Punch: Punch (101.1891)

September 12, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

131

THE GUZZLING CURE.

[Sir Dyce Duckworth, in a letter written to a Vegetarian Correspondent, says, " I believe in the
value of animal food and aboholic drinks for the best interests of man. The abuse or misuse of either is
another matter."]

0 plump Head-waiter, I have
read [writes!

What worthy Duckworth:
And that is why I've swiftly sped
To where your door invites.

1 kept nry indigestion down
Of old, by sheer starvation;

But nowr no longer shall I frown
On food assimilation.

I pledge him in your oldest port,

This medical adviser,
For vainly elsewhere might be
A cheerier or a wiser, [sought
He bids me speedily return

To ordinary diet—
A sage prescription!—and I burn
To chance results, and try it!

ve lived on air; on food for Lent;
On what some Doctor calls
Nitrogenous environment "—■
A fare that quickly palls.
'11 eat the chops I once did eat;
All care and thought I banish;
And with this unexpected treat
My old dyspeptics vanish.

This earth is rich in chemists' shops,

With doctors it abounds,
Who, if I feel the change from slops,

Will take me on their rounds.
So, scorning indigestive ache,

I count each anxious minute ;
Oh, waiter, hurry up that steak!

My happiness is in it.

What though thev warn me that at first-
It may be merely fancy—

The stomach's sure to try its worst
In base recalcitrancy ?

When half-starved gastric juice is set
To cope with dainty dishes,

The outcome—one may safely bet—
Won't be just what one wishes.

ANNALS OF A WATERING-PLACE

THAT "HAS SEEN ITS DAY."

I do not know when Torsington-on-Sea's day preciselv was, or, whether indeed its day
has yet dawned, but I was sent there by my medical adviser as being " the very place" for
me, it being "delightfully quiet," nine miles from a railwav station, which apparently
means m plain English twenty-four hours behind the rest of this habitable globe, and
generally stranded in the race for every conceivable comfort or necessity with which an
age of Co-operative Stores and Electric Lighting has made one comfortably—perhaps too
comfortably—familiar. Judging, however, from the fact that Torsington-on-Sea consists
mainly of a pretentious architectural effort consisting of six-and-thirty palatial sea-side
residences^ twenty-four of which are let in sets of furnished apartments to highly respect-
able families, and twelve of which appear, from want of funds, to have stopped short in
their infancy many years ago at the basement, showing a weed-covered foundation of what
might, had the over-sanguine capitalist not overshot the initial mark, have proved as fine

a sea-side terrace on the South East Coast as the weary cockney
eye could well hope to light upon, it would be including the
fact that there is but one policeman to protect the lives and
properties of the inhabitants and strangers of Torsington-on-
Sea, by day and by night, and a town band (with a uniform)
of five, of which two-fifths are, I was going to say " armed "
with cymbals, triangle and with big and side drums, it would
be more reasonable to suppose that Torsington-on-Sea had
seen its day, and that what glories it ever had may be
regarded as having departed with the vanished years.

Beyond the stock recreation afforded by the militarily-

~- — "-=* apparelled Towm Band of five, whose repertoire appears to be

confined to a sad and serious opening march, a rather lugubrious galop, and a couple of
valses and a quick-step Polka, which evidently owe their origin to the genius of the Con-
ductor, the entertainment offered by Torsington-on-Sea must be further sought for from a
donkey-chair, the donkey attached to which has many a long year ago lost what it ever
possessed in the shape of "spirit," a cast-off Nigger Minstrel, with a concertina that is
somewhat out of order, and a lovely "public-house" tenor, who is heard only after dark,
but with a voice so sweet and true in tone, that one wonders how it is that instead of
thrilling the High Street of Torsington-on-Sea for possibly the few halfpence he picks up
in that rather unappreciative thoroughfare, he is not simultaneously rushed at and eagerly
caught up by the leading- impressarios of all the continental opera-houses in Europe !

Then there is the daily arrival of the "coach," for such is the faded yellow omnibus
styled, that meets the London train from Boxminster, which pulls up with a flourish at
the " Three Golden Cups." There is seldom anything brought by this noteworthy convey-
ance, unless it be a package or parcel for Mr. Dunstable, the one highly respectable
tradesman in the town. Duxstable's is the emporium par excellence where anything, from
a patent drug down to the latest new novel, can be ordered down from Town. There is
a tradition that old George ttie Third, when passing through Torsington in the year

1793, stepped at Dunstable's for some boot-
laces, and, patting the grandfather of the
present proprietor on the head, said, "What!
what! none in stock! Then I think we
must have some of these pretty curls instead."
Anyhow, that is given as the reason for the
style and title of Dunstable's Royal Library
and Breading Boom," which it has enjoyed
without dispute from the commencement of
the present century to the present day.

I came here, as I said, by the advice of
my medical adviser, to "pick up." How far
Torsington-on-Sea has helped me to do this,
I must deal with subsequently.

IGNORANT BLISS.

At noon through the open window

Comes the scent of the new-mowm hay.
I look out. In the meadow yonder

Are the little lambs at play.
They are all extremely foolish^

Yet I haven't the heart to hint
That over the boundary wall there grows
A beautiful bed of mint.
For a little lamb
Will run to its mam,
And will say "0! dam," _
At a hint, howrever well intentioned,
When the awful name of mint is men-
tioned.

At the close of day the burglar comes

For to ply his gentle trade.
I fondly gaze on his jemmy, and

Grow timid and quite afraid.
I wouldn't for kingdoms have him know

That my neighbours of titled rank
Went abroad on a sudden last night and left
Their jewels at Coutts's Bank.
For a burglar bold
Grows harsh and cold
When he finds he's sold, [ing
And his burglar's bosom heaves at know-
That the seU of a swag isn't worth the
stowing.

I'm a poet—you may not know it,

But I am and hard up for "tin,"
So I've written these clever verses

And I hope they '11 get put in.
Yet Life is an awful lottery

With a gruesome lot of blanks,
And I wish the Editor hadn't slips
That are printed " Declined with Thanks. '
For it's rather hard
On a starving bard
When his last trump card
Is played, and he wishes himself bisected
When his Muse's lays come back—re-
jected !