Book: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919
V >>
Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919
* * * * *
EMANCIPATION.
"Wanted by respectable woman, a couple of Gentleman's Trousers
(left off)."--_Irish Paper_.
* * * * *
"A Caproni machine flew a distance of 325 miles in four
fours."--_Scottish Paper._
A correspondent writes to ask if this is double the time usually
described as "two two's."
* * * * *
"At 11 o'clock the muster roll at many shops and offices was still
incomplete. Indeed assistants were reported 'missing' at many
establishments an hour later. There were girls--Government and
others--who stayed at home."--_Evening Paper_.
Little pigs who wouldn't go to market.
* * * * *
"At Bolton on Saturday the United Textile Factory Workers'
Association decided to put forward a demand for a 4-hours week,
with the same rate of pay as for 55-1/2 hours."--_Provincial
Paper_.
We trust this is a misprint and not an "intelligent anticipation" of
what we are coming to.
* * * * *
"The teachers of ---- are not satisfied with the scale of salary
fixed by the Education Committee, and yesterday morning a
deputation waited upon the Special Salaries Committee to state
their case. The Education Committee decided to increase the salary
of the borough Director of Education from L450 to L500."
_Provincial Paper_.
And if that don't satisfy 'em--Bolshevism, my dear Sir, Bolshevism!
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The General (showing his nieces round Club_). "THERE'S
BEEN A LOT OF ARM-CHAIR FIGHTING DONE IN THIS ROOM." _School-Girl._
"HOW TOPPING! THAT BEATS PILLOW-FIGHTING. BUT ISN'T IT RATHER
DANGEROUS?"]
* * * * *
OLD HEN-PECK.
Captain Edwin Peck, E.N.,
Had the habits of a hen.
Edwin's nose was like a bone,
And his teeth were not his own;
Neither, I regret to tell,
Did they fit him very well.
It was not his fault, no doubt,
That they tried to tumble out,
And in fact he seldom dropped them,
For he almost always copped them
Just as they became unstuck
By ejaculating, "Cluck."
Yoked to this elusive plate,
Did our Edwin curse his fate?
No, he was content to live,
For he was inquisitive.
If he saw a speck of grit
He must needs examine it,
Not as any other might,
Standing at his proper height,
But with body slightly slanted
And his head obliquely canted,
While with small unblinking eye
He surveyed it wickedly.
One fine Sunday Captain Peek
Stalked along the lower deck,
Pausing now and then to stare,
Poking here and scratching there,
Like a pullet in her prime
Clucking softly all the time.
Presently the Captain spied
One small scuttle open wide.
"Cluck!" he said, and likewise. "Tut!
"Every scuttle should be shut;"
And with a malignant snort
Poked his head out through the port.
That was easy, but, alack!
When he tried to get it back
There was heard an angry cluck--
Captain Edwin Peck was stuck!
Strange at first as it appears,
He had overlooked his ears;
But it's not so queer, perhaps,
When you ask, "Have hens got flaps?"
Silence! You'd have heard a pin
Fall upon the deck within,
Till the Bloke was heard to shout,
"Stick it, Sir! We'll get you out!"
Everybody had a go--
Chief, Commander, P.M.O.,
Padre, Carpenter and Stoker,
Using engine-grease and poker,
Hawser, marlin-spike and soap,
Till at length they gave up hope,
For, in spite of all they did,
Edwin fitted like a lid.
Suddenly upon the scene
Came a German submarine.
Then a flash, a roar, a groan;
"We are sinking like a stone!"
Cried the Bloke with angry frown;
"Can we leave poor Peck to drown?
Really, this is _too_ absurd;"
Then a miracle occurred.
As the cold green waters roll
Round poor Edwin in his hole,
Are the watchers wrong in thinking
That the Captain's neck is shrinking?
As she took her final list on,
Sighing, "uedor men aeriston!"
Long-enduring Captain Peck
Gracefully withdrew his neck,
Poked it out again and spoke
To the sorrow-stricken Bloke:
"Nothing more that we can do?
No? Then sound the 'Sove kee poo!'"
Need I tell how Captain Peck
Was the last to leave the wreck,
How the good ship perished, or
How he brought them safe to shore,
Landing, after all his men,
Clucking softly like a hen?
* * * * *
Up-to date quotation for foot-sore Londoners: "Et Tube, brute!"
* * * * *
THE MUD LARKS.
One reads a lot nowadays about the "slavery" of various habits (drug,
drink, bigamy, etc.) and loud is the outcry. But there is yet another
bondage, just as binding and far more widespread, which nobody ever
seems to mention, namely, the drill habit. Drill the young soldier up
in the way he should go and for ever after his body will spring to the
word of command, whether his soul approves or no.
Once upon a time two men turned up in a railway construction camp deep
in the Rhodesian bush. They were a silent, furtive, friendless pair,
dwelling apart, and nobody could discover whence they came, whither
they were bound, or, in fact, anything about them. It was generally
conceded that they had some horrid secret to bury (camp optimists
voted for "murder") and left it at that. Time went by and so did the
rail-head, leaving the two mysteries behind as permanent-way gangers.
Solitude seemed to suit them. Years passed along and still the two
remained in that abomination of desolation guarding their stretch of
track and their horrid secret. Then one day ROBERTS rolled by on his
way to Victoria Falls, and, his train halting to tank-up, the old
Field-Marshal stepped ashore and called to the two gangers, who
happened to be close at hand tinkering at their trolley. The guard,
who was taking a bottle of Bass with the steward on the platform of
the diner, suddenly jabbed his friend in the brisket.
"Look, for the love of Mike!" he giggled.
The two gangers were standing talking to "BOBS," shoulder to shoulder,
heels together, feet spread at an angle of forty-five degrees, knees
braced, thumbs behind the seams of their trousers, backs hollowed,
heads erect--in short in the correct position of attention as decreed
in the Book of Infantry Training. The old man finished speaking and
the two saluted smartly and broke away. The steward looked at his
friend and nodded, "Old soldiers."
"Old deserters, you mean," retorted the guard. "_Now_ we know."
The drill habit had been too strong for those two fugitives even after
ten years.
The other night our Babe, as Orderly Officer, sat up alone in the
Mess, consuming other people's cigarettes and whisky until midnight,
then, being knocked up by the Orderly Sergeant, gave the worthy fellow
a tot to restore circulation, pulled on his gum-boots and sallied
forth on the rounds. By 12.45 he had assured himself that the line
guards were functioning in the prescribed "brisk and soldierly
manner," and that the horses were all properly tucked up in bed, and
so turned for home.
He paused at the cross-roads to hear the end of the Sergeant's
reminiscences of happy days when he, the Sergeant, (then full-private,
full in more senses than one) had held the responsible position of
beer-taster to a regiment at Jaipurbad ("an ideal drinkin' climate,
Sir"), then, dismissing the old connoisseur, continued on his way
bedward.
It must have been one o'clock by then, a black wind-noisy night. As
the Babe turned into the home straight, he saw a light flash for an
instant in a big cart-shed opposite the Mess--just a flicker as of a
match scratched and instantly extinguished.
This struck him as curious; it was no weather or hour for decent folk
to be abroad. The Babe then remembered that the mess-cart was in the
shed, and it occurred to him that somebody might be monkeying with the
harness. He thereupon marched straight for the shed (treading quite
noiselessly in his gum-boots) and, pulling out his electric torch,
flashed it, not on some cringing Picard peasant, as he had expected,
but on three unshorn, unwashed, villainous, whopping big Bosch
infantrymen! It would be difficult to say who was the most staggered
for the moment, the Huns blinking in the sudden glare of the torch
or the Babe well aware that he was up against a trio of escaped and
probably quite desperate prisoners of war. "Victory," says M. HILAIRE
BELLOC (or was it NAPOLEON? I am always getting them mixed) "is to him
who can bring the greatest force to bear on a given position." That
is as may be, but, after personal participation in one or two of
the major disputes in the late lamented war, I put it this way. Two
opposing factions bump, utter chaos reigns supreme and the side which
recovers first wins. In this case the Babe was the first to recover. A
year before the War he found himself in a seminary in the suburbs of
Berlin, learning to cough his vowels, roll his r's and utter German
phonetically. Potsdam was near at hand, and many a pleasant hour did
the Babe spend on a bench outside the old Stadt Palast, watching young
recruits of the Prussian Guard having their souls painfully extracted
from them by _Feldwebels_ of great muzzle velocity and booting force.
The sight of those three Hun uniforms standing before him must have
pricked a memory, which in turn set some sub-conscious mechanism to
work, for suddenly the Babe heard a voice bawling orders in German. It
was fully five seconds, he swears, before he recognised it as his own.
"Attention!" snarled the voice in proper Potsdammer style. "Quick
march! Right wheel!" The three great hooligans trembled all over,
clicked their heels and stepped off the mark as punctiliously as
though on the Tempelhofer Feld at the Spring Parade.
In two minutes the Babe, snarling like a Zoo tiger at dinner-time,
had manoeuvred them across a hundred yards of bog and filed them,
goose-stepping, into a Nissen Hut full of sleeping Atkinses. The
Atkinses rolled, gaping, off their beds at the Babe's first shout, and
the game was up.
Ten minutes later the Bosch gentlemen were _en route_ for the main
guard under strong, if _deshabille_, escort.
It turned out that one of them spoke English quite badly and on
reaching the Guard Room he opened out.
They had escaped from a prison camp at Abbeville, he said, and were
heading for Holland, travelling by night.
Passing the farm at about midnight they espied our hooded mess-cart
and, feeling tired and footsore, had conceived the bright idea of
stealing a horse to fit the cart and driving to Holland in style and
comfort. Just as they were getting things shipshape along came the
Babe and clapped the lid on--"_verfluchte kleine Teufel_!"
When the Main Guard lads inquired how it was that after all their
trouble they had allowed one lone unarmed infant to corral the three
of them, instead of quietly biffing him on the head, as they quite
easily might have done, the Huns were very confused. At one moment
they were in the shed, they said, fascinated like moths in the glare
of the torch, and the next thing they knew they were in the midst of a
horde of underclothed Tommies--trapped. As to what had happened in the
interval, or how they had been spirited from one place to the other,
they were not in the least clear--couldn't explain it at all.
The Drill Habit again.
PATLANDER.
* * * * *
ARMISTICE-TIME ECONOMY.
"The Consecrating Officers were elected Honorary Members of the
Lodge and were presented with a souvenir in the form of a solid
silver cigar ash-tray, made from the lead used in the production
of shrapnel bullets."
_Freemason's Chronicle_.
* * * * *
"Several persons dropped to the pavement, several dripping with
blood. One man had his head partially opened, and he lay writing
on the ground."--_Provincial Paper_.
If the poor fellow was, as we presume, a reporter, we cannot too much
applaud his devotion to duty.
* * * * *
[Illustration: NEWS FROM THE SHIRES.
_Customer_. "WELL, JARVIS, WHAT'S THE LATEST?"
_Farrier_. "I HEAR AS HOW THAT ADMIRAL BEATTY IS LIKELY TO BECOME A
PUBLIC MAN."
_Customer_. "HOW DO YOU MEAN?"
_Farrier_. "WHY, I HEAR SOME TALK OF HIM BEING MASTER OF THE QUORN."]
* * * * *
THE BET.
The Colonel was, as usual, laying down the law.
"Economy!" he said with a snort; "economy's dead. No one cares about
saving money any more. No one cares about the value of money. We
are asked excessive prices and we pay them. We eat, drink and are
merry--or approximately so--and be hanged to you! With the exception
of the halfpenny stamp we put on circulars I can think of nothing that
has not gone up or, in other words, lost buying power. I defy anyone
to name a thing that hasn't."
He glowered fiercely and challengingly around.
"I repeat," he said, "that the purchasing power of money is not what
it was in any respect. The other day, for instance, I bought a new
hat. I used to pay a guinea; it is now thirty-two and six. And a worse
hat probably. What do you think I was charged for soling and heeling
shoes? One pound ten! And worse leather. That's partly what I mean
by the loss of purchasing power; where the price may in some
extraordinary way remain the same, the quality of the article paid for
is inferior. There's a steady deterioration. Can anyone name a case
where I am wrong?"
His red eyes again defied us.
"Yes, I can," said a meek voice.
The Colonel subjected the speaker to a long and ferocious scrutiny.
"You can'?" he said at last.
"Yes," replied the meek voice. "Will you bet on it?"
"Bet on it? Most certainly I will," said the Colonel, who has done
fairly well in wagers in his time. "How much?"
"What you like," replied the meek voice.
"Very well," said the Colonel, "make it a tenner."
"With pleasure," was the rejoinder. "The bet is that I can't name a
single thing which has not either increased in price or decreased in
quality since the War?"
"Yes," said the Colonel.
We all sat up and waited, as though for the maroons in the old, old
days.
"Well," said the meek voice, "the cost of pulling a communication cord
is I still five pounds, and you can have just as good a pull as ever."
* * * * *
ON THE SAFE SIDE.
"Why, what's this, Ben, they're telling me?--
Eighty and going to get a wife!
Gaffer, I thought you'd surely be
A snug old bachelor for life."
"Well, Sur, ye see I allus meant
To take ole Martha some fine day;
But 'wed in haste and then repent'
I heer'd as many folks did say.
"But now, thinks I, there's sure no fear
Through too much haste o' goin' wrong;
"An', anyways, at eighty year
I can't repent fur wery long."
* * * * *
THE GREATEST PATRIOT OF ALL: A public servant who did not strike
during the War--Big Ben.
* * * * *
[Illustration: EFFECT ON BALLROOM IF, OWING TO THE STRIKE MANIA, THE
MUSICIANS WERE SUDDENLY TO "DOWN INSTRUMENTS."]
* * * * *
THE APPOINTMENT.
They tell me there is work for most,
However tired they be,
That there are Offices engrossed
In finding me a well-paid post
Of suitable degree;
That there are businesses that itch
To make the young lieutenant rich,
Yet I have not discovered which
Is itching after me.
And this is strange; for I could shine
In any place you please,
Although, if there is any line
Which is most obviously mine,
It is the man of ease--
The man whose intellect is such
He never has to labour much,
But does the literary touch
In comfort at "The Leas."
Or I could be a splendid Squire
And watch the harvest grow,
Could urge the reaper to perspire
And put the cattle in the byre
(If that is where they go),
And every morning do the rounds
Of my immense ancestral grounds
With six or seven faithful hounds,
And say, "It looks like snow."
And there are moments when I feel
The diplomatic call;
No trickery would long conceal
The state of things at Bubazeel
When I was at the Ball,
To spy across the "brilliant floors"
On daughters of Ambassadors,
And "obviate" impending wars
By dancing with them all.
A bishopric I can't afford,
Though I could give it tone,
And often when the people snored
I've felt they would not be so bored
By sermons of my own;
But if the Secretaries cry
For secretaries--here am I;
Or nobly would I occupy
The taxi-driver's throne.
For I should beam across the street
When people waved at me,
And say, "My petrol's incomplete,
I haven't had my bit of meat
Nor yet my bit of tea,
But just because I like your face
I'll take you out to any place
However distant from my base--
And ask no extra fee."
And yet I doubt could England bear
To see my rest destroyed?
A soul so delicate and fair
Should simply saunter through the air
And cultivate the void;
One would not readily degrade
One's loveliness in _any_ trade,
Only, of course, one must be paid
For being unemployed.
A. P. H.
* * * * *
SMITH MINOR PROFFERS A REQUEST.
_(An authentic document_.)
Will you please send me a fountain pen because nearly every boy but me
has a fountain pen and I should so like to have one because I often
want to write something outside and I carn't and then when I come in I
don't no what it is and I miss something out of my letter then when I
have writen my letter I remember what it was and genulry I remember it
in lesons and when I begin to write my next letter I have for goten
it and it goes on like that till at last I remember it and then some
times I don't rember it all and that is why I want a fontin pen.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "DRY" HUMOUR.
PRESIDENT WILSON. "OUR FUTURE LIES UPON THE WATER!"
BRITANNIA. "ALLUDING, I PRESUME, TO YOUR PROHIBITION MOVEMENT?"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
MR. LOWTHER TAKES THE CHAIR FOR "POSITIVELY THE LAST TIME." HIS
ENTHUSIASTIC PROPOSER AND SECONDER (COLONEL MILDMAY AND SIR HENRY
DALZIEL), BITTEN BY THE POPULAR CRAZE, PUT A BIT OF "JAZZ" INTO THE
PROCEEDINGS.]
_Tuesday, February 4th_.--There is much virtue in horsehair. Few who
attended the informal opening of the Third Parliament of KING GEORGE
THE FIFTH would have guessed that under the full-bottomed wig and
gorgeous black-and-gold robes of the dignified figure on the Woolsack
lay the volatile personality of "F. E." He played his new part nobly.
A trifling error in the setting of his three-cornered hat, whose
rakish cock was for the moment reminiscent of the "Galloper," was
quickly corrected on the advice of one of the Lords Commissioners at
his side; and by the time the faithful Commons were admitted to hear
the Commission read there was nothing to differentiate Lord BIRKENHEAD
(as he had now become) from any previous occupant of his exalted
position. Nor was there any lack of dignity in his delivery of the
instructions to the Commons to "proceed to the choice of some proper
person to be your Speaker"--though I fancy that when he bade them
"repair to the place where you are to sit" he must have been tempted
to add the words, "provided that you can find room there."
For the Lower House, when we returned there, was a seething mass of
humanity. How many of the 707 duly elected Members were present I know
not; but there were enough to swamp the floor and surge over into the
Galleries. Seeing that the "Tubes" were closed and taxis few and far
between, some of them were obliged to resort to unusual methods of
locomotion. Sir HENRY NORMAN surprised the police in Palace Yard by
arriving on a motor-scooter, and there is an unconfirmed rumour
that the Editor of _John Bull_ made his _rentree_ to the House in a
flying-boat drawn by four _canards sauvages._ Anyhow, there they were,
so thick and slab that Mr. DE VALERA, who was reported to have escaped
from durance vile with the intention of presenting himself at the
House and creating a disturbance, would have found it impossible to
gain entry unless preceded by a charge of gelignite. As it was, none
of the Sinn Feiners was present, nor indeed any representative of
Irish Nationalism at all, and the proceedings were as orderly as a
Quaker funeral.
Not that they were by any means dull. For both Colonel MILDMAY, who
proposed, and Sir HENRY DALZIEL, who seconded, the re-election of Mr.
LOWTHER as Speaker, spiced their compliments with humour. The former
was confident that even if Woman appeared on the floor of the House
the SPEAKER-ELECT'S "consummate tact" would be equal to coping with
her artfullest endeavours to get round the rules of procedure; while
the latter attributed his priceless gift of humour to "Scottish
ancestry on the mother's side."
Horsehair again! I hardly recognised in the quietly-dressed Member who
rose from the Bench behind Ministers to acknowledge these encomiums
the man whose awe-inspiring appearance (when clothed in wig and gown)
has quelled so many storms in the last four Parliaments. Let us hope
that the fifth, of which, being the outcome of his famous Conference,
he may in a sense be described as the "onlie begetter," will not
disgrace its parentage.
Already there are elements of difficulty. Through the non-return of
Mr. ASQUITH the Opposition has lost its head literally and is in some
danger of losing it figuratively, for the remnant of the un-"couponed"
Liberals and the Labour Party are at present acutely divided on the
question upon whom the lost Leader's mantle should fall. Today Sir
DONALD MACLEAN, as senior Privy Councillor, took the _pas_ and was
able from personal experience to give his conception of the ideal
Speaker, who "must not only have good vision but be sometimes quite
blind; not only have acute hearing but occasionally be almost
stone-deaf." Fortunately the SPEAKER-ELECT can assume these physical
defects at will; for, despite its quiet opening, I doubt if the
new Parliament when it gets to work will prove precisely a Lowther
Arcadia.
_Wednesday, February 5th_.--To the Lords again, where the
SPEAKER-ELECT, attired in Court dress and accompanied by the
SERGEANT-AT-ARMS dandling the Mace as if it ware a refractory infant,
presented himself at the Bar to hear from the LORD CHANCELLOR the
pleasing intelligence that HIS MAJESTY was convinced of his "ample
sufficiency" to execute his arduous duties, and readily approved his
election. Thereupon Sir COLIN KEPPEL swung the Mace on to his shoulder
and escorted the SPEAKER, now confirmed in his rank, back to the
Commons.
There was an unusual rush of Members to take the oath. This was not
entirely due to the new Members, naturally desirous of completing
their initiatory rites, but was shared by many of the older hands, for
the good and sufficient reason that, until a Member is certified as
having been duly sworn, he cannot recover his one hundred and fifty
pounds deposit from the Returning Officer. In their zeal to be in a
position to reimburse themselves Members crowded in such numbers to
the tables that there was some danger that they would be overturned.
As one of our Latinists remarked, "It looks as if we should have
_novae res_ outside and _novae tabulae_ inside."
_Thursday, February 6th._--The process, once immortalized by a Lords'
reporter in the sentence, "A few Bishops looked in, swore, and went
away again," went on in both Houses; but in the Commons in a more
orderly fashion than yesterday. For the SPEAKER, ever ready, as he
said on his election, "to carry out the old rules in a modern
spirit," directed the waiting Members to form up in line. One of the
Coalitionists evinced a little surprise. He had always understood that
when coupons were issued queues were superfluous.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Donald (who a short time before had put the bottle in
the cupboard "for another day" breaking long silence)._ "SAXPENCE FOR
YOUR THOUGHTS, SANDY."
_Sandy._ "WEEL, I'M THENKIN' IT'S JEST TWA MEENITS SEN THE CLOCK STRUCK
TWELVE--AN' IT'LL BE ANITHER DAY."
* * * * *
"Wanted a Certificated (Resilient) Lady Teacher for Std.
V."--_Times of India_.
* * * * *
TENDENCIES
(_Being some extracts from the daily Press of, say, 1925)._
.... The bi-monthly strike of Clyde workers took place yesterday. The
proceedings were quite orderly. The matter in dispute this time is a
very simple affair. The men, who are now working on a full half-hour a
week basis at one hundred and sixty-eight hours' pay, with three snap
meal-times of ten minutes each per day, are not pressing for any
alteration in pay or hours, but demand the dismissal of Mr. John
Smith, the managing director of one of the large shipbuilding yards,
who rudely refused to fetch a pint of beer for one of the rivetters.
The Government department dealing with strike questions is full up for
three months yet, but hopes are entertained that, unless a critical
by-election should intervene, it will be possible to deal with the
matter at the expiration of that period.