Part 2

Whenever the 12th of August, or, for the matter of that, the 1st of September or the 1st of October, comes round with the revolving year, we are informed in every newspaper that "Sportsmen were early astir." There is about these words a halo of tradition so ancient and venerable as to have become almost sacred. Imagination conjures up the picture of happy bands of shooters all duly booted, gaitered, gunned, cartridged and cigarred, sallying forth with dogs and keepers at 5 A.M., no doubt after eating, as condemned men do, a hearty breakfast. Of course this may be so. I have read it so often that I hardly dare to doubt it. My own experience, however, is that sportsmen are not specially early even on the 12th, although keepers and other professional guns who cater for the London market are often so early as to anticipate by more than a few hours the recurring anniversary.

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Now with black London's close and torrid street Stern Caledonia's heathered moors compete. Lo, well equipped with cartridge-bag and gun, Concurrent streams of rank and fashion run Where, though the birds be strong upon the wing, Not unrewarded sounds the frequent ping; Where dealing fate to feather (and to fur) The early sportsman is perceived astir, And in the lengthy language of the chase, A bird's no bird, but merely half a brace. Some skilful, some not fit to shoot for nuts, Walk for their game or take their stand in butts; And, wondrous fact, as all the scribes proclaim, Each from a separate butt destroys his game. At least it was so when the EMPEROR shot, so With non-Imperials it perhaps is not so.

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I am never irritable myself; I am sometimes justifiably annoyed by the unreasonable conduct of a friend. But I have often noticed the most melancholy irritability in others, and have wondered why they gave way to it, and what it portended. Now I know. I have been reading the _Medical Press and Courier_, and I learn from it that "this hyperæsthesia of the temper is the direct outcome of overwork and want of sleep; in fact, it is a morbid sensitiveness of the cells of the cerebral cortex due to exhaustion or under-nutrition. Irritability is, therefore a clinical sign of some importance, the more so because it is often the premonitory indication of impending breakdown. Under these circumstances, the condition is usually most marked during the forenoon, and is associated with a distaste for food at breakfast time. Later on, even the humanising effect of a good lunch fails to raise circulatory activity to the standard required for adequate cerebral nutrition, and the irritability becomes chronic, yielding only to the influence of repeated doses of a diffusible stimulant, such as brandy and soda. The remedy naturally only aggravates the symptom, which is sooner or later followed by other manifestations of cerebral exhaustion."

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When you're lost in the whirl of a medical vortex, You gasp and you grasp, and you'll struggle in vain; For it seems you have cells in your cerebral cortex, Which is somehow connected, I fancy, with brain. Exhausted and panting with under-nutrition, You dare not presume to declare yourself well, And you rapidly tend to complete inanition, Produced by a morbidly sensitive cell. The result is a wound to the temper, a something Not as deep as a well, but, no matter, it serves, Perplexing your friends, who pronounce it a rum thing That DICK--that's yourself--should have gone in the nerves. You toy with your breakfast; the kidney, the kipper, The egg that is buttered, the egg that is fried, The tea that once found you a regular sipper, Unsipped and untasted you push them aside. Your lunch of cold beef with the gaff and the shandy, You simply can't face it, your head is one ache: A "diffusible stimulant" (alias brandy) Is all that you wish for and all that you take. A day or two back all your manners were courtly, Alas, what a change is apparent to-day, For you jump on your friends, and you take them up shortly, With a quarrel a minute whatever they say. Then, in spite of the canon that's set 'gainst self-slaughter (In the language of verdicts it's _felo de se_,) Some day you'll be found with your head in the water, Six inches will do, or attached to a tree.

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There have been some difficulties at Brierly Hill. At a recent meeting of the Urban Council a letter was read from the Local Government Board asking for information with regard to a communication which Dr. ELLIS, the medical officer of health, had addressed to them. This referred to the fact that Dr. ELLIS had ordered a "dumb" well at the Town Hall to be cleared out. What is the use of a dumb well? Even if it contains the truth it cannot speak it. Personally, I prefer a babbling brook.

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What is this? Is it a revolution or merely a mistake? Do I sleep, do I dream, or is visions about? These questions occur to me on reading that at Ironbridge the other day a clown, a member of a circus, was brought up on remand charged with stealing £1 10s. and several articles, the property of his landlady. And he was actually sentenced to fourteen days' hard labour. All I can say is that I have rarely allowed a year to pass without seeing at least one clown steal a string of sausages, a lady's bonnet, two plump babies, half a dozen fowls, the greater part of a general dealer's property, and the upper half of a policeman. Nobody bothered him about it. In fact, everybody expected him to do it, and there would have been great dissatisfaction if he had observed the laws against larceny. And yet when a clown at Ironbridge acts as clowns are intended to act, an unfeeling bench visits him with a fortnight of hard labour. This is preposterous. There ought to be an Amalgamated Union of Clowns to protect its members from such an outrage.

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Those who study the reports of meetings of Town Councils learn many things. For instance, at Bristol the other day, during a discussion of passenger tolls at the docks, Mr. GORE complained that they had been hocussed by the chairman of the sub-committee that day. Mr. BAKER objected to the word "hocussed" being applied to him, but added that they had been hocussed out of a good deal of time to-day, and Mr. GORE retorted that they were going to be hocussed out of another quarter-of-an-hour yet. Mr. BAKER asked Mr. GORE to withdraw the word, and Mr. GORE refused. Matters had apparently come to a desperate pass, when it occurred to the Mayor to inquire what the word "hocussed" meant. Mr. BAKER thought it was something akin to cheating, whereupon Mr. GORE, in the handsomest manner, said that knowing the meaning of the word he would now withdraw it. The only thing that was not explained was why Mr. GORE had used a word of the meaning of which he was ignorant. There is a fatal attraction about the sound of certain words which forces speakers to use them entirely without regard to their actual meaning.

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'ARRY ON HARRY.

(_A Rejoinder to "Harry on 'Arry."_)

Dear CHARLIE,--My eye and a bandbox! Wot next, and _wot_ next, _and_ WOT next? 'Ere's a HARRY 'as mounted the pulpit, and taken poor _me_ as 'is text![A] 'E bangs _Boernerges_ to bittocks, this lar-de-dar bagman--in silk-- And 'e's going to do me a fair knock-out as sure as a whale ain't a whilk.

I larf, I do, CHARLIE, tremenjus! Wot's needled my nabs, it appears, Is 'is being mistooken for Me!!! Well, 'e needn't 'ave no blooming fears! The public ain't _all_ of 'em mugginses, some of 'em _can_ twig a joke. Confound _'im_ with _me?_ Yus, they will--when they can't tell _Bend Or_ from a moke.

'E calls me,--yus, _me_,--"the cad-cockney well known to the 'Eath and the 'Arp." Well, that's a fair challenge, old man, and I mean being on to 'im--sharp! I'll take 'im--with 'is aitches chucked in--with one 'and whensomever 'e likes; And "Cads" do the road in smart dog-carts as well as afoot or on bikes.

"'ARRY the Cad!" Great Jemimer! Jest fancy our HARRY'S disgust At the thought of their knocking _'is_ aitch out! 'E's fair on the bile and the bust. Way oh, HARRY! Do keep yer 'air on, old pal, if you've _got_ any thatch,-- For it's wonderful 'ow these swell HARRIES go in for the shiny pink patch!

It's their brines working through--_or_ their bumptiousness. _I_'ve got no hend of a crop, As looks, when I've 'ad a close clip, like a fuzz-bush a sprouting up top; But lor! these 'ere munchy-mouthed mashers--_with_ aitches--as gives theirselves hairs, Carn't grow any, not arter thirty, the bladder-o'-lardy-dar scares!

'Owsomever, that ain't to the pint, CHARLIE. Wot _is_ a Gent? That's the nip! Well, it's partly a matter of "snap"-like, and partly a matter of "snip." If I've got the grit and the gumption, and know 'ow to tog like a toff, I've got the true gent in my nyture, and them as ain't got it--they're hoff!

But "aitches" won't do it, my pippin! Yer grammar may be quite O K, All yer parts o' speech proper as pie, and yer spellin' fust chop in its way, But if you can't rattle and patter, and 'old up your end like a man, All yer mincey-wince mealy-mouthed has-p'rates is nothink but slop and cold-scran.

You may garsp out yer aitches in spassums, until you 'ave got a sore throat, And it won't give you "clarss" arf as much as cool cheek and the cut o' your coat. Wot the mivvies call hinsolent _hotoor_, wot cocktails dub cocksure conceit, With snideness and "suitings" to match,--_that_, dear boy, is wot makes the _eleet_.

There, HARRY, you've got it in once! And, now, dear boy, 'ow about you? Well, I guess, as the Yankees observe, you 'ave bit hoff a chunk you can't chew. Bit vulgar? Well, never mind that, mate, for, spite of _your_ finnickle fuss, It's jest wot you guffins calls "vulgar" as swells love to borrer from _hus_.

There's _chick_ in it, HARRY, and that's wot you chalk-witted chowders ain't got. Not one snappy snide phrase in your sermon, except that old gag "tommy rot," Which _you_ didn't invent, nor your sort; it's hus aitchless ones start all the fun, And our yesterday's wheeze you freeze on to to-morrer, as sure as a gun.

And the same with your sentiments, HARRY. Your loud "Rule, Britannyer" sall right; But _we_ gave you the patriot tip, years ago, in "_We don't want to fight._" You water it down, and then wave it as if 'twos your own privit flag, And then, arter nicking our principerles, slang us--_and with our own gag!_

I'm one with you as to the furriner, leastways _you_ seem one with _me_, And when you rile up at the rot about "'ARRIES Abroad," I agree. _I_ shan't discumfuddle myself if they _don't_ like my tystes or my togs. Let the Germans go 'ome and eat coke, Frenchies stick to their snyles and stewed frogs.

But when you suggest as the "aitch" makes a 'a'porth o' difference--Bosh! You call me a "aitch-droppin' howler," whilst you are "a gent"! It won't wash. _Me_ a Rad,--arter all I 'ave written? 'Taint much on it _you_ can 'ave seen. And to ask _Punch_ to give me the chuck!--yah! it's mean, Mister HARRY, it's mean!

[Footnote A: See "Harry on 'Arry," p. 81.]

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"A Battersea bounder," too! Rats!!! Do you think I'm a pal o' JACK BURNS? Mix _me_ with "the masses"? Great Scott! It's a thought as the soul o' me spurns. You jumped-up, cheap, Coventry bagman, silk-sampling, no doubt, is your biz, But sampling "the classes and masses" is _not_, blow me tight if it is!

Yah! Pack up your ribbings, _and_ aitches, and don't aggranoy me no more, But jest mind your own interference! A bounder you are--_and_ a bore. You've borrered my patriot sperrit, you've borrered a slang phrase or so, But there's one thing, my boy, you _carn't_ borrer, and that is my rattle and go!

There, CHARLIE, I've given _'im_ beans, this 'ere HARRY, as carn't abear Cads, And wants to put up a aitch-fence like to keep out us row-de-dow lads. Let 'im call 'isself 'ENERY at once, _that's_ the badge for sech bounders to carry, And then 'e may bet 'is larst bob as _'e_ won't be confounded with 'ARRY.

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THE SONG OF THE SHRIMPER.

[A correspondent, writing (to the _Daily Chronicle_) from Harwich, describes the deplorable condition of work prevailing among the shrimp catchers. "These poor fellows," he says, "are at sea twelve hours a day catching, and have to devote four hours more to boiling and packing for London. And yet all the middlemen send them down is from fourpence to fivepence a gallon."]

Toiling sixteen hours a day, and for precious little pay, Seems a blend of prison labour and starvation, Yet I do hear some suggestion that the "burning Labour Question" Is the one that mainly agitates the nation! No Trades Unions have we, and I do not rightly see How "Co-operative Wholesales" help _our_ like, Who must slave in sun or shine, cramped and chilled in the salt brine, With the choice of sheer starvation if we "strike." Labour Questions? Well, here's one. When the I. L. P.'s have done A-wrangling and a-jangling o' th' Election; When Mister CHAMBERLAIN has done counting o' the slain, And KEIR HARDIE a-explaining _his_ rejection; When TILLETT and JOHN BURNS have both taken of their turns At wildly lamming into one another, It might help to "cool their parritch" if they cast a glance at Harwich, And the state o' their poor shrimping "man and brother." Ah! above our nets to stoop, and to scrape, and scratch, and scoop, In loneliness laborious and risky, Is not a task, in truth, to encourage sturdy youth, Or make work-worn old age alert and frisky, Then with sore and aching back we have got to boil and pack; And then the hungry middleman's remittance, When it comes, is precious small, what a docker-lad would call A paltry and a belly-pinching pittance. Yet the Fish-Rings, they do say, are quite prosperous and gay, And Billingsgate is wealthy; and the skimpers Who so cut our profits down, live like fighting-cocks in town, On the ill-paid toil of fishermen and shrimpers! Ah! That "Harvest of the Sea" is a sounding phrase, but we Find such "poetry" for us has little meaning. The "Fish-Farmers" may do well, as their profits plump and swell, But, alas! for those who have to do the gleaning!

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A TRIP "PER SEA."

_Projected Re-visitation_--_Ilfracombe_--_Torrs Walks_--_En route_--_Start_--_In Dock_--_Out_--_Tender Thoughts_--_On Board_--Reception--_Greetings_--_Exciting Search_--_Parting_--_Off!_

_Happy Thought._--Revisit Ilfracombe. Hire highest possible house at the lowest possible price close to celebrated "Torrs Walks." Why called "Torrs Walks"? Probably original TORRS who discovered Ilfracombe used to walk here; one stormy night TORRS lost his head and legs; then fell from sheer height of several hundred feet into boiling sea; boiling sea made it hot for the unhappy TORRS; TORRS only walking, not swimming. Therefore end of TORRS. Family name perpetuated in Walks. Years ago, price to ascend Torrs was one penny per head, body included. Tariff gone up since then. To Torrs Torr-tuous Turnings admission Twopence. Extra penny might have improved paths. Here there is as much "winding up" as in bankruptcy. "_Excelsior_" is motto of visitor; likewise of proprietor who put on the extra penny. No matter; not another spot in England where pedestrian can get better air, better exercise, and finer views, all for twopence!

_Friendly Advice--gratis._--Always carry waterproof. If practicable get someone to carry it for you. Never know when you may want it, or when you mayn't. Stop for five o'clock tea on Torrs top. Whistle merrily "_Torr-eador contento_" as you descend, and you will be giving one of the best airs in _Carmen_ in return for about the finest air in Devonshire.

_How to get to Ilfracombe._--Per rail, London and South-Western. Picturesque line of country. Another, and a longer _route_, per _mare et terram_, and therefore more varied and health-refreshing, which are important points to score if your holiday be circumscribed, is to take passage on board steamer, Pacific Orient Line for choice, which stops at Plymouth _en route_ to give a last glance at Old England before proceeding across the Bay of Biscay to Naples, and, ultimately, Australia. Only drawback to this is the start from Fenchurch Street. Fenchurch Street Station enough to make anyone start. Wanted here a spacious, light and airy place where passengers carrying "hand properties" can move about rapidly without loss of that equanimity of temper which every traveller should cultivate under circumstances that would try even the joviality of that utterly impossible creation _Mark Tapley_. Still _Mark Tapley_ is an ideal to be lived up to as near as may be; and the passenger who, with bag in hand, while struggling with mixed crowd in Fenchurch Street Station on the departure of any important Tilbury Dock train, can be jovial or even ordinarily polite, is already in a fair way towards earning the Ideal Tapley Medal.

Tilbury Wharf. "And at this wharf of Tilbury" why not more porters? Why not a covering to the landing-stage, where at present, the traveller, like the sky parlour in ancient song, "exposed to the wind and the rain," will be thoroughly drenched while awaiting the advent of the tender. _Happy Thought._--To-day, fortunately, fine.

These queries occur to me as I stand on this floating quay, and witness in the distance the "tender parting." There will be many "a tender parting" beside this one to be seen when the _Orotava_ gets her steam up, and quits Tilbury for Melbourne.

We board the _Orotava_, which is to board and lodge so many of them (with another contingent going overland, and joining the ship later on) for the next month or so.

I am personally introduced to the captain by some kindly friends who come to see me off, and whom, as I lose sight of them in the crowd, it is soon my turn to "see off"; as subsequently I can only catch a glimpse of them in the crowd, on the tender, as they depart for shore, when we wave hands to one another implying thereby all sorts of good wishes. After making the captain's acquaintance, I am introduced by some light-hearted companion--everyone on board is either boisterously gay or in the deepest grief--to a good-humoured-looking portly gentleman, whom, there being nothing whatever nautical in his appearance, I should have taken for a landed proprietor, "one of the olden time," had I not very soon discovered him to be something uncommonly superior in the Nautical Pacific Service, and _the_ friend in need, without whom no passenger's happiness is complete, that is, speaking from practical experience, if the destination of that passenger is only Plymouth, as was mine.

_Farewell!_ The tender is about to depart. It seems to me to be as full as when it arrived. "Cheers, tears and laughter:" only the laughter is a bit forced, while the tears are natural, and the cheers most hearty. The tender hesitates. Tug evidently tender-hearted; can't bear to part with the good ship _Orotava_. No; this is not the cause of the delay. Some one is waited for. Tender crew impatient. Where is he? Who is he? Find him. Some one, in ordinary frock coat and top hat but clearly an official on board tender, puts both hands to his month and shouts out what sounds to me like "Wait for Mister TUBBS!" Evidently tender cannot go ashore without TUBBS; equally evident that TUBBS is not to sail with the _Orotava_. Puzzle, to find TUBBS. Stewards, chief officers, mates, men rush in all directions to rout out TUBBS. Look-out man aloft in sort of suspended clothes basket cannot get a sight of TUBBS either in the offing or out of it. Nothing like TUBBS to be seen anywhere. Somebody reports at top of voice "He's with the captain." Captain up above somewhere, invisible, denies soft impeachment as to being cognisant of the whereabouts of TUBBS. What is TUBBS doing? Playing hide and seek? Search light turned on into darkest and deepest depths of _Orotava_. No TUBBS. Suddenly first gangway withdrawn, and grasp of tender partially relaxed. Exciting moment. Crew of tender rattle second gangway threateningly: their patience is almost exhausted. The cry goes up once more for TUBBS ahoy! Even the weeping wives and sorrowing friends, lovers and children forget their dear ones for a moment and strain their eyes in every direction, gasping for a glimpse of invisible TUBBS. At last a small, stoutish figure appears on the gangway. Is he hatless? breathless? Not a bit of it. He walks the gangway as if he yet had hours of leisure before him, and was quite unconscious of having kept anyone waiting. It is TUBBS himself. The self-possession of TUBBS is remarkable, nay admirable. He notices nobody. Speaks to nobody. Suddenly he disappears; the gangway is withdrawn; more cheers, more waving of pocket-handkerchiefs, and the tender, with the impassive TUBBS to boot, drifts out of sight, and the _Orotava_ is fairly under weigh.

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THAT POOR IRISH HARP!

MOORE hymned the "Irish Melodies," And as he harped all heeded _his_ chords. But heaven help the bard who tries To harmonise the "Irish Discords" The Paddies quarrel, gird, and carp, Blend petty squeak with mad mock-thunder. No Minstrel Boy may tune that Harp Since faction "tore its chords asunder."

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A wedding of great interest to Welsh society, which took place lately in the Rhondda Valley, was that between Mr. SMITH and Miss MARGARET ABRAHAM, daughter of "Mabon," M.P. Of course "Ma bon-nie bride." The presents, though numerous and handsome enough, did not somehow include one that, having in view the nationality of the interesting pair, would have been singularly appropriate. There was no gift of Taff-eta.

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THE LATEST DANGER.

(_A Caution to those who are Interviewed._)