Punch (99.1890)

13)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Skpmmbbb 13, 1890.



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INFELICITOUS QUOTATIONS.

" HOW GOOD OF YOU TO COMB, DOCTOR. I DIDN'T EXPECT TOT7 THIS MORNING."
"NO : BUT I WAS CALLED TO TOUR OPPOSITE NEIGHBOUR, POOR MRS. BROWN,
AND THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL KlLL TWO BlRDS WITH ONE SrONE."

THE BETTER THE DAY, THE BETTER THE TALK !

Scene—Any fashionable Watering Place where " Church Parade" it a recognised
institution. Time—Sunday, 1 r.M. Enter Brown and Mrs. Brown, who
take chairs.

Mrs. Brown. Good Gracious ! Look another way ! Those odious people, the
Stiggingse8, are coming towards us!

Brown. Why odious ? I think the girls rather nice.

Mrs. B. {contemptuously). Oh, you would, because men are so easily taken
in ! Nice, indeed! "Why, here's Major Buttons.

B. (moving his head sharply to the right). Don't see him! Can't stand the
fellow! I always avoid him at the Club !

Mrs. B. Why ? Soldiers are always such pleasant men.

B. [contemptuously). Buttons a soldier! Years ago he was a Lieutenant in a
marching regiment, and now holds honorary rank in the Volunteers! Soldier,
indeed! Bless me ! here's Mrs, Fitz-Fluhmery—mind you don't cut her.

Mrs. B. Yes, I shall; the woman is insupportable. Did you ever see such a
dress ? And she has changed the colour of her hair—again!

B. Whether she has or hasn't, she looks particularly pleasing.

Mrs. B. {drily). You were always a little eccentric in your taste! Why,
surely there must be'Mr. Pennyeather Robson. How smart he looks ! Where
can he have come from ?

B. The Bankruptcy Court! (Drily.) You were never particularly famous for
discrimination. As I live, the Plantagenet Smiths ! [He hows with effusion.

Mrs. B. And the Stuart Joneses ! (She kisses'her hand gushingly.) By
the way, dear, didn't you say that the Plantagenet Smiths were suspected of
murdering their Uncle before they inherited his property ?

B. So it is reported, darling. And didn't you tell me, my own, that the
parents of Mr. Stuart Jones were convicts before they became millionnaires P

Mrs. B. So I have heard, loved one. (Starting up.) Come, Charley, we
must be off at once!_ The Goldhaets ! If they catch us, she is sure to ask me
to visit some of her sick poor!

B. And he to beg me to subscribe to an orphanage or a hospital! Here,
take your prayer-hook, or people won't know that we have come from church !

[Exeunt hurriedly.

HOMO SAPIENS.

(A Question for the next Anthropological Assembly.)
[" When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in
the Tertiary period . . . the chances that man as at present
constituted, should be a survivor from that period seem remote,
and against the species Homo Sapiens having existed in Miocene
times almost incalculable."—Address of the President of the
Anthropological Section, Dr. John Evans, at the Leeds Meeting
of the JSritish Association.]

When then did Homo Sapiens first appear ?

Upon whose speculations shall we bottom us ?
Contemporary he with the cave bear,

But hardly with the earliest hippopotamus.
The happy Eocene beheld him not;

That cheerful epoch when a morning ramble
Among the mammoths, without gun or shot,

Must have been such a truly sportive scramble.
The pleasant Pliocene preceded him,

Apparently, poor bare, belated Homo ;
His spectre seems to haunt, despondent, dim,

Lakes—how unlike Killarney, Wenham, Como!—
Where dens called Dwellings may have left some trac \

Before " quarternary times "—whatever they were—
Homo appears not to have shown his face,

And then its features far from gracefully gay were.
So Evans, who the mystery of Man's birth

Into our Cosmos carefully unravels.
He seems to view with sceptical calm mirth,

Remains of Man among the river gravels.
Well, we '11 relinquish Tertiary man,

Without immoderate grief, or lasting anguish.
The Pliocene, if we can grasp its plan,

Would seem an epoch when our race would languish.
The skeletons, cut animal bones, and flints,

Supposed to prove his presence, let's abandon ;
But on some subjects we should like some hints;

When did he come, and what has Sapient Man done
To justify his advent ? Take him now,

Apart from retrospection prehistoric,
What is the being of the rifted brow

Doing at present ? Strange phantasmagoric
Pictures of his proceedings Hit before

The vision of alert imagination;
Playing the brute, buffoon, "bounder," or bore,

In every climate, and in every nation!
Homo— here wasting half his hard-earned gains

Upon Leviathan Fleets and Mammoth Armies,
Spending his boasted gifts of Tongue and Brains

In Party spouting. Swearing potent charm is
In grubbing muck-rake Money on the Mart,

Or squandering it on Turf, or Gambling Table.
Sqnabbling o'er the Morality of Art,

0 • fighting o'er the Genesis of Fable.
You '11 find him—as a Frank—in comic rage,

Mouthing mad rant, fighting preposterous duels,
Scattering ordures o'er Romance's page, [jewels.

And decking a swine's snout with Style's choice
You '11 see him—as a Teuton—trebly taxed,

Mooning 'midst metaphysical supposes ;
Twirling a huge moustache, superbly waxed,
^ And taking pride in slitting comrades' noses.
You'll meet him—as a Muscovite—dead set

0a making civic life a sombre Hades,
Shaking a knife with tyrant's blood red-wet,

Or—aping "Paris-goods" in art, dress, ladies.
You '11 spy him—as a Yankee—gassing loud

About his pride, and yet chin-deep in snobbery;
Leaving State matters to corruption's crowd,

And justifying (literary) robbery.
Whilst as a Briton! Bless us, 'twould take time

To picture Homo in his guise Britannic.
Here he is making a fine art of crime, _

There he is fussing in a Puritan panic ;
Here with McMuck ne plays the prurien* spy,

And there with Oscar in a paroxysm
Of puerile paradox spreads to Cultchaw's eye

The fopperies of " Artistic Hedonism" !
Oh, Evans, noting Man (not Tertiary)

In Church or State, the Studio or the Tavern,
One wonders—not was he contemporary

With Danish KjokkenmSddings or Kent's Cavern,—
No, thinking of his work with Swords, Tongues, Pens,

Of most of which Wisdom would make a clearance,
One wonders whether Homo Sapiens

Has really truly yet made his appearance!