Chapter 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

VOLUME 98

APRIL 5, 1890.

MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.

JOURNALISTIC.

"_The Prisoner, who was fashionably attired, and of genteel appearance_;" _i.e._, An ill-got-up swell-mobsman.

"_A powerful-looking fellow_;" _i.e._, An awful ruffian.

"_A rumour has reached us_"--(in the well-nigh impenetrable recesses wherein, as journalists, we habitually conceal ourselves).

"_Nothing fresh has transpired_;" _i.e._, The local Reporter's invention is at last exhausted.

"_The Prisoner seemed fully alive to the very serious position in which he was placed_;" _i.e._, He occasionally wiped his mouth on his knuckles.

"_The proceedings were kept up until an advanced hour_;" _i.e._, The Reporter left early.

SOCIAL.

"_I'm so sorry I've forgotten to bring my Music_;" _i.e._, I'm not going to throw away my singing on these people.

"_Dear me, this is a surprise to meet you here! I didn't, you see, know you were in Town_;" _i.e._, By which I wish her to understand that I hadn't seen that prominent account of her Mid-Lent dance (_for which I had received no invitation_) that appeared in last Thursday's _Morning Post_.

"_Never heard it recited better. Wonder you don't go on the Stage_;" _i.e._, Then one needn't come and hear you; now one can't keep out of your way.

FOR SHOW SUNDAY.

"_Shall you have many Pictures in this year?_" _i.e._, He'll jump for joy if he gets one in.

"_Is your big Picture going to Burlington House or the Grosvenor?_" _i.e._, They wouldn't have it at an East-End Free Art Show.

"_By Jove, dear boy, Burne-Jones will have to look to his laurels?_" _i.e._, Green mist and gawky girls, as usual!

"_What I love about your pictures, dear Mr. Stodge, is their Subtle Ideal treatment, so different, &c., &c.?_" _i.e._, 'Tisn't like anything on earth.

"_Best thing you've done for years, my boy; and, mark my words, it'll create a sensation!_" _i.e._, Everybody says it'll be a great go, and I may as well be in it.

"_Entre nous, I don't think Millais' landscape is to be compared with it?_" _i.e._, I should hope not--for MILLAIS' sake.

"_Fancy hanging him on the line, and skying you! It's too bad?_" _i.e._, His picture is.

"_Glad you haven't gone in for mere 'pretty, pretty,' this time, old man_;" _i.e._, It's ugly enough for a scarecrow.

"_My dear Sir, it's as mournfully impressive as a Millet_;" _i.e._, Dull skies and dowdy peasants!

"_Well, it's something in these days to see a picture one can get a laugh out of_;" _i.e._, Or at!

AUCTIONEERING.

"_Every Modern Convenience_;" _i.e._, Electric-bells and disconnected drain-pipes.

"_Cheap and Commodious Flat_;" _i.e._, Seven small square rooms, with no outlook, at about the rent of a Hyde Park mansion.

"_A Desirable Residence_;" _i.e._, To get out of.

PLATFORMULARS.

"_And thus bring to a triumphant issue the fight in which we are engaged_;" _i.e._, Thank Heaven, I managed to get off my peroration all right.

"_Our great Leader_;" _i.e._, "That's sure to make them cheer, and will give me time to think."

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* * * * *

"MY CURATE."

[The _Law Times_ mentions that a photograph of a well-dressed and good-looking gentleman has been sent to it, with the words "My Advocate" beneath. On the back are the name and address of a Solicitor.]

SCENE--_Drowsiham Vicarage._ Vicar _and Family discovered seated at breakfast-table. Time--Present._

_The Vicar._ I only advertised for a Curate in last Saturday's _Church Papers_, and already I have received more than sixty applications by the post, all of them, apparently, from persons of the highest respectability, whose views, too, happen to coincide entirely with my own! Dear me! I suppose these may be called the "Clerical Unemployed."

_Elder Daughter (giddily)._ Pa! Have any of them sent photos?

_Vicar._ Yes, all of them. It seems to be the new method to inclose _cartes-de-visite_ with testimonials.

_Younger Daughter._ Now I shall be able to fill up my Album!

_Elder Daughter (who has been running her eye over the pictures)._ This is the pick of the lot, Pa. Take him! Such a dear! He's got an eyeglass, and whiskers, and curly hair, and seems quite young!

_Younger Daughter (thoughtfully)._ It's a pity we can't lay in _two_ Curates while we are about it.

_Vicar._ Hem! A rather nice-looking young man, certainly. Let's see what he says about himself. The new system saves a lot of trouble, as candidates for posts write down their qualifications on the back of their photographs.

_Elder Daughter (reading)._ "Views strictly orthodox." Oh, bother views! Here's something better--"Very Musical Voice"--the _darling_! He _looks_ as if he had a musical voice. "Warranted not to go beyond fifteen minutes in preaching." Delicious!

_Vicar's Wife._ I don't know if the parishioners will like _that_.

_Both Daughters (together)._ But _we_ shall!

_Elder Daughter (continues reading)._ "Quite content to preach only in the afternoons. No attempts to rival Vicar's eloquence." What _does_ he mean?

_Vicar (cordially)._ I know! I think he'll do very well. _Just_ the sort of man I want!

_Elder Daughter._ Ha! Listen to this! "Can play the banjo, and twenty-six games of lawn-tennis without fatigue." The pet!

_Younger Daughter._ Perfectly engaging! Oh, Pa, wire to him _at once_!

_Elder Daughter (turning pale)._ Stop! What is this? "Very steady and respectable. _Has been engaged to be married for past three years!_" Call _him_ engaging, indeed! No chance of it. The wretch!

_Younger Daughter._ A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing! Can't you prosecute him, Pa?

_Vicar (meditatively)._ I might--in the Archbishop's Court. Really this new self-recommendation plan, though useful in some ways, seems likely to disturb quiet households. And I've fifty-nine more photos to look at! [_Retires to Study, succumbs to slumber._

* * * * *

_SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER_ has been announced as in preparation at the Criterion and the Vaudeville. Miss MARY MOORE v. Miss WINIFRED EMERY as _Miss Hardcastle_. Which is to "stoop," and which to "conquer?" Why not run it at both Houses?--and, to decide, call in a jury of "the GOLDSMITH'S Company."

* * * * *

THE MAYFAIR ROW.--GOODE, BAIRD, and very indifferent.

* * * * *

The Kaiser swears that he can work; So can I! So can I! Strain and long hours he will not shirk. Nor do I, nor do I. But he may work at his sweet will; So they say, so they say. Whilst I must toil my pouch to fill; A long day, a long day! So there's _some_ difference I see Betwixt the Emperor and me.

He hath his army and his ships; Great are they! Great are they! Their price, which my lean pocket nips, I must pay, I must pay. Yet here he comes to grip my hand; That's his plan, that's his plan; And at my side to take his stand, Working-man, working-man! Strange that such likeness there should be Betwixt the Emperor and me!

BISMARCK, it seems, he does not trust; Nor do I, nor do I. He thinks the toiler's claims are just; So do I, so do I. He's called a Conference of Kings, Novel scheme, novel scheme! To talk of Socialistic things-- Pleasant dream, pleasant dream! What difference, now, would KARL MARX see Betwixt my Emperor and me?

The "International" they banned. _That_ was vile, _that_ was vile. But now a similar thing _they've_ planned, Makes me smile, makes me smile. Labour world-over they'll discuss, Far and near, far and near. Will it all end in futile fuss? That's my fear, that's my fear. A difference of view I see Betwixt the Emperor and me.

But here he comes to grip my fist, Fair and free, fair and free. Thinks he the chance I can't resist? We shall see, we shall see. I wear the Cap and he the Crown-- Awkward gear, awkward gear! Is he content to put it down? No, I fear; no, I fear. If Workman I as Workman he, Perhaps he'll just change hats with me!

* * * * *

THE FRENCH GALLERY.--Oddly enough the French Gallery contains but a small proportion of French pictures. Possibly Mr. WALLIS thinks it is not high-bred to appear too long in a French _rôle_--perhaps he fancies the public would get crusty or the critics might have him "on toast." Anyhow, he has taken French leave to do as he pleases, and the result is very satisfactory. He does not lose our Frenchship by the change. There are three remarkable pictures by Prof. FRITZ VON UHDE, and two by Prof. MAX LIEBERMANN, which ought to make a sensation, and there is an excellent MUNKACSY, besides a varied collection of foreign pictures.

* * * * *

MR. HENRY BLACKBURN, author of that annually useful work, _Academy Notes_, is announced to give lectures at Kensington Town Hall, April 13. One of his subjects, "Sketching in Sunshine," will be very interesting to a Londoner. First catch your sunshine: then sketch. Mr. BLACKBURN will be illuminated by oxy-hydrogen; he will thus appear as Mr. White-burn; so altogether a light entertainment.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE WAY TO THE TEMPLE.

DEAR MR. PUNCH, _Willesden Junction._

Having been assured by a Phrenologist that my bump of locality is very highly developed, I attempted the other day--although a perfect stranger to London--to walk from Charing Cross to the Temple without inquiring the route. I had absolutely no assistance but a small map of Surbiton and the neighbourhood, from which I had calculated the general lie of the country, and a plain, ordinary compass, which I had bought cheap because it had lost its pointer. I am not sure that the route I took was the most direct. But when, after several hours' walk, I found myself at Willesden Junction, I was assured by a boy in the district, whom I asked, that I could not possibly have gone straighter. He advised me to take a ticket at once for Chalk Farm, as I still had some way to go, and said that he thought I might have to change at Battersea. He was a nice, bright little boy, and laughed quite merrily.

I have now been at Willesden Junction for eighteen hours, and I have not yet secured a train for Chalk Farm. There have been several, but they have always gone from the platform which I had just left. So I have camped out on the 101th platform, and I intend to stop there till a train for Chalk Farm comes in. Of course the porters have remonstrated, and tried to explain where and when the train really does start. But I would sooner trust my natural instincts than any porter. That bright little boy has been twice to see how I am getting on. He brought two other boys last time. They all told me to stick to it, and seemed much amused--probably at the stupidity of those porters. But really, _Mr. Punch_, Willesden Junction ought to be simplified. It may be all very well for me, with a phrenological aptitude for this sort of thing; but these different levels, platforms, and stairs must be very puzzling to less gifted people, such as the green young man from the country.

But the last suggestion which I have to make is the most important. There ought to be a great many more doors _into_ the refreshment-room, and only one door out of it. I lost the thirteenth train for Chalk Farm by going out of the wrong door. One door out would be ample, and it should certainly be made--by an easy arrangement of pivots and pneumatic pressure--to open straight into the train for anywhere where you wanted to go. If this simple alteration cannot be made, Willesden Junction must be destroyed at once, route and branch; or removed to Hampton Court, to take the place of the present absurdly easy Maze. I am, _Mr. Punch_,

Your humble and obedient Servant, PHRENITIC.

* * * * *

UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE. (_New "Physical Examination" Style._)

OXFORD, _April 1, 1890_.

THE Regius Professor of High Jumping will commence his Course of Lectures, accompanied, in the way of illustration, by a practical exhibition of several physical _tours de force_ on the spare ground at the back of the Parks, at some hour before 12 o'clock this morning. Candidates for honours in Hurdle Racing, Dancing, and Throwing the Hammer, are requested to leave their names at the Professor of Anthropometry's, at his residence, in the new Athletic Schools, on or before the 3rd inst. The subject selected for the next Term's Prize Physical Essay Composition, which will have on the reading to be practically and personally illustrated by several feats of the successful candidate himself, will be "_Leap Year_."

* * * * *

LIGHT AND AYRY.

Rejected! in bad grammar I declare I can't forget this year, nor yet that Ayr!

* * * * *

THE RECORDING ANGEL IN THE HOUSE, OR THE GAL IN THE GALLERY.--"_Que diable allait-elle faire dans cette 'galerie.'_"

* * * * *

MODERN TYPES.

(_By Mr. Punch's Own Type-Writer._)

No. VII.--THE PATRON OF SPORT.

IN order to qualify properly for the patronage of sport, a man must finally abandon any vestiges of refinement which may remain to him after a youth spent mainly in the use of strong language, and the abuse of strong drink. The future patron, who has enjoyed for some years the advantages of a neglected training in the privacy of the domestic circle, will have been sent to a public school. Like a vicious book, he will soon have been "called in," though not until he has been cut by those who may have been brought in contact with him. Having thus left his school for his school's good, he will find no difficulty in persuading his parents that the high spirits of an ingenuous youth, however distasteful they may have been to the ridiculous prejudices of a pedantic Head Master, are certain to be properly appreciated by the officers of a crack Regiment. He will, therefore, decide to enter the Army, and after pursuing his arduous studies for some time at the various Music Halls and drinking saloons of the Metropolis, he will administer a public reproof to the Civil Service Commissioners, by declining on two separate occasions to pass the examination for admission into Sandhurst.

He will then inform his father that he is heavily in debt, and, having borrowed money from his tailor, he will disappear from the parental ken, to turn up again, after a week, without his watch, his scarf-pin, or his studs. This freak will be accepted by his relatives as a convincing proof of his fitness for a financial career, and he will shortly be transferred to the City as Clerk to a firm of Stockbrokers. Here his versatile talents will have full scope. He will manage to reconcile a somewhat lax attention to the details of business with a strict regularity in his attendance at suburban race-meetings. Nothing will be allowed to stand in his way when he pursues the shadow of pleasure through the most devious windings into the lowest haunts. For him the resources of dissipation are never exhausted. Pot-houses provide him with cocktails, restaurants furnish him with elaborate dinners, tailors array him in fine clothes, hosiers collar him up to the chin, and cover his breast with immaculate fronts. The master-pieces of West-End jewellers, hatters, and boot-makers, sparkle on various portions of his person; he finds in a lady step-dancer a goddess, and in _Ruff's Guide_ a Bible; he sups, he swears, he drinks, and he gambles, and, finally, he attains to the summit of earthly felicity by finding himself mentioned under a nickname in the paragraphs of a sporting organ.

Having about the same time engaged in a midnight brawl with an undersized and middle-aged cabman, he appears the next morning in a Police Court, and, after being fined forty shillings, is hailed as a hero by his companions, and recognised as a genuine Patron of Sport by the world at large. Henceforward his position is assured. He becomes the boon companion of Music-hall Chairmen, and lives on terms of intimate vulgarity with Money-lenders, who find that it pays to take a low interest in the pleasures, in order the more easily to obtain a high interest on the borrowings, of reckless young men.

In company with these associates, and with others of more or less repute, the Patron of Sport sets the seal to his patronage by becoming a member of a so-called Sporting Club, at which professional pugilists batter one another in order to provide excitement for a mixed assemblage of coarse and brainless rowdies and the feeble toadies who dance attendance upon them. Here the Patron is at his best and noblest. Though he has never worn a glove in anger, nor indeed taken the smallest part in any genuine athletic exercise, he is as free with his opinions as he is unsparing of the adjectives wherewith he adorns them. He talks learnedly of "upper-cuts" and "cross-counters," and grows humorous over "mouse-traps," "pile-drivers on the mark," and "the flow of the ruby." Having absorbed four whiskeys-and-soda, he will observe that "if a fellow refuses to train properly, he must expect to be receiver-general," and, after lighting his tenth cigar as a tribute, presumably, to the lung power of the combatants, will indulge in some moody reflections on the decay of British valour and the general degeneracy of Englishmen. He will then drink liqueur brandy out of a claret glass, and, having slapped a sporting solicitor on the back and dug in the ribs a gentleman jockey who has been warned off the course, he will tread on the toes of an inoffensive stranger who has allowed himself to be elected a member of the Club under the mistaken impression that it was the home of sportsmen and the sanctuary of honest boxers. After duly characterising the stranger's eyes and his awkwardness, the Patron will resume his seat near the ropes, and will stare vacuously at the brilliant gathering of touts, loafers, parasites, usurers, book-makers, broken-down racing men, seedy soldiers, and over-fed City men who are assembled round the room. Inspired by their society with the conviction that he is assisting in an important capacity in the revival of a manly sport, he will adjust his hat on the back of his head, rap with his gold-headed cane upon the floor, and call "Time!"--a humorous sally which is always much appreciated, especially when the ring is empty. After witnessing the first three rounds of the next competition, he will rise to depart, and observing a looking-glass, will excite the laughter of his friends and the admiration of the waiters by sparring one round with his own reflection, finally falling into the arms of a companion, whom he adjures not to mind him, but to sponge up the other fellow.

After this exploit a supper-club receives him, and he is made much of by those of both sexes who are content to thrive temporarily on the money of a friend. He will then drive a hansom through the streets, and, having knocked over a hot potato-stall, he will compensate the proprietor with a round of oaths and a five-pound note.

In appearance the Patron of Sport is unwholesome. The bloom of youth vanished from his face before he ceased to be a boy; he assumes the worn and sallow mask of age before he has fairly begun to be a man. His hair is thin, and is carefully flattened by the aid of unguents, his dress is flashy, his moustache thick. In order the more closely to imitate a true sportsman, he wears a baggy overcoat, with large buttons. Yet he abhors all kinds of honest exercise, and, in the days of his prosperity, keeps a small brougham with yellow wheels. Soon after he reaches the age of thirty, he begins to feel the effects of his variegated life. He fails in landing a big _coup_ on the Stock Exchange, and loses much money over a Newmarket meeting, in which he plunges on a succession of rank outsiders, whom a set of rascals, more cunning than himself, have represented to him as certainties. His position on the Stock Exchange becomes shaky, and he attempts to restore it by embarking with a gang of needy rogues on a first-class "roping" transaction, in connection with a prize-fight in Spain. Having, however, been exposed, he is shunned by most of those who only heard of the swindle when it was too late to join in it.

This is the beginning of the end. He becomes careless of his appearance; with the decrease of his means his coats become shiny, and his cuffs more and more frayed. Eventually he falls into a state of sodden imbecility, relieved by occasional flashes of delirium tremens, and dies at the age of thirty-six, regretted by nobody except the faithful bull-dog, whose silver collar was the last thing he pawned.

* * * * *

A New Opera (in Preparation).

_Librettist._ Now here's a grand effect. They all say, "We swear!" Then there's a magnificent "Oath Chorus!" How do you propose to treat that?

_Composer._ Oath Chorus? In D Major.

* * * * *

A PAGE FROM AN IMPERIAL NOTE-BOOK.--So far so good. Got rid of the Grand Old Chancellor and the rest of _that_ crew--without much of a row! Been civil to my English Uncle, the Pope and the Democrats. Can't be idle, so what shall I do next? Why not take a trip to America where I might stand for President? If I propose extending trip to Salt Lake, would have to go _en garçon_. Or I might see if I could not get a little further than STANLEY in Africa. When I returned might write a book to be called, _The Extra Deep-Edged Black Continent_. Or why not turn painter? With a little practice would soon cut out all the Old Masters, native and foreign. And if I gave my mind to poetry, why GOETHE and HEINE would be simply nowhere! How about horse-racing? A Berlin Derby Day would make my English cousins "sit up." And sermons, there's something to be done in sermons! I believe I could compose as good a discourse as any of my Court chaplains. And then, possibly, I might be qualified to do that which would satisfy the sharpest craving of my loftiest ambition--_I might write for Punch!_

[So he shall. He shall "write for _Punch_," enclosing stamps, and the Number shall be sent to him by return.--ED.]

* * * * *

PLAY-TIME.