Vanity Fair (UK), July 14, 1904
[See attribution note on Vanity Fair menu page]
 

In the Stocks.
 

CAN loyalty be on the decrease in England? It would seem so. People are still saying that the King appeared at Ascot with a crease down the sides of his trousers instead of at the back and front. In a really loyal country, ugly stories about the King would not be allowed to circulate.

•   •   •   •   •

Exactly the same feeling of indignation has been created in America by the decision of a Judge of Illinois that insanity is no ground for divorce as would result in England if somebody attempted on his own authority to alter the rules of cricket. National pastimes cannot be tampered with in this off-hand manner.

•   •   •   •   •

Grand as was the finish in the Gentlemen v. Players’ match, it was not nearly such a Society function as the ’Varsity match. In the latter the papers came out with columns on “The Dresses at Lord’s.” In the former the only thing mentioned as having been worn was the wicket.

•   •   •   •   •

A correspondent of the Express, having been roasted alive inside an omnibus on a hot day last week, complains vigorously of the lack of ventilation in these vehicles. He babbles of “blazing heat” and “foul reek.” It is a subject which might well make one heated.

•   •   •   •   •

It is stated that there are no fewer than four hundred and eighty daily papers in Japan. No wonder the Japanese are doing well in the war. Their Generals have four hundred and eighty pieces of advice (all different) to choose from whenever they are about to take any step.

•   •   •   •   •

This may be the reason why they are so hard on war-correspondents. They know the breed.

•   •   •   •   •

TO A HENLEY MINSTREL.

(After Swinburne.)


Black bawler of blithering ballads,
 Swart (soi-disant) son of the States,
Why poison our lobsters and salads,
 Turn the strawberry sour on our plates?
Why make heavenly Henley the target
 Of the songs (save the mark!) that you shout?
Why on earth don’t you go down to Margate?
 Get out!

When we’re prone in a punt on the river
 Or coiled in a cosy canoe,
The sweet summer stillness you shiver,
 You cork-burning criminal, you!
If my bank-balance bulged to a billion,
 Not one small, single sou would I give
For the songs which you steal from Pavilion
 And Tiv.

Dark dealer in drivelling ditties,
 Devoid both of tune and of sense,
In which not a shadow of wit is,
 Think well ere you plague me for pence:
I’m not one who sticks at a trifle,
 I know neither pity nor fear,
And to Henley I’m taking my rifle
 Next year.

•   •   •   •   •

We are accustomed to make a great deal of fuss if a letter is delayed a few days in the post. In Lisbon they whoop with joy if one gets through to them at all. There was a fire the other day in the house of a postman of that city, and, amongst other interesting curios, the firemen found fourteen thousand undelivered letters on the premises. “There!” chuckled the honest fellow amusedly when the fact was mentioned to him, “I knew I’d forgotten something. Be forgetting my own name next.”

•   •   •   •   •

’Twas Brillig, the hour of the evening four-’arf, and the heart of James Speck, labourer, Wroughton, softened as he sat in the village inn and listened to the metallic notes of mine host’s gramophone. Soon he was observed to rise. “Poor thing,” he exclaimed, pityingly, “it’s ’usky.” And into the instrument’s gaping mouth he poured half-a-pint of the best home-brewed. Alas, the spec. was a failure. The kind-hearted man has had to pay nine and sixpence for his good Samaritanism.

•   •   •   •   •

In spite of the Bard there is sometimes something in a name. A Kentish Town gentleman has just been committed for trial for hitting his wife. His name is Bangs.

•   •   •   •   •

In 1930, says a writer, the population of America will be 150,000,000, and it will go on increasing until in 2000 a.d. it reaches 500,000,000. Pessimist!

Rasper. 

 

 

Printed unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse as “In the Stocks” for this date in Money Received for Literary Work. It is possible that not all individual items are by Wodehouse.

 

Editor’s notes:
I have not been able to find a specific Swinburne poem which is being parodied here, but the elevated, alliterative language and the short final lines of stanzas are certainly characteristic.
It is apparent from the reference to “cork-burning” and “soi-disant (so-called) son of the States” that the author is annoyed by English entertainers in blackface, and is not talking about genuine African-American musicians.

—Neil Midkiff