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Read Ebook: Punch Or The London Charivari Vol 150 February 9 1916 by Various Seaman Owen Editor
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Ebook has 109 lines and 10098 words, and 3 pages
Still, the sacrifice was well meant.
THE GOLDEN VALLEY.
Abbeydore, Abbeydore, Land of apples and of gold, Where the lavish field-gods pour Song and cider manifold; Gilded land of wheat and rye, Land where laden branches cry, "Apples for the young and old Ripe at Abbeydore!"
Abbeydore, Abbeydore, Where the shallow river spins Elfin spells for evermore, Where the mellow kilderkins Hoard the winking apple-juice For the laughing reapers' use; All the joy of life begins There at Abbeydore.
Abbeydore, Abbeydore, In whose lap of wonder teems Largess from a wizard store, World of idle, crooning streams-- From a stricken land of pain May I win to you again, Garden of the God of Dreams, Golden Abbeydore.
AT THE FRONT.
There is one matter I have hitherto not touched on, because it has not hitherto touched on me, and that is Courses.
The ideal course works like this. You are sitting up to the ears in mud under a brisk howitzer, trench mortar and rifle grenade fire, when a respectful signaller crawls round a traverse, remarking, "Message, Sir."
You take the chit from him languidly, wondering whether you have earned a court-martial by omitting to report on the trench sleeping-suits which someone in the Rearward Services has omitted to forward, and you read, still languidly at first; then you get up and whoop, throw your primus stove into the air and proceed to dance on the parapet, if your trench has one. Then you settle down and read your message again to see if it still runs, "You are detailed to attend three months' Staff work course at Boulogne, commencing to-morrow. A car will be at the dump for you to-night. A month's leave on completion, of course."
But all courses are not like this; all you can say is that some are less unlike it than others. I was sitting in a warm billet about twelve noon having breakfast on the first day out of trenches when the blow fell on me. I was to report about two days ago at a School of Instruction some two hundred yards away. I gathered that the course had started without me. I set some leisurely inquiries in train, in the hope that it might be over before I joined up. I also asked the Adjutant whether I couldn't have it put off till next time in trenches, or have it debited to me as half a machine-gun course payable on demand, or exchange it for a guinea-pig or a canary, or do anything consistent with the honour of an officer to stave it off. For to tell the truth, like all people who know nothing and have known it for a long time, I cherish a deeply-rooted objection to being instructed.
Unfortunately the Adjutant is one of those weak fellows who always tell you that they are mere machines in the grip of the powers that change great nations. So on the third day I bought a nice new slate and satchel and joined up.
Even now, after some days of intense instruction, I find my condition is a little confused and foggy. Of course it covers practically the whole field of military interests, and I ought to be able to win the War in about three-quarters of an hour, given a reasonable modicum of men, guns, indents, physical training and bayonet exercise, knowledge of military law, and acquaintance with the approved methods of conducting a casualty clearing station, a mechanical transport column, and a field kitchen. The confusion of mind evident in this last sentence is a high testimonial to the comprehensive nature of our course.
Physical training made the strongest appeal to me. I remember some of the best words, not perhaps as they are, but as I caught them from an almost over-glib expert. Did you know you had a strabismal vertebra? or, given a strabismal vertebra, that it could be developed to almost any extent by simply 'eaving from the 'ips? Take my tip and try it next time you're under shell-fire.
They would sink all right; you'd just have to put them down anywhere and look the other way for a minute. The difficulty would be to stop the lift before it got to the basement--if there is a basement in Flanders.
There is a tragedy to report. We were adopted recently by a magpie. He was a gentle creature of impulsive habits and strong woodpecking instincts. Ars?ne we called him. For some days he gladdened us with his soft bright eye. But when we came to know him well and I relied on him to break the shells of my eggs every morning at breakfast, to steal my pens and spill my ink, to wake me by a gentle nip on the nose from his firm but courteous beak, a rough grenadier came one day to explain a new type of infernal machine, and, when we went out, left a detonator on the table.
I never saw what actually followed, but we buried Ars?ne with full military honours.
The latest fashion in Berlin.
MORE LIGHT FROM OUR LEADERS.
Mr. Harry Lauder, the illustrious comedian, poetizes as follows:--
"Let those wha wull compile the nation's annals, And guide oor thochts in strict historic channels; Ma Muse prefers, far fra these dull morasses, To laud the purrrple heather and the lassies."
Mr. Stevenson, the incomparable cueist, sends this pithy distich:--
"Big guns are useful in their way, 'tis true, But nursery cannons have their uses too."
Miss Carrie Tubb, the famous soprano, writes:--
"Butt me no butts. Though carping critics flout us, What would Diogenes have done without us?"
A distinguished actor gives as his favourite quotation the couplet from Goldsmith:--
"A man he was financially unique, And passing poor on forty pounds a week."
Mr. Bernard Shaw contributes this characteristic definition of genius:--
"Genius consists in an infinite capacity for giving pain."
The Air Candidate for Mile End sends the following witty and topical epigram:--
"Mid war's alarms there is no time for cooing, But Billing may prevent our land's undoing."
Our own ignorance of this gem makes us blush .
"How To Keep Warm.--In Great Britain I think a shirt, vest and coat enough covering for the ordinary man. I wear no more."
No one who follows this advice need fear a chill. The police are sure to make it warm for him.
"When Sir Stanley Buckmaster succeeded Mr. F. E. Smith in the chief responsibility for the Bureau he made a point of betting on friendly terms with the representatives of the Fourth Estate."
Several of them, it is well known, have been charged with book-making.
"Lady seeks Sit. in shop; butcher's preferred; would like to learn scales."
Why not try a piano-monger's?
A DUEL OF ENDURANCE.
Our butcher's name is Bones. Yes, I know it sounds too good to be true. But I can't help it. Once more, his name is Bones.
There is something wrong with Bones. Mark him as he stands there among all those bodies of sheep and oxen, feeling with his thumb the edge of that long sharp knife and gazing wistfully across the way to where the greengrocer's baby lies asleep in its perambulator on the pavement. Observe him start with a sigh from his reverie as you enter his shop. What is the matter with him? Why should a butcher sigh?
I will tell you. He has been thinking about the Kaiser, the Kaiser who is breaking his heart through the medium of the greengrocer's baby.
As all the world knows, between the ages of one and two the best British babies are built up on beef tea and mutton broth; at two or thereabouts they start on small chops. No one can say when the custom arose. Like so many of those unwritten laws on which the greatness of England is really based it has outgrown the memory of its origin. But its force is as universally binding to-day as it was in Plantagenet times. Thus, though numerous households since the War began have temporarily adopted a vegetarian diet, in the majority of cases a line has been drawn at the baby. That is why butchers at present look on babies as their sheet-anchors. It is through them that they keep the toe of their boot inside the family door. The little things they send for them serve as a memento of the old Sunday sirloin, a reminder that while nuts may nourish niggers the Briton's true prerogative is beef.
The greengrocer has given up meat. But he has done more than this. He has done what not even a greengrocer should do. He has broken the tradition of the ages. He is feeding his baby on bananas.
At first the greengrocer's baby did not like bananas and its cries were awful. But after a while it got used to them, and now even when it goes to bed it clutches one in its tiny hand. It is not so rosy as it was, but the greengrocer says red-faced babies are apoplectic and that the reason it twitches so much in its sleep is because it is so full of vitality. He is advising all his customers to feed their babies on bananas. Bones does not care much what happens to the greengrocer's baby, but he says if it lasts much longer he will have to put his shutters up. He is growing very despondent, and I noticed the other day that he had given up chewing suet--a bad sign in a butcher.
It is a duel of endurance between Bones and the greengrocer's baby. I wonder which will win.
"Mr. Buxton was severely heckled at the outset from all parts of the room. Each time he endeavoured to speak he was hailed with a torrent of howls, hoots and kisses."
A notoriously effective way of stopping the mouth.
"Now about this word 'damn.' Of course you all think it is a good old Saxon word! Well, prepare for a surprise. It is derived from the Latin damnere."
Well, we are--surprised.
TONNAGE.
"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.
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