Chapter 3

"Gentleman, 30, offers 10/- weekly, own laundry, and help with children, refined country home. No needlework."--_The Lady_.

Slacker!

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Letter sent by a soldier's wife to the Army Pay Department:--

"I am sending you my marage sertificate and six children there were seven but won died. You only sent six back her name was fanny and was baptised on a half sheet of paper by the reverend Thomas."

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A CENTENARY.

JOHN LEECH.

_BORN AUGUST 29TH_, 1817.

I.--TO OUR GREATEST CONTRIBUTOR.

JOHN LEECH, a hundred years ago, When you were born and after, There shone a sort of kindly glow Of airy fun and laughter; It was a sound that seemed to sing, A universal humming That made the echoing rafters ring And so proclaimed your coming.

It was not noted at the time: I was not there to note it, But now I set it down in rhyme That other men may quote it And still maintain the thing is true, Defying Wisdom's strictures, And lose all doubt by looking through A book of LEECH'S pictures.

You drew our English country-folk As many others saw them-- The simple life, the simple joke, But only you could draw them; The warp and woof of country joys In green and pleasant places; The mischievous and merry boys, The girls with shining faces.

The Squires, the Centaurs of the chase And all the chase's patrons, Each in his own, his ordered place; The comfortable matrons-- These were your stuff, and these your skill Consigned to future ages, And caught and set them down at will In Mr. Punch's pages.

Besides, you bound us to your praise With many strong indentures By limning Mr. Briggs, his ways And countless misadventures. For these and many a hundred more, Far as our voice can reach, Sir, We send it out from shore to shore, And bless your name, JOHN LEECH, Sir.

R.C.L.

II.--HISTORIAN AND PROPHET.

A hundred years ago to the very day was JOHN LEECH born. Mr. Punch came into the world on July 17th, 1841, and was thus twenty-four years younger. But in spite of any disparity in age the two great men were made for each other. JOHN LEECH without Mr. Punch would still have spread delight, for did he not illustrate those _Handley Cross_ novels which his friend THACKERAY said he would rather have written than any of his own books? But to think of Mr. Punch without JOHN LEECH is, as the Irishman said, unthinkable. From the third volume, when LEECH got really into his stride, until his lamented early death in 1864, LEECH'S genius was at the service of his young friend: his quick perceptive kindly eyes ever vigilant for humorous incident, his ears alert for humorous sayings, and his hand translating all into pictorial drama and by a sure and benign instinct seizing always upon the happiest moment.

His three monumental volumes called _Pictures of Life and Character_ constitute a truer history of the English people in the middle of the last century than any author could have composed: history made gay with laughter, but history none the less. And this leaves out of account altogether the artist's work as a cartoonist, where he often exceeded the duty of the historian, and not only recorded the course of events but actually influenced it.

To influence the course of events was however far from being this simple gentleman's ambition. What he chiefly wished was to enable others to share his own enjoyment in the fun and foibles of a world in which it is better to be cheerful than sad, and, in the process of passing on his amusement, to earn a sufficient livelihood to enable him to pay his way and now and then be free to follow the hounds.

All these praises he would probably wish unsaid, so modest and unassuming was he. Let us therefore stop and merely draw attention to the two pages of his drawings which follow, each of which shows JOHN LEECH in the light of a prophet.

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ANTICIPATIONS BY JOHN LEECH.

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ANTICIPATIONS BY JOHN LEECH.

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A BALLAD OF EELS.

["Lord Desborough has just been reminding us of the neglected source of food supply that we have in the eels of our rivers and ponds. He stated, 'The food value of an eel is remarkable. In food value one pound of eels is better than a loin of beef.... The greatest eel-breeding establishment in the world is at Comacchio, on the Adriatic. This eel nursery is a gigantic swamp of 140 miles in circumference. It has been in existence for centuries, and in the sixteenth century it yielded an annual revenue of £1,200 to the Pope.'"--_Liverpool Daily Post_.]

When lowering clouds refuse to lift And spread depression far and wide, And when the need of strenuous thrift Is loudly preached on every side, What boundless gratitude one feels To DESBOROUGH, inspiring chief, For telling us: "One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef"

Of old, Popes made eel-breeding pay (At least Lord DESBOROUGH says they did), And cleared _per annum_ in this way Twelve hundred jingling, tingling quid. In fact my brain in anguish reels To think we never took a leaf Out of the book which taught that eels Are better than prime cuts of beef.

In youth, fastidiously inclined, I own with shame that I eschewed, Like most of my unthinking kind, This luscious and nutritious food; But now that DESBOROUGH reveals Its value, with profound belief I sing with him: "One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef."

I chant it loudly in my bath, I chant it when the sun is high, And when the moon pursues her path Noctambulating through the sky. And when the bill of fare at meals Is more than usually brief, Again I sing: "One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef."

It is a charm that never fails When friends accost me in the street And utter agonizing wails About the price of butcher's meat. "Cheer up," I tell them, "creels on creels Are hastening to your relief; Cheer up, my friends, one pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef."

Then all ye fearful folk, dismayed By threatened shortage of supplies, Let not your anxious hearts be swayed By croakers or their dismal cries; But, from Penzance to Galashiels, From Abertillery to Crieff, Remember that "one pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef."

But these are only pleasant dreams Unless, to realise our hopes, Proprietors of ponds and streams Re-stock them, like the early Popes. Then, though we still run short of keels And corn be leaner in the sheaf, We shall at least have endless eels, Unnumbered super-loins of beef.

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AT THE PLAY.

"BILLETED."

No wonder the Royalty Management, realising how resolutely determined the public was to have nothing to do with anything so witty and workmanlike as _The Foundations_ of Mr. GALSWORTHY, have for their new bill declined upon the pleasantly trivial comedy of errors and tarradiddles, _Billeted_.

_Betty Taradine_ is billeting at her pretty manor-house a nice vague Colonel. The Vicar's sister disapproves, because _Betty_ is a grass-widow, and _Penelope_, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times. Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about _Betty's_ husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new Adjutant, _Captain Rymill_, will be none other than the missing man. But you probably don't guess that _Betty_, to spoof the Church and keep the _Colonel_, has decided to kill her husband by faked telegram. So you have a distinctly intriguing theme, which Miss TENNYSON JESSE and Captain HARWOOD handle with very considerable adroitness and embroider with many really sparkling and laughter-compelling lines.

I should like to ask the pleasant authors some questions. How is it that the infinitely susceptible Colonel who loves _Penelope_, but is so overcome by the pseudo-sorrowing _Betty_ that he is afraid of "saying so much more than he means," and appeals to his invaluable Adjutant for help--how is it he survived a bachelor till fifty? And how did _Betty_, with her abysmal ignorance of pass-book lore, manage to postpone her financial catastrophe for two whole years? And how do they suppose so popular and personable man as _Taradine_ could come back to England under an assumed name without a number of highly inconvenient questions being asked? More seriously, I would ask if they really expect us to believe in the reconciliation on so deep a note of this nice butterfly and this callous husband, who never intended, but for the War, to come back from his big-game shooting, and who took no pains to arrange suitable guidance (there was a lawyer vaguely mentioned but he seems to have been singularly unobtrusive) for the obviously incompetent spouse whom he professes still to love? I am afraid it will not do. The one real point of weakness in the presentation was that Mr. EADIE could not modulate from the key of agreeable flippancy in which the comedy as a whole was set into that of the solemnly sentimental coda. Thus was the artistic unity of a pleasant trifle destroyed.

Mr. DAWSON MILWARD'S clever careful method made the _Colonel_ a very live and plausible figure. Some of his intimate touches were exceedingly adroit. The authors deserve a fair share of the credit. Indeed there was throughout a suggestion of clever characterisation conspicuously above the average of this _genre_. _Penelope_ was an excellently developed part, rendered with unexpectedly mature skill by Miss STELLA JESSE. The _Vicar_ promised at first to be a new type, but the authors seemed to have lost interest in him half-way, and not even Mr. LAWRENCE HANRAY'S skill and restraint could quite save him. I rate Mr. EADIE as an actor too high to be much amused by him in obviously EADIE parts. "A man's reach must exceed his grasp." I think it just to Miss HOEY to say that she seemed a little handicapped by efforts of memory, a condition which will duly disappear and leave her charm to assert itself. Mr. GEORGE HOWARD was quite admirable as a Scots bank manager; Miss BLANCHE STANLEY, a really sound combination of essential good-nature and wounded dignity as a cook on the verge of giving notice. Miss GERTRUDE STERROLL tackled a vicaress of the Mid-Victorian era (authors' responsibility this) with a courage which deserves both praise and sympathy.

T.

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THE AIRMAN.

Jack loves dreadnoughts, Peggy loves trains, But I know what I love--aeroplanes.

Jack will sail the high seas if he can stick it; Peggy'll be the girl in blue who asks to see your ticket; But I will steer my aeroplane over London town And loop the loop till Nurse cries out, "Lor', Master Jim, come down!"

Jack will be an admiral if he isn't sick; Peggy'll take the tickets and punch them with a click; But I will make a splendid hum up there in the blue; I'll look down on London town, I'll look down on you.

Jack will hunt for U-boats and sink the beasts by scores; Peggy'll have a perfect life, slamming carriage doors; But I shall join the R.F.C. and Nurse herself will shout, "There's Master Flight-Commander Jim has put them Huns to rout."

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"A well-known Liverpool shipowner and philanthropist is giving £70,000--£100 for each year of his life--to various charitable and philanthropic objects."--_Scotsman_.

He might almost have lived in the time of the Patriarchs, but we gather that he preferred the days of the profits.

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"Often it was impossible to detect the existence of underground works until their occupants opened fire. At one such spot a white hag was displayed, and when our men charily approached a burst of fire met them."--_East Anglian Daily Times_.

The enemy is evidently up to his old trick--taking cover behind women.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

I foresee the appearance, during the next few years, of many regimental handbooks that will record the history at this present visibly and gloriously in the making. One such has already reached me, a second edition of _A Brief History of the King's Royal Rifle Corps_ (WARREN), compiled and edited by Lieut.-General Sir EDWARD HUTTON, K.C.B. It is a book to be bought and treasured by many to whom the record of a fine and famous regiment has become in these last years doubly precious. The moment of its appearance is indeed excellently opportune, from the fact that, in the first place, the K.R.R. was recruited from our brothers across the Atlantic, the 60th Royal Americans (as they were then) having been raised, in 1756, from the colonists in the Eastern States, with a view to retrieving the recent disaster to General BRADDOCK'S troops, and to provide a force that could meet the French and Indians upon equal terms. Thus the Regiment, which its historian modestly calls a typical unit of the British Army, is in its origin another link between the two great English-speaking allies of to-day. It has a record, certainly second to none, from Quebec to Ypres--one that splendidly bears out the words, themselves ringing like steel, of its motto, _Celer et Audax._ I should add that all profits from the sale of the book will go to "The Ladies' Guild of the King's Royal Rifle Corps." Friends past and present will no doubt see to it that these profits are considerable.

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In _The Immortal Gamble_ (A. AND C. BLACK), by A.T. STEWART and C.J. PESHALL, the Acting Commander and Chaplain of _H.M.S. Cornwallis_ describe the part taken by their ship and its gallant complement in the bombardment of Gallipoli and the subsequent landings down to the final evacuation. The account is clear, concise, unemotional, and uncontroversial. As a glimpse rather than a survey of the Dardanelles campaign it strengthens our faith in the spirit of the race without hopelessly undermining our confidence in its intelligence. Beyond the fact that it records deeds of brave men the book has no mission, and its cheerful detachment might not, in the absence of sterner chronicles, be salutary. But as long as there are enough Commissions to publish scathing reports on this or that phase of national ineptitude it is not the publishers' business to provide cathartics for the fatted soul of a self-satisfied people. As the passing of time obliterates the futilities and burnishes the heroisms of the noblest and most forlorn adventure in the history of the race, _The Immortal Gamble_ will find a just place among the simple chronicles of courage which the War is storing up for the inspiration of the generations to come.

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I fancy that of late the cinema has somewhat departed from its life-long preoccupation with the cow-boy, otherwise, I should have little hesitation in predicting a great future on the film for _Naomi of the Mountains_ (CASSELL). For this very stirring drama of the wilder West is so packed with what I can't resist calling "reelism" that it is almost impossible to think of it otherwise than in terms of the screen. It is concerned with the wooing, by two contrasted suitors, of _Naomi_, herself more or less a child of nature, who dwelt in the back-of-beyond with her old, fanatic and extremely unpleasant father. But, though the action is of the breathless type that we have come to expect from such a setting, there is far more character and serious observation than you would be prepared to find. Mr. CHRISTOPHER CULLEY has drawn a real woman, and at least two human and well-observed men. I will not give you in detail the varied course of _Naomi's_ romance, which ends in a perfect orgy of battle, with sheriffs and shooting, redskins and revolvers--in short, all the effects that Mr. HAWTREY not long ago so successfully illustrated on the stage. To sum up, I should describe _Naomi of the Mountains_ as melodrama with a difference--the difference residing in its clever character-drawing and some touches of genuine emotion which lift it above the ordinary. And this from one to whom the Wild West in fiction has long been a weariness is something more than tepid praise.

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Sir CHARLES WALDSTEIN, author of the thoughtful _Aristodemocracy_, is a thinker with an internationalist mind. But pray don't think he's not a whole-hogger about the War. In _What Germany is Fighting For_ (LONGMANS) he analyses the Germans' statement of their war-aims and does good service by presenting an excellent translation, with comment and epilogue, of the famous manifesto of "The Six Associations," and the "Independent Committee for a German Peace." It is an insolent, humourless, immoral document. Anything like it published in England would be laughed out of court by Englishmen. It is difficult to keep one's temper when one reads all this nauseating stuff about the little German lamb being threatened by the wolf, England (or Russia or France, as best suits the current paragraph), and Germany's fine solicitude for the freedom of the seas. It is no disrespect to Sir CHARLES WALDSTEIN that his acute and dispassionate comment is not so forcible an argument to hold us unflinchingly to the essence of our task as any page of the manifesto itself. The German, with all his craft, has an almost unlimited capacity for giving himself away. It would seem that, after all, humour _is_ the best gift of the gods.... Our commentator ends with an epigram to the general effect that "until they adopt, in common with us, the ideal of the Gentleman, in contradistinction to that of the Superman," we must continue to strafe them in war or peace. His book constitutes an important War document.

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If I had been compelled to nominate an author to write a book called _The Gossip Shop_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) I should have selected Mrs. J.E. BUCKROSE without a moment's hesitation. So I ought to be happy. Anything more soothing to tired nerves than the tittle-tattle of these Wendlebury old ladies it is impossible to imagine. And to add to the lullaby we are given an ancient cab-horse called _Griselda_, who with a flick of her tail seems to render the atmosphere even more calm and serene. Then there is a love-story which, in spite of misunderstandings, is never really perturbing, and--as a spice--a fortune telling lady who in such respectable society is as near to being naughty as doesn't matter. Small beer? Perhaps. But if you want to get away from the War and rumours of it, I advise you to take a draught of this tranquillizing potion.

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From a Booksellers' Catalogue:--

"PLUTARCH: His Life, his Parallel Lives, and his Morals. 3/6."

So spicy a story is surely cheap at the price.

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"The cause of the explosion is unknown, but it is assumed that some combustible matter was among the coal."--_Daily Dispatch_.

It is only fair to some of the coal merchants to say that they take great pains to reduce this danger to a minimum.

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THE FISHES' FEAST.