Punch: Punch (97.1889)

214

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [November 2, 1889.

MR. PUNCH’S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. No. 5.

STATESMEN AT HOME.

DCXXXII. Mr. W. H. Smith at Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames.

As you walk along: the gravel-path, under the immemorial elms,
towards the baronial residence of the First Lord of the Treasury,
you have time to reflect that it is no new thing for Henley to be on

Thames. It has been there from time immemorial, certainly from
the days when the Sieur De Smeeth, founder of the branch of the
well-known family of whioh your host is now the head, received a
neighbouring manor from the mailed hand of William: the Con-
queror. As you stand in the latticed porch, buried in a picturesque
tangle of creepers, gazing upon the projecting gables, you still find
I trace in the leaded casement of the old Norman-French motto of the