Punch: Punch (100.1891)

124

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 14, 1891.

Syhanus. "Foxes are scarce in my Country ; but we manage it with a Drag

now and then i "

Urhanus. '' Oh—er—yes. But how do you get it over the Fences ?"

UNDER A CIVIL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

[What possible chance would Colonel X.,Member

for-, feel that he had of fair play if he walked into

the Opposition side in a Division ?—Evening Paper.]

Scene — A Battle-field,. Colonel X. dis-
covered apparently dying in the hour of
victory.

Faithful Aide-de- Camp. The enemy run,
Sir ! We have beaten them off on every side !

Colonel {faintly). That is well! {with a
sigh) and yet my heart is heavy within me!
Believe me, Smith, I cannot die easily.

F. A.-de-C. And yet the vacancy thus
created would be found a stimulus to promo-
tion ! Have you thought of that, Sir ?

Col. X. I have not forgotten it, Smith, and
as a politician the idea is comforting. Ah,
Smith, would that I had always done my
duty in the House of Commons! But no,
with a view to obtaining this command, I
voted against my convictions ! I supported
the Government in their proposal to tax per
ambulators I It was cruel, unmanly so to
do, but I was weak and foolish! And now
I cannot die easily! Would that I could live
to repair the past.

Opposition Whip [suddenly springing up
from behind a limber d la Hawkshaw the
Detective). It is not too late! Return with
me to Westminster forthwith. The Third
Reading is down for to-night! With a special
train we shall be in time I You can yet
record your vote !

Col. X. {suddenly reviving). Say you so?
Then I will recover ! I will do my duty !
[Exit, to vote against his Party, and to be
put permanently on the shelf, from a
military point of view !

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

Sir Edwin Arnold's paper on Japan, in Scribner, for March, is
interesting and also amusing. The Japanese seemed to be a charm-
ing people ; and the Japanese women delightful as wives ; but then
they can be divorced for being talkative.

A propos of Japan, to judge from one of our Lisa Joko's capital
illustrations of Hospital Nursing in The English Illustrated Magazine,
the Matron's room must be "an illigant place, intoirely" ; while as
for amusement, if the picture of a nurse giving a patient a cup of
ink by mistake for liquorice-water isn't a real good practical side-
splitter, the Baron would like to be informed what is ? Then we come
upon a delightful little picture of " The Pet of the Hospital" ; and so
she ought to be, for a prettier pet than this nursing Sister it would
be difficult to find. What becomes of her ? Does she marry a
" Sawbones," or run off with a patient? Anyhow, she must be a
" great attraction," and if anything were to happen to the Baron, and
he couldn't be removed to his own palatial residence, he would say,
" Pat me in a cab, drive me to the Furniss Hospital, and let me be
in Pretty Pet's Ward."

The Baron has just been dipping into Mr. Justin Huntly
M'Cartgy's "Pages on Plays" in The Gentleman's Magazine.
Justin Huntly expresses his opinion that " The Dancing Girl will
almost certainly be the play of the season ; it will probably be the
principal play of the year." "Almost certainly" and "probably"
save the situation. The Baron backs The Idler against The Dancing
Girl for a run. In the same Magazine Mr. Albert Fleming has
condensed into a short story, called Sally, material that would have
served some authors for a three-volume novel.

It is a pleasure for the Baron to be in perfect accord on any one
point with the Author of Essays in Little, and in proportion to the
number of the points so is the Baron's pleasure intensified. Most in-
tending readers of these Essays, on taking up the book, would be less
curious to ascertain what Andrew Lang has to say about Homer and
the study of Greek, about Theodore de Banville, Thomas Haynes
Bayley, the Sagas, and even about Kingsley, than to read his opinions
on Dickens and Thackeray, placing Dickens first as being the more
popular. The Baron recommends his friends, then, to read these
Essays of Andrew's, beginning with Thackeray, then Dickens ; do
not, on any account, omit the delightfully written and truly appre-
ciative article on. Charles Lever ; after which, go as you please,
but finish with " the last fashionable novel,'" wherein our M.A., in
his Merriest-Andrewest mood, treats us to an excellent parody.

The Baron has appointed an extra Reader, and this Extra-
Ordinary Reader to the Baron has just entered upon the discharge
of his duties by reading Monte Carlo, and How to Do It, by

W. F. Goldberg, and G. Chaplin Piesse (J. W. Arrowsmith).
He reports in the following terms to his loved Chief:—This book
achieves the task of combining extraordinary vulgarity with the
flattest and most insipid dulness—not a common dulness, but
a dulness redolent of low slang and dirty tap-rooms. The authors
seem to plume themselves on their marvellous success in reaching
Monte Carlo, which, with their usual sprightly facetiousness,
they call " Charley's Mount." They are good enough to tell
such of the travelling public as may want to get there, that the
train leaving Victoria at 8'40 a.m. reaches Dover at 10'35. Stu-
pendous ! These two greenhorns took their snack on board the
steamer (Ugh !), instead of waiting until they reached Calais, where
there is the best restaurant on any known line. Instead of going by
the Ceinture, they drove across Paris. The greenhorns arrive at
Monte Carlo, and then settle on their quarters. Anyone but an idiot
would have settled all this, and much more, beforehand. One gentle-
manly greenhorn, who wishes us to think that " il connait son
Paris," talks of "suppers of Bignon's" (which must be some
entirely new dish), and informs us that, " at the Hotel de l'Athenee,
the staff esteem it rather a privilege, and a mark of their skill in
language, to grin and snigger when sworn at in English." Oh,
sweet and swearing British greenhorn! now I know why the_French
so greatly love our countrymen. But why, oh why do you imagine
that you have discovered Monte Carlo? For the details of the
journey, and the instructions to future explorers, are set out with
a painful minuteness which not even Stanley could rival. As for
Monaco, dear, restful, old-fashioned, picturesque Monaco, whither
the visitor climbs to escape from the glare and noise of Monte
Carlo, the greenhorn dismisses it scornfully, as having "no inte-
rest." How much does this ten-per-center want ? He "waggles
along the Condamine;" he mixes with many who are "pebble-
beached;" he speaks of his intimates as " Pa," " The Coal-
Shunter," " Ballyhooly," &c, and declares of the French soldier
that "the short service forty-eight-day men don't have a very
unkyperdoodlum time of it." There's wit for you, there's elegance 1
Then he becomes Jeromeky-jeromistically eloquent on the subject
of fleas, throws in such lucid expressions as "chin music," "gives
kirn biff," "his graft is thusly," and, altogether, proves himself
and his fellow-explorer to be a couple of the slangiest and most
foolish greenhorns who ever put pen to any sort of paper. I can
imagine the readers who enjoy their stuff. Dull, swaggering,
blatant, gin-absorbing, red-faced Cockneys, who masquerade as
sportsmen, and chatter oaths all day. "Ditto to you," says the
Baron to his Extra-Ordinary Reader, and backs his opinion with bis
signature, The Baron de Book-Worms.