Young Person (on taking a Situation with Maiden Lady). "In the Course of Conversation, shall I address you as Miss or Mum?"!!
(See Mr. Vernon Lushington's evidence before the Megæra Commission.)
A darkling place, of shadowy space,
Reached by a silent stair;
A skeleton clock, with a dusty face,
That marks time in the air,
To five grey ghosts, in blue and gold lace,
Each in ghost of a board-room chair.
Their red-tape is dust, their penknives are rust,
The ink in each standish is sere;
Their ghost-quills glide betwixt margins wide
Of foolscap, that blanks appear;
And their dead tongues' prose into dead ears goes,
And out at as dead an ear!
But on file and floor, and the tables o'er,
And in pigeon-holes well stored,
Are letters many, and papers more—
An ever-growing hoard!
No phantom of business, albeit before
My Lords of a Phantom Board!
So much work to be done, and, alive, but one
To utter five phantoms' will!
The hours they run, but on Lushington
The papers are pouring still—
And how record for a Phantom Board,
With a merely mortal quill?
Those letters come by messengers dumb—
A hundred thousand a year—
To this room or that, for ghost-clerks to thumb,
And be opened, here and there:
Who registers? None, all; all, some:
Who minutes? Ghost-hands in air.
So, registered or unregistered,
As haste or hap may be;
Minuted or un-minuted,
As ghost, or none, may be free;
The gathering letters have come to a head
That a Phantom Board can see!
Alive but one,—Lone Lushington
Among that ghostly five,
And all this business to be done—
Needs must when phantoms drive!
"Enough to sign," he sighs, "not mine
To read, and still survive."
And while he signs, and signs, and signs,
Its ghost of work upon,
In its red-tape toil the navy to coil,
The Phantom Board sits on:
Essay to seize, your grasp 'twill foil,
Looms, shadowy, and is gone!
Gone but to meet, in order neat,
As ghost-like as before,
In the navy blue, and cock'd hat a-slue,
That ancient Duncan wore,
The Phantom First Lord at the head of the Board,
And, below, the Phantom Four!
Their ghosts of orders they have sped,
Their ghosts of minutes they sign;
But of ship ill-found, or fleet ill-led
The discredit all decline,
To the shrill "Not mine!" of their phantom-head,
Echoing their "Not mine."
John Bull, outside, may groan and gride,
May fume and fret at will;
If he deems live heads his navy guide,
His sea-behests fulfil,
The works and the words of these Phantom Lords
No wonder he taketh ill.
For our ships we know how the sovereigns go.
Hard cash in hard hulls should end:
Why troop-ships are worked till they rotten grow,
We cannot comprehend;
Nor why squalls that blow about Reid & Co.
To the bottom should Captains send.
Some day, I think, with a sneeze and a wink,
Shocked wide-awake again,
John Bull will make free with the Board-room key,
Grope his way to the door, and then,
Round the Board-screen peep at the ghosts that keep
The seats of living men!
We wouldn't hold posts among those ghosts—
Nor of Sea, nor of Civil Lord—
That to build John's ships, and to guard John's coasts,
Have borrowed his shield and sword:
If Ghosts can be kicked, kicked out of their posts
Will be the Phantom Board!
Mr. Bull. "GHOSTS, BY JINGO!"
[What else did he expect to see at the Admiralty, after Mr. Vernon Lushington's awful Revelation?
Mrs. Lorimer Stackworthy is busy with a new life of one of our earliest Queens, Boadicea, based on contemporary documents and family papers, many of which are in cipher. The publishers, (Sporle and Mussitt) will be glad to hear of an authentic portrait of the subject of Mrs. Stackworthy's interesting monograph.
The article, in the Pedantic Review, on "Pies and Puddings," which has caused such a stir in literary and culinary circles, bears strong internal evidence of the practised pen of Professor Porringer. That on "Extraordinary Ebullitions," in the Impartialist, is understood to emanate from Dr. Julius Teezer.
Jewini's great classic Opera—La Vecchia Madre Ubardio—will be revived next season at La Scala.
A new weekly periodical is announced. It will be printed, published, edited, written, illustrated, stitched, and sold exclusively by women, and the type, ink, and paper, will be supplied by manufacturers who employ none but female artificers. Men will not be allowed to interfere with this journal in any way, except as purchasers. The title is Superior Wisdom.
Signor Zafferano-Collina has resumed his (open air) Organ performances on Campden Hill. The Signor's répertoire has not received any accession during the recess.
In the course of the ensuing season, Messrs. Brane and Booker will bring to the hammer the valuable Library formed by the late Jonathan Bell Diver, M.A., F.A.S., F.E.L.S. It is remarkably rich in nursery rhymes, cookery books, gipsyana, and treatises on dentistry and fireworks, and includes a unique series of privately printed publications relating to the County of Rutland.
The result of more extended investigations goes to prove that the Octopus will not attack man, except in defence of its religion.
Mr. Granby Fussforth has completed his arrangements for the delivery of a course of Six Lectures on "Winds and Windfalls," in the North of London. He will afterwards make a tour through Lambeth, Surrey, Southwark, and the Tower Hamlets, and will probably conclude his labours in the Old Kent Road.
Telegrams from Trebizond say that Madame Coralia Volanti has created a perfect furore there, by her extraordinary performances on the high rope.
Bertha's Black Box is the title of a new Serial Story, by a popular and prolific writer, to be commenced in an early number of Alsatia. It will be illustrated by Bannocks.
Mr. Wycherley Bibb has a farcical comedy in preparation which will be produced at the "Sheridan" in the course of the season. The plot turns on one of the principal characters mistaking a private mansion for an hotel. Facey Smiles has a wonderful part in it.
Mr. Salvator Rose, R.A., is working hard to get all his pictures ready for the forthcoming Royal Academy Exhibition. Perhaps, the most striking is a scene from Smith's Classical Dictionary, in which Agamemnon is represented as blowing a kiss, across the Prytaneum, to Clytemnestra, who is pacing the Bema, in the absence of her guardian on a secret expedition. Ægisthus appears in the background, detained by some law business, and the Chorus is endeavouring to convince him that he is in the wrong. This powerful painting, with its subtle nuances, its harmonious play of light and shade, its truthful rendering of the Piraeus, and the splendid drawing of the Chorus's left leg, will carry conviction to all who can reverence a conscientious manipulation of another of the grand old trilogies of the Athenian stage.
The new metal, Fluozinium, is steadily making its way against the current of scientific prejudice. It has been discovered in almost limitless quantities in conjunction with tufa and hæmatite; and the most delicate persons may inhale its fumes with perfect safety. In specific gravity Fluozinium is superior both to nickel and cobalt; it will ignite nowhere but on the box, and not often there; and for porosity, frangibility, and opalescence, no metal in our time has approached it.
The Dryrot Society have at the present time two more volumes of unusual interest ready for their subscribers, who, it must be said, regretfully, are much in arrear with their subscriptions. One is the Foundation Deeds, in abbreviated Latin, of the Monastery of St. Kilda, in Kincardineshire, dating as far back as the fourteenth century; the other, a list of all persons holding in capite a carucate of land and upwards, who were in fief to the Crown in the Border Wars. A few copies will be struck off on large paper, and six on vellum.
he details supplied by the newspapers give but an inadequate idea of the interesting rites and ceremonies which cluster round the election of a new Speaker, and have been observed, with undeviating fidelity, since those early times, when the original Speaker received the sanction of his Sovereign under the shade of the "Parliament Oak" in "Merry Sherwood."
From the first moment that he gets a post-card informing him he is to be proposed to the House for the vacant Chair, the Speaker-designate gives up the sports of the field, dinner company, and all other pleasures and amusements, and devotes himself, night and day, to the perusal of the journals of the House of Commons, the investigation of the Standing Orders, and the study of the Constitutional History of England, Parliamentary precedents and privileges, and the Biographies of his predecessors.
He reads a fixed portion of Hansard every morning and evening.
He sees no one but the Clerk of the House and his Assistants, who call to give him daily private tuition.
He forms a collection of the photographs of all the Members, that his recognition of them may be immediate and unerring.
During the week before the meeting of Parliament he visits all his old haunts for the last time, and takes leave of his friends, with whom, of course, as First Commoner, he can never again mix on the same familiar terms.
The day before his election he has his hair cut.
On the eve of the great event he retires to rest early, and on the morning of the most momentous day in his life he rises with the first streak of dawn in the east, and paces to and fro on Constitution Hill, to collect his thoughts and prepare his speech.
The Sergeant-at-Arms conveys him, attired in a full Court suit to Westminster, in a close carriage, with the blinds drawn down, and remains with him in a vault in the Victoria Tower, where he is provided with the daily papers, writing materials, and refreshments, until his proposer and seconder arrive to conduct him into the House. (There is a large looking-glass in the vault, before which he tries on his wig and gown, with the experienced aid of the Sergeant.)
The subsequent proceedings are pretty much as the papers have described them, except that the Proposer and Seconder wear nosegays, and carry halberds; and that the Speaker stands up before he takes his seat in the chair, which is draped with the Union Jack, brandishes the Mace (decked with ribbons for the occasion) three times round his head, and in a loud voice, and in Norman French, invites the whole of the officers of the House to dine with him that evening at the Albion at seven.
Theresa. "No, Charles—never! I have long determined to Devote my Life to Charity; in fact, to become a Sister in an Anglican Nunnery."
Charles. "Well, if you do, I'll bury myself for the rest of my miserable Days in a—in a—a Monkery!"
Hooray! It rains, it pelts, it pours,
At work I shall be free from bores,
Who call and stay. The storm that roars,
The wet, will keep them all in-doors.
I've but to dread the Postman's knock,
A sharp but momentary shock,
I'll hope that it may bring no worse,
Than some attempt upon my purse.
Prospectus, Circular, or Puff,
Into the fire just won't I stuff,
And smile, as to myself I say,
"That postage-stamp is thrown away!"
On Thursday last week, at a meeting of the Middlesex Magistrates:—
"A communication was received from the guardians of the poor of the parish of St. Pancras, stating that there was an increase in the number of inquests held upon the bodies of persons dying in the workhouse, and that a majority of them were unnecessary; but the guardians were powerless to prevent such inquests being held, and were of opinion that if the fees receivable by the medical officers of the workhouses in the metropolis were abolished, a number of such inquests would no longer be held."
The insinuation against the metropolitan Poor-Law medical officers of a charge of obtaining fees under false pretences, does credit to the shopkeepers in limited lines of business out of whose inner self-consciousness it sprang. Of course the inquests held upon many of the paupers who have died in the St. Pancras Workhouse have been unnecessary. There, not very much more particularly than in other workhouses, can the majority of paupers be supposed to perish from special neglect. Most of them, no doubt, die of mere misery.
"The Queen has been pleased to send a present of game for the patients of the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton."
Similia similibus. Her Majesty treats, by promoting consumption. But the First of Lady Doctors does not "exhibit" infinitesimal doses. Truly Royal practice of homœopathy.
Mr. Punch has seldom been more disgusted—and that is saying a good deal in these days—than by the low, sordid, Philistine, anticosmopolitan agitation on the subject of the International Exhibitions.
He will endeavour to express himself calmly on the topic, but gives no pledge that he will not be induced to use strong language.
British manufacturers and vendors complain (he hates people that complain of anything) that the Foreigner is unduly and unjustly favoured by the directors of these Exhibitions. "Foreigner!" At the outset, that word is in itself offensive. All mankind are Brothers, more or less. But let that pass.
The Foreigner is allowed to bring to South Kensington whatever wares he pleases, and to exhibit them to the best advantage at handsome stalls, for which he pays no rent. To the Exhibition the British public is invited by every official blandishment—fête, flower-show, and music are among the attractions—and for several months the very best and most opulent portion of society is thus brought to be tempted by the Foreigner's productions.
Furthermore, the Foreigner is allowed to deprive the Exhibition of its character as an Exhibition, and to make it a shop. For he may sell anything which he has brought over (whether it be part of his show, or any other article which it has occurred to him as likely to be acceptable), and the purchaser may take it away at once. This is coarsely described as entirely departing from the theory that it was by the display and comparison of wares that the interests of Art were to be promoted. It is irreverently urged that the accomplished Prince who originally devised those Exhibitions would never have sanctioned their being converted into Shops and Bazaars.
The British manufacturers and vendors condescend to urge that this is not giving them fair play, that the Foreigner is helped in every way to sell his goods, and that the Briton who pays rent for his own shop, and heavy taxes for the support of the State, is rendered all the less able to do so, by reason that custom is drawn away from him in favour of those who pay neither rent nor taxes.
Mr. Punch regrets to find that Leading Men of business take these narrow views, and that the representatives of some of the most eminent firms in England have met under the auspices of the Lord Mayor, also a man of business, to assert that the system is unjust. It may be thought that when such men deliberately protest against anything, they may be supposed to have good reasons for their protest. But this is a commonplace way of thinking.
Let us try and rise above mere material views, and let the holy and genial rays of the sun of cosmopolitanism warm up our insular hearts. All mankind are Brothers, as has been already observed, and who would grudge his brother anything? Why should the British person be considered in the matter? Talk of his paying taxes—well, he does not like to pay them—and if he is ruined, he will not be called upon to pay them any more. That is a detail beneath contempt. What Mr. Punch is so ashamed of, is the chill and callous British nature, which refuses to recognise the holiness of universal philanthropy, and clings to old-fashioned ideas of a man's duty to his own family and his own nation. The Englishman who could see in the prosperity of the Rue de Rivoli no compensation for the ruin of Regent Street, is so low in the scale of civilisation that we blush to call him countryman.
Mr. Punch has no such sordid feelings, and his noble heart will leap with generous joy to behold the wealthy pouring out their gold on the counter or at the stall of his Foreign Brothers at South Kensington, and if his British Brother is, as he thinks, unfairly used and impoverished, let him find consolation in the thought that we are all the same "flesh and blood." Let him mention this to Mr. Lowe's tax-collector, and it is certain that the latter will, like Sterne's angel, drop a gentle tear on the charge he was going to make, and blot it out for ever.
Where now are the Parsons, with too high a hand
Who whilom were wont things to carry?
The sole Clergy known to the Law of the Land,
With charter to bury and marry,
Whose Pluralists lazily fattened, like swine;
Their rubicund joles bloomed like roses:
They were used so to soak themselves full of port-wine,
That it purpled their overgrown noses.
O where and O where are those proud Parsons gone?
O where and O where shall we find them,
With the waistcoat so full, and the shovel-hat on,
As our limners in their days designed them?
A sinecure mostly the cure of the souls
To which for attention not giving
They never feared being called over the coals,
They showed forth their fruits of good living.
To the Church they were stanch; they held on with a kind
Of a power like horseleeches' of suction,
Intolerant, bigoted, narrow, and blind,
They but lived to persist in obstruction.
They evermore voted for absolute rule,
For coercion, restraint, and repression,
And exclusion, by tests, from each College and School,
They opposed every kind of concession.
Those Parsons of old are no longer seen here;
Now no more do they hamper this nation.
They are all gone the way of Herr Breitmann his beer;
They have ceased to obstruct education.
The Church has grown broad, throwing open each door,
Which, the bigot except, each one enters,
And we now, in the place of the Parsons of yore,
Behold cross-grained and jealous Dissenters.
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales would convey, through his friend, Mr. Punch, warmest thanks to all his loyal and loving fellow-subjects for their sympathy, earnest interest, and kind inquiries. In due time H. R. H. hopes to make public acknowledgment of the national feeling which has been so nobly testified.
Meantime, by advice of his friend above mentioned, H. R. H. signifies that he would be particularly obliged if all Mayors, Beadles, Corporations, Cocked Hats, Town Clerks, Silver Maces, Respected Townsmen, and other Activities would kindly allow him some respite before the flood of Conventional Congratulation is turned on. Might he ask to be allowed the quiet and peace permitted to other convalescents? Would Addressers deign to remember that though he is a Prince, "a man's a man for a' that"?
Sandringham. Respect This! PUNCH.
Shall the Easter Monday Volunteer Review be holden at Brighton or Portsmouth? This question may have been decided in favour of Brighton by the Sovereign, or by the Shilling, which would have done equally well, to determine the choice by a toss-up; and sufficient for that, indeed, would have been "skying a copper." Brighton has downs adapted for the field of military manœuvres, but so has Portsmouth; and as to either place, whether you regard the neighbourhood or the inhabitants, it is hard to say which is the more downy.
As "A Thankoffering from India," a contemporary announces that on account of the recovery of the Prince of Wales, a charitable donation of £200 has been sent to London by Mr. Cowasjee Jehangier Readymoney. Anybody would have given Mr. Readymoney credit for having earned his name, and now everybody must see that he well deserves it. Is Mr. Readymoney a Parsee? At any rate, he is the reverse of Parsi-monious.
Groom. "Whew's Beer do you Like Best—this 'ere Hom'brewed o' Fisk's, or that there Ale they gives yer at the White Ho's'?"
Keeper (critically). "Well, o' the Tew I prefers this 'ere. That there o' Wum'oods's don't Fare to me to Taste o' Nawthun at all. Now this 'ere dew Taste o' the Cask!!"
I.
About the Three R's views unite
As voices blend in song.
For the Fourth R, what some hold right,
That all folk else deem wrong.
Of those Fourth R's as yet while none
The right R proved can be,
To teach them all, therein where one,
Why can't good folk agree?
II.
Milk is for babes, wrote one that knew.
Sectarian Educators, you
Who dogmas teach which Doctors question,
Are you not giving babes strong meat,
So much too tough for them to eat,
The upshot must be indigestion?
Can a man murder his wife? The point seems doubtful, to judge by the common experience of the Courts, and the general tone of public opinion, when a charge for this questionable offence is under consideration or comment. On the whole, it would seem to be desirable that we should cease to use the term "Murder" of Wife-killing, and create a special term for that offence—if offence it can be called. May we suggest either "Wife-icide," or "Spousi-cide," or "Uxori-cide"? It would be the correlative, in cases of feminine life-taking, of "justifiable homicide" in the case of male.
It was very touching to observe the general expression of newspaper sympathy with an individual lately convicted for having pushed a little too far, perhaps, the natural feeling of exasperation and impatience with a wife who may safely be assumed to have been a very aggravating person. "Poor monomaniac," "unfortunate gentleman," and so forth, are terms which testify to the natural tenderness of the public feeling towards one who is subjected to such painful consequences for so venial an act of temporary irritation.
We are glad to see that this touching and well-directed sympathy is confined to this unfortunate victim of a rash impulse. As for the woman who provoked him, we observe only a considerate silence, or the expression of a feeling equivalent to the well-known Cornish verdict—"Sarved her right."
Mr. Punch received a letter stating that in the writer's opinion it might interest Mr. P.'s readers to know the state of the weather in Naples. If there be one thing in the world nobody out of Naples cares one farthing about, Mr. Punch supposes that thing to be mentioned above. But, respice finem. On examining the report enclosed by his Correspondent, Mr. Punch discovers that the subject is very interesting indeed. Here is the faithful reprint of an official document supplied to the Naples Observer. Emphatically we call the weather in question queer weather. We omit barometers and thermometers, and all that stuff.
State of the Weather in Naples from the 6th to the 12th Jan. 1872.
| DATE. | OBSERVATIONS. |
| Jan. 6 | Rain and p. m |
| 7 | Rain right Clouded day. |
| 8 | Rain rlght off on day. |
| 9 | Heag rain thurdestorm rain d. |
| 10 | Heag rain swig right. |
| 11 | Clouded day. |
| 12 | Brighth day. |
Mr. Vernon Lushington, Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty, speaking of that body of naval administrators, doubtless, with knowledge and in sincerity, calls it a "Phantom Board." A Board of Phantoms may be said to be a Board of Ghosts, and such a Board of Admiralty sending British seamen afloat in rotten Megæras, is a Board of Ghosts with power to add to their number.
The season might be milder—it could hardly be more malevolent. But here is mildness:—
A WIDOWER of middle age, of quiet and regular habits, who has three children at boarding school, desires a HOME in the house of an independent Christian widow or single lady, whose object in letting apartments is chiefly society, who would accept merely nominal terms, and where he would be the only lodger. Nice house and servant desirable.—Address, with every particular, &c., &c.
What a charming person must this advertiser be, if we may judge from the high value which he sets on his society! No doubt he has been deluged with replies to his advertisement. What independent lady could possibly decline to offer him the home which he so modestly demands, and to sacrifice her independence by accepting him as lodger, first, and finally as lord, as soon as he inclined to offer her his heart? "Beware of widows, Sammy!" said the elder Mr. Weller. Beware of widowers, ladies! adds the wiser Mr. Punch.
Foul weather! Come on, my Macintosh
And my Boots; we'll never mind it,
While the rain the face of the Earth doth wash,
Though the dirtier still we find it.
It is proposed to transfer the Ladies' College to Cambridge. This addition, if made, to Alma Mater will, in case of future controversy between disorderly undergraduates and other inhabitants, be obviously an advantage over Town in favour of Gown. For even the Graduates and Dons of the gentler sex will all be Gownswomen.
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. For instance, a quotation mark is missing in the first main paragraph of "Evenings From Home," and the formatting and spelling of the table under "State of the Weather in Naples from the 6th to the 12th Jan. 1872" is kept as-is.
On page 51, last part of the poem "The 'Phantom Board'." was moved to page 48 so that the full page illustration "The 'Phantom Board'." would not divide the poem.