Punch (100.1891)

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

17

tutores, if you want to know what to take your little children,
your bigger children, your boys and girls to see, and what you your-
selves, familiar with your Thackeray as I take you to be, would
enjoy seeing, I say emphatically and distinctly, without any evasion,
reservation, or mental equivocation, "Go and see, and take them
all to see, The Rose and the Ring, written by Sayile Clarke,
with music composed for it by Walter Slaughter, put on the stage
by Les deux Ajax Caroltjs and Augustus Harris,—Christmas
Carolus being facile princeps at this difficult business.

There is an excellent orchestra here, playing the musical game of
"follow my leader " to perfection, and kept together, as sheep, by a
Crook. Mr. Harry Monkhouse is very droll in the little he has to
do. Mr. Shale's speech as the Court Painter is capitally given, but
there isn't enough of it. A touch more, a few more good lines, and
the speech, as a showman's speech, would have been encored. Mr. S.
Solomon as Jenkitis, the Hall Porter, is made up so as to be the very
facsimile of Thackeray's own illustration, and to reproduce that
Master's sketches with more or less exactitude has evidently been
the aim of all the actors ; but Jenkins has been peculiarly successful,

as has also
Prince Bul-
bo, of whom
more anon.
As Polly in
Act the First,
and General
Punchikoff
in the Se-
cond, Miss
Empsie Bow-
man was de-
lightful, and
her elder
sister, Miss
Isa Bowman,
made every
sharp point
tell, and

After a Design by Michael Angelo Titmarsh. into the gold^

of which success the name of Bowman is of good omen: and this is
almost a rhyme. The part of Prince Giglis, in the absence of Miss
Violet Camebon, was satisfactorily rendered by Miss Florence
Darley. Miss Maud Holland looked and acted prettily as the
Princess Angelica, and Madame Amadi was quite Thackerayan in
her make-up as Countess Gruffanuff. Miss Attalie Claire entered
fully into the spirit of the merry piece ; her rendering of a song with |

the refrain " Ah ! well-a-day ! " being deservedly encored. j ^"le k/smg"with George GrosTmith '(if he'll let yonjT** See me

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

I tried Criss- Cross Lovers the other day, a Novel, in two or three
vols., 1 don't remember which ; but those may ascertain who are not
choked off in the first hundred pages, as was the unfortunate Baron
de B.-W. He had the presence of mind to put it down in time, and,
after a few moments of refreshing repose, was, like Richard, " him-
self again," and able to tackle quite another novel.

In the English Illustrated Magazine, for this month, I have just
read a most interesting account of a visit paid by the Very Rev.
Dean of Gloucester to the Trappist Monastery of La Grande Char-
treuse, which, thanks to the marvellous tpirit of the Order known
as Chartreuse Verte or Chartreuse Jaune, is one of the Religious
Confraternities not suppressed by the Anti-monkical majority in
the French Government. The Baron—the umble individual who
now addresses you—has himself entered
within these Monastic walls, inspected the
buildings, seen all the monastic practical
jokes, known as "regular cells," and has
come away the better for the visit, with
much food for reflection and refection en
route in the voiture, and with spirituous
comfort in green and yellow bottles. This
paper, in the New Illustrated, is well worth
reading.

The Baron has for some weeks had on his
table, Golden Lines; The Story of a Woman's
Courage, by Frederick Wicks. The Baron
being, as he is bound to admit, almost human,
was warned off the book by its title, which
seems to suggest something in the tract line.
The Publishers' name (Blackwood) is, how-
ever, an invariable stamp of good metal. So the Baron picked up the
book, was attracted by the remarkably clever illustrations, and finally,
beginning at the beginning, he read to the end. It is a novel, and
one of the best published this season; and all the better for being
in one stout handsomely-printed volume. The plot is constructed
with rare skill, the writing is good, and the people all alive. If it
is Wicks's first work (and the Baron never heard of Frederick
before) he should go on making candles of the same kind. Their
illuminating power is rare.

" What shall we play at, and how shall ice play it ? " The satisfac-
tory answer to these two questions, specially important at Christmas
time, will be found in Professor Hoffmann's Encyclopedia of Card
and Table Games, published by Routledge. Here you will learn
the mysteries of "Go-Bang," "Reverse,"—and after learning the
latter, you, if Nature has blessed you with a tuneful voice, will be

I must not forget, indeed, I cannot forget, Mr. Le Hay as Bulbo,
who, not only on account of his make-up being an exact reproduc-
tion of Thackerat's sketch, gave us as good a grotesque performance

Reverse" The motto for the Professor's book should have been the
emphatic exclamation of the street Arab, " My heye ! such games ! "
This is the sixth year of Hazel? s Annual. Whatever mforma-

as I've seen for some considerable time. To see him on the ground j tion you require it will be difficult not to find' in Hazell, clearly and
after the fight, tearing his hair out in handtulls, is something that
will shake the sides of the most sedate or blase, and among the
audience that will crowd to see this juvenile show, there will be very

few sedate (I hope) and still fewer (I am sure) blase. It is an excellent
performance throughout. But, my dear Mr. Carolus Harris, one
word,—when you had that capitally-arranged and highly effective
scene of Bulbo going to be beheaded, why did you not carry it a
bit further, and make Bulbo on the point of kneeling down, and the
burlesque axe poised in the air, and then, but not till then, the
moment which, like the present winter, is "critical,"—then, I say,
enter the Princess with the reprieve P As it is, the effect of this
dramatically grouped scene is lessened by the absence of action, and
Bulbo is off the scaffold ere the majority of the audience realise the
peril in which his life has been placed.

I must not forget the army of children appearing from time to
time as courtiers, cooks, fairies, soldiers, who will be the source of
the greatest pleasure to children of all ages, from "little Trots"
upwards. Nothing in this genuinely Christmas Piece is there which
can do aught but delight and amuse the young people for whom
primarily it was written. Let "all concerned in this" excellent
piece of Christmas merriment accept the congratulations and best
wishes for crowded houses—which they are sure to be for all the
Matinees-hom theirs truly, Mfi< p>,8 j,IEST Commissioner.

Great Disappointment.—Sir Francis Sandford has oreated a
profound feeling of disappointment among all classes of society by
not having added, " and Merton," to his title. " Lord Sandford of
Sandford" is weak; but "Lord Sandford-and-Merton" would
have been truly noble.

Sir Julian Pauncefote's reply to President Blaine: "The
point o' this here obserwation lies in the Behring of it." {Captain
Cuttle adapted.)

not at all Hazelly expressed. A youthful friend whose pun, says the
Baron, I hereby nail to the counter, on seeing this book on my desk,
observed, "Yes, I'm nuts on Hazell." The Baron frowned, ana
the youth withered away, as Alice did—not the one who went to
Wonderland, but an elder Alice, whom our old friend "Ben Bolt "
remembers.

Sampson Low, & Co. publish " Wild Life on a Tidal Water" by
P. H. Emerson, who gives the adventures of a house-boat and her
crew on Breydon Water in Norfolk ; the photo-etchings are by
Emerson and Goodall, "and therefore," says the Baron, "All-good."

Look into Harper's for January; among the harpers, listen to
M. de Blowitz harping on the journalistic string—good ; and, his
talent having served him to a pretty tune, 'tis well he should harp
on it in Harper's. The Baron hopes that M. de B. has spent a
Harpy Christmas. Allow the B. de B.-W. to draw his friends'
attention to " A Military Incident," and two other short papers, in
The Cornhill. Baron de Book-Worms.

P.S.—The Baron says he is not going to be let in for a'disquisition
on the merits of various Pocket-books ; but, if asked which he affec-
tionates most as a genuine book of pockets, and for pockets, he puts
his finger to the side of his nose, and wisely replies—" Walker."

Survival of the Fittest.

{At a Trial for Murder.)

Oh, dainty product of the March of Progress,
Oh, glorious outcome of the Course of Time,—

The watchful, well-attired Old Bailey ogress,
Still finding sweetest stimulus in—Crime !

Seasonable Greeting for Spiritualists.—I wish you a rappy
New Year!