Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 written by Various
V >>
Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919
PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 156.
February 19, 1919.
CHARIVARIA.
The report that demobilisation will be completed by March 31st is now
officially denied. There would appear to be something in the rumour
that the Demobilisation Staff have expressed the hope of dying in
harness.
***
It is stated that Woolwich Arsenal is preparing to manufacture
ice-cream freezers. People are wondering if it was the weather that
gave them this happy thought.
***
The German ex-Crown Prince is so determined that the Allies shall not
place him on trial that he now threatens to commit suicide or die in
the attempt.
***
"There are things we want to get rid of," says "BACK BENCHER" in _The
Daily Mail_. The rumour that Sir FREDERICK BANBURY, M.P., has already
demanded an apology is unconfirmed.
***
Soldier-golfers, says a sporting writer, are already urging the
introduction of fresh features into the game. A new method of
addressing the ball, introduced from Mesopotamia, is said to be most
efficacious.
***
With reference to the North of England man who has decided not
to strike, we now learn that he happens to be out of work just at
present.
***
ISAAC DENBIGH, of Chicago, is, we are told, one-hundred-and-thirteen
years of age. He must try again. We expect better things than this
from America.
***
Statesmen, says Sir WILLIAM ORPEN, A.R.A., are poor sitters. The
impulse to rush out and cackle has probably something to do with it.
***
It is said that a soldier in the Lancashire Fusiliers decided, on
being demobilised, to accept a standard civilian suit instead of the
usual gratuity. The Sergeant-Major in charge of the case lies in a
critical condition.
***
Sand-gleaners at Ramsgate are making money from bags of sugar washed
ashore. This answers the oft-propounded question, "How do grocers
spend their week-ends?"
***
Another hold-up by American soldiers has occurred in Liverpool. In
view of the magnitude of our debt to the United States it is felt
that this method of collecting it in instalments is bound to prove
unsatisfactory.
***
"Humour and love," says a contemporary, "are what will pay the average
writer best at the moment." It is not known whether Labour or the
Peace Conference has done most to send up the price of these luxuries.
***
Officials of the Waiters' Union are perturbed over the rumour that
restaurant _habitues_ are preparing to strike in favour of a fifty per
cent. reduction in tips.
***
Several of our leading magistrates declare that unless some High
Court judge asks, "What is beer?" they will be compelled to do it
themselves.
***
A St. Bernard dog belonging to a New York hotel-keeper perished after
swallowing a bundle of dollar notes. It is said that the deceased died
worth sixty-five pounds.
***
One explanation for the many daylight robberies committed recently in
London is that several of our better-class burglars object to breaking
into people's houses like thieves in the night.
***
Because a Highgate lodger refused to pay his rent, the landlady wrote
asking his wife to come and fetch him away. If he is not claimed in
three days he will be sold to defray expenses.
***
Only a person with a perfectly healthy skin, says a contemporary, can
afford to face the keen winds without taking precaution. If you have
any doubts about your skin the best thing is to leave it at home on
the hat-rack.
***
At a football match at South Hindley last week the referee was struck
in the mouth and severely injured by one of the backs, after ordering
three other players off the field for fighting. This, we understand,
was one of the first fixtures to be brought off under the auspices of
the Brighter Football League.
***
The L.C.C. are said to be formulating a plan to meet the rush for
trains on the Underground. Personally we always try to avoid it.
***
A medical journal refers to a new method of raising blisters by
hypnotic suggestion. This is said to be an improvement on the old East
End system of developing black eyes by back-answering.
***
A defendant told the Tower Bridge magistrate that he only took whisky
when he had a cold. It must be hard work for him to resist sitting by
an open window this weather.
***
A gold vase, said to have been stolen from Assyria 2478 years ago,
has just been found in a sarcophagus at Cairo. We understand that the
local police have been instructed to take action.
***
The typist who, as reported in these columns last week, fell out of a
moving train on the Isle of Wight Railway and had quite a lot to say
to the guard when she overtook the train, is now understood to have
been told she could keep on walking if she liked. However, as her
people were not expecting her until the train arrived, she again
entered the carriage from which she had fallen.
***
Russian soldiers are now permitted to smoke in the streets and to
travel in railway carriages. Later on it is hoped that the privilege
of dying a natural death may be extended to them.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _House-agent's Clerk_ (_to gentleman hunting for
a flat_). "NOW THEN, BE OFF WITH YOU. WE NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM
ITINERANTS."]
* * * * *
THE CAM OFFENSIVE.
Once more on Barnwell's fetid ooze,
Neglected these long years of slaughter,
In stolid tubs the Lenten crews
Go forth to flog the same old water.
Fresh from the Somme's resilient phase,
From Flanders slime and bomb-proof burrows,
Much as we did in ancient days
They smite the Cam's repellent furrows.
Their coaches sit the old, old gees,
But with a manner something larger,
As warriors who between their knees
Have learned to steer the bounding charger.
Unchanged their language, rude and firm,
Save where a khaki note is sounded,
And here and there a towpath term
With military tags confounded.
"Get forward! Are you ready? Quick--
March!" "Get a move on! Keep it breezy!"
"Two, mind the step!" "Swing out and kick!"
"Halt! Sit at--ease! Ground--oars! Sit easy!"
"The dressing's bad all down the line."
"Eyes on your front rank's shoulders, Seven!
Don't watch the Cam--it's not the Rhine--
Or gaze for Gothas up in heaven!"
"I want to hear your rowlocks ring
Like a good volley, all together."
"Hands up (or 'Kamerad') as you swing
Straight from the hips. Don't sky your feather,
As if I'd given the word, 'High Port'!"
"Five, I admit your martial charms, Sir,
But now you're on a rowing-thwart,
So use your legs and not your arms, Sir!"
"Six, you've a rotten seat, my son;
Don't trust your stirrups; grip the saddle!"
"Squad--properly at ease! Squad--'shun!
Get forward! By the centre--paddle!"
O.S.
* * * * *
CAST.
The auctioneer glanced at his book. "Number 29," he said, "black mare,
aged, blind in near eye, otherwise sound."
The cold rain and the biting north-east wind did not add to the
appearance of Number 29, as she stood, dejected, listless, with head
drooping, in the centre of the farmers and horse-dealers who were
attending the sale of cast Army horses. She looked as though she
realised that her day had waned, and that the bright steel work, the
soft well-greased leather, the snowy head-rope and the shining curb
were to be put aside for less noble trappings.
She had a curiously shaped white blaze, and I think it was that, added
to the description of her blindness, which stirred my memory within
me. I closed my eyes for a second and it all came back to me, the
gun stuck in the mud, the men straining at the wheels, the shells
bursting, the reek of high explosive, the two leaders lying dead on
the road, and, above all, two gallant horses doing the work of four
and pulling till you'd think their hearts would burst.
I stepped forward and, looking closer at the mare's neck, found what
I had expected, a great scar. That settled it. I approached the
auctioneer and asked permission to speak to the crowd for a few
moments.
"Well," said he, "I'm supposed to do the talking here, you know."
"It won't do you any harm," I pleaded, "and it will give me a chance
to pay off a big debt."
"Right," he said, smiling; "carry on."
"Gentlemen," I said, "about this time a year ago I was commanding a
battery in France. It was during the bad days, and we were falling
back with the Hun pressing hard upon us. My guns had been firing all
the morning from a sunken road, when we got orders to limber up and
get back to a rear position. We hadn't had a bad time till then, a few
odd shells, but nothing that was meant especially for our benefit.
And then, just as we were getting away, they spotted us, and a battery
opened on us good and strong. By a mixture of good luck and great
effort we'd got all the guns away but one, when a shell landed just
in front of the leaders and knocked them both out with their driver;
at the same time the gun was jerked off the road into a muddy ditch.
Almost simultaneously another shell killed one of the wheelers, and
there we were with one horse left to get the gun out of the ditch and
along a road that was almost as bad as the ditch itself.
"It looked hopeless, and it was on the tip of my tongue to give orders
to abandon the gun, when suddenly out of the blue there appeared on
the bank above us a horse, looking unconcernedly down at us.
"In those days loose horses were straying all over the country, and
I took this to be one from another battery which had come to us for
company.
"I turned to one of the men. 'Catch that mare quick.'
"In a few minutes we had the harness off the dead wheeler and on the
new-comer. Pull? Gentlemen, if you could have seen those two horses
pull!
"We'd just got a move on the gun when another shell came and seemed
to burst right on top of the strange mare. I heard a terrified squeal,
and through the smoke I saw her stagger and with a mighty effort
recover herself. I ran round and saw she'd been badly hit over the eye
and had a great tearing gash in the neck. We never thought she could
go on, but she pulled away just the same, with the blood pouring off
her, till finally we got the gun out and down the road to safety.
"I got knocked out a few minutes later, and from that day to this I've
often wondered what had happened to the mare that had served us so
gallantly. I know now. There she stands before you. I'd know her out
of a thousand by the white blaze; and if there was a doubt there's her
blind eye and the scar on her neck.
"That's all, gentlemen; but I'm going to ask the man who buys her to
remember her story and to see that her last days are not too hard."
She fell at a good price to a splendid type of West Country farmer,
and the auctioneer whispered to me, "I'm glad old Carey's got her.
There's not a man in the county keeps his horses better."
"Old Carey" came up to me as we were moving off. "I had a son in
France," he said, "in the gunners, too, but he hadn't the luck of the
old mare"--he hesitated a moment and his old eyes looked steadily into
mine--"for he'll never come back. The mare'll be all right, Sir," he
went on as he walked off, "easy work and full rations. I reckon she's
earned them."
* * * * *
"The bride was given away by her grandfather who was dressed
in Liberty satin in empire style, with hanging sleeves of
chiffon."--_Provincial Paper_.
He must have looked a sweet old dear.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS.
_The Bird_. "HAVE YOU REALISED, MY GOOD SIR, THAT IF YOU PROCEED TO
EXTREMES WITH THAT WEAPON MY AURIFEROUS ACTIVITIES MUST INEVITABLY
CEASE?"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: ECHO OF THE TUBE STRIKE.
"TAKE YER UP TO THE CITY FOR 'ALF-A-QUID, GUV'NOR."]
* * * * *
THE ACUTE ANGLER.
The Colonel of our Reserve Battalion has an almost unique reputation
as an angler. Scattered elements of the regiment carry his piscatorial
heroics to obscure corners of the earth. Majors on the Pushti Kuli
range recount the episode of the ingenuous troutling which, having
apparently conceived a violent passion for the Colonel, literally
forced itself upon the hook seven times within a short afternoon.
Captains on the Sultanitza Planina rehearse the epic incidents of
how the Colonel snatched victory from defeat after pursuing for three
miles an infuriated pike which had wrenched the very rod from his
grasp. Subalterns in the chill wilds of Cologne, adding picturesque
details to an already artistic story, relate how he hooked a mighty
veteran carp near Windsor, and played it for nine full hours (with a
rest of ten minutes after the first, and five after each successive
hour); how, under a full moon, he eventually grounded it on the
Blackfriars' mud and beached it with a last effort; how they lay
panting side by side for a space, and how, finally, with the courtesy
due to an honourable foe from a gallant victor, he forced neat brandy
down its throat and returned it to its domain in a slightly inebriated
but wholly grateful condition.
Consequently the Colonel's announcement that in view of the armistice
he intended to spend three days in fishing the waters of a friend's
estate was received by the Mess with lively satisfaction. An
overwhelming fish diet was deprecated, but it was generally held that
the honour of the regiment was in some way involved, and the Major
felt it his duty to escort his senior officer on an expedition of such
gravity.
It transpired that the first day was unfortunate. The Colonel was
silently impolite throughout Mess and retired immediately afterwards.
The Major explained that the conditions had been adverse. The punt
leaked at the end depressed by the Colonel and the ground-bait had
been left behind. The wind was fierce and cutting, and the brandlings
had been upset into the luncheon-basket. In addition the Colonel's
reel had escaped into the river and had declined to give itself up
until the whole length of line had been hauled in; and, in leaning
over the side to reclaim it, his gold fountain-pen had vanished. Five
hooks had failed to return from the deep and two were left suspended
from inaccessible branches; Also in the Major's opinion there was not
a single fish in the river.
By breakfast the Colonel had regained his spirits. He commented on the
lack of support given him by the Major, and in his place invited the
Adjutant on the ground that he was probably less clumsy. He remarked
that the offensive had not yet opened and that the previous day had
been mainly devoted to a thorough reconnaissance of the whole sector.
He had reason to believe that the enemy was present in considerable
force.
The second day proved equally unfortunate. The Colonel took his dinner
in private, and the Mess orderly, who had dismally cut the two of
clubs in the kitchen, returned from his ministrations a complete
nervous wreck. The Adjutant explained that misfortune had followed
misfortune. They had barely settled down midstream, and he was in
the act of extracting a hook from the Colonel's finger with his
jack-knife, when the punt broke from its moorings and carried them
half-a-mile downstream. It was uncanny how the craft had contrived to
navigate four bends without giving an opportunity of landing. In the
afternoon they had fished from the bank, and the Colonel had fallen
asleep while the Adjutant mounted guard. The Adjutant protested that
it was not his fault that the float suddenly disappeared, or that the
Colonel, on being vigorously awakened by him, struck so violently
at what proved to be a dead branch that he lost his footing and
tobogganned heavily into the river, and was compelled to waste three
hours in the neighbouring hostelry taking precautions against a chill.
At breakfast next morning the Colonel intimated that on this his last
day he would go unaccompanied. With one eye on the Major and the other
on the Adjutant, he passed a few remarks on the _finesse_ of fishing.
The element of surprise should be the basis of attack. Precision and
absolute secrecy in the carrying out of preliminary operations was
vital. Every trick and every device of camouflage should be brought
into play. There should be no violent preliminary bombardment of
ground-bait to alarm the hostile forces, but the sector should be
unostentatiously registered on the preceding night. The enemy's first
realisation of attack should be at that moment when resistance was
futile--though for his part he preferred a foe that would fight to the
fish-basket, as it were. He thought the weather was vastly improved
and admitted that his hopes were high.
In the evening the Colonel positively swaggered into Mess. He radiated
good fellowship and even bandied witticisms with the junior subaltern
in an admirable spirit of give-and-take. He had enjoyed excellent
sport. Later, in the ante-room, he delivered a useful little homily on
the surmounting of obstacles, on patience, on presence of mind and on
nerve, copiously illustrated from a day's triumph that will resound
on the Murman coast as the unconditional surrender of the intimidated
roach. He described how he had cunningly outmanoeuvred the patrols,
defeated the vigilance of the pickets, pierced the line of resistance,
launched a surprise attack on the main body, and spread panic in the
hearts of the hostile legions.
Unhappily for us, common decency, he said, had forced him to present
his catch to his friend.
* * * * *
"Wanted, to kill time whilst waiting demobilisation, an old
gun, rifle, or pistol."--_Morning Paper_.
Now we know why Time flies.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Barber_ (_carried away by his reminiscences_). "AND
WHEN HE'D LOOPED THE LOOP HE DID A NOSE-DIVE THAT FAIRLY TOOK YOUR
BREATH AWAY."]
* * * * *
THE TWOPENNY BIN.
It was called _Greatheart_; or, _Samuel's Sentimental Side_; and I
think you will agree that it was a lot of title for twopence. Day
after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the
little secondhand bookseller's shop, that volume would wriggle itself
forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth
and thrust it to the remotest depths of the box.
Then it haunted me. All day in my room I could hear _Greatheart_; or,
_Samuel's Sentimental Side_ calling out to me, "How would you like to
be in the Twopenny Bin?"
I began to grow sentimental myself, and to handle those unconsidered
trifles with tenderness. For you never know; I might be in the
Twopenny Bin myself someday; might be picked up, just glanced at and
shifted back into the corner out of sight.
Yesterday _Greatheart_ again found himself in my hands, and I looked
to see the date of his entry upon the world. I reflected on his sixty
years of life, on the many happy fireside hours that had been spent in
his company, on the gentle solace he had furnished to lesser hearts.
I had decided what to do. There were few people about; the bookseller
was not looking, and, if offence it was, well, I could fall back on
the mercy of those who would judge.
I leaned forward and tenderly deposited him in the Fourpenny Bin.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Visitor_. "BY JOVE, PERSEUS, I NEVER KNEW YOU WENT
IN FOR SCULPTURE. GOOD STUFF, TOO, BUT A TRIFLE REALISTIC."
_Perseus_. "OH, JUST A HOBBY. BUT, BETWEEN OURSELVES, IT'S THE
MEDUSA'S HEAD THAT DOES IT. TURNS PEOPLE INTO STONE, AND THERE YOU
ARE."]
* * * * *
TO A DEAR DEPARTED.
["Georgina," the largest of the giant tortoises at the Zoo,
has died. She was believed to be about two hundred and fifty
years old.]
Winds blow cold and the rain, Georgina,
Beats and gurgles on roof and pane;
Over the Gardens that once were green a
Shadow stoops and is gone again;
Only a sob in the wild swine's squeal,
Only the bark of the plunging seal,
Only the laugh of the striped hyaena
Muffled with poignant pain.
Long ago, in the mad glad May days,
Woo'd I one who was with us still;
Bade him wake to the world's blithe heydays,
Leap in joyance and eat his fill;
Sang I, sweet as the bright-billed ousel, a
Paean of praise for thy pal, Methuselah.
Ah! he too in the Winter's grey days
Died of the usual chill.
He was old when the Reaper beckoned,
Ripe for the paying of Nature's debt;
Forty score--if he'd lived a second--
Years had flown, but he lingered yet;
But you had gladdened this vale of tears
For a bare two hundred and fifty years;
You, Georgina, we always reckoned
One of the younger set.
Winter's cold and the influenza
Wreaked and ravaged the ranks among;
Bills that babbled a gay cadenza,
Snouts that snuffled and claws that clung--
Now they whistle and root and run
In Happy Valleys beyond the sun;
Never back to the ponds and pens a
Sigh of regret is flung.
Flaming parrots and pink flamingoes,
Birds of Paradise, frail as fair;
Monkeys talking a hundred lingoes,
Ring-tailed lemur and Polar bear--
Somehow our grief was not profound
When they passed to the Happy Hunting Ground;
Deer and ducks and yellow dog dingoes
Croaked, but we did not care.
But you--ah, you were our pride, our treasure,
Care-free child of a kingly race.
Undemonstrative? Yes, in a measure,
But every movement replete with grace.
Whiles we mocked at the monkeys' tricks
Or pored apart on the apteryx;
These could yield but a passing pleasure;
Yours was the primal place.
How our little ones' hearts would flutter
When your intelligent eye peeped out,
Saying as plainly as words could utter,
"Hurry up with that Brussels-sprout!"
How we chortled with simple joy
When you bit that impudent errand-boy;
"That'll teach him," we heard you mutter,
"Whether I've got the gout."
Fairest, rarest in all the Zoo, you
Bound us tight in affection's bond;
Now you're gone from the friends that knew you,
Wails the whaup in the Waders' Pond;
Wails the whaup and the seamews keen a
Song of sorrow; but you, Georgina,
Frisk for ever where warm winds woo you,
There, in the Great Beyond.
ALGOL.
* * * * *
[Illustration: TECHNICALITIES OF DEMOBILISATION.
_Officer_. "WHAT ARE THESE MEN'S TRADES OR CALLINGS, SERGEANT?"
_Sergeant_. "SLOSHER, SLABBER AND WUZZER, SIR."]
* * * * *
A CONTRA APPRECIATION.
LORD NORTHCLIFFE has recently contributed a remarkably outspoken
criticism of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE by way of "send-off" to his latest
journal, _The New Illustrated_. The following extracts from an article
about to appear in _The Pacific Monthly_, kindly communicated to us by
wireless, seem to indicate that the PREMIER is indisposed to take it
lying down:--
"In a letter recently published without my authority I said that I
was unable to control or influence him. This was true at the time and
remains true now. Time and again have efforts been made to harness
his energies to the State, but they have never succeeded. The
responsibilities of office are irksome to his imperious temperament.
There is something almost tragic in a figure, equipped with the
qualities of an hereditary autocrat, endeavouring to accommodate
himself to the needs of a democracy. The spectacle of this purple
Emperor of the Press, with his ear constantly glued to the ground,
is not wanting in pathos. With him the idols of yesterday are the pet
aversions of to-day. He denounces me as 'a political chameleon, taking
on the colour of those who at the moment happen to be his associates.'
But what are you to say of a man who clamours for a saviour of the
situation and then turns him into a cock-shy; of a Napoleon who is
continually retiring to Elba when things are not going as he likes;
of a politician who claims the privileges but refuses the duties of a
Dictator?
"It is obvious that he is still labouring under the hallucination that
the War was a duel between him and the KAISER; that he 'downed' his
antagonist single-handed, and that the prospects of a stable peace
have been shattered by my failure to include him among the British
Peace Delegates. So, all in a moment, the 'Welsh Wizard' is converted
into the miserable creature of the Tory Junkers--a man without 'high
moral courage,' 'wide knowledge' or 'large ideas.'
"Personally I have no illusions about my consistency, but I _do_
think that here I displayed some moral courage, also some unselfish
consideration for CLEMENCEAU and WILSON and others. Just think of the
panegyrics that would have been showered upon my head in the Press
which he controls if he had been invited to the Table!