Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 156 Jan. 8 1919 by Various
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 223 lines and 15929 words, and 5 pages
VOL. 156.
JANUARY 8, 1919.
CHARIVARIA.
The mystery of the Foreign Office official who has not gone to Paris for the Peace Conference has been cleared up. He is the caretaker.
"The King and Queen of Roumania," says a Paris paper, "will embark after Christmas, orthodox style, for Western Europe." It is easy enough to start a voyage, orthodox style; the difficulty is at the other end.
The supreme command of the German Navy, says a telegram, has been transferred to Wilhelmshaven. This looks like carelessness on the part of the watch at Scapa Flow.
A Copenhagen message states that the Spartacus people have three times attempted to murder Count REVENTLOW, who is said to regard these attempts as being in the worst possible taste.
Once again the newspapers have been beaten. It appears that Princess PATRICIA knew of her engagement some time before the Press announced it to Her Royal Highness.
Charged with drunkenness at the Thames Police Court a man attributed his condition to the beer habit. It is remarkable how men will cling to any sort of excuse.
Woolwich Arsenal, we are informed, is turning out milk-cans. Can nothing be done, asks a pacifist, to save our children from the insidious grip of militarism?
Nottinghamshire War Committee states that rat-catchers are now demanding four pounds a week. Diplomacy, it appears, is the only branch of British sport that has succeeded in escaping the taint of professionalism.
A Guildford allotment-holder successfully grew new potatoes for Christmas-day dinner. All were eaten, it appears, except one, which was kept to show to the Christmas pudding.
There is no truth in the report that Mr. DANIELS, U.S. Secretary for the Navy, has received a telegram from Mr. WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST, saying, "You furnish the navy and I'll furnish the war."
"The Crystal Palace," says. Dean INGE, "is the embodiment of spiritual emptiness." A determined attempt is to be made to find out what the Crystal Palace thinks of Dean INGE.
Stories of an unsuccessful Candidate in the Midlands, who was heard to admit that the voters probably preferred his opponent's personality, must be definitely regarded as apocryphal.
Traditions in Scotland die hard. We gather that it is stili considered unlucky for a red-headed burglar to cross a Scottish threshold on New Year's Eve.
A man at Berne has recently confessed to a murder he committed twenty-one years ago. This is what comes of memory-training.
It is reported that TROTSKY has been ordered by his doctor to take a complete rest. He has therefore decided not to have any more revolutions for the present. Orders however will be executed in rotation.
Credit where credit is due. A woman fined at Wood Green Police Court said her name was JOLLY and she had been having a "jollification," yet the magistrate refrained from comment.
"Where was the Poet Laureate during the visit of President Wilson?" asks a correspondent in a contemporary. We do not share this curiosity.
"Foxes are to be found within an omnibus ride of Charing Cross," says Mr. RICHARD KEARTON. Young omnibuses with plenty of bone and stamina are the best for suburban meets.
Anemones, said a lecturer at the Royal Institution, will live as long as sixty years in captivity and are very intelligent. Nevertheless we refuse to swallow the story about their being taught to jump through a hoop. The man who told it must have been thinking of an Egyptian king of the same name.
The LORD-LIEUTENANT, it is stated on good authority, threatens that if Sinn Fein prisoners destroy any more jails they will be rigorously released.
Our contemporary overestimates the difficulty.
THE VERDICT OF DEMOCRACY.
The nation's memory, then, is not so short; It still recalls the fields we lately bled on; And when it had to choose the likeliest sort For clearing up the mess of Armageddon And making all things new, It chose the man whose courage saw it through.
Hun-lovers, pledged to Peace , And such as sported LENIN'S sanguine token, Appealed to Liberty to speak her mind, And Liberty has very frankly spoken, Strewing around her polls The remnants of their ungummed aureoles.
In Amerongen there is grief to-day; I seem to hear the martyr of Potsdam say, "Alas for SNOWDEN, gone the downward way, And O my poor, my poor beloved RAMSAY; I much regret the rout That washed this couple absolutely out!"
Dreadfully, too, the heart of TROTSKY bleeds, To match the stain upon his reeking sabre, Which is the blood of Russia, when he reads How BARNES, the champion knight of loyal Labour, Downed in the Lowland lists MACLEAN, the Red Hope of the Bolshevists.
But here is jubilation in the air And matter made to build the jocund rhyme on, Though in our joyance some may fail to share, Like Mr. RUNCIMAN or Major SIMON, That hardened warrior, he Who won the Military O.B.E.
Already dawns for us a golden age , An era when the OUTHWAITES cease to rage And there is respite from the prancing PRINGLES, And absence puts a curb On the reluctant lips of SAMUEL .
O.S.
HOW TO THROW OFF AN ARTICLE.
"Do you really write?" said Sylvia, gazing at me large-eyed with wonder. I admitted as much.
"And do they print it just as you write it?"
"Well, their hired grammarians make a few trifling alterations to justify their existence."
"And do they pay you quite a lot?"
"Sixpence a word."
"Oo! How wonderful!"
"But not for every word," I added hastily, "only the really funny ones."
"And they send it to you by cheques?"
"Rather. I bought a couple of pairs of socks with the last story; even then I had something left over."
"And how do you write the stories?"
"Oh, just get an idea and go right ahead."
"How wonderful! Do you just sit down and write it straight off?"
I just--only just--pulled myself up in time as I remembered that Sylvia was an enthusiast of twelve whose own efforts had already caused considerable comment in the literary circles described round the High School. I felt this entitled her to some claim on my veracity.
"Sylvia," I cried, "I shall have to make a confession. All those stories you have been good enough to read and occasionally smile over are the result of a cold-blooded mechanical process--and the help of a dictionary of synonyms."
"Oo! How wonderful! Do show me how."
"Very well. Since you are going to be a literary giantess it is well that you should be initiated into the mysteries of producing what I shall call the illusion of spontaneity. Now take this story here. Here on this old envelope is THE IDEA."
"Oo! Let me see. I can't read a word."
"Of course you can't; nobody could. Rough copies are divided into classes as follows:--
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page