: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 103 December 10 1892 by Various Burnand F C Francis Cowley Editor - English wit and humor Periodicals Contemporary Reviews; Punch

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Editor: Francis Burnand

VOL. 103

December 10, 1892.

CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS.

The Smoking-Room .

I MAY assume, that after the terrible example given in my last chapter, you have firmly made up your mind never on any account to take service in the great army of bores. But this determination is not all that is necessary. A man must constantly keep a strict guard on himself, lest he should unconsciously deviate even for a few minutes into the regions of boredom. Whatever you do, let nothing tempt you to relate more than once any grievance you may have. Nothing of course is more poisonous to the aggrieved one than to stifle his grievance absolutely. Once, and once only, he may produce it to his friends. I shall be blamed, perhaps, for making even this slight concession. Please be careful, therefore, not to abuse it. Is there in the whole world a more ridiculous sight than a strong, healthy, well-fed sportsman who wearies his companions one after another with the depressing recital of his ill-luck, or of the dastardly behaviour of the head-keeper in not stopping the whole party for half an hour to search for an imaginary bird, which is supposed to have fallen stone-dead somewhere or other; or of the iniquities of the man from whom he bought his cartridges in not loading them with the right charge; or any of the hundred inconveniences and injuries to which sportsmen are liable. All these things may be as he says they are. He may be the most unfortunate, the most unjustly treated of mankind. But why insist upon it? Why check the current of sympathy by the dam of constant repetition? And, after all, how trivial and absurd the whole thing is! Even a man whose career has been ruined by malicious persecution will be avoided like a pest if it is known that he dins the account of his wrongs into everyone's ears. How, then, shall the sufferer by the petty injuries of ordinary sport be listened to with patience? Of all bores, the grievancemonger is the fiercest and worst. Lay this great truth by in your memory, and be mindful of it in more important matters than sport when the occasion arises.

Now your typical smoking-room conversation ought always to include the following subjects:-- The wrong-headed, unpopular man, whom every district possesses, and who is always at loggerheads with somebody; "The best shot in England," who is to be found in every country-side, and in whose achievements all the sportsmen of his particular district take a patriotic pride; the folly and wickedness of those who talk or write ignorantly against any kind of sport; the deficiency of hares due to the rascally provisions of the Hares and Rabbits Act; a few reminiscences, slightly glorified, of the particular day's sport; and a prolonged argument on the relative merits of the old plan of shooting birds over dogs, and the modern methods of walking them up or driving. These are not the only, but certainly the chief ingredients. Let me give you an example, drawn from my note-book.

THE RHODES COLOSSUS.

THE World's Seven Wonders are surely outshone! On Marvel World's billows 'twill toss us--'twill toss us, To watch him, Director and Statesman in one, This Seven-League-Booted Colossus--Colossus! Combining in one supernatural blend Plain Commerce and Imagination--gination; O'er Africa striding from dark end to end, To forward black emancipation--cipation.

Well may ABERCORN wonder and FIFE tootle praise, His two thousand hearers raise cheering--raise cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering--small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact, A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy--tuguesy; But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact, To RHODES the astute come quite easy--quite easy.

"HE rumbles so in his conversation," observed Mrs. R. of an orator whose sentences were considerably involved, "that I can seldom catch the grist of what he says."

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