These
are mostly from an ancient, much abused bound volume of Punch from 1903. They're
variable in quality, (Some brilliant, some very much sub-par) but interesting
anyway. 'Smokers of the World Unite' is more recent. 1950s or so I think. The
picture is not by Wodehouse of course. There were several good ones in the Punch
Volume. Click here to download a zipped file containing
my favourites.
It can scarcely have escaped the notice of thinking men, I think, being a thinking man myself, that the forces of darkness opposed to those of us who like a quiet smoke are gathering momentum daily and starting to throw their weight about more than somewhat. Every morning I read in the papers a long article by another of those doctors who are the spearhead of the movement. Tobacco, they say, plugs up the arteries and lowers the temperature of the body extremities, and if you reply that you like your arteries plugged up and are all for having the temperature of your body extremities lowered, especially during the summer months, they bring up that cat again.
The cat to which I allude is the one that has two drops of nicotine placed on its tongue and instantly passes beyond the veil. 'Look,' they say. 'I place two drops of nicotine on the cat’s tongue. Now watch it wilt.' I can’t see the argument. Cats, as Charles Stuart Calverley said, may have had their goose cooked by tobacco juice, but are we to deprive ourselves of all our modest pleasures just because indulgence in them would be harmful to some cat which is probably a perfect stranger?
Take a simple instance such as occurs every Saturday on the Rugby football field. The ball is heeled out, the scrum half gathers it, and instantaneously two fourteen-stone forwards fling themselves on his person, grinding him into the mud. Must we abolish Twickenham and Murrayfield because some sorry reasoner insists that if the scrum half had been a cat he would have been squashed flatter than a Dover sole? And no use, of course, to try to drive into these morons’ heads that scrum halves are not cats. Really, one feels inclined at times to give it all up and turn one’s face to the wall.
It is pitiful to think that that is how these men spend their lives, putting drops of nicotine on the tongues of cats day after day after day. Slaves to a habit, is the way I look at it. But if you tell them that and urge them to pull themselves together and throw off the shackles, they just look at you with fishy eyes and mumble something about it can’t be done. Of course it can be done. All it requires is will power. If they were to say to themselves 'I will not start putting nicotine on cats’ tongues till after lunch' it would be a simple step to knocking off during the afternoon, and by degrees they would find that they could abstain altogether. The first cat of the day is the hard one to give up. Conquer the impulse for the after-breakfast cat, and the battle is half won.
But how few of them can see this. You think you have driven home your point, but no. Back comes that fishy-eyed look, and before you know where you are they are off again with their 'Place two drops on the tongue of a cat . . .'
The result is that day by day in every way we smokers are being harder pressed. Like the troops of Midian, the enemy prowl and prowl around. First it was James the Second, then Tolstoy, then all these doctors, and now—of all people—Miss Gloria Swanson, who not only has become a non-smoker herself but claims to have converted a San Francisco business man, a Massachusetts dress designer, a lady explorer, a television script writer and a Chicago dentist.
'The joys of not smoking,' she says, 'are so much greater than the joys of smoking,' omitting, however, to mention what the former are. From the fact that she states that her disciples send her flowers, I should imagine that she belongs to the school of thought which holds that abstention from tobacco heightens the sense of smell. 'Do you realize,' these people tell you, 'that if you stop smoking you will be able to smell better?' I don’t want to be able to smell better. Living in New York, I often find myself wishing that I didn’t smell the place as well as I do.
But I have no quarrel with Miss Swanson. We Wodehouses do not war upon the weaker sex. As far as Miss Swanson is concerned, an indulgent 'There, there, foolish little woman' about covers my attitude. The bird I am resolved to expose before the bar of world opinion is the late Count Leo N. Tolstoy.
For one reason and another I have not read Tolstoy in the original Russian, and it is possible that a faulty translation may have misled me, but what he is recorded as saying in his Essays, Letters and Miscellanies is that an excellent substitute for smoking may be found in twirling the fingers, and there rises before one’s mental eye the picture of some big public dinner (decorations will be worn) at the moment when the toast of the Queen is being drunk.
‘‘The Queen!’’
'The Queen, God bless her!'
And then.
'Gentlemen, you may twirl your fingers.'
It wouldn’t work. There would be a sense of something missing. And I don’t see that it would be much better if you adopted Tolstoy’s other suggestion—viz, playing on the dudka. But then what can you expect of a man who not only wore a long white beard but said that the reason we smoke is to deaden our consciences, instancing the case of a Russian murderer who half-way through the assassination of his employer found himself suffering from cold feet?
'I could not finish the job,' he is quoted as saying. 'So I went from the bedroom into the drawing-room, sat down there and smoked a cigarette.'
'Only when he had stupefied himself with tobacco,' says Tolstoy, 'did he feel sufficiently fortified to return to the bedroom and finish dispatching the old lady.'
Stupefied with tobacco! On a single gasper! They must have been turning out powerful stuff in Russia under the old régime.
And, of course, our own manufacturers are turning out good and powerful stuff today, and what I am leading up to is that we should all avail ourselves of it. Smoke up, my hearties. Never mind Tolstoy. Ignore G. Swanson. Forget the cat. Think what it would mean if for want of our support the tobacco firms had to go out of business. There would be no more of those photographs of authors smoking pipes, and if authors were not photographed smoking pipes, how would we be able to know that they were manly and in the robust tradition of English literature?
A pipe placed on the tongue of an author makes all the difference.
Nicked from the Punch Guide to good Living, William Davis, Ed., 1973, when Punch was still worth reading.
'There is,' observed the novelist gravely,' a bad time coming for writers
of fiction. A very bad time.'
I replied that what with publishers reckoning 13 copies as 12, and editors regretting
their so-called lack of space (sic), things were, for my humble needs, bad enough
already. After which he has to details.
'I have been reading a book,' said he, 'by Dr George N Gould. It is called biographical
clinics, and it deals with the subject of the eyes, and their influence on the
mind, character, and general health. I could quote extensively for the volume,
but I will not.' (here I thanked him.) 'suffice it that the author has it that,
if it were not for defective eyesight, they would be no crime in the world.
All crimes that were ever committed to be traced directly to the absence of
spectacles.'
'And yet,' I said musingly,'bread and spectacles were the ruin of Rome.'
'If the Romans had thought less of their bread and more of the spectacles, they
would have declined to fall as they did. Take Nero. Did he wear glasses? Not
he. Not even a monocle. And look at his record of convictions. Same with them
all. Tiberius, Caligula, every one of them. Utters scoundrels. And they might
have been as good as Gould and if they had only taken ordinary care of themselves.'
'True,' I said, 'there is something very pathetic in your idea. Roman history
ought to be re-written. It is not fair on the poor fellows. After all, it was
not their fault. Why, Nero must turn in his grave like a teetotum at the things
that are said of him every day at a universities and public schools. Somebody
ought to put him right with the world. As gentle and well-meaning man has ever
breathed, hounded into a life of crime by the neglect of the Imperial oculist.
It is pure pathos, with the maker's name on the label.'
'Precisely,'said the novelist.'but the way, in passing, why is Mr Chamberlain
greater than William Pitt?'
'Because he wears an eye glass.'
'Why is Ibsen superior to Shakespeare?'
'Because he wears spectacles.'
'Exactly. Thank you very much. To return to the subject of crime, our whole
method of dealing with our criminal classes is wrong. Why, when the coster's
finished jumping on his mother -'
'On his mother?'
'What do we do? Why, we jump on him. His plea that he had mislaid his pince-nez
at the moment passes unregarded. I have known a poor fellow, manifestly suffering
from astigmatism of the left eye, spoken to vary sharply for assaulting a policeman.
The policeman said that he had a glass too much. Of course what he had really
had was a pair of glasses too little. It was a most painful case.'
'But one moment,' I said at this juncture,'you seem to me to strayed from the
point. You have not yet explained your remark about the bad time which is to
arrive for writers of fiction. Why is there a bad time coming?'
'Why, surely,'he said,'it is perfectly obvious. In a few years everyone will
be wearing spectacles and how to write a novel of 100,000 words, for its strong
human interest, when crime has been utterly eliminated? Will the public read
a book that is wholly could? I can't imagine myself writing a book that is -'
''' Wholly good ''? Ah, but that's your modesty. Even with glasses we can never
see ourselves as others see us.'
Mr Punch, sir, - it is the custom, I believe, in theatrical circles, for a
dramatist to submit a scenario of their threatened effort to the manager whom
they may have marked down as their quarry. The manager then extracts the best
ideas, hands them over to a friend to work up, and returns the scenario to its
gratified author as unsuitable for production. It is with a view to avoiding
this fate that I send the following notes to you instead of to the usual address.
My drama is based on the following paragraph, which has appeared in some of
the papers: -
'Society craze for tattooing. - Philadelphia society has adopted the tattooing
craze. Many young girls, the daughters of the best families, have not only been
tattooed themselves, but are taking lessons so that they may ornament their
friends.'
You notice that the craze is at present in America. Exactly. What America thinks
today, England will think in a year or so, which will enable me to have my play
ready just in time. The hero of my drama, Emerson P Rockiit, a young but rising
candy manufacturer of unimpeachable morals and appearance, has fallen victim
to the charms of Magnolia J Keggs, the daughter of an eminent pork packer. Her
beautiful form and profuse illustrations have conquered a heart previously adamant
in its dealings with the tattooed sex. At the beginning of the play the course
of true love appears to be running smoothly. The Happy pair are engaged and
the inauguration of the connubial orgies is only delayed by the non-arrival
of the bride's trousseau.
Unhappily, however, my hero has a rival, Jasper W Morgan, a rich but unscrupulous
scoundrel residing in the immediate vicinity. Jasper is the proprietor of a
peripatetic dime Museum, and hopes to add magnolia to the programme as a tattooed
Princess. He has offered her the part on several occasions, only to be indignantly
repulsed, and he now determines to resort to guile. Accordingly, disguising
his handwriting, he dispatched an anonymous letter to Emerson, in which he bids
him, ere it be too late, to lift the curl that hangs over Magnolia J Keggs'
left temple. His reason for this singular instruction appears later. The one
flaw in Emerson P Rockiit's nature is a proneness to jealousy which is often
found even in the best regulated bosoms. He lifts the curl - this will be great
scene - and starts back with the stifled groan. On the temple is tattooed a
heart, and in the heart the initials S B P. 'Farewell,' he cries. 'Stay,' shrieks
Magnolia, 'I can explain all.' ''Tis useless, ' says He,' I can't wait.' Off
he goes, Magnolia faints, and the curtain comes down on a powerful situation.
End of Act 1.
The rest of the play is, I'm afraid, at present in a less completely thought-out
condition. In Act 2, to give scope for scenic effects, I depict my hero's wanderings.
I may make him go to Delhi, and work the Durbar in; or almost anywhere except
Biarritz, Siberia, and the Mediterranean littoral.
But it is the last act that will be the hardest. Briefly, what happens is this.
Somehow or other Emerson gets to find out that he has wronged Magnolia. Of course,
the initials on her brow and not those of a man at all. They were tattooed by
girlhoods earliest friend, Sadie de Polkinghorne, of New Birmingham, Virginia,
when they were at school together. How the hero is to find this out is at present
unsettled. But he does find out, and hurries back to Philadelphia, arriving
just in time. Magnolia's father is ruined, owing to somebody else having cornered
pork, and Magnolia is just signing the articles which bind her to become a tattooed
Princess for life in Jasper's dime Museum at a salary of $2 a week, when Emerson
enters, fells Jasper to the ground, clasps Magnolia in his arms, and announces
(a) that all is forgiven, (b) that he proposes to lead magnolia to the nearest
altar at once. Jasper, with a hideous oath (stifled), recoils in anguish, and
marries the strong woman attached to his dime Museum, a powerful and hot-tempered
lady who can be relied upon to make him repent everything. Curtain.
This is the plot, a little ragged at present, but with some judicious overhaul
capable of being developed into a drama that will astonish Nations and charm
crowned heads.
Yours, etc, Henry William -Jones
Food For The Mind.
(Teach boys to cook. Man who cannot cook his own dinner is but half educated.'
- Daily Mail.)
On arriving at Choppun Taters, as sweetly picturesque little village, we inquired
in intelligent inhabitant of the way to St Savoury's College. A walk of five
minutes brought us to the headmaster's door. St Savoury's is a handsome stone
building, resembling a pork pie in shape, and decorated in the Gorgian style
of architecture.
'Kindly step this way,' said the butler, as he answered our knock. We followed
him. He halted before a door, through the keyhole of which floated an appetising
smell of cooking.
'Er - if the headmaster's at lunch -'we began.
'Not at all, sir,' replied the official.' the chef is merely correcting the
sixth-form Irish stew.'
'Come in,' said a curiously muffled voice in answer to his knock, and we went
in. The chef was standing at a long table, on which were ranged some 30 dishes
of Irish stew. He wore a white cap and apron. As we entered he appeared to swallow
something, and, turning to a bright, handsome lad of17, remarked, 'H'm, better
than last week, but still far from perfect. A false quantity of onions, and
the entire composition incline to be somewhat heavy. You may go.'
'Perhaps, as you are engaged -'we began tentatively
'No, no. Certainly not. Pray be seated. You wished, I believe, to his summing
up our educational methods at St Savoury's. Of what used hitherto has a public
school education been to a boy? Well, yes, as you say, he has possibly learnt
to play with a straight bat. But what else? Nothing, sir, nothing. All the Greek
and Latin he learned he used to forget as soon as he left school. Quite so.
Now we, on the other hand, instil knowledge that is really useful, and which
cannot be forgotten. We have a large and able staff of under - will chefs and,
beginning with theoretical work, the boys rise by regular gradations until,
by the time they reached the 6th form, they are capable of turning out a very
decent dinner indeed.'
'Ah you mentioned theoretical work?' we said.' what exactly -?'
'Ah, yes. Well, they read short histories, such as the history of the Stewit
dynasty, for instance, and write occasional essays.' the relations of Church
and steak' is a good stock subject. But it is a practical work on which we pride
ourselves. You see, it pays them to do their best. A boy who systematically
fails to satisfy the examiners has stay in after school and eat his work. Very
few boys need this corporal punishment twice.'
'And the results?' I ventured.
'Wonderful. Simply wonderful. This year, which is neither a bar of nor below
our usual standard, we have won no less than 14 important trophies at the universities.
I will not recount them all. Suffice it to say that at Cambridge Jones (a ripe
scholar, Jones, one of the finest clear soup composers we have ever had at the
school) won the Porkson prize for mutton cutlets, and Smith the gravy scholarship.
While in the Tripoes, as usual, the name of St Savoury's was well to the fore.
As for our other triumphs we have done well on the range. We were second in
the contest for her Hashburton Shield, and obtained the first five places in
the Fry competition.'
'Then,' we said,' you would describe the new system as-
' A colossal success. Go to the study of any of my boys. Once you would have
found the shelves littered with the dry Bohns. What define now? Meat. Good afternoon.'
'The journalistic profession,' said Tebbit,' is full of perils. Have you heard
about Smythe?'
I said I had not heard about Smythe. Tebbit needed no further encouragement.
'It is my painful task to inform you,' he said, 'that Smythe, though still living
in a sort of way, is for all practical purposes no more. He is going to be married.'
'Married!' I gasped.' Smythe! The perfect bachelor, the chaffer at Cupid, the
mocker at matrimony, the detester of domesticity! Surely you are thinking of
another Smythe. You have mistaken the name.'
'No,' said Tebbit,' is there is, alas, no mistake. She is a Mrs. Robinson. '
'Tell me all,' I said.' and what were you saying about the perils of journalism?'
And Tebbit explained.
'Smythe,' he said,' after roughing it for years at Oxford, came down without,
of course, the remotest notion of what he intended to do for a living. The Civil
Service was out of the question. Smythe was a man of parts, but his talents
do not lie in that direction. Finally, after he had rejected the army as philistine
and commerce as bourgeois, he consented to a compromise. He was to think the
matter over, and in the meanwhile to read for the bar.
'It was while he was reading for the bar - at the Millennium Palace of Varieties
- that he met a college friend of his. Over a social beaker they discussed the
position. The friend suggested that Smythe should take to do journalism. It
was the finest profession in the world, he said. All that you had to do was
to write articles and send them to different papers, and the editors sent them
back by return of post. In fine, a game closely resembling ping-pong only easier.
A child of 10 could master it in five minutes.
' Smythe was immensely taken with the idea. He became a journalist, and shortly
afterwards, got the post of Aunt Jane on a paper called The Cosy Corner. His
business was to answer the correspondence, much of which dealt with subject
of proposals of marriage. How should they be made? How should they be rejected?'
'Well?' I said.
'Well,' said Tebbit, 'for some time this presented no difficulty to Smythe.
During his university career it had been a sort of hobby of his to propose to
at least one of his partners at every dance he attended. I remember once remonstrating
with him for this, as being opposed to his known Bachelor principles. But he
replied, with some show of reason, that as his personal appearance was curious
rather than striking there was no danger, and it all helped to make conversation.
In this way he gathered some very useful facts about the art of refusing a proposal
of marriage. As for the question of how such proposals should be made, he held
definite views on the subject, and his male correspondents never went empty
away.
'After a time it occurred to him that it might be profitable if he collected
these fugitive papers, and published them in book form. Spoopendyke and Brown
took the book, taken under a magnificent royalty, and asked for more. He was
to write a companion volume, entitled More Refusals, on his own terms. Smythe
accepted the offer, drew up a list of terms in a large and liberal spirit, and
set to work to collect material.
'To all attempts on the part of his friends to dissuade him he paid no attention.
You see he had been paid in advance and long since spent the money. A week ago
we told us that one more instance would complete the volume. He seemed determined
to make it good one. He was, in my opinion, intoxicated with success. Otherwise
there is no accounting for his criminal rashness in proposing to Mrs. Robinson.
We all did our best to save him.'
'Alas, poor Smythe!' I sighed.
'And the most pitiful part of the whole business,' said Tebbit,' is that the
unhappy man appears now to enjoy his position. And ' - here Tebbit completely
broke down -'he - he's threatened to send me a piece of the wedding-cake!'.
(It is rumoured that Sherlock Holmes when he reappears will figure in a series of stories American origin)
I met him in the Strand. It was really the most extraordinary likeness. Had
I not known that he lay at the bottom of a damned moist unpleasant waterfall
I should have said that it was Sherlock Holmes himself who stood before me.
I had almost made up my mind to speak to him when he spoke to me.
'Pardon me stranger,' he said, 'Can you tell me where I can get a car for Victoria?'
I told him. 'D'you know,' I said,' you're astonishingly like an old friend of
mine, a Mr. Sherlock Holmes.'
'My name,' he said coolly.
I staggered back, nearly upsetting a policeman. Then I seized him by the arm,
dragged him it into an ABC shop, and sat him down at a table. 'You're Sherlock
Holmes!' I cried.
'Correct. Sherlock P Holmes of New York City, USA. That's me every time, I guess.'
'Holmes!' I clutched him fervently to my bosom.' Don't you remember me? You
must remember me.'
'Name of..? 'He queried.
'Watson. Dr Watson.'
'Well darn my skin if I don't surmise I'd seen you somewhere. Watson! Crimes,
so it is. Oh, this is slick. Yes, sir. This is my shout. Liquor up at my expense
if you please. What's your poison?'
I said I would have a small milk. 'Why, the last I saw of you, Holmes I began.
'Guess you didn't see the last of me, sirree.'
'But you did fall down the waterfall?'
'Why, yes.'
'Then how did you escape?'
'Why, I fell over with Moriarty. The cuss was a weightier than me somehow, so
he fell underneath. If two humans fall over a precipice, I calculate it's the
one with most avoirdupois that falls underneath. Consequently I was only considerable
shaken while Moriarty handed in his checks.'
'Then you weren't killed?'
'My dear Watson, how-? No. Guess I survived. But, say, how all the old folks
at home? How's Sir Henry Baskerville?'
'Very well. He has introduced baseball into the West Country.'
'And the hound? Ah, but I remember, we shot him.'
'No. He wasn't really dead. He recovered, turned every new leaf, and is now
doing capitally out Battersea way.'
Just then a look of anxiety passed over my friend's face. I asked the reason.
'It's like this,' he said;' I've been in the United States so long now, tracking
down the toughs there, that I reckon I've acquired an American accent. Say,
d'you think the public will object?'
'Holmes,' I said 'it won't matter if you talk Czech or Chinese. You come back.
That's all we care about.'
'It's a perfect cinch,' said Holmes, with happy smile.
(A writer in the Ladies' Field has replied to Rita's indictment of the Smart Set with the statement that their pleasures are in reality simple and strenuous. Their favourite game is said to be shinty, which is described as 'a wild in tumultuous version of hockey, in which there are absolutely no rules.')
It was Lord Adalbert Perceval Cholmondley-Cholmondley's first season in London
after an absence of five years. In the winter of 19 03 he been compelled by
financial troubles to emigrate to Clapham. For five years he had trekked about
the Great Common, teaching the natives of that unexplored region Bridge and
similar games of skill, and now, having by these means amassed a handsome fortune,
he had returned to the ancestral residence in Belgravia, prepared to fill once
more his long-vacated place in the Smart Set. The Red Book informed him that
his old friends, the Brabazon-Smiths, still lived at their old address. Thither
on the afternoon of his arrival he repaired.
As he approached the drawing room a curious intermittent thudding sound reached
his ears, and the voice of the footman announcing his name was drowned in a
burst of applause. Something interesting seemed to have been going on in the
middle of the room. It was evidently over, for people were strolling about,
talking to one another. Lord Adalbert saw his host coming towards him, and went
to meet him. Mr Brabazon-Smith greeted him effusively.
'What has been going on?' he replied in answer to a question. 'Oh, you ought
to have come earlier. It's over now. We just been fighting off the semi-finals
of the Smart Set Middleweights Competition.' 'The what?'
'I keep forgetting that you have been abroad for so long. We go in a great deal
for boxing now in society. I fancy we were taking to athletics when you left.
We used to play shinty then, if I recollect rightly. The game is still very
popular. Poor old Mount-Ararat - you remember him? - was killed at it the other
day. We all told him that he was too old, but he would play, and he got a fractured
skull and never recovered. But come round with me, and I'll show you a few of
our celebrities. You see their wiry looking man? That is the Duke of Datchet.
He has just beaten the stockbrokers' champion over the Brighton course. He is
talking to the man they call Sandow the Second. He can lift a billiard table
in his teeth. Strictly between ourselves he owes his great social success entirely
to the feat, for he has few other merits. Just beyond him is Sir John Gregory
who defeated Hackenschmidt at the Tivoli the other night. The Terrible Bart
they call him. Those two men are the best half-backs in the Park Lane Prowlers
FC. They are playing for England next Saturday against Wales. The prowlers have
had a very good season this year. They beat Oxford, Cambridge, Blackheath, and
Newport, and drew with Richmond after a great game. That tall man by the fireplace
is a full-back. He dropped two goals against Blackheath from outside the halfway
line. Both against the wind, too. Oh, yes, we are capital team. You must join
us. Then we run a cricket team, too, the Belgravia Butterflies. We were very
successful last season, and the Marquis of Anglesey, who headed our averages,
is going out with Warner's next team to Australia. There was a little difficulty
at first, but they said he might wear his jewels, so it's all right, and he's
going. Downshire has been invited, too. He's our best bowler. So clever, you
know.' 'And you still play Bridge, of course?' queried Lord Adalbert. 'Bridge?
Bridge? Don't know it. Is it a game? You must teach it to us.'
In one of the larger oases on the Great Common you will see a simple red brick
hut. On its doorpost are the words 'Wisteria Villa.' Enter, and you will be
shown to the presence of Lord Adalbert Perceval Cholmondley-Cholmondley. He
has returned to the wilds.
'No, sir,' said Pettifer firmly, 'when they bring in a law converting every
town in the kingdom with more than one house in it into a garrison town, the
problem of how to get and how to keep the domestic servants will be solved.
But not told them. No, sir.'
Tudway who, I had noticed, was looking uncommonly depressed, groaned heavily.
'I too have suffered,'he said bitterly.'yet there was a time when I flattered
myself that I had solved the problem.. It was a book the gave me the idea. To
this day I have grave doubts as to whether I ought to have read that book..
You see, the Daily Express called it an undoubted work of genius, but then the
Daily Mail said it was a meretricious tissue of nonsense, which had no value
either as literature or as a humanist document. I took what I own was rather
bold step. I read the book with a view to forming an opinion on my own account.'
'Tudway!'said Pettifer in a scandalised voice.
'Yes, yes, I know,'went on Tudway hurriedly.'but, of course, I shouldn't often
do that sort of thing. But I did on this occasion; and, as I was reading, a
paragraph caught my eye which seemed to me to offer a complete solution of the
servant difficulty. The writer (and Lady) observed:'I have gained much my strength
and gracefulness of body from scrubbing the kitchen floor, to say nothing of
some fine points of philosophy. It brings a certain energy to one's body and
one's brain.' Now, I don't know if you grasp the profound import of these words,
but to me it was obvious. Once promulgate the idea, thought I, that the work
of a domestic servant makes for beauty, and the world will become one vast Registry
Office. Our servants will not ask for wages. All they will stipulate for will
be a good kitchen floor. They will not want a day out. They will request as
a privilege to be allowed to stay in and scrub. In a few years we shall be selling
vacancies in our domestic staff to the highest bidders. I tell you, the thought
inspired me. I gave the thing a trial. For a whole month I stuck to it in spite
of acute housemaid's knee, which even now cause me no small agony. How I worked!
It was a theme for a poet. And, talking of poets - er- curiously enough, I myself
-. A mere impromptu fragment, you understand. Thrown off on the spur of the
moment. I call it 'Culture.' It's rather good,' he added modestly. And before
we could stop him he had begun to read: -
'Oh, I want to be an Apollo,
A model of beauty in grace.
I sighed for a supple figure,
I longed for handsome face.
A wished to be tall as a Horse Guard blue,
And broad as a large-size door.
So I called for a duster, brought a pail,
And I scrubbed the kitchen floor.
'I want to rival Plato.
I sighed from mighty brain.
I yearned to be wiser than Bacon
(say half as wise again).
To be rich in beautiful, wonderful thoughts,
(at present I'm rather poor);
So I tucked my sleeves up, doffed my coat,
And scrubbed at the kitchen floor.'
'Well, then,' I said, as he coughed preparatory to beginning the third verse,'but
surely what you ought to do is to publish your photograph with the advertisement
.'Result of a month under our Treatment. The Apollo of Grace and the Plato of
Wisdom. Look at me. I tried it.' That sort of thing, you know. What some people
want is some ocular proof of the merits of your system. Why don't you publish
a photograph, Tudway?' 'The photograph you describe,'replied Tudway, with pronounced
gloom, 'has already appeared in the daily papers.'
'Ah! And the result?' Pettifer's tones were not sanguine.
'I have advertised in this way daily during the last five weeks for three servants,'
replied Tudway, 'and I am still short of that number by a matter of one cook
and two housemaids.'
Mr Punch, sir, - greatly stimulated and encouraged by the kindly spirit of
hospitality in which you received my projected Society drama, I venture to submit
to you some notes in connection with a novel which I now have in hand. When
an editor rejects a manuscript of mine, I send that a manuscript to another
editor. When he accepts one, I send another manuscript to that editor. This
is the strenuous life. The purpose of my Romance is to revive the type so popular
a few years back, in the manufacturer of which there has lately been something
of a lull. I refer to the inspired prophecy kind of novel, in which England
is overrun by invaders until the last few chapters. In my style, and especially
in my strict regard for the probabilities, I shall follow as nearly as I can
the example of my great predecessors.
After years of secret preparation, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and
Monaco suddenly declare war on England. England is totally unprepared. She always
is in novels. Also, by the ingenious device of sending the admiral in command
a bogus telegram to say that his aunt is ill, the Channel fleet is got out of
the way. A vast consignment of assorted invaders sails up the Thames, and lands
at the docks. The authorities have grown so accustomed to alien immigrants that
they see nothing peculiar in these manoeuvres, and, sir Howard Vincent being
away, no obstacle is offered to the invading force, which proceeds to occupy
the town. This is an easy task. The example of the stock exchange pedestrians
has long ago been followed by every branch of society, and the date chosen for
the invasion is also that fixed for the various contests, with the result that
London, with the exception of two back clerks, the bookstore young man at Waterloo,
three waiters, and Mr Arthur Bourchier is totally empty. The Stock Exchange
is down at Brighton, The guards at Cane Hill, and everybody else either at some
distant spot or walking to it. The bank clerks and the bookstore young man are
speedily overpowered. The Garrick Theatre, though strongly held by Mr Bourchier,
is subjected to the unfair criticism of large shells, and demolished, and the
three waiters welcome their compatriots with shouts (and bottles) of Hoch. London
is in the hands of the enemy. End of book one, to be called Blue Ruin.
In book two, Wake Up, England! there are thrilling accounts of battles and so
on, and the shocking goings-on of the invaders generally. There is very little
damage for them to do in London, for the LCC have recently been at the streets,
but they do all they can, and when the feelings of the reader are worked to
the proper pitch by my vivid descriptions, I bring in my grand climax. One night
Mr Winston Churchill and the editor of the Daily Mail (on whom the command of
the British forces has naturally devolved) receive a visit from a mysterious
stranger with a strong German accent. It is Herr Julius Seeth. In consideration
of being allowed a monopoly in performing lions for the space of his natural
life, he offers to bring his peculiar methods of education to bear on the Strand
rats, mobilise them into an army Corps, and send them against the foe. The chapter
descriptive of the final struggle between the trained rodents and the invaders
is one of my most powerful bits of work. The hair of the reader will shoot up
like a rocket. The rats win and the war is at an end. That, I think, it is all
today.
Yours, etc,
Henry William Jones.