Vanity Fair (UK), September 1, 1904
[See attribution note on Vanity Fair menu page]
 

In the Stocks.
 

A NEW variety of potato has been disposed of by a Lincolnshire firm at £11,760 per ton. There is a nasty shock waiting for the man who orders a chop and fried potatoes, and is charged just under a hundred pounds for his lunch.

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Mr. Tree, according to the Express, says that he approves of more than one tier in a theatre. This is, perhaps, the reason why, as stated in the same paper, he intends his reading of Caliban “to arouse the pity rather than the laughter of the audience.”

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An armless youth of the wild and woolly West has been fined £1 for stealing vegetables with his toes. Even the armless, it seems, are sometimes dangerous.

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“Where did the accused strike you?” asked a Brentford magistrate last Tuesday of a plaintiff. The injured man hesitated. His delicate mind shrank from mentioning in full Court the medical title of that part of the human frame divine, and Mr. Barrie’s euphemism was unknown to him. But he was equal to the emergency. “He struck me——” he began. “Yes?” said the eager magistrate. The clerk of the Court, suffused with anticipatory blushes, covered his ears with his hands. “He struck me, your Worship,” said the plaintiff, firmly, “in the Ealing Broadway.” A sigh of relief ran through the Court.—The crisis was over.

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THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS.

(According to a West End manager, the theatre of the future will have no gallery.)
 

Up till now we’ve always acted
 With a trembling at the knees,
For the men who paid a shilling
 Were so difficult to please:
And with feverish excitement
 We would estimate the odds
Of the piece that charmed the boxes
 Being hooted by the gods.

But, according to an expert,
 Novel theatres will be planned,
And the gallery will vanish
 In our revoluted land.
The millennium must be coming:
 Can we need a better proof
Than the total abolition
 Of the critic in the roof?

Yes, there’s something to be looked for
 In the golden time to come,
For the stalls will all be crowded,
 And the gallery be dumb;
And the sensitive young playwright
 Dreams of happier days in store,
When the hooters cease from hissing,
 And the booers boo no more.

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A shrewd American financier, in England for a visit, has been much mortified at seeing in a society paper that he is “doing” London. He wishes to point out that he is not here in his professional capacity.

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In a jeweller’s shop in the Strand there is displayed a notice to the effect that “this shop must be cleared in a week.” Now that Sergeant Brue has left the Strand, burglars should find little difficulty in accomplishing what the jeweller asks of them.

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Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge denies Mr. Swift McNeill’s statement concerning flogging in the Navy. According to this Bridge a grand slam is unknown, and the Navy is so strong in trumps that even a little slam is infrequent.

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Just for the present New York is conscious of a certain loss of appetite. Somehow, it does not seem to enjoy its meals as it once did. The Bureau of Chemistry has been examining the City’s food and drink, and telling everybody all the jolly things it has found in them. German sausage, for instance—a food to which New York is passionately devoted—is made, it seems, of Continental dog-meat and horse-flesh. Scotch whisky is tinctured with creosote to give it a smoky flavour. We should now recommend the Bureau to turn its attention to champagne. There is more champagne drunk in the United States than all the vineyards of Rheims could produce. Pending further investigations, it would be better if New York gave up eating and drinking altogether.

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If rumours are to be believed, the state of the English Merchant Service is parlous. British ships are getting into foreign hands, and foreign hands are getting into British ships.

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.