PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Volume 93

December 17th 1887

edited by Sir Francis Burnand

Dear Toby,

I am, as you will understand, so busy in my preparations for departure, that I fear I may not find time to call upon you, p.p.c., and therefore take up my pen to write these few lines, hoping they will find you well, as they leave me at present. It is an odd reflection to one who has reached my time of life, that henceforward sixteen-shilling trousers shall have no more interest for me. Already, in the privacy of my room, I don the flowing robes of the East, and sit by the hour as you see me in a little sketch I have had made, and beg your acceptance herewith. It is all very strange to me yet. As Gr-nd-lph says, it is the oddest thing in the world that the Ark and I, after much tossing about in troublous waters, should finally settle down in the neighbourhood of Ararat. If I had had my choice, I would not have gone so far afield. The wise men, you know, come from the East, they do not go there; at least, not further than Constantinople, which would have suited me admirably. Rome I have eyed askance. I could have dressed the part for St. Petersburg. Berlin would not have been bad; and I feel that I was born for Paris. But the Markiss of course has his way, and he has mapped mine out for Teheran.

It is odd to reflect (and as I sit here trying to grow accustomed to the hookah, I feel in a reflective mood) that if Br-dl-gh had not been elected for Northampton in 1880, I would never have been Her Majesty's Minister at the Court of the Shah. Do you remember the night, nearly eight years gone, when I jumped up from my seat below the Gangway and physically barred Br-dl-gh's passage up the House? In the loose way history is written, Gr-nd-lph gets the credit of incubating the Fourth Party. But if it had not been for me, that remarkable cohort would never have existed, and the history of English politics for the last seven years would have been written differently. Gr-nd-lph was actually not in the House when I created the Br-dl-gh difficulty. Three weeks earlier, on Br-dl-gh's first presenting himself, Freddy C-v-nd-sh had moved for a Select Committee to consider his claim to make affirmation. St-ff-rd N-rthc-te had seconded the hum-drum motion, the Committee was agreed to, and there the matter ended. When Gr-sv-n-r moved to nominate the Committee, I came to the front, was snubbed by H-lk-r at the instance of our respected Leaders, but stuck to it then and after, till presently, the Conservative Party, seeing the advantage, came round to my view and poor St-ff-rd N-rthc-te had to eat his words. Gr-nd-lph came on the field and the ball was set rolling; but it was I who gave it the first kick.

And now behold me solemn, sedate, responsible, the Representative of the greatest of Western Powers at the Court where once Artaxerxes ruled! In quitting Parliamentary life I leave behind me an example which young Members will find it profitable to study. The opportunities I possessed were held in common with hundreds of others whom I leave in obscurity. I had no particular gifts that promised the comfortable pre-eminence I have reached. The coarsest flatterer could not accuse me of oratorical ability. Gr-nd-lph, I confess, excelled me there, and so did G-rst, an abler man than either of us, but lacking in the quality that brought Gr-nd-lphand me to the front and kept us there. What I did, was to keep myself in evidence, and to make myself as disagreeable as possible to people in authority. If the object of attack were Gl-dst-ne, good; if it were N-rthc-te, better, as showing more independence, and as securing the favourable attention of the Opposition. It is a commonplace, ordinary thing to be cheered by your own side. What the young aspirant to Parliamentary distinction should look to, is to gain the applause of the Benches opposite. R-b-ck knew that in old days, and so did H-rsm-n, and in these later times Gr-nd-lph better and more successfully than either.

I quit the House of Commons with unfeigned regret, tempered only by the anticipated pleasure of watching from Teheran the coming cropper of my old friends. The deluge is surely coming for them, whilst I loll landed high and dry upon Ararat. I like to make B-lf-r uneasy by telling him this. But he boasts of an infallible receipt the Government have for keeping up their Parliamentary majority. Here and there a bye-election may reduce it, "but," says B-lf-r, "we can always play next, and win. For every bye-election lost we clap an Irish Member in gaol, or, for the matter of that, a Radical, and thus maintain an even balance. We lose Coventry and they lose O'Br-n's vote. Spalding goes, and T. H-rr-ngt-n's vote is crossed out. Northwich is lost, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin is lagged. We lose a vote in the Exchange Ward, Liverpool, and they are bereft of Sheehy, whilst we have left to the good Cox and E. H-rr-ngt-n, with P-ne safe within the mud walls of his castle."

That is all very well, but evidently it cannot go on indefinitely. I at least am out of the scuffle happily, and in good time, and, political life's fever over, shall live well.

Yours faithfully,
H. D. W-lff.

THE STRAIGHT TIP.

THEATRICAL RECIPROCITY.

First of all came The London Savoyards, who, after sending their D'Oyly Carte de visite in advance, showed our cousins-German the way to perform Burlesque Opera of native English growth. Then followed Herr Wyndham, and Fraülein Moore, who have just been instructing the Berliners in the art of playing Comedy, and have achieved an undeniable success in David Garrick. Odd international combination this, English actors