Punch: Punch (97.1889)

August 10, 1889.] PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 65

beginning work. Thursday and Friday in last week, and yesterday’s
long night, only preliminaries. Bill now brought in must be read
Second Time, taken through Committee, Report Stage, and Third
Reading, just as if nothing had happened before. The Sage and
Storey can, if they like, make all their speeches over again; can
certainly move amendments and take divisions. We’re not in a
hurry at Westminster.

Annuity Bill temporarily out of way, knock off few other measures,
and presently lapse into Scotch University
Bill. Deep calm falls on House, broken only
j|||||L by the burr of Northern speech. As Brad-

laugh says (quoting from William III.
uAfe; c. 10), “ The ’orn of the ’Unter is ’eard on

/ / the ’ill.” Hunter delivers, for tenth time,

speech about theological tests. House divides
on question, as it has divided on same point
half a dozen earlier times. Only a score
Members present to hear Hunter’s argument.
Bpll pay Bell rings ; Members troop in from terrace,

smoke-room, lobbies, and dining-room; stand
iu crowd at Bar whilst Speaker puts question.
This full of what Stephen Williamson
Jfr calls “ luminosity.”

|g|||i ‘ ‘ Question is, that Clause 18 stand part of

IJiPh \ “What Bill is it?” Members at Bar

fr \ j “Dqnjt know; fancy it’s Light Railways,

J^d§fp', “No ; that’s been referred to Grand Com-

mittee; must be Lunacy Acts Amendments.”
/ immF * * Fan°y ^ ’8 something Scotch, ’ ’ said Colonel

/ IrnMmwl Mantalini Morgan, giving his moustache
1 a ^nal convincing twirl. “ See all the Scotch

1 ffflil fellows about ? There’s Lyon Playfair on
J ^ Wfi \ Fron^ Bench, looking wiser than ever,

J demmit. Always reminds me of what Sydney

'asfifigwk ' Smith said about another famous Scotchman.

‘Look at my little friend Jeffrey; he
° hasn t body enough to cover his mind decently

with. His intellect is indecently exposed.’ Yes, I fancy it’s a
Scotch Bill; must see which way our fellows are going.”

So the crowd pass into the Division Lobby, ana Clause 18 is saved
from destruction.

Business done.—A good deal, considering.

Friday.—On BoardR.M.S. Teutonic, Spithead. (Wind S.W. byN.,
light, changeable, thunder locally, perhaps no rain). House
adjourned for Naval Review. Georgie Hamilton curiously annoyed
if you call it a review; why nobody not even Forwood knows:
says it’s an inspection ; so we’ve come down to inspect. A splendid
view—I mean a fine ’spection. Men-of-war, fishing-boats, forts,
torpedoes and smacks everywhere, the sea covered with them. They
abound.

“A most]exhilarating sight,” I say to Ritchie, who has come
aboard in a blue serge suit, a tarpaulin hat a size too small, and
walks about with a telescope under his arm as he has seen the coast-
guardsmen do at Ryde. “ It makes the pulses beat.”

“Didn’t they do that before?” he asks, pretending he can see
through the telescope a felucca lying four points off on our starboard
bow. Ritchie has no soul. The red tape of the Local Government
Board has bound his imagination as with ligaments of steel. A pity,
for otherwise he is a very decent fellow.

Jackson here too, also in serge, but without the telescope. In
high spirits, in view of the very business he’s been reeling off in the
House this week. Know he’s in high spirits because he looks
graver than usual, and talks more sententiously.

“ Jackson ought to have gone to the Bar and risen to the Bench,”
says Charlie Beresford, the only passenger from London who doesn’t
wear a serge suit, abandon braces, and walk about the deck with
a slight lurch. “ It would be an unspeakable comfort to be sentenced
to death by him in that tone of voice and with that manner in which
he answers a question as to when he thinks the Second Reading of
the Fortingras Oil and "Water Bill will be taken, or whether the
Tramway (Extension) Bill will come on after twelve o’clock.”

Fleet beginning to manoeuvre; expect by-and-by to see one of
our ironclads run into another. Dunraven who owns and sails a
yacht, says it’s very encouraging the way in which your true British
ship wiR go through a colleague if it finds it in the way.

“ No nonsense about them, you know. Rip them up, and down
they go.”

This seems very satisfactory. Don’t mind other people paying
taxes if we only get our money’s worth._

We, I mean our ship, the Teutonic—is an armed cruiser. There
are two guns of immense calibre on our main quarter-deck, by the
mizzen hatchway as you go upstairs. When the Emperor heaves in
sight, we think of firing them off.

“ Better not,” Hicks-Beach says ; “ they may burst.”

“Tut, tut!” says Admiral Ismay, Sirdar of the White Star
Fleet, “ that doesn’t matter. This ship is built in water-tight com-
partments.” What a pleasure it is to have on board a man who
knows every inch of the ship, from beam-end to lee-scupper! We all
jeer at Hicks-Beach, who pretends he was only in fun. But it was
a sorry jest.

There go eleven bells. My watch below.

Business done.—Weighed the anchor • found it has lost two stun
in the night. This must be seen to, and at once.

“ PULEX IRRITANS.”

That Man is born to trouble as the sparks do upward fly,

Is a truth which few, if any, would venture to deny;

For misery’s indigenous, whichever way one looks,

’Tis reported in the papers, we read of it in books ;

But of all the many troubles that, by right of birth, are Man’s,

Not one can hold a candle to the Pulex irritans.

We may be stung by

L We may be drawn and

\ scarcely change our

' To idly throw such

,, w, , , " pebbles, as are light,

Yhat cheei, Skippei . into the beep,

Above all else to spend each night at least twelve hours in sleep;

But all these nice arrangements were completely changed and trans-
Mogrified, relentlessly, by the Pulex irritans.

The first night that I came here I retired to bed at nine,

But sought in vain to find that rest which never can be mine.

I tossed and twirled and twisted round, a most unhappy wight,

And then I lay upon my back, then turned from left to right;

I flung the sheets and blankets off, upsetting jugs and cans,

But failed to wreak my vengeance on the Pulex irritans.

Upon the beach next morn I sat, a limp and listless wreck.

With bloodshot eyes and pimply nose, sore hands and swollen neck ;
An outcast from society, with none my fate to cheer,

Just like a bloated profligate, half dazed by drinking beer ;

And the girls together whispered, and grinned behind their fans,

“ That man’s been irritated by the Pulex irritans.”

Three nights in vain I’ve sought that sleep I came away to get,
Three nights I’ve spent in agonies I never can forget,

Three days I’ve lived in solitude my dismal fate to view.

Eschewed by everyone as though I were the Wandering Jew ;

The very bootblack boycotts me as, horrified, he scans
My face excoriated by the Pulex irritans.

I cannot stand it any more, I will no longer stay,

But pack my carpet-bag at once and fly without delay.

I hate to hear the ribald jokes of little vulgar boys,

To be the butt of every dunce my troubled soul annoys ;

But worst of all I dread to hear the girls, behind their fans,

Refer with meaning glances to the Pulex irritans.

On second thoughts I will not stop to take away my things,

As every moment of delay fresh insult to me brings,

But hurry to the railway and take an early train,

And never, if I know it, shall you catch me back again ;

My baggage shall be forwarded, packed up in luggage vans,

While I flee away to London from the Pulex irritans.