Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. by Various
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 156.
May 28, 1919.
[Illustration: "AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO".
ONCE UPON A TIME.
TO-DAY.]
* * * * *
CHARIVARIA.
It was the pig, says an eminent Danish economist, that lost Germany
the War. His omission to specify which pig seems almost certain to
provoke further recriminations among the German High Command.
***
After all, the War _may_ have wakened a new spirit in the nation. Up
to the time of writing no one has attempted to corner mint-sauce.
***
A movement, we hear, is on foot to give a public welcome to the
cheeses on their return to our midst. It is thought that a march-past
could easily be arranged.
***
Hackney will supply electricity to consumers at a special rate during
the Peace celebrations. The present price of one-and-sixpence per
kilowatt-and-soda practically inhibits anything like deep-seated
festivity.
***
A Miners' Association in the North has decided not to establish a
weekly newspaper. Pending other arrangements they will do a little
light mining, but it must not be taken as a precedent.
***
At a meeting of Hassocks allotment-holders a speaker stated that he
had seen rabbits jump a fence five feet high. Experts declare that
this is at least three feet over proof.
***
As the outcome of suggestions by the Economy Committee at Eton Dr.
ALINGTON has made certain restrictions in regard to various articles
of dress, notably socks and mufflers. Henceforward only such socks as
do not require muffling will be worn.
***
The cow that walked into the lending library at Walton Heath has
since explained that it merely wanted to look up "Manchuria" in the
encyclopaedia.
***
It is said that the question of neutrality has caused most of the
delay in the formation of the League of Nations. We certainly realise
the difficulty in deciding how Norway and Switzerland could come to
grips, in the event of a War between these two countries, without
infringing the laws of neutrality.
***
"No harm to the moon will result from the eclipse of the sun on May
28th," states a writer in an evening paper. This is good news for
those who have mining shares there.
***
There is a falling off in the tanning of kids in India, says _The
Shoe and Leather Trades Record_. Smith minor talks of migrating to the
Orient.
***
Government ale, says a trade paper, will shortly be on sale in some
parts of Ireland. This certainly ought to be a lesson to them.
***
Two Parisians who had previously arranged to fight a duel have refused
to meet. It is supposed that they have quarrelled.
***
As we go to press we are informed on good authority that the cat that
developed rabies last week has now been successfully killed eight
times, and it is expected that its final execution will have taken
place by the time this appears in print.
***
We understand that the Tredegar Fire Brigade strike is settled.
Patrons are asked to bear with the Brigade, who have promised to work
off arrears of fires in strict rotation.
***
A Surrey Church magazine appeals for funds to renovate the church
exits. For ourselves, if we were a parson, we shouldn't worry about
getting people out of church so long as we got them in.
***
A Scottish Chamber of Commerce has passed a resolution in favour of
smaller One Pound Treasury Notes. If at the same time they could be
made a bit cheaper the movement would be a popular one.
***
A taxi-driver who knocked down a pedestrian in Edgware Road and
then drove off has been summoned. His defence is that he mistook the
unfortunate man for an intending fare.
***
The Northumberland Miners' Council has passed a resolution calling
on the Government to evacuate our troops from Russia, drop the
Conscription Bill, remove the blockade and release conscientious
objectors. Their silence on the subject of Dalmatia is being much
commented on.
***
A report reaches us that Jazz is about to be made a notifiable
disease.
* * * * *
A SPRING IDYLL.
If wound stripes were given to soldiers on becoming casualties to
Cupid's archery barrage, Ronnie Morgan's sleeve would be stiff with
gilt embroidery. The spring offensive claimed him as an early victim.
When be became an extensive purchaser of drab segments of fossilized
soap, bottles of sticky brilliantine with a chemical odour, and
postcards worked with polychromatic silk, the billet began to make
inquiries.
"It's that little mam'zelle at the shop in the Rue de la Republique,"
reported Jim Brown. "He spends all his pay and as much as he can
borrow of mine to get excuses for speaking to her."
There was a period of regular visits and intense literary activity on
the part of Ronnie, followed by the sudden disappearance of Mam'zelle
and an endeavour by the disconsolate swain to liquidate his debts in
kind.
"I owe you seven francs, Jim," said he. "If you give me another
three francs and I give you two bottles of brilliantine and a cake of
vanilla-flavoured soap we'll be straight."
"Not me!" said Jim firmly. "I've no wish to be a scented fly-paper.
Have you frightened her away?"
"She's been _swept_ away on a flood of my eloquence," said Ronnie
sadly. "But in the wrong direction; and after I'd bought enough
pomatum from her to grease the keel of a battleship, and enough soap
to wash it all off again. Good soap it is too, me lad; lathers well if
you soak it in hot water overnight."
"How did you come to lose her?" asked Jim, steering the conversation
out of commercial channels.
"The loss is hers," said Ronnie; "I wore holes in my tunic leaning
over the counter talking to her, and I made about as much progress as
a Peace Conference. I got soap instead of sympathy and scent instead
of sentiment. However, she must have got used to me, because one day
she asked if I would translate an English letter she'd received into
French.
"'Now's your chance to make good,' I thought, language being my
strong suit; but I felt sick when I found it was a love-letter from
a presumptuous blighter at Calais, who signed himself 'Your devoted
Horace.' Still, to make another opportunity of talking to her, I
offered to write it out in French. She sold me a block of letter-paper
for the purpose, and I went home and wrote a lifelike translation.
"She gave me a dazzling smile and warm welcome when I took it in, but
on the balance I didn't feel that I'd done myself much good. And next
day I'm dashed if she didn't give me another letter to translate, this
time signed 'Your loving Herbert.' Herbert, I discovered, was a sapper
who'd been transferred to Boulogne and, judging by his hand, was
better with a shovel than a pen. As an amateur in style I couldn't
translate his drivel word for word. Like _Cyrano_, the artist in
me rose supreme, and I manicured and curled his letter, painted and
embroidered it, and nearly finished by signing 'Ronnie' instead of
'Herbert.'
"She was quite surprised when she read the translation.
"_'C'est gentil, n'est-ce-pas_?' said she, kissing it and stuffing it
away in her belt. 'I did not think,' she went on in French, 'that the
dear stupid 'Erbert had so much eloquence.' I saw my error. I had made
a probable of a horse that hadn't previously got an earthly. So, to
adjust things, I refrigerated the next letter--which happened to be
from 'Orace--to the temperature of codfish on an ice block. And the
consequence was that Georgette sulked and would scarcely speak to me
for three whole days.
"The situation, coldly reviewed, appeared to be like this. When 'Orace
or 'Erbert pleased her I got a share of the sunshine, but when their
love-making cooled her displeasure was visited on poor Ronnie. Any
advances on my own part were countered with sales of soap, customers
apparently being rarer than lovers. So I had to bide my time.
"But one day letters from 'Orace and 'Erbert arrived simultaneously,
and were duly handed to the fourth party for necessary action. It
occurred to me that when the time came for me to enter the race on
my own behalf I need have little fear of 'Erbert as a rival, so I
determined to cut 'Orace out of the running.
"I translated his letter first. I censored the tender parts, spun out
the padding and served it up like cold-hash. Then I set to work on
'Erbert. I got the tremolo stop out and the soft pedal on and made a
symphony of it. I made it a stream of trickling melody--blue skies,
yellow sunshine and scent of roses, with Georgette perched like a
sugar goddess on a silver cloud and 'Erbert trying to clamber up to
her on a silk ladder. To read it would have made a Frenchman proud of
his own language. Then, for dramatic effect, I took the letters, put
them on the counter and walked out without a word. 'That,' thought I,
'will do 'Orace's business--and then for 'Erbert!'
"Next day, when I went to see the result, to my surprise I found
that her place behind the counter was taken by that little red-haired
Celestine.
"'Where's Georgette?' said I.
"'Ah, M'sieur, she has gone,' said Celestine. 'Figure to yourself,
this 'Orace, who used to write with ardour and spirit, sent her
yesterday a poor pitiful note. It made one's heart bleed to read
it, such halting appeal, such inarticulate sentiment. _"Le pauvre
garcon!"_ cried Georgette, "his passion is so strong he cannot find
words for it. He is stricken dumb with excess of feeling. I must be at
his side to comfort him." And she has flown like the wind to Calais,
that she may be affianced to him. But if M'sieur desires to buy the
soap I know the kind you prefer.'
"So you see me," concluded Ronnie plaintively, "bankrupt in love and
money. Three francs, Jim, and I'll chuck in a packet of post-cards."
* * * * *
SONGS OF SIMLA.
I.--THE BUREAUCRAT.
Along a narrow mountain track
Stalking supreme, alone,
Head upwards, hands behind his back,
He swings his sixteen stone.
Quit of the tinsel and the glare
That lit his forbears' lives,
His tweed-clad shoulders amply bear
The burden that was CLIVE'S.
A man of few and simple needs
He smokes a briar--and yet
His rugged signature precedes
The half an alphabet.
Across these green Elysian slopes
The Secretariat gleams,
The playground of his youthful hopes,
The workshop of his schemes.
He sees the misty depths below,
Where plain and foothills, meet,
And smiles a wistful smile to know
The world is at his feet;
To know that England calls him back;
To know that glory's path
Is leading to a _cul de sac_
In Cheltenham or Bath;
To know that all he helped to found,
The India of his prayers,
Has now become the tilting ground
Of MILL-bred doctrinaires.
But his the inalienable years
Of faith that stirred the blood,
Of zeal that won through toil and tears,
And after him--the flood.
J.M.S.
* * * * *
OUR FEMININE ATHLETES.
"Wanted, Young Lady, vaults bar.--Apply personally, Mrs.
-----, Oddfellows' Arms."--_Provincial Paper_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE GREAT RENUNCIATION.
PRESIDENT WILSON. "NO! I DON'T THINK IT QUITE SUITS MY AUSTERE TYPE OF
BEAUTY."
[It is reported that the United States of America have declined to
accept a mandate for Constantinople.]]
* * * * *
[Illustration: PERFORMING LION AT MUSIC-HALL, HAVING GOT LOOSE, FINDS
ITS WAY TO ROOM OCCUPIED BY CHARWOMAN.
_Char_. "NAH, THEN! I WON'T 'AVE THEM NASTY THINGS IN 'ERE. I CAN'T
ABIDE 'EM."]
* * * * *
BLANCHE'S LETTERS.
PEACE AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS.
_Park Lane_.
DEAREST DAPHNE,--Already everyone's got peace-strain and what state
we shall all be in by the time it's actually signed I haven't the
dimmest. People have their own ideas of how they mean to celebrate it,
and when they find that other people have the same ideas and mean to
do the same things at the same time there are alarums and excursions,
and things are said, and quite several people who were dear friends
during the War don't speak now owing to the peace!
_Par exemple_, marches and processions being so much in the air,
I'd planned a lovely Procession of Knitters; two enormous gilt
knitting-needles to be carried by the leaders and a banner with "We
Knitted our Way to Victory!" and myself on a triumphal car dressed in
white silk-knitting. And then, just as everything was being arranged
at our "Knitters' Peace Procession" committee meetings, I found that
Beryl Clarges had _stolen my idea_ and was arranging a "Crochet Peace
Procession," with an immense gilt crochet-hook to be carried in front,
and a banner with some nonsense about crochet on it, and herself on a
triumphal car dressed in crochet!
I said exactly what I thought before I left off speaking to her.
Then, again, everyone wants to give a dance on peace night. I'd
settled to give a big affair with some perfectly new departures, and
all the nicest people I wanted have said, "Sorry, dearest, but I'm
giving one myself that night." I've no patience with the silliness and
selfishness of everybody.
Talking of dances, one's getting a bit _degoutee_ of Jazz bands and
steps. When _ces autres_ get hold of anything it always begins to
leave off being amusing. There's really a new step, however, the Peace
Leap, that hasn't yet been quite _use_ and spoilt by the outlying
tribes. The origin of it was a little funny. Chippy Havilland was
at one of Kickshaw's Jazz dinners one night, where people fly out of
their seats to one-step and two-step between the courses and during
the courses and all the time. Well, while Chippy was eating his fish
the band struck up that catchy Jazz-stagger, "She's corns on her
toes," and Chippy, his mouth full of fish, jumped up and began to
dance. _Of course_ several fish-bones flew down his throat, and while
he was choking he did such fearful and wonderful things that the whole
room, not dreaming the poor dear was at his _dernier soupir_, broke
out clapping and shouting and then imitated him, and by the time
Chippy felt better he found himself famous and everybody doing the
Peace Leap, which has completely cut out the Jazz-stagger, the Wolf's
Prowl and everything else.
Oh, my dearest, who _do_ you think are among the crowd of married
people who're going to celebrate peace by dissolving partnership? The
Algy Mallowdenes! Our prize couple! The _flitchiest_ of Dunmow Flitch
pairs! The _turtlest_ of turtle--doves! Whenever people spoke of
marriage as played out other people always weighed in with, "Well, but
look at the Algy Mallowdenes."
They married on war-bread and Government cheese and kisses
(unrationed). Seriously, though, _m'amie_, I believe they'd
scarcely anything beyond his two thousand pounds a year as Permanent
Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary at the No-Use-Coming-Here
Office. Certainly an "official residence" and a staff of servants were
allowed 'em, but when poor Lallie asked to have a ball-room built, and
Algy said he simply _must_ have a billiard-room and smoke-room added,
one of those fearful red-flag creatures got up in the House just
as the money was going to be voted and made such an uproar that the
matter was dropped.
And then, having heaps of spare time at the No-Use-Coming-Here Office,
Algy began to write novels and found himself at once. You've read some
of them, of course? Life with a big L, my dear. Every kind of world
while you wait, the upper, the under, and the half. Lallie was
very glad of the money that came rolling in, but I believe she said
wistfully, "How does my gentle quiet Algy know so much about
this, that and the other?" And her gentle quiet Algy made answer:
"Intuition, dear; imagination; the novelist's temperament."
By-and-by, however, she began to hear of his being seen at the Umpty
Club and Gaston's, chatting with Pearl Preston (one of those people,
you know, Daphne, who're immensely talked about but never mentioned).
And then a "certain liveliness" set in at the official residence of
the Permanent Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary.
"You silly little goosey!" said Algy; "don't you see that it's not as
a man who admires her but as a novelist who's studying her that I
talk to Pearl Preston? She's my next heroine. A heroine like that is a
_sine qua non_ in a novel of the Modernist school."
But Lallie _couldn't_ see the dif between a man and a novelist, and
Algy _couldn't_ write his best seller without studying its heroine,
and so--and so--at last our poor prize couple are in that long list
that an overworked judge complained of the other day. And if you ask
for the moral I suppose it's "Don't try to study character where there
isn't any."
This is emphatically a season for _arms_, my Daphne, which seems quite
a good little idea for peace-time! Faces and figures don't count; it's
the arm, the whole arm and nothing but the arm! There are all sorts
of stunts for attracting attention to round white arms, and if one has
the other kind one had better go and do a rest-cure. Your Blanche is
beyond criticism in that respect, as you know, and the other night at
the opera I'd a _succes fou_ with a big black-enamel beetle, held in
place by an invisible platinum chain, crawling on my upper arm.
Lady Manoeuvrer is simply _ravie de joie_ at the rage for arms, for
her Daffodil, who's been a great worry to her (she's the only clever
one, you know, all the others being pretty), has the best arms of the
whole bunch. She's taken Madame Fallalerie's course, "The Fascination
of the Arms," and is made to flourish hers about from morn to
night, poor child, till she sometimes does a small weep from sheer
exhaustion. The other day at Kempford Races, in a no-sleeved coatee
with a black sticking-plaster racehorse in full gallop on her upper
arm, she attracted plenty of attention and had two offers, I hear.
Arms and the man, again!
_A propos_, Lady Manoeuvrer told me yesterday she'd sent a
thank-offering to one of the hospitals. "But how sweet of you!" I
said. "For the restoration of Peace, I suppose?" "No, dearest," she
whispered; "for the restoration of the London Season!"
Ever thine, BLANCHE.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Tube Habitue (homeward bound)._ "TWO STRAPS,
'AMMERSMITH."]
* * * * *
"LETTS TAKE RIGA."
_Daily Mail._
Yes, and let's keep it.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Manager (introducing music-hall turn)._ "LADIES
AND GENTLEMEN, KHAGOOLA WILL NOW PROCEED TO GIVE HIS ASTOUNDING
CLAIRVOYANT, MEMORY AND SECOND SIGHT ACT, AND WILL ANSWER ANY QUESTION
THAT ANY MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE MAY PUT TO HIM."
_Voice from Gallery_. "TELL US WHERE THERE'S A 'OUSE TO LET."]
* * * * *
MURMAN AMENITIES.
This was to have been an essay from an igloo, describing the
awful privations of the writer and the primitive savagery of his
surroundings on the Murman coast. It was to have wrung the sympathetic
heart of the public and at the same time to have enthralled the
student of barbaric life with its wealth of exotic detail. While
embodying all the best-known newspaper _cliches_ appropriated to these
latitudes it was to have included others specially and laboriously
prepared after a fascinating study of Arctic literature.
But circumstances have blighted its early inspiration, and the article
it was to have been will never be written, the telling word-pictures
designed on board the transport never executed.
Figure the disgust of five adventurers who, landing at the Murman
base, sternly braced to encounter the last extremity of peril and of
hardship, to sleep in the snow and dig one another out o' mornings,
to give the weakest of their number the warmest icicle to suck, the
longest candle to chew--found themselves billeted in a room which the
landladies of home would delight to advertise! Its walls were hung
with such pictures as give cheap lodgings half their horror; it was
encumbered with countless frail chairs and "kiggly" tables, and upon
every flat surface had settled a swarm of albums, framed photographs,
china dogs, wax flowers, penholder-stands, and all the choicest
by-products of civilization struggling towards culture. As we were not
to be frozen by exposure or immediately attacked by Bolshies, we might
reasonably have expected to be asphyxiated by the Russian stove; but
even this consolation was denied us, since Madame, convinced that
the English are mad in their love of fresh air, consented to leave it
unlit.
When first we arrived, five large soldiers with five large kits, the
aspect of the room filled us with terror. The fiercest frost or foe we
could have faced, but the bravest man may quail before wax-flowers and
fragile tables top-heavy with ornaments and knick-knacks, and all felt
that to encounter such things within the Arctic Circle was an unfair
test of our fortitude. Why had not the War Office or some newspaper
correspondent warned us?
Madame, however, proved to have a sense of proportion or humour; or
perhaps the collection was not her own. In any case she showed no
reluctance to displace family photographs or china dogs, and rapidly
had the room cleared for action; so that now, when we roll about the
floor in friendly struggle, it is only someone's toilet tackle that
crashes with its spidery table, instead of cherished artificial fauna
and flora.
Thanks to our serviceable and becoming Arctic kit and the steady
approach of the Spring thaw, heralded by the preparation of spare
bridges to replace the existing ones, we can defy the eccentricities
of the climate. Even the language begins to reveal what might be
termed hand-holds; though possibly, when the natives echo our words
of greeting, painfully acquired from textbooks on Russian, they are
simply imitating the sounds we make under the impression that they are
learning a little English.
More difficult problems arise, however, regarding questions of
military etiquette. Not King's Regulations, nor Military Law, nor
any handbook devotes even a sub-paragraph to light and leading upon
certain points which we have here to consider every day. For example,
if a subaltern glissading on ski down the village street, maintaining
his precarious balance by the aid of a "stick" in each hand, meets
a General, also on ski and also a novice, what should happen? What
_does_ happen we know by demonstration: the subaltern brandishes both
sticks round his head, slides forward five yards, smartly crosses the
points of his ski and then, plunging forward, buries his head in the
wayside drift, while the General Officer sits down and says what he
thinks. But we do not know if these gestures of natural courtesy are
such as our mentors would approve. No authority has set up for us any
ideal in such matters. From official rules of deportment the British
soldier knows how to salute when on foot or mounted on bicycle, horse,
mule, camel, elephant, motor-lorry or yak, but no provision has been
made for the case of an army scooting on ski. So here we are at large
in the Arctic Circle, coping with new conditions by the light of
nature, and paying such perilous "compliments" to senior officers as
our innate courtesy and sense, of balance suggest and permit.
Further, consider the question of dress. Even the gunners, who in the
late war used to wear riding-breeches of their favourite colour, no
matter what it was, the kind of footgear they most fancied, and any
old variety of hat they thought becoming, are shocked by the fantastic
kit that is countenanced in this latitude. It must be borne in mind
that most of us are old campaigners and old nomads whose tailors have
grown accustomed to build us appropriate gear for various climes.
Fashions for fighting in France, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, have gained
a hold upon our affections, to say nothing of those designs for civil
breadwinning or moss-dodging in Central Africa, Bond Street, Kirkcaldy
or Dawson City. The consequence is that here, pretty well out of
A.P.M. range, sartorial individualism flourishes unchecked. Thus
the eye is startled to behold a fur headdress as big as a busby, an
ordinary service tunic, gaberdine breeches, shooting stockings and
Shackleton boots, going about as component parts of one officer's
make-up; or snow-goggles worn with flannel trousers, or sharp-toothed
Boreas defied by a bare head and a chamois-leather jerkin; or the
choice flowers of Savile Row associated with Canadian moccasins.
What idea will the North Russians retain of the outward appearance of
the typical British officer? How will the little Lapps, befurred and
smiling, who come sliding to market behind the trotting reindeer,
report of us to the smaller Lapps at home? In any case I hope we shall
found a legend of a well-meaning if peculiar and patchwork people.