Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 by Various
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Various >> Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917
Such was the interview.
What the manager will decide cannot yet be stated, for the week has
not expired.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _First Mite_. "AIN'T 'E JUST LIKE THE PICTURES, LIZ? I
BETCHER 'E'S A COWBOY."
_Second ditto_. "GARN! 'E'S ONLY A SOLDIER."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: HUMOURS OF A REMOUNT CAMP.
_Staff Officer_. "I RODE THIS HORSE YOU SENT ME ON TUESDAY AND HE WAS
ALL RIGHT. BUT WHEN I RODE HIM ON WEDNESDAY HE WAS MUCH TOO FRISKY."
_Remount Officer_. "WELL, WHY NOT RIDE HIM ONLY ON TUESDAYS?"]
* * * * *
"GOOSE.--Remembrance and many thanks for war dividends."--_Daily
Telegraph_.
This is the best it can do under present conditions. Golden eggs are
"off."
* * * * *
"It was Tennyson who told us that there are 'books in running
brooks and sermons in stones.'"
But it was SHAKSPEARE who said it first.
* * * * *
LINES ON A NEW HISTORY.
Weary of MACAULAY, never nodding,
Weary of the stodginess of STUBBS,
Weary of the scientific plodding
Of the school that only digs and grubs;
I salute, with grateful admiration
Foreign to the hireling eulogist,
CHESTERTON'S red-hot self-revelation
In the guise of England's annalist.
Here is no parade of erudition,
No pretence of calm judicial tone,
But the stimulating ebullition
Of a sort of humanized cyclone;
Unafraid of flagrant paradoxes,
Unashamed of often seeing red,
Here's a thinker who the compass boxes
Standing most at ease upon his head.
Yet with all this acrobatic frolic
There's a core of sanity behind
Madness that is never melancholic,
Passion never cruel or unkind;
And, although his wealth of purple patches
Some precisians may excessive deem,
Still the decoration always matches
Something rich and splendid in the theme.
Not a text-book--that may admitted--
Full of dates and Treaties and of Pacts,
For our author cannot be acquitted
Of a liberal handling of his facts;
But a stirring proof of Britain's title,
Less in Empire than in soul, of "Great,"
And a frank and generous recital
Of "the glories of our blood and State."
* * * * *
JOURNALISTIC CANDOUR.
"Mrs. ----, to her latest days, was a devoted student of
the 'Recorder.' Her end came through continuous 'eye
strain' in reading the Conference news for several hours
together."--_Methodist Recorder_.
* * * * *
"Barons Court.--To let, furnished, an attractive little
artist's House, well fitted throughout."--_The Observer_.
A flapper writes to say that she would like to know more about this
attractive little artist.
* * * * *
SIX-AND-A-PENNY-HALFPENNY.
"This," I said, "is perfectly monstrous. It is an outrage. It--"
"What have they done to you now?" said Francesca. "Have they forbidden
you to have your boots made of leather, or to go on wearing your shiny
old blue serge suit, or have they failed in some way to recognise your
merits as a Volunteer? Quick, tell me so that I may comfort you."
"Listen to this," I said.
"I should be better able to listen and you would certainly be better
able to read the letter if you didn't brandish it in my face."
"When you've heard it," I said, "you'll understand why I brandish it.
Listen:--
"'Sir,--I understand that on the 15th instant you travelled from Star
Bond to our London terminus without your season-ticket, and declined
to pay the ordinary fare. One of the conditions which you signed
stipulates that in the event of your inability to produce your
season-ticket the ordinary fare shall be paid, and as the Railway
Executive now controlling the railways on behalf of the Government
is strict in enforcing the observance of this condition, I have no
alternative but to request you to kindly remit me the sum of 6s.
1-1/2d. in respect of the journey in question.
I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
H.W. HUTCHINSON.'
"This," I said, as I finished reading the letter, "comes from the
Great North-Southern Railway, and is addressed to _me_. What do you
think of it?"
"The miserable man," said Francesca, "has split an infinitive, but he
probably did it under the orders of the Railway Executive."
"I don't mind," I said, "about his treatment of infinitives. He may
split them all to smithereens if he likes. It's the monstrous nature
of his demand that vexes me."
"What can you expect of a Railway Company?" said Francesca. "Surely
you didn't suppose a company would display any of the finer feelings?"
"Francesca," I said, "this is a serious matter. If you are not going
to sympathise with me, say so at once, and I shall know what to do."
"Well, what will you do?"
"I shall plough my lonely furrow--I mean, I shall write my lonely
letter all by myself, and you shan't help me to make up any of the
stingers that I'm going to put into it."
"Oh, my dear," she said, "what is the use of writing stingers to a
railway? You might as well smack the engine because the guard trod
on your foot."
"Well, but, Francesca, I'm boiling over with indignation."
"So am I," she said, "but--"
"But me no buts," I said. "Let's boil over together and trounce Mr.
Hutchinson. Let us write a model letter for the use of season-ticket
holders who have mislaid their tickets. We'll pack it full of sarcasm
and irony. We will make an appeal to the nobler sentiments of the
Board of Directors. We will remind them that they too are subject to
human frailty, and--"
"--we will not send the letter, but will put it away until we've
finished our boiling-over and have simmered down."
"Francesca," I said, "am I not going to be allowed to communicate to
this so-called railway company my opinion of its conduct? Are all the
pearls of sarcasm with which my mind is teeming to be thrown away?"
"Well," she said, "it would be useless to cast them before the Railway
Executive."
"Mayn't I hint a hope that the penny-halfpenny will come in useful in
a time of financial stress?"
"No," she said decisively, "you are to do none of these things. Of
course they've behaved in a mean and shabby way, but they've got you
fixed, and the best thing you can do is to get a postal order and send
it off to Mr. Hutchinson."
"Mayn't I--"
"No, certainly not. Write a short and formal note and enclose the
P.O.; and next time don't forget your ticket."
"If you'll tell me how to make sure of that," I said, "I'll vote for
having a statue of you put up."
"Does everybody," she said, "forget his season-ticket?"
"Yes," I said, "everybody, at least once a year."
R.C.L.
* * * * *
HERBS OF GRACE.
VIII.
SOUTHERNWOOD.
Some are for Camphor to put with their dresses,
"Lay Russia-leather between 'em," say some;
Some are for Lavender sprinkled in presses,
Some are for Woodruff, that moths may not come;
I am for Southernwood, Southernwood, Southernwood
(_Gardy-robe_ called, they do say, by the French),
Whisper of summertime, summertime, summertime,
Southernwood, laid wi' the clothes of a wench.
Some are for Violets, some are for Roses,
Some for Peniriall, some for Bee Balm,
When they go church-along carrying posies
(Smell 'em and glance at the lads in the psalm);
I am for Southernwood, Southernwood, Southernwood
(_Lad's Love_ 'tis called by the home-folk hereby),
All in the summertime, summertime, summertime--
_Lad's Love_ 'tis called, and for lad's love am I.
W.B.
* * * * *
THE POET.
[Commenting upon the fact that Mr. Justice Salter objected to Mr.
Wild, K.C., reading poetry in court, a contemporary gossip-writer
remarks, "Why do people write poetry?"]
The following communications, evidently intended for our contemporary,
were inadvertently addressed to Mr. Punch:--
DEAR SIR,--I took up poetry because I was once bitten by an editor's
dog and I determined to be avenged.
DEAR SIR,--Two years ago I lost Sidney, my pet silkworm, and as I had
to take up some hobby I decided on poetry.
DEAR SIR,--With me it is a gift. It just came to me. On the other hand
my friends often suggest my seeing a doctor, as they think there may
be a piece of bone pressing on the brain.
DEAR SIR,--I used to suffer from red hair, and gradually I am
getting the stuff turned grey. By the way, can you give me a rhyme
for "Camouflage"?
DEAR SIR,--I began writing lyrics for ragtime revues, because I
wanted to see what would happen if I just took hold of the pen and
let her rip.
* * * * *
From a calendar:--
"October 31. Wednesday.
August to October Game Certificates expire,
Mystical carpeted earth, with dead leaves of desire,
Disrobing earth dying beneath love's fire."
The rhymes are all right, but the scansion of the first line is
susceptible of improvement.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Fair Lecturer_ (_to Food Economy Committee_). "OF
COURSE I HAD TO MAKE IT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE TO REACH A RATHER LOW
LEVEL OF INTELLECT. I HOPE YOU ALL UNDERSTOOD."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
It would seem that "BARTIMEUS" occupies the same relative position
towards the silent Navy of 1917 that JOHN STRANGE WINTER did towards
the Army of the pre-KIPLING era. All his men are magnificent fellows,
his women sympathetic and courageous. The Hun, depicted as an
unsportsman-like brute (which he is), invariably gets it in the neck
(which, I regret to say, he doesn't). And so all is for the best in
the best of all possible services. In the Navy they are nothing if
not consistent and, while the military storyteller who did not have
his knife into the higher command would be looked upon as a freak,
"BARTIMEUS" loyally includes amongst his galaxy of perfect people
Lords of the Admiralty no less than the lower ratings. No one knows
the Navy and its business better than "BARTIMEUS," and he owes his
popularity to that fact. Yet he tells us very little about it,
preferring to dwell on the personal attributes of his individual
heroes, throwing in just enough incidental detail to give his stories
the proper sea tang. Of late a good many people have been busy
informing us that the Navy, like GILBERT'S chorus-girl, is no better
than it should be. But the fault, if there be one, does not lie with
the men that "BARTIMEUS" has selected to write about in his latest
novel, _The Long Trick_ (CASSELL), which will therefore lose none of
the appreciation it deserves on that account. And with such a leal
and brilliant champion to take the part of the Navy afloat, the Navy
ashore, whether in Parliament or out of it, may very well be left to
take care of itself.
* * * * *
Although Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE calls his collection of detective
stories _His Last Bow_ (MURRAY), and also warns us that _Sherlock
Holmes_ is "somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism,"
there is not in my lay opinion any cause for alarm. If I may jest
about such an austere personage as _Sherlock_, I should say that there
are several strings still left to his bow, and that the ever amenable
and admiring _Watson_ means to use them for all they are worth. At any
rate I sincerely hope so, for if it is conceivable that some of us
grow weary of _Sherlock's_ methods when we are given a long draught
of them no one will deny that they are palatable when taken a small
dose at a time. _Sherlock_, in short, is a national institution, and
if he is to be closed now and for ever I feel sure that the Bosches
will claim to have finished him off. And that would be a pity. Of
these eight stories the best are "The Dying Detective" and the
"Bruce-Partington Plans," but all of them are good to read, except
perhaps "The Devil's Foot," which left a "most sinister impression"
on dear old _Watson's_ mind, and incidentally on my own.
* * * * *
Every now and then, out of a mass of War-books grown so vast that no
single reader can hope even to keep count of them, there emerges one
of particular appeal. This is a claim that may certainly be made for
_An Airman's Outings_ (BLACKWOOD), especially just now when everything
associated with aviation is--I was about to say _sur le tapis_, but
the phrase is hardly well chosen--so conspicuously in the limelight.
The writer of these modest but thrilling records veils his identity
under the technical _nom de guerre_ of "CONTACT." With regard to his
method I can hardly do better than repeat what is said in a brief
preface by Major-General W.S. BRANCKER, Deputy Director-General of
Military Aeronautics: "The author depicts the daily life of the flying
officer in France, simply and with perfect truth; indeed he describes
heroic deeds with such moderation and absence of exaggeration that
the reader will scarcely realise," etc. But he will be a reader poor
indeed in imagination who is not helped by these pages to realise some
part of the debt that we owe to these marvellous winged boys of ours;
As for the heroic deeds, they are of a kind to take your breath--tales
of battles above the clouds, of trenches captured by aeroplane, of men
fatally wounded, thousands of feet above the enemy country, recovering
consciousness and working their guns till they sank dead, while their
battered machines planed for the security of friendly lines. Surely
the whole history of War has no picture to beat this in devotion.
* * * * *
EVELYN BRANSCOMBE PETTER has much that is interesting to say about
men and women, and packs her thought (I risk the "her") into a
quasi-Meredithian form of phrasing which does not always escape
obscurity. But how much better this than a limpid flow of words
without notable content! _Souls in the Making_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is
mainly an analysis of two love episodes in the life of a young man,
the liberally educated son of an ambitious self-made soapmaker.
The first--with _Sue_, the pretty waitress--is thwarted by a very
persistent and unpleasant clerk; the second--with _Virginia_, a girl
of birth and breeding--is threatened by the intrusion of the girl's
cousin, a queerly morbid ne'er-do-well. There is no action to speak
of, so one can't speak of it. I can only say that the interest of
the shrewd analysis held me, and that if my guess as to the sex of
the writer be sound it is noteworthy that more pains and skill are
bestowed upon the characters of the men than of the two girls, who are
some thing shadowy--charming unfinished sketches. There is a vigour
and an effect of personality in the writing that put this novel above
the large class of the merely competent.
* * * * *
Odd what a vogue has lately developed for what I might call the
ultra-domestic school of fiction. Here is another example, _Married
Life_ (CASSELL), in which Miss MAY EDGINTON, following the mode,
unites her hero and heroine at the beginning and leaves them to
flounder for our edification amid the trials of double blessedness.
I am sorry to say it, but her great solution for the eternal problem
of How to be Happy though Married appears to be the possession of a
sufficient bank-balance to prevent the chain from galling. In other
words, not to be too much married. All this love-in-a-cottage talk has
clearly no allurement for Miss EDGINTON. With her, the protagonists,
_Osborne_ and his young wife, are no sooner wed than their troubles
begin--troubles of the domestic budget, of cooking and stove lighting
and the rest. (By the way, for all its carefully British topography,
I strongly suspect the whole story of an exotic origin, chiefly from
certain odd-sounding words that seem to have slipped in here and
there. Does our island womanhood really talk of a _matinee_, in the
sense of an article of attire? If so, this is the first I hear of
it). To return to the _Kerr_ household. In the midst of their bothers
_Osborne_ is given a post as traveller in motor-cars at a big salary.
So off he goes, while _Marie_, like the other little pig of the poem,
stays at home, and enjoys herself hugely. When he returns she hardly
cares about him at all; and might indeed have continued this attitude
of indifference--who knows how long?--had not some Higher Power
(perhaps the Paper Controller) decreed a happy ending on page 340. A
lesson, I am sure, to us all; but of what character remains ambiguous.
* * * * *
In such a title as _The North East Corner_ (GRANT RICHARDS) there is
something bleak and uninviting, something suggestive of the bitter
mercies of an average English April, that is by no means confirmed in
the story itself. Windy it certainly is--it runs to 496 pages--for I
do not remember any other recent volume where the characters really do
talk so much "like a book," and though, of course, this may be a true
way of presenting the customs of a hundred years ago, one feels that
it can be over-done. _Frank Hamilton_, the magnanimous friend, facile
politician and all-but hero, was the worst offender, not only making
love to the _Marquis's_ unhandsome daughter in stately periods, and
invariably addressing pretty _Sarah Owen_, who was much too good for
his and the author's treatment of her, in the language of a Cabinet
meeting (as popularly imagined), but being hardly able even to lose
his temper decently in honest ejaculation. _Rolfe_, his friend, was
a Jacobin of the blackest, who preached sedition and the right of
tenants to vote as they chose; and the _Hamiltons_ were renegades who
gained titles and honours by supporting a failing Ministry, from the
most opportunely patriotic of motives. The general drift of the plot
is neither very readily to be summarised nor indeed very satisfactory,
and one might disagree with Mr. JOHN HERON LEPPER at several points.
At the same time, as his many friends would expect, there is much to
be grateful for in this quiet study of Irish times and politics very
different from our own. There is a ring of sincerity for one thing,
matched by a literary grace that saves his chapters from ever becoming
irritating even when they move most slowly.
* * * * *
If the vintage to which "Miss KATHARINE TYNAN'S" novels belong is so
old that some of its flavour has departed, there is no doubt that many
of us are still glad enough to sample it. In these nervous times it
is in fact very restful to read a book as calm and detached as _Miss
Mary_ (MURRAY). Not that _Mary_ refrained from allowing her heart to
flutter in the wrong direction, but even the simplest of us couldn't
really be alarmed by this excursion. Mrs. HINKSON seems to take all
her nice characters under her protective wing, and to include you and
me (if we are nice) in a pleasant family party. So at little outlay
you have the chance to go to Ireland and stay quietly and decorously
with the _de Burghs_. There you will meet a very saint in _Lady de
Burgh_, and you will breathe the right local atmosphere, and have, on
the whole, a good and tranquillizing time.
* * * * *
[Illustration: DURING THE HOSPITABLE AIR-RAID SEASON THE
MONTMORENCY-BROWNS MAINTAIN THEIR HABITUAL EXCLUSIVENESS.]