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Read Ebook: J. Comyns Carr: Stray Memories by His Wife by Carr Alice Vansittart Strettel
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Ebook has 77 lines and 4749 words, and 2 pages
Editor: Owen Seaman
Transcriber's note:
The oe-ligature is represented in this text as "".
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
VOL. 146
APRIL 1, 1914
CHARIVARIA.
We are sorry to hear that the PREMIER is suffering from a troublesome Gough.
At one moment it began to look as if the Admiralty, after all, was going to change its mind and we were to have Grand Manuvres this year--off the coast of Ireland.
There are rumours that the Suffragettes are now preparing to blow up the whole of Ireland, as they find that that little country has during the past few days been distracting public attention from their cause.
An appeal is being made for funds to enable the battlefield of Waterloo to be preserved. A handsome donation has, it is said, been offered by one of our most enterprising railway companies, the only condition made being that the name shall be altered to Bakerloo.
It is so often asserted that a Varsity career unfits one for success in the bigger world that it is satisfactory to read that the PRINCE OF WALES'S income from the Duchy of Cornwall was ?85,719 last year, as compared with ?81,350 in the previous year.
The Association of Lancastrians in London held their annual dinner last week. It would have been a kindly and thoughtful act on the part of those responsible for the dinner had they offered a seat to Mr. MASTERMAN, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is now back in town.
Mr. Justice SCRUTTON has fined a man for saying "Hear, hear," in court, and there is something approaching a panic among our Comic Judges lest some colleague on a lower plane of humour should fine somebody, for laughing in court.
Messrs. WEEKES AND CO. have published a "Song of the Aeroplane," and we suspect that all concerned in this venture are terrified lest some clumsy critic shall say, "Merely to hear this song makes one want to fly."
It is sometimes asked, Are we a musical nation? It is possible, of course, that we are, but last week we were informed by an advertisement that "the greatest song success of the season" is entitled "Popsy Wopsy."
A Mr. SNOOKS attained his 100th birthday last week. So much for those who say that ridicule kills!
Thetford Corporation have decided to pay their mayor a salary of ?20 in future "owing to the heavy financial drain on his pocket." We think it should have been removed and the cost charged to drainage expenses.
The coat-of-arms provided for the Metropolitan Asylum Board includes a red cross, the golden staff of AESCULAPIUS, an eagle, a dragon, and red and white roses. It sounds a mad enough medley.
THE NEXT OF THE DANDIES.
Though man from her fetters is commonly loose , I take it that what is correct for the goose Will not be amiss for the gander; And I have a suit that for comfort and ease I'd always elect to be dressed in; The trousers have dear little bags where my knees Have made them a corner to nest in.
The sleeves of the coat are all frayed at the end, The seams of the waistcoat have "started," But I have a weakness for elderly friends, And now we need never be parted; No more when I wear it shall people esteem The bardlet in need of compassion; They'll merely consider him rather extreme In his fervent devotion to Fashion.
"BOLTON W. 1, MANCHESTER C. 0. BOLTON WAN. 1, MANCHES. C. 0."
It is still a little obscure, but "B. Wanderers 1, M. City 0" would bring it home to everybody.
THE SPIRIT OF ULSTER AND THE ARMY.
Still dreaming of the spell of Southern nights, Strange on my homing senses fall the raucous Shouts of Democracy, asserting rights It long ago committed to the caucus; Strange--in a Chamber run for party ends, Busy with private rancours, feuds, ambitions-- The legend that the Nation's life depends Upon her politicians!
Yet two things offer cheer: in Ulster there-- Fanatic sentiment, you'll say, and scoff it-- I see a hundred thousand men who care For something dearer than their stomach's profit; Under the Flag they stand at silent pause, True Democrats that hold by Freedom's charter, Resolved and covenanted for the Cause To give their lives in barter!
I see young soldiers, too, who serve the KING , Prepared, at honour's higher call, to fling Their gallant dreams away in dust and ashes! I care a lot for any laws they break, But more I care to see what sacrifices Men still are found to face for conscience' sake, Knowing how hard the price is.
Ah, Sirs, and must you for a moment's gain-- I look to both your camps with like appealing-- Must you upon these virtues put a strain Irrevocably past the hope of healing? Cannot some gentler means be yet embraced That, when the common peril comes upon her, Such qualities of heart, too rare to waste, May shield our Country's honour?
O. S.
EGBERT, BULL-FROG.
"Speaking," said my uncle James, "of dogs, did I ever tell you about Egbert, my bull-frog? I class Egbert among the dogs, partly because of his faithfulness and intelligence, and partly because his deep bay--you know how those bull-frogs bark--always reminded me of a bloodhound surprised while on a trail of aniseed. He was my constant companion in Northern Assam, where I was at that time planting rubber. He finally died of a surfeit of hard-boiled egg, of which he was passionately fond, and I was as miserable as if I had lost a brother.
"I think Egbert had been trying to edge into the household for some time before I really noticed him. Looking back, I can remember meeting him sometimes in the garden, and, though I did not perceive it at first, there was a wistful look in his eye when I passed him by without speaking. It was not till our burglary that I began really to understand his sterling worth. A couple of natives were breaking in, and would undoubtedly have succeeded in their designs had it not been for Egbert's frantic barking, which aroused the house and brought me down with a revolver. It is almost certain that the devoted animal had made a practice, night after night, of sleeping near the front-door on the chance of something of the sort happening. He was always suspicious of natives.
"After that of course his position in the house was established. He slept every night at the foot of my bed, and very soothing it was to hear his deep rhythmical breathing in the darkness.
"In the daytime we were inseparable. We would go for walks together, and I have frequently spent hours throwing sticks into the pond at the bottom of the garden for him to retrieve. It was this practice which saved his life at the greatest crisis of his career.
"I happened to have strained my leg, and I was sitting in the garden, dozing, Egbert by my side, when I was awakened by a hoarse bark from my faithful companion, and, looking down, I perceived him hopping rapidly towards the pond, pursued by an enormous oojoobwa snake, a reptile not dangerous to man, being non-poisonous, but a great scourge among the minor fauna of Assam, owing to its habit of pouncing upon them and swallowing them alive. This snake is particularly addicted to bull-frogs, and, judging from the earnest manner in which he was making for the pond, Egbert was not blind to this trait in its character.
"You may imagine my agony of mind. There was I, helpless. My injured leg made it impossible for me to pursue the snake and administer one where it would do most good. And meanwhile the unequal race was already drawing to its inevitable close. Egbert, splendid as were his other qualities, was not built for speed. He was dignified rather than mobile.
"What could I do? Nothing beyond throwing my stick in the hope of stunning the oojoobwa. It was a forlorn hope, but I did it; and it saved Egbert's life, though not in the way I had intended. The stick missed the snake and fell immediately in front of Egbert. It was enough. His grand intellect worked with the speed of lightning. Just as the snake reached him, he reached the stick; and the next moment there was Egbert, up to his neck in the reptile's throat, but saved from complete absorption by the stick, which he was holding firmly in his mouth.
"I have seldom seen any living thing so completely nonplussed as was the oojoobwa. Snakes have very little reasoning power. They cannot weigh cause and effect. Otherwise of course the oojoobwa would have nipped Egbert till he was forced to leave go of the stick. Instead of doing this, he regarded the stick and Egbert as being constructed all in one piece, and imagined that he had happened upon a new breed--of unswallowable frog. He ejected Egbert, and lay thinking it over, while Egbert, full of pluck, continued his journey to the pond.
"Three times in the next two yards did the snake endeavour to swallow his victim, and each time he gave it up; and after the last experiment Egbert, evidently finding this constant semi-disappearance into the other's interior bad for his nervous system, conceived the idea of backing towards the pond instead of heading in that direction, the process, though slower, being less liable to sudden interruption."
"Well, to make the story short, the oojoobwa followed Egbert to the very edge of the pond, the picture of perplexity; and when my little friend finally dived in he lay there with his head over the edge of the bank, staring into the water for quite ten minutes. Then he turned, shook his head despairingly, and wriggled into the bushes, still thinking hard. And a little while later I saw Egbert's head appear cautiously over the side of the pond, the stick still in his mouth. He looked round to see that the coast was clear, and then came hopping up to me and laid the stick at my feet. And, strong man as I was, I broke down and cried like a child."
From a revue poster at Birmingham:--
"I DO LIKE YOUR EYES RECORD CAST."
We dislike that kind.
A PEACE-PRESERVATION ACT.
That no newspaper be allowed to announce more than one political crisis per week under a penalty of ?1,000 for each and every subsequent crisis announced.
That Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR be appointed grand political censor, and that all descriptive expressions intended to be applied by people to their political opponents be submitted to him, to ensure that such phrases are properly saponaceous.
That six prominent fire-brands in each Party be deported to Saint Helena, and that they be chosen by ballot in this wise--the Liberals will select the Tories, the Tories the Liberals, the O'Brienites the Nationalists, and the Nationalists the O'Brienites. The Labour Party, being specially qualified for the task, will select six of its own body for deportation; and nothing in this Act is to hinder Mr. WEDGWOOD from deporting himself if he thinks it needful.
"Yesterday afternoon a Cardiff prisoner who had been arrested on a warrant escaped from the custody of a police officer. The man bolted without the slightest warning."
He was no gentleman. He might at least have said, "One, two, three--Go!"
THE OLDEST OF THE ARTS.
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