Chapter 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

VOL. 158.

April 28, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

GENERAL DENIKIN is now in London. This is the first visit he has paid to this country since his last assassination by the Bolshevists.

* * *

New proposals regarding telephone charges are expected as soon as the Select Committee has reported. If the system of charging by time in place of piece-work is adopted it will mean ruination to many business-men.

* * *

The Swiss Government has issued orders that ex-monarchs may enter the country without passports. It is required, however, that they should take their places in the queue.

* * *

It is reported that a Londonderry man walked up to a Sinn Feiner the other day and said, "Shoot me." We understand that the real reason why the fellow was not accommodated was that he omitted to say "Please." The best Sinn Feiners are very punctilious.

* * *

"The drinking of intoxicants," says an American prohibitionist, "causes early death in ninety-five cases out of a hundred." Several Americans, we are informed, have gallantly offered themselves for experimental purposes.

* * *

"It is a scandal," says a contemporary, "that the clerks at Llanelly should ask for twelve pounds fifteen shillings a week." But surely there is no harm in asking.

* * *

According to a weekly paper not only is CONSTANCE BINNEY a famous screen star, but she is also a first-class ukelele player. The latest reports are that the news has been received quietly.

* * *

"If slightly cut before cooking, potatoes slip out of their skins easily," says a home journal. This is better than frightening them out of their skins by jumping out from behind a door and saying "Boo."

* * *

Mr. WILLIAM AIRD, the germ-proof man, has been giving demonstrations in London. It is reported that last week a germ snapped at him and broke off two of its teeth.

* * *

"In New York the other day," says a contemporary, "the sky kept streaming silver sheen; mistlike lights pulsated in rapid flashes to the apex and piled-up stars could be seen." The fact that New York can still see things like this must be a sorry blow to the Prohibitionists.

* * *

"Working men have been hit very hard by the tyrannical Budget," announces a morning paper. We too are in sympathy with those miners who are now faced with only one bottle of champagne a day.

* * *

"These cotton boom profits," said the President of the Textile Institute recently, "are abnormal and unhealthy." The Manchester man, however, who recently came out with innumerable spots resembling half-crowns as the result of the boom, declares that no inconvenience is suffered once the dizziness has passed away.

* * *

From Bungay in Suffolk comes the news that a water-wagtail has built its nest in a milk-can. We resolutely refrain from comment.

* * *

A youth recently arrested in Dublin was found not to have a revolver on him. He is being detained for a medical examination.

* * *

A great many people are committing suicide, says the Vicar of St. Mathew's, Portsmouth, because they have nothing to live for. We disagree. _The Weekly Dispatch's_ accounts of the next world are well worth staying alive for.

* * *

Airships under construction, declares Air-Commodore E. M. MAITLAND, will make the passage to Australia in nine and a-half days. In tax-paying circles it is said that the fashionable thing will be to start now and let the airship overtake you if it can.

* * *

More than a million Americans, it is stated, are preparing to visit Europe this summer. It is thought that there is at least a sporting chance that some of them will be hoist with their own bacon.

* * *

"The man who does not know Latin," says the Dean of DURHAM, "is not really educated." Several uneducated business men are said to have written to the DEAN asking the Latin for what they think of the new Budget.

* * *

At a recent wedding in Tyrone young men who had come to wish the bride and bridegroom luck lit a fire against the door, blocked the chimney with straw, broke the windows, threw water and cayenne-pepper on the wedding-party and bombarded the house with stones for two hours. It is just this joyous, care-free nature of the Irish that the stolid Englishman will never learn to appreciate.

* * *

We understand that the man who tried to gain admission to the Zoo on Sunday by making a noise like a Fellow of the Zoological Society was detected in the act.

* * *

A person who recently attempted to commit suicide by lying down on the Caledonian Railway line was found to have a razor in one pocket and a bottle of laudanum in the other. The Company, we understand, strenuously deny the necessity of these alternatives.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A Callous Crowd.

"The christening ceremony was performed by Lady Maclay, wife of the Shipping Controller. Thousands of people saw her go down the slips, and cheers were raised as she took the water without the slightest hitch." _Daily News._

We gather from the expression, "without the slightest hitch," that not one of the onlookers made any effort to save the lady.

* * * * *

THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET.

BY A PATRIOT.

THIS twelvemonth at the grindstone I have ground, Toiling to meet the toll of profiteers, And now comes AUSTEN, budgeting around, "Comes the blind Fury with the abhorréd shears" (MILTON), and leaves me naked as a poodle, Shorn--to the buff--of my laborious boodle.

I own it irks me little when he goes For fancy weeds and wine of fizzy brands; But I protest at parting through the nose For what the meanest human life demands; Nothing is sacred from his monstrous paw, Not letters, no, nor even usquebaugh.

That beverage, which invites to balmy sleep (Guerdon of toil), is on the upward ramp; My harmless doggerel--in itself so cheap-- Despatched by post will want a larger stamp; Nor have I any wives or children to Abate the mulcting of my revenue.

But if you tell me I am asked to bleed For England; if, by being rudely tapped, My modest increment may help at need To spare some Office which would else be scrapped; If my poor fleece of wool by heavy cropping Can save the Civil Estimates from dropping;--

If I can keep in comfortable ease But one superfluous Staff for one week's play; If from my squalor I may hope to squeeze The wherewithal to check for half a day The untimely razing of a single Hut-- 'Tis well; I will not even murmur "Tut."

O. S.

* * * * *

A TRYING DAY IN MEDIÆVAL TIMES.

THE public torturer hurried home in an irritable frame of mind. The day had been for him one long round of annoyances. When he commenced his duties that morning, already exasperated by the thought that if the drought continued the produce of his tiny patch of ground would be completely ruined, he was aggrieved to find that far more than his fair share of a recently arrived batch of heretics had been allotted to him. During the midday break for refreshments his dreamy assistant had allowed the furnace to go out, bringing upon the torturer's own head a severe censure for the consequent delay. In the afternoon, glancing occasionally through the narrow window, he was mortified to see that the promising rain-clouds, which might yet have saved his cabbages, were dispersing; and then, to crown all, just as he was finishing for the day he had caught hold of a pair of pincers a trifle too near the white-hot end and seared his hand.

As he approached the cottage which was enshrined in his heart by a thousand sacred associations as home, the torturer strove to rise superior to his worries. He whistled bravely as he crossed the threshold and caressed his wife with his usual tenderness. Intuitively she divined the bitterness of the mood which lay beneath the torturer's seeming cheerfulness, but she stifled her curiosity like the wise little woman she was and hastened to lay his supper before him. Through the progress of the meal--prepared by her in the way the torturer loved so well--she diverted him with her lively prattle. And at length, when she trod on the dog and caused it to give out a long-drawn howl, she made such a neat allusion to the Chamber and heretics that the torturer laughed till the tears streamed down his cheeks.

After the table was cleared the torturer's little blue-eyed girl came toddling up to him for her usual half-hour's cuddle. It made a beautiful picture--the little mite with her father's merry eyes and her mother's rosebud mouth, sitting on the torturer's knee, her golden hair mingling with his beard. And how her silvery laugh brightened the place as she played her favourite game of stretching her rag doll on a toy model of a rack.

The sound of rain outside brought the torturer and his wife to the door. As they stood side by side watching the downpour the last vestige of the torturer's ill-humour passed away. This rain would mean a record year for his cabbages, and would do wonders for his beans, which were already a long way more forward than those of the executioner.

He realised now that he had allowed the mishaps of the day to worry him unduly. After all, his hand had suffered little more than a scorch and no longer pained him, and, although the censure he had received in the Chamber and the possible consequences had been very disquieting, yet he was now able to assure himself and his wife that if henceforth he kept his assistant from wool-gathering all would be well.

Suddenly he fell back trembling from the threshold, his face blanched with terror. A large rain-drop had splashed on his forehead, reminding him abruptly that before coming home that evening he had neglected to fill the water-dripping apparatus, which might be required at dawn for the more obstinate of the heretics.

* * * * *

TALL TALK.

THE fact that the Bishop-Elect of PRETORIA, the Rev. NEVILLE TALBOT, is no less than six feet six inches high, surpassing his predecessor by two inches, has been freely commented on in the Press. Anxious to ascertain from leaders of public opinion the true significance of the appointment, Mr. Punch has been at pains to collect their views. How divergent and even contradictory they are may be gathered from the following selection:--

Sir MARTIN CONWAY, the Apostle of Altitude, as he has been recently denominated, welcomed the appointment of Bishop TALBOT as a good omen for the campaign which he is so ably conducting. "Nothing," he remarks, "has impressed me so much in the works of TENNYSON as the line, 'We needs must love the highest when we see it.' Mountain or building or man, it is all the same. I never felt so happy in all my travels in South America as when I was in Patagonia, the home of tall men and the giant sloth. At all costs we should recognise and cultivate the human skyscraper."

The Bishop of HEREFORD (Dr. HENSLEY HENSON) expressed the hope that the appointment of bishops would not be governed solely by an anthropometric standard. It would be a misfortune if the impression were created that preferment to the episcopal bench was confined to High Churchmen.

The Editor of _The Times_ declined to dogmatize on the subject. He pointed out however that the average height of the Yugo-Slavs exceeded that of the Welsh. The claims of small nations could not, of course, be overlooked, but he considered it as little short of a calamity when a Great Power had an undersized Prime Minister. Short men liked short cuts, but, as BACON said, the shortest way is commonly the foulest.

Dr. ROBERT BRIDGES (the Poet-Laureate) writes to say that, having given special study to the hexameter, he was much interested to find that the measure now in vogue amongst bishops was that of six feet and over. He hoped to treat the subject exhaustively in his forthcoming treatise on Ecclesiastical Prosody.

Colonel L. C. AMERY, M.P., strongly deprecated the attempt to identify excessive height with extreme efficiency. In the election to Fellowships at All Souls no height limit was imposed. NAPOLEON and the late Lord ROBERTS were both small men, and he believed that the remarkable elusiveness displayed by Colonel LAWRENCE in the War was greatly facilitated by his diminutive stature. The testimony of literature throughout the ages was almost unanimous in its condemnation of giants. He had never heard of a small ogre. On the subject of SHAKESPEARE'S height he could not speak with assurance, but KEATS was only just over five feet. Jumbomania, or the worship of mammoth dimensions, was a modern disease. Far better was the philosophy crystallised in such immortal sayings as "Love me little, love me long," and "Infinite riches in a little room."

Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY, M.P., observed that, man being an imitative animal and bishops being regarded by many as good examples, there seemed to him a serious danger of an epidemic of what he might call Brobdingnagitis. Fortunately the results would not be immediately apparent, otherwise he would be compelled to raise his tariff for cheap suits. A rise of six inches in the average height of his customers would throw out all his calculations and eat up the modest margin of profit which he now allowed himself.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

"The weather of the week has been characteristic of the month. A dawn breaks with a fair sunset."--_Scotch Paper._

Of course this happens only very far North.

* * * * *

SAFETY PLAY.

(_According to local legend, Whitby Abbey possesses a ghost which only appears in a blaze of sunshine_).

MEN there may be so immune from timidity Never a spectre could fill them with fright, Men who could keep their accustomed placidity Were they to meet in the gloom of the night Lady Hermione tramping the corridor, Wicked Sir Guy with his fetters adrag, Or a plebeian who shrieked something horrid or Carried his head in a vanity bag.

Not such am I. Every hair at the vertical, I should resort to hysterical screams Did a diaphanous Lady (or Sir) tickle Me on the cheek in the midst of my dreams; Yet when, at Yule, I hear people converse on all Manner of spooks round the log in the grate, Often I wish that I too had a personal Psychic experience I could relate.

I am a coward when midnight looms murkily, But when the sunlight of noon's at its best I could face calmly--I'd even say perkily-- Nebulous figures as well as the rest; So I'll to Whitby, and (on the hypothesis That she'll obligingly come to me there) Wait in its abbey (see text). By my troth, this is Just such a ghost as I'm ready to dare.

* * * * *

MASCULINE MODES.

BY BEAU BRUMMEL.

THE news that the price of lounge suits will have risen to twenty-four pounds by the autumn has created something of a sartorial panic in the City and the West End.

Famous old wardrobes are being broken up on all sides by owners anxious to acquire fresh clothing before it is too late, whilst the small properties thus created find eager tenants amongst those who cannot afford a new outfit at all.

Many tailors who have built new suits are beginning to dispose of them on three or five year repairing leases, and possession of these may sometimes be secured from the present occupiers on payment of a substantial premium.

Gentlemen possessing both town and country sets of suitings are in many cases letting the latter in order to come up to London for the season, whilst others are resorting to various economical artifices to meet the crisis. Plus four golf knickers, let down, make admirable wedding trousers for a short man, and many are the old college blazers dyed black and doing duty as natty pea-jackets.

In the City, of course, fustian and corduroys are almost the only wear, and there is much divergence of opinion on the Stock Exchange as to the best knot for spotted red neckerchiefs and the proper way of tying the difficult little bow beneath the knees.

In Parliament, where of course the old costly fashions have long been out of vogue, the change is equally noticeable. Lord ROBERT CECIL, for instance, habitually wears the white canvas suit in which Mr. AUGUSTUS JOHN painted him; Lord BIRKENHEAD mounts the Woolsack in an old cassock, which, as he points out, not only allows a very scanty attire underneath it, but gives him particular confidence in elucidating St. Matthew; while the PRIME MINISTER himself set off for San Remo in a simple set of striped sackcloth dittos. Many Members are having their old pre-war morning coats turned; Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL in machine-gun overalls, Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY self-dressed, Sir EDWARD CARSON in a simple union suit, are conspicuous figures, and Mr. HORATIO BOTTOMLEY by a whimsical yet thrifty fancy often attends the House in the humble attire of the Weaver in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.

Even in the Welsh collieries it is becoming the habit to go down the pits in rough home-spun, and reserving the top hat, morning coat and check trousers for striking in.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"DENIKIN TIRED.

LOOKING FOR A LITTLE HOUSE IN ENGLAND."

_Evening Standard._

The gallant General is not the only one who is worn out with this hopeless task.

* * * * *

"Sir John Cadman, head of the British Oil Department, has left Birmingham for San Remo."--_Evening Paper._

Was this the last hope of restoring calm to the "troubled waters"?

* * * * *

"He has represented Lowestoft at St. Stephen's--one of the most important fishing centres in the country--for many years past."

_Daily Paper._

The House of Commons seems to have been confused with Izaak Walton Heath.

* * * * *

"LADIES' GOLF AT RANELAGH.

Miss ---- played badly and tore up her card as well as many other ladies of note."

_Provincial Paper._

But it is hoped that this method of thinning out the competitors will not be generally resorted to.

* * * * *

"MURAL TEACHING.

Speaking at Manchester last night Lord Haldane advocated a great and new national reform by enabling the Universities to train the best teachers of their own level to go out and do extra Mural teaching on a huge scale."

_Provincial Paper._

We gather that in our contemporary's opinion it is high time that our Universities recognised "the writing on the wall."

* * * * *

A VANISHED SPECIES.

THE great auk is but a memory; the bittern booms more rarely in our eastern marshes; and now they tell me Brigadiers are extinct. Handsomest and liveliest of our indigenous fauna, the bright beady eye, the flirt of the trench coat-tail through the undergrowth, the glint of red betwixt the boughs, the sudden piercing pipe--how well I knew them, how often I have lain hidden in thickets and behind hedgerows to study them more closely. How inquisitive the creature was, yet how seldom would it feed from the hand. And now, it seems, they are gone.

Vainly I rack my brains to envisage the manner of their passing. Is there to be nothing left but silence and a shadow or a specimen in a dusty case of glass preserved in creosol and stuffed with lime? Or did not the Brigadiers rather, when they felt their last hour was upon them, retire like the elephants of the jungle to some distant spot and shuffle off the mortal coil in the midst of Salisbury Plain or (for so I still picture it despite the ravages of a rude commercialism) the vast solitude of Slough?

Or it may be that they underwent some classic metamorphosis, translated to a rainless paradise, where they dreamed of battalions for ever inspected and the general salute eternally blown.

"And there, they say, two bright and agéd snakes Who once were brigadiers of infantry Bask in the sun."

Anyhow, I cannot believe that ex-Brigadiers die. They only fade away. Fade away, I think, like the Cheshire Cat in _Alice in Wonderland_, leaving at the last not a grin but a scowl behind them. "_Brigadiers will fade away_," I imagine, ran the instruction from the Army Council, "_passing the vanishing point in the following order:--_

(1) _Spurs._ (2) _Field Boots._ (3) _Main body._ (4) _Brass hat._ (5) _Scowl._"

But oh, how they will be missed, with their insatiable hunger for replies! I remember one in particular, very fierce and black-moustached, who used to pop up suddenly from behind a Loamshire hedge with an enormous note-book in his hand and say to unhappy company commanders, "The situation is so-and-so and so-and-so; now let me hear you give your orders." And the Company-Commander, who would have liked to read through _Infantry Training_ once or twice and then hold a sort of inter-allied conference with his Platoon-Commander, putting the Company Sergeant-Major in the chair, felt that after frightfulness of this kind mere actual war would probably be child's-play. And yet they tell me he was a pleasant enough fellow in the Mess, this Brigadier, and liked good cooking. Now I come to think of it, he faded away before the War came to an end. He faded away into a Major-General.

How different from this sort was the type that could always be placated by a glittering bayonet charge or a thoroughly smart salute! I remember one of this kind who came charging across the landscape, his Staff Captain at his heels, to a point where he saw a friend of mine apparently lost in meditation and sloth. Unfortunately the great man's horse betrayed him as he tried to jump a low hedge, and, when he had clambered up again and arrived in a rather tumbled condition to ask indignantly what had happened to the scouts, "They have established a number of hidden observation posts," my friend replied, keeping his presence of mind, "and are making an exact report of everything that transpires on the enemy's front," and he waved his arm towards the scene of the catastrophe. It was not thought necessary to examine their notes.

In France Brigadiers were mainly divided into the sort that came round the front line themselves, and the sort that sent the Brigade-major or somebody else who had broken out into a frontal inflammation to do it for them. It is difficult to say which _genus_ was the more alarming.

The first was apt to exhibit its contempt for danger by strolling about in perilous places for five minutes and leaving them to be shelled in consequence for a week.

The second sort was apt to issue orders depending for fulfilment on a faulty map reference or a landmark which had been carelessly removed by an H.E. shell. One of the most _intransigeant_ of this kind whom I remember could always, however, be softened by souvenirs; a cast-off Uhlan's lance or the rifle of a Bosch sniper went far to console him for the barrenness of a patrol report. I feel sure he must have faded at Slough.