Punch (98.1890)

208

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIVAEI.

[May 3, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

{By Mr. Punch's Own Type-writer.)

No. X__THE MARTYR INCOMPRISE.

The Martyr Incomprise is one who, having in her home ereoted a
stake ties to it her husband, and then having set alight the
faggots which her own hands have piled round him, calls the world
to witness the saint-like fortitude with which she bears up under
the sufferings inflicted, upon her by her lord and master. She will
have been married to a man who, though he does not pretend to be
above the ordinary frailties and failings of human nature, tries
honestly, for many years, to make her happy. Time after time
does this domestic Sisyphus roll the stone of contentment up the hill
of his wife's temper, and time after time does it slip from his hands,
and go clattering down into the plain of despair. The Martyr is a
very virtuous lady, yet she is not satisfied with the calm and
acknowledged possession of her virtues. She adds them to her
armoury of aggravation, and uses them with

lest he should set a bad example. She will then weep silently into
her tumbler, and her friends, after expressing a muttered, indigna-
tion at the heartlessness of men, will support her tottering steps
from the room. If her husband should invite one or two of his
friends to dinner on a subsequent occasion, she will amuse herself
and madden him by recounting to them this incident, in which she
will figure as a suffering angel, whose wings have moulted under the
neglect and cruel treatment of an unangelic spouse. If, while her
story is in progress, she should observe her husband writhing, she
will inform him that she is sure he must be sitting in a draught,
and will order the butler to place a screen behind him. Having
thus called attention to his discomfort, and to the care with which
she watches over him, she will take offence when he countermands
the screen; and, after giving the company in general to understand
that she is not allowed to give orders m her own house, she will, for
the rest of the evening, preserve a death-like calm. This will be
followed, on the departure of her guests, by showers of tears and
reproaches, the inevitable prelude to twenty-four hours of salts and
seclusion in the privacy of her bed-room. It

a deadly effect. Her morality is irreproach- /~P?~~<ik *s curi°us to note that, although the Martyr,
able. She studies to make it a rejiroaeh to Ljf^^k. at an early period of her married life, de-
her husband, and, inasmuch as her temper is ■ '^tifdSHL velopes a distaste for going into society, which
equally compounded of the most persistent ^^SbMk ^"iT-l; s^e attributes to the persecution of her hus-
obstinacy, and the most perverse and unac- \ v- band; yet she always contrives to spend as
countable caprices, it is unnecessary to say /^ssll' \ much money as those who live in a whirl of
that she succeeds marvellously in her un- rJ'^ '^S£Sk\, "V- gaiety. Her bills, therefore, mount up, and,
dertaking. /-Mf \ ^W^t^mr-y^J^ *n a moment of unguarded, pecuniary pru-
As a girl, the Martyr will have been distin- //, ' ' (//' !s'A '\\ ^ dence, her husband will remonstrate mildly
guished by a keen sense of wrong, and a total - \\ \, • ^ILLL' 'A. h with her upon her extravagance. She will,
lack of all sense of humour. Having been -.- \\fJ vy'fflHr^iii »....... thereupon, accuse him to her friends of mean-
rebuked by her mother for some trifling fault, fl vili |7 // ' J3§^ ness, aDd avow her determination never again

she will persuade herself that her parents 1 %\Wik' Wm ^r^S~- to ask him for money. For a short time she

detest her, and desire her death. She will v ' i^tivil wwf^ t/5wi§LSi will pay portions of her own bills, but, finding

spend the next few days with her breast i_r t L=M»yi W$k~:_/ g her pin-money insufficient for the purpose,

luxuriously against the thorn of her fancied \ . JfiyW' , ffjfmmN™. lif she will sell some jewels, and spend the pro-

sufferings. She will weave romances, m order M s-U&jp- j^^i^ft^^lli PlillJlH'" oeeds ori a new tea-gown. Her increasing
to enjoy the delicious sensation of looking on |M«f^ /CW ^^S^i^'MM liabilities will afford her no anxiety, seeing
as she withers under injustice into a, prema- [H ., Wk\ \\, jj'f &WM that her sense of martyrdom increases in pro-

ture coffin, and of watching her cruel parents § fife I \\\ [WHK^iAfM portion, and that iu her heart of hearts she

as they water the grave of their victim with ^S^^%^5f^4^|lH If1U Pf« knows that her husband is prepared to pay
unavailing tears. A somewhat lax method ^s=sr~&~ ^^^^^mKlmw^l^ everything, and will eventually have to do so.

of bringing up will have enabled her to read ^= - ^^^^irilllll'f!' 11111' After some years of this life her husband

many trashy novels. Out of these she con- —-^~~d9^Pr WP 11 will have acquired the reputation of a domestic

structs an imaginary hero, all gushing ten- _ ruffian. Friends will shake their heads, and

derness and a tawny moustache.. Having met a young man who
fully realises her ideal in the latter particular, she promptly assumes
his possession of the former, and accepts his proposal of marriage.
After having all but thrown him over on three or four occasions for
an insufficient display of romantic devotion at dances and tennis
parties, she eventually marries him. Soon afterwards she discovers
that he is not a ohivalrous wind-bag, but a Man, whereupon she
shatters his pedestal, and abandons herself to misery amidst the ruins.

And now the full joys of her married martyrdom begin. She
withdraws even from the affectation of interest in her partner, his
friends and his pursuits. She spends her mornings in the keeping
of a diary, or the writing of a novel, in which she appoints herself
to the post of heroine, and endows her creation with a superhuman
combination of unappreciated qualities. From the fact that her
husband spends a large part of each day away from her, either in
attending to his business or in following a sport, she infers that he
has ceased to love her. "When he returns in the evening, she locks
herself into her room, and, having thus assured to herself solitude,
she converts it, by an easy process, into the studied negleot of an
unfeeling husband.

She now gathers round herself a select company of two or three
female friends, whom the easy good-nature of her husband permits
to stay in his house for months at a time. Into their sympathetic
ears she pours the story of her woes, and gradually organises them
into a trained band of disciplined conspirators, who make it their
constant object to defend the wife by thwarting the husband. They
have their signs and their pass-words. If the callous male, for the
enjoyment of whose hospitality they seem to gain an additional zest
by affecting to despise and defy him, should intimate at the dinner-
table that he has ventured to make some arrangement without con-
sulting them, they will raise their eyebrows, and look pityingly at
the wife. She will inform them, in a tone of convinced melancholy,
that she has long suspected that she was of no importance to any
one, but that now she knows it for certain. She will then tell her
husband that, as she is no longer allowed to interest herself in what
he does, she has of course no opinion on the matter in hand, and
that, if she had one, she would never think of offering it when she
knows that all interference on her part is always so bitterly resented.
Her husband's temper having exploded in the orthodox marital
manner, she will smile sweetly upon him, and, the butler and foot-
man having entered with the fish, will implore him, in a voice
intended rather for the servants than for him, to moderate his anger,

wonder how long his sweet wife will bear up against his treatment.
It will be reported, on the authority of imaginary eye-witnesses,
that he has thrown a soup-plate at her, and that, on more than one
occasion, he has beaten her. He will find himself shunned, and
will be driven for society and pleasure to his baohelor haunts. His
wife will now rage with jealousy over a defection she has done her
best to cause. After a time she will hire the services of a detective,
and will file a petition in the Divorce Court. The case will probably
be undefended, and the Court haviag_ listened to her tale of cruelty,
the imaginative boldness of which will startle even the friend who
corroborates it in the witness-box, will decree to her a divorce from
the supposed author of her sufferings. She will then set up for a
short time as an object of universal pity, but, meeting a bluff and
burly widower, she will accept him as her second husband. After
having wearied of her constant recital of her former misery, this
husband will begin to neglect and ill-use her in good earnest.
Under the tonic of this genuine shsck, her spirits may revive; and
it is as likely as not that she will enjoy many years of mitigated
happiness as the wife of a real tyrant.

Moke Novelties.—Sir,—The Fasting Man seems to have been a
great success. Why shouldn't he be succeeded by The Stuffing Man,
The Eating Boy, and The Talking Man. The last of these would be
backed to talk incessantly on every possible subject for forty days.
In the Recess, what a chance for Mr. Gladstone, or, indeed, for any
Parliamentary orator, who, otherwise, would be on the stump!
Instead of his going to the Country, the Country, and London, too,
would come to him. Big business for Aquarium and for Talking Man.
Then there would be The Sneezing Man, The Smoking Man, The
Singing Man, The Drinking Man, and so forth. It's endless. I
only ask for a per-oentage on gate-money, and I place the idea at the
disposition of the Aquarium. Tours, The Otheb Man.

Yet Another Qtjabterly.—Subjects of the -Day—sounds like an
Algerian publication—is a quarterly review of current topics. The
motto of this new quarterly review of Messrs. Routledge's is "Post
Tenebras Lux," which, being freely translated, means, "after the
heavy reviews this comes as a little light reading!" Ahem! the
subject of No. 1 is Education, and to study the essays in this volume
will keep any reader well occupied till the appearance of No. 2.