PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 148, January 20th, 1915.
edited by Owen Seamen

WILLIAM THE GALLANT.

The Kaiser, by gifts of roses, has been trying to ingratiate himself with the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, whose country he has invaded in defiance of treaty obligations.

CHARIVARIA.

"At every point," we read, "the Allies have made sensible progress." So different from the stupid progress made very occasionally by the enemy!

We have been asked to recommend suitable Fiction for reading during the War. We have no hesitation in calling attention to the claims of the war news from Amsterdam and Rome.

The Prussian Government has ordered that there shall be no public festivities on the occasion of the birthday of the Kaiser. This confirms the rumour that His Majesty now wishes that he had not been born.

By the way, to show how far-reaching is the influence of a Prussian command even to-day, no public festivities will take place on the occasion referred to either in Belgium, France, Russia, Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, or Great Britain.

Dr. Dernburg—and the expression is really not a bit too strong for him—has been telling an American audience that his countrymen really "love the French and the Belgians." At the risk of appearing ungrateful, however, our allies are saying that the Germans have such a subtle way of showing their love that they would rather be hated, please.

"Germany," says the Cologne Gazette in an article on the food question, "has still at hand a very large supply of pigs." Even after the enormous number they have exported to Belgium.

Meanwhile we are constantly assured that the food question causes no anxiety whatever in Germany. It certainly does seem, judging by the lies with which the Germans are fed, that these wonderful people will be able to swallow anything.

Lord Rosebery's appointment as Captain-General of the Royal Company of Scottish Archers has not escaped the notice of the alert German Press, and it is being pointed out in Berlin that we are so hard up in the matter of equipment for our army that bows and arrows are now being served out.

The new corps which has just been formed with the title of the "Ju-Jitsu Corps" has, we are informed, no connection with the artistes who went to the Front to give entertainments for the troops.

Both officers and men in certain towns are beginning to complain of the irksomeness of the constant salutes that have to be given when they walk abroad. Surely it should be possible to invent some simple little contrivance whereby a button is pressed and a mechanical hand does the rest?

Suggested name for a regiment of Bantams—The Miniature Rifles.

A peculiarly touching instance of patriotism has been brought to our notice. A London barber whose measurements are too puny to allow of his being accepted as a recruit has written to the War Office offering to barb some wire for them in his spare time.

"Mr. Keir Hardie," says a bulletin, "was yesterday reported to be gradually improving." But we are afraid that this only refers to his health.

An Englishman had suddenly to exercise all his tact the other day. He was in Kensington Gardens with a Belgian refugee. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the Albert Memorial. The Englishman explained. "What, already a monument to our brave King!" cried the Belgian as he embraced his friend. The Englishman, with admirable reticence, said nothing.

"A Turkish advance guard," says a telegram, "has occupied Tabriz." Very plucky of him, and his name ought to be published. Can it be dear old Turkish Reggie?

The Vorwärts computes that the War is costing nine millions a day. Small wonder if, in these hard times, one or two countries look upon war as a luxury which they ought to try to get on without.

"As there is every probability," we read, "that the child population of Kensington will decline in the future owing to the migration of families to the outer suburbs, the L.C.C. proposes to meet the present demand for a new school by building a 'short-life school,' one that will last but twenty years." The difficulty, of course, will be so to construct it that it will collapse gently on the last day of its twentieth year, and the problem threatens to tax to the utmost the ingenuity of our jerry-builders.

During a "stormy scene" in Stirling School Board, Councillor Barker, according to The Glasgow Evening Times, "refused to withdraw, alleging that Mr. Reid taunted him on the streets as being an Alpine Purist." "Alpine purist" is a term of abuse with which Mr. Punch has never sullied his lips, though once he nearly referred to a very tedious bishop as a cis-Carpathian pedagogue.

NOTICE.

The advertisement which appeared in our last week's issue, opposing the principle of the inoculation of soldiers against typhoid, came in very late, and unfortunately its contents were not submitted to the Secretary, who was merely told of the source from which it came—namely, the Anti-Vivisection Society. Mr. Punch is himself absolutely in favour of inoculation against typhoid for the troops.

TO "GENERAL JANVIER."

("In the Spring a young man's fancy ...")

At it, old warrior! do your worst!

Here's Fevrier coming, moist and blowy,

And any trench you leave for him

Not saturated to the brim

He will accommodate its thirst

As in the days of Noë.

But we, well-armed in every pore

Against the tricks you mean to try on,

Will stick it out through slush and slime,

And bide, as best we may, our time

Till General Mars begins to roar

Just like a British lion.

And ere his exit, like a lamb,

The sloppy mess shall all be tidied,

And (since I can't believe that K.

Has said that things won't move till May)

We shall step out, as Shem and Ham

Did when the flood subsided.

Spring! Ah, to what a sanguine view

Thoughts of the vernal prime provoke us!

Yet never in my whole career

Can I recall a single year

When I so much looked forward to

The advent of the crocus.

For with the Spring, when youth is free

To execute its inward yearning,

Like to a lark (or other bird)

The soul of Thomas shall be stirred,

And to Berlin I hope to see

The young man's fancy turning.

O. S.

A FORCED MARCH.

Petherby recommended route-marching; said he used to suffer from sensations of repletion after heavy meals, just as I did, but, after a series of Saturday afternoons spent in route-marching through our picturesque hill country (Herne, Brixton, Denmark and so forth), the distressing symptoms completely vanished, and he now felt as right as a trivet.

I hadn't a ghost of a notion what a trivet was, nor yet what degree of rectitude was expected of it; but I nevertheless determined to try the route-march cure. Bismuth and pepsin should henceforth be drugs in the market as far as I was concerned. The only doubt in my mind was whether, technically speaking, I could perform a route-march all by myself. Somehow I thought etiquette demanded the presence of a band, or at any rate a drum and fife obbligato. But Petherby thought not, and declared it would prove just as effective rendered as a solo. "Besides," he added, "if you want music to invigorate you, you can whistle or hum. Moreover, you can switch the music on or off at will."

I resolved to start the treatment the following Saturday afternoon, and certainly should have done so but for the weather, which was very moist. If there's one thing I hate more than dyspepsia it's rheumatism. The next Saturday was fine—fine for a Saturday, that is; but a well-meant gift of tickets for a matinée, which it would have been churlish of me to refuse, robbed me of my prospective enjoyment. However, Saturday of the week after was also fine. Nothing stood in the way of my pleasurable tramp, and I determined to route-march home from the City.

I spent two hours in ill-concealed impatience—the marker told me he had never seen me put up such a poor game—waiting to see if the weather would change. But as at the expiration of that time it had apparently got stuck I decided to risk it.

Softly humming to myself, "Here we are again," I route-marched out of the hotel into Bishopsgate in fine style, and got on to a bus bound for the Bank (I did this to save time). Arrived at the Bank I took another bus to Blackfriars (I did this to save more time. I thought it would be nice to commence the march from the Embankment). When I reached Blackfriars I remembered that all the big walks started from the political end, so as I did not wish to assume any superiority which I did not strictly possess I took the tram to Westminster. There I alighted and was about to set off over Westminster Bridge when it occurred to me that I hadn't had any tea. To route-march on an empty stomach was, I felt sure, the height of folly. I therefore repaired to a tea-shop in the vicinity, where I encountered young Pilkington. We discussed Kitchener and crumpets, training and tea, the Kaiser and cake, and with a little adroitness I managed to bring in the subject of the medicinal value of route-marching. When I rose to go Pilkington inquired my destination.

"Norbury," I told him.

"That's lucky," he said; "I shall be able to give you a lift in a taxi as far as Kennington."

In vain I expostulated with him, and urged that I was route-marching, not route-cabbing. But he wouldn't listen.

"Anyhow," he concluded, "it's most dangerous to march just after a crumpet tea. Haven't you read your 'Infantry Training'?"

The upshot of the matter was that we taxied to Kennington, where at last I managed to leave him. And then I began to feel tired. True, I hadn't done any marching, but it was none the less true that I felt as tired as if I had. However, I succeeded in struggling on for about fifty yards (to the tune of Handel's Largo), and then I boarded a tram. It had only proceeded a quarter-of-a-mile or so when the current failed and we all had to get out. I waited half-an-hour for a fresh batch of current to arrive, but none came, and I realised that my best course would be to walk to Brixton Station and procure a cab.

Accordingly, to the melody of "I don't expect to do it again for months and months and months," I put my best foot foremost. It was a moot point which of my two feet merited this distinction; they both felt deplorably senile. Then it began to rain—no mere niggardly sprinkling, but a lavish week-end cataclysm. I reached the station in the condition known to chemists as a saturated solution, only to find that there was not a cab on the rank. I was therefore compelled to adopt the only means of transport left to me—to route-march home....

I ultimately staggered in at my gate at an advanced hour of the evening to the strains of the opening bars of Tschaikowsky's Pathetic Symphony, whistled mentally. I was far beyond making the actual physical effort.

That night I wrote a postcard to Petherby. It ran as follows:—"Have just completed your course of treatment. Am cured."

AN AWFUL WARNING.

Austria (to Rumania). "NOW, BE CAREFUL! REMEMBER WHAT I DID TO SERBIA!"

Territorial (giving himself away to proprietor of coal-heap). "Could you lend us a bucket of coal until it's dark?"

THE ORGANIST.

A Modern Portrait.

Grave and serene, though young at heart,

"The Doctor," so his boys address him,

And rightly, since his healing art

Has made full many a mourner bless him—

For close on twenty years has served

An ancient church renowned in story,

And never in his teaching swerved

From studying God's greater glory.

His choir, like every singing school,

By turns angelic and demonic,

Are quick to recognise a rule

That is both "dominant" and "tonic;"

For contact with so rare a mind

Has seldom failed to spur and raise them,

And when they shirk their needful grind

With just rebuke he turns and flays them.

Withal he knows that human boys

Are dulled by industry unending,

And unreservedly enjoys

Himself at seasons of unbending;

A diet of perpetual Psalms

Is only fit for saints and Dantes,

And so he varies Bach and Brahms

With simple tunes and rousing chanties.

His taste is catholic and sane;

He does not treat as worthless lumber

All Mendelssohn, or Spohr disdain,

Or let the works of Handel slumber;

He likes to keep Church music clear

From operatic frills and ribbons,

And never ceases to revere

Tallis and Purcell, Byrd and Gibbons.

And thus he wisely neither aims

At showing off his erudition,

Nor for his choir and organ claims

A prima donna-like position;

He sees no virtue in mere speed,

With sentiment he scorns to palter,

And gives his most especial heed

To the clear chanting of the Psalter.

He loves his organ far too well

To be o'er-lavish with its thunder,

Yet wields at will the magic spell

That moves our hearts to awe or wonder;

Three centuries have lent its keys

All that consoles, inspires, rejoices,

And with a calm consummate ease

He blends the new and ancient voices.

And in these days when mothers mourn,

When joy is fled and faith is shaken,

When age survives bereft, forlorn,

And youth before its prime is taken,

He draws from music's soul divine

A double magic, gently pleading

With grief its passion to resign

And happy warriors vanward speeding.

The hurrying years their changes bring;

New-comers fill the singers' benches;

And many whom he taught to sing

To-day are fighting in the trenches;

But howsoe'er their sun shall set,

They'll face or glory or disaster

More nobly for the lifelong debt

They owe to their beloved master.

"On the other hand, the motor cycle rider may consider the law of expediency. When he confronts a motor car that insists on taking more than one-half of the road, it is up to him to stop and consider: 'Shall I insist on my rightful half of the road, and perhaps get injured, or shall I waive my right and break my neck?'"—Cape Argus.

Personally we wave our neck, and brake with the right.

From a sale advert.:—

"OAK BEDSTEADS.
PILLOW CASES.
BREAKFAST SET
To match above for 6 persons."

However, it is generally considered dangerous to breakfast more than five in a bed.

THE RECRUITER.

Madingley is one of those men who are always asking you to do things for them. He will send you cheerfully on the top of a bus from the City to Hammersmith to buy tobacco for him at a particular little shop, and if you point out that he could do it much better in his own car, he says reproachfully that the car is only used for business purposes. (If so, he must have a good deal of business at Walton Heath.) "Isn't your cousin a doctor?" he'll say. "I wonder if you'd mind asking him——" And somehow you can't refuse. He beams at you with such confidence through his glasses.

However, it was apparently to tell me news that he came to see me the other day.

"I'm horribly busy," he said. "The fact is I'm going to enlist."

"They won't take you," I said. "You're blind."

"Not so blind as you are."

"Put it that we're both blind, and that our King and Country want neither of us."

"Well, I'm not so sure. There are lots of people with spectacles in the Army."

"And lots of flies in amber," I said, "but nobody seems to know how they came there."

Then Madingley got to business. His partner, who had enlisted in August, had developed lung trouble and had returned to civil life. Madingley was now free to go. He had heard from a friend that the 121st Rifles (a Territorial Regiment) had no conscientious objections to spectacles. Would I—(I thought it must be coming)—would I go and find out for him? He gave me the address of their head-quarters.

"You see I'm so horribly busy, old chap—clearing up at the office, and so on."

Well, of course I had to. Madingley's attitude of pained forgiveness, if one refuses him anything, is more than I can bear. Alter all, it didn't seem very much to do.

I began with the sentry outside.

"Can you tell me——" I said pleasantly. He scowled and jerked his head towards the door. I went in and tried another man. "Can you tell me——" I began. "Enlist?" he said. "Upstairs." I went upstairs and pushed open a door. "Can you tell me——" I said. "This is the canteen," answered a man in an apron....

At last I found a sergeant. "Enlist?" he said briskly. "Come in." I went in.

He leant against a table and I smiled at him pleasantly.

"I just wanted to ask," I said, "whether——"

"Quite so," he said, and gave me a long explanation of what my pay would be now that I had decided to join the Army. He began with the one and a penny of a private and was working up towards the stipend of a Field Marshal when I stopped him.

"One moment——"

"Exactly," he said. "You're married."

"Y—yes," I said. "At least, no," I added, thinking of Madingley.

"Surely you know?" he asked in surprise.

I remembered suddenly the penalty for a false declaration. It would be no good explaining afterwards that I meant Madingley.

"Yes," I said. "Married."

He told me what my separation allowance would be.... As a married Field Marshal with three children it came to ——.

I decided to be firm.

"Er—I mustn't trouble you too much," I said. "I really only wanted to know if you take men with spectacles."

"Depends how short-sighted you are. Do you always wear them?"

"No, but I ought to really." I made a desperate effort to get Madingley back into the conversation. "I really only came to find out for a——"

"Ah, well, the best thing you can do," said the sergeant, "is to pass the medical examination first. You can sign the papers afterwards. Come along."

I followed him meekly downstairs. It was obviously not Madingley's afternoon.

We plunged downstairs into what was no doubt the anti-Zeppelin cellar. Through the gloom I saw dimly two or three pink-and-white figures waiting their turn to be thumped. Down the throat of a man in the middle of the room a doctor was trying to climb. Mechanically I began to undo my tie.

The sergeant spoke to one of the doctors and then came back to me.

"It'll save time if we do your sight first," he said. "Stand over in this corner."

I stood in the corner....

For a long time nothing happened.

"Well?" said the sergeant impatiently.

"Well?" I said.

"Why don't you read?"

"What? Have we begun?" I asked in surprise. I couldn't see anything.

The medical officer came over to me and in a friendly way put his hand over my left eye. It didn't help much, but I spotted where he came from, and gathered that the card must be in that direction. Gradually it began to loom through the blackness.

"Wait a moment," I said. I removed his hand and gazed keenly at the opposite wall. "That's a B," I announced proudly. "That top one."

The doctor and the sergeant looked at each other.

"It's no good," sighed the sergeant.

"He can't even read the first two lines," groaned the doctor.

"It's all very well for you two," I broke in indignantly; "one of you lives down here and is used to it, and the other knows the card by heart. I haven't come to enlist for night operations only. Surely your regiment does things in the daylight sometimes?"

The doctor, only knowing about the daylight by hearsay, looked blank; the sergeant repeated sadly, "Not even the first two lines."

"Look here," I said, "lend me the card to-night and I'll come again to-morrow. If it's only two lines you want, I think I can promise you them."

The doctor said mournfully that he might lend me the card, but that in that case it would be his painful duty to put up a different card for me on the next day.

There seemed to be nothing more to say. I was about to go when a face which I recognised emerged from the gloom. It had a shirt underneath it and then legs. The face began to grin at me.

"Hallo," said a voice.

"Hallo, Rogers," I said; "you enlisting? I thought you couldn't get leave." Rogers is in the Civil Service, and his work is supposed to be important.

"Well, I haven't exactly got leave—yet," he said awkwardly. "The fact is, I just came here to ask about a commission for a friend, and while I was here I—er—suddenly decided to risk it. You know Madingley, by the way, don't you?"

"I used to think so," I said.

But now I see that there is more in Madingley than I thought. His job in this war is simple—and exactly suited to himself. By arrangement with the War Office he sends likely recruits to make enquiries for him—and the sergeant does the rest.

A. A. M.

"S. C.—1. The brussels-sprouts will do no harm to the apple trees."—Morning Post.

All very well, but we know what these Belgians are. As likely as not they have been plotting for years with the French beans to spring upon their inoffensive neighbours.

THE SACRIFICE.

Scene: At the "Plough and Horses."

"I be mortal sorry for that poor George—cut up as ever I see a man at thought of it."

"Tenderest-hearted fellow in these 'ere parts, and a true friend to all dumb animals."

"She be more 'n an animal to 'im. 'Aving no chick nor child, you may say as she's companioned 'im these many months."

"'E 'ave right to be proud of 'er too. Never did I see a more 'andsome sow—an' I've seen a many."

"She's been a right good sow to 'e."

"An' now 'e be nigh 'eart-broken 'long of these unnatural orders. For stuck ev'ry blessed pig 'as got to be should they Germans get anywheres within ten miles of us."

"I see 'im now as 'e was when 'e first got wind of it—fair struck all of a 'eap, 'e were. 'I ain't got no objection to burning ricks,' 'e says, 'for ricks ain't got 'uman ways to 'em, same as my old sow. But kill my old sow,' 'e says, 'that's asking of me more 'n I can do.'"

"'Tain't a question of asking, either. Them's our orders, set out in black and white."

"Somebody says that to George—and a cold-blooded word it seemed to me, considering 'is depth o' trouble."

"What did the old chap say to that?"

"'Orders?' 'e says; 'ain't this a free country? An' you come between me an' my old sow with orders!' 'e says."

"'Military law,' I says to 'im myself, 'makes 'avoc o' freedom—so it do. But with they Germans at your very gates,' I says, 'freedom ain't the same thing as a clean pair of 'eels. An' a pig's an awkward customer to drive in an 'urry,' I says."

"Ain't to be done—not really brisk like, any'ow."

"'E seed that, o' course?"

"Wouldn't say so, any way. An' the names 'e called the Government, or 'ooever 'twas as 'anded round them orders, fair surprised us all. Never knew the old chap could lay 'is tongue to the 'alf of it."

"If ever they Germans get 'ereabout there'll be trouble for the Government about old George."

"'E ain't got chick nor child, yer see. A man can't get on without something... Why, 'ere be George."

"Evening, George. You come right in an' 'ave your pint, George."

"I earnt my pint to-day—so I 'ave. Busiest day's work I done this side o' my wife's passing away, poor soul."

"What you been doing, George?"

"She were a one to keep you busy like. If she be really resting now I reckon she be pretty miserable. 'Owever, that ain't neither 'ere nor there."

"You tell us what you been up to, George. We only been talking o' you when in you walks as large as life."

"We been talking o' you an' these 'ere orders, George, an' we feels with you to a man. If you should 'ave to kill that fine sow o' yours along of a lot o' 'ungry Germans 'twill be a mortal shame."

"I shan't never kill 'er for no Germans, so I promises you."

"Then they'll do the killing theirselves—they be dabsters at that."

"No Germans ain't going to kill my sow. Nor I ain't going to kill 'er in an 'urry to please nobody."

"You'll get yourself in the wrong box, George, if you don't mind."

"You be too venturesome, George—at your old age."

"An' you a pensioner, too. Don't do to be too venturesome when you're well stricken in years."

"I know what I be saying, though, for all that. Don't do to wait till you 'ave to waste a good pig—all for nothing like. Good money she be worth, an' I says to myself, 'You 'ave the money now, my boy, as the old sow 'll fetch, before it be too late.' My old sow be pretty nigh pork by now, up at butcher's."

IN THE SEARCHLIGHT.

Mabel (with a brother in the Anti-aircraft Corps). "Mother, they think she's a Zeppelin."

THE INVASION.

Between Mortimer and us yawns a great gulf, bridged by many flights of stairs. Even on the illuminated board at the foot of the lowest stairs we still keep our distance, but with this difference, that while Mortimer's position in the world is higher than mine, on the board I stand above him by as many names as there are stairs between us.

Mortimer first floated into my orbit one day when we both met in the porter's lodge to complain about the dustbin. Even after this I should have gone contentedly down to my grave with no further knowledge of the man than that he had a wife and four children. I knew that because I heard him tell the porter so.

One evening after dinner—it seems now many moons ago—Clara, our lady-help, threw open the drawing-room door and in startled tones announced Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer. Prompt to the word of command in they marched, followed by the four youthful Mortimers. Each of these latter clutched a sponge-bag and an elusive bundle of flannel, and in the background loomed the Mortimer maid-of-all-work.

Mortimer began to talk immediately and said that of course we had seen the War Office order that on the first sound of guns all Londoners were to make for the cellars. Mrs. Mortimer was certain she had heard firing and that the Zeppelin raid had begun, so, like good citizens, the family had hastened to comply with the regulations.

"We shan't put you to any inconvenience," said Mortimer volubly. "The children can curl up in the spare room and my wife and I will do with a shake-down in the passage. In time of war one must be prepared for discomfort. Think of the poor fellows in the trenches."

Here Mrs. Mortimer murmured something inarticulate.

"Oh, yes, of course," Mortimer assented, "Emma must be made comfortable." All this time my wife and I had not been able to say a word, Mortimer's plausibility and the spectacle of the four little Mortimers and their sponge-bags having robbed us of speech and thought. Jane was the first to find her voice, and managed to gasp out that we had heard no guns.

"You wouldn't, of course, in the—er—down here," said Mortimer. I was glad to notice him hesitate this time over the word "cellar" as applied to our artistic home.

"I know exactly what you are thinking," he went on kindly; "it is embarrassing to discuss household arrangements in public," and with a flourish of his arm, he marshalled his family and swept them out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

Jane and I gazed awestruck at each other.

"We can't turn them away," said my wife. "Those five pairs of eyes would haunt me all night (Mortimer's and Emma's were, I presume, the ones omitted), and if the Zeppelins did come to-night how awful we should feel."

"We must be firm about it being only for to-night, then," I said. "We must consider Kate." (Kate is our cat.)

So it was arranged that we should give up our room and that Emma should share with Clara. I found the Mortimer family sitting in a crowded row on the antique bench in the hall, like players at dumb-crambo waiting for the word. Briefly I told them it was "stay." They all jumped up; Mortimer shook me cordially by the hand, and I believe Mrs. Mortimer kissed my wife.

True to the compact the refugees departed next morning, and we saw the last little Mortimer disappear upwards with unmixed relief. They were all back again, however, the following evening, this time encumbered with more articles towards "camping out." The expression was Mortimer's, not mine.

On the fourth evening Mortimer took me aside and told me confidentially that he could see this state of things was telling on us as much as on them, and that he thought the best plan would be for our two households to "chum together" while the Zeppelin menace lasted. (What fool said the war was going to last three years?) Never waiting for a reply, Mortimer went on to say that it really would not be so much trouble as it seemed at the first shock. He and I would be out all day, which would even up the numbers, and Emma would, of course, help. I much resented being estimated as equal to three-and-a-half Mortimers and had no delusions about Emma's helpfulness, but Mortimer's volubility had its usual stupefying effect. He carried the motion to his own satisfaction, and my wife told me that I behaved like an idiot.

We stood three days of this lunatic ménage. Every evening on returning from office I found more alien belongings blocking up my home. Mortimer boots strewed the scullery, their coats smothered the hat-stand, their toothbrushes filled the bathroom. Clara is a noble-hearted girl, but there was menace in her glance, and my wife was ageing before my eyes. Kate too had left us.

On the third evening when I came home I found a note sticking in the hall clothes-brush. "Meet me in the pantry," it said. I flew to the rendezvous, where Jane received me with her finger on her lip. Dragging me in, she managed with difficulty to close the door—our pantry is what you might call bijou—and, leaning against the sink, she unburdened her mind.