Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 153 September 26 1917 by Various

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VOL. 153.

SEPTEMBER 26, 1917.

CHARIVARIA.

Three bandits have been executed in Mexico without a proper trial or sentence. This, we understand, renders the executions null and void.

The campaign against the cabbage butterfly in this country has reached such an alarming stage that cautious butterflies are now going about in couples.

After spending a one-pound Treasury note on cakes, chocolates, fish and chips, biscuits, apples, bananas, damsons, cigarettes, toffee, five bottles of ginger "pop" and a tin of salmon, a Chatham boy told a policeman that he was not feeling well. It was thought to be due to something the boy had been eating.

Incidentally the boy desires us to point out that the trouble was not that he had too much to eat but that there was not quite enough boy to go round.

We understand that, owing to the paper shortage, future exposures of German intrigues will only be announced on alternate days.

At Neath Fair, the other day, a soldier just home from the Front entered a lions' den. The lions bore up bravely.

The question of body armour for the troops, it is stated, is still under consideration by the authorities. This is not to be confused with bully ARMOUR which has long been used to line the inside of the troops.

Mr. WALTER HOWARD O'BRIEN, of New York, has sent to Queen Alexandra's Field Force Fund 1,719,000 cigarettes. Several British small boys have decided to write and ask him if he has such a thing as a cigarette picture to spare.

Doctors in many parts of London are said to be raising their fees. They should remember that there is such thing as curing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

A fine porpoise has been seen disporting itself in the Thames near Hampton Court. It is just as well to know that such things can be seen almost as well with Government ale as with the stronger brews.

Another statue has been stolen from Berlin, but Londoners need not be envious. Quite a lot of Americans will be in this country shortly, and it is hoped that their well-known propensity for souvenir-collecting may yet be diverted into useful channels.

The Midland Dairy Farmers' Association have expressed themselves as satisfied with the prices fixed for Winter milk. In other agricultural quarters this action is regarded as a dangerous precedent, the view being that no farmer should be satisfied about anything.

"My hopes of fortune have been dispelled by unremunerative Government contracts," said a contractor at the Liverpool Bankruptcy Court. It is good to read for once of the Government getting the best of a bargain.

"What is a bun?" asked the Willesden magistrate last week; which only shows that with a little practice magistrates will get into the way of doing these things almost as well as the High Court judges.

Some solicitors have been helping to run the gas works of a certain Corporation during a strike. While commending this action, we admit that we can conceive of nothing more likely to undermine the resolute patriotism of the man in the street than a gas bill furnished by solicitor.

Women are formally warned by the Ministry of Munitions against using T.N.T. as a means of acquiring auburn hair. Any important object striking the head--a chimney-pot or a bomb from an enemy aeroplane--would be almost certain to cause an explosion, with possible injury to the scalp.

GERMAN THOROUGHNESS AGAIN.

"TO HOLD POTATO CROP.

This is the first we have heard of this Ministry.

TO THE POTSDAM PACIFIST.

Now for the fourth time since you broke your word, And started hacking through, the seasons' cycle Brings Autumn on; the goose, devoted bird, Prepares her shrift against the mass of MICHAEL; Earth takes the dead leaves' stain, And Peace, that hardy annual, sprouts again.

HINDENBURG holds your British foes in baulk Prior to trampling them to pulp like vermin; Russia is at your mercy--you can walk Through her to-morrow if you so determine; There is no France to fight-- Your gallant WILLIE'S blade has "bled her white."

In England We are reduced to starve on dog and thistles; London, with all her forts, in ashes lies; Through Scarboro's breached redoubts the sea-wind whistles: And Margate, quite unmanned, Would cause no trouble if you cared to land.

Roumania is your granary, whence you draw For loyal turns a constant cornucopia; Belgium, quiescent under Culture's law, Serves as a type of Teutonised Utopia; And, as for U.S.A., They're scheduled to arrive behind The Day.

O.S.

MISTAKEN CHARITY.

Slip was riding a big chestnut mare down the street and humming an accompaniment to the tune she was playing with her bit. He pulled up when he saw me and, still humming, sat looking down at me.

"Stables in ten minutes," I said. "You're heading the wrong way."

"A dispensation, my lad," he replied. "I'm taking Miss Spangles up on the hill to get her warm--'tis a nipping and an eager air."

A man was coming across the road towards us. He was incredibly old and stiff and the dirt of many weeks was upon him. He stood before us and held out a battered yachting cap. "M'sieur," he said plaintively.

Miss Spangles cocked an ear and began to derange the surface of the road with a shapely foreleg. She was bored.

"Tell him," said Slip, "that I am poorer even than he is; that this beautiful horse which he admires so much is the property of the King of ENGLAND, and that my clothes are not yet paid for."

I passed this on.

"M'sieur," said the old man, holding the yachting cap a little nearer.

"Give him a piece of money to buy soap with," said Slip. "Come up, Topsy," and he trotted slowly on.

I gave the old man something for soap and went my way.

"RUSKIN," said Slip, "decrees that not only should one give to beggars, but that one should give kindly and deliberately and not as though the coin were red-hot."

The Mandril threw himself wildly into the argument. He told us dreadful stories of beggars and their ways--of advertisements he had seen in which the advertisers undertook to supply beggars with emaciated children at so much per day. Children with visible sores were in great demand, he said; nothing like a child to charm money from the pockets of passers-by, etc., etc. Presently he grew tired and changed the subject as rapidly as he had started it.

It was at lunch a few days later that the Mess waiter came in with a worried look on his face.

"There is a man at the door, Sir," he said. "Me and Burler can't make out what he wants, but he won't go away, not no'ow."

"What's he like?" I asked.

"Oh, he's old, Sir, and none too clean, and he's got a sack with him."

"Stop," said Slip. "Now, Tailer, think carefully before you answer my next question. Does he wear a yachting cap?"

"Yes, Sir," said Tailer, "that's it, Sir, 'e do wear a sort of sea 'at, Sir."

"This is very terrible," said Slip. "Are we his sole means of support? However--" and he drew a clean plate towards him and put a franc on it. The plate went slowly round the table and everyone subscribed. Stephen, who was immersed in a book on Mayflies, put in ten francs under the impression that he was subscribing towards the rent of the Mess. The Mandril appeared to have quite forgotten his dislike of beggars.

Tailer took the plate out and returned with it empty. "He's gone, Sir," he said.

"I'm glad for your sake, dear Mandril, that you have fallen in with our views," said Slip.

"What!" shouted the Mandril. "I quite forgot. A beggar!--the wretched impostor." He rushed to the window. An old man had rounded the corner of the house and was crossing the road on his way to a small caf? opposite.

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