Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 158 1920-04-21 by Various

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VOL. 158.

April 21st, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

It appears that Irish criminals may be divided into three classes The ones you can't catch; The ones you have caught but can't convict; The ones you have convicted but can't keep in prison.

To such an extent has America gone dry that nearly all letters despatched from Scotsmen living over there are posted with the stamps pinned to the envelopes.

Mr. JAMES FOWLER of Deptford has offered to walk from Westminster Bridge to Brighton with a jar on his head. We assume that he has mislaid his hat.

In Hertfordshire the other day a boy was knocked down by a funeral-car. It may have been an accident, but it has all the appearance of greed.

A constable giving evidence at Willesden police-court said a prisoner called him a "sergeant-major." We feel sure the fellow could not have meant it.

Mrs. ALICE L. YOCUM, of Boone, U.S.A., has just obtained her thirteenth divorce. It is said that she has the finest collection of husbands in America.

The man who last week said he had not read "Another Powerful Article" by Mr. HORATIO BOTTOMLEY in the Sunday Press is thought to be an impostor.

Parents in New York who are afraid of losing their children may register them at the Bureau of Missing People. As we have no such institution in this country parents must adopt the old method of writing their names and addresses on the top right-hand corner of their offspring.

Any wind blowing at more than seventy miles an hour, says an informing paper, may be called a hurricane. At the same time we doubt if this would have much effect on it.

Our sympathy is with the young Flight Lieutenant of the R.A.F. who has been unable to keep up with the uniforms designed by the Air Ministry. He is now said to be three uniforms behind.

It is claimed that whilst standing on a certain rock near Aberdeen one can obtain a thousand echoes from a single shout. We understand that the local habit of going there in order to pull a cork out of a bottle has now been prohibited owing to the annoyance caused to American visitors.

A large grocery warehouse in Liverpool was practically destroyed by fire last Thursday week. We understand that the orderly manner in which the cheeses fell in and marched out of the danger-zone was alone responsible for preventing a panic.

"Keep smiling and you will never need a doctor," advises a writer in an illustrated daily. A friend of ours who put it to the test now writes to us from a well-known county asylum advising us to choose the doctor.

According to a morning paper, Micky, the oldest ape in the Zoo, now wears a mournful expression and seems to be tired of life. It is thought that he may have recently overhead the remark made by a thoughtless visitor that he was growing more like a Bolshevik every day.

A certain lamp-post in Maida Vale has been knocked down twice by the same bus. If the bus knocks it down once more the lamp becomes its own property.

The amazing report that one of the first six to finish in the London to Brighton walk was once a telegraph-boy is now denied.

There is a man living in the Edgware Road, it is stated, who has never been on an omnibus. He has often seen them whizzing by, he declares, but has always resisted the temptation to take the fatal plunge.

There will be no Naval manoeuvres this year, it is announced. How under these conditions Mr. POLLEN can continue to teach the Navy its business is a very grave question.

At a St. Dunstan's auction at Thornton Heath autographs of Mr. GEORGE ROBEY and the PREMIER were sold at ten shillings each. Mr. ROBEY, it appears, generously insisted on treating the matter as a joke.

A Manchester scientist claims to have discovered a means of making vegetable alcohol undrinkable without impairing its usefulness. It looks as if the secret of Government ale must have leaked out at last.

We are in a position to deny a report which was being spread in connection with a certain Model Village scheme, to the effect that the model bricklayer had refused to perform unless he was provided with a model public-house, while the model public-house could not be provided until the model bricklayer started work.

ON THE ITALIAN RIVIERA.

ENGLAND TO HER FRANCE.

We've had our difference, as lovers do; A slight misunderstanding came between us; But that is past; the sky is blue And this the very sea that nurtured Venus; Come, like her doves amid the groves of myrtle-- Come, let us turtle.

"How can they ever kiss again?" 'twas said; But Love made light of that absurd conundrum; And lo! your breast is pillow to my head, And we've a pair of hearts that beat as one drum; Our bonds, if anything, are even more Tight than before.

O.S.

THE IDENTIFICATION OF HOBBS.

Old Hobbs, the gardener, has been in our family longer than I have. Although we live within twenty miles of London only once has he made the journey to the great city, for that one memorable day so nearly ended in disaster that he always speaks of it with a shudder. Indeed, but for the arrival of Mrs. Hobbs, belated, flustered and inquiring everywhere for her man, he must assuredly have spent the night in a police-station.

This is how it all happened. Mrs. Hobbs was returning from a visit to relations in Sussex, and her husband was to meet her in London, convoy her across the city and bring her home. In order to avail himself of a cheap fare Hobbs left by the 7.30 train, though his wife would not arrive till four o'clock in the afternoon.

He managed to get across London somehow. After locating the station at which Mrs. Hobbs was to arrive his intention was to spend the day "looking round London a bit;" but the crowds and the traffic were too much for the old countryman, so he sought safety by staying where he was.

Time hung heavily after a while. He lingered round the bookstall looking at the books and papers till a pert girl behind the counter asked him if he wouldn't like a chair; but when Hobbs, who was never rude and consequently never suspected rudeness in other people, raised his hat and said, "No, thank'ee, Miss, I be all right standing," even the pert girl was disarmed.

Next he amused himself counting the milk-churns on the platform. Then he killed time by interesting himself in the stacks of unattended luggage and examining the labels; and at three o'clock a railway policeman laid a hand on his shoulder and asked him what his game was.

Hobbs, a little startled but clear in conscience, told his tale.

"That don't do for me," announced the constable. "I been keeping observation on you since nine, and your wife don't arrive till four, so you say. I seen you hanging round the luggage and fingering parcels, and you'll just come with me to the police-office as a suspected person loitering. An old luggage-thief, I should say, to put it quite plain."

"Me a thief!" gasped Hobbs, roused to realities; "why, I've worked ever since I was twelve, and me sixty-three now; I was never a thief, Sir. Look at me hands."

The constable inspected them critically. "They're a bit horny certainly; but then that may be only your dam artfulness. Come on and talk to the Sergeant."

The Railway Police-Sergeant briskly inquired his name, address, occupation and all the rest of it. Hobbs gave a good account of himself and mentioned that he had worked in our family for forty-two years.

"Any visiting-cards, correspondence or other papers to identify you?" asked the Sergeant mechanically. He had said it so often to the people who cry "Season! Season!" when there is no Season.

Hobbs confessed to having none of these things; and no, he knew no one in London.

"Then you'll stay here till four," pronounced the Sergeant, "and we'll see if this good lady of yours comes along."

But, alas! no Mrs. Hobbs appeared. "Must have missed the train," suggested Hobbs despairingly. "P'r'aps the trap broke down or something."

There was only one more train, it seemed, and that was not due until nine.

"Oh, I don't think my missus 'ud like to be so late as that," said the suspect. "She'd wait till the morning. I don't reckon she'll come to-night."

The Sergeant was accordingly consulted. He too was rather sceptical.

"If there's any truth in what you say you'd better wire to this gentleman at Monk's Langford that you say you work for, and try if we can identify you somehow," he advised. And to the constable, "Take him to the Telegraph Office and let him send his wire. Then bring him back here. Mind he don't give you the slip."

So Hobbs, sighing deeply and perspiring freely, wrote his message: "Sir, they have got me in the police-station here and say I am a suspected person, which you know I never was, having worked for you, Sir, and your father for forty-two years. But the Sargeant here says he wants proofs, and you, Sir, must vouch for me as being respectable, which you know I am, and none of us was ever thieves. So will you please do so, Sir, and oblige, as this leaves me at present, George Hobbs."

The clerk glanced at it. "It's a long message," he said; "it'll cost four or five shillings."

Hobbs hadn't got that--no, really he hadn't.

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