Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 102 May 21 1892 by Various

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TRAMWAYS.

FROM THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE FUTURE.)

OUR COOKERY-BOOKERY.

OLD ARTFUL.

THE NEW LEARNING.

Mr. STUART RENDEL, having stated at Llanfair-Caerecinion that "a day with Mr. GLADSTONE was a whole liberal education," the London School Board has at last decided to alter the present system completely. After many days' deliberation, it has been arranged to hire the Albert Palace and Mr. GLADSTONE for a week. It is estimated that during six days, all the children now in the London schools can, in detachments, be squeezed into the building and spend a day there with the Right Honourable Gentleman. Seats will be provided on the platform for the Members of the Board, as this instruction would be a great benefit to many of them. At the end of the six days the present work of the Board will be finished, and it will adjourn for ten years, when another week in the society of the Grand Old Educator will again suffice for the needs of the rising generation. The numerous Board Schools will therefore become useless, but it is not proposed to demolish them, as experience has shown that they are sure to fall down of their own accord before long. The sumptuous offices of the Board will be converted into a Home for Destitute Schoolmasters.

We have reason to believe that Mr. GLADSTONE, after fulfilling his engagement at the Albert Palace, will make a tour in the provinces, and later on will have classes for journalists and other literary men, whose style, in many cases, would be vastly improved by two minutes, or even less, in the same room with him.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

A DIRGE.

"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old. But something ails it now: the place is curst."

A residence for Tory, Whig or Rad, Where yet none had abiding habitation; A House--but darkened by the influence sad Of slow disintegration. O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is Haunted!

There speech grew wild and rankly as the weed, GRAHAM with TANNER waged competitive trials, And vulgar bores of Billingsgatish breed Voided spleen's venomed vials. But gay or gloomy, fluent or infirm, None heeded their dull drawls, of hours' duration. The House was clearly in for a long term Of desolate stagnation. The SPEAKER yawned upon his Chair, he found It tiring work, a placid brow to furrow, To sit out speeches arguing round and round, From County or from Borough. The Members, like wild rabbits, scudded through The lobbies, took their seats, lounged, yawned--and vanished. The Whips like spectres wandered; well they knew All discipline was banished. The blatant bore,--the faddist, and the fool, Were listened to with an indifferent tameness. The windbag of the new Hibernian school Railed on with shocking sameness. The moping M.P. motionless and stiff, Who, on his bench sat silently and stilly, Gawped with round eyes and pendulous lips, as if He had been stricken silly: No cheery sound, except when far away Came echoes of 'cute LABBY's cynic laughter, Which, sick of Dumbleborough's chattering jay, His listeners rambled after. But Echo's self tires of a GRAHAM's tongue, Rot blent with rudeness gentlest nymph can't pardon. Why e'en the G.O.M. his grey head hung, And wished he were at Hawarden. Like vine unpruned, SEXTON's exuberant speech Sprawled o'er the question with the which he'd grapple; PICTON prosed on,--the style in which men preach In a dissenting chapel. Prince ARTHUR twined one lank leg t'other round, Drooping a long chin like BURNE-JONES's ladies; And HARCOURT, sickening of the strident sound, Wished CONYBEARE in Hades. For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of imminent doom the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The House is Haunted!

Oh, very gloomy is this House of Woe, Where yawns are numerous while Big Ben is knelling. It is not on the Session dull and slow, These pale M.P.'s are dwelling. Oh, very, very dreary is the gloom, But M.P.'s heed not HEALY's elocution; Each one is wondering what may be his doom After the Dissolution!

That House of Woe must soon be closed to all Who linger now therein with tedium mortal, And of those lingerers a proportion small Again may pass its portal. There's many a one who o'er its threshold stole In Eighty-Six's curious Party tangle, Who for the votes which helped him head the poll In vain again may angle. The GRAHAMS and the CALDWELLS may look bold, So may the CONYBEARES, and COBBS and TANNERS; But the next House quite other men may hold, And other manners. They'd like to know when this will close its door Upon each moribund and mournful Member, And who will stand upon the House's floor After, say, next November. That's why the M.P.'s sit in silent doubt, Why spirits flag, and cheeks are pale and livid, And why the DISSOLUTION SPOOK stands out So ominously vivid. Some key to the result of the appeal They yearn for vainly, all their nerves a-quiver; The presence of the Shadow they all feel, And sit, and brood, and shiver. There is a sombre rumour in the air, The shadow of a Presence dim, atrocious; No human creature can be festive there, Even the most ferocious. An Omen in the place there seems to be, Both sides with spectral perturbation covering. The straining eyeballs are prepared to see The Apparition hovering. With doubt, with fear, their features are o'ercast; SALISBURY at Covent Garden might have spoken, But, save for Rumour's whispers on the blast, The silence is unbroken. And over all there hangs a cloud of fear, The Spook of Dissolution all has daunted, And says as plain as whisper in the ear, The House is Haunted!

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

B. DE B.-W.

THE YOUNG GIRL'S COMPANION.

Any woman, my dear young girls, can marry any man she likes, provided that she is careful about two points. She must let him know that she would accept a proposal from him, but she must never let him know that she has let him know. The encouragement must be very strong but very delicate. To let him know that you would marry him is to appeal to his vanity, and this appeal never fails; but to let him know that you have given him the information is to appeal to his pity, and this appeal never succeeds. Besides, you awake his disgust. Half the art of the woman of the world consists in doing disgusting things delicately. Be delicate, be indirect, avoid simplicity, and there is hardly any limit to your choice of a husband.

Do not marry an imperial man. The young girl of seventeen believes in strength; by this she means a large chin and a persistent neglect of herself. She adores that kind of thing, and she will marry it if she is not warned. It is not good to fall in love with Restrained Force, and afterwards find that you have married Apathy.

The man whom you marry must, of course, have an income; he should have a better social position than you have any right to expect. You know all that--it is a commonplace. But also he must be perfectly even. In everything he should remind you constantly of most other men. Everything in him and about him should be uniform. Even his sins should be so monotonous that it is impossible to call them romantic. Avoid the romantic. Shun supreme moments. Chocolate-creams are very well, but as a daily food dry toast is better. Seek for the man who has the qualities of dry toast--a hard exterior manner, and an interior temperament that is at once soft and insipid. The man that I describe is amenable to flattery, even as dry toast is amenable to butter. You can guide him. And, as he never varies, you can calculate upon him. Marry the dry-toast man. He is easy to obtain. There are hundreds of him in Piccadilly. None of them wants to marry, and all of them will. He gives no trouble. He will go to the Club when he wants to talk, and to the theatre when he wants to be amused. He will come to you when he wants absolutely nothing; and in you--if you are the well-bred English girl that I am supposing--he will assuredly find it. And so you will both be contented.

Do not think that I am, for one moment, depreciating sentiment. I worship it; I am a sentimentalist myself. But everything has its place, and sentiment of this kind belongs to young unmarried life--to the period when you are engaged, or when you ought to be engaged. The young man whom I have described--the crisp, perfect, insipid, dry-toast man--would only be bored by a wife who wanted to be on sentimental terms with him. I remember a case in point. A young girl, whom I knew intimately, married a man who was, as a husband, perfect. They lived happily enough for three or four years; she had a couple of children, a beautiful house, everything that could be desired. And then the trouble came. She had been reading trashy novels, I suppose; at any rate, she fell in love with her own husband. She went in daily dread that he would find it out. I argued with her, reasoned with her, entreated her to give up such ruinous folly. It was of no use. She wrote him letters--three sheets, crossed and underlined. I warned her that sooner or later he would read one of them. He did; and he never forgave her. That happy home is all broken up now--simply because that woman could not remember that there is a time for sentiment and a time for propriety, and that marriage is the time for propriety. The passions are all very well until you are married; but the fashions will last you all your life.

I have no more to say on the choice of a husband. It is quite the simplest thing that a young girl has to learn,--you must find a quite colourless person, and flatter him a little; his vanity will do the rest. And when you are married to him, you will find him much easier to tolerate than a man who has any strong characteristic. Do not get into the habit of thinking marriage important; it is only important in so far as it affects externals; it need not touch the interior of your life.

"THE DEADLY CIGARETTE."

VANS DE LUXE.

The Servants will have to occupy a separate van, of course. They'll be in the van and in the rear at the same time! I'll let your readers know how we get on. At present we haven't even got off.

Yours jauntily, THE HIGHWAY-MAN .

NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.

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