Punch (82.1882)

Apbil 15, 1882. i

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAPJVARL 171

LA-DI-DA !

“WHERE DO YOtr GET YOTJR HA.TS, OlI) MAN ? ”
“At Soott’s. Is theke anothah Fellah?”

“ MOIJNT EOYAL.”

Miss Bradeon’s new “Mount” is one of her old
hobbies re-painted and the spots changed. It is another
variation on the original theme which suggested Joshua
Uaggard’s Daughter, Just as 1 Am, and Barbara.

The ascent of Mount Royal is not in the least
fatiguing; once commenced, you are bound to go on.
Old landmarks may be recognised from new points of
view, and the interest carries you to the end, which in
this case is a somewhat disappointing finish. By the
way, d propos of Barbara, in the memorable controversy
about The Squire, the Dramatist, while admitting having
read Far from the Madding Crowd between his note-
making and his play-writing, denied in toto his obligation
to the Novelist. Now, it is seldom that a novelist is ac-
cused of borrowing from a dramatist, but every playgoer
old enough to remember La Dame de St. Tropez—oi
which an English version was played at the St. James’s, (
with Miss Hekbekt and Mr. Alfked Wigan in the chief
parts—must, on reading Barbara, have been struck by
the striking resemblance between the two most impor-
tant situations in the novel and the above-mentioned play.

In both, the old lover with a knowledge of medicine
turns up, and discovers that the illness of the husband
is due to poison ; in both, the innocent wife is supposed
to be the poisoner; and in both, the real poisoner is
discovered by a mirrored reflection. The two first of
these situations also occur in a five-volume novel by M.
Navieb, de Montepin, written long after La Dame
de St. Tropez, hut whether before or after Barbara,
is not here to the point. No one, as far as we know,
has ever charged Miss Bkaddon or M. de Montepin
with plagiarism, and yet the coincidences are, with
one strong exeeption in the Hardy-Pinero case, as re-
markable as those in The Squire and The Madding
Crowd.

Whatever argument would acquit _the Erench and
English novelist, would, so far, acquit the dramatist.
That ’s all: but to return for a last word to Mount
lloyal; the more we have of Miss Bkaddon, and the
less of Miss Rhoda Dendkon and Weedek the hetter,
in our opinion— which is not a Podsnappish one—for
all novel-readers, oid and young.

Sik Waticin’s Channel Tdnnel Domain.— Boredom.

“ JO” ON THE THREE R'S.

Eddicashun ! Wot’sthat? Anythink good to'eat ? ’Cos if it
is, I’m on, anyways. Food for the mind, eh? That ain’t where
J’m’ungry; quite t’other. Wot’s it like, this’ere food ? Does it
make a cove feel more cumfable, like wittles, keep the wet and cold
out, like drink, or ’elp ’im to forget the lot, like a good doss on a
snug doorstep when there ain’t no Copper ’andy ? Didn’t I never
get none ? Not as I Imows on. Oh, yus, I ’m aweer them Board
Blokes is arter a lot on ’em,—sharp as Peelers a’most, they is,—but
they never take no ’count o’ me. Not likely ! Look at me! Nice
kmd of ornymink I am, neat little lot to mix among the reg’lar
’spectables as wears boots, and don’t tie their bags together with bits
o’string. Walker!

Where do I live ? Lor’, where don’t I. ?—’cept in ’ouses. That is,
if yer call it livin’. Knowed a dog once, knowed ’im fermilier iike,
’cos we chummed in and slep’ together now and agen. ’Spectable
dog wouldn’t know me, in course, but this’n was a waggerbone, lihe
me. Offle thin he were, one eye and a limp, and not enuf tail for a
rat to ’ang on to. Not arf a bad sort though, only no one wouldn’t
never take up with ’im, ’cos he was ugly. Wonder why some on us
| is made so. Praps them Board Blokes could tell, but it lieks me.
Knocked about a good while, this dog did, but allus on the shiver,
with his stump atween his legs, as if someone was goin’ to ’it ’im, or
’eave a stone at ’im. _ That ’s ’ow you get whenyer chewied. Found
’im dead one day, with quite a meaty bone in front on ’im, as he’d
Wa too weak to gnaw. He looked so easy and independent like,
that I begun to think that arter all death wasn’t a bad lay, and
wished, amost, I could chuck myself into the river along of him.
Only I wasn’t dead,—no such luck.

But eddieashun. Wot ’s it do for a Cove ? Give ’im good togs
and. ’ot tripe when he likes? If so, I wish them Board Blokes
ud put a little on it inter me. But I knowed a chap as earned ’is
two bob a week—fancy !—at labelling, and he got so bloomin’ tidy
| tbe Board Blokes copped him, and sent him to larn things out of a
1 book, and his mother, a widder, with no ’usband, and a consump-

shun, ’ad to work that extry, ’ard to keep ’im, that it killed her.
Is that eddicashun ? ’Cos if it is, I don’t want none of it. _But if
larnin’ lifts a eove up in the world without starvin’ of ’im, or
killin’ ’is mother, lor! shouldn’t I like to ’ave a go at it, that’ all ?
Only it don’t come my way somehow. Let-alonest cove in London
I am—’cept by the Bobbies. Are tliey eddicated, I wonder, or
them stamping, pufiing old parties as allus blows theirselves pupple
if we arskses ’em for a copper, and wants to knowwhere the Perlice
is. Where’s the Perlice, indeed! Where ain't they, I should like
to know ?

No, they don’t nail me and my sort not the Board Blokes don’t.
Wonder wot they’d do with me if they did. I ain’t got no mother
to chivvy afore the Beak, n’yet no father neither. They can’t drop
on me at my ’ome, ’cos wy, I ain’t got ne’er a one. Praps that’s
wy they ’ve lost the run of me. Only, if this eddicashun xs ’arf as
good as they say, I should like to trya slice on it—jest for luck
like. Three R.’s, sez you ? Oh, yus, 1’ve heered o’ them. Broken-
down old cove, I knowed—bin no end of a scholard, he ’ad—and mueh
good it seemed to ha’ done ’un—told me about ’em. Do ’em out
o’ books, and on slates and things, don’tyer? Jesso! Dunno nothin
furder about ’em though, I don’t. Only Three R.’s I’m formiliar
with is the three, the broken-down old ’un told me was my share.
“ Jo,” he sez, sez he, “ your three R.’s, my poor boy, are Rags,
Rheumatiz, and the ltumbles.” And blowed if he warn’t right too !

In the Press (with our dress-coat, probably left in one of the
pockets), and to come out in our next number, In Nubibus; or, Fly-
Leaves from a Record of Fly-Leaves in Air and Sky, from Colonel
Balloonby’s Journal. Published with liis entire assent.

The new steamer, the Invicta, London, Chatham, and Dover line,
is “ expected to perform the sea-passage between Dover and Calais
in one hour.” Hear ! hear ! With such a passage we shan’t want
a Tunnel. Clbture for Watkin ! Rule, Britannia !