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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 31, 1890
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Princess—wasn't she looking nice? I couldn't exactly make out which was her and which was the two young Princesses, they went by all in a flash like, but they did look nice!... 'Ere's another Royalty in this kerridge—'oo will she be, I wonder? Oh, I expect it would be the old Duchess of—— No, I don't think it was 'er,—she wasn't looking pleasant enough,—and she's dead, too.... Now they have got inside—'ark at them playing bits of "God Save the Queen." Well, I'm glad I've seen it.
A Son (to cheery old Lady). 'Ow are you gettin' on, Mother, eh?
Ch. O. L. First-rate, thankee, John, my boy.
Son. You ain't tired standing about so long?
Ch. O. L. Lor' bless you, no. Don't you worry about me.
Son. Could you see 'em from where you was?
Ch. O. L. I could see all the coachmen's 'ats beautiful. We'll wait and see 'em all come out, John, won't we? They won't be more than an hour and a half in there, I dessay.
A Person with a Florid Vocabulary. Well, if I'd ha' known all I was goin' to see was a set o' blanky nobs shut up in their blank-dash kerridges, blank my blanky eyes if I'd ha' stirred a blanky foot, s'elp me Dash, I wouldn't!
A Vendor (persuasively). The kerrect lengwidge of hevery flower that blows—one penny!
"Allowed to Starve."—Mr. Punch begs to acknowledge contribution from "Paisley" to "The Light Brigade Fund," which has been forwarded to the Editor of the St. James's Gazette, who has charge of this Fund.
THE AUTOCRAT.
"Here is my last request and legacy! After we are executed, and while the impression of this epilogue of all these horrors is still fresh in the minds of the people, do your utmost to make this new example of the unparalleled cruelty of Russian despotism known to the whole world.... This is a great task well worth accomplishing; and if you succeed, the losses we suffered in that terrible butchery will be redeemed."—From the last letter, written just before his execution, of Nicholas Zotoff, one of the victims of the Yakoutsk massacre.
Let it be known! Poor soul, of unshaken trust,
So done to death in the gloom of the Kara waste,
'Midst a myriad nameless victims of fear and lust,
Your cry comes, borne on the chainless winds that haste
In shuddering flight away from that frozen hell,
That pestilent prison for all things free and fair,
Where the raven's croak is the patriot's only knell
On the tainted air.
Let it be known! Aye! the cruel secret crawls,
Despite the vigilant watch of tyranny's hounds,
From the scaffold's screen, from the kamera's sombre walls;
Away, as you wished, o'er enfranchised lands it sounds,
And shocks the gentle, and stirs the blood of the strong;
But he, the Autocrat, sits, with a shaken mind,
And a palsied heart; to the tale of horror and wrong
He's deaf and blind!
Pale ladies lashed, at the word of a drunken brute,
To the death they welcome e'en from the torturing "plet!"
And his eyes are blind, and his trembling lips are mute,
Whilst the eyes of a world of shuddering men are wet.
Chained gangs of patriot captives stabbed or shot
At the scared caprice of a bully, craven-souled!
And the Autocrat, whilst all hearts with shame wax hot,
Sits still and cold!
Ust-Kara's far, and the hasty scaffold reared
In the grey of the early morning bore—a fool,
Who had not learned that Law must be blindly feared,
Though sent to the stern Siberian wastes to school.
The unconvicted exile who dares to lift
A voice, a hand, is a proven "Terrorist."
And if, in Yakoutsk, he is given a shortish shrift,
Need the White Tzar list?
The White Tzar sits on his gorgeous seat, alone;
Blindfold and deaf, in his realm the veriest slave,
Though the seat he fills is the rack men call a Throne,
And the Tzar is a stalwart Titan, strong and brave.
Strong—yet helpless as yon slain woman's hand;
Brave—but shaken through with a haunting Fear.
Of all his myrmidons' devilries done in the land
The last to hear!
Let it be known! Poor Zotoff's legacy wakes
A living echo in every ear humane.
E'en the Autocrat in his lonely splendour quakes
At the vague vast sounds of menace no bonds restrain.
But there, in the heart of horrors, he sits and sighs,
Blindfold Injustice bound to a joyless throne;
Whilst far the voice of his fallen victim flies—
"Let it be known!"
A DISTINCTION AND A DIFFERENCE.
"Now what are the peculiar Distinctions of the Quakers? For instance, how do they Speak differently From You and Me?"
"Please, Sir, they don't Swear!"
MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.
Social.
"Just want five minutes' chat with you;"
i.e., "He'll give me a cigar and something to drink, and as I've nothing to do for half an hour, this will occupy me pleasantly."
"Yes; I quite understand;"
i.e., "I don't know what he is talking about, but he's a bore."
"Wouldn't tell it to anyone but you;"
i.e., "This will ensure its circulation."
Platformulars.
"As the Laureate well puts it, in lines that will live for ever;"
i.e., "I'm perfectly dead certain I've forgotten the third line of the verse."
"The clock warns me that I am trespassing too long on your patience;"
i.e., "Haven't said half of what I meant to say. Why the dickens don't they say, 'Go on!'"
Friendly Comments on Character and Accomplishments.
"She is the most domesticated darling imaginable;"
i.e., "A dull, sock-darning dowdy."
"Quite a beauty-man, and nice—to those who like that sort of thing;"
i.e., "An awfully handsome fellow, who won't worship me."