E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship,
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PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 146

APRIL 15, 1914.

CHARIVARIA.

Reuter telegraphs from Melbourne that the Commonwealth building in London is to be called "Australia House." This should dispose effectively of the rumour that it was to be called "Canada House."

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"The Song of the Breakers," which is being advertised, is not, we are told, a war song for the Suffragettes.

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Some of the Press reported a recent happy event under the following heading:—

"Wedding of Mrs. Patrick Campbell."

Mr. George Cornwallis West would like it to be known that it was also his wedding.

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It was rumoured one day last week that a certain officer famous for his picturesque language was about to receive a new appointment as Director-General of Expletives.

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"Gold-Plated Typewriter,"

announces The Mail. We are sorry for the poor girl. Mr. Granville Barker, of course, started the idea with his gilded fairies.

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Miss Mabel Rogers, we read, is bringing a suit against certain other girl students of Pardue University, Indiana, for "ragging" her by tearing off her clothes. It seems to us that it is the defendants who ought to bring the suit.

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"Twelve small farmers," we are told, "were on Saturday sent for trial at Ballygar, County Galway, on a charge of cattle-driving." Their size should not excuse them.

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One evening last week, The Daily Mail tells us, the electric light failed in several districts of Tooting and Mitcham. "A resident in Garden Avenue," says our contemporary, "had invited about a dozen friends to a card party. The host secured a supply of candles, in the dim light of which the party played." It is good to know that in this prosaic age and in this prosaic London of ours it is still possible to have stirring adventures worth recording in the country's annals.

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The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says The Westminster Gazette, "M. Poincare will leave on his visit to Russia, after the national fêtes on July 14."

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A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as £2,625 and £1,837 at Christie's last week, and we hear that some of our less notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.

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"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You Out-of-Doors—and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that Gets You Home Again.

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The Premier, who was said to have "run away" to Fife, after all had a "walk over."

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"The Elizabethan spirit," says a laudator temporis acti, "is dead among us." We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was sighted Drake went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would refuse to leave their game of golf.

PROFESSIONAL ANACHRONISM.

Mrs. Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the world of her age—for she is put down in black and white as forty-four in more than one book of reference. Her miraculous Lady Macbeth, which she impersonated at the age of seven, is still a happy memory to many middle-aged playgoers, though the miracle was eclipsed by the nine days' wonder of her elopement and marriage to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the famous Ballarat millionaire, on her thirteenth birthday. Her daughter Gemma, who made her début in Grand Opera at the Scala in 1895, is already a grandmother; and her son Hector, who fought in the Russo-Turkish war of 1878, is the youngest Field-Marshal in the British Army.

M. Atichewsky, the famous Russian pianist, who gives his first recital in the Blüthstein Hall next Wednesday, is no stranger to London audiences, though he is only just twenty years of age. In the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee he visited England as a Wunderkind, being then only thirteen years of age, and created a furore by his precocious virtuosity. About eleven years later, while he was still in his teens, he appeared at the Philharmonic Concerts with his second wife, a soprano singer of remarkable attainments. The present Madame Atichewsky, it should be noted, has a wonderful contralto voice, which is inherited by her second daughter, Ladoga, who recently made her début at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, in Brussels.

The Poetry of the Ring.

For two pugilists, shaking hands before the knock-out fight begins:—

Browning, "Love among the Ruins."

We shall be glad to see these freshwater seals.

THE UNION OF IRISH HEARTS.

(How the prospect strikes an Englishman.)

THE BOMB.

I was rather glad to spend my eighteenth birthday in Germany, because I knew my people would make a special effort in the matter of presents. They did, and I turned the other girls at the pension green with envy when I wore them. The only thing that spoilt my day was that there was nothing at all from Cecil, which was rather a blow.

However, the next morning I received an official document referring to a parcel waiting for me at the Customs House, and lost no time in getting there.

It was a long, low building, strewn with packing cases, cardboard boxes and dirt, with a row of pigeon-holes—some big enough to take an ostrich—on one side, and a counter defending a row of haughty officials on the other. Several people were wandering aimlessly about, but no one took the least notice of me, or appeared to realize I was in my nineteenth year. So I approached an official in a green uniform with brass buttons, standing behind the counter. He was tall and stout, and his hair, being about one millimetre long, showed his head shining through. He had a fierce fair moustache, and, owing to overwork or influenza coming on, was perspiring freely.

Trusting he would prove more fatherly than he looked, I held out my paper. He drew back haughtily, ejaculating: "Nein!" and jerked his head towards a kind of letter-box on the counter. I pushed my paper in the slot, hoping the etiquette of the thing was all right now; and, as apparently it was, in his own good time he took the paper from the back of the box, looked at it, glanced sternly at me, looked at the paper again, and said severely:

"Vee—ta—hay—ad?"

I didn't know what he was driving at till I remembered my name was Whitehead. So I replied, "Ja," thinking his pronunciation not bad for the first shot. He turned to a pigeon-hole and laid a small square parcel on the counter addressed to me in Cecil's scrawl. I held out my hand, but he ignored it, and, picking up a fearsome-looking instrument consisting of blades, hooks and points—which turned out to be the official cutter—severed the silly little bit of string, unwrapped the paper and disclosed a white wooden box with a sliding lid.

I bent forward, but he glared at me and moved it further away, slid back the lid, removed some shavings and looked inside. His official manner underwent a change; such a look of sudden human interest showed on his fat clammy face that I thought he must have found some quite new kind of sausage. But instead he drew out very gingerly a curious square black box with a sloping front, two round holes at one side, and a handle at the other. He put it down on the counter and glared at me.

"Was ist das?" he demanded.

"Ich weiss nicht," I replied, shaking my head.

It was clear he didn't believe me, and he kept it out of my reach, turning it carefully about, and in response to a jerk of his chin two or three of his colleagues came up and glared, first, at me, and than at the suspicious object. However, he would not let them touch it, but, squaring his chin and taking a deep breath, he turned the handle.

There was a faint ticking noise, but nothing happened, and I suggested timidly that he should look through the peep-holes and see what was going on inside. He frowned at my interference, but taking my advice all the same, raised the box nearer his fierce eye and turned the handle once more and with greater force. Instantly there was a loud whirr, and a bright green trick-serpent leapt through the lid, caught him full on the nose and sent him back sprawling among his packing cases, carrying two of his friends with him.

I gave a bit of a squeak, but it was lost among the "Ach Gotts" and "Himmels" all round me. Cecil in his wildest dreams had never hoped for this. Whatever the consequences might be I meant to have my snake, and while I was collecting it from the floor and cramming it back in the box I discovered my defence.

Smiling my very best smile, I turned and faced the angry officials the other side of the counter and, holding the box towards them, pointed to three printed words underneath: "Made in Germany."

What it is to be a Prime Minister! Ordinary mortals arrive at 5.28 and go down the steps three at a time.

You should hear our curate.

A NONENTITY.

He was a tramp, a mere tramp, clearly a man of no importance to you or me or anyone else in the world. The evening was warm, the place secluded and remote, and, other things being equal, he climbed over the hedge, chose a comfortable position against a haystack, pulled from his pocket a fragment of a newspaper and a fragment of a pipe and settled down.

A tramp, the merest tramp, seven miles from anywhere, sitting in a field smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper—what can such a one matter to the world at large?

The portion of the newspaper was that containing the law reports, not a prime favourite with the tramp. The lengthy report which had squeezed out other matter that might have been worth reading was a proceeding before the Lords of Appeal, in which Sir Rupert Bingley, K.C., M.P., was being very explicit and very firm about the exact limitations of the power of the Divisional Court to commit for contempt. This was hardly fit matter for the reading of a young and susceptible tramp, our man was telling himself, when the name of a district which he had once traversed cropped up in the case and caught his wandering attention.

The spot in question was on the wild Welsh border, and it was at a remote farm thereabouts that the trouble first began over which their Lordships and Sir Rupert, together with innumerable other senior counsel, junior counsel, solicitors, law reporters, lay reporters, ushers, and what-nots were so troubling themselves and each other. The farmer's stack of clover had been destroyed by fire, and the farmer, feeling that this was rather the affair of the Insurance Company than himself, had asked for solatium. The Insurance Company asked who set the stack on fire; the farmer didn't know; the Insurance Company, having regard to the size and the recent creation of the policy, were prepared to guess. The case was heard at Presteign Assizes and the farmer lost it, the jury who tried it being not quite so sure as was the farmer of his innocence in the matter.

Encouraged by this, the Insurance Company prosecuted the farmer for perjury; but the jury that tried this case took almost a stronger view of the farmer's virtue than he did himself and found a verdict of "Not Guilty," adding a rider very depreciatory of the Insurance Company. Encouraged by this verdict, the farmer sued the Insurance Company for malicious prosecution, but the jury that tried this case had no faith in either party and disagreed. Another jury were then put in their stead and they as good as disagreed by finding for the farmer but assessing the damages at one farthing.

It will be observed that their Lordships have not yet appeared in the matter, whereas the haystack, the cause of all the trouble, had as good as disappeared. Meanwhile our tramp, who had seen better days and was something of a mathematician, calculated that the total sum spent on counsels' fees alone up to this point was well over two hundred guineas.

Social reformers get mixed up in everything nowadays, and one appeared in the affair at this juncture. Having chanced to be in court at the hearing of the Malicious Prosecution suit, he had formed an opinion of the last-mentioned jury, and in an extremely witty speech, had included them specifically in the long list of people and things that were no better than they should, be. One of the jurors had unhappily been among his audience and, possibly because his experience of another's cause had endeared him to litigation, he must needs start his action for slander. By the time that action had been tried, and appealed, and a new trial ordered and held, and the legal proceedings in the respective bankruptcies of the social reformer and the juror were completed, the total of counsels' guineas must have been well on the other side of a thousand.

Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries. Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of the social reformer. And then it was that the Contempt proceedings began, and were fought strenuously stage by stage, each side briefing more and more counsel as they went along, until at last, when the case came before their Lordships, there were more barristers involved than could be seated in the limited accommodation provided at the bar of their Lordships' House.

To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe—so hard that the sparks flew and the smoke became thick around him—so thick that "Bless my soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've been and gone and set afire!"

A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things?

APRIL FOR THE EPICURE.

(An effort to emulate the gustatory enthusiasm of "The P.M.G.")

April, though regarded as somewhat suspect by meteorologists, appeals with a peculiar force to gastronomic experts, owing to the number of delicacies associated with the month.

Fish.

Oysters, like the poor, are still with us, but only till the end of the month; hence, ostreophils should make the most of their opportunities. But, besides the "king of crustaceans," as Colonel Newnham-Davis happily termed the oyster, the sea provides us with a quantity of other succulent denizens of the deep. Foremost among these is the turbot; a fish held in high honour since the time of the Roman emperors. Nor must we omit honourable mention of lobster, whitebait, mullet and eels. It is true that some people have an insuperable aversion from eels, but it is the mark of the enlightened feeder to conquer these prejudices. Besides, no one is asked to eat conger-eel at the best houses.

Meat.

Beef, mutton and pork are in good condition, or, if they are not, they ought to be. But the ways of the animal world are inscrutable, especially pigs. Lambs, again, show a strange want of consideration for the consumer, for, though April 12th is called "Lamb and Gooseberry-Pie Day," lamb, like veal, is dear just now and shows no signs of becoming less expensive. This is one of the things which independent back-bench Members should ask a question about in the House of Commons, or, failing that, they might write to The Times.

Verdant Stuff.

Lovers of salads should now be conscious of a pleasing titillation, for this is the green season par excellence. Watercress is at its cressiest; and lettuce springs from the earth for no other reason than to invite the attentions of those two culinary modistes, oil and vinegar—the Paquins of the kitchen—and so be "dressed", with highest elegance.

Les Petits Oiseaux.

Pheasants and partridges are, alas! not now obtainable except from cold storage. But let us not grumble over-much. Let us rather remember that the more they are neglected by the diner during the mating season the more of them there will be to eat when the horrid period of restriction is over. Among the rarer birds which are now on the market to compensate us may be mentioned the bobolink, the dwarf cassowary, the Bombay duckling and the skewbald fintail. The last-named bird, which comes to us from Algeria, is renowned for its savoury quality and is cooked in butter and madeira, with a soupçon of cayenne. The effect of the cayenne is to merge the too prominent black and white of the flesh into an appetising grey. The Rhodesian sparrow is another highly esteemed delicacy, which does itself most justice when seethed in a casserole with antimony, garlic and a few drops of eau-de-Cologne.

Rhubarb.

This is an extremely painful subject. Let us hurriedly pass to something more congenial.

Exotic Fruit.

An agreeable seasonal feature is the widening of the horizon to the fruit lover. All sorts of delightful foreign species and sub-species may now be bad for cash or (if one is lucky) credit—such as bomboudiac, angelica, piperazine, zakuska, shalloofs and pampooties. A delicious pampootie fool can be made quite cheaply as follows: 3 lb. of pampooties, 8 oz. of angelica paregoric, 1 imperial pint of sloe gin, 1 gill of ammoniated quinine, 9 oz. of rock salt. Boil the sloe gin and quinine to a frazzle, put in the pampooties, cut in thin slices, and take out an insurance policy.

Plovers' Eggs.

These eggs by a strange freak of nature are more easily obtainable in April and May than in any other month. In fact in December they are worth their weight in gold, and are then to be found on the tables only of Mr. Mallaby-Deeley, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Harry Lauder and Mr. John Burns. To-day they are anything from ninepence to a shilling each, and in a fortnight's time they will be sixpence each, with the added pleasure to the consumer of now and then finding a young plover inside.

Only an express train could arrive a week early; the other ones are always late.

From a calendar:—

Unfortunately we don't often see it.

NOCTURNE.

(A Golf-match has recently been played at Bushey by night.)

Spring Fashions.

ORANGES AND LEMONS.

VI.—The Record of it.

"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her letter from home.

Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "'I love mummy,' and—er—so on."

We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast—all of us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.

"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to have done anything—except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."

"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet a moment I'll tell you some."

These were some of the things;

(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We had the labels on our luggage.)

(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone justified the journey.)

(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St. George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)

(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second, a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)

(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)

(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue sky, above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.

So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out of the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully concealing something behind his back.

"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.

"The sack," said Thomas.

"Your new vests," said Archie.

"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.

"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.

"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."

"More money," said Myra.

The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.

"A camera," he said. "Good idea."

Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.

"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at all of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to tell him, when I thought, I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things, just as a surprise for you."

"Samuel, you are a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.

"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place, because they're so jolly to look back on, and—er, I'm not quite sure how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and—er——"

"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.

"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together in a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we shall appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of well-known Sun-seekers. Names from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank, blank.' I'd better go and brush my hair."

Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.

"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you—oh yes, I see. Right. Now then—wait a bit—oh yes, I've got it. Now then, what shall we have first? A group?"

"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll see plenty of us afterwards."

"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than, at the garden, which has its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack, he will be able to do justice to the scenery."

Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves picturesquely.

"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you—— No, don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to—oh, it's all right, I think I've got it."

"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."

"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite——"

"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.

This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.

"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.

"I'm—I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."

"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S. Simpson's," murmured Archie.

"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly. "It wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and Myra might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again, Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."

He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.

"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a new film."

Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up ... and found himself alone.

As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and (which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face of Simpson.

The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.

But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.

A. A. M.

Extract from Sentries' Orders: "In case of man overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."

Officer of the Watch (on transport). "What do you do in case of fire?"

Nervous Sentry. "Throw meself overboard an' report at once to the bloke on the balcony."

IN SEARCH OF PETER.

Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.

Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of late, before the great disillusionment—that is, after hinting delicately to me that she would like best of all to have the Peter—she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the punishment.

I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.

"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.

"I certainly should not," I answered.

Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.

I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and plunged in medias res. She had just returned from the last of those fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.

"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with 'Peter' printed in big letters."

I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last castigation therewith.

"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think he could be—your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"

"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."

"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"

I felt Martell's eye upon, me.

"Very," I said; "his early upbringing gave him a healthy body and a mellow heart. He was born in a brewery, you know, and never tasted water until I flung him into the canal the first day I had him. Since then, as often as he has time, he goes to bathe in the scummiest parts, and then comes and tells me all about it with any amount of circumstantial evidence. Most enthusiastic little swimmer he is."

"What a funny dog! But I should never allow him to go out alone—if he were mine, I mean. And what sort of food do you give him?"

"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."

"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."

My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to cats that were. I told sad stories of the deaths of cats. I talked of nights of agonising shrieks, and mornings of guilty eyes and blood-stained lips. My store of reminiscences lasted five minutes, and before Mrs. Martell had recovered from their recitation I pleaded a pressing engagement and took my departure.

You will now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each."

As I write, my dog and my black kitten are barging in perfect accord all round my legs in pursuit of a brand-new collar with "Peter" printed in big letters.