Part 1

Produced by Punch, or the London Charivari, Malcolm Farmer, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 93. October 1, 1887.

THE WAIL OF MESSRS. BURT AND FENWICK.

THE Northumberland Miners' U-ni-on Have bidden their BURT bego-o-one. It seems, by the ballot, we soon shall be all out, And there'll be an end to our fun.

_Chorus._--We've got no work to do-o-o-o! We have no work to do-o-o! We are poor Members, poor Working-Men Members, Who've got no work to do!

Oh, Morpeth and Wansbeck, o-o-oh! This same is a pretty go-o-o! The feelings why hurt of your FENWICK and BURT? We wouldn't have served _you_ so! _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

The Working-Men's Members of la-a-ate Were getting a power in the Sta-a-ate, But now they're rejected, or coldly ejected, Which same is a sorrowful fate. _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

JOE ARCH he had to go-o-o-o, Then LEICESTER, the other JO-O-OE! And now we two'll have to forfeit our "screw," Which is jolly hard lines, you know. _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

It's hardly fair play to gi-i-ive, To a Labour-Representati-i-ve, For without your cash, O Miners most rash, How, how shall we manage to live? _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

It is no doubt exceedingly tru-u-ue; We've found little work to do-o-o, In the House. For that same 'tis not _we_ who're to blame, But the long Irish hullaballo. _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

We know these are very hard ti-i-imes, To scrape up the dollars and di-i-imes; But when _we_, dear Miners, are robbed of the shiners, We're punished for other folks' crimes. _Chorus._--We've got no work, &c.

Of course if you give us the sa-a-ack, Our Gladstone bags we must pa-a-ack, But perhaps for this hurry some day you'll be sorry, And wish BURT and FENWICK both back.

_Chorus._--We've got no work to do-o-o-o! We're ballotted out of our scre-e-ew; Poor Working Men's Members, this worst of Septembers, In sorrow we sigh and boho-o-o!

THE 'EAT OF DISCUSSION. (_A Fancy founded on Facts._)

HE left the court with his colleagues at twenty minutes to one o'clock. He said nothing, but listened intently while the question of the Inquest was canvassed. Was it to be a verdict of Manslaughter or Murder, or only Accidental Death? He listened so intently that he was quite surprised when the clock struck two.

Yes two o'clock--time for his lunch!

He rose from his seat, and went to the door. He spoke to one on the other side, he talked of cuts from the joints, and chops and steaks.

He was answered with laughter!

Then he returned to his chair, rather put out at this ill-timed pleasantry, and listened once more to the arguments of his colleagues. They had got beyond the verdict now, and were discussing the "riders." The first, elaborately blaming the Magistrates, had been framed and passed, and the second dealing with the bye-laws of the Town Council was under consideration. Before it was finally settled the clock struck three!

Yes, three! and since twenty-minutes to one he had been locked in lunchless! He went to the door and beat it with his fists!

"Might he have a cut off the joint?"

"No!"

Again he was silent, and again his colleagues continued their discussion. They spoke in lower tones now, because they too were feeling the want of food. Four struck, and then five.

He staggered once more to the door, and in piteous tones made a last request,

Might he have a sandwich?

No!!!!!

It was too much! He ground his teeth in rage! Five hours had elapsed, and then the last and eighth rider, suggesting that after its final completion a theatre should be thrown open for public inspection for a week before a licence was granted, was passed. The work of the Jury was over.

It was indeed a painful scene. The eleven men who had taken part in the discussion were entirely exhausted. Some were slumbering from weakness, others were wearily "talking on their fingers." Hunger had made these last absolutely dumb. Reams of papers were scattered about covered with writing. Here and there was a quill-pen partly consumed. Even the blotting-pads testified to the presence of hungry men--some of the leaves showed the traces of a stealthy nibble. In the heat of argument hours before, a juryman, anxious to impress an opinion upon a sceptic colleague, had offered to "eat his hat." He now gazed at the head-gear with greedy eyes, as if anxious to carry out his proposition.

The Foreman, in a whisper, asked if anyone had any further suggestions to make.

Then the rage of the starving one gave him fictitious strength. He stood up, and shrieked out, "I express my opinion that the non-supply of refreshments to the Jury for several hours is a blot on the legal system of the country!"

In a moment the Foreman and his colleagues sprang to their feet, and, making a supreme effort, shouted out, "Agreed! agreed! agreed!"

And what further did these poor famished men, these heroes of the long, foodless day, these martyrs to a cruel system--a wretched system--these victims to an abuse that should be swept away like chaff before the wind--ay, what farther did they do after their trumpet-tongued cry of indignant denunciation?

Why (it is to be sincerely hoped) that they went home and had their dinner!

THE BICYCLISTS OF ENGLAND.

"Mr. STURMEY, in the preface to the new edition of his _Handbook of Bicycling_, sketches the progress of this enormously popular amusement since the appearance of his last edition, rather more than five years ago."--_Daily Paper._

YE Bicyclists of England Who stride your wheels with ease, How little do you think upon What Mr. STURMEY sees. The wheelmen's standard rises high With every year that goes. Wheels sweep, fast and cheap, Whereof STURMEY'S trumpet blows-- Our cycles range more swift and strong, And STURMEY'S trumpet blows.

The Cycles of our fathers Were "bone-shakers," and few, But the cinder-path's broad field of fame Shows what their sons can do. When WYNDHAM rose, and STANTON fell, The pace was cramped and slow; Their creep to our sweep Rouses STURMEY'S scorn, you know-- Our Cycles now run fleet and strong, And STURMEY'S trumpets blow.

Britannia needs no bulwark-- Tariffs her trade to keep, Her "wheels" are found on every path; Coventry's not asleep. Our WOODS and HOWELLS wheel like fun, JACK KEEN can make 'em go. Foes we floor from each shore, Whereof STURMEY'S trumpets blow-- Our Cyclists lick the world by long, And STURMEY'S trumpets blow.

The "Meteor" wheels of England Shall yet terrific turn; 'Tis true that France gave us a start-- Now she has much to learn. To you, our brave wheel-warriors, Our song and glass shall flow; To the fame of your name Mr. STURMEY'S trumpets blow-- Cycles or Cyclists, _ours_ are best, So why should we _not_ blow?

* * * * *

HEAVY LIGHTNING.--Lord GRIMTHORPE, _a propos_ of Lightning Conductors, with his customary courtesy, writes to the _Times_ of his opponent's (also a Correspondent to the leading journal) desire "to display his own smartness," and speaks of that opponent's opinions as "mere nonsense, due to his ignorance." He concludes, "If he wants the last word, he is welcome to it." Lord GRIMTHORPE'S last word (if really the last) is preferable.

* * * * *

"The Mandarin had an only daughter, named LI-CHI, who fell in love with CHANG, a young man who lived in the island-home represented at the top of the pattern, and who had been her father's secretary. The father overheard them one day making vows of love under the orange-tree, and sternly forbade the unequal match; but the lovers contrived to elope, lay concealed for awhile in the gardener's cottage, and thence made their escape in a boat to the island-home of the young lover. The enraged Mandarin pursued them with a whip, and would have beaten them to death, had not the gods rewarded their fidelity by changing them both into turtle-doves. The picture is called the Willow-Pattern, not only because it is a tale of disastrous love, but because the elopement occurred 'when the willow begins to shed its leaves.'"--_Legend of the Willow-Pattern._

SCENE--_that of the tradition. Season, willow-fall. Hour, sundown._

_Li-Chi_ (_sings_)--

The poor soul sat sighing by a rum-looking tree, Sing, once a green willow; But now all its leaves smell of base L _s._ _d._; Sing willow, willow, willow!

The old stream runs by her, not with the old tones, Sing willow, willow, willow! But, churned by coarse paddles, it plashes and groans; Sing willow, willow, willow!

_Chang._ Ah, yellow and irradiant sunflower of my soul's secret shrine, sing not thus dolefully, I entreat thee. What avails the permission to escape awhile our old ornithological metamorphosis, and revisit once again the glimpses of the Mandarin's country seat, the pavilion, the peach and the orange-tree, the elegant wooden fence, the bridge, the boat, and, above all, the willow, only to sing songs whose spirit-cleaving cadences sting thy CHANG more than ever did the angry Mandarin's whip-lash?

_Li-Chi (mournfully)._ What, indeed? But O, sublimated saffron-bag of my spirit's idolatry, who can help weeping at sight of _this_?

_Chang (reading)._ "National and International Amalgamated Bank!" O, mighty but much-too-free-with-the-whip-hand-of-parental-authority Mandarin of the Middle Kingdom, what would you have thought of this transformation?

_Li-Chi._ Papa was impetuous. Our--our elopement angered him. But Telegraph-poles, Telephone Exchanges, River Steamers, Banks and Blazing Posters!!--Alas!!!

_Chang (hotly)._ By the isolated button of Celestial supereminence, it is too bad! What _can_ LI HUNG CHANG, that dragon-claw of the throne, that amber-souled prop of imperial perpendicularity be about, I wonder?

_Li-Chi (meditatively)._ We--e--ell,--perhaps he knows, after all.

_Chang._ What meaneth the tintinnabulant tea-blossom of my trivial and ephemeral personality?

_Li-Chi (archly)._ The "Heathen Chinee," as the wanton Western scribe insolently calls him, is indeed "peculiar," as perchance even Count EUGENE STANISLOW KOSTKA DE MITKIEWICZ and Mr. JAY-GOULD, HOOD, MACKAY the multi-millionnaire, and BARKER Brothers the Bankers, New York Syndicates and Philadelphian Silver Rings, may yet discover as clearly and completely as did _Bill Nye_ and _Truthful James_ of the ribald ballad.

_Chang (admiringly)._ Verily even the orbicular contractility of dexter-optical semi-closure becometh those almond eyes, oh! flesh-enshrined opium-ecstasy of my most transcendental inwardness.

_Li-Chi (smartly)._ I should think it did, indeed! A wink is as good as a nod to a blind lover. "Melican Man" is very 'cute and enterprising; but whether he'll find it quite so easy as he fancies to "run" the Celestial Kingdom, or "exploit" the Flowery Land, remains as the never-sufficiently-to-be-commended-and-left-carefully-unread KUNG-FOO-TZE would say, "to be duskily adumbrated in the spirit-speculum of the yet To-be."

_Chang._ Quite so. Still, O million-berried mulberry-tree of my mean and inconsiderable soul-garden, to have our own secular love-legend and its many-centuried Scene thus sordidly transmogrified, cannot, O, shining one of my spirit's crepuscular gloom. O, beneficent betel-nut of my supersensual Palate"--

_Li-Chi._ Well, CHANG, after all, novelty hath its charm--after a cycle or two, you know. Marquis TSENG talks about "the awakening of China." As if there was ever a Celestial who, for all his childlikeness and blandness, was not very wide-awake indeed! Why, LI-CHI, if ever _we_ had our time over again, _do_ you think that transmutation into a pair of turtle-doves,--bird-beatitudes, my CHANG, are _so_ limited!--would form the acme of our mutual aspirations?

_Chang._ Well, per--haps not, LI-CHI.

Better fifty years of Europe Than a Cycle of Cathay,--

--as turtle-doves, you know. Still, that chuckling and cavorting American fowl, that two-headed and vulturine Russo-Polish Eagle, do not quite fit into the Mongolian Arcadia of the Willow-pattern plate; now do they? We have fallen, lily of my life, upon sordid, and subversive, and sceptical times, when millions of taels move our Mandarins to Modernism, when Silver Rings and Syndicates, can set up a Party of Progress in the Realm of the Immutable, and when doubts have been thrown by shallow scribes upon the existence of the Great Wall of China itself!

_Li-Chi (shuddering)._ Dreadful, dear! Let's turn back into turtle-doves at once, and coo ourselves into truly Celestial obliviousness of this colossal Yankee _coup_, which threatens--perchance prematurely--to fix for all time _this_ preposterously Western and barbaric picture as the Willow Pattern of the Future! [_They do so._

* * * * *

_Countryman._ "FI' POUNDS TOO MUCH FOR HIM? HE'S A WON'ERFUL GOOD SPORTIN' DAUG, SIR! WHY HE COME TO A DEAD PINT IN THE STREET, SIR, CLOSE AG'IN A OL' GEN'LEMAN, THE OTHER DAY--'FUST O' SEPTEMBER IT WAS, SIR!--AN' THE GEN'LEMAN TOLD ME ARTERWARDS AS HIS NAME WERE 'PARTRIDGE'!"

_Customer._ "YOU DON'T SAY SO!" [_Bargain struck!_

* * * * *

"PAYING THEIR SHOT."

A PARTY of excursionists from the Tyne thought it a pleasant way of spending a Bank-holiday to go wantonly shooting swarms of sea-birds on the Farne Islands. When remonstrated with by the more humane man in charge, they considered it still greater "sport" to threaten to push an oar down his throat, and make a target of him. These sportive souls indeed managed amongst them to "hit his felt hat and graze his left thumb" with shot. But when 239 of them were summoned under the Wild Birds Act, and had to pay fines and expenses to the tune of some L70, they probably modified their notion of the nature and claim of "Sport," and found that "paying the shot" in that sense was the least pleasant part of shooting. Some of them were probably left without "a shot in the locker." A few more such wholesome lessons, and the "Cad with a Gun," the "Brute with a Double-Barrel," may no longer be found depopulating Nature's feathered preserves and disgracing the name of honest Sport.

* * * * *

SALUBRITIES ABROAD.

AT last I have seen him!--the travelling Englishman, the English Milord of the French Farce--"Oah, c'est moa!" of the _Journal Comique_.

* * * * *

But if the farce Milord is grotesque, the English "Mees" is equally ridiculous. I met, the other day, a lady of Albion, who was strutting about with an enormous "handled" _pince-nez_ raised to her eyes, while she expressed her opinion "that those foreigners really _do_ dress _so_ absurdly!"

* * * * *

_Diary of a Day._--At all these Stations Thermales the pleasantest hours of the day are sacrificed to the interests of the band, the casinos, the cercle, and the evening amusements. _Les Baigneurs serieux_ ought not to require any amusement after 9.30, and by ten they should be in bed. Their hours for walking and other exercise should be very early in the morning, or late in the evening before dinner. The remainder of the day should be given up to baths, to drinking waters, _dejeuner a la fourchette_, and rest.

* * * * *

By the way, at the top of the daily menu at the Continental Hotel the _dejeuner a la fourchette_ at 11 A.M. is styled "LUNCH." PULLER resents this as strongly as he does a waiter's answering him, "Yees, Sare," when he has given an order in his best French. Now this meal at 11 A.M. is not an English lunch, but is the French _dejeuner a la fourchette_. Is it becoming the common practice in hotels on the Continent? If so, the English will soon remember that they don't come abroad for lunch--they can "lunch" well enough at home--but they do come abroad for _dejeuner a la fourchette_, and, if they do not get it, they will stay away.

"It's confoundedly insulting!" exclaims PULLER, indignantly. "Do they think we don't know what a _dejeuner a la fourchette_ means? But, dash it, you know," he goes on, in the tone of a man whom a very little more of this sort of treatment would disgust with life generally, "they're making everybody abroad so English." Then he repeats, "So English, you know," in imitation of some American burlesque actor, and this has the effect of restoring his good humour. He thinks the quotation so apt and so humorous, that he expands in chuckles, and goes out of the _salle-a-manger_ doing a step, and repeating, "So English, you know!" The French, Spanish, and the visitors of various nationalities, shake their heads, shrug their shoulders, and evidently hope he is harmless. The waiters smile, and this reassures the guests.

* * * * *

The special merit of the Royat Drinking Waters and Baths consists in the large amount of iron contained in them. Over the gates of the Park at Royat, where the _Etablissement_ and _Buvettes_ are situated, should be inscribed, for the benefit of English visitors, "Washing and Ironing done here."

* * * * *

_The Uncertain Bather._--My acquaintance MORDEL is another variety of the genus _baigneur_. He is dissatisfied only with himself. He is perpetually having a row with himself. The Hotel is good enough, he says; the Doctor is all that can be desired. The baths and waters are managed very well; but the question is, he says to himself, "Was I right in coming here at all? Ought I not to have gone to Aix? or to Vichy? or to Homburg? or to Mont Dore, or to La Bourboule?" "Well, but"--I say to him, with a view to reconciling him to himself--"are the waters doing you good?" He reluctantly admits that they are not doing him any harm--as yet. In this state of uncertainty he remains during the whole course of treatment, and, to the last, he is of opinion that he ought to have gone to some other place, no matter where.

* * * * *

It is a real pleasure to see SMITH, of the Colosseum Club, meet BROWN, also a member of the same sociable institution. He greets BROWN heartily,--never was so glad to see anybody. Yet they are anything but inseparables in London; and it certainly was not owing to SMITH'S good offices that BROWN was elected to the Colosseum. BROWN has just arrived at Royat, and is not so effusive at the sight of SMITH, as SMITH, who has been here ten days, is on beholding BROWN. "THOMPSON'S here, so's JONES," SMITH tells BROWN, beamingly. "Are they?" returns BROWN, who recognises the names as those of eminent Colosseum men. "And now," exclaims SMITH, heartily, "in the evening we can have a rubber!" This was why SMITH was so overjoyed at meeting BROWN; not because he was an old friend, not even because he was a member of the same social set, but because _he would make a fourth_! "You'll want a rubber," adds SMITH, cajolingly. "If he does," interposes PULLER, in excellent spirits this morning, "he'll have to go to Aix-les-Bains. They don't do the _massage_ here. Aix is the place for Rubbers." The joke falls among us like a bombshell, and the group disperses, each wondering how long PULLER is going to remain at Royat. His movements may govern our own!

* * * * *

Uneventful! General BOULANGER has called here to-day. No, not on me, but on a noble English poet, who is staying at the Continental. From the portrait in the _Salon_ I should have expected a fine fellow of six feet high, rather Saxon and swaggery. Had he resembled his portrait I should not have believed in him. Now I do. There is hope for BOULANGER. He is a short man. NAPOLEON was a short man. "_Il grandira!_"

* * * * *

_Encore des Pensees._--"There is a time to talk, and a time to be silent." The first occasion is, when I have something to say, and an audience to say it to; the other is, when I don't feel well, and hate everybody equally. PULLER, when high-spirited, cannot understand this. Undergoing these Royat Waters, PULLER and myself are on a see-saw. When he is up, I am down, and _vice versa_. After trying to breakfast together, and to be mutually accommodating, which is done in the most disagreeable manner possible, we separate, on account of incompatibility of temper. Temporarily our relations are strained. This only applies to the morning. I want to be quiet in the morning, and detest early liveliness. JANE and myself, in future, breakfast together at our own time, and at our own table, in a corner. (And this is also within the first seven days of the _traitement_.)

* * * * *

By the way, what a chance of _reclame_ I lost on the occasion of BOULANGER'S visit. It never occurred to me till too late. I ought to have been at the front door, awaiting his departure. At the moment of his leaving, I should have left too. Then the report could have been spread about that I had "gone out with" General BOULANGER. How astonished M. FERRY would have been. "Quite a Fairy tale for him," says PULLER, who wishes to exhibit his acquaintance with the proper French pronunciation of M. FERRY'S name.

* * * * *

_The Twenty-Second Morning._--I shall give myself three days' leave of absence, and revisit La Bourboule and Le Mont Dore. These two places are higher up in the mountains of Auvergne.

* * * * *

_La Bourboule Revisited._--Very beautiful the line of country between Royat and La Bourboule. But the latter is an out-of-the-way place as compared with Royat, which has the great advantage of being within a quarter of an hour's ride, or walk, of such a real good town as Clermont-Ferrand, whereas La Bourboule and Mont Dore are an hour-and-a-half's drive each of them from their own station, Laqueuille, which is nothing more than a mere country railway station, with a simple buffet, and four hours from Clermont-Ferrand, which I suppose is the market town, and certainly the only place of any importance to which one can go, "there and back again," in a long day.