DOI issue:
January 5, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17756#0010
WCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI [January 5, 1884.
OVER-SCRUPULOUS.
“My Husband is Vicar of St. Boniface—but I don’t attend his Church.”
“Indeed ! How is that?”
“Tee fact is, I—I don’t approve of Married Clergymen !”
UNHACKNEYED YULE; OR, YULE-TIDE GUSH.
Even his mighty intellect oppressed, and his usually irrepressible high spirits saddened,
by reading all the Christmas articles in every one of the newspapers, Mr. Punch would
seriously suggest, and has actually invented, a “ New Game for Journalists.” The sole object
of the inventor is to produce a novel and really readable column of printed matter for next
! Christmas. Here are the rules :—
! 1. No allusions whatever to be made to Dickens’s Christmas Chimes, to Washington
: Irving’s Old Christmas, or to the Grave-digger who punched the little boy’s head for
i whistling on Christmas Day.
2. Anybody wbo uses the words “ Yule-tide,” or “Yule-log,” is immediately out of the
game.
3. No references permitted to the Druids, or the Roman Saturnalia.
4. No paragraphs to begin with “ A Merry Christmas ! And why not a Merry Christmas P
Is it not far better to he merry than to he, &e., &c. ? ” or with “To-day the hells from
j many a tower and steeple ring in the season of Good-will, of Merriment, of, &c., &c.”
5. Nobody to mention plum-pudding. Turkeys only to he used with a good deal of fresh
stuffing.
| 6. Any words expressive of the slightest tolerance for “Waits” subject the Player to a
heavy forfeit.
7. Players to take for granted that the public is already acquainted with the uses of Holly
and Mistletoe as decorative agents, and these, therefore, are not to be mentioned at all.
j 8. No Scandinavian “lore” about Mistletoe to be trotted out on any pretence.
9. Feelings of gushing benevolence to the poor (on paper) to be sternly repressed.
10. Articles to be as short as possible.
11. If possible, no articles at all to be written.
By an attention to the foregoing rules, newspaper writers may really hope to produce
| something quite new and original a propos of what they generally call “the sacred season,”
i and Mr. Punch himself may be able to look forward in 1884 to a comparatively “Merry
! Christmas.”
THE NEW YEAR.
A New Year! Turn another page,
Life’s ledger haply needs fresh ruling.
How fares it with us since the age
When we were first set free from school-
ing ?
Call back from out the spectral past
Remembrance of the vanished faces,
That peopled hours too bright to last,
In years that tied with lightning paces.
How strange it is in later days
To think on dead youth’s lost illusion;
The world seemed fair then to our gaze,
And not all chaos and confusion.
We had beliefs,—where are they now ?
We loved,—where are the loves we
cherished ?
0 high resolve and steadfast vow,
How came it that so soon you perished ?
Where are the comrades of old time,
Who swore to scale the heights of glory,
And win with us in prose or rhyme
A name in unforgotten story F
They ’re not such famous men to-day,
While we o’er laurels hardly may crow,
Ah well, ’twere courteous to say,
’Tis “ Parent quia rate sacro.”
Contrast those halcyon days with these,
Then bowed we to the smiles of beauty,
Then pleasure had the power to please,
And friendship seemed the dearest duty.
Now pleasure’s like the treadmill’s wheel,
The fire of friendship waxes duller,
And beauty somehow seems to steal
From Art, what once was Nature’s colour.
And mark the aspects of the age,
In truth no pleasant panorama,
Here wanton children take the stage,
There runs the blood-and-thunder drama.
A time of sham aesthetic tastes,
Life’s riddle pales before acrostics,
And girls with suicidal waists
Will pose as drawing-room agnostics.
Existence bores us—shameful word,
With all that life can spread before us ;
Now earnestness is held absurd,
And ’tis our sapless souls that bore us.
“ Lycoris life requires an art,”
So wrote the pensive Bard of Rydal;
And ours is, moulding.on the mart
One deity, a golden idol.
So close the book, the past is dead,
Or if we write upon its pages,
As on a palimpsest ‘be read,
A nobler record for the ages.
Life’s lessons have been dearly bought,
And good and evil masters claim us,
Yet surely all the Past has taught
But little if the Future shame us.
The Pill’s Progress.
To believe that mere pills Will cure all
human ills, Is hard, save^those very strong
in the “ swallow ” way; Yet ^gullible wit,
In this case, must admit That the true way
to wealth—if not health—was a Holloway !
Extraordinary Meat-tea-oric Pheno-
menon.—Dr. Fraser’s article in the Edin-
burgh Chirurgical and Pathological Journal,
condemning Meat Teas.
Summary.—Benjamin to Grant. “You’ve
got no ground to go upon, because I’ve
sold it.”
The best Flower for the Festive
Season.—The Laughing Stock.
OVER-SCRUPULOUS.
“My Husband is Vicar of St. Boniface—but I don’t attend his Church.”
“Indeed ! How is that?”
“Tee fact is, I—I don’t approve of Married Clergymen !”
UNHACKNEYED YULE; OR, YULE-TIDE GUSH.
Even his mighty intellect oppressed, and his usually irrepressible high spirits saddened,
by reading all the Christmas articles in every one of the newspapers, Mr. Punch would
seriously suggest, and has actually invented, a “ New Game for Journalists.” The sole object
of the inventor is to produce a novel and really readable column of printed matter for next
! Christmas. Here are the rules :—
! 1. No allusions whatever to be made to Dickens’s Christmas Chimes, to Washington
: Irving’s Old Christmas, or to the Grave-digger who punched the little boy’s head for
i whistling on Christmas Day.
2. Anybody wbo uses the words “ Yule-tide,” or “Yule-log,” is immediately out of the
game.
3. No references permitted to the Druids, or the Roman Saturnalia.
4. No paragraphs to begin with “ A Merry Christmas ! And why not a Merry Christmas P
Is it not far better to he merry than to he, &e., &c. ? ” or with “To-day the hells from
j many a tower and steeple ring in the season of Good-will, of Merriment, of, &c., &c.”
5. Nobody to mention plum-pudding. Turkeys only to he used with a good deal of fresh
stuffing.
| 6. Any words expressive of the slightest tolerance for “Waits” subject the Player to a
heavy forfeit.
7. Players to take for granted that the public is already acquainted with the uses of Holly
and Mistletoe as decorative agents, and these, therefore, are not to be mentioned at all.
j 8. No Scandinavian “lore” about Mistletoe to be trotted out on any pretence.
9. Feelings of gushing benevolence to the poor (on paper) to be sternly repressed.
10. Articles to be as short as possible.
11. If possible, no articles at all to be written.
By an attention to the foregoing rules, newspaper writers may really hope to produce
| something quite new and original a propos of what they generally call “the sacred season,”
i and Mr. Punch himself may be able to look forward in 1884 to a comparatively “Merry
! Christmas.”
THE NEW YEAR.
A New Year! Turn another page,
Life’s ledger haply needs fresh ruling.
How fares it with us since the age
When we were first set free from school-
ing ?
Call back from out the spectral past
Remembrance of the vanished faces,
That peopled hours too bright to last,
In years that tied with lightning paces.
How strange it is in later days
To think on dead youth’s lost illusion;
The world seemed fair then to our gaze,
And not all chaos and confusion.
We had beliefs,—where are they now ?
We loved,—where are the loves we
cherished ?
0 high resolve and steadfast vow,
How came it that so soon you perished ?
Where are the comrades of old time,
Who swore to scale the heights of glory,
And win with us in prose or rhyme
A name in unforgotten story F
They ’re not such famous men to-day,
While we o’er laurels hardly may crow,
Ah well, ’twere courteous to say,
’Tis “ Parent quia rate sacro.”
Contrast those halcyon days with these,
Then bowed we to the smiles of beauty,
Then pleasure had the power to please,
And friendship seemed the dearest duty.
Now pleasure’s like the treadmill’s wheel,
The fire of friendship waxes duller,
And beauty somehow seems to steal
From Art, what once was Nature’s colour.
And mark the aspects of the age,
In truth no pleasant panorama,
Here wanton children take the stage,
There runs the blood-and-thunder drama.
A time of sham aesthetic tastes,
Life’s riddle pales before acrostics,
And girls with suicidal waists
Will pose as drawing-room agnostics.
Existence bores us—shameful word,
With all that life can spread before us ;
Now earnestness is held absurd,
And ’tis our sapless souls that bore us.
“ Lycoris life requires an art,”
So wrote the pensive Bard of Rydal;
And ours is, moulding.on the mart
One deity, a golden idol.
So close the book, the past is dead,
Or if we write upon its pages,
As on a palimpsest ‘be read,
A nobler record for the ages.
Life’s lessons have been dearly bought,
And good and evil masters claim us,
Yet surely all the Past has taught
But little if the Future shame us.
The Pill’s Progress.
To believe that mere pills Will cure all
human ills, Is hard, save^those very strong
in the “ swallow ” way; Yet ^gullible wit,
In this case, must admit That the true way
to wealth—if not health—was a Holloway !
Extraordinary Meat-tea-oric Pheno-
menon.—Dr. Fraser’s article in the Edin-
burgh Chirurgical and Pathological Journal,
condemning Meat Teas.
Summary.—Benjamin to Grant. “You’ve
got no ground to go upon, because I’ve
sold it.”
The best Flower for the Festive
Season.—The Laughing Stock.