Punch (89.1885)

74

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 15, 1885.

THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

" Now, John, ttou must decide wiieee it 's to be ! Shall we say
Scarborough!" "No, the Joneses are there !"

" Folkestone t" "No. That's where the Browns have gone to !"
" Ilfragombe, then ?"

"No, hang it !—think of the Robinsons all over the place !"

[And so, ad infinitum, through every Seaside Resort in the three kingdoms.

A PLAGUE OF ADJECTIVES.

" Fudge! " said Mr. Burehell.—Vicar of Wakejield.

[Lord Hartington, replying to Lord E. Churchill's
attack upon Lord Eipon, said: "It is impossible to argue
against adjectives such as those used by the noble Lord."]

Argue with Adjectives ? No, my dear IlAitTixGTON,

That is a task to drive common sense frantic,

Harder than that of the besom-armed Partington

Sweeping away at the foaming Atlantic.

Fighting a locust-swarm's nothing at all to it,

Epithets now have such superfotation,

No one, without an imperative call to it,

Cares to encounter that plague of the nation.

Public life now is a sort of a pillory,

Where one must stand to be pelted with phrases;
Sweeter to lie with a " weed" and dry Sillery,

Eyes to the heavens and back to the daisies.

Adjectives ! Adjectives ! Reason is sick of them,

Every young nincompoop perched on a platform
Thinks he's a Jove whilst he scatters the pick of them.

Billingsgate only his equal in that form.

Substantive statement, sound sense, and solidity.

All seem superfluous, only the chatterer
Insolent adjectives hurls with avidity ;

Statesman ? Dear no! but a splendid mud-spatterer,
Vulgar invective's the test of ability,

"With that crass mob who are sweet on denouncing,
Chivalry's timid, and tame is civility,

Cleon must now be eternally trouncing.

Nouns may need nous, verbs need handling with clarity,

Hooroo for adjectives! they will enable
A fellow to chuck over logic, taste, charity,

Landing him safe in a Billingsgate-Babel.

Hartington yes, argument is mere vanity

Tried on a Callan, a Biggar, a Churchill,

Only true " counter " for vulgar insanity
The expletive simple of good Mr. Burehell!

Conquest and "Conveyance."

As touching an active Colonial policy, meaning the
proposed conquest of Madagascar, the French Government
declare that " Civilisation requires it of them, and when
civilisation is in question France must be in the van."
If France will seize upon the territory of people against
their will, there is a van, well known at Bow Street, in
which, were it possible, France ought to ride.

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

There hasn't been for some time a better number of Macmillan's
English Illustrated Magazine than this one for August. Some of the
illustrations are charming.

Beneath the Dark Shadow is the first instalment of a tale intended,
like the Fat Boy's story, to make your flesh creep. Dropping into
verse, we may say,—

The English Illustrated Magazine
Is the cheapest that ever was seen ;

'Tis published each month by the far-famed Macmillan.

It only costs sixpence, though well worth a shillun'.

In the Fortnightly there is an article which we have read with
gTeat interest. It is on " The New Naturalism," and its Author is
a Lilly, not the Jersey Lily, but Mr. W. S. Lilly. Far as most
Englishman will go with him in his estimate of Gorgon-Zola, yet
I doubt whether eminent Surgeons, on the vivisectionist side, will
allow some of his general assertions to pass unchallenged. Mr.
Punch, whose tender ^heart bleeds at the idea of injuring even a
black-beetle—ugh!—is in favour of Vivisection under certain
stringent restrictions. If he were sure that he could confer on the
whole human race, by vivisecting Toby, such an inestimable boon as
would make the performance of that painful operation a solemn and
sacred duty, then, with Toby's consent, but not without, he would
sacrifice his own feelings, and offer up Toby at the shrine of humanity.
"What's the next article?" Oh, a most interesting one on the
Newspaper Press in Paris.

In the same magazine Dr. Morsel Mackenzie's Rejoinder to Dr.
Donexn—an unfortunate name, so suggestive of, "if I had a Don-
kin what wouldn't go "—is brilliant and instructive. It introduces
■as to a " fabulating Laryngologist who has indicated the prophy-
lactic," and who calls gout the refuge for the destitute diagnos-

tician." Then Dr. Mackenzie playfully terms the stomach and the
liver "scapegoats." It is quite a happy thought. "0 my lungs
and liver! 0 goroo, goroo!" Henceforth let the sufferer say,
"I've a pain in my scapegoat;" or, "I think my scapegoat isn't
acting properly," and so forth. Dr. Donkin,

Though in a frenzy
With Doctor Mackenzie,

has our best thanks for having given the Rejoindering One such a
first-rate chance.

PROOF VERT POSITIVE.

The following extract from the Times of the 4th inst. tells
its own simple, yet mysterious tale, in a manner which argues such
exceptional powers of weighing evidence on the part of the Reporter,
that Mr. Punch would suggest that gentleman's immediate promo-
tion to the Bench. He would, however, very much like to know
what passed while the strange man Biggs was "put back ?" How
suggestive of a shilling story and title I With the present sequel of
Mrs. Biggs " looking after Biggs " especially, think of it!

" At the Thames Police-court, Thomas Biggs, an elderly, gentlemanly-
looking man, was charged on his own confession with causing the death of
his wife. Medical and other evidence having been given, Mr. Lttshington
had the prisoner put back, and in the afternoon his wife attended the court,
which clearly proved there was no foundation for his statement, and on her
promising to look after her husband in future, Mr. Ltjshington discharged

But who gave evidence that the person calling herself Mrs. Biggs
was the Mrs. Biggs in question ? Herself or her husband ? How-
ever, if the Reporter was satisfied—he was there, and we weren't—
that's everything—or nearly everything.