Punch (86.1884)

February 2, 1881.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

59

A WORD PROM WINTER.

“Mild Winters encourage vain expectations.
. . . . The records tell us, with almost too much
emphasis, that a mild Winter may be followed by
a late Spring, and by the most unkind weather
that we can imagine as intervening.”—Gar-
deners' Magazine.

Leaye the Yule-log alone,

For the Winter is ended,

And all folks must own
That the weather is splendid.

Here come the Spring hours,

And half blooms e’en a dim rose,

And, ’mid many flowers,

We can welcome the primrose.

We ’ve never seen snow,

And there ’s no harm in stating
That, as all men know,

We had small chance of skating.

Old Christmas was here,

He ’s a regular comer,

Why did he appear

As the herald of Summer ?

The huntsmen we see

On each day don the scarlet,

And chase o’er the lea
What old “ sports ” call “thevarlet;”
On hunting this year
Does no frost put a stopper,

Though still ’twould appear

That some men come a “ cropper.”

The gardener speaks,

With his words of dread warning,

W e’ve had pleasant weeks,

But one day comes a morning
When frost bites once more ;

Can’t we say with good reason,

That never before
Was there seen such a season

The Latest Specimen of a Nihilist.
—Sir Stafford Northcote lecturing on
“ Nothing.”

THE PREMIERS WHITE ELEPHANT.

“What will he Do with Him ?”

Mr. Bradlaugh has explained more exactly than before the tactics he intends to adopt when the-
Session opens. He will not attempt to swear himself in before the Queen’s Speech is read. This is what
he proposes to do:—“ He should go to the House on February 5. After leaving the cloak-room he would
enter the House and take his seat in the part of the House open to Members only. After the Queen’s
Speech had been read he might, or might not, go to the table ; if he did, no one could prevent him. The
police could not. because they would he outside the door, and he would be inside. If he went to the table.
Sir Stafford Northcote would object, or he would not. If not, then the oath was taken and the seat
occupied ; if he did, he (Mr. Bradlaugh) could wait till he had finished, as he had done before, or take
no notice of him, but swear himself in at once, and take his seat.”

TEACHING THE OLD IDEA.

Yesterday afternoon the second, of the series of the new and
highly successful popular lectures recently inaugurated by Dr.
Morell McKenzie at the School of Dramatic Art was delivered at
that Institution. As soon as it became known that the subject
selected was “ Hygiene in the front of the House,” and that it would
be handled by no less an authority than Dr. Rawlingson, F.R.M.S.,
the application for places was so great, that the one pupil, for whose
benefit the series of lectures had been primarily intended, was
instantly offered a half-holiday by the governing body, and every
corner of the room was immediately filled by a distinguished and
elderly audience, in some respects even more miscellaneous in cha-
racter than that which had attended the previous lecture.

In addition to all the leading actors and actresses, teachers of
elocution and singing, vocalists, amateurs, acrobats, Peeresses, cele-
brated Military and Naval Authorities, Members of both Houses of
Parliament, and a large sprinkling of Provincial Mayors, prominent
places were occupied by Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell, the Chair-
man of the London and North-Western Railway Company, Pro-
fessor Stokes, the Beadle of the Burlington Arcade, and a host of
other more or less well-known figures not hitherto publicly associated
with the progress of Dramatic Art.

The Lecturer introduced his subject by defining “hygiene” as
applicable to the “front of the house,” remarking by the way,
amidst a good deal of laughter, that although it was generally
admitted that prevention was better than cure, a great many
Managers failed to realise the method of producing a healthy con-
dition in their receipts till they had lost them altogether. The first
necessity of “hygiene” in the treasury was undoubtedly to avoid
cold. This could only he effected by packing an audience well
together, and keeping them physically occupied by clapping their
hands. Audiences, however, required some stimulus on the other
side of the Curtain 'to warm them up to effort. A frost was,.there-
fore, to he avoided. The wind might sometimes be raised by posters,
and the public might literally be driven into the theatre for a night or
two by violent puffing outside ; hut the secret of such a procedure
soon got blown, and the Manager himself, as a consequence, at last-

only found himself left out in the cold. This brought him to the
recently-developed craze for decoration. There was a very baseless
and unsubstantial belief now current that the mere tranpings of the
Auditorium and its approaches were in themselves a sufficient attrac-
tion for the public. This was a mistake. Such trappings caught
nobody but the Manager. He might he left alone in his House to
admire them, hut if he did this he must put his foot in it. As to
the public, they would no more stand mere stuff and padding on
this side of the footlights than they would on the other. A splendid
dado was a fine thing in the right place ; but he might lay it down
as an axion of “ Managerial hygiene,” that the more persistently and
lavishly the interior of a House was papered, the worse inevitably
would be the ultimate condition of the treasury.

The Lecturer then, amidst some uproar, proceeded to make a vehe-
ment onslaught on the folly of several Managers who had obstinately
refused to stimulate the “failing hygiene.”. of their respective
establishments, by a recourse to a series of original five-act plays of
his own, the dialogue of which he quoted, and the principal scenes
and situations of which he was proceeding to illustrate on a black-
board, when it was announced that the one pupil of the College, who
had apparently been at a loss what to do with himself, had just
tumbled down an area, in Argyll Street.

Upon this information being whispered by a distinguished Per-
sonage present to a member of the governing body, a vote of thanks
to the Chairman was hurriedly proposed by the Deputy-Secretary,
and—everybody present promising to come again next week and bring
some fresh friends with them—the further hearing of the lecture
unanimously adjourned.

Frivolous Inquiry.—The sale of the Library of the Diss Book
Club, recently dissolved, is announced in the Athehceum. Our Tire-
some Contributor writes to know if it was dissolved on account of
its being a Diss agreeable Book Club, and whether the inspection of
the books would be denominated a Dissolving Yiew ?

M. Aicard’s new play at the Theatre Fran^ais is called Smilis.
but there is no laughter in it.