Mr. Punch's Irish Humour in Picture and Story
Part 1
PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR
Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON
Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch," from its beginning in 1841 to the present day
MR. PUNCH'S IRISH HUMOUR
MR. PUNCH'S IRISH HUMOUR
IN PICTURE AND STORY
_WITH 154 ILLUSTRATIONS_
BY
CHARLES KEENE, PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER, L. RAVEN-HILL, BERNARD PARTRIDGE, G. D. ARMOUR, E. T. REED, H. M. BROCK, TOM BROWNE, GUNNING KING, AND OTHERS
PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH
THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"
THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.
THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR
_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_
LIFE IN LONDON COUNTRY LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS SCOTTISH HUMOUR IRISH HUMOUR COCKNEY HUMOUR IN SOCIETY AFTER DINNER STORIES IN BOHEMIA AT THE PLAY MR. PUNCH AT HOME ON THE CONTINONG RAILWAY BOOK AT THE SEASIDE MR. PUNCH AFLOAT IN THE HUNTING FIELD MR. PUNCH ON TOUR WITH ROD AND GUN MR. PUNCH AWHEEL BOOK OF SPORTS GOLF STORIES IN WIG AND GOWN ON THE WARPATH BOOK OF LOVE WITH THE CHILDREN
MR. PUNCH AND PAT
(_By way of Introduction_)
No PUNCH artist has done more with Irish humour than Charles Keene. Well over a third of the PUNCH drawings on this subject are from his pencil. Most of the PUNCH artists have made good use of it, Phil May and Mr. Raven-Hill in particular.
Some of MR. PUNCH'S jokes against the Fenians, Home Rule, and Irish disloyalty have a bitterness that is quite unusual with him, but none of these are included in our pages, and he has at other times handled the same topics with his customary geniality and good-humoured satire. He makes the most of the Irishman's traditional weakness for "##bulls" whisky, fighting, and living with his pigs, but he gets an immense amount of variety out of these themes, and does not neglect to touch upon other typically Irish characteristics. If you have examples of the Irishman's blunderings, you have examples also of his ready wit and his amazing talent for blarney.
We have thus in the present volume a delightful collection of Irish wit and high spirits. The happy-go-lucky characteristic of Pat is especially prominent in many of the jokes, and interpreting MR. PUNCH'S attitude towards the Irishman as one of admiration for his many excellent qualities, instead of regarding him as the "but" for English jokes, too often the notion of comic writers, the editor has sought to represent MR. PUNCH as the friend of Pat, sometimes his critic, but always his good humoured well-wisher, who laughs at him now and then, but as often with him.
MR. PUNCH'S IRISH HUMOUR
THE IRISH YOLK.--In the name of the profit--eggs! Irish co-operators have already made giant strides in the production of milk and butter, and now the Irish Co-operative Agency has decided, so says the _Cork Daily Herald_, to "take up the egg trade." We hope the egg-traders won't be "taken up," too; if so, the trade would be arrested just when it was starting, and where would the profit be then? "It is stated that many Irish eggs now reach the English market dirty, stale, and unsorted," so that wholesale English egg-merchants have preferred to buy Austrian and French ones. Ireland not able to compete with the foreigner! Perish the thought! A little technical education judiciously applied will soon teach the Irish fowl not to lay "shop 'uns."
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TANTALUS.--_Irish Waiter (to Commercial Gent, who had done a good stroke of business already)._ "Brikfast! Yessir. What'll ye have, yer honour--tay or coffee?"
_Commercial Gent (hungry and jubilant)._ "Coffee and fried sole and mutton cutlet to follow!"
_Waiter (satirically)._ "Annything ilse, surr?"
_Commercial Gent._ "Yes, stewed kidneys. Ah and a savoury omelette!"
_Waiter._ "Yessir. Annything----"
_Commercial Gent._ "No, that will do----"
_Waiter (with calm contempt)._ "And do ye expict to foind the loikes o' them things here? Sure, ye'll get what yez always got--bacon an' iggs!"
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FROM AN IRISH REPORTER IN A TROUBLED DISTRICT.--"The police patrolled the street all night, but for all that there was no disturbance."
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ERIN GO BRAGH
DEAR MR. PUNCH,--I perceive that there is a movement on foot, initiated by the patriot Doogan, M.P., for teaching the Irish language to the youthful Redmonds and Healeys of the Emerald Isle. I am sorry that the Government has not acquiesced in the motion. I, myself, would bring in a measure compelling all Hibernian Members of Parliament to denounce (they never speak) in their native tongue. Just fancy the rapture with which they would inveigh in a language incapable of comprehension by a single Sassenach! And what a mighty relief to the other legislators! If necessary, the Speaker might be provided with an Anglo-Irish dictionary, or possibly a new post (open to Nationalists only) might be created, viz., Interpreter for Ireland.
Trusting that my suggestion may be supported by you,
I am, yours obediently,
LINDLEY MURRAY WALKER
_The College, Torkington-on-the-Marsh_.
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IRISH PROVERBS
Every goose thinks his wife a duck.
No news in a newspaper isn't good news.
Manners make the gentleman, and the want of them drives him elsewhere for his shooting.
A miss is as good as a mile of old women.
Too many cooks spoil the broth of a boy.
It's foolish to spoil one's dinner for a ha'porth of tarts.
There are as fine bulls in Ireland as ever came out of it.
Necessity has no law, but an uncommon number of lawyers.
Better to look like a great fool, than to be the great fool you look.
A soft answer may turn away wrath, but in a Chancery suit, a soft answer is only likely to turn the scales against you.
One fortune is remarkably good until you have had another one told you.
Don't halloa until you have got your head safe out of the wood, particularly at Donnybrook Fair.
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Men of straw don't make the best bricks.
It's a narrow bed that has no turning.
When money is sent flying out of the window it's poverty that comes in at the door.
The pig that pleases to live must live to please.
One man may steal a hedge, whereas another daren't even as much as look at a horse.
Short rents make long friends--and it holds good equally with your landlord and your clothes.
The mug of a fool is known by there being nothing in it.
You may put the carte before the horse, but you can't make him eat.
Money makes the gentleman, the want of it the blackguard.
When wise men fall out, then rogues come by what is not their own.
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A BITTER BAD FRUIT.--A patriotic Irishman, expatiating eloquently upon the Lodge disturbances that were so repeatedly taking place in his country, exclaimed wildly: "By Jove, sir, you may call the Orange the Apple of Discord of Ireland."
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THE TALE OF A VOTE
Bedad, 'twas meself was as plaised as could be When they tould me the vote had bin given to me. "St. Pathrick," ses Oi, "Oi'm a gintleman too, An' Oi'll dine ivry day off a grand Oirish stew."
The words was scarce seen slippin' off of me tongue When who but the Colonel comes walkin' along! "Begorrah, 'tis callin' he's afther, the bhoy, Oi'm a gintleman now wid a vingeance," ses Oi.
The Colonel come in wid an affable air, An' he sat down quite natteral-loike in a chair. "So, Rory," ses he, "'tis a vote ye've got now?" "That's thrue though ye ses it," ses Oi, wid a bow.
"Deloighted!" ses he, "'tis meself that is glad, For shure ye're desarvin' it, Rory, me lad. An' how are ye goin' to use it?" ses he, "Ye could scarcely do betther than give it to me."
Oi stared at the Colonel, amazed wid surprise. "What! Give it away, sorr?--Me vote, sorr?" Oi cries "D'ye think that Oi've waited ontil Oi am gray, An' now Oi'm jist goin' to give it away?"
The Colonel he chuckled, an' "Rory," ses he. But "No, sorr," Oi answers, "ye don't diddle me." Thin he hum'd an' he haw'd, an' he started agin, But he'd met wid his equal in Rory O'Flynn.
Thin the smoile died away, an' a frown come instead, But for all that he tould me, Oi jist shook me head,
An' he gnawed his moustache, an' he cursed an' he swore, But the more that he argued, Oi shook it the more.
Thin he called me a dolt an' an ignorant fool, An' he said that Oi ought to go back to the school, An' he flew in a rage an' wint black in the face, An' he flung in a hullaballoo from the place.
Bedad, Oi was startled. Him beggin' me vote, An' he'd three of his own too!--The gradiness o't! Ye could scarcely belave it onless it was thrue, An' him sittin' oop for a gintleman too!
Was it betther he thought he could use it than Oi? Begorrah, Oi'll show he's mistaken, me bhoy. Oi'll hang it oop over me mantelpace shelf, For now that Oi've got it, Oi'll kape it meself.
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IRISH METEOROLOGY.--There surely must be some constant cause existing whose agency maintains the chronic disaffection of Ireland. Perhaps it is some disturbing element ever present in the atmosphere. That may possibly be a predominance of O'Zone.
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_Old Gentleman (who has not hurried over his Dinner, and has just got his Bill.)_ "Waiter, what's this? I'm charged here twopence for stationery. You know I've had none----"
_Irish Waiter._ "Faix! yer honour, I don't know. Y'ave been sittin' here a long t-h-ime, anyhow!!"
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AN IRISH "BRADSHAW"
(SCENE--_Westland Row Station, Dublin_)
_British Swell to Native Inhabitant_ (_loq._). "Haw, haw, pray will you direct me the shortest way to Baggot Street, haw?"
_Native Inhabitant._ "Baggit Street, yer honor, yis, yer honor, d' see that sthreet just forninst ye? Well, goo oop that, toorn nayther to yer right nor to yer lift, till ye khoom to the foorst toorn, and when ye khoom to the foorst toorn, don't toorn down that ayther, but walk sthrait on and that'll lade ye to the place _Igs-actly_."
_Supercilious Saxon._ "Haw, thank yaw, haw!" (_And walks off more mystified than ever._)
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IRISH VACCINATION.--Professor Gamgee says that, owing to the vagrant cur nuisance, "Hydrophobia in man is increasing in Ireland." This fact is one which hom[oe]opathy may suggest some reason for not altogether deploring. The canine _virus_ and the vaccine may be somewhat analogous; and, if like cures like, many a happy cure may be effected by a mad dog biting a rabid Irishman.
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PADDY TO HIS PIG
Och! Piggy dear, an' did ye hear The thraitors what they say? The rint is due, an' oh! 'tis you, Me darlin', that's to pay. So you, whose squale is music rale To me--the rascals hint That you must doi, an' plaise, for whoy?-- The landlord wants his rint!
But no, me jew'l! Oi'm not so cru'l, To kill an' murther dead The chum that's ate out ov me plate, An' shared the fam'ly bed. Oi would be loike a fool to stroike A frind to plaise a foe-- If one must doi, why then, says Oi, The landlord, he must go.
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AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL-LESSON.--
_Master._ Spell "Patriotism."
_Scholar._ P-a-t, "Pat;" r-i-o-t, "riot;" i-s-m "ism."
_Master._ Now spake it together.
_Scholar._ Pat-riot-ism.
_Master._ Ah, then, it's the good boy you are entirely.
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RULES FOR HOME-RULERS
The following regulations, to be observed in the Irish Parliament when it meets on College Green, are under consideration:--
1. The Speaker shall not speak except when he is talking.
2. Such terms as "thief of the wurruld," "spalpeen," "nager," "villian," "polthroon," "thraytor," "omadhawn," &c., and such epithets as "base," "brutal," "bloody-minded," and others named in the schedule to these regulations, shall be considered unparliamentary, except when used in the heat of debate.
3. An Annual Budget shall be presented to the House once a quarter.
4. Shilelaghs, revolvers, and pikes, shall not be introduced into the House, except when accompanied by a Member.
5. A Member shall be bound to attend every debate. A Member, however, shall be excused if he gets up in his place in the House and announces that he would be present were he not ill at home in bed.
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