent as it'is,
will bring the Lord Chamberlain down too.
Distinguished Authoress. Nonsense ! Listen to this. (Reads.)
“ Enter St. John Milton. ■—He is a delicate handsome creature,
with a face like some pretty brunette’s, and has the air of a man
who has been cut all to pieces a hundred times.”
Manager \dubiously). Hum! Difficult part. I suppose we must
put Smith into it. But he won’t look it.
Distinguished Autlioress. No, you must get a French Marquis who
has matriculated in Africa: one who can speak English like a
Sheridan, and turn a double somersault like Pagoni. There are
hundreds of them waiting for an engagement on the quays where
stood the ancient Carthage. You had better telegraph. But listen
to this.
[ Continues more brilliant dialogue, in which a Member of Par-
liament, a pleasant fellow, as gentle as a woman but as wild
as a grouse in November, listens to the cavalry officer’s
description of how he set the skulls of all the Asiatics he had
ever killed, in a row on the top of the flat roof of his house,
one illuminating night, in Calcutta, with the skulls all filled
up with clay, and a candle stuck into eacli, lighting up the
fleshless jaws and shining through the orbless eyes.
Manager (rising). Oh, but my dear Madam! Believe me, no
audience—for audiences are critical now—will take that as a rational
picture of the average British officer as commonly accepted in
society. You must, I fear, thrilling as it is, cut out the skulls.
( Warming.) Why, there would be a roar !
Distinguished Authoress. At what ? At the daring of a grande
dme—a great soldier ! Nonsense ! (Proceeds with the piece, and
after fifty minutes more of brilliant dialogue about Phryne, Apis,
St. John’s Wood, tigers’ eyeballs, Pommery and Greno, the Iloly
Grail, and gold-hued tropical birds, continues.) _ “ Any quite fresh
scandal is a great relish. If you be discussing a divorce, for
instance, you need not mind the presenee of the relatives in the
least,—scarcely of the husband nowadays. The onlv person whose
feelings must not be hurt is the co-respondent. Where this last
interesting personage is in the plural, you had better not invite two
of them at the same time. They are sure to have either too much
jealousy or too mueh compassion for one another,”
“THE QUESTION OF-CANE”
Deputy Chaironan of Countvy School Board (there had been a row about a Child having been corrected). “ These ’erb Masters aih’t no
CAiii. to Cane the Children. Dame Crawly teached Me, and teached all my Fam’ly, for ’Ears and ’Eaes, without ever
a Beatin’ of tjs, and she thrned oht pooty good Schollards, she did ! ”
OTJIDA PLAY-GIARISED; OR, HOW WOTJLD IT ACT ?
Scene—Manager's room, Royal Propriety Theatre. Manager dis-
covered keeping appointment to hear Distinguislied Authoress
read an unvulgarised stage-adaptation of one of her own novels.
Manager. Ah.! You open the play in tlie smoking-room of a
London Club ? Excellent idea. Proceed, my dear Madam, with
your description of the scene. I am all attention.
Distinguished Authoress (continuing the reading from her MS.).
“ The scene represents a spaciouseasy chamber, iined with the laziest
of divans, seen through a fog of smoke, and tenanted by nearly a
score of men in every imaginable loose velvet costume. Some are
puffing away in calm meditative comfort, others are talking hard
and fast, while through the air, heavily weighted with the varieties
of tobacco, from tiny cigarettes to giant cheroots, from rough bowls
i full of cavendish, to Sybaritic rose-water hookahs, a Babel of
! sentences rises together. As these rush in amoDgst each other, and
are tossecl across the eddies of smoke in the contlicting of tongues,
loosened in tbe tabagie and made eloquent, though slightly inarticu-
j late by pipe-stems, the Curtain rises.
Enter a tall fair man, with the limbs of a Hercules, the chest of
a prize-fighter, and the face of a Raphael angel-”
[ Continues reading for forty minutes pages of brilliant dialogue
about horse-racing, monkeys, gambling, training on venison
and champagne, demi-monde broughams, welshers, muscle,
“ the Guards’ crack,” and other edifying trifles, carefidly
selected icith a mew to high-class come 'dy.
Manager {shghtly bewildered). Hum ! A littlelong, for a Prologue,
a little long. fium—yes ! Are we near the end ?
Distinguished Authoress. The End ? Here you are—the last line.
(Peads.) “ Davis (muttering with a mastiff’s savage growl). Curse
him. The d—d swell—he shan’t live long.” There, that brings
the Curtain down well—eh ?
Manager. Yes: hum : ha—very good—very good. But [reflecting),
do you know, I’m afraid a good deal of all that, excellent as it'is,
will bring the Lord Chamberlain down too.
Distinguished Authoress. Nonsense ! Listen to this. (Reads.)
“ Enter St. John Milton. ■—He is a delicate handsome creature,
with a face like some pretty brunette’s, and has the air of a man
who has been cut all to pieces a hundred times.”
Manager \dubiously). Hum! Difficult part. I suppose we must
put Smith into it. But he won’t look it.
Distinguished Autlioress. No, you must get a French Marquis who
has matriculated in Africa: one who can speak English like a
Sheridan, and turn a double somersault like Pagoni. There are
hundreds of them waiting for an engagement on the quays where
stood the ancient Carthage. You had better telegraph. But listen
to this.
[ Continues more brilliant dialogue, in which a Member of Par-
liament, a pleasant fellow, as gentle as a woman but as wild
as a grouse in November, listens to the cavalry officer’s
description of how he set the skulls of all the Asiatics he had
ever killed, in a row on the top of the flat roof of his house,
one illuminating night, in Calcutta, with the skulls all filled
up with clay, and a candle stuck into eacli, lighting up the
fleshless jaws and shining through the orbless eyes.
Manager (rising). Oh, but my dear Madam! Believe me, no
audience—for audiences are critical now—will take that as a rational
picture of the average British officer as commonly accepted in
society. You must, I fear, thrilling as it is, cut out the skulls.
( Warming.) Why, there would be a roar !
Distinguished Authoress. At what ? At the daring of a grande
dme—a great soldier ! Nonsense ! (Proceeds with the piece, and
after fifty minutes more of brilliant dialogue about Phryne, Apis,
St. John’s Wood, tigers’ eyeballs, Pommery and Greno, the Iloly
Grail, and gold-hued tropical birds, continues.) _ “ Any quite fresh
scandal is a great relish. If you be discussing a divorce, for
instance, you need not mind the presenee of the relatives in the
least,—scarcely of the husband nowadays. The onlv person whose
feelings must not be hurt is the co-respondent. Where this last
interesting personage is in the plural, you had better not invite two
of them at the same time. They are sure to have either too much
jealousy or too mueh compassion for one another,”