Chapter 1

PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 156.

June 11, 1919.

CHARIVARIA.

"Every British working man has as much right as any Member of Parliament to be paid £400 a year," states a well-known Labour paper. We have never questioned this for a moment.

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"Women," says a technical journal, "are a source of grave danger to motorists in crowded city streets." It is feared in some quarters that they will have to be abolished.

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"Are you getting stout?" asks a Sunday contemporary. Only very occasionally, we regret to say.

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The heat was so oppressive in London the other day that a taxi-driver at Euston Station was seen to go up to a pedestrian and ask him if he could do with a ride. He was eventually pinned down by some colleagues and handed over to the care of his relatives.

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"I do not care a straw about Turkey," writes Mr. LOVAT Fraser in _The Daily Mail_. It is this dare-devil spirit which has made us the nation we are.

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Superstition in regard to marriage is dying out, says a West End registrar. Nevertheless the superstition that a man who gets married between January 1st and December 31st is asking for trouble is still widely held.

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Mr. VAN INGEN, a New York business man, has just started to cross the Atlantic for the one hundred and sixtieth time. It is not known whether the major ambition of his life is to leave New York or go back and have a last look at it.

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"There is no likelihood," says the FOOD-CONTROLLER, "of cheese running out during the coming winter." A pan of drinking water left in the larder will always prevent its running out and biting someone during the dog-days.

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Sympathetic readers will be glad to hear that the little sixpence which was found wandering in Piccadilly Circus has been given a good home by an Aberdeen gentleman.

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Aeroplane passengers are advised by one enterprising weekly not to throw bottles out of the machine. This is certainly good advice. The bottles are so apt to get broken.

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Germany, it is expected, will sign the Peace treaty this once, but points out that we must not allow it to happen again.

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Of two burglars charged at Stratford one told the Bench that he intended to have nothing further to do with his colleague in future. It is said that he finds it impossible to work with him owing to his nasty grasping ways.

* * * * *

Sixty-seven fewer babies were born in one Surrey village last year than in previous years. It would be interesting to have their names.

***

A grocer, according to a legal writer, is not compelled to take goods out of the window to oblige a customer. The suggestion that a grocer is expected to oblige anybody in any circumstances is certainly a novelty.

***

Uxbridge, says _The Evening News_, has no bandstand. Nor have we, but we make no fuss about it.

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The Bolshevists in Russia, we are told, are busy sowing seeds of sedition. For some time it has been suspected that the Bolshevists were up to no good.

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HERBERT WELSH, aged sixty-seven, has started to walk from New Jersey to New Hampshire, U.S.A., a distance of five hundred miles. In the absence of fuller details we assume that HERBERT must have lost his train.

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"Postage stamps," says a weekly snippets paper, "can be obtained at all post-offices." This should prove a boon to those who have letters to write.

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It is thought if a certain well-known judge does not soon ask, "What is whisky?" he will have to content himself with the past tense.

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"What to do with a Wasp" is a headline in a contemporary. We have not read the article, but our own plan with wasps is to try to dodge them.

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We hear that complications may arise from an unfortunate mistake made at a Jazz Competition held in London last week. It appears that the prize was awarded to a lady suffering from hysteria who was not competing.

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A taxi-driver in a suburb of London was married last week to a local telephone operator. Speculation is now rife as to which will be the first to break down and say "Thank you."

***

The Press reports the case of a young lady who received slight injuries from a slab of ceiling which fell on her head whilst she was asleep in bed, but was saved from further damage by the thickness of her hair. This should act as a warning to those ladies who adopt the silly habit of removing their tresses on retiring for the night.

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TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN?

As Count BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU puts it, quoting from his German translation of _Hamlet: "Sein oder nicht sein, dass ist hier die Frage_."

* * * * *

"The recommendations of the Jerram Committee came before a conference between a representative body of lower deck ratings and members of Parliament who sit for naval constituencies. The veterinary chief petty officer presided."--_Sunday Paper_.

The rank is new to us; but he must be just the man to look after the interests of our sea-dogs.

* * * * *

From the "Transactions" of a photographic society:--

"Mr. ---- stated that as Architectural Photography covered a large and varied field he purposed to confine his remarks to the line of work most familiar to him, namely, The Interiors of some of the great English Ministers."

Now at last we shall know if the Government's heart is in the right place.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT OF THE FORCE.

Since first you loomed upon my infant ken My firm belief has ever been, and still it is, That you are fashioned not as other men (Subject, at best, to mortal disabilities), But come of more than human kin, Immune, or practically so, from sin.

Godlike the poise that to your bearing lends The aspect of a tower that never totters; There's a divinity hath shaped your ends (Rough-hewn, perhaps--especially your trotters); Your ample chest, your generous girth Have no precise similitude on earth.

I cannot picture you (though I have tried) Wearing a bowler hat and tweed apparel, Or craving sustenance for your inside Drawn either from the oven or the barrel; Scarcely you figure in my eye As liable, in Nature's course, to die.

And it was you who almost fell from grace, Striking, like Lucifer, against authority, Leaving your Heaven for another place Not mentioned by your ten-to-one majority, And doomed, to your surprise and pain, Never, like Lucifer, to rise again.

But you were wise, my Robert, wise in time; And I, who set you far above humanity, High-pedestalled upon my lofty rhyme, Rejoice with you in your recovered sanity; To me I feel it would have mattered Enormously to see my idol shattered.

But 'ware the Bolsh, who fain would lure your feet To conduct unbecoming in a copper; Once you betrayed us, going off your beat, And now you've nearly come another cropper; If, tempted thrice, you break your trust, You'll have no halo left to readjust.

O.S.

* * * * *

EMBARRASSMENT AND THE LAWYER.

Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with himself. I confess that he has deserved it.

The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no briefs, but had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of affairs. Then he went to the War and shed his conscience somewhere in the Balkans. So far so good. But, when he was demobilised and began to take stock of what had been happening at home in the meanwhile, he found to his horror that a conscience had again been thrust upon him by the General Council of the Bar.

Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won through.

How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly deliberated upon the following fantastic problem:--

"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a plea of Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he did commit the offence charged?"

With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists propounded the following answer:--

"If the confession has been made before the proceedings have been commenced it is most undesirable that an advocate to whom the confession has been made should undertake the defence, as he would most certainly be seriously embarrassed in the conduct of the case, and no harm can be done to the accused by requesting him to retain another advocate."

The new Watson was unable to agree with this doctrine, so far as it * * * * * The legal conscience thus gratuitously thrust upon him was soon to undergo its first ordeal. An acquaintance of his, in a moment of absent-mindedness, murdered somebody, and asked Watson to persuade the inevitable jury that he hadn't. The said acquaintance explained to Watson that he simply did it when he wasn't thinking.

Watson was in a hole. Obviously this was a case to which the embarrassment prescribed by the General Council of the Bar was applicable. This legal embarrassment, which, strictly speaking, ought now to be his, would not, however, have worried him in the least had it not been for another consideration. Suppose, after Watson had triumphantly got his client acquitted, it got about that the "innocent" had confessed his crime to counsel beforehand? That would mean an end to Watson's professional career. One does not thus slight the edicts of the mighty with impunity.

Watson was too proud to ask his client to keep the deadly secret, or to apply the famous wriggle of _Hippolytus_: "My tongue hath sworn, but my heart remains unsworn."

Nevertheless Watson gave his mind to the problem. In the end he decided on the following line of defence: "Not Guilty," and in the alternative "Guilty under justifiable circumstances, without malice aforethought but with intent to benefit the person murdered."

Happily the General Council of the Bar has not yet assigned any moral embarrassment to a counsel who pleads "Not Guilty," and in the alternative, "Guilty." Watson therefore reasoned that if the jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative confession could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other hand, if he were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an ethical asset towards securing for him a lenient view of the case.

As I said, Watson behaved well. He proved to his own and the jury's satisfaction (1) that his client did not commit the murder; (2) that alternatively he did commit the murder, but that he did so for the good of everybody concerned; and (3) that in either case he never meant to do it.

In the event the prisoner was acquitted without a stain upon his * * * * * Watson is now well established as the last hope of abandoned causes. He is a specialist in defence, and criminals of every shade throng to him. When a new one swims into his ken Watson meets him on the threshold and says, "Don't speak a word. Read this;" and he puts into his hand a printed slip. The slip reads:--

"_ Conditions of Advocacy_.

"(1) If you put your case into my hands it ceases at once and from that moment to be any concern of your own. You are not entitled, for instance, to express any opinion as to whether you committed the alleged crime or not. That is my affair exclusively.

"(2) If however there is anything which lies so heavily on your conscience that it must out sooner or later, let it be later. I am open to receive confessions at any time after proceedings have begun.

"If you accept these conditions, good; if not, go."

Watson says they always accept them, so he never worries about the General Council of the Bar.

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* * * * *

AN ERROR IN TACTICS.

In the heart of the Forêt de Roumare there is a spot called Rond du Chêne à Leu, where eight paths meet. Why they choose to meet there, unless it is for company, one can't imagine. The fact that there is not an estaminet within five kilometres nullifies its value as a military objective. Therefore, having been decoyed thither by a plausible guide-book, it was with surprise that I beheld an ancient representative of the British Army smoking his pipe with the air of having been in possession for centuries.

"Bit lonely here," I said.

"Rumble's Moor on a wet Friday's busy to it," he said emphatically. "Is it reet the War's over?"

"Yes."

He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the information soaked in.

"Who won?"

"The Peace Conference haven't decided yet."

Conversation languished until I remembered the guide-book.

"According to tradition," I said, "it was at this identical spot that ROLLO, first Duke of Normandy, hung his golden chain on a sign-post for a whole year without having it stolen."

"Tha-at ud be afore we brought our Chinese Labour gang felling timber," he said firmly; "I wudden give it five minutes now."

"I understand, too, that there is a historic ruin hereabouts."

"Theer was," he said; "but he's in hospital."

"What do you mean?"

"Ratty Beslow; my owd colleague an' sparring pardner. It's 'im you weer talking of, ain't it?"

"It wasn't; but I'm interested in him," I said, sitting down on a pile of logs. "How did he get to hospital?"

"Through a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory. You see, me an' Ratty had been in th' War a goodish time an' ha-ad lost our o-riginal ferociousness. So they put us to this Chink Labour gang for a rest-cure. Likewise Ratty 'ad got too fa-amous as a timber-scrounger oop th' line, and it was thought that if 'e was left in th' middle of a forest, wheer it didn't matter a dang if he scrounged wood fra' revally to tattoo, it might reform him. But it was deadly dull. We tried a sweepstake f'r th' one as could recognise most Chinks at sight, and a raffle for who could guess how many trees in a circle; but there wasn't much spice in it. So at last Ratty suggested we should try a bit o' poaching.

"'Ah doan't know th' first thing about it,' I says; 'Ah'm town bred. Nobbut Ah could knock a few rabbits over if Ah'd got a Lewis gun handy.'

"'Rabbuts be danged!' says he; 'Ah've no use f'r such vermin. Theer's stags, so Ah've heerd tell, in this forest.'

"'Ah wudden say no to a haunch o' venison,' I answered; 'but stags is artillery work.'

"'They is not,' says Ratty. 'Nor yet rifles nor bombs.'

"'Ah s'pose you stops theer holes an' puts in a ferret,' says I, sarcastic; 'or else traps 'em wi' cheese.'

"'That's the only kind o' hunting you've bin used to,' replies Ratty. 'Stags is caught wi' tactics, a trip-wire an' a lasso.'

"'Well, la-ad,' I says, 'you'd best do th' lassoing. I doan't know the habits o' stags.'

"Ratty scrounges a prime rope fra' somewheers, an' we creeps out after nightfall. It was a dree night, the owd bracken underfoot damp an' sodden, an' th' tall firs looking grim an' gho-ostly in th' gloom. Soon theer was a crackling o' twigs, like a tank scouting on tiptoe.

"'Bosch patrol half-left!' whispers I.

"'Stow it, you blighter,' says Ratty. 'This is serious. Can't you see th' stag?'

"I peeps round and, loomin' in the da-arkness, see th' hindquarters of a stag sticking out ayant a tree. It looked bigger 'n Ah 've seen 'em in pictures, but Ah 've noticed Fritzes look bigger in th' dark.

"'Now's your chance, la-ad,' I whispers. 'Trip round an' slip th' noose over 'is horns.'

"'Not me,' growls Batty. 'T'other end's safer.'

"He crawls up to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged to be Ratty.

"'Ratty's after altitude records,' says I to meself, 'an' there'll be th' ellanall of a row if that rope's lost.'

"However, in a few minutes he started to descend an' made a good landing in some soft bracken. By th' time I'd felt him all over, an' found 'e'd be fit to go to hospital in th' morning, th' stag had disappeared."

"I never heard of stags kicking like that before," I interrupted.

"Nor hadn't Ratty," said the ancient warrior. "Ah towd you he made a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory.

"The next night, feeling mighty lonely, Ah walked five kilometres to th' nearest estaminet, the 'Rondyvoo de Chasers,' an' looked upon the _vang_ while it was _rouge_. When I'd done lookin' and started home th' forest looked more gho-ost-like than ever wi' th' young firs bowing an' swaying, and drifts o' cloud peeping through the branches. All at once I heerd a crackling o' twigs like th' night afore, an' then someone stole acrost th' road carrying a rope.

"Ah says to myself, 'It's one of th' Chinks poaching, an' it's 'evin 'elp 'im if 'e 's after what Ratty nearly caught last night!'

"Seemingly 'e was, for 'e follered th' noise, an' Ah follered 'im--at a safe distance. Then, dimlike an' looming big, Ah saw th' stag, an' the Chink stealing up behind it.

"'Tother end, you fool!' I whispered; an' he jumps round to its head, slips th' noose round its neck an' leads if off as quiet as a lamb."

"You don't expect me to believe," I broke in indignantly, "that a stag can be led like a poodle on a lead?"

"P'r'aps not stags," said the veteran, relighting his pipe. "That's weer Ratty made the mistake that sent 'im to hospital. But you can do it now and then with a transport mule what's broke away, and the Chink done it."

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* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

"In reply to your letter to hand, we are very sorry for the delay in sending the Jumper, but the tremendous demand for these has denuded our stock. We are, however, expecting a further delay now in a day or so.

Yours obediently,

BROTHERS, LTD."

* * * * *

"The spell of hot weather is causing large numbers of the public to migrate to the Kent coast. Thanet, owing to greatly improved travelling facilities, is being specially flavoured. The public well know the magical properties of Thanet air."--_Evening Paper_.

Then why bother about flavouring it?

* * * * *

"The Food Controller announced that canned salmon is now free of control, and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on July 1.

He also intimates that canned salmon is now free of control, and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on July 1."--_Daily Paper_.

We hope he will say it once more, on the Bellman's principle that "what I tell you three times is true."

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HINTS ON SELECTING AN AEROPLANE.

As all the world will soon be in the air a few words of advice on choosing an aerial steed may be of assistance to intending fliers who have so far had no experience as owners of winged craft.

The first thing is to locate the whereabouts of the best park, for one speaks of a park of aeroplanes just as one speaks of a school of whales, a grove of wombats or a suite of leeches. Having arrived (wearing, if you are wise, a full-grown check cap, with the back to the front and the peak protecting the nape of the neck from the bites of savage vendors), take a deep breath and look round you knowingly.

By the way, what are you--peer, profiteer, or plain _pater-familias_ looking for a family air-bus? It is impossible to advise you how to select a plane without knowing whether you want one for long-distance journeys (with non-starting attachment), for stunting, or merely for gadding about and dropping in on your friends. There is a sad story afloat of a man who bought an air-bus the other day for world-touring and only discovered the insufficiency of cupboards and the want of a bathroom after starting on his maiden trip to Patagonia (where the nuts drop off).

Let us suppose that you are one of the majority of heavier-than-air persons who will shortly be wanting a good steady machine to rise to any ordinary occasion.

Well, then, look round you carefully. Observe the demeanour of the machines that are trotted out (if such a term may be used) for your inspection. The flick of a tail, the purr of an engine or the slope of a wing may give the observant a clue as to the disposition of an aerial Pegasus.

But however reassuring a preliminary canter may be (to borrow another horsey simile) insist on a thorough personal inspection of all parts of the machine. Test the musical capacity of the wire entanglement, screw and unscrew the turnbuckles till the seller cries for mercy, and run your hands well over the body (the aeroplane's, of course) to make quite sure that it will support the weight of yourself, of your family and of your parasites--remembering in this connection that Aunt Louisa kicks the beam at 15.7. Make sure also that the body will not part company with the rest of the box of tricks at one of those awkward corners in the sky. Also, if you have time, it might be well to glance at the engine, the petrol tank and the feed-pipe, as experts consider these of importance.

Having satisfied yourself that all these things are as they should be in the best of all possible aeroplanes, that the joy-stick works as smoothly as a beer-pull, and that the under-carriage has the necessary wheels, axles and other things that under-carriages are licensed to carry, little remains but to pay for the machine and make a nosedive for home.

A longer and more detailed article on "How to Choose a Stunter," by the Bishop of Solder and Man, with which is incorporated "A Few Hints on Banking for Beginners," by Sir JOHN BRADBURY, will appear in next week's issue.

[This is the first I have heard of it.--ED.]

* * * * *

From a Menu:--

"Special this day: Boiled Rabbi and Pork."

A clear case of adding insult to injury.

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* * * * *

BALLADE OF APPROACHING BALDNESS.

I'm back in civil life, all brawn and chest, Lungs made of leather, heart as right as rain; I still could dine off bully-beef with zest; I've never had a scratch or stitch or sprain; Life seems to throb in every single vein. Yet I'm a whited sepulchre, in brief; I've one foot in the grave, I'm on the wane, I'm heading for the sere and yellow leaf.