Punch (91.1886)

August 14, 1886.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 73

ROBERT ON HEREDITARY LEGISLATION.

- I spent a lezzur evening, just about a month ago, in a reading of
a wunderfool emusing but most rude speech of that howdacious
Mr. Laebtsheae, all about what is called, I bleeve, heredity legis-
lashun, which means, I am told, that every Pier s heldest son shall
be a Pier when his father dies, weather he's fit for it or weather he
ain't, weather he's a genus or weather he's a Pool, weather he s a
onest man or weather <*^s^ he's a Rogue. Well, it

suttenly does, at the jKXm first blush, seem a ray ther
rum way to get the liB8ifl best peeple for the Dizzi-

ness, but, as the late /JmM?M lamented Mr. Makwoob

^^^^^^^^^^^^ t0 ^'

seems good for the Country, as we seems to have dun pretty well
considering wot" a lot on us there is. Beowit says as there's ever so
many millions of us, but Brown does exadgerate so. It seems good
for the Harrystockraey, as I'm told as werry few of our grate fam-
merlies ever dyes out, and having to purwide for their next suns
and hairs they don't make quite so menny dux and drakes of their
munny as they wood posserbly do if their suns wasn't for to be
Dooks and Markisses and Barren Lords like their Fathers.

"Werry well, then, if it's right, and good, and natral, that Piers'
suns shood be Piers, why shoudn't Waiters' suns be Waiters ? Why
am I a Waiter? Coz my father was a Waiter before me. It's
instinct as does it, and that same nobel quality is alreddy a showing
itself in one of my boys, and this is how it fust showed itself,.as we
says of the meesels, etsetterer.

His Mother bort him a box of bilding-toys for his berth-day
pressent, and during my absense wun day, he bilt hisself an house
with 'em, and jist as I quietly hentered the room, he was a painting
on it Resterong, Dining Rooms! I was that afected by the hintrest-
mg suekemstanoe, that I gave him a new penny right off, with witch
he went out and bort hisself a jam tart, and gave his littel Sister the
fust bite out of the middel, an amount of self sackrifice as ony boys
can foolly realize.

I'm told as the same nobel instinct shows itself amung the City
ocawengers, that most useful and admirabble body of men. Dreckly
as a Scawenger's sun atains the ripe age of 13, and has conseqwently
finished his eddeeashun, he becomes a Street Orderly, and receives
the andsum sum of seven shillins a week, paid weekly every week,
and _ a white unyform, and the nat'ral objeck of his perspiring
ambition is to become a Long-Broom Lad, witch he does at the
blooming age of about 18, and for witch he receives the libral amount
of about fifteen shillings, paid weakly ewery week as before. But
ewen then he has his giddy hopes of sumthink hier—like the yung
man as tried to clime up the Mounting a singing Hexsellseor—and
the wun object of his future egsistence is to beoum in time a full-
blown bcawenger, with a revenue of no less than 25s. a week, payabel
weakly, like his useful Father before him. Wot a histery! and how
conlermatory of the grate x'rincipal of heredditty legislashun,
and how completely it hupsets Mr. Labbyshaee's howdacious
reasoning.

To be sure it doesn't allers anser. There was a case as I herd of,
not quite a thowsand miles from tooth-drawing Fleet Street, where a

sillybrated dentist having dyed quite sudden,'his Sun-in-Law con-
tinued the bizzyness,^ tho' he knowd no more about it than I do. It
was all werry well with the pore littel childern, and even the ladys,
who has sitch wunderfool faith in us of the sterner sex, submitted to
their scrunching fate without much more nor the usual trubble, pore
deers, but one day a rather hasty and werry powerf ool Gent came in
to have a tooth out, and most unfortnetly for the young Dentist, he
seized tight hold of a tooth, and dragged the Gent rite round, the
room afore he got it out, and then he found as it was the rong un!
I am sorry to say as the Gent used most unproper langwidge, and,
locking the door, swore as he'd throw the pore Dentist out of the
winder if he didn't give him twenty pound, and he was so terrebly
fritened that he acshally did it, and even then the Gent went away
a cussing and a swearing ! But then that was scarsely a case in pint,
beooz we never hears of hereditty Sons-in-Law, no more nor we does
of hereditty Mothers-in-Law, witch upon the hole is praps quite as
well. _ Robeet.

AT THE SEA.

When August has come, and
when London
Is dull since the Season is o'er,
When folks find the balls and the
fun done,
They fly to the sea and the
shore:

They leave all the city's miasma
To go where salt breezes blow
free,

And where avlifii&ixov yi\aap.a

Is seen on the sea.

They sail on the shimmering
Solent,

Their yachts woo the favouring
wind,

Perchance, too, in boats as we
know lent
By friends who are pleased to
be kind.

Ah! once in the stern-sheets there
sat a

Sea-siren whose voice van-
quished me,
The Oueen of the famous regatta
At Cowes, by the sea.

If gaily they go where fair ladies
Assemble to chatter and dress,

The aim of the man and the maid is
To be in the thick of the press.

And pic-nic and fun, and flirtation

Are never, so all folks agree,
So pleasant in this generation
As down by the sea.

Or haply they'll seek out some
quiet

Wee nook by the marge of the
waves,

Afar from the roar and the riot
Where Fashion inveigles her
slaves,

In joy they will cry out aloud,
^'Let

The world be forgotten, for we
Want nought but the shore and
the cloudlet,
And cyanine sea!"

Then haste to the sea-side, no
matter

To whatever coast you incline;
Get rid of Society's clatter,
Or go there to danco and to
dine.

There's health in the breeze on
the ripple,
The air is the true eau de vie,
And better by far than that
tipple,
The wind from the sea.

THE POETRY OF MOTION.

The other day Mr. and Mrs. Russell, of America, undertook to
lecture upon Dramatic Action at Drury Lane. Mr. Russell presented
somewhat the appearance of a foreign waiter, and began by asking
" Who was Delsaete ?" Nobody in the audience seemed prepared
to enlighten him. So the lecturer answered himself. Delsaete was
originally a Parisian gamin. He hung about the [stage-doors |of
theatres, vainly attempting to "see Managers." Mr. Russeix
touched some of the Dramatic artists who were present by observ-
ing :—" Many of you know how much more difficult it is to get in at
the back-door than at the front." (Is it possible that the lecturer
has been to the Savoy, and attempted to " see " Mr. D'Oylt Caete ?)
At last opportunity came to the boy, as it will to him who waits—our
Robeet has had splendid opportunities—and after a debut, at which
the assistants came to jeer, but remained to cheer, M. Delsaete
found himself the idol of Paris. _ Then he turned his attention to
Anatomy, and made a discovery in connection with thumbs. In all
corpses he found the thumb turned inwards. But in the Great
Masters' pictures the thumbs are all quite straight. "Where,"
asked Mr. Russell, with fine effect, " were those pictures painted ?
On the battle-field, among the heaps of slain ? No. In studios from
living models, or perhaps from mere lay-figures." (Sensation.)

Mrs. Russell, gracefully attired in a creamy tea-gown, " followed
on the same side." She advocated the study of Nature among
actors, and insisted on more use being made of the shoulder, which
she considered an expressive feature of the human frame. The
actor is apt to neglect it, but he should put his shoulder to the wheel
and infuse more animation and warmth into it. Mrs. Russell
could not bear the idea of a cold shoulder. But she is never likely to
get it. Both parts of the entertainment were interesting and in-
structive, though the audience was not so large as it might have been
at another season of the year.

vol. xci.