Punch (94.1888)

January 14, 1888.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 13

THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY. M.P.

From Toting _England.

Belvoir, Saturday.

ear Toby,

I see by the papers that I am
again on the point of retiring from
public life in order to make way
for someone. I forget who it is
this time, which is a misfortune,
as that is the only touch of novelty
in the situation. Man and boy, for
the last fifteen years, I have, ac-
cording to the newspapers, been on
the point of retiring. Yet here I
am, Member for Melton, Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster, and
Vice-President of the Committee of
the Council on Agriculture. As
Ashb-rne says, I am " always
Melton but never disappear." That
I understand is a joke, and goes
better with the assistance of Ash-
b-rne's mellifluous vocal delivery.
But why should I retire more
than any other of the younger Members of the Ministry ? I own I am no longer
as young as I was, but few of us are. Nature has been perhaps unkindly lavish
in endowing me with a venerable appearance. But I am still as young in heart
and mind as I was when I used to walk arm in arm with Dizzy to call on Lady
Bl-ss-ngt-N. How well I remember his ringlets redolent with thy incomparable
oil, 0 Macassar ! his tasselled cane and his waistcoat festooned with chains of
gold I I was a mere lad compared with him, and so was George Sm-the._ But
we both adored him, and I remember quite well one night Sm-the trying to
curl my hair like his. Only the other day I eame upon a letter written by my
father to Lord Str-ngf-hd, Sm-the's Papa. It is nearly fourty-four years old,
but I remember all about the time,' though of course I was not aware that my
father and Lord Str-ngf-rd were in correspondence on the subject. The
Manchester Athenseum was just going to be opened, and Dizzy had been asked
to deliver an inaugural address. _ Sm-the and I were going down in his train,
and our dear old fathers shook their heads. My father wrote in his stately way
to Lord Str-ngf-rd : "I deplore as much as you do the influence which Mr.
D-sr-li has acquired over many of our young legislators, particularly over your
son and over mine. I have no personal knowledge of Mr. D-sr-ri, and I have
not an entire respect for his talents, of which I think he might make a better
use. It is regrettable that two young men like John and Mr. Sm-the should
allow themselves to be led away by a man of whose straightforwardness I have
the same opinion as yourself,—as I can only judge of it by his public career.
The excellent dispositions of our sons render them only too susceptible to the
seductions of an artful mind."

Ah me! the days that are no more? Doesn't that last sentence hit us all
three off ? The too susceptible youngsters, the mature young man, oiled and
curled like an Assyrian bull, and the alert artfulness under the magnificent
calmness of his pompous manner. But, really, I am convicting myself of that
old age which my enemies accuse me of. I remember how garrulous H-ght-n
got in his old days, and so did Br-gh-m and R-ss-ll, sitting at the Scajan Gate,
always piping about old times-
Chiefs who no more in bloody fight engage,
But, -wise through time and narrative with, age,
In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice.

I must fight against the tendency, and shall be truly obliged if you will not
hesitate to give me a hint if you find me erring in that direction, either in
correspondence or conversation.

But I was saying, why should I retire more than
St-n-L-y, or Cr-kbr-k, or Cr-ss, or, indeed, G-rgy
H-m-lt-n ? He was born a year or two after me, and is
my junior as time is reckoned. But you know him well,
and will, I venture to say, testify that he is actually an
older man than I, and has been ever since he left school.
He is one of the men who were never young, and I, if I
may say so, am of the kind who will never be old. On
the threshold of this New Tear I feel as if I were only
beginning my career, ready to use my present position as
a springing-board for much higher flights. It is true I
am on the verge of three-score years and ten. But what
of that ? Wasn't Shem a hundred years old when still
an active colonist? Or, not to go back so far, wasn't
Gl-dst-ne almost sixty before he was Prime Minister ?
Wasn't Dizzy sixty-three? and wasn't P-lm-rst-n,
when he kissed hands on his appointment as First Lord
of the Treasury, fully twelve months older than I am ?
and didn't he live and rule for ten years ? What has
been done may be done again, and I feel like doing it. I
have lived through many changes, and shall see many
more. Take the House of Lords for example. When 1
penned that deathless line which devoted to destruction
our Laws, Commerce, and some other things which
didn't belong to me, asking only for the salvation of Our
Old Nobility, the Peerage was very differently constituted
from what it is now.

Tou know how they count the years of some trees by
the accumulated rings at their base ; so I could count
my age by the successive additions to the Peerage. Why
I count C-l-r-dqe quite an old Peer to-day, and,
when I wrote about our Old Nobility, he was plain Mr.
C-l-r-dge. Cr-ss and Cr-nbr-k, Ab-rd-re, and even
Sh-rbr-kb begin, in my mind's eye, to gather round
their coronets the mistiness of respectable age. I do not
doubt that I shall live to see the day when, looking round
on newer batches of Peers, I Bhall regard as among our
Old Nobility Lord Add-ngt-n, Lord B-s-ng, and the
melodiously named Lord M-gh-r-m-rne, Till then,
don't you believe any gossip you may hear about the
retirement of Tours Touthfully, j_HN M-nn-rs

HOW TO GET OUT OF IT.

The following hints may be found useful to any shy
and self-conscious person who, finding himself at the
present festive season involved in a jovial family gather-
ing that is expressing its hilarity by an indiscriminate
recourse to the modern " surprise " cracker, is determined
to escape the temporary humiliation of arraying himself
in the paper adornment it contains:—Go through your
dinner with a frown of melancholy anticipation. When
the crackers are at length produced, decline to pull one.

If forced to, instantly hand over the contents to your
fair neighbour who holds the other end. If these happen
to he either a comic pig's head or a roomy bishop's mitre,
and she asks you just to try them on, smile benignly on
her, and say you " couldn't think of robbing a lady."
If addressed by your hostess with, "Now, Mr. Smith,
you really must wear something ! " pretend not to hear
her, and tell somebody opposite, pointedly, how much
you prefer l; a good old-fashioned Christmas."

If the son of the house tries to bonnet you with a
Turkish cocked hat, playfully pinch his legs and adroitly
tearing the offending head-gear in half, laughingly
observe that " you're sure it wouldn't have fitted you."

On the fun getting fast and furious, and everybody but
yourself assuming some form of ornamentation, endeavour
to damp it, by audibly remarking to your next-door
neighbour that you " can't conceive how a set of middle-
aged people can make such idiots of themselves."

If, notwithstanding this, your host determines to force
your hand, and says, " Come, Smith, put on something.
Why, you're the only one of us who isn't bonneted! "
get up then and there, and, giving him a bit of your
mind, leave the house with an indignant flourish.

Putting By for a Rainy Day.

" Lord Leveson, son of Earl Granville, accidentally
swallowed a half-crown while doing some amateur conjuriug at
Walmer on Boxing Day. It is stated that up to the present he
has suffered no inconvenience."— Daily Papers.

What the Half-crown said to the Toung Man:—
" Frangas non fiectes," (The family motto of the

GR ANTILLES.)

VOL. XCIV.

C