Chapter I: Front Matter

PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOLUME 93.

AUGUST 27, 1887.

* * * * *

THE PRICE OF SUPPORT.

_A Fragment of a coming Contemporary Romance._

"Is it possible that Mr. GLADSTONE, not content with having allied
himself with the Parnellites, or with having endeavoured to sow
jealousies between the component parts of the United Kingdom, is at
last endeavouring to purchase the parliamentary support of the
South-Eastern Railway? The idea seems almost too humiliating to be
entertained; but it is not easy to place any other interpretation
upon this new and startling announcement. Can it be conceived that
the safety of England ranks as nothing in his estimation when it is
brought into competition with the possibility of winning a few votes
from the interested supporters of a commercial enterprise?"--_Times._

VOL. I.--THE COMPACT.

IT was on a sultry August evening in the memorable year 1887 that a stranger, whose anxious gaze, now and again fixed on the entrance, denoted the fact that he was awaiting the arrival of one of the Members, crossed and re-crossed the pavement of the Hall of the Reform Club with a step that indicated a high condition of nervous trepidation. To the casual observer he might have passed for a solicitor in an extreme state of irritability. The Hall-Porter, however, who had watched him narrowly, had recognised him for who he was. He knew that the restless interloper, who had several times peered into his carpet-bag, and examined specimens of Channel chalk, and had, when he thought no one was looking, hacked a London, Chatham and Dover trains'-bill with his penknife, was no other than the famous Sir EDWARD WATKIN, the then Chairman of the South-Eastern Railway Company. He approached him.

"He won't be long," he said, intuitively guessing the object of his visit, and addressing him kindly. "Ha! hark! Here he comes!" He had scarcely spoken, when a roaring cheer, borne on the sweet evening air, broke the comparative silence of the street outside, and in another minute a surging and struggling mob, who were shouting themselves hoarse, had deposited safely from their shoulders, on the door-step of the Club, their great hero and idol, whom they had thus, as was their wont, nightly carried in triumph from the House.

The ex-Premier, for indeed the buoyant bearing, the high shirt-collar, and the contagious enthusiasm of the new arrival proclaimed his identity at once, dashed up the steps three at a time, and, waving a radiant farewell of thanks to the crowd, bounded into the Hall, where, seeing the stranger, he instantly seized him by the arm, and hurriedly led him to a recess.

"This is very good and genial of you, my dear Sir EDWARD," he commenced.

The other eyed him cautiously. "You wanted to see me?" he rejoined, sulkily.

"Yes, indeed!" was the brisk reply. "I wished to tell you that, as you had been wicked enough,--ha! ha!--to conceive the idea of uniting England and France by a Tunnel, I had been wicked enough also to determine to help you to do it. Ha! ha!" He laughed long and loud. His interlocutor stared at him for a few moments aghast. Then he clutched him.

"You mean this?" he asked, growing pale with excitement as he spoke. "You mean that you will vote for the Bill?"

"Not only vote for the Bill, but make it a Government measure." As he spoke he was interrupted by a commotion in Pall Mall. Some Junior Members of the Carlton were by way of a practical joke, common enough at this season, dropping a Unionist Liberal out of the first-floor windows into the area, and their merriment over the exploit resounded loudly down the street. The ex-Premier heard it and a wonderful smile played upon his almost beautiful features. "You see, they are going to pieces next door," he added exultingly, "I shall be in in a few weeks, nothing can stop me; and then, I give you my word, you shall have your Tunnel."

The other approached him. There was a curious look in his eye. "You have your price?" he asked. "Name it," he added under his breath, glancing around him furtively to see they were not overheard.

The great Statesman winked knowingly. "Merely the South-Eastern vote," he whispered. "Come, is it a bargain at that?"

"Done!" was the quick rejoinder. They grasped hands.

"Show this gentleman to a four-wheeler," said the ex-Premier.

So they parted. But as the Grand Old Politician turned towards the supper-room there was a fine triumphant lustre beaming in his eye, for he knew, that if he had possibly betrayed his country, he had at least squared the Railway Company. He had made the _compact_!

VOL. II.--PAID IN FULL.

The country was about to face a great crisis in its history. Yet, as the year 1894 opened, there were little evidences of the approaching storm. It is true that the Gladstone Cabinet were still in power, and were passing exasperating measures. But this was nothing new. Last year they had abolished Compulsory Vaccination, and had passed the Country Estates Popular Appropriation Act. They had inaugurated the first Session of the present one by suppressing the Volunteer Movement, and cutting down the Naval and Military votes respectively to the modest figure of L2,000,000 a year; and they pointed to the Channel Tunnel, now opened about sixteen months, for a triumphant vindication of these Imperial economies. They argued that a country that could pour a perpetual stream of Cook's Tourists night and day over to the Continent, had given a guarantee for preserving International peace such as would warrant it in reducing the expense for its defences to a pecuniary minimum; and, though they met with some opposition from the Permanent Departments, and were hotly criticised by an angry mob of naval and military men, who found themselves, at a moment's notice, both thrown out of work, and deprived of their pay, they, nevertheless, carried their point, and effected the proposed reductions. But a thunder-clap was about to fall upon the unsuspecting country from a blue sky, and the Channel Tunnel, which had inspired its misguided leaders with a baseless confidence, was destined to inflict the shock.

It became known in London suddenly on the morning of the Tuesday in the Easter Recess that the approaches to the Tunnel had been suddenly seized by a hostile French force that had landed by the night-mail disguised as tourists, and that the key of the apparatus destined to flood it in any case of emergency, was not forthcoming, the Chairman of the Company, who had charge of it, having suddenly disappeared without leaving his address. It was also further rumoured that the guns commanding the shore-exit had been spiked by active Shareholders anxious to protect their property from destruction at all hazards, and were useless. When, therefore at eleven o'clock, the second edition of the morning papers announced that a French army was pouring through the Tunnel, and occupying the neighbouring heights, at the rate of ten thousand men an hour, the panic became indescribable. Nor did it diminish when it was further known that the French Ambassador, leaving a threatening ultimatum behind him, had that afternoon taken his departure for Paris. The country flew to arms. Sir ARCHIBALD HARRISON hastily collected the available force at Aldershot, and took up his position on the Hog's Back, and awaited the approach of the enemy with 213 men, all told, and three guns. They took no notice of him. At twelve the following day it was known that the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, falling back on Sydenham, in command of a handful of Volunteers and a squadron of the Household Cavalry hurriedly got together, had capitulated in the Refreshment Department.

The details of the disaster spread like wildfire. The consternation was terrific. The LORD MAYOR went into hysterics, and was, by common consent, removed to Colney Hatch, while an angry mob invaded the War Office, and seizing any members of the Ordnance Committee they could lay hold of, forthwith dragged them out, and lynched them in Pall Mall. That same evening a French army, 350,000 strong, entered London in triumph.

A few outrages marked this occupation. The Nelson Column was thrown down, Waterloo Bridge blown up, Piccadilly re-christened the Rue Boulanger, and the whole of Madame TUSSAUD'S Collection seized as National property.

So matters stood, but the cutting off of the food supply, thirty shillings being charged at a West-End Club for a plate of indifferent tinned-rabbit, soon brought matters to a crisis. The Cabinet that at the first approach of the enemy, had instantly retired to the Island of Lewis, came cautiously up to town and opening negotiations for peace with the French Government, finally signed the Tottenham Court Road treaty, and provided for the evacuation of the country by the invader. The terms were stringent and somewhat severe. In addition to agreeing to the cession of India, Australia, the Cape, Canada and all her Mediterranean possessions, together with the division of her Fleet among the Navies of Europe, England undertook to pay an indemnity in ready money at the Bank of England of five-hundred millions sterling.

* * *

As a cordon of French troops was keeping back the sullen crowd that thronged the space in front of the Royal Exchange and watched the waggons heavily laden with the bullion that was about to be transferred to the South-Eastern Railway for transmission to France, a tall, elastic figure wearing a high shirt-collar, pushed eagerly up the steps of the Mansion House, and gazed reflectively at the scene that was being enacted below. Presently some one touched it. It turned.

"Ha! Sir EDWARD," was the bright recognition, "who would ever have thought of meeting you again, and who would ever have conceived," the cheery voice continued, "that our little compact should have ended in this!" The speaker pointed with a significant smile to the waggons of bullion lumbering beneath. "Well," responded the other with a suggestive dryness, "my support got you into power at any rate!"

A marvellous brightness overspread the features of his interlocutor. "Yes, it did," he replied, "and though I am quite confident that posterity will say it was worth the price, I see," he added airily, waving his hand in the direction of the Bank, "that at the present moment it is apparently being _paid in full_!"

* * * * *

"WELL, GOOD-BYE, DEAR MRS. JONES. I'M AFRAID I'VE PUT YOU OUT BY CALLING AT THIS UNEARTHLY HOUR."

"OH, I HOPE I DIDN'T SHOW IT!"]

* * * * *

SALUBRITIES ABROAD.

_Hotel Continental, Royat._--Our party here (which, somehow or another, PULLER has contrived to get together and introduce to each other by the simple means of inducing M. HALL to give us a room to ourselves for a small _table-d'hote_ at the un-Royat-like hour of 7.30) consists of La Contessa CASANOVA, the English wife of an Italian merchant, the head of a large house of business in London--she is Marchesa or Contessa, I am not certain which, but PULLER styles her _Miladi_ and _Madame_. She is devoted to the serious Drama, and her pet subject is SALVINI in _Othello_. Her daughter, an elegant young English girl, lively, amusing, and with a bias in favour of the very lightest forms of theatrical entertainment.

Then we have Madame METTERBRUN and her daughters, Anglo-Germans, thorough musicians, with WAGNER at their fingers' ends,--literally, as they are accomplished pianists. There is Mrs. DINDERLIN, who was here last year, and is taking the waters seriously, and who knows when to put in the right word at the right moment. Cousin JANE who is taking the waters still more seriously and who is an excellent listener: myself an impartial referee: and PULLER the Solicitor out for a holiday, who is alternately in the highest of spirits or the lowest depths of depression, according as the waters and weather affect him. Outside our party there are others whom I meet occasionally, consisting of the lady who finds fault with everything French, the gentleman who laughs at everything French, the grumbler whom nothing satisfies, the contented man who is pleased with everything, the man who after being here a day is intensely bored, the man who from the moment of his arrival is always studying Guide-books and _indicateurs_ to see what is the best and easiest way of getting away again: the patient who has come all the way here to see the Doctor and then refuses to do anything he tells him: the patient who has come to find out what on earth is the matter with him: the man who doctors himself, and two or three ladies of my acquaintance of whom I only catch occasional glimpses as they issue from Sedan-chairs or muffled up like the Turkish women, merely recognise me with their eyes, incline their heads and pass on their way with a little drinking-glass in their hands.

To me Royat is an amusing place: it is certainly a pretty one, and its waters in most cases are decidedly of lasting benefit. What those "most cases" are, the patients themselves best know.

* * *

For expanse there is nothing like the sea, and for grandeur the snow mountains. Unless I go up to the Puy de Dome--which I do not mean to do, for I have been up there once, and never, never, never will go there again--I cannot see either. And even from the top of the Puy you can only discern the sea, or Mont Blanc, with a very good glass, on a very clear day.

* * *

M. BOISGOBEY'S description of a Parisian Club in his latest book (I delight in BOISGOBEY now that there is no GABORIAU) called _Grippe-Soleil_ will amuse London Club members. The only two Clubs in Paris I ever saw were not a bit like BOISGOBEY'S description.

* * *

When anyone who has been under treatment a week, unexpectedly meets a friend here, he stops short, stares at him, examines him from head to foot, and then exclaims, in a tone of utter astonishment, "What!! _you_ here!!" as if the new arrival were either an intruder or a lunatic. The person thus addressed immediately retorts in an injured tone, "Well, what on earth are you here for?" and then he adds maliciously, "there doesn't seem to be much the matter with _you_." Now to say this is to utter your deliberate opinion that the person you are addressing is at Royat (or any other Salubrity Abroad wherever it may be) under the false pretence of being an invalid, and is therefore, to put it plainly, a shammer, an impostor.

* * *

After this greeting, explanations follow. The first man has to prove his right to be at Royat, and the second man has to admit the evidence to be incontestable, on the condition, implied but not expressed, of his own case being taken as thoroughly warranting his taking the baths and _traitement_ generally at Royat.

* * *

Then comes the question of Doctors. "Who shall decide when Doctors disagree?"--but who shall decide when patients disagree about Doctors? "Whom do you go to?" asks the suffering SMITH of the invalid Brown. "Well," says BROWN, apologetically,--because he is not sure, this being his first visit, that he might not have gone to a better man, "I go to Dr. CHOSE," and noticing the astonishment depicted on his friend's face, he hastens to explain, "SQUILLS sent me to him." The suffering SMITH professes himself puzzled to know why on earth SQUILLS always sends his patients to CHOSE. "Dr. REM'S the man for you, my boy," says SMITH. But BROWN feels that he is in the toils of SQUILLS, and that it would not be fair to him or to CHOSE, if he suddenly left the latter and sought the advice of Dr. REM, on the sole recommendation of SMITH who, after all, is not a professional.

* * *

Then two _habitues_ meet. "I always go to CHOSE," says eczematic JONES, dogmatically, "first-rate fellow, CHOSE. All the French go to him. _They_ know." "Ah!" returns gouty ROBINSON, with conviction, "I never have been to anyone but REM. He's the chap. All the English go to him. Best man in Royat." And if it weren't the hour for one of them to go and drink Eugenie water, and for the other to take his second glass of St. Mart, they would have a row and come to blows.

* * *

PULLER tells me that there's one London Doctor, describing himself as a Gynaecologist ("A guinea-cologist," parenthetically remarks PULLER), who always sends his patients here. I think he says his name is Dr. BARNES. "He sends so many," says PULLER, "that I propose changing the name of the place from Royat-les-Bains into Royat-les-Barnes." I see why he introduced the name of BARNES. Fortunately he is so delighted with this _jeu de mot_, which I fancy I've heard before, that he is off to tell his friends in the Parc, and, as I pass a group, I overhear him explaining the point of it to a French lady and her husband, with whom he has a speaking acquaintance. For PULLER likes what he calls "airing his French," and is not a bit shy.

* * *

The Band is performing another new tune! How is this? I can account for it. It rained nearly all yesterday, and so the musicians didn't come out. How did they occupy themselves? In rehearsal. Well here's one good effect of rain at Royat, it brings out the new tunes.

* * * * *

THE LORDLY CECIL ENTERTAINS HIS SOVEREIGN. HATFIELD, 1573 AND 1887.]

* * * * *

A Pretty Plate to Set Before the Queen.

"The Queen's Plates are henceforth to be devoted to improving the
breed of horses."

A MOST wise change that sense for long has wished,
But, Phoebus! how the "Platers" will be dished!

* * * * *

AN INVITATION.

(_To a well-known Air._)

"Mr. FREDERICK MAUDE, Honorary Secretary of the 'Liberal Union,' has
resigned that post in consequence of his disapproval of the attitude
taken up by the leaders of the 'Liberal Unionist' party towards the
leaders of the Liberal party, and of his inability to support the
programme of a Tory Government."

COME back to Hawarden, MAUDE,
For the Tory black flag's flown!
Come back to Hawarden, MAUDE,
Leave HARTY and JOE alone;
For the Government plainly is all abroad,
And the Unionist game is blown.

* * * * *

A "CHEF DOUVRES."--The L. C. & D.'s new steamer _Empress_.

* * * * *

ALL IN PLAY.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Town is supposed to be empty, except of the poor persons who are forced to attend the Houses of Parliament, and the toiling millions of the East End, who are, however, of no account in the West. In spite of this dearth of population, the Gaiety (which I attended on your behalf, looking and feeling as much like you as I possibly could) was very full on the first night of _Loyal Love_, a play which has apparently been put upon the stage for the personal and exclusive benefit of Mrs. BROWN-POTTER.

Certainly this talented lady has vastly improved since she made her first appearance in _Man and Wife_, and has only to continue at the same rate of progress to become in a very short time a really admirable actress. _Loyal Love_ is rather a foolish piece, and reminded me equally of the _Lady of Lyons_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _Box and Cox_. The plot was feeble in the extreme; and had not Mrs. BROWN-POTTER made a decided point by calling a rude and ancient king, who _would_ wear his hat in the presence of ladies, "Old Man," I really think the performance would have fallen rather flat. As it was, the phrase (which was accepted by the "first-nighters" as a colloquial "Americanism") put everyone in good humour, and the last Act, with its amusing mock poisonings, and comical arrests and counter-arrests, went with every token of genial satisfaction. By the way, the "bottle trick" (by which poison is turned into wine) should be treated more avowedly in a spirit of burlesque. Were a decanter of pantomimic proportions introduced, the effect would be excellent. _Loyal Love_ is not a good name for this funny little--it is only in four Acts--play. It is a pity, as the hero and heroine are always declaring that they would like to live and die together on a desert island, that it was not called _Mr. and Mrs. Robinson Crusoe_, with an explanatory subtitle of the _Purposeless Plotter, the Death-Dealing Wine-Cellar, and the Grand Old King_.

At the Adelphi a new and original drama called _The Bells of Haslemere_, has been produced amidst the enthusiastic applause of the entire Press. I am sorry to say I was a little disappointed. No doubt my expectations had been unduly raised by the "notices." It appeared to me that there was nothing absolutely and entirely new and original in the play, save a series of hats worn by Mr. JOHN BEAUCHAMP in the character of a fraudulent trustee. However, it is only just to say that the _chapeaux of Joseph Thorndyke_ were unique. Had they been produced as "exhibits" to an affidavit read during a summons heard before one of the Chief Clerks in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, they must have assisted materially in rendering virtue triumphant, ay, with or without an appeal to the Judge. One of the authors of the piece, Mr. SYDNEY GRUNDY, is a well-known barrister, and no doubt the legal training of this learned gentleman suggested their most appropriate introduction. _Joseph Thorndyke_ uncovered, might have been faithful to his _cestui que_ trust, but _in_ his hat he could only have proved--what, alas! he was--a fraudulent trustee. Mr. TERRISS as _Frank Beresford_, bore a striking resemblance to the naval lieutenant in the _Harbour Lights_ whose escape from one action (on board ship) to defend another (in a police court) roused the enthusiasm of the pit and gallery for so many hundred nights, and Miss MILLWARD in both pieces was much about the same individual. But in spite of this conventionality, the play was decidedly interesting to the audience, who filled the cheaper parts of the house. In fact I am inclined to believe that the critics are right, and that _The Bells_ will ring for any number of nights. The scenery was admirable, and I should like to see it again. I am not quite so sure that anything else in the drama would induce me to pay the Adelphi a second visit. Stay, I think I should like to bestow another glance on Mr. BEAUCHAMP'S hats. I am all but certain, that from a fraudulent-trustee-point-of-view, they are absolutely faultless,--yes, absolutely faultless.

The Crystal Palace, now that the new Bill is on the fair road to become law, seemingly has taken a fresh lease of popularity. The evening _fetes_ are a great feature, and jaded Londoners can scarcely do better than to take a train from Victoria or St. Paul's, and spend a pleasant couple of twilight hours amidst the lamps and (on Thursdays) the fireworks. In the daytime there is always an excellent panorama, and frequently a successful play performed by its original London company. This last has always a charm for

Yours most truly,

ONE WHO HAS GONE TO PIECES.

* * * * *

ADAM SLAUGHTERMAN.[A]

_By Walker Weird, Author of "Hee Hee," "Solomon's Ewers," &c._