Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/513

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

__

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

__

played with his usual ease, I can only say that I should have liked to see more of them.

Mr. Fernald could hardly hope to recover the mysterious charm of his first success, The Cat and the Cherub. Yet at our own doors to-day there are secrets as dark and sinister as any in the Chinese quarter of San Francisco. And though the revelation of them, if ever we get so far, may not correspond very closely with his picture, he has done well to stimulate our slow imaginations, which threaten to remain torpid till the day after The Day. O. S.

"SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE."

(Being a few minor tragedies of domestic life designed to supplement Mr. Thomas Hardy's latest volume, and couched in a similar spirit of healthy optimism.)

I.—Her Hair-Brush.

Why do I keep it? That is what you'd ask!
But, man, you surely guess
It long ago performed a graceful task
Smoothing the yellow tress
Of one in whose fond sunlit glance to bask
Was all my happiness.

Well, yes; her hair a sonneteer might sing;
'Twas gold without alloy;
I would that all our fond philandering
Had been as pure a joy.
But for the brush—I only keep the thing
To spank her little boy.

II.—In the Nursery.

"Don't pick the plums from all the buns,
Johnny; keep some for the little ones"...
Nurse at the teaboard broods and pours;
John plans how to pay off old scores.

"Dear little sister, here's a plum"
Baby turns purple. Nurse sits dumb.
'Twas a button from Mother's best Sunday boots.
Children—in Wessex—are little brutes.

III.—The Hatpin.

Her hat was high. His head was low.
They sat at the cinema-show.
He flustered: "Lady, please remove..."
She shook with passion—not of love.

Then in the dark he drew the pin,
And in the dark he thrust it in.
Next morn attendants strangely greet
A maiden skewered to her seat.

Peggy. "You may eat my biscuit, you little beast! But you needn't think you can make me scream—not in War-time."

A Picture Theatre Poster:—

"VANITY FAIR by CHARLES DICKENS."

And yet there are people who question the educational value of our cinemas.

How Not to Do It.

"WANTED, FOR GOVERNMENT WORK. First-class CAPSTAN LATHE HANDS, used to chuck work."

Yorkshire Evening Post.

"Some children suffer from an imperfect lisping baby talk when they are old enough to speech development, and continue to babble articulate distinctly. In these cases chastisement applied to the patient's mother in the early stages of the disease would have had remedial value."—Daily Mail.

We are inclined to agree with this view, but should have hesitated to express it so bluntly.

"WILL the Person who gave one of my men a Sovereign in mistake for ice cream on the Terrace on Friday night call at Reay's Benwell Temperance Bar."

Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

The Temperance Bar is certainly the safest place for him.

{{blockquote| "Pressing their attack with their extraordinary vigour on Elan, the French have taken successively the lines of the crest near Loos, La Tarquette, and Neuville St. Vaast."

Cork Examiner.

This is wrong. Our allies have never lost Elan, and therefore have no necessity to attack it.