LONDON:
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 10, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.4.
1920.
Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Ltd.,
Printers,
Whitefriars, London, E.C.4.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOLUME 158, January 7, 1920
NEW WELLS FOR OLD.
Over the top of Part II. of The Outline of History I caught the smiling glance of the man in the opposite corner of the compartment.
"Good stuff that," he said, indicating the History with a jerk of his head.
"Quite," I agreed, maintaining my distance.
"Immense," he continued. "And it means the dawn of a new life for me. I'm Wells's hero. Every time I've appeared in his half-yearly masterpiece, ever since Tono Bungay. And look at the mess he's made of my life. Often I've had to start it under the cloud of mysterious parentage. Invariably I have been endowed with a Mind (capital M). Think of those uphill fights of mine against adverse conditions. And my unhappy marriages. He has led me into every variation of infidelity. When I did hit it off with my wife for once, he sent us to the Arctic regions as a punishment. In the depth of winter, too.
But, now he's taken up this History, I'm free. The dam has burst and strange things come floating down ..."
He sprang to his feet in his excitement. He was wearing a loose-fitting suit and what his master might call a lower middle-class hat.
"And now I'm going to do all the things I've always wanted to do. A happy marriage; well-ordered life in the suburbs; warm slippers in the fender, and all that that stands for; kinemas, perhaps, and bowls. An allotment ..."
"But," I objected, "this History won't occupy him for ever. There should be only about sixteen more parts. He'll have you out again next autumn."
"But Wells is getting the Suburban idea too." He was standing right over me, glaring horribly with excitement. The train had entered a tunnel and he was shouting bravely against the din. "Look in Part I. He acknowledges the help he has received from Mrs. Wells. And her watchful criticism. That from him! I tell you I am free—free!"
He was shaking me by the shoulders now, his face close to mine. "I shall have my allotment. Prize parsnips—giant marrows!"
"Don't be too sure," I yelled—the tunnel seemed endless. "Remember poor old Sherlock. Doyle raised him from the dead. And you"—my voice rising to a scream—"he'll have you out—out—out!"
* * * * *
As I came to I heard my dentist remark to the doctor that I always had been a bad patient under gas.
MR. PUNCH ON SILK STOCKINGS.
Dear Mr. Punch,—Your article about Christmas presents was a great success. I took your advice about the silk stockings, and sent the following verses with them, which some of your married readers may care to cut out and keep for future use:—
Your stockings once, on Christmas Eve,
Would hang, your cot adorning,
And Father Christmas, we believe,
Would fill them ere the morning;
But since he spied your dainty toes
To exchange the parts he's willing:
He thinks it's his to send the hose
And yours to find the filling.
He lays his offerings at your feet
And hopes you won't deride them,
For he has nothing half so neat
As you to put inside them.
There! I can only repeat that the results were excellent, and express my gratitude to you for the same.
Yours obediently,
Grateful Husband.
P.S.—The ties I got this time were quite all right; she too must have read your article.
NATURE AND ART.
To Betty, who can afford to defy the laws of symmetry.
[Being reflections on the old theory, recently developed before the Hellenic Society by Mr. Jay Hambridge, that certain formulæ of proportions found in nature—notably in the normal ratio between a man's height and the span of his outstretched arms (2 : √5)—constituted the basis of symmetry in the art of the Greeks and, earlier, of the Egyptians.]
Betty, I fear you don't conform
Precisely to the female norm
From dainty foot to charming noddle,
But, closely measured, span by span,
Seem built upon a private plan
Not found in Annie Kellerman
Or in the well-known Melos model.
If you compare your width and height—
Arms horizontal, left and right—
With ancient types of pure perfection,
The ratio may not, it's true,
Be as the root of 5 to 2,
But what, my dear, has that to do
With laws of natural selection?
Let Mr. Hambridge to your shape
Apply his T-square and his tape,
And wish that you were more archaic;
Why should I care? I love you best
For what no compasses can test,
For graces not to be expressed
In terms however algebraic.
I love you for the lips and eyes
That none may hope to standardize
On any system known to Hellas;
And what I like about your smile
Has no relation to the style
Of any pyramid of Nile
Figured by mathematic fellahs.
Though your proportions mayn't agree
With Fechner's pedant formulæ,
I don't complain of such disparity;
Too flawless that perfection shows;
For me a larger comfort flows
From human failings (take your nose—
I like its quaint irregularity).
Indeed I love you best of all
For those defects by which you fall
Short of the pattern you should follow;
As I would fain be loved for mine,
Speaking as one whose own design
Lacks something of the perfect line
Affected by the young Apollo.
O. S.
HOW TO GAIN A JOURNALISTIC POSITION.
Young aspirants are always endeavouring to secure posts on our leading newspapers, and complain bitterly that their letters of application are ignored by obtuse editors. To help them in this sad ambition Mr. Punch has composed a series of letters to divers editors which he guarantees will prove eminently satisfactory.
To the Editor of "The Daily News."
Sir,—I regard the insufferable Lloyd George as the most dangerous, the most malignant, the most incompetent politician who has ever attempted to misrule this country. The iniquity of the Coalition will make enlightened rulers like Lenin and Trotsky blush for the human race. I feel with you that till the real Liberal party returns to power England will never know peace and prosperity. Then and then only will brotherly friendship between England and Germany be renewed. Then and then only shall we see cheap milk, cheap coal, abundant housing, the Free Breakfast Table and the Large Cocoa Cup. To show my devotion to the cause you so nobly advocate I may say that I have actually read every article contributed by Mr. Masterman to your paper. I am strongly in favour of an entente with Labour, by which Labour should agree not to contest any seats where the true Asquithians stand a chance. I enclose as a specimen of my work the first of a series of articles on "How Lloyd George lost the War," which I am sure will be invaluable at by-elections.
To the Editor of "The Daily Mail."
Sir,—I am young and, if possible, growing younger daily. My motto is "Hustle and Bustle" and not "Dilly and Dally." I live on standard bread, in a wooden hut embowered, when feasible, with sweet peas. My ear is always close to the ground, and I can confidently predict what the man in the street will be thinking about the day after tomorrow. Politically, I am opposed to the Wastrels, the Wee Frees and the Bolsheviks, and am not prepared as yet to back Labour unreservedly. I can express myself brightly and briefly on any topical subject. Herewith I send specimen articles (length three hundred words) on "Poker Bridge," "Are we having Wetter Washdays?" and "The Woggle-Wiggle Dance." Should there be no vacancy on your staff I should be prepared to accept one on any other of your publications—The Weekly Dispatch, The Times or The Rainbow.
To the Editor of "The Manchester Guardian."
Sir,—I was a Conscientious Objector during the War. I conscientiously object to everything still, including the Peace Treaty. I speak and write fifteen languages and dialects, including Oxford English. I have a comprehensive knowledge of social and political life in Continental Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Polynesia. I have also resided in England. I have a deep conviction that under all conditions, everywhere and at all times, England is invariably and absolutely in the wrong. In home politics I am resolutely opposed to all the Coalition has done, is doing or will do. It is my firm opinion that the actions of England would become less deplorable, less criminal if Mr. Asquith returned to power. I enclose as specimens of my mentality two intensely human articles which I doubt not will find a home in your columns: "Proportional Representation in Jugo-Slavia" (length four thousand five hundred words) and "Futurism under Trotsky" (length five thousand words).
To the Editor of "The Spectator."
Sir,—In offering my services to you I may point out how happily my up-bringing and mental training have fitted me for a post on your staff. The child of an Archdeacon (who was also honorary chaplain to a rifle club), I was born in a house with earth-filled walls and brought up in intimate association with a large number of most intelligent animals. If desired I am prepared to relate anecdotes of the family bull-dog and a pet she-goat which will verify my description. I feel with you that England can only be saved by relying on a Free-Trading, Non-Socialist, Church Establishment. I loathe alike Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, and think that the intellect of England, which blossoms so luxuriously in country rectories and deaneries, finds its best expression in Lord Hugh Cecil. As a specimen of my literary ability I enclose a middle article on "The Sense of Obligation in Tom-Cats."
A "POSITIVELY LAST" APPEARANCE.
Mr. Punch. "ACCEPT THIS POOR TRIBUTE IN RECOGNITION OF MUCH GOOD ENTERTAINMENT IN THE PAST. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY ARTISTS WOULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT YOU."
[The recent withdrawal of horsed cabs from certain ranks in the London district foreshadows the final extinction of this venerable type.]
Club Grouser. "What do you call this?"
Waiter. "That's game pie, Sir."
Club Grouser. "Umph! Think I must have got a bit of the football."
CHARIVARIA.
It is rumoured that Professor Porta has sent a message to Mr. Lloyd George, wishing him a Happy New World.
Mr. Justice Rowlatt has decided that photography is not a profession. With some actresses, of course, it is just a disease.
The gentleman who drew 1920 in a fifty-pound sweepstake as the date of the ex-Kaiser's trial is now prepared to sell his chance for sixpence-halfpenny.
"He is not a politician," says Mr. R. Harcourt in The Times, referring to Sir Auckland Geddes. It will be interesting to see how Sir Auckland accepts this compliment.
A letter posted at Hull for Odessa in July, 1914, has just been returned to the sender. The postal authorities are thought to take the view that the sender should be given an opportunity of adding a few seasonable observations to his previous remarks.
It is all nonsense to say that there can be no change in the present high prices. They can always go higher.
Owing to the strike of cabmen in Glasgow a number of people had to walk home on New Year's Eve. It is not said how the others got home, but we have made a guess.
On enquiry about the erection of huge new premises in the Strand by the American Bush Terminal Company, we gather that London is not to be removed, but will be allowed to remain next door.
Inspector Moss of the Great Eastern Railway Police has just had his pocket picked and thirty pounds stolen. It is only fair to say that he was in plain clothes and the thief did not know he was a police officer.
A history of the Ministry of Munitions is to be compiled at a cost of £9,648. To keep the expense down to this modest sum by economy in printing Mr. Winston Churchill will be referred to throughout as "X."
A man has been charged with damaging a London omnibus. He pleaded that the vehicle pushed him first.
Mrs. Payne, the only woman mouse-trap-maker in London, has retired from the business. It is said that a number of mice hope to arrange a farewell cheese.
At a recent meeting of the Peace Conference it was decided that the troubles in Egypt and India should in future be referred to as Honorary Wars.
The Indians much appreciate Charlie Chaplin, says The Weekly Dispatch. We felt confident that this film comedian would come into his own some day.
Only two minor railway accidents were reported in December, but a South Coast train which started that month is reported to have run into the New Year.
It is estimated that The Outline of History by Mr. H. G. Wells will be concluded this year. It would be a pleasing compliment to the author if at the end of that time Parliament made it illegal for any more history to happen.
The Thames angler who was asked in the Club at night if he had had any luck that day, and replied that he had not had a bite, is thought to be an impostor.
An Insurance official states that thin people live longer than stout. This is probably due to the fact that when thin people stand sideways the motor-car doesn't get a real chance.
"It is just twenty months since we experienced the last hostile air-raid," states an evening paper. Should this indiscreet statement reach the ears of certain Government Officials it is feared that one or two of our picturesque anti-aircraft stations may be dismantled.
According to an American paper, a lawyer has left New York for Mexico, in order to try to explain to the inhabitants the meaning of Peace and the benefits to be derived from joining the League of Nations. We understand he has made full arrangements for leaving a widow and two young children.
Our heart goes out to the tenant of an experimental paper-house who discovered, on going up-stairs, that his two-year-old son in a fit of ungovernable passion had torn up his nursery.
A man has written to The Daily Mail advocating the alteration of the calendar to thirteen months of twenty-eight days each, with two Christmas Days in Leap Year. The writer—to do him justice—did not sign himself "Paterfamilias."
The New Poor Dance Club, which has opened in the West End, is having its vicissitudes. Last week, it is reported, a distinguished stranger mistook a waiter for one of the members, and the waiters have threatened to strike if it occurs again.
Los Angeles, California, says a New York cable, is suffering from an unprecedented crime wave. A proposal by President Carranza to draw a cordon sanitaire round the place has not yet reached Washington.
"Are dark people cleverer than fair?" asks a contemporary. These clumsy attempts to destroy the Coalition spirit are too transparent to be successful.
Intending visitors to the Zoological Gardens in Phœnix Park, Dublin, are now required to get a permit from the military authorities. A daring attempt by a Sinn Feiner to approach the Viceregal Lodge under cover of a cassowary is said to be responsible for the order.
The ex-Kaiser, it is stated, has asked the Prussian Government if there would be any objection to his settling in Peru as a cattle-raiser. The probability that the Crown Prince will settle in France for a spell as a watch-lifter is thought to have fired the ex-Imperial imagination.
A report from Chicago states that, as a result of the prevailing taste for wood-alcohol, a number of citizens successfully revived the ancient custom of seeing the Aurora Borealis in.
"Hurry up, Johnson—what a time you take!"
"I can't get through these beastly troops."
"The charm of a pleasing figure depends upon an uneasy fitting corset."
Advt. in Canadian Paper.
Il faut souffrir pour être belle.
"There would also be great competition for carniferous timber from other countries."
Scotch Paper.
Not so much now that the meat-shortage is over.
"Dundee leads the way in Scotland in a new phase of sport for ladies.
The innovation was created by the City Magistrates to-day, when an application for a billiard-room license in the new City Hall was granted.
Under the license ladies will be permitted to cross cues with gentlemen partners in a public billiard-room."—Local Paper.
It is supposed that their worships were under the impression that billiards was a new form of shinty.
THE TUBE CURE.
[It has been observed that employees in the Tubes never catch cold while at work, and doctors, questioned by an evening paper, have said that "the Tube atmosphere should be quite likely to cure a cold if breathed long enough—say for an hour at a stretch.">[
To-day, when I acquire a cold
(Rude Boreas having blustered),
I do not, as in times of old,
Immerse my feet in mustard;
I put a penny in a slot
At some Tube railway station
And draw a ticket for a not
Far distant destination.
I shun the crowded lifts, although
They're right enough in their way,
And make my calm, unruffled, slow
Descension by the stairway;
'Tis there a man can be alone,
Immune from all intrusion;
I doubt if there was ever known
Its equal for seclusion.
Where no invading footsteps fall
I quaff the healthy vapours,
While glancing at my ease through all
The illustrated papers;
And since I've found the bottom stair
A place they don't upholster,
I always take when going there
A small pneumatic bolster.
Not till an hour or twain have gone,
Thus pleasantly expended,
Do I proceed to carry on,
And, when my journey's ended,
I find all dread bacilli slain—
No germ shows his (or her) face—
And so, my cherry self again,
Come blithely to the surface.
A BUNCH OF POETS.
Mr. Obadiah Geek has broken his long silence to some purpose. Those who remember his pre-war achievements in the field of polychromatic romanticism will hardly be prepared for his present development, which lifts him at a bound from the overcrowded ranks of lyric-writers to the uncongested heights whereon recline the great masters of epic poetry. And yet it was perhaps inevitable. The thunder and the reek of war (the last two years of which, we believe, were spent by Mr. Geek in the Egg Control Department) could scarcely have failed to imprint their mark on the author of Eros in Eruption; and so he has given us a real epic, whose very title, Ad Astra, is symbolic of the high altitudes in which he so triumphantly and so securely navigates. Outwardly it is a story of the War, but there is little difficulty in probing the allegory; and those who follow the hero's vicissitudes as a private in the Gasoliers, right through to his victorious advancement to the rank of Acting Lance-Corporal, unpaid (and there is a symbolism even in the "unpaid"), will readily supply the application to the affairs of everyday life.
The ten thousand odd lines of this inspired poem are liberally enlivened with those characteristic flashes which Mr. Geek's previous efforts have led us to expect. Nothing could be happier than the following, descriptive of the hero's early days on the barrack-square:—
The Sergeant rolled his eyes toward the azure
And called down curses on my bloody head...
"You buzz about," his peroration ran,
"Like a bluebottle in a sugar-bowl.
Thank God we have a Navy!" and my feet,
Turned outward, as they had been drilled to turn,
At forty-five degrees or thereabouts,
Itched to join issue with his swollen paunch;
But I refrained.
Or again:—
Fame, the skyscraper, hath a thousand floors;
And some toil slowly upward, stair by stair,
And stagger and halt and faint upon the way;
Others, more fortunate, achieve the top
At one swift elevation, by the lift.
Mr. Geek, whatever his method of progression may have been, has certainly "achieved the top"—if indeed he has not gone over it.
In Throbs, Miss Gramercy Gingham-Potts reveals a depth of feeling and delicacy of expression that should secure her the right of entry to every art-calendar and birthday-book. Her Muse is, perhaps, a trifle anæmic, but to many none the less interesting on that account; its very fragility, in fact, constitutes its chief appeal. She has an engaging gift of definition that, combined with a keen appreciation of the obvious, makes her verses particularly susceptible to quotation. For instance:—
The maiden asked, "What is a kiss?"
The poet wrote:
"Kisses are stamps that frank with bliss
Love's contract-note."
While for effectively studied simplicity it would be difficult to match the lyrical gem to which Miss Gingham-Potts has given the arresting title, "Farewell":—
The birds sing sweet in Summer;
The daisies hear their song;
But Winter's come, and they are dumb
So long.
I told my love in Summer,
So pure and brave and strong;
But frosts came on; my love is gone;
So long!
A new volume by the author of Swings and Roundabouts is something of an event; and in Bottles and Jugs Mr. Ughtred Biggs makes another fascinating raid on the garbage-bins of London's underworld. Mr. Biggs is a stark realist, and his unminced meat may prove too strong for some stomachs; but those who can digest the fare he offers will find it wonderfully sustaining. Here is no condiment of verbiage, no dressing of the picturesque. Life is served up high, and almost raw. By way of illustration we cannot do better than quote from the opening poem, "Bill's Wife," in which the calculated roughness of the rhythm is redolent of the pervading atmosphere:—
At the corner of the street
Stands the Blue-faced Pig;
Outside a barrel-organ is playing
And the people are dancing a jig.
A woman waits there grimly;
Her eyes are set and her lips drawn thin;
For Bill, her man, is in the public,
Soaking his soul in gin.
Students of sociology might do worse than devote careful attention to these gaunt chronicles of Slumland.
The following stanzas, taken from a poem entitled "Reconstruction," are a favourable example of Mr. Thor Pinmoney's somewhat unequal genius:—
By strife we live, but boredom slays;
My mind from out this office strays
And takes me back to the spacious days
When I counted socks in Ordnance.
I hate my pen; I hate my stool;
What am I but a nerveless tool?
But we did not work by rote or rule
When I counted socks in Ordnance....
There are times even now when it really seems
I'm back in a suburb of shell-shocked Rheims;
But the office echoes my waking screams
When I find it was only in my dreams
I was counting socks in Ordnance.
Unfortunately, all Mr. Pinmoney's efforts do not come up to this standard, and we should be almost inclined to wonder whether the writer has not after all mistaken his vocation, were it not for the really brilliant piece of work which brings the volume (Pegasus Comes Home) to a close. We make no apology for reproducing this masterpiece in full:—
Man comes
And goes.
What then?
Who knows?
Here we have the whole philosophy of life and the life hereafter summed up. If he never writes another line Mr. Pinmoney is by this assured of a permanent place in the anthology of post-bellum poetry.
"Replying to the toast of his health, Mr. Lloyd George said it was a great boon that a large industrial community should have been founded amongst these lovely surroundings, a boon not only for the workers, but also for their little children, who would have the advantage of being reared in georgeous mountain air."—Daily Paper.
Lloyd-Georgeous, in fact.
MANNERS AND MODES.
HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF A LADY WHO DREAMS THAT SHE HAS GONE TO A BALL IN HER NIGHT-GOWN AND FOUND HERSELF SHOCKINGLY OVERDRESSED.