Punch (86.1884)

264

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

keeping to the point, Toby. Take a word of advice from one of the
Old Guard. Secret of Parliamentary success is,—pardon me—first
master your subject, then discuss it briefiy—you know what I mean ?
Don’t be drawn aside by temptation to digress.”

Business done.—Fresh split in Conservative Camp. Government
Majority run up to nearly 200.

Wednesday.—“As Randolph didn’t go away, I think I shall,”
Sir Edward Watkin said this afternoon. “Tired of this narrow-
minded cramped little speck of an island. Wanted to link it to a
Continent. Wouldn’t have it. Proposed to make an underground
roadway between North and South of London. Throw the Bill in my
teeth. ‘ A benefactor,’ as it is written in Ecclesiasticus, ‘ receives
no benediction in his own country.’ Have only one desire, to benefit
my countrymen, and I’ve done something that way in course of busy
life. Comes a time when one’s tired of it, and it’s come to me.
Chamberlain'’s at bottom of the whole business. But he doesn’t
make public responsibility the less. Should like to have had Ran-
dolph’ s company if he’d been going, but must put up with my own.”

House discussing and dividing on Motion that Select Committee
t meet to-morrow at Two instead of Twelve. Fact is, Cavendish-
Bentinck, Henry Lennox, Tom Collins, and a score of others want
to go to Church, it being Ascension Day. Arthur Arnold suggests
they might get up at Six in morning and go. Suggestion treated
i with contempt. On a Division, Church opportunities decided for by
| 93 votes against 37. Labby going to move for a return showing how
| many Members avail themselves of opportunity.

Irish Members last year got Bill authorising large advances from
Treasury to build houses for labourers. This year come to ask for
more. Trevelyan gently points out that it’s a little early. Better
■ wait and see how Act works. Whereupon he is immediately sur-
rounded by the Boys, headed by Parnell himself, and kicked,

| cuffed, and abused—all in a Parliamentary sense, of course. Par-
{ nell openly threatens obstruction by way of reprisal; and William
| Shaw, a born humorist, threatens that 1 ‘ on next Yote o£ Censure
Irish Members will consider their course.”

Business done.—Irish Labourers’ Act (Amendment) Bill rejected.

Thursday.—House met to-night to pass Vote on Account of Civil
Service Estimates. Spent a long night; much talking, but no
reference to Civil Service Estimates. De Worms brought on a quite
new subject, to wit, policy of England in Egypt. Sir Peel, really
useful for once, suggested that Committee “ should ignore the noble
Baron.” Noble Baron dissented. Subsequently,. nearly eaten up by
Wrathful Gladstone.

Afterwards we had Charity Commissioners introduced by Jesse
Collings ; Russia’s designs on India, of which Ashmead-B artlett
has full knowledge ; story of Crew of Nisero, told by Mr. Storey
chiefly to his own credit; City of Cork Police ; Limerick Police ;
Irish Land Commission ; and then the Vote on Account.

Friday.—Met Stratheden-and-Campbell two single gentlemen
rolled into one—and plenty of room for more) coming from Lords’
Cloaking-room. Cloaked himself, brow bent in deep thought, and
walking, with ghostly tread, on tip-toes. Instinctively looked at
right hand for dagger, but saw it not.

“ Beshrew me, my Lord, whither away, marry come up ! ” I said,
naturally falling into Shakspearian language.

“ Ha! ha! Toby, is it thou ? ” said his Lordship, halting suddenly
on his toes, where my interruption had caught him, or where, as I
might say, he had marry-come-up'd. “ I was going to take a turn in
Westminster Abbey to round off few sentences about this Govern-
ment. Can’t get rid of them anyhow. On Monday I carried Vote
against them on Wellington Statue. Expected they would resign.
Sent in note at once to Salisbury to say was ready to serve under
him, if preference of Sovereign fell upon him. But Granville only
smiles. Expected Resignation last night, expected it to-day, but
nothing comes of it. Mighty heart of people stirred on this Statue
question. Have letter from Working Man, in which he says his
way to daily labour lay by Hyde Park Corner, but rather than pasa
it and witness spoliation, walks round by Primrose Hill. Asks me
to send him nine-and-sixpence to buy pair of boots. Scores of other
letters equally touching. Government must either submit or resign.
They have me to reckon with ! ”

Business done.—Franchise Bill taken in Committee of House of
Commons.

Bow-Wow.—M. Pasteur, of Paris, officially announces himself to
have j ust discovered an infallible cure for hydrophobia. ‘ ‘ This treat-
ment consists of three successive inoculations of the hydrophobic
virus immediately after the bite.” Let us trust this intelligence is
not too good to be true. May we—can we—hope that it is not a hoax,
and will not prove to have been one of those canards that occasion-
ally fly across the Channel ? His method of inoculation for hydro-
phobia seems uncommonly like the old “morning-after” remedy,
when the chippy one who could “ strike matches on his tongue ” was
recommended to take “ a hair' of the dog that bit him.” We have
heard that it was an infallible recipe for the cure of that sort of phobia.

[May 31, 1884.

The Order of the Government was “Off with his Head ! so
much for Wellington ! ” And this is how our Artist

LAST SAW THE STATUE, THURSDAY, MAY 22.

LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE

About Other People’s Business. To Mr. Augustus Harris, en voyage.

Dear Augustus Druriolanus,

Wherever you may he, whether on the back of a camel or
on your own hack in a gondola, this will meet your Managerial,
Auctorial, and Actorial eye. I promised I’d let you know what was
going on while you were away. Well—it’s too hot to go to any
theatre that’s at all crowded, and so I shall wait till the Public
generally is of my opinion, when I shall he able to have the place all
to myself, and report to you about the lever du rideau called Chat-
terton, by Messrs. Beaumont Jones and Fletcher Herman at the
Princess’s, in which our dear Wilson Barrett plays the leading
part, and I shall also take the first cool opportunity of seeing Car
and Tramway’s—no, Carr and Conway’s—new Melodrama entitled
Called Bach, at the Prince’s. Those are the novelties, and the
revivals are Fourteen Days at the Criterion, and Byron’s Zipper
Crust at Toole’s.

Perhaps John Lawrence Barrett Toole will produce a little
light opening piece called Talkerton, just to keep pace with Chatter -
ton. Of this latter piece I know nothing, except that Chatterton,
who preceded you in the management of Drury Lane, is memor-
able in theatrical annals for the saying, which appeared in a letter to
the Tunes, that “ Shaespeare spelt bankruptcy.” If he didn’t
originate this, Mr. Dion Boucicault did it for him. I am credibly
informed, however, that it is “not Launcelot, but Another,” whose
adventures form the subject of the laughable little piece at the
Princess’s, which is performed before Claudian. A well-informed
person tells me that this Chatterton, played by Mr. Wilson Barrett,
was a Poet who killed himself because he had a row with his land-
lady, in consequence of being unable to defray his microscopical
washing-hill. He didn’t intend to kill himself, of course, but only
meant to frighten his landlady. You, with your store of dramatic
knowledge, will call to mind that this is not a new plot for a Farce,
and is not unlike the Blighted Being, in which Robson was so
immense, but I dare say that, with his easy light-comedy eccentric
touch-and-go manner, Mr. Wilson Barrett rattles through the
part with great success, and finishes before the audience has time to
think. But, as I have said, I have not yet seen it, and it may be a
little different from what I have imagined.

The other Barrett, Lawrence the American, can’t have had a
very high time of it at the Lyceum. You see our people didn’t know
so much about him as his people did of our Mr. Irving. Who cares
for Kemble-like reproductions of Bichelieus and Hamlets and so
forth? Very few. By the way, our dear Wilson Barrett’s (what
a lot of Barretts there are about!) rhetorical style is a retrograde
movement towards that tie-wig and stilted period which modern
sensationalism and the natural acting of farcical comedy had, I
thought, so effectively banished from our boards. Will write when
I’ve seen these novelties. How’s your new Drama with Pettitt
getting on ? Is the Mahdi in it ?—Yours sincerely, Nibbs.

The Provostship oe Eton.—Strange that no one has yet thought
of offering this dignity to Mr. Russell Lowell. How very odd.
We ’re quite beginning to miss him.