Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 by Various
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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 153.
NOVEMBER 14, 1917.
CHARIVARIA.
People are asking, "Can there be a hidden brain in the Foreign
Office?"
***
A German posing as a Swiss, and stated by the police to be "a spy
and a dangerous character," has been sentenced to six months'
imprisonment. The matter will be further investigated pending
his escape.
***
Three men were charged at Old Street last week with attempting the
"pot of tea" trick. The trick apparently consists in finding a man
with a pot of tea and giving him a sovereign to go round the corner
and buy a ham sandwich, the thief meanwhile offering to hold the pot
of tea. When the owner returns the tea has, of course, vanished.
***
The increased consumption of bread, says Sir ARTHUR YAPP, is due to
the 9d. loaf. It would just serve us right if bread cost 2s. 6d. a
pound and there wasn't any, like everything else.
***
"It is all a matter of taste," says a correspondent of _The Daily
Mail_, "but I think parsnips are now at their best." They may be
looking their best, but the taste remains the same.
***
Seventy tons of blackberries for the soldiers have been gathered by
school-children in Buckinghamshire. Arrangements have been made for
converting this fruit into plum-and-apple jam.
***
"Home Ruler" was the occupation given by a Chertsey woman on her
sugar-card application. The FOOD CONTROLLER states that although this
form of intimidation may work with the Government it has no terrors
for him.
***
The Russian Minister of Finance anticipates getting a revenue of forty
million pounds from a monopoly of tea. It is thought that he must have
once been a grocer.
***
The Law Courts are to be made available as an air-raid shelter by day
and night, and some of our revue proprietors are already complaining
of unfair competition.
***
Two survivors of the battle of Inkerman have been discovered at
Brighton. Their inactivity in the present crisis is most unfavourably
commented on by many of the week-end visitors.
***
A dolphin nearly eight feet in length has been landed by a boy who was
fishing at Southwold. Its last words were that it hoped the public
would understand that it had only heard of the food shortage that
morning.
***
Captain OTTO SVERDRUP, the Arctic explorer, has returned his German
decorations. Upon hearing this the KAISER at once gave orders for the
North Pole to be folded up and put away.
***
A certain number of cold storage eggs at sixpence each are being
released in Berlin and buyers are urged to "fetch them promptly."
In this connection several Iron Crosses have already been awarded
for acts of distinguished bravery by civilians.
***
One of the new toys for Christmas is a cat which will swim about in a
bath. If only the household cat could learn to swim it might be the
means of saving several of its lives.
***
A correspondent would like to know whether the naval surgeon who
recently described in _The Lancet_ how he raised "hypnotic blisters"
by suggestion received his tuition from one of our University
riverside coaches.
***
We are asked to deny the rumour that Mr. JUSTICE DARLING, who last
week cracked a joke which was not understood by some American
soldiers, has decided to do it all over again.
***
The power of music! An enterprising firm of manufacturers offers
pensions to women who become widows after the purchase of a piano
on the instalment plan.
***
We understand that a Member of Parliament will shortly ask for a day
to be set aside to inquire into the conduct of Mr. PHILIP SNOWDEN, who
is reported to have recently shown marked pro-British tendencies.
***
In view of the attitude taken up by _The Daily Express_ against Sir
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, on the question of "spooks," we understand that
the celebrated author, who has long contemplated the final death of
_Sherlock Holmes_, has arranged that the famous detective shall one
day be found dead with a copy of _The Daily Express_ in his hand.
***
A customer, we are told, may take his own buns into a public
eating-house, but the proprietor must register them. In view of the
growing habit of pinching food, the pre-war custom of chaining them
to the umbrella-stand is no longer regarded as safe.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. [Sign before church with
bomb-damaged steeple:] THE REV SULVANUS JONES WILL PREACH NEXT SUNDAY
MORNING ON WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CHURCH?]
* * * * *
INDIA MOVES.
DEAR MR. PUNCH,--The following is taken from a letter from the
Quartermaster-General in India to the General Officers Commanding
Divisions and Independent Brigades:--
"I am directed to point out that at present there appears to
be considerable diversity of opinion regarding the number of
buttons, and the method of placing the same on mattresses in
use in hospitals.
"I am therefore to request that in future all hospital mattresses
should be made up with fifty-three buttons placed in fifteen rows
of four and three alternately."
This should convince your readers that even India has at last grasped
the idea of the War and is getting a move on.
* * * * *
"Mr. H. A. Barker, the bonesetter, performed a bloodless and
successful operation yesterday upon Mr. Will Thorne's knee,
which he fractured six years ago."--_Sunday Paper_.
If the case is correctly reported--which we doubt--it was very
confiding of Mr. THORNE to go to him again.
* * * * *
MORE SORROWS OF THE SULTAN.
Beersheba gone, and Gaza too!
And lo! the British lion,
After a pause to comb his mane,
Is grimly padding off again,
Tail up, _en route_ for Zion.
Yes, things are looking rather blue,
Just as in Mesopotamy;
My life-blood trickles in the sand;
My veins run dry; I cannot stand
Much more of this phlebotomy.
In vain for WILLIAM'S help I cry,
Sick as a mule with glanders;
Too busy--selfish swine--is he
With winning ground in Italy
And losing it in Flanders.
His missives urge me not to fly
But use the utmost fury
To hold these Christian dogs at bay
And for his sake to block the way
To his beloved Jewry.
"My feet," he wired, "have trod those scenes;
Within the walls of Salem
My sacred presence deigned to dwell,
And I should hate these hounds of hell
To be allowed to scale 'em.
"So do your best to give them beans
(You have some ammunition?),
And at a less congested date
I will arrive and consecrate
Another German mission."
That's how he wires, alternate days,
But sends no troops to trammel
The foe that follows as I bump
Across Judaea on the hump
Of my indifferent camel.
Well, I have tried all means and ways,
But seldom fail to foozle 'em;
And now if WILLIAM makes no sign
(This is his funeral more than mine)
The giaours can have Jerusalem.
O.S.
* * * * *
THE SUGAR FIEND.
"I will have a cup of tea," I said to the waitress, "China if
possible; and please don't forget the sugar."
"Yes, and what will you eat with I it?" she asked.
"What you please," I replied; "it is all horrible."
I do not take kindly to war-time teas. My idea of a tea is several
cups of the best China, with three large lumps of sugar in each, and
half-a-dozen fancy-cakes with icing sugar all over them and cream in
the middle, and just a few cucumber sandwiches for the finish. (This
does sound humorous, no doubt, but I seek no credit for it. Humour
used to depend upon a sense of proportion. It now depends upon memory.
The funniest man in England at the present moment is the man who has
the most accurate memory for the things he was doing in the early
summer of 1914).
The loss of the cakes I could bear stoically enough if they would
leave my tea alone, or rather if they would allow me a reasonable
amount of sugar for it. However, we are an adaptable people and there
are ways in which even the sugar paper-dish menace can be met. My own
plan, here offered freely to all my fellow-sufferers, provides an
admirable epitome of War and Peace. The sugar allowance being about
half what it ought to be, I take half of the cup unsweetened, thus
tasting the bitterness of war, and then I put in the sugar and bask
in the sunshine of peace.
On this particular occasion peace was on the point of being declared
when I found my attention irresistibly compelled by the man sitting
opposite to me, the only other occupant of my table. At first I
thought of asking him not to stare at me so rudely, and then I found
that he was not looking at me but over my shoulder at some object at
the end of the room. I can resist the appeal of three hundred people
gazing into the sky at the same moment, but the intense concentration
of this man was too much for me. I turned round. Seeing nothing
unusual I turned back again, but it was too late. My sugar had
gone! No trace of it anywhere, except in the bubbles that winked
suspiciously on the surface of the miscreant's tea.
His face did not belong to any of the known criminal types. It was a
pale, dreamy, garden-suburb sort of face--a face you couldn't possibly
give in charge, except, perhaps, under the Military Service Acts.
"Do you know," I said to him, "that you have just committed one of the
most terrible offences open to civilised mankind--a crime even worse
(Heaven help me if I exaggerate) than trampling on an allotment?"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" he replied, waking from his dream. "Did you want that
sugar? You know, you seemed to be getting on very well without it."
As I could not believe him to be beyond the reach of pity, I explained
my method to him, describing as harrowingly as I could the joy of
those first few moments after the declaration of peace. I suggested to
him that he might sometimes find it useful himself, if ever he should
be compelled to sit at an unoccupied table. ("_Touche_," he murmured,
raising his hat). "And now," I concluded, "as I have told you my
system, perhaps you will tell me yours--not for imitation, but for
avoidance."
"There is very little to tell," he replied sorrowfully, "but it is
tragic enough. All my life I have been fond of sugar. Before the war
I took always nine lumps to a cup of tea. (It was my turn to raise
my hat.) By a severe course of self-repression I have reduced it to
seven, but I cannot get below that. I have given up the attempt. There
are a hundred cures for the drink habit; there is not one for the
sugar habit. As I cannot repress the desire, I have had to put all my
energy into getting hold of sugar. I noticed some time ago that at
these restaurants they give the sugar allowance to all customers who
ask for tea or coffee, although perhaps twenty per cent. of them do
not take sugar at all. It is these people who supply me with the extra
sugar I need. In your case it was an honest mistake. I always wait to
see if people are proposing to use their sugar before I appropriate
it."
"But if you only take from the willing," I inquired, "why do you not
ask their permission?"
"I suppose I have given you the right to ask me that question," he
replied with much dignity, "but it is painful to me to have to answer
it. I have not yet sunk so low that I have to beg people for their
cast-off sugar. I may come to it in the end, perhaps. At present the
'earnest gaze' trick is generally sufficient, or, where it fails, a
kick on the shin. But I hate cruelty."
"Physical cruelty," I suggested.
"No, any kind of cruelty. I have said that in your case I made a
mistake. If I could repair it I would."
"Well," I said, "here's something you can do towards it, although it's
little enough." And I handed him the ticket the waitress had written
out for me. "And now I'll go and get a cup of tea somewhere."
"One moment," he said, as I rose to go. "We may meet again."
"Never!" I said firmly.
"Ah, but we may, I have a number of disguises. Let me suggest
something that will make another mistake of this kind impossible."
"I am not going to give up my plan," I said.
"No, don't," he answered; "but _why not drink the sugared half
first?_"
* * * * *
Extract from an official letter received "Somewhere in France":--
"It must be clearly understood that the numbers shown under the
heading, 'Awaiting Leave' will be the number of all ranks who have
not had leave to the United Kingdom since last arrival in this
country, whether such arrival was their last return from Leave,
or their last arrival in France."
And the Authorities are still wondering why the "Awaiting Leave" list
tallied so exactly with the daily strength.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A GREAT INCENTIVE. MEHMED (_reading despatch from the
All-Highest_). "'DEFEND JERUSALEM AT ALL COSTS FOR MY SAKE. I WAS ONCE
THERE MYSELF.'"]
* * * * *
THE MUD LARKS.
The ammunition columns on either flank provide us with plenty of
amusement. They seem to live by stealing each other's mules. My
line-guards tell me that stealthy figures leading shadowy donkeys are
crossing to and fro all night long through my lines. The respective
C.O.'s, an Australian and an Irishman, drop in on us from time to time
and warn us against each other. I remain strictly neutral, and so far
they have respected my neutrality. I have taken steps toward this end
by surrounding my horses with barbed wire and spring guns, tying bells
on them and doubling the guard.
Monk, the Australian, dropped in on us two or three days ago. "That
darn Sinn Feiner is the limit," said he; "lifted my best moke off me
last night while I was up at the batteries. He'd pinch BALAAM'S ass."
We murmured condolences, but Monk waived them aside. "Oh, it's quite
all right. I wasn't born yesterday, or the day before for that matter.
I'll make that merry Fenian weep tears of blood before I've finished.
Just you watch."
O'Dwyer, the merry Fenian, called next day.
"Give us a dhrink, brother-officers," said he, "I'm wake wid
laughter."
We asked what had happened.
"Ye know that herrin'-gutted bush-ranger over yonder? He'd stale the
milk out of your tea, he would, be the same token. Well, last night he
got vicious and took a crack at my lines. I had rayson to suspect he'd
be afther tryin' somethin' on, so I laid for him. I planted a certain
mule where he _could_ stale it an' guarded the rest four deep. Begob,
will ye believe me, but he fell into the thrap head-first--the poor
simple divil."
"But he got your mule," said Albert Edward, perplexed.
"Shure an' he did, you bet he did--he got old Lyddite."
Albert Edward and I were still puzzled.
"Very high explosive--hence name," O'Dwyer explained.
"Dear hearrts," he went on, "he's got my stunt mule, my family
assassin! That long-ear has twenty-three casualties to his credit,
including a Brigadier. I have to twitch him to harness him, side-line
him to groom him, throw him to clip him, and dhrug him to get him
shod. Perceive the jest now? Esteemed comrade Monk is afther pinchin'
an infallable packet o' sudden death, an' he don't know it--yet."
"What's the next move?" I inquired.
"I'm going to lave him there. Mind you I don't want to lose the old
moke altogether, because, to tell the truth, I'm a biteen fond of him
now that I know his thricks, but I figure Mr. Monk will be a severely
cured character inside a week, an' return the beastie himself with
tears an' apologies on vellum so long."
I met O'Dwyer again two days later on the mud track. He reined up his
cob and begged a cigarette.
"Been havin' the fun o' the worrld down at the dressin'-station
watchin' Monk's casualties rollin' in," said he. "Terrible spectacle,
'nough to make a sthrong man weep. Mutual friend Monk lookin' 'bout as
genial as a wet hen. This is goin' to be a wondherful lesson to him.
See you later." He nudged his plump cob and ambled off, whistling
merrily.
But it was Monk we saw later. He wormed his long corpse into "_Mon
Repos_" and sat on Albert Edward's bed laughing like a tickled hyena.
"Funniest thing on earth," he spluttered. "A mule strayed into my
lines t'other night and refused to leave. It was a rotten beast, a
holy terror; it could kick a fly off its ears and bite a man in half.
I don't mind admitting it played battledore and what's-'is-name with
my organisation for a day or two, but out of respect for O'Dwyer,
blackguard though he is, I ..."
"Oh, so it was O'Dwyer's mule?" Albert Edward cut in innocently.
Monk nodded hastily. "Yes, so it turned out. Well, out of respect
for O'Dwyer I looked after it as far as it would allow me, naturally
expecting he'd come over and claim it--but he didn't. On the fourth
day, after it had made a light breakfast off a bombardier's ear and
kicked a gap in a farrier, I got absolutely fed up, turned the damn
cannibal loose and gave it a cut with a whip for godspeed. It made
off due east, cavorting and snorting until it reached the tank-track;
there it stopped and picked a bit of grass. Presently along comes a
tank, proceeding to the fray, and gives the mule a poke in the rear.
The mule lashes out, catching the tank in the chest, and then goes on
with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as
by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of
being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and
moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid
into the tank for dear life; you could hear it clanging a mile away.
"After delivering two dozen of the best, the moke turned round to
sniff the cold corpse, but the corpse was still warm and smiling. Then
the mule went mad and set about the tank in earnest. He jabbed it in
the eye, upper-cut it on the point, hooked it behind the ear, banged
its slats, planted his left on the mark and his right on the solar
plexus, but still the tank sat up and took nourishment.
"Then the donkey let a roar out of him and closed with it; tried
the half-Nelson, the back heel, the scissors, the roll, and the
flying-mare; tried Westmoreland and Cumberland style, collar and
elbow, Cornish, Graeco-Roman, scratch-as-scratch-can and Ju-jitsu.
Nothing doing. Then as a last despairing effort he tried to charge
it over on its back and rip the hide off it with his teeth.
"But the old tank gave a 'good-by ee' cough of its exhaust and rumbled
off as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. I have never seen
such a look of surprise on any living creature's face as was on that
donk's. He sank down on his tail, gave a hissing gasp and rolled over
stone dead. Broken heart."
"Is that the end?" Albert Edward inquired.
"It is," said Monk; "and if you go outside and look half-right you'll
see the bereaved Mr. O'Dwyer, all got up in sack-cloth, cinders
and crepe rosettes, mooning over the deceased like a dingo on an
ash-heap." PATLANDER.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Aunt Maria_. "DO YOU KNOW I ONCE ACTUALLY SAW THE
KAISER RIDING THROUGH THE STREETS OF LONDON AS BOLD AS BRASS. IF I'D
KNOWN THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW I'D HAVE TOLD A POLICEMAN."]
* * * * *
"FOR THE DURATION ..."
"The forenoon service in the Parish Church will be at 11 o'clock
instead of 11.15 on Sunday first, and will continue till further
orders."--_Scottish Paper_.
* * * * *
AID FOR THE MILITARY POLICE.
"The recruiting hut which is being erected in Trafalgar Square in
connection with the campaign undertaken by the Ministry of Labour
to recruit women for the Women's Army Auxiliary Cops will shortly
be completed."--_Sunday Pictorial_.
* * * * *
"She was visited occasionally by a man of foreign appearance, who
was believed to be her bother-in-law."--_Ipswich Evening Star_.
Probably one of those "strained relations" we so often read about.
* * * * *
"My Correspondent's bona fides are above suspicion."--_"The
Clubman" in "The Pall Matt Gazette."_
One good fide deserves another, but of course the more the merrier.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Keen Motorist _(who has temporarily taken to
push-biking, to leisurely fowl which has brought him low)_. "JUST
YOU WAIT TILL THEY REMOVE THESE PETROL RESTRICTIONS."]
* * * * *
INVITATION.
If you will come and stay with us you shall not want for ease;
We'll swing you on a cobweb between the forest trees;
And twenty little singing-birds upon a flowering thorn
Shall hush you every evening and wake you every morn.
If you will come and stay with us you need not miss your school;
A learned toad shall teach you, high-perched upon his stool;
And he will tell you many things that none but fairies know--
The way the wind goes wandering and how the daisies grow.
If you will come and stay with us you shall not lack, my dear,
The finest fairy raiment, the best of fairy cheer;
We'll send a million glow-worms out, and slender chains of light
Shall make a shining pathway--then why not come to-night?
R.F.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS FARE IN WAR-TIME.
"Whatever the dinner be like, we can still have our fill of
holly and mistletoe."--_Star_.
* * * * *
IMITATION AIR-RAIDS.
Mr. Punch is glad to note that some real efforts are being made to
meet the public needs in this matter on nights when there is no attack
by the enemy.
In particular the owners of certain large warehouses have come forward
in a spirited manner by giving directions for the banging of large
folding-doors at suitable (irregular) hours. Private individuals
also, especially when returning home late at night, can do something
in the way of supplying entertainment for nervous residents in the
neighbourhood. Much is expected, too, of the large dairy companies,
who, by their control of vast numbers of heavy milk-cans, are in a
peculiarly favoured position. By the manipulation of these vessels on
a stone floor a very complete imitation of a raid can be produced.
A good deal, of course, can be done by any ordinary householder. "I
have had great fun," one correspondent writes, "with a very deliberate
and heavily-striking Dutch clock, which I have lately put against my
party-wall. My neighbour's family frequently jump up and run for the
basement. When they get used to the thing I shall give the other side
a turn."
* * * * *
THE FIRE-DRILL.
Once a month, as laid down in "Orders for Auxiliary Hospitals for
Officers," or some such document, we practise fire-drill. This
consists of escaping from upper windows by means of precarious
canvas chutes. The only people exempted from this ceremony are Mrs.
Ropes--who watches with great delight from a safe distance--and
Sister, who stands sternly at the top to make sure (a) that those
patients who don't want to go down do go down, and (b) that those
patients who do want to go down don't go down more than once. No
excuses are taken. The fixed ration is one slither per chute per
person.
We had this month's rehearsal last Tuesday. The patients were put
through it first, Major Stanley--to his great disgust--being chosen
to lead the way and set his juniors an example. He was told that it
was possible, by sticking out his elbows, to go down as slowly as he
liked; but he must have done it wrong somehow, for he disappeared with
startling suddenness the instant he let go the window-sill, and almost
simultaneously his boots shot out at the other end and doubled Dutton
the butler up so badly that he had to be taken away and reinflated.
Haynes, who came next, insisted on first making his dying speech from
the window, for, as he pointed out to Sister, when people allowed
themselves to be inserted alive into machines of this type there was
every likelihood of their reappearing at the other end in the form of
sausages. Seymour handed Sister a bulky package labelled "WILL" before
starting, and most of us managed to be mildly humorous in some way or
other.
Mrs. Ropes, on the lawn, enjoyed it all immensely; and so did Ansell,
who was standing beside her with an air of detachment. Sister's eagle
eye singled him out.
"Come along, Mr. Ansell," she called. "I see you--your turn next. No
shirking."
"I'm not in this, Sister," he answered loftily.
"Oh, indeed! And why not?"
"Because I sleep on the verandah. If there's a fire I simply get out
of bed and step into the garden."