Punch (99.1890)

246

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[November 23, 1890.

UNNECESSARY CANDOUR.

Otitic. "By Jove, how one changes I I've quite ceased to admire the kind or Painting I used to think so clever
Tkn Years ago; and vice versa!"

Pictor. "That's as ir should be 1 It shows Progress, Development I Ir's an unmistakable proof that you've reached
a higher Intellectual and Artistic Level, a more advanced stage of Culture, a loftier--"

Critic. "I'm glad you think so, Old Man. Bur, confound ir, you know 1—the kind of Painting I used to think so
clever Ten Years ago, happens to be Yours I"

BETWEEN THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.

The Appeal's to Justice! Justice lendeth
ear

Unstirred by favour, unseduced by fear;
And they who Justice love must check the
thrill

Of natural shame, and libten, and be still.
These wrangling tales of horror shake the
heart

With pitiful disgust. Ob, glorious part
For British manhood, much bepraised, to

play [day!

In that dark land late touched by culture's
Are these our Heroes, pictured each by each ?
We fondly deemed that where our English

speech [humane,
Sounded, there English hearts, of mould
Justioe would strengthen, cruelty restrain.
And is it all a figment of false pride ?
Such horrors do our vaunting annals hide
Beneath a world of words, like flowers that

wave

In tropic swamps o'er a malarious grave ?

These are the questions which perforce
intrude

As the long tale of horror coarse and crude,
Rolls out its sickening chapters one by one.
What will the verdict be when all is done ?
Conflicting counsels in loud, chorus rise,
"Hush the thing up!" the knowing cynic
cries,

" Arm not our ohuekling enemies at gaze

With enamel dust to foul our brightest bays !
Let the dead past bury its tainted dead,
Lest aliens at our ' heroes' wag the head."
" Shocking! wails out the sentimentalist.
Believe no tale unpleasant, scorn to list
To slanderous charges on the British name!
That brutish baseness, or that sordid shame
Can touch ' our gallant fel'ows,' is a thing
Incredible. Do not our poets sing,
Our pressmen praise in dithyrambic prose,
The ' lads' who win our worlds and face our
foes ?

Who never, sive to human pity, yield
One step in wilderness or battlefield I "

Meanwhile, with troubled eyes and straining
hands,

Silent, attentive, thoughtful, Justice stands.
To her alone let the appeal be made.
Heroes, or merely tools of huckstering Trade,
Men brave, though fallible, or sordid brutes,
Let all be heard. Since each to each imputes
Unmeasured baseness, somewhere the black

tta'n [slain
Must surely rest. The dead speak not, the
Have not a voice, save such as that which spoke
From Abel's blood. Green laurels, or the

stroke [alternative
Of shame's swift scourge? There's the
Before the lifted eyes of those who live.
One fain would see the grass unstained that

waves

In the dark Afrio waste o'er those two graves.
To Justice the protagonist makes appeal.

Justice would wish him smirchless as her steel,
But stands with bteadfast eyes and unbowed
head

Silent—betwixt the Living and the Dead !

OPERA NOTES.

Wiiat's a Drama without a Moral, and
what's Rigoletto without a Maurel, who
was cast for the part, but who was too in-
dibpoged to appear ? So Signor Galassi came
and "played the fool" instead, much to the
satisfaction of all concerned, and all were very
much conjeroed about the illness or indis-
position of M. Maurel. Dimitresco not par-
ticularly stroDg as the Book ; but Mile.
Stromfeld came out well as Gilda, and,
being called, came out in excellent form in
front of the Curtain. Signor Bevignani,
beating time in Orchestra, and time all the
better for his b.'ating.

" For This Relief Much Thanks."—The
difficulties in The City, which Mr. Punch
represented in his Cartoon of November 8,
were by the Times of la3t Saturday publicly
acknowledged to be at an end. The adven-
turous mariners were luckily able to rest
on the Bank, and are now once more fairly
started. They will bear in mind the warn-
ing of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street,
as given to the boys in the above mentioned
Cartoon.