Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. written by Various
V >>
Various >> Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891.
At this epoch France was on her knees, beaten down by the German hand,
her eyes blind with blood and tears. One thing alone could cheer her.
I could do it, and I did. I applied for Letters of Naturalisation.
Some weeks later I became a French citizen, and received a letter from
M. ADOLPH CREMIEUX, then Minister of Justice, and never suspected
of being a wag. He wrote: "Your application for Naturalisation in
the midst of our great disasters, is for me the signal of a new life
for us. A country which in the midst of such catastrophes recruits
citizens like you, is not to be despaired of."
Years after, THIERS, then President of the Republic, said, "I
never will forget that you became a Frenchman in the time of our
misfortunes." EDMUND ABOUT picturesquely said, "_Il s'est fait
naturaliser vaincu._" BISMARCK has told me that the Emperor WILLIAM,
then at Versailles, in the first flush of triumph at touch on his brow
of the Imperial diadem, hearing of the event through the capturing
of a balloon despatched with the news to dolorous Paris, passed a
sleepless night.
"I fear me" he said, "all will now be lost."
"Not at all, your Majesty," said BISMARCK, affecting an indifference
he assures me he did not feel. "There is not even a Frenchman the
more. They have lost an Emperor and gained VAN DE BLOWITZOWN TROMP.
_Ce met egal._"
"Not quite," said the Emperor, with subtle flattery. The Emperor
WILLIAM, though he had his failings, was a keen judge of the
comparative value of men.
The limits of this article compel me to glance hastily over succeeding
epochs in a career with the main drift of which the civilised world
is already familiar. After saving Marseilles to the Republic, by a
series of actions alternating between desperate valour and brilliant
strategy, I went to Paris to report on the great event. Calling on the
official entrusted with the duty of considering claims to decorations,
I began at once by saying that my own name must not be taken into
consideration.
"Let my name," I said, gently but firmly, "be scored out in the
proposed list of decorations."
"_Mais, Monsieur_" he said, "there is no such list."
I, however, was not to be put off with excuse of that kind. I
insisted, both to the Secretary of the Minister of War, to M. THIERS,
that I should not be decorated. I was only too successful. When the
list came out, all my associates at Marseilles were decorated. I was
not included. This was all right. It was what I had requested. I could
say nothing. All the same, I could not help thinking that my advice
had been too literally accepted.
Every morning, for a week after, I called on M. THIERS. At the end
of the sixth day he said, "You must go to Riga. I do not quite know
where it is, but it sounds remote. You shall be Consul at Riga." I was
delighted. Like the President, I was not sure where Riga was; but the
salary was certain, and there was fine old Roman flavour about the
title Consul.
But it was not to be. I was predestined to be a great Newspaper
Correspondent. How that came about cannot be told in this chapter. I
will only say that early in my new career I secured the approbation of
Mr. DELANE, who, I need scarcely say, was the most competent judge the
world ever saw of the merits of a journalist.
At the risk of being dry and bald, I have confined myself to telling
accurately what has happened, my greatest ambition being to leave no
one the chance of misrepresenting, as his whim, fancy, or passion may
dictate, facts in which I am so deeply interested. Let those note
them who, after my time, have to defend my memory should it ever be
attacked.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "The Shinner Quartette;" or, Musical Football.]
* * * * *
"MORE HONOURED IN THE BREACH THAN THE OBSERVANCE."--Breach of Promise
cases--as a rule.
* * * * *
A GENERAL VIEW OF "PRIVATE INQUIRY."
[Illustration]
I am sufficiently old-fashioned, when I go to the play, to wish to
be amused. I frankly admit I do not care to be taught a lesson, or to
have my mind harrowed by the presentation of some psychological study.
I can remember WRIGHT, and even HARLEY, and the days when a good
piece of fun was the last item of the programme at the Adelphi and
the Olympic--the chief attraction of the Pittites, who patronised
"half-price." This being so, I am glad to find at the Strand--a
theatre recalling memories of JIMMY ROGERS and JOHNNY CLARKE, PATTY
OLIVER and CHARLOTTE SAUNDERS, to say nothing of a lady who was not
only Queen of Comedy but Empress of Burlesque--"_Private Inquiry_," a
thoroughly well acted and rattling farce in three Acts. It is from the
French, but as the task of adaptation has been entrusted to the Author
who turned _Bebe_ the Frisky into _Betsy_ the Wholesome, any scruples
of conscience that the LORD CHAMBERLAIN may possibly have entertained
on reading the original have been successfully removed, and the play,
consequently, is not only highly entertaining, but absolutely free
from offence. I did not see it until it had reached its eighth night,
and I do not remember a piece, taken as a whole, so excellently acted.
Although he does not appear until the Second Act, Mr. WILLIE EDOUIN,
as _'Arry 'Ooker_, the Private Inquiry Agent, is _the_ feature of the
performance. His politeness to ladies, his assumption of businesslike
habits, suggested by his reading and spiking of bogus telegrams
brought to him when he is engaged with a client, his urbanity under
difficulties, and his cheerful acceptance of the inevitable in
whatever shape presented, are all admirable points, and points that
are fully appreciated by the audience. Roars of laughter follow the
one after the other when _'Arry 'Ooker_ is on the stage. Nothing can
be more absurd than his make-up, his bows, his grimaces, and yet under
the surface there is a vein of pathos that causes one to feel a pang
of genuine regret when the poverty-stricken, light-hearted rogue, who,
if he cannot secure a hundred guineas, is equally ready to accept a
"tenner," is marched oft to penal servitude as the Curtain falls. The
clerk of this entertaining individual, _Toby_, is played by a boy like
a boy, by Master Buss. Farther, Mr. ALFRED MALTBY could not be better
as the suspicious and bamboozled husband, _Richard Wrackham_. Again,
even the small part of _Alexander_, a Waiter, is well played. Once
more--the ladies, without exception, are capital; and as a result of
this all-round excellence, the piece "goes," from a quarter to nine
till just eleven, with a _verve_ that must be most satisfactory to
all concerned. So I can congratulate the Author upon a piece full of
lines that tell, and the Manager upon a play that is likely to rival
in popularity its predecessor, the phenomenally-successful _Our Flat._
And I can offer these congratulations with a dear conscience, because
I am neither Author of the piece nor Manager of the theatre, but as
Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING might observe, QUITE ANOTHER FELLOW.
* * * * *
LARKS!
SIR,--I am surprised that any of your Correspondents should doubt that
birds eat snow. There is a bull-finch in my aviary, and I tried him.
He ate it ravenously. Strange to say, he has not uttered a sound
since! My wife says, "Probably his _pipe_ is frozen." This is such a
good joke, I think you ought to have it.
Yours, LOVER OF NATURE.
SIR,--You may like to have the following story in support of the idea
that animals are aware that snow is frozen water. It was related to
me by a rather rackety nephew, who has lived part of his life in South
America, and whose word can be strictly relied on. He relates that
once, when he was travelling among the Andes, at an elevation of some
twenty thousand feet, his mules became very thirsty, and no water was
obtainable. Each animal seized a _calabash_ with its teeth, filled it
with snow, and trotted off to the crater of an adjacent volcano; it
then waited till the lava melted the snow, which it drank up, and
finally trotted back again. My nephew says he should not have believed
a mule could be so clever, if he had not seen it.
Yours obediently, SAMUEL SOBERSIDES.
SIR,--Since writing you that letter about our bull-finch, I have
discovered an even more surprising fact, which I am sure no Naturalist
has yet dreamed of. Not only do birds appreciate snow, but they are
very fond of _iced beverages_. A tom-tit, who often drinks water from
a saucer which we put on our window-sill, one day found the water
frozen. What did the intelligent creature do? Why, it rapped on the
window-pane with its beak till the window was opened, then hopped on
to the sideboard, and began trying to peck the cork out of a whiskey
bottle! I took the hint, and poured some of the spirit into the
saucer; the bird drank it greedily! My wife's comment on this
occurrence is really too good to be lost, so I send it you. She said,
"Evidently the bird was not a _tomtitotaller_!"
Yours, in convulsions, LOVER OF NATURE (_as before_).
* * * * *
A PINT OF HALF-AND-HALF.
"'_Qui va la?_' says he."
"'_Je_,' replies I, knowing the language."
"_Jeames" and another Old Story_.
The international susceptibilities of Sheriff DRURIOLANUS--henceforth
to bear the Anglo-French title, _Monsieur le Sherif 'Arris de Paris_,
or _'Arry de Parry_,--appear to have been considerably hurt by a
statement in the _Debats_ to the effect that the appearance in the
London streets of men dressed as Gendarmes--"_en gendarmes francais_,"
writes MOSSOO DRURIOLANE--intended as perambulating advertisements for
the Waterloo Panorama, was due to a supreme effort of his managerial
genius. So Sherif DRURIOLANE wrote at once to the London Correspondent
of the _Figaro_, who bears the singularly French name of JOHNSON,
denying, in his very best French, that he, M. le Sherif, had had
anything to do with these walking advertisements, or, indeed, with the
Panorama Company at all, from which he had retired a year ago. Then he
adds, like the _preux chevalier_ he is known to be, that had he still
been on the direction of the aforesaid _Compagnie_, he, at all events,
would never, never have committed the enormity of even suggesting,
however vaguely, an idea so calculated to needlessly insult "_les
susceptibilites francaises_." ("_Hear! hear!_" and "_Tres bien!_"
from the left.) Then M. le Sherif DRURIOLANE, rising to the occasion,
finishes with this magnificent flourish on the French horn--"_Je
suit ne en France_"--(Isn't it very much "to his credit," we ask
with W.S.G., that, "In spite of all temptations, To belong to other
nations, He remains an Englishman?" Why, certainly)--"_j'ai vecu parmi
les Francais, et je suis a moitie enfant de Paris_."
Beautiful! _Magnifique!_ Our DRURIOLANUS is surpassing even the
G.O.M., who has been born, more or less, everywhere, except in
Paris. Should the Republic be in danger, or should Monarchists
or Imperialists get a chance and want a man for the place, let
them wire to DRURIOLANUS, "_a moitie enfant de Paris_" and the
"_Enfant_"--"_Enfant_ ARRIS," not "_Enfant_ GATTI"--will be ready, aye
ready, to assume the purple, and to bring all his properties with him.
"_A moitie_"--and the other half? That will ever remain British. So _a
la sante de Monsieur le Sherif-enfant-de-Londres-et-Paris_, in a pint
of Half-and-half, and let it, like Le Sherif himself, have a good head
on!
* * * * *
THE ROLLING OF THE R'S.
"We are told that the omission to roll it (the letter _r_) is as
flagrant a misdemeanor as the dropping of the _h_."--_James Payn
in the Illustrated News_.
AIR--"_THE WEARING OF THE GREEN_."
_SOFT-SPOKEN PERSON SINGS:--_
It's vewy wong, widiculous, and howwid, I've no doubt,
To leave that little letter _r_ unuttahed or unwolled;
But if you _haven't_ any _r_'s you've got to do without,
And I can no maw woll _my r_'s than dwink my clawet cold.
A Dowie wuggedness of speech I weally _can't_ attain,
And though gwammawians may wave in leadewetts and pars,
I quite agwee with good JAMES PAYN that all their wow is vain,
The angwy wout must do without "the wolling of the _r_'s!"
* * * * *
HAGIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTE.--Dr. HAROLD BROWNE, "the retiring
Bishop" of Winchester, as he is called, on account of his innate
modesty, wrote to the people of Farnham to say that, "never was there
a Bishop since the time of his earliest predecessor in the See, St.
Swithin, more literally 'at home' at Farnham Castle than himself."
To this fact Dr. H.B. is, perhaps, unaware that the Saint in question
owed his name, as when any visitor called to ask if he were at home,
the Hall-porter of the period invariably answered, "Yes, Saint's
within." Dr. HAROLD BROWNE is welcome to this information, which ought
to have been in _Notes and Queries_.
* * * * *
It is said that the invitations for the Drury Lane celebration of
Twelfth Night will not be sent out with so free a hand next year, the
young men on the recent occasion having been so Baddeley behaved.
* * * * *
NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS.,
Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no
case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed
Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.