DOI article:
Preface
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17694#0006
iv
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 31, 1892.
Columbia. Stars and Stripes ! He doesn't peck you !!
Mr. Punch. He knows I love him—and his Mistress. Let the jays of Journalism chatter, the finches of Fashion
flutter, and the kites and crows of Party claw and scuffle,—-Leo and Aquila are not " in that crowd."
Columbia. That's so, and don't you forget it!
Mr. Punch. I won't—even when Jim Blaine blusters, M'Kinley crows, Harrison eggs on Canada to revolt, high
tariffs threaten our interests, or long quarantines our comfort.
Columbia. Nor I when emigration agents dump down your human refuse on my shores, or your callow cocky Kiplings
mock my institutions, and run a-muck at my manners, till I 'in tempted to say with " IIosea Biglow "—-
" Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
England doos mak the most onpleasant kind."
Mr. Punch (smiling). Quits ! Well, Columbia, I'm infinitely interested in your imminent Exhibition—I beg pardon,
Exposition ! I trust the other (theoretically) imminent things, such as the threatened Strikes, Epidemics, Preposterous
Prices, and other public nuisances, will not interfere with its complete prosperity, or hinder its achieving the pyramidal
success I most heartily wish it.
Columbia. Thanks ! I'm not quite sure, Mr. Punch, that Lowell's nobly hospitable words, so often quoted, apply
now quite as forcibly as once they did:—
" An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in
Aginst the poorest child o' Adam's kin."
Humph"! You see Homer Wilbur, A.M. "didn't know everythin' down in"—Jaalam ! And my dear, high-souled James
Russell perhaps liv§d just long enough to suspect that the policy of the ring-fence might have to supersede that of the " free
latch-string," after all. But you'll be welcome, Mr. Punch, you and your Young Men, if you cm manage to run them across
to Chicago, as you did to the Champs de Mars.
Mr. Punch. Ah! It's a fur cry from Fleet Street to Lake Michigan, Madam. But I '11 tell them what you say.
One of them—a " dear clever boy," bearing a famous name that is well beknown to you—has lately paid you a flying visit,
and is about to tell the wor ld, with pen and pencil, what he thinks of you.
Columbia (sighing). Ah! They all do it! Max OTIell, Furniss, Kipling, it's all the same. They're awfully
anxious I should see myself as others see me—in a few weeks. Bat somehow, Mr. Punch, dear Britannia and I do not
always quite recognise ourselves in the perhaps slightly distorting mirrors held up to Nature by caricaturists on either
side the herring-pond.
Mr. Punch. Well, Columbia, humour, like poetry, does not always bear translation—or transatlanticisation. Britishers
and Yankees are much given to mutually contemning each other's comicalities. Much that strikes as smart or laughable on
one side the Atlantic, may seem coarse or dull on t'other. You see we don"t fully understand each other's politics, especially
in their personal details, and there are local fashions in fun as iu other things. Still, one touch of genuine free humour—
like one touch of Nature—should make the whole world kin, much more you and me, who are nature's kindred already. 'Tis
in the hope, my dear Columbia, that you may find in its pages a few such touches of Nature—as I am sure you will find no
intentional touches of i/Z-nature, to you-wards particularly—-'lis in that hope, and with heartiest wishes for the c mplete
success of your colossal Columbian, CoLUMBUS-glorifying, Chicago-booming, Civilisation-comprehending, World-astounding
Wonder of a Show, that I venture to present you with my
(One Jjmttorto atrtr £jnt& IMtnte!!!
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 31, 1892.
Columbia. Stars and Stripes ! He doesn't peck you !!
Mr. Punch. He knows I love him—and his Mistress. Let the jays of Journalism chatter, the finches of Fashion
flutter, and the kites and crows of Party claw and scuffle,—-Leo and Aquila are not " in that crowd."
Columbia. That's so, and don't you forget it!
Mr. Punch. I won't—even when Jim Blaine blusters, M'Kinley crows, Harrison eggs on Canada to revolt, high
tariffs threaten our interests, or long quarantines our comfort.
Columbia. Nor I when emigration agents dump down your human refuse on my shores, or your callow cocky Kiplings
mock my institutions, and run a-muck at my manners, till I 'in tempted to say with " IIosea Biglow "—-
" Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
England doos mak the most onpleasant kind."
Mr. Punch (smiling). Quits ! Well, Columbia, I'm infinitely interested in your imminent Exhibition—I beg pardon,
Exposition ! I trust the other (theoretically) imminent things, such as the threatened Strikes, Epidemics, Preposterous
Prices, and other public nuisances, will not interfere with its complete prosperity, or hinder its achieving the pyramidal
success I most heartily wish it.
Columbia. Thanks ! I'm not quite sure, Mr. Punch, that Lowell's nobly hospitable words, so often quoted, apply
now quite as forcibly as once they did:—
" An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in
Aginst the poorest child o' Adam's kin."
Humph"! You see Homer Wilbur, A.M. "didn't know everythin' down in"—Jaalam ! And my dear, high-souled James
Russell perhaps liv§d just long enough to suspect that the policy of the ring-fence might have to supersede that of the " free
latch-string," after all. But you'll be welcome, Mr. Punch, you and your Young Men, if you cm manage to run them across
to Chicago, as you did to the Champs de Mars.
Mr. Punch. Ah! It's a fur cry from Fleet Street to Lake Michigan, Madam. But I '11 tell them what you say.
One of them—a " dear clever boy," bearing a famous name that is well beknown to you—has lately paid you a flying visit,
and is about to tell the wor ld, with pen and pencil, what he thinks of you.
Columbia (sighing). Ah! They all do it! Max OTIell, Furniss, Kipling, it's all the same. They're awfully
anxious I should see myself as others see me—in a few weeks. Bat somehow, Mr. Punch, dear Britannia and I do not
always quite recognise ourselves in the perhaps slightly distorting mirrors held up to Nature by caricaturists on either
side the herring-pond.
Mr. Punch. Well, Columbia, humour, like poetry, does not always bear translation—or transatlanticisation. Britishers
and Yankees are much given to mutually contemning each other's comicalities. Much that strikes as smart or laughable on
one side the Atlantic, may seem coarse or dull on t'other. You see we don"t fully understand each other's politics, especially
in their personal details, and there are local fashions in fun as iu other things. Still, one touch of genuine free humour—
like one touch of Nature—should make the whole world kin, much more you and me, who are nature's kindred already. 'Tis
in the hope, my dear Columbia, that you may find in its pages a few such touches of Nature—as I am sure you will find no
intentional touches of i/Z-nature, to you-wards particularly—-'lis in that hope, and with heartiest wishes for the c mplete
success of your colossal Columbian, CoLUMBUS-glorifying, Chicago-booming, Civilisation-comprehending, World-astounding
Wonder of a Show, that I venture to present you with my
(One Jjmttorto atrtr £jnt& IMtnte!!!