Punch (97.1889)

December 7, 1889.] PUNCH, OK, THE LONDON CHAKIVAKI.

265

UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

“ Tres volontiers,” repartit le demon. “ Yous aimez les tableaux changeans : je veux vous contenter.”

Le Diahle Boiteux.

XIII.

“A Workman seeking work he can-
not get,

Than CEdipus or Hamlet is a yet

More tragic figure.” Truly F

So says, at least, your soberest plat-
form Sage,*

Who little shares the weakness of
the age,

To emphasise unduly.

“Hamlet in fustian! Ah!” the
Shadow smiled.

“Think you. Society would be be-
guiled

To see that sordid drama,—

Society, to which the labourer lone

In dull suburban suffering is un-
known,

Well-nigh, as the Grand Lama F

‘ ‘ Well, we at least may watch it, if
you care

For witnessing unpicturesque despair,

Undecorated sorrow.

This man, no CEdipus, knows not to-day

How to procure his children food, or pay
The landlord’s claim to-morrow.”

Picture that daily task for many a week—
Rebuffed all round, with ever-paling cheek,
And courage still congealing.

I looked into a scantly-furnished room—

A lamp’s low flame scarce glimmered through
the gloom;

And yet a certain trimness
Of none too tasteful Cockney carefulness
Spake in the pictured walls, the woman’s
dress,

Through all its doleful dimness.

A head set smartly on, an apron clean,

A face not vixenish, though worn and lean,
Hair glossy, though dishevelled,

These mark the better sort of workman’s
wife,

Who in the humble joys of labouring life
For prosperous years has revelled.

Revelled in almost radiant content,

The well-stocked cupboard, and the ready
rent,

Materials for gladness.

Modest, yet all-sufficing, were her own,

And not till now has the poor creature known
The sharper pangs of sadness.

Now F Well, you see her “Man” is “ out of
work! ”— [lurk

Menacing phrase, in whose dread meaning
. Ruin and helpless anguish ;

To Toil it sounds the tocsin of despair,—

Once raise it, and in many a joyless lair
Labour unfed must languish.

Footsore and faint, from a long foodless
tramp,

Through miles of City suburb, drear and
damp,

In leafless, grey November;

Her husband has returned. Behold him
there,

Cowering and shivering in the close-drawn
chair,

Over the fire’s last ember!

Ha?nlet, in fierce soliloquy near the throne,
Larger, more searching, sorrow may have
known,

Not more complete prostration
Of manly energy and struggling hope.

They only know it who have had to cope
With such a situation.

Mile after mile, with ever lessening force!
Shop after shop, with voice more faint and
hoarse!

Stiff tramping, stiff appealing!

* Mr. John Mob.ley, at the “Eighty” Club.

“ Chance of a job ? ” The dismal shibboleth
Repeated with dropped eyes and bated
breath

At entry after entry,

Becomes a burdening horror. Now ’tis o’er,
Hope’s latest portal’s shut, and at the door
Sullen despair stands sentry.

The shame of it! The once smart-vestured
wife

Looking appeal that cuts more like a knife
Than any loud reproaches ;

The hungry children’s clamour hardly hushed,
Their tear-stained cheeks with ruddy health
once flushed,

On which the white encroaches.

The half-stripped chamber, and the vacant
walls, [falls—

On which his dizzied glance, despairing,
Ay, and that open letter,

The angry landlord’s last demand! His
head

Drops o’er his knees. Great Heaven! were
he dead,

For them were it not better ?

“You read that in his eyes, and read aright,”
The Shadow said. “ Come forth into the
night!

Yonder rolls on the river,

Fog-hidden, silent, fascination wild
For many a soul grief-stricken, sin-defiled,
Lone girl, or evil-liver !

“ The winter mists hide it, and it hides all,—
So dreams, at least, fuff many a hopeless
thrall

Of poverty or sorrow.

The fate-scourged soul’s surcharged with
woe to-night; [light

What if the body, with dawn’s breaking
Drift down that flood to-morrow F

‘ ‘ The woe, at least, is over, and the strife
With the twin harpies of the toiler’s life,

Hunger and Debt. Who knows them F
Not. Hamlet and not CEdipus, They wage’
Ravaging war upon a pettier stage, [them.
These scenes, good friend, disclose

‘ ‘ Spectres unpicturesque! Ambition, lust,
Volcanically wreck; these twain, like rust,
Silent, and slow, and stealthy,

Eat into humble souls ; their utter stress
Strains not the imposing strugglers in life’s
press—

The wicked and the wealthy.

“The poor to plead for, or to champion want,
Strikes your great ‘Thunderer’ as, ‘the
sorriest cant ’—

And I am not a canter,” [small,

Murmured the Shadow. “Nay, shopkeeper
Artisan out of work, or Sweater’s thrall,

’Tis better ‘ form ’ to banter.

“ They ’re not heroic, are they, friend ?— to us
Like halting Hamlet, fate-scourged CEdipus.

And are they not protected F
‘ Freedom of Contract ’ is their guardian boon,
What more, by doctrinaires who dream and
(Like Morlet)—is expected ? [moon,

“Freedom of Contract! ’Tis delightful fun! ”
“ And what,” I murmured, “ has that bless-
ing done

For the wrecked workman yonder F ”

“ Well, he contracted—freely—for his rent,
(Upon his normal wage how much per cent.
That means, let pundits ponder).

“Freedom of Contract, plus that force
majeure [secure—

Which hinds the toiling throng in toils
Stern need of shop or dwelling,

And narrow limitations of their choice—
There breed such bliss as scarce an angel’s
Were adequate to telling. [voice

“For the results! Friend did you hear that
splash F

Poor fool, dull, unappreciative, rash !

His idle hands deliver [heart,

One o’erstrained head, and one impatient
His ‘ freedom ’ bids him choose despair’s last
part—

A plunge in the cold river ! ”

{To he continued.)

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF PAINTERS
IN WATER-COLOURS.

‘ ‘ Oh, what a vast and a varied variety—You
see in the Royal Water-Colour Society! ” Why
shouldn’t I sing F Why shouldn’t I “drop into
po’try”F It’s nice rimey weather. They
wouldn’t allow me to do it at the Institute.
It’s all right here! Eol-de-rol, lol-de-rol,
lol-de-rol-liety. Mr. Ridge, the Keeper,
approaches. Looks as if he were about to
institute a de lunatico inquirendo—says it’s
rigidly forbidden. Ha! ha! Not bad. But
let us be serious. Eh! What! “The Fleet
Saluting!" Suggests “Kiss me quick, and
go ! ” Nothing of the kind! Charming study
of Spithead last August, by Miss Clara Mont-
alba, who has at least a dozen capital works
in the Gallery. Stacy Marks has some clever
pictures. Stay, see Marks, by all means.
Look especially at his “ Lloyd's News," and
his “ Sulphur-crested Cockatoo." Alfred D.
Fripp has only one picture. There is no frip-
pery whatever about the ‘ ‘ Stair Hole, Han-
hury Down," but. an excellent, an earnest
study of Nature, painted at Lul worth. Sir John
Gilbert appears, with all his old force and
splendour, in “ A Bishop." Good to look at.
Just the man for a see. Herbert Marshall
has marshalled his talents mostly in Holland,
and only gives ns one view of London, namely,
“ Westminster Abbey, from Lambeth." This
is so good, that we cannot allow him to go out
of London again for a long while. J. H. Hen-
shall’s “ In Wonderland," is a clever picture
of a pretty little damsel, with a pair of shapely,
sable-hosed legs, over the arm of a chair. We
cannot help wondering what the little lady’s
mamma will say when she sees her lolling and
dreaming in this fashion, F. Shallfield’s
pictures, especially Sadak, and “ When the
Bloom is on the Bye," show his versatility, and
demonstrate that his field of observation is
anything hut small. “And there are lots
more I could name with propriety, That are
hung at the Royal Water-Colour Society ! ”
The Warbling Critic.

A A

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