Punch (99.1890)

Novembeb l, 1890.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

213

TO ENGELBEEG AND BACK.

Being a few Notes taken en route in search of a Perfect Cure,

"Oh! he's ever so much better. "Why he only had two
stumbles, and one cropper, doing his three hundred yards this
morning. That heats the record, anyhow."

Young Jeeryman is describing the effect the Engelberg air is
already having on the Dilapidated One to several people, who have

either been invalided them-
selves, or have had invalid
relatives, or met, seen, or
heard of invalids who have
had similar satisfactory ex-
periences.

" You know, I think the
dining has a great deal to
do with the beneficent effects
of the place," remarked,
meekly, a mild-mannered
Clergyman, who, had been
brought up here apparently
to " get tone." " You can't
sit down to table with three
hundred people," he con-
tinued, meditatively; as if
the solution of the social
problem had caused him
some anxious thought,
f. "without being inclined to
|; launch out a little more
ffi than one does under ordi-
nary conditions at home.
Only I wish they wouldn't
think it necessary to keep
t/lL "W WJW* • their dining-saloon'at such

A Pleasant Little Excursion. an excessive temperature,

and waste quite so much time between the different courses."

And here the mild-mannered Clergyman had real ground for
complaint, for the German recipe for table d'hote dinner seems to
be something very much like the following:—Get a room that has
been smoked in, with closed and tightly-fastened windows and
doors, all the morning. Light the stove, if there is one, and
turn on the gas, if there is any. You begin your dinner. Take
twice, thrice, or even four times of every course, glaring savagely
and defiantly at your neighbour as you pass the dish. Sit
oyer each, allowing a good quarter of an hour for its proper
digestion, and keep this up till the perspiration drops from your
face. Finally, in about two hours' time, having carefully mopped
your forehead, quit the table for the " Conversations Saal."
Here (still keeping in gas and stove, if there is one) smoke till you
can't see six feet before you. Keep this up till you have had enough
of it, and feel the time is getting on for you to go through a modified
edition of the same process at supper. At least, this is how the
German element—a very formidable one at the Hotel Titlis—for the
most part, conducted itself over the principal meal of the day. There
were, of course, exceptions, for all Germany is not essentially
German; yet it must be confessed that the prevailing features were
of this guzzling, and, for the want of a more descriptive word, I
would add, " sweltering " type, not fully appreciated by the ordinary
travelling Briton, who, whatever else he may be, is not a gross
feeder, though he does set the proper value on a breath of pure
fresh air.

" Get him up ? Of course we can get him up," rejoined Dr. Mel
chisidec, warmly. This in answer to some doubts expressed by one
of the more cautious spirits of our party as to the possibility of
dragging the Dilapidated One over one of the stock excursions of the
neighbeurhood, to wit, the Fiirren Alp. "Why, put him into a
chaise a partem, and we could get him up the Titlis itself, and
throw in the Schlossstock, and the Gross-Spannort, for the matter of
that, as well. Baedeker makes only a two and a half hours' affair of it."

And so we find ourselves in due course, doing the " Furren-Alp "
in approved style.

"By Jove, 1 '11 be hanged if I think it's a" bit better than going
up Primrose Hill, twenty times running: and not near such good
going either," observes young Jebrtman, after we have been
struggling up a precipitous mountain path, occasionally finding
ourselves sliding and slipping backwards in the bed of a disused
watercourse, for about two hours and a half.

And really I think young Jebeyman's view of the matter is not
so very far out, after ail.

One Rite, and All Wrong.— The "Service of Reconciliation"
in St. Paul's seems to have had the effect of setting everyone by the
ears. Quite a muddle,—a "Western Church, and an Easton rite.

SCIENCE AND HEART.

"A Correspondent of ' the Field' records an experiment which he made
with a waBp. ' Having,' he says,' severed j>
a wasp in two pieces, I found that the -j^,. j ,,<«^Sv^>
head and thorax with the uninjured
wings retained full vitality ... It tried
to fly, hut evidently lacked the necessary
balance through the loss of the abdomen.
To test the matter farther, I cut out an
artificial tail from a piece of thin card-
board, as nearly following the shape of the
natural body as possible. To fasten the
appendage to the wasp, I used a little
oxgall . . .; gum or more sticky sub-
stances would not do, as it impedes the
use of the wings in flight. Presently the
operation was complete, and, to my sur-
prise, the wasp, after one or two inef-
fectual efforts, flew in rather lopsided
fashion to the window. It then buzzed
about for at least a quarter of an hour, 1
eventually flying out at the top . . . it was vigorous when it flew away."

Extract from an Evening Paper.
The Benefit of Humour in Philosophees can always do more
Philosophy. Assisted by a sense of humour:

"Witness the droll experiment
Of this same scientific gent.
For he, his frugal breakfast finishing,
(The eggs and bacon fast diminishing)
Noted how o'er his marmalade
A "Wasp was buzzing undismayed.
General Reflection: "We all are apt to be inhosp-

Attitude of Man towards Itable to the humble "Wasp—
the "Wasp. That Ishmael of domestic insects,

The terror of the feminine sex!
The Philosopher shares And our Philosopher, though cool,
the prevailing Prejudice. "Was no exception to the rule.
His Method. He let it settle on his plate;

He poised a knife above—like Fate.
The Blow falls. Next—with a sudden flash it drops

Right on that unsuspecting "Wopse!
Which, unprepared by previous omen,
A Tragic Meeting Awestruck, confronts its own abdomen !

°" And sees its once attached tail-end dance

A brisk pas-seul of independence !
A pang more bitter than before racks
Dignified Behaviour of the That righteously indignant thorax,
■W0pSe- As proudly (yet with perfect taste)

It turns its back upon its waist,
And seeks, though life must all begin new,
" Business as usual" to continue!
A Philosopher's Remorse. The Man of Science felt his heart

Prick him with self-accusing smart,
To see that ineffectual torso
Go fluttering about the floor so ;
The Uses of a Scientific Science informs him that, divided,
Education. A wasp for flight is too lopsided.

So, with remorsefulness acute,
Reparation. He rigged it up a substitute ;

Providing it a new posterior,
At least as good—if not superior.
His Process. He cut it out a tail of card,

And stuck it on with ox-gall, hard.
(This he prefers to vulgar glue)
And made that Wopse as good as new!
Forgiveness. Until the grateful insect soared

Away, with self-respect restored
To find that mutilated part of his
Had been so well replaced by artifice.
Further proceedings of the The Scientist, again complacent,
Philosopher. T/o pen and ink and paper hastened,

And, in a letter to the Field,
Told how the Wasp, though halved, was
healed.

And how, despite a treatment rigorous,
It left consoled—and even vigorous!
Moral. The Moral—here this poem stops—is

'Tis ne'er too late for mending JVopses !

A " Cutting" Observation.—This is from the Daily Graphic:—

GENERALS—TWO "WANTED to do the work of a small house; £14-£18;
for two in family; easy place, early dinners ; very little company.
How sad! At how low an ebb has our Army arrived under recent
mal-administration 1 In time we may have even "Our Only General''
himself advertising for a place, or answering an advertisement like
the above. Not much " company drill" ; so, if easy, it will be dull.