NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

(SECOND SERIES.)

XVI.

MARYLEBONE.

XVII.

SCOTLAND YARD.

EDWARD.

Edward has red hair, a robust appearance, and a free-and-easy way with him. His free-and-easy way shows itself chiefly in his habit of smiling upon and waving his hand to all those whom he encounters on his daily walks. He is talkative at times, but his vocabulary is limited. In my opinion it is limited to one word, though his mother can distinguish several words, or says so. She must have a very much keener ear than I have—or a less rigid regard for the truth.

You will have guessed that Edward is under military age. To be exact, it is thirteen months since he first saw the light in this troubled world. Not that the world is a troubled one to Edward; on the contrary.

Edward takes his daily walks in his perambulator upon the sea-front of his native town. His free-and-easy way has secured him a large circle of acquaintance there. Elderly gentlemen stop and speak to him, which he likes, so long as they do not pat his cheek, a habit far too prevalent among elderly gentlemen. Mothers of other babies are loud in his praises, though in their hearts they are probably comparing him unfavourably with their own offspring. Altogether Edward has a cheery life.

Upon a certain day Edward fell in with a very little man—so little, indeed, that most people would have called him a dwarf. He was walking in the same direction as Edward, and overtaking him, and Edward waved his hand and smiled and waved again.

For a while the little man ignored these overtures. But at length he felt obliged to return them, and remarked to Kate, who propels the perambulator, "Seems friendly like;" to which Kate replied, "Oh, he always waves to everyone."

Now the majority of people would have been rather repelled by that remark. For myself I may say that, though Edward always smiles when we meet, I do not greatly value it because I know he smiles in the same way upon everyone else.

But it was not so with the little man. To be classed with "everyone," to be placed by Edward on an equality with the strong and graceful, sent a warm glow to his heart.

So Edward, in his free-and-easy fashion, had, like the boy-scouts, done one good deed that day.

"The system of women and girls acting as field labourers, ploughing and shepherding, etc., in itself produces a rough state of society."—Country Life.

However this roughness is to be corrected, as we see by the following:—

"ARRANGEMENTS FOR TO-DAY.

"Class in Elementary Polish begins, King's College, 6."—The Times.

Splendid! These colleges think of everything.

OUR CORRESPONDENCE COLLEGE.

So much good has notoriously been done during the great conflict by letters to the Press that Mr. Punch, recognising the importance of having this branch of War-work taught to the young, has engaged a gentleman of ample leisure and few responsibilities, who hides behind the nom de guerre "Paterfamilias," to deliver a series of instructive lectures on the subject. By the time the student has absorbed a complete course he will he qualified to write to the papers on any topic, and, to adopt every tone from the pleading and querulous to the indignant and hectoring. From this can follow nothing less than the complete rout of the Germans.

SYLLABUS OF LECTURES.

I.—A World in Darkness.

The world before newspapers—Unbearable thought—No Street and no Man in it—Unfortunate position of great Generals of history, ALEXANDER, HANNIBAL, CÆSAR, etc., in lacking support or criticism by military experts—Their fatal ignorance of public opinion—Serious handicaps in the past—LEONIDAS never seen at lunch by Mr. Gossip—ALCIBIADES never stimulated by attacks in Athens journals—No brainy onlooker at defeat of Armada.

II.—The Growth of the Press.

The birth of a happier era—The first English newspaper—Rapid development of the new arm—A nation made articulate—Unfortunate quietistic tendencies: ADDISON, STEELE, JOHNSON—Foreshadowings of the real thing—Arrival of the real thing—The Fourth Estate—The Tenth Muse—The Editor as Dictator—The Millennium.

III.—The Vigilant Correspondent.

The Council of Ten and the Lion's Mouth—Importance of attending to other people's affairs—True citizenship the improvement of one's neighbours—Neglect of one's own character a national virtue—Brief sketch of Paul Pry—Brief sketch of Meddlesome Matty—Keepers of the public conscience—Human alarm-clocks—Samples of reforms delayed by absence of letters to the Press—The circulation of the blood—The law of gravity—The movement of the solar system—Value of iteration and undauntability.

IV.—Range of Subject.

Every stick useful in beating dogs—Nothing too trivial to yoke with such words as "scandal" and "outrage"—Suspicion and mistrust the letter-writer's life-blood—Necessity for believing everyone in office negligent or corrupt—Reasons why it is better to write to the papers than to the individual—The sacredness of publicity—Importance also of victim seeing the indictment—Value of Who's Who?—Postal rates for newspapers.

V.—Signatures.

Real names and pseudonyms—Cases where real names are best—Cases where pseudonyms are best—Danger of giving both name and address—The Knobkerry—The Dog-Whip—The Art of Self-Defence—The Law Directory—Choice of pseudonyms—Latin v. English—An Advantage of "One Who Knows" over "Audi Alteram Partem"—"Scrutator" better than "Spectator ab extra"—"One who is doing his bit" better than "Junius"—Reasons for "War-Winner" being the best at present moment.

VI.—Model Letter with Remarks.

At the present moment no type of letter is more effective than the following:—

SIR,—Could anything be more deplorable than the spectacle, which every hour of the day and night affords, of young and vigorous men made up to look like grandfathers. I am told that the theatrical costumiers and perruquiers are worn to a shadow by the overwork which these contemptible shirkers have subjected them to, and I call on you to use your powerful influence to stop it. I am credibly informed that if a courageous investigator visiting those funkholes, the clubs of London, were to snatch at the bald scalps so much in evidence there, he would in nine cases out of ten find that they came away in his hand, revealing the chevelure of the youthful and fit but craven. At any rate the experiment should be tried. I shall, of course, be told that the Tribunals are active and vigilant and their net so tightly drawn that no one can get through; but we all know what bunglers the English authorities are, whether at the War Office or elsewhere. It is only in newspaper offices that true efficiency can be found. I enclose my card and am,

Yours faithfully,

"WAR-WINNER."

Analysis of above—Reasons for thinking it perfect—Importance of compliment to editors—Estimate of its probable result.

Extremes.

"He spent 233 years in the 6th Dragoon Guards (Carbineers) and commanded that famous regiment in the Boer War."—Evening Telegraph (Dundee).

"Sergeant ——, who is 2 years of age, is married, and has two children."—Same Paper, same date.

"Mr. S.J. Rodrigo, Vidane Aratchy of Kotahena, who was bitten by a made bog on Sunday, left for Coonoor last evening by the Talaimannar train for treatment." —Ceylon Independent.

But why make bogs if they are so dangerous?

From a shoemaker's advertisement:

"ROUGH BOYS WELL LEATHERED."—High River Times (Alberta, Canada).

The good old slipper has not outlived its usefulness.

"To all anonymous correspondents who have recently written to me I have the honour to reply that they are all blackguards."—Advt. in Ceylon Paper.

Though we ourselves should have waived this honour we are in full sympathy with the writer.

TRAVEL WITHOUT TRAINS.

(Suggested by some recent remarks in "The Observer" on eccentric place names.)

From the Back of the Front.

Extract from a soldier's letter:—

"DEAR MOTHER,—I am thoroughly run down, and have grown so thin that when I get a pain in my middle I cannot tell whether it is a backache or a stomachache."

"The choristers and I.C.U. enlivened each station along the route by rending sacred songs and solos as The Kano Express drew in." —Lagos Weekly Record.

"That's torn it," said the conductor.

"Britons never shall be slaves if they will only remember the solemn warning of the author of the words—'To thine own self be true, and then thou canst be false to any man.'"—Letter in Scotch Paper.

One recognises the note of liberty, but we fear the writer must have got hold of a German edition of "Unser Shakspeare."

THE HARDSHIPS OF BILLETS.

As Jim and me lies in hospital gettin' better from our wounds we talks over what we've been through in this War.

There was the time when we was billeted with Mrs. Dawkins, just before we went to the Front, which dwells in our memories. When the billetin' orficer introduced us into her kitchen Mrs. Dawkins went down on the bricks and prayed she might do her duty by the two noble defenders of her country—she meant me and Jim—who the Lord had pleased to deliver into her care. Then she begun unlacin' Jim's boots. In a minute Mr. Dawkins come in; he said we was hearty welcome, and was just goin' to shake 'ands with us when Mrs. Dawkins turned on 'im and asked 'im what he meant by standin' there like a gawk and not unlacin' mine. Jim and me was very uncomfortable.

Then some little Dawkinses come in, Susan, Sammy, Billy and Elfreda, and was told by Mrs. Dawkins to pay their respecks to us, and do it proper or she'd know the reason why. Sammy saluted left-'anded and she cuffed him unmerciful. Jim and me begun to feel regler low-spirited.

After that she set out the tea. It was as butiful a tea as we could wish for, cakes and jam, and bloater-paste and sardines, and bein' hungry after a long march we cheered up and looked forward to enjoyin' it. As was correck Jim 'anded all the dishes to Mrs. Dawkins first, but she said, "No, thank you, such things are for the defenders of the country, and it is our duty to provide them, but bread-and-dripping is good enough for me and Mr. Dawkins and the children."

Susan, Sammy, Billy and Elfreda all begun to cry, and their father sat lookin' at 'em, the picture of misery. It clean took away our appetites. She piled our plates with jam and sardines, but we couldn't swaller a mouthful with them poor kids sobbin' all round the table. We was thankful they was put to bed before supper. Mrs. Dawkins fried potaters and sausages and set 'em down in front of me Jim, with a jug of porter, and she and Dawkins and a young man lodger sat at the other end, behind half a Dutch cheese and some water. All the meals was the same.

There was only three rooms upstairs, and Jim and me couldn't make out how it was we had a bedroom apiece till we come across the lodger sleepin' on the kitchen table, Dawkins on the mangle and Sammy in one of the dresser drawers. Then we asked to be allowed to sleep together, with the lodger to one side; but Mrs. Dawkins said, "I thank the Lord we're blessed with two good beds in our house, and as long as I have two defenders of the country in my care I should like to catch anyone belonging to me getting into either of their beds. If we're all getting wore out for want of sleep we can't help ourselves, we're doing our duty."

Then she asked Jim if he was warm enough nights, and before he'd time to think he'd blurted out he wasn't quite. That evening she come down shiverin' to supper in her petticut, and said what did it matter her catchin' her death of cold if them she had in her care slept warm and comfortable under her meriner skirt. We felt downright brutes.

But what hurt us most was the way them kids took against us. Me and Jim is fond of kids, and we wanted to make friends and play with 'em, but it weren't no good. They was always puttin' their tongues out at us when Mrs. Dawkins' back was turned and talkin' loud to one another: "I say, Sammy, I 'ates soldiers, don't you? Soldiers is greedy; poor little children don't have nothink where soldiers is. Daddy 'ates soldiers too. He says his 'ome is a 'ell since the soldiers come. 'Ere they are walkin' down the street. Quick, Billy! Mother ain't lookin'; turn yer nose up at 'em same as me."

To make up for her kindness to us Jim and me tried to do little odd jobs about the house for Mrs. Dawkins, but somehow it all turned to wormwood. We slipped out early one Sunday morning and begun siftin' the cinders in the backyard, but she caught sight of us and 'ollered so at Dawkins she woke up all the neighbours: "How can you lay there snorin', you great lazy good-for-nothing, and look on while the defenders of your country is wearin' themselves out 'siftin' your cinders?"

Dawkins tumbled off the mangle, thinkin' it was a fire, and he swore terrible at me and Jim.

The young man lodger took against us too. When his washin' was on the line we couldn't help noticin' he was very bad off for underclothes, and Jim and me, havin' more shirts and socks that kind ladies had give us than we knowed how' to wear, we took the liberty of wrappin' three of each in paper with a label, "Hopin' no offence," and puttin' it in the chicken-'ouse where he was in the habit of doin' his hair. We was pleased to notice next day he had got one of the shirts on. Of course we made no remark; no more did he. But at supper-time Mrs. Dawkins caught sight of his cuffs. She took the poor feller by the collar and we was afraid she would have shook the life out of him.

"You thievin' rascal!" she said. "To think I should 'arbour in my house a man as ain't ashamed to rob the defenders of his country of the shirts off their backs!" Then she begun callin' for the police.

Jim and me tried to explain, but it weren't no use. The first chance he had the young man lodger got out through the door. He come back in half a minute with his feet bare and his weskit all anyhow. The shirts and socks was under his arm.

"Damn you and yer clothes!" he said, and flung 'em at me and Jim. It were very disheartenin'.

When it come to leavin' we felt we ought to show our gratitude for the treatment we had received by makin' Mrs. Dawkins a little present. Bein' of an uncommon disposition it were difficult to choose what would please her. I were in favour of a pink shawl; but Jim didn't seem to fancy givin' anybody any more clothes. In the end we chose a pair of earrings.

Directly we give 'em to her we saw we'd done wrong. She turned on Dawkins like a hyener. "'Ave I done my duty and starved us all to death and given them two the best in the house and slept cold every night to be paid in gewgaws?" she said. "Didn't I do it willin', and wouldn't I do it agen? and are you a man or a cur that you stand there expectin' me to put them things into my ears instead of behind the fire?" In another minute the earrings was melted. It were some consolation to me and Jim that she didn't refuse to shake 'ands with us when we come away; but Dawkins did, and so did the young man lodger, and all the little Dawkinses spit at us. We never have been able to make out who were to blame. We thinks sometimes it were Mrs. Dawkins.

How it strikes the Hyphenated.

An extract from Los Angeles Germania, which describes itself as "An American newspaper printed in the German and American languages":—

"At last the mask is removed from the hypocritical face of England. The cloven hoof of British insolence has struck square into the face of Uncle Sam."

Holders of the old War Loan who are not yet converted to conversion may be led to a decision by the discovery that "BONAR LAW" spells "War Loan 'B.'"

"LADY SECRETARY. For small Nurses' Home where nurses do not sleep." —Women's Employment.

Applicants should beware, as insomnia is very catching.

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Do you remember a clever, gloomy story that Mr. HUGH WALPOLE wrote, some years ago, about a pack of schoolmasters who got so monstrously upon one another's nerves that the result was attempted murder? I have just been reading a new story that may be regarded as the female counterpart of the same tragedy. Regiment of Women (HEINEMANN) is described as a first novel; and there are indeed signs of this in a certain verbosity and diffuseness of attack. But it is at least equally clear that the writer, CLEMENCE DANE, has the root of the matter in her. As in the book with which I have compared it, the setting of this is scholastic—a girls' school here, with all its restricted outlook, its small intrigues, and exaggerated friendships, mercilessly exposed. You will be willing to admit that it is at least aptly named when I tell you that not till page 135 does so much as the shadow of a man appear, and then but fleetingly as the father of the poor child, Louise, the tragedy of whose death is the central incident of the book. Naturally it can be nothing else than a painful story; in particular the figure of Clare, the adored teacher, whose cruel egoistical friendship, with its alternations of encouragement and brutality, first drives Louise to suicide, and all but wrecks the life of the young assistant-mistress, Alwynne, has in it something coldly sinister that haunts the memory. But of its power there can be no question. On one small point of psychology I am at issue with the writer. I doubt whether the child Louise could have played Arthur in the school theatricals so marvellously as we are asked to believe without cheering herself, by such an artistic success, out of the temptation to suicide. But the ways of morbidity are unsearchable, and this is no more than an expression of individual opinion. It is not meant to qualify my admiration for the skill of this remarkable and arresting story.

If the long postponement of the appearance of another novel—Vesprie Towers (SMITH, ELDER)—by the late Mr. THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON, means (I am careful not to say it does) that the author never intended it to see the light of day, honesty obliges one to admit that there may have been wisdom in that decision, for the story of Violet Vesprie, though touched with a certain charm and distinction, sadly lacks the imaginative intensity of Aylwin. The plot is commonplace, being the familiar record of how the country seat of a once illustrious family nearly, but of course not quite, passed into the hands of strangers when the last of the race came to poverty. Even the inevitable flight to London is not spared us or the heroine, and it is really only when the writer tires of his attempted conventionality that he comes more nearly to his own. The return of Violet to her old home, for instance, is most fortunate in its failure to follow the rules, that attractive young lady being quite content to be whisked back in the turning of a page from destitution in Lambeth to the place she loves, without knowing or caring at all how the miracle has been wrought; while we, reader and author alike, equally in the dark, are too happy to have her home to worry about it either, preferring to wander with her through the dear old rooms and let explanations go hang. Anyhow, perhaps one can forgive a certain amount of looseness in a story that holds such pleasant things as a family rainbow, an "osier ait" and a sailor-poet worshipping from afar. And indeed, though far from brilliant, the book is really rather lovable.

In The Leatherwood God (JENKINS) Mr. W.D. HOWELLS has written a powerful and very interesting study of an unusual theme. Religious mania, and those queer manifestations of it that hover uncertainly between fraud and hysteria, have always provided a subject of attraction for the curious. Mr. HOWELLS sets his romance in the early days of the last century, at the backwoods settlement of Leatherwood, where the community of the faithful are perturbed by the arrival amongst them of a stranger, one Dylks, who claims divine origin and the power to work miracles. Actually, this Dylks was about as bad a hat as any made. He had deserted his legal wife, Nancy, and allowed her, in supposed widowhood, to marry a de facto husband whom she adored. So you will see that the turning up again of Number One, unrecognised and surrounded by the trappings of god-head and the adoration of the Elect, creates for Nancy a very pretty and absorbing problem in social ethics. But Mr. HOWELLS has done more than this. Having shown Dylks as the arch-villain and impostor that he is, he proceeds to the subtler task of enlisting our sympathy for him. It is this that gives the story its higher quality. The horror of the poor wretch's position, driven on by his own words, almost, in time, coming himself to a kind of belief in them, haunted always by the increasing demands of his dupes, is most powerfully portrayed. So much so that in the end we hear of his death (by suicide or accident) with an emotion of relief and pity that is a real tribute to his creator. The Leatherwood God is not a long story, but for concentrated power it deserves to be classed amongst the outstanding work of the season.

I should call Mrs. VICTOR RICKARD a bold plotter—of course in a strictly literary sense. It must at this moment have required some courage to make your hero an agent of the British Secret Service. And having done this she certainly shirks none of the unpleasant possibilities of the situation so created. In the interest of his profession, and for no reward save the service of his country, Marcus Janover is called upon to sacrifice love, friendship, even his personal honour. Just how all this comes about I leave you to discover by The Light above the Cross Roads (DUCKWORTH). It is a powerful and highly original story that has the distinction of breaking entirely new ground in war-novels. The scenes of it, laid partly in Ireland, partly in Berlin, or behind the German lines, are themselves guarantees of the unusual. One slight criticism that I have to make rises from the question whether so expert an "agent" as Marcus would really employ blot-producing ink for his map tracery when, on his own confession, he might have used pencil. But if the blots had not been there the Prussians (oddly obtuse as to the real meaning of Marcus's presence amongst them) would never have arrested Ursule, and thus provided a dramatic and unhackneyed situation. There is a gravity and distinction, moreover, about the tale that somehow reminds me of the late Monsignor BENSON. It is undoubtedly a story that should be read.

I am rather puzzled what to say about the The Grey Shepherd (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), because it is essentially a story that will appeal very differently to readers of different temperaments. Some people will say, "How beautiful!" Others perhaps, "How precious!" and both with a certain truth. For my own part, I should select a middle course, and say that Mrs. J.E. BUCKROSE has had a wholly admirable idea for a short story, which she has done her best to spoil by enlarging it to book dimensions, and a little over-sweetening it. There is real delicacy and beauty in her theme. The youth forced by partial blindness to give up all the hopes for which he had been educated, who becomes a shepherd, solacing himself with his pipe (musical) and the simplicities of country lore for the loss of love and ambition; and eventually, after his death, is deified by rustic tradition into a supernatural helper of "all things that are kind"—here is an idea for the tenderest handling. My feeling is, while giving Mrs. BUCKROSE every credit for such an inspiration, that she should have been a little sterner with herself over the treatment, and thus avoided a certain stickiness that may irritate those who prefer the simplicity of nature to a not quite sufficiently concealed art. But, as I began by saying, it all depends on the individual palate; and, anyhow, the book has the historic excuse of being a very little one, which you can read, with pleasure or irritation, within the hour.

If you should chance to hanker for a change from novels in which the hero and heroine dally over-long in falling in love you will get it by reading The Fur-Bringers (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). No time is wasted upon preliminaries, not a minute; and as soon as Ambrose Deane and Colina Gaviller have met and discovered at sight that they are just made for each other the really exciting part of the story begins. I forget how many times Ambrose is arrested during the course of the tale, but I do know that things keep on happening all the time, and that the rescue of the hero by the Indian girl Nesis is delightfully told. Altogether Mr. HULBERT FOOTNER'S picture of the life of a trader in Athabasca is particularly attractive. I like it all, including the cover.

"At Leicester Assizes Levi Durance, aged thirty-four, a discharged soldier, was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for bigamy."—Pall Mall Gazette.