Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 by Various
V >>
Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 11910-h.htm or 11910-h.zip:
(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/9/1/11910/11910-h/11910-h.htm)
or
(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/9/1/11910/11910-h.zip)
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
VOL. 153
AUGUST 8, 1917
CHARIVARIA.
"No amount of War Office approval will make hens lay," says _The
Weekly Dispatch_. These continuous efforts to shake our confidence in
the men entrusted with the conduct of the War can only be regarded as
deplorable.
***
A workman in a Northern shell factory has been fined five pounds for
having his trousers fastened on with iron nails. Why he abandoned
the usual North Country method of having them riveted on him was not
explained.
***
Charlie Chaplin, says a message from Chicago, has not joined the U.S.
Army. He excuses himself on the ground that Mr. Pemberton-Billing, who
is much funnier, is not in khaki.
***
A woman told the Lambeth magistrate that her husband had not spoken
to her for six weeks. It is a great tribute to the humanity of our
magistrates that the poorer people should go to them with their joys
as well as their sorrows.
***
Cruises on the Thames and Medway estuaries will only be permitted
on condition that the owners of pleasure craft agree to increase the
nation's food supply by catching fish. Merely feeding them will not
do.
***
A man who was seen carrying a grandfather clock through the streets
of Willesden has been arrested. It seems to be safer, as well as more
convenient, to carry a wrist-watch.
***
Newhaven, it is stated, is suffering from a plague of butterflies. All
attempts to persuade them to move on to the Metropole at Brighton have
so far been successfully resisted.
***
Table-napkins have been forbidden in Berlin and special ear-protectors
for use at meal-times are said to be enjoying a brisk sale.
***
When the fourteen-year-old son of German parents was charged in a
London Court with striking his mother with a boot, the mother admitted
that she had cut the boy's face because he had called her by an
opprobrious German name. On the advice of the magistrate the family
have decided to discontinue their subscription to the half-penny
press.
***
"I should like to give you a good licking, but the law won't allow
me," said Mr. Bankes, K.C., the new magistrate for West London,
in fining a lad for cruelty to a horse. The discovery that even
magistrates have to forgo their simple pleasures in these times made
a profound impression upon the boy.
***
Herr Erzberger has expressed a desire for "half an hour with Mr.
Lloyd George" to settle the War. In view of the heavy demands upon
the Premier's time it is suggested in Parliamentary circles that Major
Archer-Shee should consent to act as his substitute.
***
The idea of giving raid warnings by the discharge of a couple of
Generals has been unfavourably received by the Defence authorities.
***
A German shell which passed through a Church Army Hut was found to
have been stamped with the initials "C.A." in its passage through the
building. The clerk, whose duty it is to attend to matters of this
kind, has been reprimanded for not adding the date.
***
A small boy at Egham, arrested for breaking a bottle on the highway,
said that he did it to puncture motor tyres. If the daily bag included
only one Army motor-car, with nothing better than a Staff-Colonel as
passenger, the entertainment was considered to be well worth the risk.
***
"If I saw the last pheasant I would kill it and eat it," says Lord
Kimberley. Food hog!
***
We hear that, as a result of Herr Michaelis' disclaimer, the Germans
are about to appoint a Commission to find out who (if anybody) is
carrying on the War.
***
Women have reinforced the bell-ringers at Speldhurst, Kent. As no
other explanation is forthcoming, we can only suppose they are doing
it out of malice.
***
A man charged at a London Police Court with being drunk stated that he
had been drinking "Government ale." It appears now that the fellow was
an impostor.
***
Another man who wrote a letter protesting against the weakness of
the official stimulant inadvertently addressed his letter to the
Metropolitan Water Board.
***
A correspondent who has just spent a day in the country hopes the
Commission now dealing with Unrest will not overlook one of its
principal causes--namely wasps.
***
There has been a great falling-off in the number of visitors to
Stratford-on-Avon, and it is expected that a new and fuller Life
of the Bard will shortly be published.
***
A Surrey soldier, writing from The Garden of Eden, says, "I think
it is a rotten hole, and I don't blame Adam for getting thrown out."
Still it is rather late to plead extenuating circumstances.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Bantam._ "AN' I DON'T WANT NONE OF YER NARSTY
LOOKS NEITHER, OR IT'S ME AN' YOU FOR IT."]
* * * * *
"James ---- was remanded at the Thames Police Court on a
charge of stealing nine boxes of Beecham's pills, valued
at L5."--_The Times._
So little? What about those advertisements?
* * * * *
"I was surprised to hear of Baron Heyking's dismissal from
his post of Russian Consul-General in London. I had only been
talking to him the day before--and then came his dismissal by
telegram!"--_"Candide," in "The Sunday Pictorial."_
Some of our journalists have a lot to answer for.
* * * * *
THE KAISER'S ORIENTAL STUDIES.
A Distinguished Neutral, who has just returned from Germany after
residing for some time in the neighbourhood of Potsdam, informs us
that the KAISER has been taking a course of Oriental literature in
view of his proposed annexation of India, and has lately given close
attention to the works of Sir RABINDRANATH TAGORE. The Distinguished
Neutral has been fortunate enough to secure the KAISER'S
personally annotated copies of the Indian poet's _Stray Birds_
and _Fruit-Gathering_. From these volumes we have the pleasure of
reproducing a selection of Sir RABINDRANATH'S aphorisms and fantasies,
accompanied in each case by the KAISER'S marginal reflections:--
"I cannot choose the best. The best chooses me."--R.T.
Very true. I never chose the Deity. He chose Me.--W.
* * * * *
"Through the sadness of all things I hear the crooning of the Eternal
Mother."--R.T.
Sometimes, too, I hear the groaning of the Unforgettable
Grandfather.--W.
* * * * *
"Life has become richer by the love that has been lost."--R.T.
I wish I could feel this about America.--W.
* * * * *
"'Who draws me forward like fate?' 'The Myself striding on my
back.'"--R.T.
That cannot be right. I always said I didn't want this War.--W.
* * * * *
"Wrong cannot afford defeat, but Right can."--R.T.
"This ought to console poor old HINDENBURG."--W.
* * * * *
"Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes
love to you."--R.T.
I must pass this on to TIRPITZ.--W.
* * * * *
"We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility."--R.T.
Quite right. I always make a point of acknowledging the assistance of
my Partner.--W.
* * * * *
"I shall stake all I have and when I lose my last penny I shall
stake myself, and then I think I shall have won through my utter
defeat."--R.T.
I don't think.--W.
* * * * *
"The noise of the moment scoffs at the music of the Eternal."--R.T.
All the same I could do with some more big guns.--W.
* * * * *
"The Spring with its leaves and flowers has come into my
body."--R.T.
I dislike all Spring offensives.--W.
* * * * *
"Let me not look for allies on life's battlefield, but to my own
strength."--R.T.
I wonder where Austria would have been by now if she had taken this
attitude.--W.
* * * * *
"Wayside grass, love the star, then your dreams will come out in
flowers."--R.T.
That reminds me that I must write and thank TINO for his letter
enclosing a bunch of edelweiss.--W.
* * * * *
"My heart has spread its sails for the shadowy island of
Anywhere."--R.T.
Personally I should be content with the solid island of Great
Britain.--W.
* * * * *
"Woman, when you move about in your household service your limbs sing
like a hill stream among its pebbles."--R.T.
I have often noticed this in some of our Berlin butter queues.--W.
* * * * *
"Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the after-glow of
sunset."--R.T.
I doubt if this beautiful thought would appeal to LITTLE WILLIE.--W.
* * * * *
"'Who is there to take up my duties?' asked the setting sun.
'I shall do what I can, my Master,' said the earthen lamp."--R.T.
I shall make LITTLE WILLIE learn this bit by heart.--W.
* * * * *
"The real with its meaning read wrong and emphasis misplaced is the
unreal."--R.T.
Yes; it's very hard on WOLFF'S Bureau.--W.
* * * * *
"My heart longs to caress this green world of the sunny day."--R.T.
I find it most unfortunate that all the best places in the sun should
be already occupied.--W.
* * * * *
"While I was passing in the road I saw thy smile from the balcony and
I sang."-R.T.
O dreams of the East! O Baghdad!--W.
* * * * *
"'The learned say that your light will one day be no more,' said the
firefly to the stars. The stars made no answer."--R.T.
That's what I should have done, but MICHAELIS would keep on
talking.--W.
* * * * *
"God is ashamed when the prosperous boast of His special
favour."--R.T.
This must be some other god, not our German one.--W.
* * * * *
"Power takes as ingratitude the writhings of its victims."--R.T.
And quite rightly. That's all the thanks I got when my heart bled for
Louvain.--W.
* * * * *
"Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth."--R.T.
Very sound. Roumania has been most disappointing.--W.
* * * * *
"Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of me. I am a poet."--R.T.
I shall send a copy of my collected poems to FERDIE.--W.
O.S.
* * * * *
WAR AND MY WARDROBE.
As I am not a banker or a high official swell,
I never felt a pressing need for dressing extra well;
And yet there were occasions, in days not long remote,
When I assumed the stately garb of topper and frock-coat.
But war's demands, if you desire to tread the simple road,
Are somewhat hard to reconcile with the Decalogue of Mode;
So I gave away my topper to the man who winds our clocks,
With a strangely mixed assortment of collars, ties and socks.
And if I haven't parted from my dear old silk-faced friend
It isn't out of sentiment--all that is at an end--
It's simply that the highest bid, in cash paid promptly down,
I've had from any son of SHEM is only half-a-crown.
* * * * *
"The plots cultivated by the men who have learned in the best
school of all--experience--stand out clearly among the others.
There is no overcrowing on their land."--_Evening News_.
The truly great are always modest.
* * * * *
"Wanted, September and October, a comfortably Furnished
House; five bedrooms, in adjoining counties."--_East
Anglian Daily Times_.
It sounds a little detached.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE COUNTERBLAST.
KAISER. "HAD A GLORIOUS TIME ON THE EASTERN FRONT."
HINDENBURG. "A LITTLE LOUDER, ALL-LOUDEST. I CAN'T HEAR YOU FOR THESE
CURSED BRITISH GUNS IN THE WEST."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THROWING STONES AT THOSE BOYS?"
"IT'S ORL RIGHT, SIR. WE'RE LEARNIN' 'EM TO TAKE COVER FOR AIR
RAIDS."]
* * * * *
THE MUD LARKS.
Out here the telephone exists largely as a vehicle for the _jeux
d'esprit_ of the Brass Lids. It is a one-way affair, working only from
the inside out, for if you have a trifle of repartee to impart to the
Brazen Ones the apparatus is either indefinitely engaged, or _Na poo_
(as the French say). If you are one of these bulldog lads and are
determined to make the thing talk from the outside in, you had better
migrate _chez_ Signals, taking your bed, blankets, beer, tobacco and
the unexpired portion of next week's ration, and camp at the telephone
orderly's elbow. After a day or two it will percolate through to the
varlet's intelligence that you are a desperate dog in urgent need of
something, and he will bestir himself, and mayhap in a further two or
three days' time he will wind a crank, pull some strings, and announce
that you are "on," and you will find yourself in animated conversation
with an inspector of cemeteries, a jam expert at the Base, or the
Dalai Lama. If you want to give back-chat to the Staff you had best
take it there by hand.
A friend of mine by name of Patrick once got the job of Temporary
Assistant Deputy Lance Staff Captain (unpaid), and before he tumbled
to the one-way idea his telephone worked both ways and gave him a
lot of trouble. People were always calling _him_ up and asking _him_
questions, which of course wasn't playing the game at all. Sometimes
he never got to bed before 10 P.M., answering questions; often he was
up again at 9 A.M., answering more questions--and such questions!
A sample. On one occasion he rang up his old battalion. One Jimmy
was then Acting Assistant Vice-Adjutant. "Hello, wazzermatter?" said
Jimmy. "Staff Captain speaking," said Patrick sternly. "Please furnish
a return of all cooks, smoke-helmets, bombs, mules, Yukon-packs, tin
bowlers, grease-traps and Plymouth Brothers you have in the field!"
"Easy--beg pardon, yes, Sir," said Jimmy and hung up.
Presently the phone buzzed and there was Jimmy again.
"Excuse me, Sir, but you wanted a return of various commodities we
have in the field. What field?"
"Oh, the field of Mars, fat-head!" Patrick snapped and rang off. A
quarter of an hour later he was called to the phone once more and
the familiar bleat of Jimmy tickled his ear. "Excuse me, Sir--whose
mother?"
On the other hand the great Brass Hat is human and makes a slip, a
clerical error, now and again sufficient to expose his flank. And
then the humble fighting-man can draw his drop of blood if he is
quick about it. To this same long-suffering Jimmy was vouchsafed the
heaven-sent opportunity, and he leapt at it. He got a chit from H.Q.,
dated 6/7/17, which ran thus:--
"In reference to 17326 Pte. Hogan we note that his date of birth is
10/7/17. Please place him in his proper category."
To which Jimmy replied:--
"As according to your showing 17326 Pte. Hogan will not be born for
another four days we are placed in a position of some difficulty.
_Signed_ ----
"P.S.--What if, when the interesting event occurs, 17326 Pte. Hogan
should be a girl?
"P.P.S.--Or twins?"
Our Albert Edward is just back from one of those Army finishing
schools where the young subaltern's knowledge of SHAKESPEARE and the
use of the globes is given a final shampoo before he is pushed over
the top. Albert Edward's academy was situated in a small town where
schools are maintained by all our brave Allies; it is an educational
centre. The French school does the honours of the place and keeps a
tame band, which gives tongue every Sunday evening in the Grand Place.
Thither repair all the young ladies of the town to hear the music.
Thither also repair all the young subalterns, also for the purpose of
hearing the music.
At the end of every performance the national anthems of all our brave
Allies are played, each brave Ally standing rigidly to attention the
while, in compliment to the others. As we have a lot of brave Allies
these days, all with long national war-whoops, this becomes somewhat
of a strain.
One morning the French bandmaster called on the Commandant of the
English school.
"Some Americans have arrived," said he. "They are naturally as welcome
as the sunshine, but" (he sighed) "it means yet another national
anthem."
The Commandant sighed and said he supposed so.
"By the way," said the _chef d'orchestre_, "what is the American
national anthem?"
"'Yankee Doodle,'" replied the Commandant.
The Chief Instructor said he'd always understood it was "Hail,
Columbia."
The Adjutant was of the opinion that "The Star-Spangled Banner" filled
the bill, while the Quartermaster cast his vote for "My country, 'tis
of thee."
The _chef d'orchestre_ thrashed his bosom and rent his coiffure.
"_Dieu!_" he wailed, "I can't play all of them--_figurez-vous_!"
Without stopping to do any figuring they heartily agreed that he
couldn't. "Tell you what," said the Commandant at length, "write
to your music-merchant in Paris and leave it to him."
The _chef d'orchestre_ said he would, and did so.
Next Sunday evening, as the concert drew to a close, the band flung
into the _Marseillaise_, and the subalterns of all nations kept
to attention. They stood to attention through "God Save the King,"
through the national anthems of Russia, Italy, Portugal, Rumania,
Serbia, Belgium, Montenegro and Monte Carlo, all our brave Allies.
Then the _chef d'orchestre_ suddenly sprang upon a stool and waved
above his head the stripes and stars of our newest brave Ally,
while the band crashed into the opening strains of "When de midnight
choo-choo starts for Alabam." It speaks volumes for the discipline of
the allied armies that their young subalterns stood to attention even
through that.
PATLANDER.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Sailor_ (_rebuking pessimist_). "O' COURSE SOME O'
THEM U-BOATS GETS AWAY. WOT D'YER THINK WE 'UNT 'EM WITH? FILTERS?"]
* * * * *
THE GENTLEST ART.
Private Elijah Tiddy looked at his watch. There was still half-an-hour
to the great moment for which the battalion had waited so long. Most
of the men had decided to fill up the time by eating, drinking or
sleeping, but Private Tiddy had two other passions in life--one was
his wife, and the other the gentle art of letter-writing. At all
possible and impossible moments Private Tiddy wrote letters home. To
some men this would have been an impossible moment--not so to Tiddy,
who, if he hadn't been first a plumber and then a soldier, would have
made an inimitable journalist.
So he sat down as best he could with all that he carried, and
extracted a letter-case from an inside pocket. It was a recent gift
from the minister of his parish, who knew and shared Tiddy's weakness
for the pen, and it filled his soul with joy. He fingered the thin
sheets of writing-paper lovingly, as a musician touches the strings,
and thoughtfully sucked the indelible pencil which Mrs. Tiddy had
bought for him as a parting present when she said good-bye to him at
the bookstall.
"Dearest Wife," he began. Then at a shout he hastily drew in his feet
as a man dashed past him with a heavy burden. "I nearly got it in the
neck a minute ago," he wrote, "but I'm all right, and this is a fine
place if it wasn't for the noise. They never seem to stop screeching
and the smoke is fair awful, and as soon as you think everything is
quiet another comes. I am quite alone at this minute, but don't you
go for to worry; they'll be back soon and then perhaps I'll get a bit
of something. It's pretty hard where I am sitting and I can't write
you much of a letter, what with the cramp in my legs and the noise
and wondering how soon the Sergeant will come and tell us to move up
nearer our part of the line. I can see some of the line, not our bit,
from where I am sitting. It's shining just lovely in the sun.
"Dear wife, this isn't a bit like home, but it still makes me think
of you at our station buying me that pencil and all, just as the train
come in. I think of you all the time wherever I am, but the noise is
something cruel, and here comes the Sergeant to tell us to prepare. I
shan't have time to get a drink first; but it don't matter; I'd rather
write to you than anything; and this pad what the minister gave me is
fine. I keep it in my left breast pocket. Please tell him it hasn't
stopped a bit of stuff yet, but I am sure it will soon. Remember me
to everybody. Love and kisses from your Elijah."
Mrs. Tiddy duly received the letter and shed proud tears at the
thought of her husband, obviously on the eve of a great advance,
or even lying out hungry and wounded in No Man's Land (she hovered
between the alternatives), but still cheery and finding time and
energy to write to his wife.
It was only a too observant neighbour who discovered that the postmark
was London, S.E. But even she has not yet decided whether Elijah Tiddy
is of intention the biggest liar in the East Mudshires, or whether he
only saw Waterloo Station with the eye of the literary man.
* * * * *
HISTORY PLAGIARIZES FROM FICTION.
"Mr. Ginnell: Everybody in the House is excited but myself.
Even you, Mr. Speaker, are excited."--_Parliamentary Debates_.
"'It's my opinion, sir,' said Mr. Stiggins ... that this
meeting is drunk, sir. Brother Tadger, sir ... _you_ are
drunk, sir.'"--_Pickwick Papers_.
* * * * *
AN OLD SONG RESUNG.
"O Ever since the world began
There never was and never can
Be such a very useful man
As the railway porter."
So ran the rhyme that in my youth
I thought perhaps outstripped the truth,
But now, when longer in the tooth,
Freely I endorse it.
In calling out a station's name
He is undoubtedly to blame
For failing, as a rule, to aim
At clear enunciation;
But, since the War, he hasn't struck
Or downed his tools--I mean his truck--
And plays the game with patient pluck
Like a sturdy Briton.
He's often old and far from strong,
But still he doesn't "make a song"
About his lot, but jogs along
Steadily and bravely.
He doesn't greet with surly frowns
Or naughty adjectives and nouns
A tip of just a brace of "browns"
Where he once got sixpence.
But better far than any meed
Of praise embodied in this screed
Is ERIC GEDDES' boast that he'd
Been a railway porter.
* * * * *
THE TOWER THAT PASSED IN THE NIGHT.
It was in the beginning of things, when the gunners of the new army
were very new indeed, and the 0000th Battery had just taken up
its first position on the Western Front. As soon as the guns were
satisfactorily placed the O.C. began a careful survey of the enemy
positions. Slowly he ran his field-glasses over the seemingly peaceful
landscape, and the first thing he noticed was a small, deserted,
half-ruined tower with ivy hanging in dark masses down its sides.
"We must have that removed at once," he said to the Captain. "It's the
very place for an observation post. Probably one of their best. How
long do you think it will take you to get it down?"
"Oh, we ought to do it in an hour," was the confident reply.
But the hour passed and the tower remained just as peaceful, just
as suitable for an O.P. as ever. The only change was that many other
features of the adjacent landscape had been resolved into their
component parts.
The battery was disappointed, but not unduly so. They knew what was
the matter; a couple of hours' work should give them the range, and
then--
But, when evening came and the tower still stood untouched, 0000th
Battery began to be worried indeed. A little more of this and
they might as well blow themselves up. They would be disgraced, a
laughing-stock to the whole Front. After hopeless arguments and bitter
recriminations they turned in with the intention of beginning again
bright and early in one last stupendous effort.
Great and shattering was their surprise when the dawn showed them no
tower at all, nothing but a heap of rubble in the midst of desolation.
The hated O.P. had disappeared in the night.
0000th Battery rubbed its eyes and wild surmise ran from man to man.
"An unexploded shell must 'ave gorn orf in the night."
"A mine may 'ave bin laid under 'er, and somethink's touched it off,
like."
But the real explanation, stranger still, was supplied later by a
letter dropped from a Taube flying over the Battery's position. It
ran thus:--