Chapter 2

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"APPARENT FAILURE."

["The Private View was not a success.... The dresses which we noticed were very ordinary indeed."--_"Art Notes" in a Ladies' Paper._]

NOT a success--for every toilet there Was commonplace and stupid, more or less; A fact which clearly made the whole affair, Not a success.

"Were not the pictures good?" Well, we confess We know not, neither do we greatly care; As writers for the fashionable Press, Artistic knowledge falls not to our share; We saw no novelties in hat or dress; Therefore the Show is plainly, we declare, "Not a success."

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Illustration: "LIGHT AND LEADING."

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"BANG WENT SAX-PENCE!"--_A propos_ of the New Coinage, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ is our authority for saying, that "The design for the reverse of the half-crown has been prepared by Mr. BROCK." BROCK is a name hitherto associated in the popular mind with fireworks; and if the work be entrusted to this cunning artificer, he will make the New Coinage go off splendidly. He has, we believe, already submitted illuminated designs to the QUEEN.

***

THE KENDALS are announced to appear at the Avenue Theatre. They start with _A White Lie_. This is the truth. Free admissions will not be heard of, except when they give _A Scrap of Paper_. They are also going to produce a new play entitled, _Prince Karatoff_. The plot, to judge by the name, will be of interest to Vegetarians, as it is whispered that the hero, _Prince Karatoff_, falls in love with _Princess Turnipon_.

***

CURIOUSLY APPROPRIATE CONJUNCTION OF NAMES.--On Friday last the _Times_ published an important letter on a certain fishery. The fish was the Salmon, and the writer of the letter was FFENNELL. We do not remember ever having seen Salmon on table without FFENNELL, which is a fanciful way of spelling it. All information concerning Salmon may now be obtained from a "FFENNELL source."

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Illustration: THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

(_Very Latest Version._)

["There is a grievance which has taken hold in the last few years, under which we are all groaning and complaining, without, as far as I can see, any present remedy. I allude to the shameful way in which our linen is destroyed and knocked about by the existing race of Washerwomen in the Metropolis."--_M. J. G.'s Letter on "London Laundries," in the Daily Telegraph._]

With wristbands grubby and worn, With collars ragged and frayed, A man moaned over a shirt all rags, Cursing the laundress trade. "Scrub! Scrub! Scrub! With lime for extracting the dirt; With chemicals rot, and with wire-brushes rub!"-- _That_'s the new Song of the Shirt.

Buy! Buy! Buy! Though I'm but a poor Clerk, with scant "oof," Yet it's buy--buy--buy! (My hosier's bills furnish full proof), And it's O! to be a slave To my Laundress, who's worse than a Turk. I seldom look nice, and I never can save; And this is woman's work!

Rub! Rub! Rub! Till they're rugged at edge and at rim; Scrub! Scrub! Scrub! Till with scissors the cuffs I must trim. Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam; And all the buttonholes gape, and the studs Drop out in a golden stream.

O Men with sisters who wash, With housewifely mothers or wives, Who "do up" your linen, and _don't_ "put it out," You lead endurable lives! Wash--Starch--Iron! _That_ may mean home dampness and dirt; But at least your collars won't chafe your neck, And you'll boast a wearable shirt!

But why do I dream of soap, Or of honest knuckle-bone? Now most men's shirts come home in a shape That's dreadfully like my own-- That's dismally like my own, Unless a home laundry they keep; Great Scott! that shirts should be so dear, And chloride and wire so cheap!

Scrub! Scrub! Scrub! The wire-brush never flags; And what's the result? A collar that's rough, And a front that's ever in rags! That frayed-out wristband worries me sore, It catches--and shows--the dirt. And as for the collar!!!--I'll bet you a dollar You've never one _clean_ to your shirt.

Oh! but to breathe the breath Of old country linen so sweet, Wherein lavender was spread, Which was dried on the grass at our feet! For only one short week To feel as I used to feel, Before women washed with chloride of lime, And scrubbed with brushes of steel!

Oh! but for one short week Of the good old-fashioned wash, Before a laundry meant utter rot, Lime, wax, and such chemical bosh! A little swearing would ease my heart, At that ogress, false, inhuman; So to the papers a line I'll drop, On the Modern Washerwoman!

With fingers ready and fleet, With features indignantly red, A poor Clerk wrote of his linen in rags, And this is what he said:-- "Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! Yet _I_ can't keep a decent shirt! The thing has reached an unbearable pitch, So--as an appeal to the poor and the rich-- I sing the new Song of the Shirt!"

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Illustration: EUPHEMISM.

_Cab Tout (exasperated by the persistent attentions of Constable)._

"LOOK 'ERE, OLE LIGHTNIN'-KETCHER, W'ERE THE MISSIN' WORD ARE YER SHOVIN' US TO?"

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ROBERT ON THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE DAY.

JOLLY old Crismus being cum round agen, as ushal, we had our Crismus-Heve supper, as ushal, and henjoyed owrselves till a rayther latish hour, as ushal. Upon cumpareing notes, we didn't find as we had werry much to complane about, the grand and nobel old wirtue of horsepitality perwailing much as ushal.

Howsumdever, upon cumparin notes a second time as to the most poplar subjecks of conwersashun at the warious Eleckshun Dinners, on Saint Tommas' Day, or the day when the hole of the Common Counselmen has to go to their Constittuents for to be elected--though what St. Tommas ewer had to do with it I never could dishcover, no more can BROWN--we found as they was amost all on 'em a torkin about sum grate change, as a lot of outsiders called County Counsellors was a going for to try to get made; the werry principellist being, BROWN said, that they might have occashonal use of the Manshun Ouse, and so give grand Dinners to the West-End Swells, and so get them to wote for their having jolly hansum allowences with which to pay for 'em! But quiet ole JOE, who's one of them rum fellers as don't say much, but thinks a deal, says, in his quiet way, as how as it's werry much wus than that, for, from what a werry ancient Deputty said, as he was a helping him to his jugged air, he had werry little dowt but that County Counsellors was acshally a going in for erbollishing the hold Copperashun altogether! if they can git the Goverment to be fools enuff for to promise to 'elp 'em. And then, from what he heard from others, they are a going to rob the nobel and Charytable Liwery Companys of all the money as they spends so nobly; and then, not contented with that, they are a going for to ask Parlyment to give them the command of all the sixteen thowsand Policemen as there is in the hole of London; and then, not content with that, they are a going for to erbolish all the eight Water Companys, and manage it all theirselves; and then, not content with that, they are a going to take all the Meet Markets, and the Fish Markets, includin Ancient Billingsgate, and the Fruit and Wegeral Markets; and then, just to fill up sum of their lezzur time, they are a going to erbolish the Thames Conserwaters, and manage the River theirselves; and then, as they think as them little trifles ain't quite enuff for 'em, they are a going to arsk to be aloud to take charge of all the Docks and Wharfs on the River! And then, as they will naterally want plenty of emusement after their ard work, they arsks to be aloud to take over the control of All the London Theaters!

I had a chat the other day with one of the LORD MARE's Footmen, as I allers likes to go to the werry hiest orthorities, and he finished by saying, most emfatically,--"Mr. ROBERT, I arsks you this simple quesshun--If it takes about two hunderd and thirty gents to keep the grand old Citty in the bootiful condishun as it allus is, and to keep us all in the helthy condishun as we allus is, and with the remarkabel fine happytites as we allus has, its size being ony one square mile, and our number ony about fifty thowsand sleepers, and about ten times as many, as cums ewery day to hearn their living, how is it possibel for a much smaller number of Gents, with werry littel hexperiens, to do the same with a plaice about a hunderd and twenty times as big, and with about five millions of peepel in it? And you may trust what I says, for I had it from our Chapling."

"Why," I says, boldly, "I says at once as I don't beleeve as it's posserbel for 'em to do a quorter of it."

"Rite you are, Mr. ROBERT!" says he. And so we parted.

ROBERT.

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AT ANCIENT DRURY.

DRURIOLANUS MAGNIFICUS has given us something gorgeous this year in "The Hall of a Million Mirrors," the tenth Scene of his Pantomime entitled _Little Bo-Peep, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hop o' My Thumb_, who are three very small people,--"small by degrees and beautifully less"--to make so big a Show. In the Hall of Mirrors appear all the well-known representatives of ancient Nursery Rhymes, and all the heroes and heroines of the universally familiar Fairy Stories. Down the Palace stairs they come, group after group, until the Stage, even of Old Drury, can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of the Ancient JOSEPH, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!--that is, until next Pantomime Season, when Sir DRURIOLANUS will, in all probability, show us something equally magnificent, and as perfect in design and colour.

There is such a galaxy of talent, specially of Music-hall talent, with the two MARIES, LOFTUS and LLOYD, the CAMPBELL of that ilk, comical DAN LENO (who looks so comically Thin O), and the amusing Brothers GRIFFITHS, but without the donkey, and with no quadruped to equal him, though they do make beasts of themselves by appearing as wolves, who will not be kept from the door of _Granny Green_, Mr. JOHN D'AUBAN, utterly unrecognisable. Besides these is a Variety Show of other Stars, including ever-graceful EMMA D'AUBAN, and Miss MABEL LOVE, of the "skirts-so movement," both rightly reckoned in the programme as among "the Immortals." Only one fault can be found with the Pantomime, and that is, that there are too many brilliant Stars in it. They can't all of them, each and severally, get an opportunity of showing how he or she can shine in his or her own particular bright way; and so it happens that the earliest scenes, which are less crowded, are the best for fun, though in the latter, and specially in the one just preceding the transformation, there is some capital comic business, and "LITTLE TICH" is at his best in his burlesque of the Skirt Dance. We wonder that this clever diminutive person has never appeared as "_the_ Claimant _par excellence_." But perhaps his name is not "TICH" at all, and so, on his first appearance on the world's stage, he was not a "_Tich-born_."

The _Extravaganza_ portion of the Pantomime--formerly styled the "Opening"--gave us great pleasure, and the two "Comic Scenes"--(what are all the preceding ones? Are CAMPBELL, LENO, WILLIAMS, and "LITTLE TICH," all tragedians?)--gave us Great PAYNE--yclept HARRY PAYNE, the good old Conservative "JOEY."

If the possibilities, "_per variation et mutation_" of gorgeous modern Pantomime, are exhausted--"which," as EUCLID observes, "is impossible"--except we may "add a rider" (as the Clown in the Circle might observe) that Pantomime is, in itself, a _reductio ad absurdum_--then, perchance, Sir DRURIOLANUS MAGNIFICUS may give us next Christmas a Shorter Opening, say ten Scenes, to be followed by six Harlequinade Scenes, treating, by way of "Review," all the leading topics of Ninety-Three. _Nous verrons_--at least, such is our hope. And so a Prosperous New Year to Sir DRURIOLANUS, and all his works.

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NOVEL, BUT NOT NEW.

(_A Story of Romance in Town and Country._)