Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 2

ring the bell," deliberately knocked at the front-door of
a wooden house, has now had to pay the full cost of rebuilding.
***
After reading in her morning paper that bumping races were held
recently at Cambridge, a dear old lady expressed sorrow that the
disgraceful scenes witnessed in many dance-rooms in London had
spread to one of our older universities.
***
Tyrolese hats have reappeared in London after an interval of nearly five
years. We understand that the yodel waistcoat will also be heard this
spring.
***

A Welshman was fined fifteen pounds last week for fishing for salmon
with a lamp. Defendant's plea, that he was merely investigating the
scientific question of whether salmon yawn in their sleep, was not
accepted.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "WELL, ANYHOW, NO ONE COULD TELL THAT
THIS WAS ONCE A BRITISH WARM."]
* * * * *
MORE BOAT-RACE "INTELLIGENCE."
"The Oxford crew had a hard training for an hour and a-half under the
direction of Mr. Harcourt Gold, who is to catch them at
Putney."--Evening Paper.
But will they catch Cambridge at Barnes?
"The Cambridge people have elected to use a scull with a tubular shank
or 'loom.'
"Oxford are using these sculls, too."--Evening Paper.
We have a silly old-fashioned preference for the use of oars in this
competition.
* * * * *
"On St. David's Day, Welshmen wear a leak in their hats."--Provincial
Paper.
Lest they should suffer from swelled head?
* * * * *
THE "NEW" WORLD.

["Direct Action," which was regarded as a novelty suitable for an age
of reconstruction, has now, by the good sense of the Trades Union
Congress, been relegated to its proper place in the old and discredited
order of things.]
In these, the young Millennium's years, Whereof they loudly boomed
the birth, Promising by the lips of seers New Heavens and a brand-new
Earth, We find the advertised attraction In point of novelty is small,
And argument by force of action Would seem the oldest wheeze of all.
When Prehistoric Man desired Communion with his maid elect, And
arts of suasion left him tired, He took to action more direct; Scaring her
with a savage whoop or Putting his club across her head, He bore her in
a state of stupor Home to his stony bridal bed.
In ages rather more refined, Gentlemen of the King's highway, Whose
democratic tastes inclined To easy hours and ample pay, Would hardly
ever hold their victim Engaged in academic strife, But raised their
blunderbuss and ticked him Off with "Your money or your life."
So when your miners, swift to scout The use of reason's slow appeal,
Threaten to starve our children out And bring the country in to heel,
There's nothing, as I understand it, So very new in this to show; The
cave-man and the cross-roads bandit Were there before them long ago.
O.S.
* * * * *
FAIR WEAR AND TEAR.
In a short time now we shall have to return this flat to its proper tenants
and arrive at some assessment of the damage done to their effects. With
regard to the other rooms, even the room which Richard and Priscilla
condescend to use as a nursery, I shall accept the owners' estimate
cheerfully enough, I think; but the case of the drawing-room furniture
is different. About the nursery I have only heard vague rumours, but in
the drawing-room I have been an eye-witness of the facts.

The proper tenant is a bachelor who lived here with his sister; he will
scarcely realise, therefore, what happens at 5 P.M. every day, when
there comes, as the satiric poet, LONGFELLOW, has so finely sung--
"A pause in the day's occupations, Which is known as the children's
hour."
Drawing-room furniture indeed! When one considers the buildings and
munition dumps, the live and rolling stock, the jungles and forests in
that half-charted territory; when one considers that even the mere
wastepaper basket by the writing-desk (and it does look a bit battered,
that wastepaper basket) is sometimes the tin helmet under which
Richard defies the frightfulness of LARS PORSENA, and sometimes a
necessary stage property for Priscilla's two favourite dramatic
recitations
"He plunged with a delighted scweam Into a bowl of clotted cweam,"
and
"This is Mr. Piggy Wee, With tail so pink and curly, And when I say,
'Good mornin', pig,' He answers vewwy surly, Oomph! Oomph!'"
and sometimes the hutch that harbours a cotton-wool creation supposed
to be a white rabbit, and stated by the owner to be "munsin' and munsin'
and munsin' a carrot"--when, I say, I consider all these things I
anticipate that the proceedings of the Reparation Commission will be
something like this:--
He (looking a little ruefully at the round music-stool). I suppose your
wife plays the