DOI Heft:
September 8, 1883
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17755#0131
September 8, 1883.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
119
SYMPATHY.
Passenger (in a whisper, behind his paper, to Wilkins, rvho had been “ catching it ” from the Elder Lady). “ Mother-’n-Law ? ”
Wilkins (instill fainter whisper). “Ye’ ” Passenger. “ ’Got just such ’nother ! ” [They console together at the next Buffet.
peaches in London’s chief market—save the mark !—P. G. might as
well take a stroll in a swampy brickfield or an ill-kept straw-yard.
Trimness and rose-scents above, muck and malodorousness below.
That’s Civilisation—in London.
Civilisation from a canine point of view! Don’t sniff. Cynical ?
Not at all. Dogs are not cynical, though puppies—human ones—are.
But Civilisation has queer aspects when looked at closely. People
with their heads in the air overlook all sorts of absurdities and
abuses and anomalies, or accept them tacitly as inevitable matters of
course. Look at the state of certain of the main City thoroughfares
at. the present time. Or of some of the suburban roads. “Up,”
miles of them, week after week, to the dismal discomfort of every-
body—from drivers to dogs. All day in the City roads are blocked,
while leisurely Contractors loiter over jobs that should be done in
carefully-arranged detail with the greatest possible despatch.
. If some sooty foreign Effulgency were to be welcomed, the electric
light and night-shifts would promptly be called into play. But
when it’s only the convenience, comfort, and cash of tens of
thousands of citizens that are concerned, Bumble dawdles and
bungles on, ignoring management, and cutting Science dead. And
the citizens grumble and submit. Set up a fuming Witch’s Cauldron
in Cheapside that wafts foul-smelling asphyxia from end to end, fill
the Strand with dust clouds, as from a million door-mats violently
banged at once, block Fleet Street with stone-piles, mud-heaps, ana
scaffold-poles, keep the dirty chaos up for six weeks at a stretch,
and what does Civilisation say ? At any rate, she does nothing.
Take a Hansom to your Suburban home, say at Brixton. Cabby has
to make detour after detour till he loses his way—and his temper—
entirely. A barrier of boards, a Gehenna of flaring gas-flames, and
a howling warder stop, the way again and again and again. I ’ve
followed—out of curiosity—a cursing Cabby and a frantic passenger
passing in this way through miles of strange streets, and left them
furiously fighting over the fare at the end of the journey. And why ?
Because Bumble is a bumptious blunderer, and. Britons—notwith-
standing loudly-shouted lyrical denials— are slaves. Slaves to despotic
officialism, and blind Use and Wont.
Civilisation indeed! Give one of your philosophers, or journalists,
or Inspectors of Nuisances a dog’s day of time. and. a dog’s powur of
observation, and he ’ll knock holes in Civilisation in a way that will
surprise you. That is, if he be not smitten with the judicial—and
judicious—blunders of, say, a District Surveyor, after a. bottle of
champagne and a peculiarly careful hand-shake from an interested
party.
Wifff! Civilisation wants looking into with a keener eye than
that of your ordinary District Surveyor. A decent dog’s, for example.
A Turn for a Turner.
My Uncle, who in the Milisher is,
Haunts the South Kensington Fisheries,
He says that the “ Guides ”
Godfrey Turner provides
Are the best; and so he his well-wisher is.
QUITE THE REVERSE.
Miss Mary Anderson is a success at the Lyceum, but the piece
in which she appears, Ingomar, is a failure. The young lady, as,
presumably, a Scotch lassie, might take the advice of one of her own
nationality, who says, “ She mu’ go in for something else .
“ If j »
Bumble’s experiments in wooden paving .
Make London one wild chaos. What a saving
In cash, in time, man’s fears, and cattle’s dreads,
Could London be well paved with wooden beads..
For then- the thought ’s.Utopian, more’s the pity —
Some civic blunderers might serve the City.
“Henri Conscience.”—If there was one man more than another
who deserved this name, it was the lately deceased Comte de Cham-
bord, Henri Cinq.
119
SYMPATHY.
Passenger (in a whisper, behind his paper, to Wilkins, rvho had been “ catching it ” from the Elder Lady). “ Mother-’n-Law ? ”
Wilkins (instill fainter whisper). “Ye’ ” Passenger. “ ’Got just such ’nother ! ” [They console together at the next Buffet.
peaches in London’s chief market—save the mark !—P. G. might as
well take a stroll in a swampy brickfield or an ill-kept straw-yard.
Trimness and rose-scents above, muck and malodorousness below.
That’s Civilisation—in London.
Civilisation from a canine point of view! Don’t sniff. Cynical ?
Not at all. Dogs are not cynical, though puppies—human ones—are.
But Civilisation has queer aspects when looked at closely. People
with their heads in the air overlook all sorts of absurdities and
abuses and anomalies, or accept them tacitly as inevitable matters of
course. Look at the state of certain of the main City thoroughfares
at. the present time. Or of some of the suburban roads. “Up,”
miles of them, week after week, to the dismal discomfort of every-
body—from drivers to dogs. All day in the City roads are blocked,
while leisurely Contractors loiter over jobs that should be done in
carefully-arranged detail with the greatest possible despatch.
. If some sooty foreign Effulgency were to be welcomed, the electric
light and night-shifts would promptly be called into play. But
when it’s only the convenience, comfort, and cash of tens of
thousands of citizens that are concerned, Bumble dawdles and
bungles on, ignoring management, and cutting Science dead. And
the citizens grumble and submit. Set up a fuming Witch’s Cauldron
in Cheapside that wafts foul-smelling asphyxia from end to end, fill
the Strand with dust clouds, as from a million door-mats violently
banged at once, block Fleet Street with stone-piles, mud-heaps, ana
scaffold-poles, keep the dirty chaos up for six weeks at a stretch,
and what does Civilisation say ? At any rate, she does nothing.
Take a Hansom to your Suburban home, say at Brixton. Cabby has
to make detour after detour till he loses his way—and his temper—
entirely. A barrier of boards, a Gehenna of flaring gas-flames, and
a howling warder stop, the way again and again and again. I ’ve
followed—out of curiosity—a cursing Cabby and a frantic passenger
passing in this way through miles of strange streets, and left them
furiously fighting over the fare at the end of the journey. And why ?
Because Bumble is a bumptious blunderer, and. Britons—notwith-
standing loudly-shouted lyrical denials— are slaves. Slaves to despotic
officialism, and blind Use and Wont.
Civilisation indeed! Give one of your philosophers, or journalists,
or Inspectors of Nuisances a dog’s day of time. and. a dog’s powur of
observation, and he ’ll knock holes in Civilisation in a way that will
surprise you. That is, if he be not smitten with the judicial—and
judicious—blunders of, say, a District Surveyor, after a. bottle of
champagne and a peculiarly careful hand-shake from an interested
party.
Wifff! Civilisation wants looking into with a keener eye than
that of your ordinary District Surveyor. A decent dog’s, for example.
A Turn for a Turner.
My Uncle, who in the Milisher is,
Haunts the South Kensington Fisheries,
He says that the “ Guides ”
Godfrey Turner provides
Are the best; and so he his well-wisher is.
QUITE THE REVERSE.
Miss Mary Anderson is a success at the Lyceum, but the piece
in which she appears, Ingomar, is a failure. The young lady, as,
presumably, a Scotch lassie, might take the advice of one of her own
nationality, who says, “ She mu’ go in for something else .
“ If j »
Bumble’s experiments in wooden paving .
Make London one wild chaos. What a saving
In cash, in time, man’s fears, and cattle’s dreads,
Could London be well paved with wooden beads..
For then- the thought ’s.Utopian, more’s the pity —
Some civic blunderers might serve the City.
“Henri Conscience.”—If there was one man more than another
who deserved this name, it was the lately deceased Comte de Cham-
bord, Henri Cinq.