Punch (95.1888)

December 8, 1888.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

273

■23

VERY SIMPLE.

'Is there any way across this?"—"Do'naw." " Isn't there a bridge anywhere?"—"Do'naw."

'Doesn't your Father go this way? How does he get across?"—"Gener'y Jooiips it !"

A CITY IDYL.

"There's a corner in pork, and a starling
Is building her nest m the corner ;

And it's oh, (it is always oh) my darling,
There is hope in the heart of your City Jack
Horner,

"Who sits in the corner to pull out a plum.
Then hey, for the bonny bright day that will
come

For you and for me, my darling!

'' Money was hard, and your father was hard—

Yarely is piping the starling—
And we were depress'd as coffee or lard,

But firm as copper, my darling !

And your mother was brisk as inquiries for
wheat—

Cotton is weak in the glooming—
i> or she thought that love's call we should

_ fail to meet,
■"ut like shard-borne beetles at twilight sweet

The J an Van Beers went booming.

And bacon closed with a steady tone,
A }\e °h°risters clearly quiring,
And hogs were ten points up, my own,

n ^e solemn pine on the mountain lone,

Or pinnacles, cloud-aspiring.

And closing prices, and stocks and shares
Are fair with a future pleasure,
As 1 wander, a victim to shocks and stares,
in my mooning hours of leisure.

" "a0rqtin>is as 1uiet as eventide,
t. +n(i Z1"5 lite the sun declining;

a rJi ru*e fr™1 as my winsome bride,

And love looks up like mining.

And it's oh, my love, my love,

t > j 'S °k> my ^ear> my dear !
a ve done good work with the corner in pork,
And better with Jan Van Beer."

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the bulls and
bears

While the still morn went out in shirtings
grey;

He touch'd the tender stops of booms and
scares,

With eager thought warbling his Mincing
Lay.

He thought without alarm of settling day,
Nor jumped with panic fear when prices fell

Crashing, but every eve he took his way
To Tooting, all his tale of love to tell

While the stars rose, and wild swans left their
haunts,

Stags sought the pools, and the grand
elephants

Waved their Grand Trunks aloft, and all
was welL__

POOH-BAH-RINCTON HALL, ST. JAMES'S.

Had Brantinghame Hall been written by
anybody else but Mr. W. S. Gilbert, how
he, the author of Engaged and Ruddigore,
would have chaffed it! How amateurish he
would have considered the monotony of the
stage-management, and how unmercifully he
would have ridiculed the familiar melodra-
matic characters, with their old-fashioned
melodramatic staginess of action and dialogue.
"I would be alone !" exclaims the broken-
hearted old nobleman. "Let me pass!"
exclaims the heroine, addressing the villain,
who is not opposing her progress, and, if he
were, she has the door open immediately
behind her by which she has just entered.
The villain mutters curses as he gloomily
seats himself at a table. There is the good
old family solicitor, the lost heir turning up
again, the mortgage to be foreclosed by the
villain, who, of course, is ready to sell every-

body up, if the persecuted heroine will not
be his bride. There are a girl and boy, whose
fun would be in keeping with the topsy-turvy
eccentricities of a Savoy comic opera, but
who are absurdly unnatural in the real life
which the comedy is supposed to represent.
Miss Neilson is young and pretty. As yet
she cannot act, and the sooner she unlearns
what she has evidently been taught to con-
sider acting the better for her future histrionic
career. Mr. Barrington is Mr. Barrtngton
with a palpably sham scalp. Poor Pooh-
Bah-rington! how he must regret having
quitted, the gay Savoyards! At the finish of
the play Miss Neilson has to murmur, " Let
us pray," or only the word " pray," appa-
rently addressed to the audience, who, not
having come to laugh, were unwilling to
remain to pray, especially as at that moment
the curtain was descending, and the piece
was past praying for.

A Most Happy Thought.

An admirable suggestion has been offered
to the Chancelxor of the Exchequer
namely, the proposal of " substituting for
the Wheel-Tax a stamp duty on bills, posters,
placards, and other mural advertisements."
Avery high amount of duty might be charged
on those eyesores and nuisances without
abating them, but in order to render it an
alternative for the Wheel-Tax, the stamp
must not be so heavy as to stamp them out. '

Ecclesiastical C&saeism.—Julius v. the
Bishop of Oxford.

The Paety oe Bottlangeb.—Loafers.