PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 104.

JANUARY 14th, 1893.

THE SCHOOL FOR PATRIOTISM.

[A Fund has been raised to supply the School Board with Union-Jacks, with a view to increasing the loyalty of the pupils.—Daily Paper.]

Scene—A Room of the School Board, decorated with flags and trophies of arms. Teacher discovered instructing his pupils in English History.

Teacher. And now we come to the Battle of Trafalgar, which was won by Nelson in the early part of the present century. As it is my object to increase your patriotism, I may tell you that "Britannia rules the waves, and Britons never, never, never will be slaves!" Repeat that in chorus.

Pupils. "Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; Britons never, never, never will be slaves!"

Teacher. Thank you very much; and to show how the esprit de corps in Her Majesty's Ships-of-War is preserved, I will now dance the Sailor's Hornpipe.

[Does so.

First Pupil. Please, Sir, do Englishmen always win?

Teacher. Invariably. If they retire, they do not retreat. Can you tell me what a retirement of troops in the face of the enemy is called?

Second Pupil. Bolting, Sir.

Teacher. Nothing of the sort. Go to the bottom of the class, Sirrah! Bolting, indeed! Next boy!

Third Pupil. It is called "a strategic movement to the rear," Sir.

Teacher. Quite right; and now we come to the Battle of Waterloo, which you will remember was won on the 18th of June, 1815. But perhaps this may be a convenient time for the introduction of the Union-Jack War Dance, which, as you all know, has been recently ordered to be part of our studies by the Committee of the School Board. Now then, please, take your places.

[The Pupils seize the flags hanging to the walls, and dance merrily. At the conclusion of the exercise they replace the flags, and resume their customary places.

First Pupil. If you please, can you tell us anything about the Union-Jack?

Teacher. As I have explained on many occasions, when you have been good and obliging enough to put the same question to me, I am delighted to have the opportunity. You must know that the Union-Jack represents the greatest nation in the world. This nation is our own beloved country, and it is gratifying to know that there are no people so blessed as our own. The Union-Jack flies in every quarter of the globe, and where it is seen, slavery becomes impossible, and tyranny a thing of the past. To be an Englishman is to be the noblest creature on the earth. One Englishman is worth twenty specimens of other nationalities; he is more conscientious, more clever, more beautiful than any other living man, and it is a good thing for the world that he exists. (Looking at watch.) And now, as we have rather exceeded our usual time for study, we will depart after the customary ceremony.

[The Pupils then sing the National Anthem, and the School dismisses itself with three cheers for Her Majesty. Curtain.

"ON NE 'PATINE' PAS AVEC L'AMOUR."

(With Apologies to the Shade of Alfred de Musset.)

BUTTERS BUTTERED.

Sir,—I have been deeply thrilled by the suggestion for curing the Agricultural depression which Messrs. Macdougall, of Mark Lane, have made. I am not myself an Agriculturist; still, in—or rather near—the suburban villa in which I reside, I have an old cow, and a donkey on which my children ride. Directly I heard that the way to keep animals warm and comfortable in Winter was to smear them all over with oil, thus saving much of the cost of feeding them, I tried the plan on the aged cow. Perhaps the oil I used was not sufficiently pure. At all events the animal, which had never been known before to do more than proceed at a leisurely walk, rushed at frantic speed into the garden, and tossed my wife's mother into a cucumber-frame. She has now gone home. Undeterred by the comparative failure of this attempt, I smeared our donkey with a pint of the best castor-oil, just before setting out on its daily amble, with the children (in panniers) on its back. It did not appear to relish the treatment, as it instantly broke loose, and was found, five miles off, in a village pound, while the children were landed in a neighbouring ditch. I am writing to Messrs. Macdougall, to ask for particulars of how the oil is to be applied. I am sure it is an excellent idea, if the animals could be brought to see it in the same light.

Yours, experimentally,

Darwin Edison Gubbins.

My Dear Mr. Punch,—Smith Minor, who is staying at our house for part of the holidays, said what good fun it would be to try the Macdougall plan on my Uncle from India. He is always cold and shivering. We waited till he was having a nap after dinner in the arm-chair, and we coated him over with butter that Smith Minor got from Cook. (Cook never will give me butter.) When we got to his hair he unfortunately woke up, so that is probably why the plan did not succeed. We thought he would be pleased to feel warmer, but he wasn't. Uncles are often ungrateful, Smith Minor says. And it did succeed in one way, because he seemed awfully hot and red in the face when he found what we had been doing. Perhaps we ought not to have tried smearing him on his clothes, but how could we get his clothes off without waking him? Smith Minor says it's a pity we didn't drug him. N.B.—I have been stopped going to the Pantomime for this, and Smith Minor is to be sent home!

Your dejected

Tommy.

Sir,—I want to bring an action against Messrs. Macdougall, of Mark Lane. I tried their smearing plan on a horse in my stable that had a huge appetite, and was always getting cold if left out in the wet. I used paraffin, and at first the animal seemed really grateful. In the night I was called up by a fearful noise, and found that the horse's appetite had not got at all less owing to the oil; on the contrary, it seemed to have eaten up most of the woodwork of the stable, and was plunging about madly. The paraffin caught light, and the stable was burned, and the horse too. In future I shall feed my horse in the usual way, not on the outside.

Yours,

Titus Oats.

THE THIN BROWN LINE.

["Decidedly the most gratifying feature in the accounts of these engagements which have reached us,