Clasping tight my jaw, I staggered,
Pale and haggard,
To this room,
Where were fellow-martyrs sitting
In befitting,
Solemn gloom;
Whilst they turned, with air dejected,
Books collected
To amuse,
Graphics, or accumulated
Illustrated
London News.
How they glared! No fellow-feeling
O'er them stealing,
Made them kind;
"Touch of nature" that is dental
Makes no mental
Kin, I find.
There I sat, the numbers growing
Less, each going
To his fate—
What a dismal occupation!
My elation
Was not great—
Heard the butler call each saddened,
Toothache-maddened
Victim's name;
Watched them wincing as they strode out:
I should no doubt
Look the same.
Then, when me he had to take in,
"Mr. AIKIN!"
Made me quail;
O'er the after vivisection
Recollection
Draws a veil!
DEAR MISTER PUNCH,—Look at 'ere! This is not one of your penny papers—there was none on 'em in my time—ups and says, says it:—"The travelling expenses from America of Mr. JACKSON, who is coming to England to fight Mr. SLAVIN for the Championship of the World, are reckoned at no less than £150."
Wy, wot a delikit plarnt, wot a blooming hexotic, this "Mister" JACKSON (oh, the pooty perliteness of it!) must be! Saloon passage and fust-class fare, I persoom, for the likes of 'im. Isters and champagne, no doubt, and liquoor brandy, and sixpenny smokes! A poor old pug like me wos glad of a steak and inguns, and a 'arf ounce o' shag, with a penny clay. And as to "travelling hexpenses"—I wonder wot the Noble Captings of our day would 'ave said to the accounts laid afore your "National Sporting Club!" £2000 for the Purse, and £150 for Mister JACKSON's travelling hexpenses!!! Oh, I say! Pugs is a-looking up! And yet I'm told some o' your cockered-up fly-flappers carnt 'it a 'ole in a pound o' butter, or stand a straight nose-ender without turning faint! Evidently funking and faking pays a jolly sight better than 'onesty and 'ard 'itting.
Well, well, Mister Punch, I'm hout of it now, thanksbe. And I ain't sure as I could shape myself 'andy to the Slugger SULLIVAN and JEM SMITH kind o' caper. The "resources o' science" is so remarkable different from what they wos in my days, and include so many new-fangled barnies as we worn't hup to. These 'ere pugilistic horchids, so to speak, wants deliket 'andling in the Ring, as well as hout on it, and a fair 'ammering from a 'onest bunch o' fives might spile the pooty look of 'em for their fust-clarss Saloons, Privet Boxes, and Swell Clubs. But you can tell Mister JACKSON, Eskvire, an cetrer, an cetrer, an cetrer (put it all in, please, Sir, as I vant to be perlite), that in my day I'd a bin only too 'appy to fight 'im to a finish (which mighn't ha' bin in five minutes, either, hunless he wanted it so), for—his Travelling Hexpenses!!!
O SHAW-LEFEVRE, was it but fatality,
Or could it be because the subjects bore 'em,
That, when you wished to argue on plurality.
About one Member came to form a quorum?
No doubt the others meant this to denote
That when you speak you like "One Man, One Vote."
FRIENDLY ADVICE TO MRS. HUMPHRY WARD, À PROPOS OF HER TROUBLE WITH HER ADVERSE CRITICS.—Grieve no more!
Tommy. "IT'S A LITTLE GIRL, FAST ASLEEP, WITH HER DOLL IN HER ARMS!"
Jimmy. "YES; AND WHEN SHE WAKES UP, WON'T SHE BE FRIGHTENED AT THAT GREAT BIG BIRD!"
These hapless homes of middle class,
Can they escape annihilation
When come, in place of trees and grass,
A filthy goods-yard and a station?
If such seclusion sheltered Peers,
Their wealth and influence might save it;
No speculator ever fears
Artists or writers such as crave it;
Or if it housed the WORKING MAN,
Would Lords or Commons dare eject him?
Picture the clamour if you can!
His vote, his demagogues, protect him.
But you, who only use your brains—
The people's voice, the noble's money,
Not yours—why save you from the trains?
For quiet, do you say? How funny!
Perhaps you think, because in May
The talk is all of Art and beauty,
The Commons also think that way;
Not so, they have a higher duty.
If only speculators shout,
And millionnaires take up the story,
They thrust all Art and Nature out,
For Trade is England's greatest glory.
Then, if a careless House some day
Permit the Channel Tunnel boring,
Think how this railway line would pay;
If you had shares you'd cease deploring.
Think of the cotton-laden trains
Direct from Manchester to Asia!
Think of the Sheffield Railway's gains,
Not of your lilac or acacia!
To introduce in a monument to a great writer a presentment of one of his most popular characters, as Mr. F. EDWIN ELWELL has done in his bronze statue of "Charles Dickens and 'Little Nell,'" is decidedly a pretty notion. "The child," looking up into the face of the great creative genius, who loved this offspring of his sympathetic fancy better than did all her other admirers, is a pathetic figure, and gives to the monument a more human and less coldly mortuary aspect than, unhappily, is usual in such work. It is a "touch of Nature" that makes even the adjunct of the mausoleum akin to the quick world of the living and loving. The vivid valiant genius, who so detested and denounced the superfluous horrors with which we surround death and the tomb, would cordially have approved it, little as was his love for monumental effigies, or care for the fame that is dependent on them.
VERY "FRENCH BEFORE BREAKFAST."—It was reported in the Times that a M. ROULEZ fought four duels between nine and ten on Wednesday morning, severely wounded his four adversaries, and then, after this morning's pleasure, went about his business, that is his ordinary business, as if nothing particular had happened. To this accomplished swordsman the series of combats had been merely like taking a little gentle exercise "pour faire Rouler le sang." The combatants, as it turns out, appear to have been like Falstaff's "men in buckram."
THE LIMB AND THE LAW.—"To whom does an amputated limb belong?" queries the Standard (à propos of the case of the boy HOUSLEY, whose father demanded that the arm cut off in the Infirmary should be given up to him). The answer is clear. An amputated limb belongs to no body!
He may not be "earnest," he may not be "smart,"
You may say, if you please, he's unable to sing;
But, oh, you must own he's a "work of art,"—
A "beautiful untrue thing!"
ASPIRATIONS.—A Music-hall Manager told the Parliamentary Committee sitting on Theatres and Places of Entertainment, that he did not believe in Art with a capital A. Perhaps he believed in Art with a capital H?
House of Commons, Monday, May 16.—This looked forward to in advance as grand field-night. SQUIRE OF MALWOOD been preparing onslaught on JOKIM's last Budget. Should have come off days ago, but Squire had other engagements in the country. Nothing to equal Prince ARTHUR's accommodating spirit. If the Squire not ready to demolish Budget, say, on Thursday, well, it shall be put off till Monday, or even later if that day not convenient. JOKIM doesn't mind; accustomed to have his Budgets torn up, and the little pieces returned to him postage unpaid; would feel lonely if Budget went through an uninterrupted course. Arranged accordingly that to-night the great onslaught shall he delivered. The Squire judiciously spent interval since Friday amidst quiet glades of Malwood.
"I always like, TOBY," he said, "if I get a chance, to have Monday set apart for one of my more important speeches. I make a point of going to the morning service on the day which, happily still, lies 'tween Saturday and Monday, and I don't know anything more conducive to the preparation of impromptus than a good sermon read out for space of twenty minutes; not more, or your wit begins to falter and you repeat yourself; just twenty minutes. A moderately comfortable pew, a voice not too loud in the pulpit, a fairly full congregation, and a general sense that you're doing the right thing and setting an example to your neighbours. Such circumstances preceding by some twenty-four hours my rising in the Commons, are calculated to make JOKIM sit up."
Calculation on this occasion somewhat astray. Rather hard to sit up all the way through the Squire's speech; an hour and a half long; bristling with figures; mellifluous with millions, throbbing with thousands. The Squire is in peculiar degree dependent for success upon mood of his audience. In crowded House, Members cheering, laughing, or, if you please, jeering and howling, the Squire improves with every five minutes of his Speech. To-night House not a quarter full; those present depressed with consciousness that no real fight meant; Mr. G. sat it out with some intervals of suspicious quietude. HENRY FOWLER also faithful found; sitting with folded arms waiting for the time when a new Chancellor of the Exchequer shall find opening made for him on a newly-arranged Treasury Bench.
Only JOKIM really listened; nervous, restless, murmuring comment, muttering contradiction, clutching at himself with strange gestures reminiscent of hereditary instinct to rend his garments in moments of tribulation. That was something in recompense for the meditations of yesterday morning. But as one swallow does not make a summer, neither does one Minister, however unhappy under criticism, make an audience. JOKIM followed with a speech scrupulously measured as to length by that of the Squire's; through the dead unhappy night the rain of talk fell on the roof, and everyone was glad when midnight, slowly coming, struck.
Business done.—Budget Resolutions agreed to.
Tuesday.—Small Holdings Bill through Committee. Last clause added amid buzz of admiration from a not too full House.
HAMLEY looked on in rapt admiration.
JESSE COLLINGS rose up and called CHAPLIN blessed.
"Not at all," said CHAPLIN, blushing; "as my friend TOOLE says from the deck of the Houseboat, anyone could do it."
"The fact is, TOBY," CHAPLIN whispered to me a little later, as we sat on the Terrace sharing a bottle of gingerbeer imbibed through a couple of straws, "I've really done a clever thing, only those fellows don't quite see it. Here we've been for a week pegging away at this Bill, bargaining and bickering. Sometimes I've yielded a trifle to the Opposition; sometimes I haven't. But it's pretty much all the same in the end. The Act will look very well in the Statute Book, and I hope will help us at the General Election. But as far as practical use goes, I have sometimes laughed when I look round the Committee and see Members seriously discussing the thing. Just before the Bill was printed, Prince ARTHUR asked me when I proposed the Act should come into operation. 'When are you going to have the General Election?' I asked, by way of reply. Prince ARTHUR said he couldn't exactly tell at the moment. 'Very well,' I said; 'let us put it this way. If you're going to dissolve at the end of June, the Act may as well come into operation as soon as it receives Royal Assent. But if you postpone Election over Autumn, better fix date for Act coming into force on the first of January. 'What d'you mean?' asked ARTHUR. 'I mean just this. If this Bill's to help us at the General Election, we mustn't give time for people to find it out.' 'Um!' said ARTHUR, and he can put a good deal of meaning into the observation."
Business done.—Small Holdings Bill in Committee.
Thursday.—Admiral JEREMIAH FIELD pacing quarter-deck, uttering lamentations over collapse of the Eastbourne stand against the Salvationists. Bill amending Eastbourne Improvement Act up for Third Reading. JEREMIAH had proposed to introduce Clause enabling inhabitants of town to protect themselves against the Sabbath incursions of a mob in red waistcoats and poke bonnets, with drums, trumpets also, and shawms. Evidently no use; so the Admiral lowered his topsails, pulled taut his lee scuppers, and sheered off. "We're living in flabby times," he complained to sympathetic House.
He heaved one sigh, then he hove-to, and Bill read Third Time.
Truth of Admiral's remark about living in flabby times proved through rest of Sitting. "Don't," said GEORGE TREVELYAN, yesterday, speaking about RUSSELL's Amendment on Plurality of Vote Bill—"don't drag this ghost of a dead red-herring across the path." Only the imagination of genius could conjure up this terrible vision. Realised it to-night when Irish Local Government Bill took the floor, and asked to be read a Second Time. Thought it was as dead as a herring, red or otherwise; but here's its ghost filling House with gloom. Promise of several days' cheerful conversation. SEXTON promptly turned on flood of everlasting talk, hopelessly swamping place to begin with. Here's a Bill no one believes Government seriously intend to proceed with; still feel bound, having introduced it, to take Second Reading. Must show it's not quite so ridiculous as it seemed when, three months ago, Prince ARTHUR introduced it, and House laughed it off premises. Sensible course suggested at close of Sitting by WILFRID LAWSOW. "Scandalous waste of time," he said; "the sooner we finish Debate the better."
SEXTON full of scorn for the hapless measure. Looked it all over, and behold! there is no good thing in it. Might have said this in ten minutes, or at most, quarter of an hour. But temptation to straddle irresistible; discoursed for full hour and half; talked clean out of Peers' Gallery FIFE and Earl SPENCER, who had innocently looked in. MADDEN, not to be outdone, talked for another hour and half; out of a possible seven hours' debate three appropriated by two speakers. Quite Maddening. Afterwards, RATHBONE, JOHNSTON (of Ballykilbeg), WEBB, COGHILL, BLANE, and AMBROSE.
A weary world, my masters!
Business done.—None.
Friday.—Morning Sitting for further discussion of Local Government Bill. Only four Members spoke, each Member at terrible length. At this rate quite clear, if every Member is to have his say—and why shouldn't he?—House must sit into August before even Second Reading stage of Bill is disposed of. Should have been Evening Sitting, but things rapidly approaching collapse. Members in state of coma. Couldn't get forty together; and as soon as SPEAKER took chair Counted Out.
Business done.—None.
NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.