Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 6

"I'm reading now." She turned to our book again. Cecilia began to laugh.
"Come and have a wash, Christopher," I said in a strangled voice, and we moved off sheepishly.
* * * * *
"Aren't girls funny, Uncle Alan?" said Christopher.
"Christopher," I answered, "girls are the very----" Well, I told you at the beginning what we said to each other.
* * * * *
HIGH EXPLOSIVE ART.
[The Morning Post has been conducting a vigorous campaign against singers who dispense with careful and prolonged training, and by their spasmodic and declamatory style suggest the title of "gaspers."]
Oh, all young folk of tuneful aims And fancy names like Joan and Jasper, I hope you'll read (and duly heed) The Morning Post upon the "gasper."
'Tis not the "fag" that is turned down, Though that often proves a rasper Upon the larynx; here the noun Denotes the human, singing gasper.
Rome was not builded in a day, Nor even row-boats (teste CLASPER); No more are voices which will stay, Unlike the organ of the gasper.
Attorneys need, before they start, Five years of training, but the grasper Who grudges one to vocal art Will end, as he began, a gasper.
Wherefore, ye men and maids who chant, Refrain at all costs from exasper- ating The Morning Post, which can't Abide the methods of the gasper.
* * * * *
Another Impending Apology.
"St. ---- Hall was filled last night with people, with Scottish song--and with fog. Perhaps nothing but the ---- Orpheus Choir could have done that."--Scottish Paper.
* * * * *
"THE JAPANESE BUDGET.
Tokio, Tuesday.
The Cabinet has approved of the Budget, which totals 1,562 million yen (about 2s.)."
Jersey Paper.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, please copy.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE POWER OF SENTIMENT.]
* * * * *
LITTLE BITS OF LONDON.
BOND STREET.
I find it very difficult to walk slowly down Bond Street as one ought to do; I always feel so guilty. Most of the people there look scornfully at me as if I belonged to Whitechapel, and the rest look suspiciously at me as if I belonged to Bond Street. My clothes are neither good enough nor bad enough. So I hurry through with the tense expression of a man who is merely using Bond Street as a thoroughfare, because it is the way to his dentist--as indeed in my case it is. But recently I did saunter in the proper way, and I took a most thrilling inventory of the principal classes of shops, the results of which have now been tabulated by my statistical department.
For instance, do you know how many shops in the street sell things for ladies to wear (not including boots, jewellery or shoes)? No? Well, there are thirty-three. Not many, is it? But then there are twenty-one jewellers (including pearl shops) and eight boot and/or shoe shops; so that, with two sort of linen places, which may fairly be reckoned as female, the ladies' total is sixty-four. I only counted a hundred-and-fifty shops altogether. Of that total, nine are places where men can buy things to wear, and ten are places where they can buy things to smoke; I have charitably debited all the cigarette-shops to the men, even the ones where the cigarettes are tipped with rose-leaves and violet-petals. But even if I do that and give the men the two places where you can buy guns and throw in the one garden-seat shop, we are left with the result:--
Feminine Shops. Masculine Shops.
Dress 33 Dress 9 Jewellers 21 Tobacco 10 Boots and Shoes 8 Motors 9 Sort of Linen Places 2 Guns 2 Dog Bureau 1 Garden Seats 1 -- -- 65 31
From these figures a firm of Manchester actuaries has drawn the startling conclusion that Bond Street is more used by women than by men. It may be so. But a more interesting question is, how do all these duplicates manage to carry on, considering the very reasonable prices they charge? At one point there are three jewellers in a row, with another one opposite. Not far off there are three cigarette-shops together, madly defying each other with gold-tips and silver-tips, cork-tips and velvet-tips, rose-tips and lily-tips. There is only one book-shop, of course, but there are about nine picture-places. How do they all exist? It is mysterious.
Especially when you consider how much trouble they take to avoid attracting attention. There are still one or two window-dressers who lower the whole tone of the street by adhering to the gaudy-overcrowded style; but the majority, in a violent reaction from that, seem to have rushed to the wildest extremes of the simple-unobtrusive. They are delightful, I think, those reverent little windows with the chaste curtains and floors of polished walnut, in the middle of which reposes delicately a single toque, a single chocolate or a single pearl. Some of the picture-places are among the most modest. There is