Punch: Punch (97.1889)

December 21, 1889.]

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIYAKI.

289

UNTILED: OR. THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

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

Le Liable Boiteux.

XIY.

(Part Second.)

“Amusement,” said the Sha-
dow, “is a lure
‘ That subtly snares and saps
the sage and pure.’

The tag sounds Puritanic.

The sort of saw, devoid of
worldly wit,

Shaped by morality in a cold
fit.

Or virtue in a panic.

“Perhaps. The preacher
perched above the throng,

Like the bland singer of ideal
song,

Is vacuously moral,

Yapidly virtuous, knowing
little more

Of facts that round him like
a maelstrom roar
Than childhood with its
coral.

“ But so Amusement’s eager devotees.

Miss half its meaning; zealots on their knees
Before the common I)agon,

Have little care to glance behind the shrine.

Who thinks to test the dregs of the bright
wine

Which flames in Pleasure’s flagon ? ”

“ But you, you wish to see beneath the mask.

The inner world of those who seem to bask
In sunDy public favour
Is a strange spectacle. Behold yon churl
Scolding, yet leering, at that trembling girl,

The scene hath an ill savour.

‘ ‘ Beringed, broad-neck’d like a puff-adder, he,

A bullying satyr ; scarcely nymph-like she ;

Unas are not too numerous,

Nor lion guardians, here. Poor and yet pure ?

Lone, yet too proud to be a pander’s lure ?

The notion is too humorous.

“ So she would think, that other prosperous
dame,

Whom fame and wealth make callous now to
shame.

Soft rugs, and the loud rattle
Of hands applausive make amends for much.

It is so hard to shun the smirching touch
In life’s thick-fuming battle.

‘ ‘ Poverty that would keep untarnished plumes
But cannot; swaggering wealth, drunken
with fumes

Of flattery, that cares not
For pinions soiled, both meet us here. No
more!

This region charity loves not to explore,

And cynic malice dares not.

“ But pretty faces flushing o’er the wine
That wanton wealth pours out at beauty’s
shrine.

With readiness so sinister,

Or wearied limbs in garrets lone dispread,

Or wandering spectres flushed unholy red,

These are strange things to minister

“To sleek Respectability. Youth’s frank
joys,

The honest mirth of blameless girls and boys,

The ease of cultured leisure,

And recreation of tired sons of toil,

All good! But must Amusement’s trade
make spoil

Of souls, the wrecks of Pleasure ?

“Yon smooth-faced boy is dying, drugged to
death

By dissipation’s pestilential breath.

The girl who bends above him,

Red-lipped and ashen-cheeked, to-night must
fling

Tired limbs in dances lewd, and smirk, and
sing.

Her misery is—to love him.

“And she, the siren with the face as soft
As her heart’s hard, and her eyes cold, how oft
Her victim lying yonder [fooled!
Blent blandishment and mockery have be-
Poor dupe, to dream such harpies could be
schooled

By service to grow fonder !

“Light-footed as light-hearted steps she
forth, [worth.

Silk-shrouded, jewelled, wrapped in furs of
Into a crested carriage. [taph,

‘ Dead,—oh, poor donkey ! ’ That’s her epi-
Set ’twixt a shallow sigh and crackling laugh.
She hopes for a ‘ swell ’ marriage.

“That—or, if foiled by fate or some odd
fluke,

Ducats sometimes are better than a duke,

‘ Yes, when the duke’s a duffer! ’

You hear her hissing mot to her home slave,
The pale-faced mother who her wrath must
brave,

And her coarse chidings suffer!

“Amusement is—amusing, is it not ?

Its world-ward face is bright, with scarce a
blot

To prove the foul infection
That lurks within. The world might show
disgust,

Were all its tyranny, its greed, its lust,
Bared to minute inspection.

“There’s a poor, mangled, maimed boy-
acrobat.

Little conceived the careless crowds who sat
With half-voluptuous thrillings
Of terror, as mid-air he twirled and tost,
What, when the tale was summed, it really
cost

To gather in their shillings.”

And I saw beaten boxers, bruised and sore,

A weary waiter, bullied by a boor,

Eyeing the clock-face eagerly;
Trim-vestured girls, with trembling limbs,
who stood [food

Tending proud dames ; pale lads on zestless
Feeding at midnight meagrely.

And wan-faced waifs, ill-clad and furtive-
eyed, [pomp and pride

Writhing through scented throngs where
Wait upon wealth and beauty,

Scuttling swift-footed like wild forest things,
In search of the scant prey such prowling
To lowly jackal-duty. [brings

I followed painted faces writhed with mirth,
To homes compared with which the fox’s earth
Is refuge sweet and cleanly.

I watched the way of sin, and saw the wage
Wherewith the sordid spectre of the age
Rewards its dupes so leanly.

Closed doors and lights extinct hid not from me
The horrors of the garish haunts of glee,
Where Pleasure plumes and prances
Like a masked Mors amidst a festal throng,
And Mammon grabs the price of Suffering’s
And Folly’s frenzied dances. [song,
“ Enough! ” I cried. The Shadow strangely
smiled:

“ The raiser of Life’s curtain is reviled

By Pleasure ; even Pity [due:

Reproves, and doubts. Amusement is man’s
Ay, — purged from the foul taint whose
wrecks bestrew
The purlieus of the City ! ”

CHRISTMAS AS IT IS TO BE IN-
CHESTER WORKHOUSE.

(.Dedicated, without Lesped, to the Magistrates of
a County of Cheeseparers.)

The hungry paupers were assembled ready
to tear their food to pieces in the good old
fashion sanctioned by precedent. There had
been a rumour that a clerical innovator had
suggested that the Guardians of the Poor
should purchase knives and forks for the use
of the inmates of the Union: but the story
had been accepted as a canard. It was well
known that the love of economy amongst the
Members of the Board outweighed sentimental
considerations. Possibly this report had been
spread by the appearance of a paragraph in
the Macclesfield Courier, headed, “A Dis-
graceful Arrangement in Chester Work-
house,” in which a meeting of the Chester
Board of Guardians had been chronicled. In
the pages of the popular provincial print in
question it had been related how the paupers
had to tear the meat to pieces with their
fingers and teeth; how the Clerk had said
that, after witnessing the spectacle last year,
he had gone away disgusted; and, lastly, how
a farmer had declared that he often enjoyed
his meals without any knife and fork—with
the apparent result that a compromise was
accepted. But that was only what a news-
paper had printed, and who shall estimate
the accuracy of the Press ?

So the expectant paupers waited for their
food as beasts wait for theirs at the Zoological
Gardens! There was a pause, and then came
the succulent fare that has made the Unions
of Old England the admiration of the civilised
world. The hungry inmates prepared to dig
their fingers into the meat as per usual, when
an authoritative voice bade them restrain
their impatience until knives and forks had
been passed to every inmate ! _ Astonishment
reigned supreme. So a distinction was at
length to be drawn (on Christmas Day)
between human beings and beasts of prey!

Who would have thought it ?

* * * *

“No,” replied an official, when the banquet
was over, in answer to a question that nad
been put to him, ‘1 this is the exception to
the rule. These knives and forks are not to
be retained, but are to be returned immedi-
ately. By a vote of thirteen to ten it was
decided by the Chester Board of Guardians to
hire them for the occasion ! ”

SHAXSPEAEE ON GAS STRIKE,

“ Put out the light—and then-” ?—Othello.

fit. xcrvr,