Punch (101.1891)

August 29, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

97

STORICULES.

1=—The Sutcide-Adveetiseilext.

111)1111ll'lllliillilll ^ ^ou s^00<^before
1 the automatic
—■--■-'— machine on the

try hjcpjnsw s&sast

to ff f\ f i " t| q"p a cile choice be-
Jb L A L :'" ^' - ^ tween a packet of
_____/k^X^/J^V__H gooseberry nou-

r/"!/ \Ti^\ an<^as^°^

Vf <#V^.'c^ the gum caramel,

you could not
help seeing on
the level of your
eye this notice :—

" BLACKLIST Gr-
CRE AM.

Ask foe
Higllxsox's,
axd

Take xo Outer."

Similar an-
nouncements met
you on every
hoarding, in
almost every
~^2±^~~'~ ~ * ^r~~ PaPer an-d inaga-

- zine, on every

omnibus. Neat

little packets of Higllxsox's Blacking-cream were dropped throuch
your letter-box, with a printed request that you would honour Mr.
Htglixsox by trying it. Leaflets were handed you in the street to tell
you what public analysts said about it, and in what great hotels it
was the only blacking used. Importunity pays. Sooner or later you
bought Higlixsox's Blacking-cream. You then found out that it
was just about as good as any other, and went, on buying it.

In one way this was very good for Mr. Higllxsox, because he
became very rich; in other ways it was not so good for him.
For a long time he had nothing to do with public life; the public
never thought about his existence ; to the public he was not a man
at all—he was only part of the name of the stuff they used for their
boots. If he had introduced himself to a stranger, giving the name
of Higllxsox, it is probable that the stranger would have remarked
jocularly, "No relation to the Blacking-cream, I presume ? " Hig-
llxsox knew this, and it pained him deeply, for he was a sensitive
man.

Because he was sensitive and felt things so much, he wrote a
volume of very melancholy verses. He was unmarried and lonely,
and he wanted to lead a high life. He said as much in his verses.
But what comes well from Sir Galahad comes ill from the pro-
prietor of a Blacking-cream ; and—from idiotic notions about pluck
and honesty—he had put his own name to his book. Unfortunately,
those who feel much are not always those who can express much ;
and Higlixsox could not express anything. So critics with a light
mind had a very fine time with these verses. They quoted them,
with the prefatory remark:—" The cream of the collection—perhaps
we might say the Blacking-cream of the collection—is the follow-
ing," and they wound up their criticism with saying that the book
must have been simply published as an advertisement. Mr. Higllx-
sox could hardly have been mad enough to have printed such stuff
from any other motive.

Of course Higllxsox should have changed his name, and should
have married. But the idiotic notions about pluck prevented him
from changing his name ; and he would not marry a woman who
accepted him from only mercenary motives. He was so unattractive
that he did not think it possible a woman would marry him for any
other reason. However, he could not always be superintending the
manufacture of Blacking-cream ; and it was obvious to him that he
could publish no more verses. So he devoted himself to philan-
thropy in a quiet and unostentatious way. He attempted the recla-
mation of street-arabs. He worked among them. He spent vast
sums on providing education, training, and decent pleasures for
them. A man who wrote for The Scalpel found him out at last.
Next day there was a pretty little paragraph in The Scalpel, showing
Mr. Higllxsox up, and suggesting that this was a clever attempt to
get the London shoe-blacks to use Higllxsox's Blacking-cream.
The Blacking-cream, by the way, had never been advertised in The
Scalpel.

Higllxsox was furious. He spent a little money in finding out
who had written the paragraph. Then he walked up to the writer in
a public street, with raised walking-stick. "Now, Sir," he said,
"you shall have the thrashing that you deserve."

VOL. CE i

But it happened that the writer was physically superior to
Higllxsox; so it was the writer who did the thrashing, and
Higllxsox who took it. Next day, The Scalpel amused itself
with Higllxsox to the extent of half a column. The notice was
headed:—■

"Me. Higllxsox Advertises Himself agaix."

Other newspapers also amused themselves, and Higlixsox'became
notorious. The Blacking-cream sold better than ever, and brought
him enormous profits. But if he attempted to spend those profits
on any object, good or bad, it was alwa s insisted that he was
simply doing it for advertisement. The public became interested in
Higllxsox ; and untrue stories about his private life appeared freely
in personal columns. He was rich enough now to have relinquished
his business, but those idiotic notions about pluck prevented him
from doing this. He meant to go through with it, and to make the
public believe in him just as much as they believed in the Blacking-
cream. He found about this time someone who did believe in him;
he began to change his views about marriage; he was to some
extent consoled.

He was passing over the bridge one night, and had just bought an
evening paper. His own name caught his eye. It was the usual

paragraph,
not more
hateful to
him than
others" that
had appear-
ed, as far as
he himself
was concern-
ed ; but her
name was in
it as well, and
he imagined
to himself

just how she would feel when she read it. He walked on a few
paces, and then his pluck all vanished suddenly, as if it had been
blown away into space, and it did not seem to be worth while to stop
in such a world any longer.

The jury returned the usual verdict; but The Scalpel did not
hesitate to hint that this suicide had simply been intended as an
advertisement, and that Higllxsox had always supposed that his
rescue would be a certainty.

He might have saved himself all this, of course, by a few full-page
advertisements in The Scalpel. But then he had those _ idiotic
notions about pluck, and he was reluctant to bribe his enemies. It
is a very dangerous thing to have notions about anything.

Wanted, a Word-Slayer.

Fin de Siecle ! Ah, that phrase, though taste spurn it, I
Fear, threatens staying with us to eternity.

Who will deliver

Our nerves, all a-quiver,
From that pest-term, and its fellow "modernity " ?