Punch (99.1890)

October 18, 1890.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

1.89

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Steam -boiling Expebiences.
—That you should have en-
deavoured to have turned the
birthday-gift of your eccentric
nephews to account, and made
an offer to the Municipality of
West Bloxham to " set" the High
Street for them by going over it
with the seventeen-ton steam-
roller, with which your youthful
relatives had presented you, was
only a nice and generous im-
pulse on your part; and it is
undeniably a great pity that,
owing to your not fully under-
standing the working of the
machine, you should have torn
away the front of three of the
principal shops, finally going
through the floor of a fourth, and
getting yourself apparently per-
manently embedded in a position
from which you cannot extricate
yourself, in the very centre of the
leading thoroughfare. Your idea
of getting out of the difficulty by
presenting the steam-roller then
and there to the Borough was a
happy one, and it is to be re-
gretted that, under the circum-
stances, they felt no inclination
to accept your offer. Their threat
of further proceedings against you
unless you take immediate steps
to remove your machine, though,
perhaps, to be expected, is cer-
tainly a little unhandsome. Per-
haps your best plan will be to try
and start your Steam-roller as a
"Suburban Omnibus Company,"
as you propose. Certainly secure
that Duke you mention for Chair-
man, and, with one or two good
City names on the Directorate, it
is possible you may he successful
in your efforts to float the affair.

Meantime, since the proprietor of
the premises in which your Steam-
roller has fixed itself refuses to
allow you to try to remove it by
dynamite, leave it where it is.
Put the whole matter into the
hands of a sharp local lawyer,
and go on to the Continent until
it has blown over.

A HERO "FIN DE SIECLE."

Podgers (of Sandboys Golf Club). " My dear Miss Robinson, Golf's
the only Game nowadays for the Men. Lawn-Tennis is all
very well for you glrls, you know."

HIGHWAYS AND LOW WAYS.

There is evidently all the dif-
ference in the world between
" The King's Highway "— of song
—and the Kingsland highway—
of fact. Song says all is equal
to—

"High and low on the King's high-
way."

Experience teaches that a sober
citizen traversing the highway
unfavourably known as the Kings-
land Road, is liable to be tripped
up, robbed and thumped sense-
less by organised gangs of Kings-
land roughs. It seems doubtful
whether Neapolitan banditti or
Australian bush-whackers are
much worse than these Cockney
ruffians, these vulgar, vicious and
villanous "Knights of the (Kings-
land) Road." Is it not high time
that the local authorities—and
the local police—looked to this
particular "highway," which
seems so much more like a " by-
way " not to say a " by-word and
a reproach" to a city suburb ?

A Case for the Surgeons.—
Mrs. Ramsbotham, who has a
great respect for the attainments
of Members of the Medical pro-
fession, cannot understand why
Army Doctors should be called
" non-competents."

THE MODERN MILKMAID'S S05TG.

(At the Dairy Show.)

An Extract from the " Complete Angler" of the
Future.

Piscator. Maudlin, I pray you, do us the
courtesy to sing a song concerning your late
visit to London.

Maudlin sings:—

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That come in competition's field

From reckoning up the Shorthorn's "yield."

To Town we '11 come in modish frocks,
Where swells appraise our herds and flocks,
By days " in profit" great or small,
All in the Agricultural Hall.

Cockneys shall come and poke their noses
Into our churns as sweet as roses ;
And to quiz Maudlin in clean kirtle
The toffs of Town will crush and hurtle.

You '11 see the Queen, of pride chock-full,
Take first prize with her Shorthorn bull;
Dr. H. Watney, of Buckhold,
With " Cleopatra" hit the gold.

A medal or a champion cup
For cheese to munch, or cream to sup,
Are pleasures rural souls to move,
So live with me and be my love.

Butter and eggs, milch cows and churns,
With cattle foods shall take their turns ;
If Dairy Shows thy mind have won,
Then come with me to Islington.

Viator. Trust me, Master, it is an apt song,
and archly sung by modish Maudlin. I'll
bestow a bucolic Cockney's wish upon her, that
she may live to marry a Competitive Dairy-
man, and have good store of champion cups
and first prizes st uck about her best parlour.

A LICENCE FOB, LORDS.

[At the Blackheath Petty Sessions, Mr. Law-
less, stated that the Trafalgar Hotel, belonged to
the Lords of the Admiralty, and asked the Bench to
transfer the licence to the resident caretaker.

Captain Bobek.tson-Sheb.sby, J. P.: "Why not
transfer it to the First Lord of the Admiralty ?
Are there no whitebait dinners held there ?

Mr. Lawless said that he was afraid that the
days of whitebait dinners were over.

The Bench, finding the Admiralty held the hotel
for charitable purposes, granted the application.]

Come, landsmen, give ear to my ditty,

I '11 make it as short as I can.
There was once—was it London ?—a city

Which stretched from Beersheba to Dan.
Of course that is gammon and spinach,

Or, to put it correctly, a joke.
It extended from Richmond to Greenwich,

This city of darkness and smoke.

It had sailors who ruled o'er the ocean,

And sat all the day upon Boards,
And described, with delightful emotion,

Themselves and their colleagues as'' Lords."
They had tubes that were always exploding,

And boilers that never were right,
But had all got a trick of exploding,

And blowing a crew out of sight.

They had docks (and, alas! theyhad'dookers),

They had ships that kept sinking like stones,
Which resulted in filling the lockers

Provided below by D._ Jones.
Of their country these lineal successors

Of Nelson deserved very well,
When at last they became the possessors

Of an old fully-licensed hotel.

And they made up a ease which was flawless,

For the Sessions that sat at Blackheath,
And they sent — which was strange —
Mr. Lawless,
Who was crammed full of law to the
teeth.

" The days when we all lived in clover,
With whitebait, can never revive,

I assure you," said Lawless, " they 're over,
But, oh, keep the licence alive."

But the Bench, when they heard him, grew
bolder—

"Make it out to George Hamilton—he
Is the man who should figure as holder,"

Said Robertson-Shersby, J.P.
Just to think of the head of the Navy,

The proudest and strongest afloat,
Cutting joints or distributing gravy,

First Lord of his own table d'hote!

Will their Charity be a beginner

At home P Will they dine there each day,
These Lords, on a succulent dinner,

Free, gratis, and nothing to pay ?
Well, well, though we 'd rather prefer shipa

That burst not, we '11 take what they give.
So we offer our thanks to their Worships

For permitting the licence to live.