Punch (100.1891)

January 10, 1891.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 15

PATENT INFLATED SAFETY SKATING COSTUME FOR ICE OR RINK.

cries the fourth; " Give him euthanasia at the Dog's Home!" suggests
a fifth, with more sensibility; "Tax him, collar him, badge him, make
his owner pay roundly for him! " saith the Minister of Agriculture.
And they, between them, make me no more ado than whip me
thirteen and six out of my pinched pocket to pay thee out of danger.
How many masters would do this for their servant? Nay, I'll be
sworn I have paid the fines inflicted, by austere Magistrates, when
thou, Crab, hast surreptitiously slipped thy muzzle, otherwise
thou hadst been executed ; I have " tipped." angry constables when
thou hast stolen out not "under control," otherwise thou hadst
suffered for't: thou thinkest not of this now ! Nay, I remember
the trick thou servedst me anigh the end of the year, when I had so
far successfully dodged the Dog Tax for that season : did I not bid
thee still mark me, and keep out of sight when the rate-collector
called ? When didst thou see me rush headlong upstairs and make
madly for the collector's calves? Didst thou ever see me do such a
fool's trick ?

AUDITORS IN WONDERLAND.

" If you please," said the Auditor of the Tottenham School Board
accounts, " would you explain to me what that curious thing is that
you have got in your hand ? "

"With pleasure," replied the White Knight, who had recently
been elected as a Member of the Board. " It's a Tellurium."

" I see that it cost the ratepayers four pounds to buy. What is
theuseofit?"

"Use?" said the White Knight, in mild surprise. "Oh, it's a
most useful thing. A child who can't think of the right answer to
a question about the stars, only has to put this thing on its head—
at Examination time, you know—and it at once remembers all about
it. It's got Electricity or something inside it. And the shape is my
own invention."

" That's why it's called'a Tellurium, then," remarked the Auditor,
who could hardly help laughing, it all seemed so strange ; " because,
when they put it on, the children tell you the answer you want ? "

"Yes ; and William Tell put an apple on his head, or on some-
body else's head, and I thought the name would remind the children
of that fact."

" Then the School must win an increased Government Grant, with
this thing to help them," said the Auditor.

" Well," said the Knight, more despondently, "they have hardly
had time to try it yet. In fact," he added, still more gloomily,
"their teachers won't let them try it. But it's really an admirable
idea, if it_ could be tried." And the White Knight fastened the
curious object on his own head, whence it immediately fell with a
crash upon the floor.

"It's too ridiculous!" exclaimed the Auditor, bursting into a
little laugh. "I declare a Hektograph would be as useful for the
children as this thing ! "

"Would it?" asked the White Knight. " Does a Hektograph
work well ? Then we '11 get one or two—several."

"And I notice," the Auditor went on, "that there is a thins*
called a Cyclostyle put down in the accounts. Please will you tell
me what a Cyclostyle is, and what use it is for purposes of elementary
education ? "

" With pleasure," replied the White Knight, who seemed quite
cheerful again; "it's an apparatus for catching cycles, if any
should take to going round and round the room when the children
are at their lessons. It does it in style, you see."

"But," said the Auditor, " it's not very likely that any cyclists
would care to wheel their machines into a Board School, is it ? "

"Not very likely, I daresay," the Knight answered, eagerly;
"but, if any do come, I don't intend that we shall be without a
machine for catching them quickly. And the plan is my own
invention! "

"I should suppose it was," the Auditor observed. "I am sorry to
be obliged to disallow the costs of all these inventions, but the rate-
payers must not be forced to pay for fads ; and, as you take such
an interest in them, I am sure you won't mind paying for them
yourself. Good-day ! "_

Itiitncl; BAfamm

to-7 0 0

(Born, January, 1822. Died, December 26,1890.)

Helen, who fired the topmost towers of Troy,

Should spare a smile for the North-German boy,

Who, from a sketch of Ilium aflame,

Was fired with zeal which led so straight to fame.

'Twas a far cry from that small grocer's shop

To Priam's city ; but will distance stop

Genius, which scorns to fear or play the laggard ?

" The World's Desire " (as Helen's called by Haggard)

Might well have crowned on Ilium's windy cope,

This patient follower-up of " The Heart's Hope ! "

Show of the Old Masters at Burlington House.—This
Exhibition opened last Saturday. It was such a peasoupy day that
the Artiest of our Fine Arts' Critics couldn't get there. Old
Masters, indeed ! it was a good Old Foggy that prevented him from
being in his place (and he knows his place too) on that occasion.