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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
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"Is there?" I asked. "I can't see what it is."
"As curiosities," he explained. "We're curiosities, we are, and that's our only chance when it isn't raining at eleven o'clock at night. People take to us the same as they_go to Madame Tussaud's or the British Museum. Country people, I mean; and people from Australia. 'Let's have a hansom ride,' they say, 'while we can. Just to say we've had one.' Then there's people who want their children to do what they used to do when they were children themselves. And I had a gent the other day who wanted to be driven all over the place, just, as he called it, to renew the past. But I think he was a bit up the pole. What do you think?"
"Undoubtedly," I replied.
And then I said good-night, and he drove off; and when I was inside the house I found that in some mysterious way I had given him the second half-crown as well as the first.
Perhaps that is how it is that they can still keep going.
Jack (just turned fifteen)."Mother, are you positive you haven't made a mistake about my age? You know how casual you are about dates."
IN PRAISE OF THE TAPE.
I'm going to give up the daily Press And study the tape instead; 'Tis the only way at this time of day To steady and keep one's head; The tape is bad for the eyes, I own, And it sometimes runs amok; But its negative virtues fully atone For the tricks that are played by Puck.
The tape that I mean is not the machine At the club, that reels out slips Of the width of garters, with names of starters And winners, and racing tips; No, this yields volumes in type-script columns Of war-news, great and small, Which the porter tears off and duly bears off To pin them up in the hall.
The tape is unable to print a map, But it never raves or squeals; It has no novelist critic on tap And you can't peruse it at meals; It gives the official news without Superfluous gloss or frills, And it hangs no headline horrors out Like the yellow newspapers' bills.
Some terrible phrases, as common as daisies, Embroider each War-scribe's screed, And the tape hitherto has contrived to eschew The worst of this baleful breed; (If any one here is not quite clear And for information begs, I allude to the making of omelettes and breaking Of antecedent eggs).
If I were in charge of the Press Bureau Instead of pulling our legs I'd lay a ban on each newspaper man Who wrote of omelettes and eggs; And if I were Kitchener I'd deport, To the land of the Tosks and Ghegs, The novelist corps who exploit the War And deluge the Press with their dregs.
Editorial Candour.
"Beyond that all is rumour, and we trust and believe unfounded rumour."—The Times.
