PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 107.

August 18, 1894.

MORE ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL.

(A Legend of the Results of the School Board.)

The Committee sat waiting patiently for candidates. Although the papers had been full of advertisements describing the appointments the réclames had had no effect. There were certainly a number of persons in the waiting-room, but the usher had declared that they did not possess the elementary qualifications for the post that the Committee were seeking to fill with a suitable official.

"Usher," cried the Chairman at length with some impatience; "I am sure you must be wrong. Let us see some of the occupants of the adjoining office."

The usher bowed with a grace that had been acquired by several years study in deportment in the Board School, and replied that he fancied that most of the applicants were too highly educated for the coveted position.

"Too highly educated!" exclaimed the representative of municipal progress. "It is impossible to be too highly educated! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Pardon me, Sir," returned the Usher, with another graceful inclination of the head, "but would not 'imperfectly acquainted with the subject of your discourse' be more polished? But, with your permission, I will obey you."

And then the official returned to usher in an aged man wearing spectacles. The veteran immediately fell upon his knees and began to implore the Committee to appoint him to the vacant post.

"I can assure you, Gentlemen, that, thanks to the School Board, I am a first-rate Latin and Greek scholar. I am intimately acquainted with the Hebrew language, and have the greatest possible respect for the Union Jack. I know all that can be known about mathematics, and can play several musical instruments. I am also an accomplished waltzer; I know the use of the globes, and can play the overture to Zampa on the musical-glasses. I know the works of Shakspeare backwards, and——"

"Stop, stop!" interrupted the Chairman. "You may do all this, and more; but have you any knowledge of the modus operandi of the labour required of you?"

"Alas, no!" returned the applicant; "but if a man of education——"

"Remove him, Usher!" cried the Chairman; and the veteran was removed in tears.

A second, a third, and a fourth made their appearance, and disappeared, and none of them would do. They were all singularly accomplished.

At length a rough man, who had been lounging down the street, walked into the Council-chamber.

"What may you want, Sir?" asked the Chairman, indignantly.

"What's that to you?" was the prompt reply. "I ain't a going to tell everyone my business—not me—you bet!"

"Ungrammatical!" said Committee Man No. One. "Very promising."

"Uncouth and vulgar!" murmured Committee Man No. Two.

"Where were you educated?" queried the Chairman.

"Nowheres in particular. I was brought up in the wilds of Canada. There's not much book learning over there," and the rough fellow indulged in a loud hoarse laugh.

"Ah! that accounts for your not having enjoyed the great advantages of the School Board. Have you seen the circular—have you read the details of the proposed appointment?"

"Me read!" cried the uncouth one; "oh, that is a game! Why I can't read nor yet write!"

"Better and better," said Committee Man No. One.

"First rate," murmured Committee Man No. Two. "I think we have at length found our ideal."

Then the usher read the advertisement.

"What! shake the hall mat!" cried the candidate. "Why I could do that little job on my head!"

So there being no other applicant for the post, the backwoods' ignoramus was appointed office-sweeper at a couple of hundred pounds a year.

"Rather high wages," said the Chairman to himself, as he went home on the top of an omnibus; "but what can one expect when we educate all the children at the cost of the rates. Last year there was an additional farthing; this year we have to pay five shillings, and goodness only knows how much it will be hereafter!"

And as he thought this, the Chairman (in the names of the rest of the ratepayers) heartily cursed the School Board.

RETURNED EMPTY.

Old Mayfly (who had dropped his Flask further down stream, and has just had it returned to him by Honest Rustic). "Dear me! Thank you! Thank you!" (Gives him a Shilling.) "Don't know what I should ha' done without it!" (Begins to unscrew top.) "May I offer you a——"

Honest Rustic. "Well, thank y', Sir, but me and my Mate, not seein' a Howner about, we've ta'en what there were inside."

RE-DRESS REQUIRED.

[A writer in the Lancet draws attention to the fact that the regular hospital nurse's uniform is now worn as ordinary ladies' attire.]

There's no doubt my new costume is very becoming. I like the idea or the cape, and the apron is just perfect, while the little bonnet suits me to a T. Met cousin Fred, who said it was "fetching," and that "they wanted some of my sort at the hospitals." I said I thought the patients had good enough nurses at present; he replied "he didn't mean the patients—he meant the doctors." Of course I couldn't stand the drudgery of a nurse's life; but that's no reason why I shouldn't appropriate the uniform, is it?

Walking down street. Met another nurse—a real one, I suppose. She stared, turned red, and then looked horribly offended. I believe she must have made some sign to me that I didn't understand. Are Nurses Freemasons, I wonder? Quite a secret society, it seems. Really that sort of thing oughtn't to be allowed. It makes things so awkward for the impost—the imitators, I mean.

Just got home after dreadful incident! I was in a Bayswater Square, when suddenly a man driving round a corner in a cart got upset, and was pitched on to the road close to me. A small crowd gathered immediately, and evidently expected me to help. One man shouted "Hi! Come and bind up his head, Miss!" And his head was actually bleeding! I couldn't do anything, except feel awfully inclined to faint, and then the mob began to hiss and jeer! Somebody said I must know how to render "first aid to the injured," and if I didn't come quick the man would bleed to death. I was so frightened I ran away, and the mob ran after me, and I had to take shelter in a shop, and ask the shopman to explain to the crowd that I was not really a nurse at all. Then they used dreadful expressions, and I had to be got out by a back way. I don't think the costume is half as becoming as it seemed this morning; I'm going to sell it as a "cast-off garment." Lucky for me it wasn't a torn-off garment!

Scott on the New Woman.

(As the Wizard of the North would have written now.)

New Woman! in our hours of ease
A smoking rival hard to please,
Wishing to put Man in the shade,
Collar his togs and take his trade;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A swaggering, "spanking" Pipchin thou!