MERRY MILESTONES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 7, 3 October 1917, Page 8

MERRY MILESTONES

THROUGH TIME WITH "PUNGH"

(By Jessie Mackay.)

VII.-1901. We turn the pages of thie "Punch." of 1901 with a. curious Ifip vau Winkleish feeling—thi6 unfamiliar "Punch' in the bravery of red covers and sheeny black and white between. It ie uo one change that arrests the miud hero, where all is change; but (he general sense- of increased momentum. TPe have taken a flight of sixty years through time. At first we hardly know we wore moving, .so gently passed the procession of the decades. But it was >i far cry from 1871 to 1881, a farthor from ibSJ to 1891, and now thero is no need to look at this fine inset of Linley Sa.mbourno's "The Dnwn" to realise that we are both in a new century and a now world. Ii is the pictures that first command —and retain—attention. The old names, Du Maurier's and the rest, are gone, ' Sir .fohn Tenniel, the beloved. "Jack- | sides" of "Punch's" Attic Bound Table, closes fifty faithful years of service with, a last noble cartoon that epeaks the hour and the crisis. A windy-tTossed Bellona hurls her chariot onward while Peace.and Father Time, with tho babe 1901 in hie arrne, pray her to vein in her battle-steeds. Phil May's star is rising; Bernard Partridge and Linley Sambourne are masters 'of tho field. The cartoons are bold and apt; for the written word, one misses Sir Oorgius Midas, Mr. Briggs, and that rocky-faced Scot who "banged" the metropolitan] skiEenoe, and caught illegitimate ''fush" on ygouo "Sawbaths." But caricature was never more detailed and subtle than here, in.this "Parliamentary Aquarium," where a supercilious 'Joseph Chamberlain, has caught the very height of frozen malice that glowers from the eye of a. cat-fish. Here is a motley "Aviary of Celebrities,'*" too, where tho coy dove, Marie Corelli, hides behind a /monster fan, while.a dark toucan, Madame Blavateky, perches between- two eeeming American birde of contemporary j'eather, and two- cheerful old blackbirds, General Booth and' Mr. Spurgeon, take cheir dim January sunlight on yet another.bough. And Owen Seaman, now appears, writing i loyally to the pictured "Homo-Coming of the Chief" —Lord Roberts. We nil know that "0.5.," now Sir Owon Spaman, worthily fills the place c-f Mark [ Lemon and 1. C. Burnand to-day. For 'Greater Britain, the first matter of moment is that the colonies have been discovered. In his "Colonial Calendar/* Mr. Punch bestrides the Empire hko a Colossus, now galloping on a zebradappled charger after a leggy Victorian kangaroo, now taking—tea, we with a genial Maori chief, "at homo" in hie pool at Whakarowarewa, ajid yet giraffe in pursuit of two South' Afrion monkeys. Also he seems to bo making some less pleasant discoveries at home, euoh as that eipieased in "A Twentieth Century. Song," inspired by the .• obliging magistrates who let tho Clitheroe bars stay open till ono,on Christmas morning. Gone are the Sans Souci days of Mr. Stiggins when England's moralist-in-chief carols after ibis fashion:— Drink out the old, drink in the new, Drink out a strait-laued Olitheroo; The beor ie ■ flowing, let it flow; Drink out the i-ober. In tho "fou , ." Drink out the old teetotal causo; Drink in the Cecil's new regime; Drink in, drink in the drunkard'B dream Of more indulgent litjuor lawe. Drink out Sir Wilfrid's rone crusade, A nation's shame, a Cecil's sport; Drink out the foolish Peel report: Drink in the golden New Free Trade.

It appears to be thought that poets and women'.go short in Britain when birthday favours are dealt. The women liave.lost no sleep over tins omission; the poets, who do finally get there, are not so pachydermatous. Owen Seaman, sings the Homeric wrath of Swinburne, not for himself, but for the "un-Sirred',' Alfred Austen: — j Watchman, what of. tho Knight? What ie the deference done To builders of beauteous rhymes. In the young year's honours that iun To a column or two of "The Times"? Science and Bervice of State, Trade and tho treatment of bile, Power for the parieh debate, Nerve for the damming of Nile;— Hence are the steep heights scaled By virtue that keeps to the path; But never a poet has nailed Even the boon of a Bath. ■ Give me no guerdon of mortals; Zeus-gotten and cherished of Zeus, I fling their pay to the portals, Hound-bound, of the nethermost deuce I With a hitch to my Bacchanal wreath, I mock at the titles of man, When at Putney aloof on the Heath I can prance to the pipings of Pan. We are in the time of folk-lore revival, a renaissance uot only of lustdc superstitution but of national ceremonies of tradition. And "Punch," at least, has do time for the Brummagen glory of the revived rite of marrying Venice 'to! the Adriatic:— ■ .

What's that, noise from the Eialto? Can it be the sound of cheers? Will the good Venetian public countenance such awful things? Shall a Mayor and Corporation dare to wed the sea with rings? Venice wed. the Adriatic in the Twentieth .Century? Venioe, with the penny steamboats where the gondolas should be!— What a shocking mesalliance for the Adri- ' atio Sea!

The literary caricature of 1901 has lost none on tho edge and sparkle of the golden days of "George Uβ liarnwallo" and "Chikkin Hazard." Yet there is a , latent'revolt in the reader's mind when these "Dramatic Sequels", of a cynical decade stir tho bones of ladies loved and..lovers revered. Wo bear,with some sort of patience, perhaps, tha'final elopement of Lady Teazle with Charles Surface, disinherited again in favour oi an avowedly rakish Joseph. But, though it is likely enough 'that Claudio did not. quit being jealous of hie recovered Hero, and that Benedick and Beatrice bored each other to extinction with conversational fireworks, is it kind-to,'ell us so after thrce giamoured centuries? Indeed, ■ the True. Romance is ■ hunted back, to the very caves of the earth in this decode. What Angelina of the Victorian prime would have said this>Spcak not' of love—no magic in Tho word-no charm-so please leavo off. If my allcotions you would win, Why, sneak unceasingly—of golf! The sweet chenib3 who "poke Frenss" and aeked inopportune angcl-queslions in Dα llaurier'e time havo vanished, and we arc assured on the authority of a noblo lord .in "Tho Times" that tho bookmaker has now a flourishing juvenile oliontole, "the nursery being indoctrinated with the betting' ideas of the nurse." . Also, Society has grown' so absolutely gregarious that Miss Ina Sigisbee cannot think of a chance of five minutes' intermission in which her adored Evan Stillways can propose. A. meal at home is unknown. Sho would gladly take ill if it meant being aeht homo, with, tho promise of an "occasional visitor" later, but it is now the fashion to go to a hospital "and bo ill among all sorts and conditions of people" At the same time, Evo line a London Eden for a refuge when all elso fails— the gardon suburb:— > "Lady Kensington-Gower eet the fashion after reading 'Elizabeth and Her German Garden,' and so wo are allowed to follow," writes another ewcet young thing. "Wo now call a spade a epado with refreshing directness. Tho dear old Marchioness of Eougely has becomo quito an artist at top-dressing. ■ Her grandson, young Arty Choquo, who is considered the best-dressed man in town, now wears a smock frock down Piccadill.v, and is taking lessons in weeding ,and gravel-scratching from ji. professor." Tho same half-blase, half "now thought" wave of fashion begins to feed the drama in such mournful stago-work us tho wooing of Thomasiua, a pule, thin, spectacled dnmsol, who is the presiding genius of Cutpriso's Tinned Tomato Trust. She is lifelessly invited to share tho fortunes and ideals of Cutpriso himself, a lank, Carnegie-ish knight of industry—a now Josiuh- Boundorby, who, liko Thomasina herself, has placated thinking Society by rising from the ranks. ■ The maiden yearns to accopt ono of two moro attractive suitors, holding lowly office in the Tomato Trust. But, since one is the masquerading son of a duko and tho other tho eternally banned son 'of a millionaire with an ordinary start in life, she conquers hor heart, and becomes Mrs. Cutprise. Even tho shade of Alfred tho Great

contemplates the festivities of his own millenary with a weary, philosophic eye, has no memory of burning cakes, aiid, being driven lo buy;about his candleclock, doggedly replies-.—

"If I invented it, I didn't patent it." Across all this dallianco of (ho now Lotus-caters falls the shadow of a hoieinn parting—tho passing of Victoria the Good. "Punch" has his own memorial, and that no mean ou&~» reproduction or sixty years' cartoons of Itoyally revered and loved. Leech, Tenniel, and t.bo rest tell ugaiu the story of her proud young wifehuod, villi her babes upon, hor knee. Linley Sambourne atencs for the garish "Kainer-i-Hind" of the late seventies by his pathetic "Jlcquiescut" of to-day. A gallory of long-perished statesmen, and kings surrounds the Queen whose fortune it was to outlive, as monarch,' .nil predecessors, as it was to outbid them all in the affections of the .English people. And yet, as strangely happens, the wouian-idea under Victoria, as under Wilhelmina, goes a little farthor than the chivalry of personal relations. Suffrage' is ' jiowhero to the foro this decade, but naughty Mr. Punch forecasta. Emancipation Day in the' manifold «c----tivities of that wedded .Hypatia, Mrs: Heotorine Philbert, as outlined on a Sunday morning to the weary. partner of her sorrows—her joys aro lived otherwhere than at home:— •'I am going to look in at tlio liberated Ladies' Club. A paper of rnine, 'Shall Husbands Bank, a.s Domestic I Pets?' is being read. You may bear it through the electrophone. 1. slinll lur-ch .it the Scribblers' (Jlub. Dr. Edwardine; Jones reads a, portion of her delightful scientific, romance, 'Yellow Decadence, or tho Airship Belle.' You might see, George, what is the matter with Kildebraudo'.s electric ■ cradle. It rocks so jerkily I fear it may disturb the child's cerebral vertebrae. The phonograph ia in the child-room, and I have left, outthreo antiquated tunes, 'Alabama Coon,' 'Hush-a-Bye,' and 'Lazily, Drowsily.' See that Hermia does not spend the whole day in the laboratory; she is ouly fourteen, remember/" But the world is not rapt in 'bookish dreaais without. Here is a Japanese 6amurai unsheathing his sword ns a sly, padding Kussian bear sticks his claws into the Korean frontier, and i.ot far away is read the courtly prayer, of the Chinese Emperor to the Russian demand for the signing of the Manchurian Convention :— ' "Most Majestic Earthquake .Russian Tsar Man,—Not liking demand- for signing of Convention; no can do. Beseech hid Most Imperial' Equal-to-iSewnesa to expand his benevolence and righteoue- ' net's, and restore that which he has not yet taken, but about to be., If otherwise, and Imperial Earthquake I4ussian Tsar Man take plovince, pletty plenty row in Europe. Loving to please IJojfcstio Earthquake, but to give up Manchuria—no bet!"

At homo tho divagations of Lord JCoscbery in the increasingly unwelcome tesk of steering a Liberal Opposition are much in view.- Now.ho is eeen buttoning a leisurely collar at the door of a bathing-machine -while a stout and ilustered Liberal Party is fighting with, the waves:— ' "No, I'm not coming down there, tut I will give you some useful hinte in the natatory art from here." Again, lie is depicted as tho later Ulysses, discoursing at large:— It little profits that an idle Peer I sit beneath the sun with empty hands. Sniffing the lotus of an afternoon. I cannot rest for very long on end. For I haTe been a portion of the Turf, And drunk delight of running three-year-olds Par on the ringing slopes of Epsom Downß. Come, let us give tho sea another chance; It may ho we shall spring a loathsome leak. And ultimately rot unon the sands: It may be we,shall touch Elysian fields. And sit with l blessed Harcourt hand in hand, And wallow in official asphodel.

All through, tho yoar there is the sick background of a grumbling war reaouiug the guerilla stage, but- refusing to die. The blind leaders of,,a mow or lens blind country are depicted following each other, in line—Chamberlain, Salisbury, Brodrick, Balfour, and Liinsdowne—with inano cheerfulness, while on the vuldt Lord Kitchener reads the latest news from England:— '"House up. Grouse plentiful. Yacht racing in full swing.' AVoudti' when ve shall get our holiday?" I j Here is Lord Salisbury' asleep : while John Bull shakes him and asks, "What more can I do to win this war? I want it over." ' I In another placo Linley Sambourne shows a plump General, every single hair standing on end with angry surprise us he reads the report of tlie War Office Commission:—"What! run the War Office on business lines? Hope we haven't come to that yet." A moment is spared from' British entanglements to glance across: the llediter-; ranean and behold n pretty Moorish raid coyly receiving the tender advances of a trim French soldi??, -while a. Jack Tar in the background eays to his companion, a Teutonic eon of tho Bea, "I say, mate, looks as' if that there Miss Morocco had taken up again with the Frenchman, doesn't it?" and Fritz replies:— ' ■ "I think, my friaud, we also here not wanted are."

But ft whole array of blue books is simmered into -soup in tiiis delightful extract from the delightful "Book of Beauty" series. This particular presentment of contemporary literary slylo deals with Maurice Hewlett as a historical novelist, and the impression is extremely graphic: "Sow.to , the lieges of his English lady came challenge of tourney from ' Oom of the Doppers, Lovd of Outreyalba. And,the lists were, strnightly set in Hie Val de Long Tomps. And from' the borders of our Lady of the Snows and from Isles of the Southern Cross Hew winged proffers of ■ help and vassal service. . And it was really rather curious. For my Lord Red Tape, out of his great knowledge of warlike matters, made ietort courteous, saying, "Oy Dens! What should we with horse? Send us foot.* ' "But by forco. of whelming numbura and a stubborn hardihood begot o£ British 1 beef, they overthrew nd few of the chivalry of Oom. and some they made captive before they could mount and invoke the hills to cover them. .*nd Le Sieur Bobs lo Kandahar, holding the tourney to be accompliehed, himself tpolc ship whence he came. 'At this, the' heathen, emerging from their, parole and' other sanctuary,' rallied'for ihe onset, and they swept the lists like to Egypt's plasue of locusts. And about the iimo of the seventeenth moon (shaped sickle-wise for sign of bloody aftermath) the then Lord Pwl Tape, (for the former had been lifted nigher tho throne ae one'that'had the French speech most nimble on his tongue) woke from a- draped sleep, calling 'To horse! a crown a day and confound the expense!' So, the traverse being a windy matter at this eeaeon,: there was mounting in Ted haste agaiust the second anniversary of the tourney, "Meanwhile, to the tents of thepuit&int and most Christian Do Wet ■■-amo heralds for parley; Now you shall know that ho was the match of threo leopards for padded cunning and agility. It vas .1 dog-cat nature, keen nose and mobile paw. And the envoys of peaco ho bado tako and flog and the third he foully , slew. But tho tidings, of (his feat cf ' arms was brought lo Lord Oom lying perdu among tho oversea Dutch. And him the messengers found deep in Holy Writ. And on tho hearing of their talo he said, 'By the rood, 'twas well done. , " But tho year ends on a courageous uote, with nothing of hate in it, if also wilh little that was then called pro-Boor and since by other names that oven "Punch's" English prescience could not then forecast. Tho soldieis are seen, holding a Mark Tapley rally on tho veldt for Christmas Eve, and on another page eloso by is seen a lovely helmeted rJritanniii dancing with no King nor foreign paladin, but with her own comely daughter, Colonia—"lt doesn't matter about the others; wo can jilwavs danco together." The curtain rings down on TO years, and on tho dead, century that saw "Punch's" fair beginnings in 1841. All things have changed, but "Piinsh" liiinseTr, and tho enduring, slow, honest British spirit of which he has -emained the interpreter, the apologist, the •montor. To-day he is heartening tho men in the trenches nnd the watching women at homo. To-morrow he, may bo ringing In an ago of righteousness and peace.