Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsCHARIVARIA.
Punch, February 26, 1913
Now that the town council has issued an order that no strap-hanger in a tram-car need pay a fare, it is a real pleasure to observe the renaissance of chivalry in Chicago. Men who used to go to earth behind evening papers on the entrance of a woman now spring to their feet in platoons without a moment’s hesitation.
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In the same city there is at present a scarcity of funds such as has not been known since the great fire. According to the reports, even the police department is pressed for money. And when one remembers the ingenuity of American police-forces in raising the wind such a statement becomes highly impressive.
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At a recent show a new kind of dog was exhibited. One of its points was that its feet were longer and larger than those of any English breed. Almost certainly one of the police-dogs of which we hear so much.
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Mr. Allen Baker, M.P., speaking at a dinner last week, said that the phrase, “the quick and the dead,” was applicable to motor-omnibuses. The quick were those who dodged them; the dead were those who did not. Next week Mr. Baker will tell a new and diverting story about a curate and an egg.
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After sitting for fifty-four days, the Kelb vulture at the Zoo hatched out a chick, which it promptly ate. Encouraged by this episode, the authorities hope that in time the Kolb vulture may become self-supporting.
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News reaches us of a snail in the same collection which, according to the report, came out of its shell and crawled about uncovered. And we had hoped that the Salome craze was gone.
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A Bill has passed the Nevada State Legislature, by which persons wishing for a divorce are compelled to stay in Reno six full months, instead of three, as in the brave old days; and a stampede of American citizens is expected hourly in the direction of Chinese Turkestan, where a bill of divorce is written out at the same time that a marriage is celebrated.
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Asbestos pockets for the accommodation of lighted pipes and cigars have been invented by an American tailor. Also useful for the modern novel.
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According to the Times, the general earliness of Spring is a cause of anxiety to the earnest gardener. We did not know that there were any earnest gardeners at this time of the year. We thought they had all knocked off work to listen for the February cuckoo.
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In Devonshire, however, they have definitely given it up. “Even if the cuckoo has not actually been heard,” writes a Devonian correspondent of an evening paper, “I have just seen a fine specimen of the tortoise-shell butterfly.” This craven spirit ill becomes the men of Devon.
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Complaints have been made of the “disreputable appearance” of the grave-diggers present at funerals at Fulham Cemetery, and, in addition to being provided with a suitable uniform, it is understood that they are to be sent in batches to the next play at the St. James’s Theatre, in order that they may acquire an ideal, at any rate, with regard to the trouser-leg.
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Two Territorials have been fined for non-attendance at training, their defence being that the sound of firing gave them a headache. Unless the enemy, in the event of an invasion, consent to use air-guns, or somebody invents noiseless powder, we see no way out of this impasse.
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Mr. John N. Raphael told in a lecture last week the story of how Gounod, having a bad bilious attack, sat down at the piano and set it to music. We think this must have been the piece we heard at a concert not long ago, though Gounod’s name was not attached to it on the programme.
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Questioned concerning the bomb outrage at Walton Heath, an official of the Women’s Social and Political Union said: “It might have been done as a joke.” One has, of course, to be in the mood to appreciate this kind of genial fun. Once you see it, you laugh heartily.
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Man the Brute. Within a few months, the wife and three daughters of a resident in Pottsville, Pa., U.S.A., have undergone operations for appendicitis. “The head of the family,” adds our informant, “says he is enjoying perfect health.” He might at least have had the tact to pretend that he had toothache.
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A very poor time of it prisoners in America seem to have. Mr. Bourchier made us familiar with the Third Degree of the New York police; and now comes the news that, during trials in the Danville, Kentucky, police court, music will be played on the piano while the accused are testifying—the idea being that it will “break down the stubborn wills of prisoners.” For ourselves, rather than maintain our innocence in rag-time, we would plead guilty from the start.
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A football match in Scotland had to be stopped the other day because the crowd, annoyed at a decision of the referee, broke on to the field in a solid mass and refused to go back again. Surely it would have been sufficient for Scotland to refuse to play football with France because of the violence of the French spectators, without going to the length of showing them how that sort of thing should really be done in style.
Unsigned column as printed; credited to P. G. Wodehouse in the Index to Vol. 144 of Punch. Wodehouse wrote seven columns in early 1913, taking over temporarily from Walter Emanuel, the longtime author of the “Charivaria” column.