PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 109.

July 13, 1895.

OPERATIC NOTES.

Monday.—Quite new Opera, Faust. Some people say they've heard it before. Others add, "Yes, and more than once this season." Unwritten law in Codex Druriolanum is "You can't have too much of a good thing." There are a hundred different ways of dressing chicken; so with Faust. This time Faust comes and is Faust served with Sauce Marguerite à l'Emma Eames. Uncommonly good. Faust lui-même à l'Alvarez goes down uncommonly well. Mefisto-Plançon Sauce au bon diable, a little overdone, perhaps, but decidedly a popular dish. Baton of Bevignani keeps all the ingredients well stirred up. House full.

Tuesday.—Carmen. Madame Bellincioni and Signor Ancona going strong. Capital house, spite of shadow of dissolution being over us all.

Wednesday.—Nozze di Figaro, with Emma Eames as Countess, singing charmingly, and looking like portrait of Court Beauty by Sir Peter Lely. Maurel-Almaviva all right for voice, but not up to his Countess in aristocratic appearance. However, this is in keeping with character of nobleman whose most intimate friend is his barber, and who makes love to the barber's fiancée, who is also his wife's femme de chambre.

ROUNDABOUT READINGS.

At the Oxford and Cambridge Athletic Sports on Wednesday last, great surprise was expressed at the defeat of the hitherto invincible Mr. C. B. Fry by Mr. Mendelson in the Long Jump. Mr. Mendelson, who comes to us from New Zealand, has not only done a fine performance, but he has also jumped into fame. It is at any rate obvious that it is quite impossible for him to represent his University in the High Jump, for

With a musical name (though he varies the spelling),
This youth from New Zealand is bound to go far.
He couldn't jump high, since (it's truth I am telling)
No master of music e'er misses a bar.

The Long Jump, snatched like a brand from the burning, practically gave the victory in the whole contest to Cambridge, who also won the Weight, the Mile, the Three Miles and the Quarter.

The Light Blues triumphed, fortune being shifty;
They cheered FitzHerbert sprinting home in fifty.
For strength the weight-man's parents have a hot son,
Witness the put of youthful Mr. Watson.
Lutyens, who always pleases as he goes,
Romped in, his glasses poised upon his nose.
And none that day with greater dash and go ran
Than the Light Blue three-miler, Mr. Horan.

During the practice of the crews for Henley Regatta there has been one exalted contest, which I cannot remember hearing of in former years. My Sporting Life (of which I am a diligent and a constant reader) informed me that "at one time it did seem as though Jupiter Pluvius was about to swamp Old Boreas, but the latter proved too tough." Quite a sporting event, evidently. Why, oh why, was not Old Boreas present when Pelion was piled upon Ossa? The whole course of (pre) history might have been changed.

A Newcastle contemporary has been discussing the art of adding to the beauty of women by the use of cosmetics, &c. May I commend the following extract to the notice of the ladies of England?

"No woman is capable of being beautiful who is capable of being false. The true art of assisting beauty consists in embellishing the whole person by the ornaments of virtuous and commendable qualities. How much nobler is the contemplation of beauty when it is heightened by virtue! How faint and spiritless are the charms of a coquette, when compared with the loveliness of innocence, piety, good-humour, and truth—virtues which add a new softness to their sex, and even beautify their beauty! That agreeableness possessed by the modest virgin is now preserved in the tender mother, the prudent friend, and the faithful wife. Colours artfully spread upon canvas may entertain the eye, but not touch the heart; and she who takes no care to add to the natural graces of her person, noble qualities, may amuse as a picture, but not triumph as a beauty."

Cheltenham is a pleasant place. I quote from a memory which is, I know, miserably defective:

Year by year do England's daughters
In the fairest gloves and shawls
Troop to drink the Cheltenham waters,
And adorn the Cheltenham balls.

This is not the place that one would naturally associate with violent language over so small a matter as the rejection of some plans. A quarrel, however, has taken place in the Town Council, and terrible words have been spoken:—

"In the course of a discussion on the rejection of some plans, Mr. Margrett accused the acting chairman of the Streets Committee (Mr. Parsonage) with being influenced by personal and political motives against the person (Mr. Barnfield) who sent them in. Mr. Parsonage warmly retorted with the lie direct, and told Mr. Margrett that he knew he was lying. Mr. Lenthall accused Mr. Parsonage of being 'slip-shod' in his method of bringing up the minutes of the Streets Committee, because he had passed over without comment a dispute between the Corporation and the Board of Guardians. While denying this imputation, Mr. Parsonage said he would even prefer to be 'slip-shod' than to follow Mr. Lenthall's example of giving utterance to a long-winded and frothy oration over such a trumpery matter as a road fence."

After this I quite expected to read that some one—

... raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a sort of sickly smile and curled upon the floor!
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

But the matter seems to have dropped, and everything to have ended peacefully—a great and bitter disappointment to all lovers of ructions.

Even in aquatic matters Ireland is a country of surprises. In the Eight-oared race the other day for the "Pembroke Cup," there was a dead-heat between the Shandon Boat Club and the Dublin University Boat Club. In the row-off, the Irish Independent says that "Boat Club caught the water first, but after a few strokes Shandon forged in front. After the mile mark, Shandon were rowing eighteen against the Boat Club's nineteen or twenty. In the next three hundred yards Boat Club dropped to seventeen, the others being steady at nineteen all through. About one