Punch (97.1889)

August 24, 1889.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

85

SUR LA PLAGE.

Sur la Plage! and here are dresses, shining eyes, and golden tresses,
Which the cynic sometimes guesses are not quite devoid of art;

There’s much polyglottic chatter
’mid the folks that group and
scatter,

And men fancy that to flatter is to
win a maiden’s heart.

’Tis a sea-side place that’s Breton,
with the rocks the children get on,
And the ceaseless surges fret on all
the silver-shining sand;

Wave and sky could scarce be bluer,
and the wily Art-reviewer
Would declare the tone was truer
than a sea-scape from Brett’s
hand.

And disporting in the waters are the
fairest of Eve’s daughters,

Each aquatic gambol slaughters
the impulsive sons of Franee,
While they gaze with admiration at
the Mermaids’ emulation,

And the high feats of natation at
fair Dinard on the Ranee.

An Old-fashioned Watering-place.

There are gay Casino dances, where, with Atalanta glances
That ensnare a young man’s fancies, come the ladies one by one ;
Every look is doubly thrilling in the mazes of quadrilling,

And, like Barkis, we are willing, ere the magic waltz is done.

And at night throng Fashion’s forces where the merry little horses
Run their aggravating courses throughout all the Season’s height;
Is the sea a play-provoker ?—for the bard is not a joker

When he vows the game of poker goeth on from morn till night.

There St. Malo walls are frowning,—’twas immortalised by Browning,
When he wrote the ballad crowning with the laurel Herve Riel ;
With ozone each nerve that braces, pleasant strolls, and pretty
faces,

Sure, of all fair sea-side places, Breton Dinard bears the bell!

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Disposing oe a Public Statue.—Your enthusiastic friends in the
North, who have testified their admiration of your public career
by presenting you with a colossal effigy of yourself in bronze, fifteen
feet high, for which, owing to local jealousy, you can find no site in
your native town, appear to have occasioned you considerable incon-
venience by their injudicious gift. It is very troublesome that you
should have had to bring it up to London, but we are not surprised
that the Dean refuses to admit it into the Abbey, although you
have coupled your offer with an undertaking to make a reputation
in some measure worthy of it before you die. Yes, certainly, try
the people at South Kensington. Call at about three o’clock at the
Museum, and leave the statue, as “ a loan” with vour card. Even
if they can find a place for it only among the u Flesh-Producing
Foods,” it will at least have solved your difficulty for a time.
Should this fail, why not attempt to place it somewhere on the
Thames Embankment ? There are several spots secluded by the
local shrubbery where a monument of the kind could be set up almost
unnoticed. Drive it down quietly on a brewer’s dray in the twilight
and see if you cannot manage this. But, perhaps, on the whole
you would do better to leave it, in its present quarters, in the front
area of your friend’s house in the Cromwell Road, and let it embel-
lish the neighbourhood, at least for as long a period as he is willing
to let it stay there. The area-railings, apparently, only come up to
the waist, and the head reaches the top of the dining-room window.
Remember the extreme difficulty of finding a site for the statue of
an unknown man. We should advise you to make the best of this.
Sound your friend as to a permanency. Think it over.

A New Entertainment.—Your idea of copying Buffalo Bill’s
“Wild West” show, and giving an entertainment to be called the
“ Savage South,” appears to promise excellently, and you are most
fortunate in already having succeeded in securing from Central
Africa two bisons, a male hippopotamus, five boa constrictors, and
twelve genuine cannibals of the Mblowawampwa tribe, though we can
understand that the sudden arrival of these at your semi-detached
villa residence at Battersea must, as you state, have, for the moment,
seriously hampered your domestic arrangements. It is to be
deplored, of course, that the five boa constrictors immediately got
loose, and that the hippopotamus managed to escape, and after
upsetting two tramway cars and a butcher’s cart, was only run to

earth, afterj'alarming the whole neighbourhood, in the back parlour
of a local china shop. Awkward, again, is it for you having to
appear at the Police Court in answer to the summons served on you
in consequence of the conduct of the cannibal tribe ; for it seems a
pity that you could not, even in dumb show, have explained to
them that you are not at war with your next-door neighbour,
and that even if you were, it would not justify you in making
a raid on their premises and eating, uncooked, seven-and-thirty
fowls, a couple of mastiffs, a cage of canaries, a grey parrot,
and three cats. Fortunately you appear to have secured the
two bisons safely in the bath-room. On the whole, though
you appear to have made rather a bad beginning, you must bear
in mind that things might have been considerably worse, and
you must not suffer yourself to be disheartened. With regard to
organising your Show, certainly communicate, as you suggest, with
the authorities at ‘ ‘ Olympia” without delay. Meantime you might try
some sort of preliminary opening at a Third-class East-end Music-
hall. If you could get your twelve Cannibals to go through a short
war-dance with carving-knives, and eat a sheep alive in three
minutes, in the presence of the audience, as you propose, you could,
no doubt, make favourable terms, and tide over the interval before
the arrival of your next consignment, consisting of the fifty
monkeys, nine hyaenas, and three full-grown lions you mention,
together with the other one hundred and sixteen members of the
Mblowawampwa tribe, who are under agreement to join you at
Battersea next mouth, and whose arrival will enable you to set about
your programme in real earnest. We shall watch the progress of
your enterprise with much interest.

I'M A BORE !

(A Song oj Self-Consciousness, By Teredo.)

1’ia Bore, I’m a Bore ; very sorry to be,

Treating others the same as I’d have them treat me.

My intentions are good, very likely, but then
I give grievous offence to a great many men,

And offend every woman almost even more.

Can’t help that—wish I could; I’m a Bore, I’m a Bore!

Not to weary companions, who don’t want to hear
My discourse, I am dumb ; of the many keep clear.

As they please, they may mark, or not mind, what I say.
If they won’t, well, 1 simply get out of their way.

Then they think I neglect them, whereat they feel sore,
Though I spare them ; yet still I’m a Bore, I’ma Bore !

Are my sympathies narrow ? That can’t be denied ;
Never mind ; I’ve antipathies equally wide.

They that style me unsocial may say what they please,

I get on with associates who set me at ease;

Not like those every word I can say that ignore
When I open my mouth. I’m a Bore ! 1 ’m a Bore !

Let them snub me who list; I had rather they’d not.

As for that, one can only be snubbed on the spot.

They can snub no acquaintance behind the man’s back,
Where of harmless derision resentment I lack.

Like the Stoic, the Sage, and the Sophist of yore,

Solon, too, might have sung, I’m a Bore ! I’ma Bore!

Not so Mad as we Seem.—One of the cleverest men and greatest
philanthropists of the day. Sir James. Crichton-Browne, in his
Address to the British Medical Association, has declared that novel-
reading, so far from being pernicious to the health, is perfectly
wholesome. After this, it may be safely said that a “Shilling
Shocker” cannot be accurately described as “shocking.’’ The
eccentricity of genius,. Sir James further pointed out, is very
different from the stupidity of the insane. This will be a satis-
factory reflection to the majority who live outside the houses reserved
for a specially select (and selected) minority!

vol. xevn.

I