Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 159 December 29 1920 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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All this happened about a month ago, and for the last four weeks the principal preoccupation of my household has been the feeding of these five birds. I have had to lay a gravel-path from the aviary to the back premises in order to sustain the weight of the traffic. Huge bowls of hot food are constantly being mixed and carried to them, without any apparent consciousness on their part of their reciprocal responsibilities. What I mean to say is that there are no eggs. The food which they eat resembles Christmas-pudding at the time when it is stirred, and I have suggested that a sixpence should be concealed in it every now and then--sixpence being apparently the current price of an egg--in order to indicate the nature of our hopes.

Sometimes, as I think I have mentioned, the one with speckles escapes into the garden, and I have several times been asked to chase it home. Nothing makes one look more ridiculous than chasing an independent maybird of no particular views across an onion bed. The rest of the animals appear to spend most of their time in walking about the run with their hands in their pockets looking for things on the ground.

But every now and then one or other of them makes the loud cry which is usually associated with successful egg-production; the whole household troops beaming with anticipation along the gravel-path; and it is then discovered that the Buff has knocked one of the Whites off her perch, or that one of the Whites has scratched a cinder on which the Buff had set her eye, or that the Independent member has made a bitter speech which is deeply resented by the Coalition. But there are no eggs.

About a week ago the corn which apparently forms a part of the necessary nourishment of maybirds, and is kept in an outhouse, was attacked by rats. I was told that I must do something about this. I buttered some slices of bread with arsenic and laid them down on the outhouse floor. The rats ate the bread and arsenic and went on with the corn. Unless a great improvement is manifested in the New Year I have decided to butter the maybirds with arsenic and place them in the outhouse too.

EVOE.

CYCLONE IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

"Meteorological Notes.

Harbour Office, Jersey. Wind - E.W.E. - Strong Breeze."

Some "lep," as they say in Ireland.

Trust the Peers for looking after themselves.

LETTERS I NEVER POSTED.

CONCERNING GOOD RESOLUTIONS.

TO THE GIRL AT THE EXCHANGE.

Another thing. Sometimes, when you ring me up and I answer, all you do is to ask, "Number, please," as though I had rung you. When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it be a year of gladness.

Sometimes I am perfectly certain you don't ring up the number I want until after you have asked me once or twice if they have answered. Isn't that so? "I'll ring them again," you say with a kind of resigned adventurousness; but, knowing as I do that they have been waiting for my call, I am not taken in. But what I want to know is--what were you doing instead of ringing up at first? I suppose that these secrets will never be penetrated by the ordinary subscriber outside the sacred precincts; but I wish you would give me fewer of such problems to ponder during the year that is coming.

P.S.--Have you ever considered, with proper alarm, what would happen to a cinema story if a wrong number were provided by the operator, or if any delay whatever occurred? This should make you think.

TO A RACING JOURNALIST.

I suggest that you should include among your good resolutions for the New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet--which of course they must, as betting is now the principal national industry--let them at least have the fun of selecting the "also-ran" themselves.

TO MANY AN EDITOR.

In contemplating your 1921 programme of regeneration could you not make a vow to dispense with all headlines that ask questions? Probably you never see the paper yourself and therefore have no feeling in the matter, but I can assure you that the habit can become very wearisome. "Will it freeze to-day?" "Can Beckett win?" "Will Hobbs reach his 3,000 runs?" "Are the Lords going to pass the Bill?" Won't you make an effort to do without this formula? It is futile in itself and has the unfortunate effect of raising what surely are undesirable doubts as to whether journalists are any more sensible than their readers.

TO ONE EDITOR IN PARTICULAR.

No comic hats in 1921, please.

TO THE P.M.G.

There is, as everyone will agree, one good resolution which above all others you should concentrate upon for 1921, and that is to get back our penny postage. With so many comparatively unnecessary things still untaxed, it never should have been sacrificed.

TO A PORK BUTCHER.

Among the problems of this latter day of discontents few are more pressing than speculating as to why sausages and pork-pies have so degenerated. Under the malign influence of Peace, sausages have become tasteless and pork-pies nothing but pies with pork in them; the crust chiefly plaster-of-Paris, and the meat not an essential element, soft and seductive and fused with the pastry, but an alien assortment of half-cooked cubes. I can understand that after a great war a certain deterioration must set in, but I fail to see why sausages and pork-pies, if made at all, should not be made as well as ever, especially as you get such a long price for them. Couldn't you--wouldn't you--try in 1921 to make them with some at least of the old care?

TO A CABINET MINISTER.

Might not a vow against writing for the papers be rather a nice one to observe during 1921? It is quite on the cards that one's duties to the State ought to be sufficiently exacting to preclude journalism at all. There's a question of dignity too, although I hesitate to drag that in.

TO THE CHIEF OF THE POLICE.

Couldn't you arrange that before 1921 becomes 1922--twelve whole months--a simple device is made for taxis by which a square of red glass can be slipped over one of the lamps at night to indicate that the cab is free? I'm sure it wouldn't really be difficult, and the comfort of London would be enormously increased.

You will perhaps note what I have just said to the Chief of the Police. If you had any interest in your work you would, of course, long since have fixed up something of the kind for yourself. But let that pass. All I am suggesting to you as a 1921 amendment is that you should bank in a more accessible part of your clothing. Waiting for change in this weather can be an exasperating experience. Won't you make a resolution during the coming year to keep your money nearer the surface?

HOW TO DEAL WITH WINDBAGS.

Mem.--Never try to talk the deaf-and-dumb language after dinner.

THE BARKER THAT MISSED FIRE.

On hearing a shuffle of feet in the porch and the clearing of little throats, I exclaimed, "Those carols again!" If between "those" and "carols" I inserted another word, I withdraw it.

I went into the hall and barked like a dog.

I have often said that, if anyone could earn a hundred pounds a week on the stage by barking like a dog, I could. Children like to come to my house to tea merely for the thrill of listening to my imitation. I used to flatter myself that I could bark like a dog even better than NELSON KEYS can imitate GERALD DU MAURIER.

I hardly gave the carol-singers time even to mention Royal David's city before I barked. Instantly one pair of little feet scuttled away towards the gate; then a voice called, "Don't be silly, Alfy; come on back."

Two small girls stood at the front-door as I opened it. One of them smiled up at me and said, "He thinks he's going to be bit." She appeared to be amused by the idea. Down by the gate was a small muffled figure carrying a Chinese lantern. "Come on back, Alfy," she called again, "and let's sing to the gentleman. You see," she explained to me in confidence, "he's got addleoids and can't sing loud, so we let him hold the lantern."

I was beginning to feel sorry that I had played a trick on such inoffensive children and was about to assure them that my savage bull-terrier was safely locked up in the kitchen when the brave little lass began chattering again.

"My dad keeps dogs--all sorts," she told me, "and sells them to gentlemen. So I'm used to dogs." Then she turned once more to the lantern-bearer and commanded, "Now come on and sing, Alfy. It ain't a dog at all; it's only the gentleman trying to make a noise like one."

We fancy it must be an armour-clad rooster of this species that, crossed with a Plymouth Rock, was responsible for the reinforced-concrete chicken that we met at dinner the other night.

We think this must be intended as a hit at TROTSKY.

NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.

THE OYSTER.

The oyster takes no exercise; I don't believe she really tries; And since she has no legs I don't see why she should, do you? Besides, she has a lot to do-- She lays a million eggs. At any rate she doesn't stir; Her food is always brought to her.

And when I meet the wives of Earls With lovely necklaces of pearls It makes me see quite red; For every jewel on the chain Some patient oyster had a pain And had to stay in bed. To think what millions men can make Out of an oyster's tummy-ache!

A. P. H.

A CASE OF ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

In the Commons Sir ROBERT HORNE performed his customary Monday dance among the fiscal egg-shells. He declined to give an estimate as to the number of British workmen unemployed owing to the importation of German goods--"no man who breathes could do it"--and judiciously evaded acceptance of Sir FREDERICK HALL'S suggestion that one reason why Teuton manufacturers were snapping up Dominion contracts was that their employ?s worked eleven hours a day.

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