Paunch

“ Several Aldermen, who had presented specimens of Mendacity, received packets of tickets, inscribed Mendicity, to everybody's delight, and there was a cheer for a bold Bishop, who had put down a Carriage and was content to take up a little Gig. Another Bishop—he had a Fulham cut—found his mitre, but some one, in unseemly satire, had surmounted it with a golden and most vivacious Weathercock.
"And what would you put down, dear Mr. Punch," said the Lady of the Revel, "if we began again?" ”

“ Mr. Punch had expected to be carried into one of the courts of the Alhambra, but, in lieu of this, he found himself gazing at a lady, beautiful beyond compare. For a moment he was so lost in admiration, that he almost forgot himself, and was about to kiss her. ”

“ Punch hopefully. "It's Mr. Punch," said a cheerful voice. "Come in."
The Cornet-Major of the B.S.R. glissaded into the trench and found himself shaking hands with a very young subaltern of the ———th ———s. [Censored.]
"Thought I recognised you," he said. "Glad to see you out here, Sir."
"That's really what I came about," said Mr. Punch. "I want your advice."
"My advice! Good Lord!... Sure you're comfortable there? Now what'll you have? Cigar or barley-sugar?" Mr. Punch accepted a cigar.
"We're all for barley-sugar ourselves just now," the subaltern went on. ”

“ Punch's gracious assent was known at Holyhead, before he had finished congratulating his companion, in the most truly charming style, on a promised knighthood, of which the Viceroy of Ireland had whispered something to Mr. Punch.
"No man ever earned his spurs better than the man who has been spurring railways into increased activity for so many years," said Mr. Punch, with a beautiful bow.
"I have not called you from the House at an unfortunate time, I trust, Sir," said the other. "Not that you can ever be spared, but—"
"William Gladstone is quite up to his work," replied the great patriot. ”

“ The resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find Punch in 1855 describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly" of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. ”

“ The drama was in much the same state of progress throughout the civilized portions of Europe; and to the Italians and Spaniards the ingenuity of “Punchinello” has been attributed. In England these wooden performers were called motions; and Mr. Punch took among them the rank of mirth-maker. If there yet lives a being who has not at some moment of his life felt a thrill of delight at the prospect of a half-hour’s exhibition of this gentleman’s performance in his miniature theatre, we pity him most heartily. ”

“ Well, I'll look up my engagements when I get home, and drop you a line."
"Do," said TIME—"mind you don't forget. I am sure we shall have capital fun."
"Oh, capital," replied Mr. Punch, hurriedly—"capital—but now for (excuse the paradox) the Land of the Sea."
And so again they started. But Mr. Punch's presentiment will turn out to be quite correct. He will be unfortunately engaged on Boxing Night, and so his tour of the terrestrial Music Halls with TIME will be postponed sine die.
[pg 26]
VISIT TO NEPTUNE.
In a very short time the two august travellers found themselves in Neptune. ”

“ Punch lit his cigar and proceeded to explain himself.
"I say that I have come to consult you," he began. "It seems strange, you think. I am seventy-three, and you are———"
"Twenty-two," said the subaltern. "Next November."
"And yet Seventy-three comes here to sit at the feet of Twenty-two, and for every encouraging word that Twenty-two offers him Seventy-three will say 'Thank you!'"
"Rats," said Twenty-two for a start.
"Let me explain," said the Venerable One. "There come moments in the life of every man when he says suddenly to himself, 'What am I doing? ”

“ If he has not beaten himself in running, he has allowed no one to beat him. He has caught most people, but the old bird himself has never yet been caught. If you look in just now at Olympia, you will find him up to time and smiling, and going ahead more than ever.
The last and one of the very best of the Exhibitions in this period that I have to record was held at Chelsea in 1891. Punch renders justice to the Royal Naval Exhibition in light-hearted style, but "Robert, the City Waiter," is righteously indignant that none but German waiters were employed. ”

“ In his hand he held a curious black disc, with which he beat time to a ditty, of which Mr. Punch only succeeded in catching the following refrain:—
"Oh, I 'ave sech a w'y with the loydies! All the dorlins upon me are gorn!
For they soy—'Yn't he noice! you can tell by his vice,
He's a toff and a gentleman born!'"
And here the singer suddenly caused the black disc to expand with a faint report to a cylindrical form of head-dress, which he placed upon one side of his head, amidst thunders of approval. ”

“ Du Maurier's pretty children eating slices of bread too thinly spread with jam, and Ethel says, with thoughtful earnestness, "I dare say the queen and her courtiers eat a whole pot of jam every day, Harry!" There are many hundreds of pictures in Punch which show a kind of solemn interest in the repair of wasted tissue never seen in this country. It is evident that the English have a deep delight in the act of taking sustenance which is to us unknown. ”

“ Enter Ponteach, with several of his Chieftains.
Sharp.
Welcome, my Brothers, we are glad to meet you,
And hope that you will not repent our coming.
Ponteach.
We're glad to see our Brothers here the English.
If honourable Peace be your Desire, [Pg 132]
We'd always have the Hatchet buried deep,
While Sun and Moon, Rivers and Lakes endure,
And Trees and Herbs within our Country grow.
But then you must not cheat and wrong the Indians,
Or treat us with Reproach, Contempt, and Scorn ”

“ Punch's hundredth volume. The "Ship" at Greenwich was the place of venue. With Mr. Burnand in the chair, the members of the Staff seated as represented in Mr. Sambourne's well-known drawing of "The Mahogany Tree," with Mr. W. H. Bradbury and Sir William Agnew at one end of the table, with toasts to Mr. Punch himself, to Sir John Tenniel, to Mr. Burnand, and to the proprietors, the enthusiasm "first grew warm and then grew hot;" and when a presentation of a silver cigar-box had been made to the Editor, it was duly resolved to meet again, the same company in the same place, fifty years hence! ”

“ With the real fool's-cap, by a singular hap, "the Lord Derby" himself was invested.
Punch "advised his friend Gladstone to look out for squalls, and likewise look out his umbrella."
(Prophetic that, but then Mister P. was always that sort of a fella!)
You have used a good many "umbrellas" since then, both Old and New (Castle) "brollies,"
As you needed a stout one in Derby's storm, so you will, my dear William, in Solly's.
You have "had the honour of figuring," Sir, many times since then in my pages;
As I hope, my dear William, with all my heart, you'll continue to do—oh! for ages! ”

“ Men and women and girls, they wore the set look of people who had espoused an unpopular and even perilous cause and were resolved to carry it through. They seldom looked happy, and they had little cause for it. In ten years the physiognomy of the Salvationists had changed, and they went about their work unmolested with serene and cheerful faces. Punch could at least plead this extenuation of his hostility, that it was shared by learned and excellent men. ”

“ DAOUD
O master, O sole Lord of Al Shaldomir, named the elect, from that quarter.
JOHN
That quarter? Why, that is the gracious lady's innermost chamber.
DAOUD
From that quarter, great master, O Lord of the Pass.
JOHN
Daoud, I have cast men into prison for saying less than this. Men have been flogged on the feet for less than this.
DAOUD
Slay me, master, but hear my words.
JOHN
I will not slay you. You are mistaken, Daoud. You have made a great mistake. The thing is absurd. Why, the gracious lady has scarcely seen Hafiz. She knows nothing of the talk of the market. Who could tell her? ”

“ Nothing strikes one more in turning over the pages of old numbers of Punch than the swarms of young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech. The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress the reader. ”

“ Perhaps the Editor judged it as Punch's railway-porter judged an old lady's pet in accordance with railway rules: Cats is "dogs," and rabbits is "dogs," and so's parrots; but this 'ere tortis is a hinsect, and there ain't no—need—for it. And the tone of Punch's more serious utterances is now that of the dining-room rather than of the debating society and the vestry room. Mr. Ruskin, among others, deplored Punch's kid gloves and evening-dress, when amiable obituary notices on Baron Bethell— (had he not been Punch's counsel in the old days?) ”

“ I find more loving observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of canvas put together.
In 1852 Punch singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." ”

“ It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of Punch, should begin with the People. For Punch began as a radical and democratic paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed, and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry 'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. ”

“ Punch, ever ready to assist in a good cause, dispatched one of his City young men to make further inquiries, who reported that he had visited the Auction Mart on three successive days at lunch-time, and had asked one or two of the sharpest-looking of the crowd, as possible purchasers of the wondrous tea, to lunch with him, which they had willingly done; but, although he says he lunched them copiously, they one and all denied any knowledge of the tea sale in question.
“Shepherd v. Keevil.”—Mem; Christian maxim for a Pastor or Shepherd, “Do not think eevil of your neighbour.” ”

“ Punch's ideas—and circulation—were narrow, he might plead that the church at Kenilworth is not in his own parish. But that would be an invalid as well as a sneaking excuse for parsimony. The parish of Punch is the world. ”

“ So thought Plunk, and one fine day, when he happened to be alone with the little King, he whispered to the child: “Come along, my boy; let’s run away with father.”
But Winpeace was only a baby, and what with living so long under the sea, he had quite forgotten his father. He laughed; the little King laughed. He thought: “Plunk is making fun,” and he kicked Plunk with his little foot.
“You are not my father; you are the silly-billy who turns head over heels before the Sea King.” ”

“ At last Punch may say, and with pride he says it, the Ladies are looking up—looking up to the high places of Science and Art, which should never have been held beyond their reach, and which will be graced by their occupancy. ”

“ Mingled happiness and foreboding strangely disturbed her breast, and she sighed as she trod heavily on the face of one of the guides in climbing to her shelf. She heard his low sleepy murmur of apology as she drew her straw about her. There is no more courteous body of men in the world than the Swiss guides.
Next morning, after a hasty toilet with a handful of snow, the party set off shortly before sunrise. Ralph by general consent assumed the leadership. ”

“ They were busy, hard-worked, often overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society, which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, Punch subdivides the three main strata of Society—High Life, Middle Life, Low Life—into various classes. ”

“ Look how the little urchins run at the first sound of Punch’s well-known voice; what a pattering there is of shod and unshod feet from every court and alley in the neighbourhood as soon as his “chuck, chuck, churee” is heard, startling the silence of the{255} street! They whip up their marbles, and start off with their pegtops half wound to get a front place; for the hardened old rogue was a favourite with their forefathers, and they are never weary of seeing him bang Judy with his truncheon. ”

“ England was visited in 1889 by two of the most perturbing personalities in European politics, the Kaiser Wilhelm II and General Boulanger. Punch, however, resolutely and, as it turned out, rightly refused to take the brav' Général seriously, though he found in him plenty of food for disparaging satire [Pg 58] as a shoddy hero on his prancing steed, as a "General Boum" in real life (recalling the grotesque figure in La Grande Duchesse) , and as an uninvited guest, whose unwelcome arrival John Bull took as an occasion for going off to the French Exhibition. ”