You are here
قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, November 1, 1890
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, November 1, 1890
College traditions which cause the undergraduate who is a member of it to believe that the men of that particular society are finer fellows than the men of any other. These traditions the Average Undergraduate holds as though they were articles of his religion.
The Average Undergraduate generally takes a respectable position as a College oarsman or cricketer, though he may fail to attain to the University Eight or to the Eleven. He passes his examinations with effort, but still he passes them. He recks not of Honours. The "poll" or the pass contents him. Sometimes he makes too much noise, occasionally he dines too well. In London, too, his conduct during vacations is perhaps a little exuberant, and he is often inclined to treat the promenades at the Leicester Square Variety Palaces as though he had purchased them. But, on the whole, he does but little harm to himself and others. He is truthful and ingenuous, and although he knows himself to be a man, he never tries to be a very old or a very wicked one. In a word, he is wholesome. In the end he takes his degree creditably enough. His years at the University have been years of pure delight to him, and he will always look back to them as the happiest of his life. He has not become very learned, but he will always be a useful member of the community, and whether as barrister, clergyman, country gentleman, or business man, he will show an example of manly uprightness which his countrymen could ill afford to lose.
FINIS.—The last nights on earth at the Haymarket are announced of A Village Priest. May he rest in piece. The play that immediately follows is, Called Back; naturally enough a revival, as the title implies. But one thing is absolutely certain, and that is, that A Village Priest will never be Called Back. Perhaps L'Abbé Constantin may now have a chance. Eminently good, but not absolutely saintly. Is there any chance of the Abbé being "translated?"
THE SMELLS.
(Edgar Allan Poe "Up to Date.")
I.
Look on London with its Smells—
Sickening Smells!
What long nasal misery their nastiness foretells!
How they trickle, trickle, trickle,
On the air by day and night!
While our thoraxes they tickle.
Like the fumes from brass in pickle,
Or from naphtha all alight;
Making stench, stench, stench,
In a worse than witch-broth drench,
Of the muck-malodoration that so nauseously wells
From the Smells, Smells, Smells, Smells,
Smells, Smells, Smells—
From the fuming and the spuming of the Smells.
II.
Sniff the fetid sewer Smells—
Loathsome Smells!
What a lot of typhoid their intensity foretells!
Through the pleasant air of night,
How they spread, a noxious blight!
Full of bad bacterian motes,
Quickening soon.
What a lethal vapour floats
To the foul Smell-fiend who glistens as he gloats
On the boon.
Oh, from subterranean cells
What a gush of sewer-gas voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
In our houses! How it tells
Of the folly that impels
To the breeding and the speeding
Of the Smells, Smells, Smells,
Of the Smells, Smells, Smells, Smells,
Smells, Smells, Smells—
To the festering and the pestering of the Smells!
III.
See the Spectre of the Smells—
London Smells!
What a world of retrospect his tyranny compels!
In the silence of the night
How we muse on the old plight
Of Kensington,—a Dismal Swamp, and lone!
Still the old Swamp-Demon floats
O'er the City, as our throats
Have long known.
And the people—ah, the people—
Though as high as a church steeple
They have gone
For fresh air, that Demon's tolling
In a muffled monotone
Their doom, and rolling, rolling
O'er the City overgrown.
He is neither man nor woman,
He is neither brute nor human,
He's a Ghoul;
Spectre King of Smells, he tolls,
And he rolls, rolls, rolls.
Rolls,
With his cohort of Bad Smells!
And his cruel bosom swells
With the triumph of the Smells.
Whose long tale the scribbler tells
To the Times, Times, Times,
Telling of "local" crimes
In the gendering of the Smells,
Of the Smells:
To the Times, Times, Times,
Telling of Railway crimes,
In the fostering of Smells,—
Of the Smells, Smells, Smells,
Brick-field Smells, bone-boiling Smells,
Whilst the Demon of old times
With us dwells, dwells, dwells.
The old Swamp Fiend of moist climes!
See him rolling with his Smells—
Awful Smells. Smells. Smells—
See him prowling with his Smells,
Horrid Smells, Smells, Smells—
London Smells, Smells, Smells, Smells,
Smells, Smells, Smells,—
Will the County Council free us from these Smells?
JUST NOW THE CHIEF NILE-IST IN PARIS.—CLEOPATRA.
"ENFANT TERRIBLE."
"I'VE BROUGHT YOU A GLASS OF WINE, MR. PROFESSOR. PLEASE DRINK IT."
"VAT? BEFORE TINNER? ACH, VY?"
"BECAUSE MUMMY SAYS YOU DRINK LIKE A FISH, AND I WANT TO SEE YOU—!"
SEEING THE STARS.
The following paragraph appears in the columns of the Scottish Leader:—
"Those who were out of doors in Edinburgh at three o'clock on Saturday morning were startled by the appearance of a brilliant meteorite in the northern hemisphere. Its advent was announced by a flash of light which illuminated the whole city. A long fiery streak marked its course, and remained visible for more than a minute. At first this streak was perfectly straight, but, after it had begun to fade, it broke into a zig-zag."
The phenomenon so graphically described, though remarkable, is not, we believe, in the circumstances, entirely novel. Perhaps it is noteworthy as coming a little early in the year. We understand that on New Year's Day, "those who are out of doors in Edinburgh at three o'clock in the morning," are not unfrequently startled in somewhat similar manner.
THE TOOTHERIES.—"TOOTH's Gallery" always strikes as a somewhat misleading appellation. It always appears to have more to do with palates than pictures, and to be more concerned with gums than gold frames. No