Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 159 1920-11-03 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Editor: Owen Seaman

VOL. 159.

November 3rd, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

"After all," asks a writer, "why shouldn't Ireland have a Parliament, like England?" Quite frankly we do not like this idea of retaliation while more humane methods are still unexplored.

"The miners' strike," says a music-hall journal, "has given one song-writer the idea for a ragtime song." It is only fair to say that Mr. SMILLIE had no idea that his innocent little manoeuvre would lead to this.

The Admiralty does not propose to publish an official account of the Battle of Jutland. Indeed the impression is gaining ground that this battle will have to be cancelled.

"Mr. Lloyd George seems to have had his hair 'bobbed' recently," says a gossip-writer in a Sunday paper. Mr. HODGES still sticks to the impression that it was really two-bobbed.

"Cigars discovered in the possession of Edward Fischer, in New York," says a news item, "were found to contain only tobacco." Very rarely do we come across a case like that in England.

"Water," says a member of the L.C.C., "is being sold at a loss." But not in our whisky, we regret to say.

What is claimed to be the largest shell ever made has been turned out by the Hecla Works, Sheffield. It may shortly be measured for a war to fit it.

A taxi-driver who knocked a man down in Gracechurch Street has summoned him for using abusive language. It seems a pity that pedestrians cannot be knocked down without showing their temper like this.

After months of experiment at Thames Ditton the question of an artificial limb of light metal has been solved. It is said to be just the thing for Tube-travellers to carry as a spare.

In connection with Mr. PRINGLE'S recent visit to Ireland we are asked to say that he was not sent there as a reprisal.

Mr. GEORGE LANSBURY recently told a Poplar audience why he went to Australia many years ago. No explanation was offered of his return.

A coal-porter summoned for income-tax at West Ham Police Court said that his wages averaged eight hundred pounds a year. We think it only fair to say that there must be labouring men here and there who earn even less than that.

"The thief," says a weekly paper report, "entered the house by way of the front-door." We can only suppose that the burglars' entrance was locked at the time.

A small boy, born in a Turkish harem, is said to have forty-eight step-mothers living. Our office-boy, however, is still undefeated in the matter of recently defunct grandmothers.

The number of accidental deaths in France is attaining alarming proportions. It is certainly time that a stop was put to the quaint custom of duelling.

"Why do leaders of the Bar wear such ill-fitting clothes?" asks a contemporary. A sly dig, we presume, at their brief bags.

Emigrants to Canada, it is stated, now include an increasingly large proportion of skilled workers. Fortunately, thanks to the high wages they earn at home, we are not losing the services of our skilled loafers.

A burglar who was recently sentenced in the Glasgow Police Court was captured while in the act of lowering a chest of drawers out of a window with a rope. The old method of taking the house home and extracting the furniture at leisure is still considered the safest by conservative house-breakers.

Found under a bed in a strange house at Grimsby, a man told the police who arrested him that he was looking for work. It was pointed out to him that the usual place for men looking for work is in bed, not under it.

A cyclist who stopped to watch a stag-hunt near Tivington Cross, in Somerset, was tossed into the hedge by the stag. On behalf of the beast it is claimed that the cyclist was off-side.

Good news for the local pussies.

Surely a little extravagant in these times.

"The letter is written ... with the recognition that we have both of us been provoked to 'animosities' which we desire to put aside ... The commonest objection was that the action was 'premature'--my own feeling being that of shame for having vainly waited so long in deference to political complications, and that shame was intolerably increasing ... It is undiscerning not to see that at a critical moment of extreme tension they allowed their passion to get the better of them."

Did I cry Shame! in November, 1918, On those who never cried Shame! on the lords of hell? Rather the shame is mine who delayed to clean My soul of a wrong that grew intolerable. What if our German colleagues, our brothers-in-lore, Preached and approved for years the vilest of deeds? Yet is there every excuse when the hot blood speeds; We too were vexed and wanted our fellows' gore, Saying rude things in a moment of extreme tension Which in our calmer hours we should never mention.

Dons in their academic ignorance blind, With passions like to our own as pea to pea, Shall we await in them a change of mind? Shall we require a repentant apology? Or in a generous spasm anticipate The regrets unspoken that, under the heavy stress Of labour involved in planning new frightfulness, They have been too busy, poor dears, to formulate?

Once I remarked that on German crimes would follow "Perdition eternal"; Heaven would make this its care, Nor need to be hustled, with plenty of time to spare. Those words of mine I have a desire to swallow, Finding, on further thought, which admits my offence, That a few brief years of Coventry, of denied Communion with Culture--used in the Oxford sense-- Are ample for getting our difference rectified.

I let myself into my flat to find a young woman sitting on one of those comfortless chairs designed by upholsterers for persons of second quality who are bidden to wait in the hall.

"You want to see me?" I inquired. "Yes; what is it?"

"I have called, Madam, to ask if you are satisfied with your laundry."

"Far from it," I said. "It is kind of you to ask, but why?"

"Because I wish to solicit your custom for the laundry I represent."

"What faults do you specialise in?" I inquired.

"I beg your pardon, Madam?"

"Will you send home my husband's collars with an edge like a dissipated saw?"

The young woman's face brightened with comprehension.

"Oh, no, Madam," she replied. "We exercise the greatest care with gentlemen's stand-up collars."

"Will you shrink my combinations to the size of a doll's?"

An expression of horror invaded her countenance. "The utmost precaution," she asserted, "is taken to prevent the shrinkage of woollens."

"Is it your custom to send back towels reduced to two hems connected by a few stray rags in the middle?"

The young woman was aghast. "All towels are handled as gently as possible to avoid tearing," she replied.

"How about handkerchiefs?" I asked. "I dislike to find myself grasping my bare nose through a hole in the centre."

The suggestion made my visitor laugh.

"Are you in the habit of sewing nasty bits of red thread, impossible to extricate, into conspicuous parts of one's clothing?"

"Oh, no, Madam," she asseverated; "no linen is allowed to leave our establishment with any disfiguring marks."

"You never, I suppose, return clothing dirtier than when it reached you?" I proceeded.

Suppressed scorn that I could believe in such a possibility flashed momentarily from her eyes before she uttered an emphatic denial.

"Nor do you ever perhaps send home garments belonging to other people while one's own are missing?"

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