PUNCH,
OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOLUME 98.

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MARCH 15, 1890.

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MR. PUNCH'S MORAL MUSIC-HALL DRAMAS.

Jack Parker ("was a cruel boy, For mischief was his sole employ." Vide Miss Jane Taylor.)

Miss Lydia Banks ("though very young, Will never do what's rude or wrong."—Ditto.)

Farmer Banks } By the Brothers Griffiths. Farmer Banks's Bull

Scene—A Farmyard. R. a stall, from which the head of the Bull is visible above the half-door. Enter Farmer Banks with a cudgel.

Farmer B. (moodily).

[We have Miss Taylor's own authority for this rhyme.

Come hup, you beast! (Opens stall and flourishes cudgel—the Bull comes forward with an air of deliberate defiance.)

(Apologetically, to Bull.)

[The Bull, after some consideration, decides to accept this retractation, and retreats with dignity to his stall, the door of which he carefully fastens after him. Exit Farmer Banks, L., as Lydia Banks enters R., accompanied by Chorus. The Bull exhibits the liveliest interest in her proceedings, as he looks on, with his forelegs folded easily upon the top of the door.

[Ironical applause from the Bull.

[Business by Bull.

[A huge Shadow is thrown on the road outside; Lydia starts.

[Chord. The Chorus flee in dismay, as Jack enters with a reckless swagger.

[The Bull shakes his head reprovingly.

[As Jack Parkerconcludes, the Bull ducks cautiously below the half-door, while Lydia conceals herself behind the pump, L.C.

[Approaches stall—Bull raises head suddenly.

[The Bull shows symptoms of acute depression at this jeu de mot; Lydia comes forward indignantly.

Lydia.

[The Bull emphatically corroborates this statement.

So let that door alone, nor lift the latchet;

For if the bull gets out—why, then you'll catch it!

Jack.

[Raises latchet; chord; Bull comes slowly out, and crouches ominously; Jack retreats, and takes refuge on top of pump; the Bull, after scratching his back with his off foreleg, makes a sudden rush at Lydia.

Lydia (as she evades it),

[The Bull intimates that he is acting from a deep sense of duty.

Lydia (impatiently).

[The Bull persists obstinately in his pursuit.

Jack (from top of pump).

[Enter Farm-hands.

Lydia.

Jack.

Farm-hands (philosophically).

[They look on.

Lydia (panting).

[The Bull comes behind her.

[Falls on ground, while the Bull stands over her, in readiness to give the coup de grace;

Lydia calls for help.

A Farm-hand (encouragingly).

[The Bull nods in acknowledgment that he is at last understood, and slaps his chest with his forelegs.

Lydia.

[The Bull, after turning this over, decides to accept a compromise.

Jack.

[They shake hands warmly.

Lydia.

Chorus.

[The Bull rises on his hindlegs, and gives a forehoof each to Lydia and Jack, who dance wildly round and round as the Curtain falls.

[N.B.—Music-hall Managers are warned that the morality of this particular Drama may possibly be called in question by some members of the L. C. C.]

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THE CRY OF THE CITY CHILDREN.

[A conference of delegates of various Athletic Clubs was held on March 4, in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, for the purpose of considering the necessity for the further provision of Playing fields for the people of the Metropolis.]

for a bat, a coat for wicket?

Now the Bobbies hunt them so!

The old ladies grumble at their skipping;

The old gents object to their tip-cat;

So they squat midst slums that shine like dirty dripping,

Not knowing what the dickens to be at.

And the young Town Children, O my brothers,

Do you ask them why they stand

Making mud-pies, to the horror of their mothers,

In their dirty Fatherland?

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A Desirable "Raikes'" Progress.—In the direction of concession to the overworked and underpaid Post-Office employés.

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A JUBALEE PERFORMANCE.

Dear Mr. Punch,—After The Cotter's Saturday Night, which is a fine broad Scotch setting of Rantin' Roarin' Robbie's poem, came The Dream of Jubal. This, as I take it, was a work produced in the Jubalee Year. I don't know who Jubal was, at least I've only a vague idea. Rather think he was a partner of Tubal, Tubal, Jubal & Co., Instrument Makers. From this Oratorio I gather that Jubal was an enthusiastic amateur, but that the only musical instrument he possessed was a tortoise-shell,—whether comb or simple shell I couldn't quite make out. However, comb or shell, he worked hard at it, until one morning, when he was practising outside the house (I expect Tubal & Co. wouldn't stand much of it indoors), the birds started a concert in opposition to his solo. This quite drowned his feeble notes, and drove him half frantic. In despair he lay down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed and pleased him, that, waking up, he adorned his tortoise-shell with flowers, and sang aloud to all his descendants in all time and tune, and out of all time and tune, if necessary, to join him in praising the invention of Music generally, and of this Jubalee instrument in particular.

Mr. Joseph Bennett has given a most effective description of the dream; the accompanied recitation being very fine indeed, and splendidly performed by Miss Julia Neilson, who, like Jubal, has been in the Tree's Shadow at the Haymarket. Fine triumphal march and chorus. Your own Maggie McIntyre, and your Mr. Barton McGuckin, were in excellent form, and everybody was delighted, with the exception of one person,—who is always à peu près, never quite satisfied, and therefore rightly named,

"All-but Hall, S.W."

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"Harlowe there!"—This now familiar exclamation might be appropriately adopted as the motto of the Vaudeville Theatre during the run of Clarissa. She does run, too, poor dear—first from home, then from Lovelace's, and then "anywhere, anywhere, out of the world!" By the way, is it quite fair of Mr. Thomas Thorne, in the absence of a friend and brother comedian, to speak of himself, as he does in this piece, as "a mere Toole"? How can such a metamorphosis have taken place? We trust that Mr. Thomas Thorne, Temporary Tragedian, will amend his sentiments.

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Sir W. V. Harcourt, on the night when he was so huffy, "left the House." True: he certainly did not "carry the House with him."

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MODERN TYPES.

The Giddy Lady is one who, having been plunged at an early age into smart society, is whirled perpetually round in a vortex of pleasures and

excitements. In the effort to keep her head above water, she is as likely as not to lose it. This condition she naturally describes as "being in the swim." In the unceasing struggle to maintain herself there, she may perhaps shorten her life, but she will apparently find a compensation in the increased length of her dressmaker's bills. She is ordinarily the daughter of aristocratic parents, who carefully allowed her to run wild from the moment she could run at all. By their example she has been taught to hold as articles of her very limited faith, that the serious concerns of life are of interest only to fools, and should, therefore (though the inference is not obvious), be entirely neglected by herself, and that frivolity and fashion are the twin deities before whom every self-respecting woman must bow down.

Having left the Seminary at which she acquired an elementary ignorance of spelling, a smattering of French phrases as used by English lady novelists, and a taste for music which leads her in after-life to prefer Miss Bessie Bellwood to Beethoven, she is soon afterwards brought out at a smart dance in London. From this point her progress is rapid. Balls and concerts, luncheons and receptions, dinners and theatres, race meetings and cricket matches, at both of which more attention is paid to fashion than to the field, follow one another in a dizzy succession. She has naturally no time for thought, but in order to avoid the least suspicion of it, she learns to chatter the slang of the youthful Guardsmen and others who are her companions. A certain flashing style of beauty ensures to her the devotion of numerous admirers, to whom she babbles of "chappies" and "Johnnies," and "real jam" and "stony broke," and "two to one bar one," as if her life depended upon the correct pronunciation of as many of these phrases as possible in the shortest time on record. She thus comes to be considered a cheerful companion, and at the end of her third season, marries a jaded man of pleasure, whose wealth is more considerable than his personal attractions, and who, for some inscrutable reason, has been approved by her parents as a suitable husband.

She treats matrimony as an emancipation from rules which she has rarely seen any one else observe, and has never honoured herself, and after a few years, she becomes one of that gaudy band of Society ladies who follow with respectful imitation the giddy vagaries of the Corinthians of a lower grade. She dines often without her husband at smart restaurants, where she has constant opportunities of studying the manners of her models. She adores the burlesques at the Gaiety and the Avenue, and talks, with a complete absence of reserve and a disregard of pedantic accuracy, about the lives and adventures of the actresses who figure there. She can tell you, and does, who presented Lottie A. with a diamond star, and who was present at the last supper-party in honour of Tottie B. Nor is she averse to being seen and talked about in a box at a Music-Hall, or at one of the pleasure-palaces in Leicester Square. She allows the young men who cluster round her to suppose that she knows all about their lapses from strict propriety, and that she commends rather than condemns them. Causes célèbres are to her a staple of conversation, her interest in them varying directly as the number of co-respondents.

It is impossible, therefore, that the men who are her friends should treat her with that chivalrous respect which an obsolete tradition would seem to require, but they suffer no loss of her esteem in consequence. Such being her behaviour in the society of men, the tone of her daily conversation with friends of her own sex may be readily imagined, though it might not be pleasant to describe. Suffice it to say, that she sees no shame in addressing them, or in allowing herself to be addressed by a name which a Court of law has held to be libellous when applied to a burlesque actress. She is always at Hurlingham or the Ranelagh, and has seen pigeons killed without a qualm. She never misses a Sandown or a Kempton meeting; she dazzles the eyes of the throng at Ascot every year, and never fails at Goodwood.

Twice a year the Giddy Lady is compelled by the traditions of her caste to visit Paris, in order to replenish her exhausted wardrobe. On these occasions she patronises only the best hotel, and the most expensive and celebrated of men-dressmakers, and she is "fitted" by a son of the house, of whom she talks constantly and familiarly by his Christian name as Jean, or Pierre, or Philippe. During the shooting season she goes from country-house to country-house. She has been seen sometimes with a gun in her hands, often with a lighted cigarette between her lips. Indeed she is too frequent a visitor at shooting-luncheons and in smoking-rooms, where a woman, however much she may attempt to disguise her sex, is never cordially welcomed by men. The conventions of the society in which she moves seem to require that she should be attended during her visits by a cavaliere servente, who is therefore always invited with her. Their pastime is to imitate a flirtation, and to burlesque love, but neither of them is ever deceived into attributing the least reality to this occupation, which is often as harmless as it is always absurd.

These and similar occupations, of course, leave her no time to attend to her children, who are left to grow up as best they may under the fostering care of nursery-maids and of such relations as may choose, from time to time, to burden themselves with the olive-branches of others. Her husband has long since retired from all competition with her, and leaves her free to follow her own devices, whilst he himself follows the odds. She is often supposed to be riding for a fall. It is certain that her pace is fast. Yet, though many whisper, it is quite possible that she will ride to the end without open damage.

Of her dress and her jewels it need only be said that she affects tailor-made costumes and cat's-eye bangles by day, and that at night she escapes by the skin of her teeth from that censure which the scantiness of her coverings would seem to warrant, and which Mr. Horsley, R.A., if he saw her, would be certain to pronounce.

In middle age she loses her brilliant complexion. Yet, for reasons best known to herself, her colour continues to be bright, though her spirits and her temper seem to suffer in the effort to keep it so. As old age advances, she is as likely as not to become a gorgon of immaculate propriety, and will be heard lamenting over the laxity of manners which permits girls to do what was never dreamt of when she was a girl herself.

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THE PINT OF IT.

How curious that our youngest boy, aged fifteen months, should have already become partially paralysed, and be afflicted, besides, with anæmia, rickets, and growing inability to digest the smallest particle of food!

If it were not that we procure our milk from the "Hygienic Unskimmed Lacteal Fluid and Food for Babes Company, Limited," I should begin to believe that there might be something wrong with the beverage which forms the staple of his infantile dietary.

The Company professes to sell milk "pure from the cow." From the quality of this morning's supply, I should be inclined to fancy that that cow is suffering from an advanced stage of atrophy.

As our eldest child, aged two-and-a-half, is still totally unable to walk, and its legs have become mere shrivelled sticks, I really must call in an Analyst to test our milk.

Heavens! The Analyst reports that more than half the cream has been "separated"—which seems to mean removed—and that its place has been supplied by "65 per cent. of impure water."

Under these circumstances, I hardly think that the fine of five shillings, and half-a-crown costs, which the

Magistrate has inflicted on the Company, quite meets the justice of the case, or will be sufficient to stop such adulteration in the future.

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Buffalo Bill and Leo Pope.

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From a Nautical Inquirer.—"Please, Sir, what's the uniform of an Admiral of the 'Bouillon Fleet'? I see this Fleet advertised, but have been unable to obtain any information about it at the Admiralty, where I have called repeatedly to make inquiries."

[Consult "The First Lord!" The first lord you meet will do.—Ed.]

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"GRENADIERS TO THE FRONT!"

I must confess, my dear Editor, I was greatly gratified at your gracefully recognising my twenty years' service, spent in the defence of my Queen and my country (in the Militia), by asking me to be present at the initial performance of the Guards Burlesque Company of Fra Diavolo in the Theatre Royal, Recreation Room, Chelsea Barracks, S.W.

The place was not entirely new to me. Last year it had been my good fortune to see Ivanhoe, with Mr. Nugent in the principal character—a gallant and talented gentleman, who was, alas! conspicuous by his absence on the present occasion. I was given to understand that this year the Grenadiers were ordered "to the front," and that the command had been obeyed, the list of the Dramatis Personæ amply proved.

The music was admirably selected by Mr. Edward Solomon, the "Baker Roll" from Pickwick going capitally. The scenery, by the Hon. Arnold Keppel (late Scots Guards), was good, and "the writing up to date," by Mr. Yardley (never to be forgotten on the field of cricket), was better.

For the rest, I may say that the Guards' Burlesque Company, from a theatrical professional stand-point, were hardly "Gaiety form," but, as amateurs, they were simply magnificent. There was no supper—but this is a detail. Yours sincerely,

A Very Old Soldier.

The Plains of Waterloo, in rear of the Army and Navy Stores, S. W.

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"Lent Lectures."—A Correspondent signing himself "Missing Link," says, that he frequently sees Lectures advertised as above, and wants to know if they come into the same category with "Borrowed Sermons."

[Don't know. Consult Mr. F. Jeune, Q.C., or the Archbishop of Canterbury.—Ed.]

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"That ought to be an interesting and amusing article in Lippincott's Magazine for March," observed Mrs. Ram—"I mean the one called, 'Who are the Christy Minstrels'?" We referred to the number. No such article in it; but one entitled, "Who are Christian Ministers?" Probably this was it. Near enough for Mrs. R.

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SONG SENTIMENTIANA.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

The Walery-Gallery Co.—for Walery has transformed himself into a Limited Liability—is bringing out a series of "Sporting Celebrities," with sporting notes, monographs, and dramatic notes too. The photographs are excellent. Two in each monthly number. The monographs are right enough, but the sporting and dramatic notes in a monthly, are either not sufficient or too much. Three portraits and three monographs, one sportswoman and two sportsmen in each number would be better, at least, so it seems to the learned Baron, who would sum up the requisites for making the Walery-Gallery Sporting Series a success in a Shakspearian quotation, adapted for this special occasion,—"More art and less matter."

The Baron is always much interested in the Revue de Famille, directed and largely contributed to by M. Jules Simon, who is also a pretty regular contributor to its pages. In December last, M. Simon wrote a thoughtful and interesting article on L'Education des Femmes, and M. Francisque Sarcey, a very amusing paper on Le Timide au Théâtre. The number for February (it is only a bi-monthly publication) has a paper on L'Influence (not the influenza) des Femmes en France, the only fault of which is its length; and Gyp gives a satirical sketch called Nos Docteurs, which hardly seems in keeping with the family character of the Revue. The March Number is now out, and can be procured at Hachette's. It is one of the best French serials.

A delightful book is Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, collected and recounted by the Rev. Thomas Parkinson. He who writes of fairies and of witches should of course possess some potent spell—(how many members of the School-Board, had they lived a couple of hundred years ago, would have been punished as witches for teaching "spelling," it is pleasant to imagine)—and Mr. Parkinson's great charm is his apparent belief in the wonders he relates. Even when he occasionally alludes to

"popular superstition," you feel it is only a phrase introduced evidently out of consideration for the unphilosophic prejudices of his "so-called" Nineteenth-Century readers, who pride themselves on being Huxleys in the full blaze of scientific light, and yet would shrink from passing a night in a haunted room, or, if alone, would go a mile out of their way to avoid an uncanny spot. The greatest mistake made by narrators of the marvellous is attempting to account for the unaccountable. This book is, I believe, one of a series now being published by Elliot Stock, of Paternoster Row, a stock which Your Own Baron recommends as a safe investment, for the book alone is a good dividend, the interest being kept up all through; and it is satisfactory to hear that, as the other counties of England, and perhaps of Ireland and Scotland, are being dealt with in a similar manner, there is a good reserve-fund of information and amusement.

Mr. Runciman, in The Fortnightly, brings a serious indictment of plagiarism against Mr. Rider Haggard, which it strikes me he would be unable to sustain in a Court of Common Sense before Mr. President Punch, unless it were first laid down as a fixed principle, that a writer of fiction must never have recourse to any narrative of facts whereon to base his Romance.

The Baron de Book-Worms.

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Sweet Lavender.—Miss Sprules, whose "Lavender Farm" in Surrey was recently visited by a ubiquitous P. M. Gazetter, appears to be a real scenter of attraction. "Does it pay?" asked the Interviewer. And of course the Lady's answer was, "Scent per scent."

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"Junketing" in London.—Last Saturday a grand Devonian Dinner took place at the Criterion. Of course, only La Crême de la Crême of Devon were present.

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The "So-called" Nineteenth Century for this Month.—"'Palmer' qui ... ferat." Has the gallant Corporal any more to Tel-(el-Kebir)?

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From "1st Flat, Colney Hatchwell."—The song of "Be Mine" is a great success. The song "Be Minor" ought to be a greater.

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New Novel, shortly to appear, by a Director of the London and Westminster Bank, entitled, Allsopps and Conditions of Men.

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Ungrammatical but Quite Correct.—When a Gentleman asks, at a book-stall, "Have you a number of Woman here?"

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What's "a bore for coal is fun for us!" Mem. by Shareholder, S. E. Line.

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