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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, December 2, 1893
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 105, December 2, 1893.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
TO A LADY.
(Whose "Fringe" has fallen off at a Ball.)
Alas! those waving curls,
That parting on your brow,
Had been some other girl's!
"Vhere ish dot barting now?"
Like Breitmann's barty gone
Avay in ewigkeit,
Those curls which you put on
To grace the ball to-night.
Too feeble were the pins,
Too frisky were your hops;
Derisive are the grins,
Departing parting drops.
A parting, this, that shocks
Beholders evermore;
You dare not claim those locks
Now lying on the floor.
I used to think them fair,
I find them false instead;
If thus you lose your hair,
I shall not lose my head.
Nor certainly my heart—
With that I should not care
So readily to part
As you with purchased hair.
We kick those curls aside.
Your looks and locks have fled,
Then hasten home to hide
Your much diminished head.
Don Pedro d'Alcantara le Comte d'Eu is eighteen. He is pursuing his studies at a Military Academy, speaks German fairly well, and in his leisure hours is, we are informed, "studying Polish." The latter being acquired, he will become a most polish'd Prince. He is so very well off that he will not have to go to Brazil for a crown.
DOMESTIC THRIFT.
Scene—Entrance-hall at the Browns, after one of their Parties.
Jones (the last to depart, as usual). "What a delicious Drink, Waiter! What is it!"
Waiter. "The Leavings, Sir!"
PRINCE ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG.
Europe's Prince Charming, lion-like, born to dare,
Betrayed by the black treacherous Northern Bear!
Soldier successful vainly, patriot foiled,
Wooer discomfited, and hero spoiled!
Triumphant champion of Slivnitza's field,
To sordid treachery yet doomed to yield;
Of gallant heart and high-enduring strain,
Valiant resultlessly, victor in vain!
Motley career of mingled shine and shame,
Material fashioned for romantic fame!
An age more chivalrous you should have seen,
When brutal brokers, and when bagmen keen,
Shamed not the sword and blunted not the lance.
Then had you been true Hero of Romance.
Now, when to Mammon Mars must bow his crest,
King-errantry seems a Quixotic quest,
And "unfulfilled renown" finds only—early rest!
A VALETUDINARIAN'S VISDOM.
Evening red and morning grey
Makes me by the fireside stay.
Evening grey and morning red
Finds me tucked up all day in bed!
Curious but True.—So particular are the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers to have everything in order, that they have this year elected as Prime Warden a fine Salmon (Robert H.).
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"With the New Year," says a Baronite, "there is a great desire to turn over a new leaf." Such intentions are easily satisfied by the Back-Loop Pocket Diaries, where leaves for this purpose are plentifully supplied by John Walker & Co. Likewise De La Rue & Co. offer Diaries and Memorandum Books in every size and form, and this year they have a patent clip to keep the leaf down. Ought to be advertised as "clipping!"
The Baron's Baronites look into a box of Christmas books and find, first—Westward with Columbus. By Gordon Stables, M.D.C.M. Graphic account. "Stables must have been in excellent form when writing this," observes a Baronite; "evidently he was not Livery Stables."—Wreck of the Golden Fleece. By Robert Leighton. A capital sea story, plenty of rocks and wrecks, hardships and plague-ships, and all sorts of wonderful adventures.—The White Conquerors of Mexico, by Kirk Munroe, tells how Cortes and his Spaniards, being white, did Montezuma and his Aztic natives brown.—With the Sea Kings. F. H. Winder. The youthful amateur salt will find everything here to satisfy all his cravings and See-kings. "Winder has taken great panes with this," says Baronitess.
"My clients," quoth the Baron, "will do well to read Baring-Gould's cheap Jack Zita." Fascinating book by reason of its picturesque effects and its description of life in the Fens at the commencement of the present century. "I wonder," muses the Baron, "whether any of my readers, being Cantabs, will call to mind how some thirty-five years ago the names of those eminent amateur pugilists J-ck Sh-ff-ld, F-rg-ss-n D-v-e, L-nn-x C-nn-ngh-m, and others were associated with life in the Fens as it existed at that time, and how these pupils of Nat Langham's now and again disputed the championship of a certain Fen Tavern, won it, and for a time held it? Some undergraduates were hand and glove with the Fenners—not the cricket-ground, so styled, but the dwellers in Fen-land; and on occasion they were hand to hand without the 'glove.'" Why this question? "Because," says the Baron, "one of the scenes so graphically described in the chapter, headed 'Burnt Hats,' might have been witnessed at the time I have referred to by any undergraduate sufficiently venturesome to accompany those fisticuffers." As for the plot, well, 'tis a good plot, and has always been a good plot, and "twill serve, 'twill serve." But it is the Baring-Gould flavouring that makes the dish acceptable to the jaded palate of oldest novel-devourer.
GOOD LUCK TO IT!
(To Mr. Caine and his Bill prohibiting advertisements in rural places.)
Oh, Mr. Caine, for this relief much thanks.
As most benignant benefactor ranks
The man who saves our own sweet countryside—
At once our chiefest glory and our pride—
From all the many nauseating ills
Which come out of advertisements of pills!
Pills there must be, but when we chance to pass
Through meadows and would rest our eyes on grass,
Or pleasantly meander by the river,
We would forget we've even got a liver.
So here's success to you, Sir, in your Bill
To make it wrong to advertise a pill
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