Punch: Punch (83.1882)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI._[July 22, 1882.

VERY LIKE IT.

Tutor. “What, what, Mumbles? How do you translate Semetipsum ?”

Master Mumbles (with some slight hesitation). “ Half Tipsy, Sir ? ”

DRENCHED IN THE DOG-DAYS.

Are these the Dog-days, when Star Sirius
.Rising and setting with the Sun,

Should specially drive dogs delirious,

If heat can make them rabid run ?

What weather for the toads and frogs,

In Dog-days raining cats and dogs !

Water enough for dogs to guzzle,

As sanest, soberest dogs are prone.

The bow-wow, then, forbear to muzzle,

And don’t debar him of his bone !

Of hydrophobia take no fear :

Small risk of rabies yet this year !

What Dog-days, these, for garden-parties,
Display of fashion’s fine attire,

Wherein the mantua-maker’s art is
A perfect marvel to admire !

But waterproof were meeter wear,

In dripping Dog-days, for the Fair !

All heads hid under spread umbrellas,

See what a gay and festive scene
Those splendid girls and spruce young fellows
Present on gravel-path and green !

All shrouded in a macintosh,

While snails beneath your steps you squash.

For snails and slugs in showery weather
Come out amid the moist parterres,

And thrush and blackbird, both together,
Snap those molluscs up unawares ;

And ever, as they gulp them, sing
Grace after grub which Dog-days bring.

Cab Reform.—“ Noblesse oblige !” as the Cabman said
when he was standing on his rank. “ Obliged to nobble
less,” is somebody’s translation. But between Drivers
and Proprietors the public will come to the ground, and
have to walk. We wish the Cab-ranks could be recruited
from the Civil Service. Except for the shortest possible
distance, the right fare and a row is the rule. But the
subject has been already fully treated in our “ Handbook
to Knowledge ” Series.

Hiijamm

Born at Bath, 1797.

Died in London, 1882.

Stop your laughter, friends!—a minute. Bow the reverential head
O’er the bier that bears the body of a Veteran that’s dead.

There’s no cause for lamentation, let no sorrow stain the page
Of a man who fought his battle to a patriarchal age :

All the giants he outlived them, they departed one by one,

But the epilogue—he spoke it ere his comedy was done.

One by one they left their leader, bred to work and born to rule,

Left him weeping o’er the ruins of his old Adelphi School—

Left him weeping for the glories of the old Haymarket time,

When the Men were in their triumph, and the Women in their prime.
They will greet with acclamation, as he nears the distant shore,

Such a fine old English Actor. “ Rare Ben Webster ” is no more !
Open gates of recollection to the long-remembered years
When his Graves excited laughter and his Triplet moved to tears !
He had humour, he had sparkle, there was cynicism’s bite
When he soothed and he soft-sawdered as the oily Hypocrite.

Nature school’d him for an Actor, and “ one touch ” of it he show’d
When the copyist Pennholder led to sympathy tbe road ;

For the old man clasped his daughter with a cry upon his breast—
Then a pause, and then a silence—it was Nature told the rest.
Change the scene to Melodrama, realistic in its day,

Who forgets his Robert Landry in the old Adelphi play P
Who forgets his oft successes, Wright and Bedford by his side,
Now in drama charged with pathos, now as reckless Richard Pride.
Change again to subtle humour, and, though comedy be rare,

There it lived in Joey Ladle in the new No Thoroughfare.

Ere the grass grows green above him, ere we ring the curtain down,
Let one throb of recollection stir the pulses of the town!

He outlived his generation, did this venerable Sage,

Smiled at “ coat-and-trouser ” pieces and a milk-and-water Age.
Who can wonder that an Actor and a leader turned his back
On a decorated Drama and an Art of bric-a-brac ?

But a greater revolution cheered the man who played his part
Midst the charitable curses that the people hurled at Art:

He had borne the brunt of battle, and he lived to see the morn
When the Actress was respected and the Actor free from scorn !
Hush your clamour for a moment, let your controversy cease!

A familiar voice is silent!—“Rare Ben Webster ” is at peace !

NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A CITY WAITER.

Well, if ever I was litorally dumflounderd in all my life, it was
on last Munday arternoon at the House of Commons! I got one of
the dorekeepers to let me go in the Gallery, afore the dinners began,
to hear the Ouse accep with gratitood and arty thanks, the haltera-
tion as the Lords had kindly made in the owdacious Shadwell Fish
Market Bill, so as to purteck the sacred rites of the Copperashun.
But what did I hear ? The most awful accounts of pore old dear
Billinsgate, just because it’s a little scrowged, and a little dirty,
and a little small. Even Sir William Arcourt denouncing tbe
Copperashun’s dry Monopolee, and acshally larfin at their sacred
Charter, and laying down the hawfully wicked principle that a
Charter as doesn’t do no good ain’t of no use ! However, he didn’t
have it all quite his own way, the Copperashun was boldly, tho’
wainly, supported by a Brightonian, and a Alderman, and a Irishman,
but even such a Treeo as that wasn’t of no use, and the Lords’
improvements was both struk out amid the jeers and larfter of the
thortless Ouse. And then arfter this nokkin these ere 2 amemments
on the Ead, the Lords, on Fish-Fryday as ever wos, makes no stand
but alows ’em to be drownded like a kupple 0’ kittuns in the riwur.
Well—if I wos a Lord—but that aint neether ear nor there.

Wensday being a slack day with us, I took a walk down Thames
Street just to see what peeple are making such a fuss about in
regard to the Traffick. 1 had just a little drop of some think to
drink with a ole frend of mine who’s a porter in Buttolf Lane, and
he told me all about it. He says they has sum rare fun sumetimes
of a morning when the scrowge is at its best. He says he may run
against anybody, when he’s carryin a load, if he only calls out Buy
Leaf, and one of their old jokes is that anybody as goes into Billins-