MERRY MILESTONES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3196, 21 September 1917, Page 7

MERRY MILESTONES

(By Jessie Mackay.)

THROUGH TIME WITH "PUNCH"

IV--1871. With 1871, romance timidly flutters back; the cult of tho bizarre and the hideous is dying. The men are stronger, the women are softer now. The outrageous 'hoop and metallically mediaeval contour above have given place to fashions voluminous, indeed, but with a piquant, Bella Wilfcr-ish effect, with the modish panier and tho gonerous chignon— though the latter has frequently the effect of a vegetable sheep clapped on tho back of the fair wearer's head. John Tenniel still holds tho place of honour on t'he cartoon page, having long since been called to the position vacated by "Dicky" Doylo when "Punch" aired a Briton's views on tho Papal Aggression.

We aro pointedly reminded that 1871 marks the Meiji of elementary education in England, with the election of School Boards. "Punch," like the AngloSaxon he is, takes mild fright at these new-fangled notions, and, with what ground we are not now advised, issues the warning: "We are in a position- to state that these additions will bo made to the curriculum "under the Act—dancing, etiquette, croquet, logarithms, riding, water-colours, hieroglyphics, anatomy, bezique, calisthenics, and economy. There are people old-fasaioned enough to think it might 1)6 as well to give our poor neglected children plain joints at first—reading, writing, arithmetic—and let tlie entrees stajid oveiv Also we have these illuminating 'lidncational Questions," dedicated to the London School Board_ Who was Zero?—A Roman philosopher who played on the fiddle while inventing the thermometer. ' Who was Plutarch?—He was King of the Infernal Regions, married Porkupine, and subsequently rewrote Heathen Mythology. Who was Theodolite?—A native of Alexandria and a Christian historian. How did Shakespeare uso Niobe as a simile?—" Like a large theatre, all tiers. Who were the Nestorians?—Followers of Nestor, one of the wisest and best oi Q Who were the Marionettes?— Heretics living in Syria, , . Were there any vegetarians living in tno fourth century?— Yes, they.were a- party of the Arians, just as the Vegetable Maronites were a section of the Maromtes. Who was Hero?-A Heroine beloved-by Neander. who wrote his church history, and was then drowned bathing. The devastation of France by tho Prussians oasts a shadow, over the paper. Sometimes a light quip is heard, such as this:— "Every German soldier, a correspondent tells us, carries a Tiy.mn-book in his pocket. Very nice this—No Herr without a hymn!" . More often we see the manacled, wasted form of France writhing before the Tvohea of war and famine. And this doggerel of the hour rises to. the height of prophecy. now. Louis Napoleon's early ventures had brought nothing 6ave ridicule:— But when, 'having first, upon Satory's His soldiers with sausages bribed, and champagne. They saw him high perched on an i.mperor's throne, . . They gave him great credit or brains oi his own. 'Tis Bismarck that now for a. lion dotn pass With those who r.ot long ago thought him an ass: He holds Blood and Iron, they see, at command . . To work out tho schemes which his. genius had planned. • While Iron .is ductile and Blood will obey, So long will be Bismarck the man of his grow stubborn, Blood chooso not to flow. As Bonaparte went, Bismarck likewise may

Blood°Epent, Iron helps to crush ruusclo and bone. Commanded-but they have a will of their own. • The Chancellor's bidding to-day they attend : New Oaesar of Germany—"Look to ' the end!" The same theme is. touched upon in this series of "Strawberry Leaves: Froi.i Latest Letters from the Hon. Horace Walpole of Strawberry Hill, favoured by our private spiritual medium. To Sir Horace Mann. "Bismarck is throwing his promised bouquet on the tomb of Napoleon. Wo hear that the bombardment of Paris has begun, that the infernal inventions of science, Moloch's trade, are slaying the women and the little children, and thai a Sunday night is fixed by the religious and gracious Gormans for a feu d'enfer, Take that as the war news in little, foi I have no heart to write out in full the chapter of murder. As if the last sis months had not sufficiently sickened <ue with the horrors of war, with slaughter, agony, and starvation, a party here is agitation, as the vile phraseology goes, for Englands' interference, which means, if it means anything, that unless n'c can patch up a peace (and (hat is impossible) Englishmen are to be sent to be shot, mutilated, and starved." Tlion the ethereal pen of the erstwhile man of letters glides On to more congenial themes:— , "Don't you love a man who can write a charming book i'or children?" he asks. "Then rejoice that Mr. Knatchbull Huguessen is promoted into office. Children aro the only people worth writing for because they are the only critics from whom you can buy neither flattery nor silence." ' . ~ Here an Englishman.is stung into 1 the not unnatural complaint that his country is expected to be Iho buffer wherever troubfe is:— . , ' ■ "European belligerents never clamour for the intervention of their Continental neighbours as they do for ours. Austria, ilussia, Italy, Spain, maintain neutrality without incurring remonstrance. But wo seem to be looked upon by all nations as the polico of the world. Afi such, it they really wish -us to net, they Bliould instruct us with power to enforce tho peace of the world.' . . ■ Hero iB an aftermath of the inimitable "Happy Thoughts"-that made tho narno of I'. C. Burnand, later to be himself the editor of "Punch," famous in the adventurous sixties. • . And here again is a blithe, and kindly cartoon of a kilted young chief sweeping his royal brido off the ring fence of hereditary isolation into tlie warmer clime of the common lot. Alas! much as "Punch" and all true souls rejoiced at tho Queens consent to this, the first of sucli intermarriages in the light of day, precedent was hard to break, and John of Lome spent many a frozen hour far in the ceremonial wake of his Louise ere she was allowed to take her wifely place at all tiroes besides him. And yet, in Scottish thouglit, the son of M'Callum More was fit for any alliance on earth, and it was the Queen who' should have been "tho prood woman" on that betrothal day. Of the pos.y of Scottish poems that "Punch's northorn laureate supplies at intervals, one voices the general view of the pauper , scions of Continental royalty who came a-wooing to Windsor :— Ye German princes, poor and proud. Ye sae do Commons scorn, Ye wadna hae Louise allowed To wed the Lord 0' Lome. Are yc nao blate, ye yauper chiels, Yo burdens on the soil. To think ye'ro owing for your meals To ither people's toil? Needless to say, Prinoo Christian's wooing of Louise's sister that same year is a bagatolle to "Punch" and the truo romance. Already licensing reform was agitating the country. A placard of the Bill:— Hours of Closing, Polico Inspection, No Adulteration, No ' Drunkards, ,No Shnm Travellers—is engaging the dismayed attention of Boniface, and a cubby-crony is heard offering the eolations of cxpon-c-nce: 'Lor' bless yer, guvnor, you 'aven't no call lo bo afraid. Why, Mr. Bruce, i he tried to reform the cabs. Well, 'ero we are as wo wos—no better an* no wuss." ■; Again, "Bung and tho Baron" depicls ! tho united menace of a Licensing Bill and a Local Eating Bill looming before those whom it concerned, and Bung remarks to his coroneted brothed - in potential misfortune, "Look here, my Lord, if you an' mo an' our westcd rights is to bo walked a-top of this here way, the sooner wo conies to ft red Republic; tho better." And the Baron elusively' murmurs, "Hum, ha! Ya-as, jus' so! but "thinks tliero is something in it, nevertheless." But in truth this year of grace, 1871, ,

is a modified Meiji in several senses. Vote by ballot has just been brought lit by Mr. Forster, and the terrors of the new census paper are giving the conscientious Mrs. Prigs of the day deep concern as a matter of pen-work. One Master M'Grath, a -prize greyhound of fame, seemed to go as far as most in promoting the belated rapprochement of Celt and Saxon in his supposed audience with the Queen:—

You b'lieve one who knows from • Lough Foy le to Oaje Clear, Let the Queen on the Green Isle, look in once a year; On the Rath Riogh at Tara the palace restore, And in Erin sit crowned, Erinls monarch, once more. And like mists in the sun would melt hatred and wrath. In the light of your presence-trust Master . M'Rrath!

Had the Liberal Ministers but listened to Master M'Grath a year lateir, when they turned down the vice-royalty of the Prince of 'Wales at Dublin "on the Bcora of expense"!

Again, the tide of reform was flowing in from another direction, as we see in "Essence'of Parliament," June 24—"The Dissenters triumphed over Lord Salisbury. The House of Commons, by 129 to 89, rejected the Marquis's new university tests, and Lord Salisbury, like ' a gentleman, gave up all his other points instead of contesting them against the feeling of the House. Therefore, let there bo joy in Jireh, shonting in Salem, Laughter in Little Bethell, ecstasy in Ebenezer, Bumptiousness in Bethesda, and zest in'Zoav, for the last of the Dissenters' grievances', (save one) is .taken away, and the young Nonconformist may now go up unto the university and crown himself with air carnal glory." Lastly, the Suffrage slogan begins to be heard, and the year goes out with the scandalised remonstrance of Mr. Punch: "No, Judy, no! I'll yield to nona in husbandly docility, and I'll own you are a jewel of a wife for sense and amiability. But I won't sign any petitions against female disabilities. I don't want, feminine fineers in the Masonline Parliamentary Pie!" (To be continued.)