Punch: Punch (87.1884)

156

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[September 27, 1884.

LETTERS IN THE RECESS-

By Eminent Hands.

I._ON JAM FOR BREAKFAST.

Dear Toby,

In addressing you on a subject involving points of National
if not of Imperial interest, you may be inclined to ask me, “ What
Jam for breakfast?” This aptitude for curiosity displaying itself
in a disposition to subdivide a matter, as I may say, by making

Shooting Season in Scotland—The Gladstone Preserves.

ft

minute interrogatories, is one that I cannot plead I am altogether
unfamiliar with. But it is one I have never been accustomed to
I encourage. You will see the disadvantage at once. Suppose, for
example, I said “ Gooseberry-Jam for breakfast,” that would con-
siderably tie my hands, limiting me to precise points which might
prove, eventually, inconvenient, and might hereafter open up oppor-
tunities for quotation from this correspondence that might be
embarrassing. I know nothing particular to the discredit of goose-
berry as a Jam, and the same remark applies to the blameless black
currant, the retiring raspberry, and the plethoric plum. But there
is no necessity for me to hamper myself by particularising; and there-
j fore, with your permission, of which I feel assured in advance, we
i will leave the matter in the general form indicated by the title of
! this letter.

I am inclined to encourage the consumption of Jam at breakfast
! for reasons connected with the national income and expenditure,
j You will remember that on a recent occasion, having the privilege
of addressing an assembly of gentlemen more or less intimately con-
nected. with the science of Agriculture—I mean a body of Farmers—
I took the liberty of recommending them to turn their attention to
Jam, not at breakfast, but in garden and field ; and when I say in
I garden and field I shall, I trust, scarcely be taken as seriously pro-
; posing that Jam shall be grown out of doors—whether in pots or
in pods—pendant from the actual living tree or shrub. I have
' always been an advocate of expressing one’s thoughts in the fewest
j possible words, even at the risk of misconstruction, owing to the
! elliptical form of sentences. When I say to persons who, whether
from hereditary circumstances, or from accidental circumstances, or
| from any circumstances whatever, have become connected with the
exploitation of our arable and garden land — when I say to
| such persons (the Agriculturists, in short) “ Grow Jam,” that sen-
tence, striking in itself, will by the intelligent person be understood
as comprehending all the processes of agriculture, from the gathering
of the seed to the preparation of the ground—preparation, I here
: mean, as distinct from operation.

If I were to assume that the persons I address would require to
be led by the hand, as it were, from point to point through a process
of thought, it would have been requisite for me, on the occasion re-
ferred to, to have said a few words on the original ownership of land ;
to touch on the processes of the transfer of landed property ; to trace
J back the history of the earliest agricultural implements; to dilate on
the contingencies of atmospheric influence ; to deal, however lightly,
with the various qualities of the soil; to picture the husbandman full
of hope planting his seed; to sketch him getting up early in the
morning, and going forth to pull up the young plant by the roots
to see how it progresses ; to describe all the tendresse lie bestows noon
his charge; to hymn the beauties of the Gooseberry swelling visibly
under his eyes in the rich summer weather ; to warn him to be care-

ful in plucking the fruit not to suffer indentation of the cuticle of
his hand by the thorn which invariably accompanies the growth of
this favourite fruit.

Then I should have had to follow him to the granary, or how-
ever you may designate the place where Gooseberries are stored
and thence proceed through all the minutice of Jam-making,—the
proportion of the sugar, the size of the jars, the quality of the
covering, and much else, possibly finishing up by a picture of
domestic felicity at some humble breakfast-table, where, the Jam-
pot standing in solid cylindrical form by the hissing urn, the rosy
child dips its dimpled fingers in the rich fruit, sucks them, and. then,
with habits of personal cleanliness that draw a proud smile from the
happy mother, wipes its fingers on the tablecloth.

_ All this I might have done with the approval and to the satisfac-
tion of my audience. But that is not my way. “ Grow Jam,” I
said, and left the rest to be worked out by the mental process fami-
liar to my intelligent countrymen.

I think, dear Toby, I have now made you fully acquainted with
my views on Jam, more particularly on Jam for breakfast. If there
is anything that appears to you obscure, or anything upon which you
would like to have fuller information, if you will put down the terms
of your question on the paper for to-morrow, I will endeavour to
answer it to the best of my humble ability. Meanwhile I remain,
with much respect, Yours always, G.

To Toby, M.P., The Kennel, Barks.

WHAT'S THE REMEDY?

“Atlas” iu last week’s World asks, “What can be done with
this Salvation Army Nuisance ? ” It has, he says, spoilt a season at
Worthing, and may do so at Brighton. What can be dene ? Do not
allow the processions. Other so-called “religious” processions are
illegal; let these be made so, too, and as quickly as possible. A
Coster is fined forty shillings for obstructing the thoroughfare with
his barrow. This lesson should be one of “ Barrow's Sermons ; ”
and on such a text the Salvation-Obstructionists should be fined as
heavily as the Coster. We are not on the side of the Coster, when he
and his fellow-Costers obstruct the thoroughfare as they do in Little
Mud-Salad Market, alias Goodge Street, and as they have been doing
in King Street, Hammersmith, till the Fulham Board of Works
prosecuted the lot, and Mr. Sheil fined each of the defendants forty
shillings, observing that “ no one was allowed to stand in the streets.”
This observation of Mr. Sheil’s must not be taken to mean that
“ standing ” is the essence of obstruction in a thoroughfare. On the
contrary, the Salvation Army Processions have become a standing
nuisance. “ Moving on,” as a procession does, will create, tempora-
rily, just as much obstruction as standing still; and if you allow a
body to move from North to South, by what sort of logic are you to
prevent another body moving simultaneously from South to North
along the same line as the aforesaid body ? By the law of statics and
dynamics we know -what must ensue when two opposing forces thus .
meet in the same line. And if this, too, be on a Sunday, the first
day of the Christian week, dedicated to Rest-apd-Be-thankfulness,
wbat is to become of the quiet, respectable, and decent observance of
that one day ?

Let the Salvation Army, with their ensigns and captains and
uniforms, and drums and trumpets, assemble in their Barracks just
as Christians, Jews, Turks, and Heathens do in their Churches, Syna-
gogues, Mosques, and Temples; and let their recruiting Sergeants
go about where they list, or where they are likely to ’list; but let
this out-of-door irreligious movement, this outrageous travesty of
Ecclesiastical symbolism, with its fanatic war-cries, its fanfares, its
martial hymns, and brass-band accompaniment, leading to riot and
bloodshed on the Lord’s Day, let this be forthwith suppressed, as it
can be, we believe, by existing law; and if not, let the law be made.
Of course that harmless body of publicans and sinners, the Free-
masons, would be sufferers by such a regulation ; but with
His Royal Highness of Wales, their Grand Master, at their head,
they would be willing to bear the privation of being occasionally
deprived of an open-air display of sashes, aprons, and emblems, for
the sake of law and order.

Conservatives and Liberals and Trades Unions, all would suffer
under a law positively prohibiting all _ Processions excepting only
those of State requirements, or of a distinctly national character.
But, so much the better. Public Demonstrations of men coming “in
their thousands ” is a relic of barbarism, is an anachronism in this
age of daily papers, latest editions, telegrams, and telephones, when
every one’s opinion is ventilated, and all can be heard through the
Press. So if the Salvation Riots at Worthing and elsewhere do but
bring about a Total Abolition of Processions Act, they will have con-
ferred a benefit on all peaceable citizens, and so a great good will
have come out of a great evil.

Motto for the Stage-Worshippers.—“Mummer’s the Word!”