MERRY MILESTONES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3199, 25 September 1917, Page 7

MERRY MILESTONES

THROUGH TIME WITH "PUNCH" (By Jessie Mackay.) VI.-18M. Often, indeed, has Mr. Punch worn the prophet's mantle, and most will say that he wore it when he penned the preface for 1891. The occasion is a naval exhibition, and the shade of Nelson has left Elysium to revisit the scenes of his earthly glory. He is not satisfied with 1 the prospect. ■ ' ■ - 1 "It seems to me, 6ir," he says, "considering the part the English.Navy has played in English story, that it has hardly been adequately sung by onr bards and eet forth by our statesmen. Why should there not be a Naval Exhibition always on view?" "The naval history of our country aad its naval needs," replies the genial sage, "are not, as they should be, forced home ■ to our intelligence by every device of pedagogue, poet, • paterfamilias, showehaper, and statesman; AVhen they arej we shall perhaps have less official fumbling, financial waste, and naval inefficiency." 'Took to it, Mr. Punch.V sighs the vanishing shade. A classic little tribute at the outset reminds us that Dr. Heinrich Schlie.mann's death took place in the last days of 1890. There is no' international jealousy of his Trojan laurels in England:— Helen, who -fired the topmost spires of Troy, ■■■.-' Should spare a smile for the Sbrth- ' Gorman boy Who, from.a sketch of TJium aflame, Was fired with zeal whioh led so straight .to fame. • . The Behring Sea dispute, if not a burning, question, was certainly a freezing question in 1891. Here is a cartoon showing an angry Bull and an.agitated Jonathan bestriding the Straits, and between them a mild,. pensive' seal has bobbed up through the ice with a plea for mercy and' peace that shows Mr. Punch, at least, has learned the lesson of "little brotherhood" which Mowgli learned in the tropical forest:— Belay, you two lubbers, avast there! avast ' there! ' What signifies squalling , ' and squabbling? If 'twere not for me, mates, this cold Behring Soa.. mates Would hardly strike .yew* f.s so tempting. Do grant your ,-poor prey, if 1 may r.-.ake so free, mates, From slaughter some annual'exempting. You're both arguefying a good bit too fast there While that which you stand on =eems wobbling. "Our Booking Office" ive learn that .a. certain meteoric young AngloIndian, has made a more detailed bid for tame with "The Light That Failed," and obviously the .luminosity has failed to capture "Punch":— "Publishers say there.is more stern strength, in this novel than anything he Kae ever written: it will not b'e surprising if it is the literary sensation of the year, i will only; say that the sensation produced in me is one of the most disagreeable I ever experienced.',' The characters toe for the most part inordinately dull; preposterously conceited, and insufferably brutal. As for Dick Heldar, tho frero, no more dieagreeable and hateful liully-puppy ever thought and talked in disconnected gasps through 97 pages. Mr. Kipling seema to; despise the public, 'who thnflt! with their hoots and read with their elbows/ but so clever a. man. might Gurely elioiv his contempt leas crudely. , Kipling, I love thee but never uioi-e write such' another talel" Mr. Punch, with the silken sheath of the old literary 1 reticence between his manners and a naughty world, like'the nged Laureate who has just thundered his second "Loclcsley Hall" at a perverse and unseemly goneration; finds himeelf at Variance with most of the gods, of the Lato Victorian Decline. His "Pocket Ibsen" is spitefully close to the text. The lawless pencraft of Nora in. the "Doll's House"—a misdemeanour onealways feels as atlen to the picture as her subsequent new thought, heroinics—has just come to rrjjiit, aJitl fier adoring Torvald, sobered into positive cattinees by the fear of : puulicity, shortly informs his "liT ging-ing-bii' v d'( that her lato iathtf was" a rook, dnd that she take 3 after him. A secoiul'lctter from tho relenting Krogstad removes the fear, and Torvald grows sentimental again :— "Come under my wing, my poor little 6cared song-bird," he begins. The dialogue proceeds:— Nora: "I havo winff3 cf my own, thank you. Torvald. and I mean to use them." Torvald: "What? leave your pretty cago and the poor little innocent e»gs? r, Nora: "Exactly, a'.t down and we v.-ill talk it over. Has it ever struck ywu that this is tho flrsti tinte wo havo ever tallied over serious tlings?" Torvald: "Come. I like that. ' How on earth could wo talk over serious things when your mouth wae always full cf macaroons?" /

Nora: (shaking her head): v Ah, Torvald, tho, mouth of the mother of a. family should have more serious things in it than macaroons. I see that now too late. No you have wronged me. So did papa. You both of you called mo a doll, a squirrel, and a lark. If I had been properly educated I ehould have known better than to date poor papa's signature! three days after ho died. I have to gain esoorionce, ard get olear about religion, law, and "things and -whether Society is itsht,or I am. And I must' go away and never como back till I am educated."

, Torvald: "Than you may he away sojne little time. And what's to become of me and the eegs meantime?"

Nora: "That, Torvald, is entirely your own affair. I have a higher duty than that to you and L the eggs. {Looking solemnly upwards) I mean my duty to myeelf."

But gentle Mr. -Punch, like- him who toid tlie later tale of Lynette and Lyonors, Tilings Nora back in ten minutes from her first educational Venture, a ■midnight inquisitional tour of the municipal Oieatros, and leaves her nibbling a macaroon out of Torvald's hand.

Hall Caine, the unspriiTt Hall Caine, with the dew of Munannan's Isle freshpeaned, on his Parnassian garland, fares better in the "Prize Novel" series where

"Uie J.'ondman," by Called Abel, author of "TTie Teamster, comes in tor some lun'i'ily badinage. In I8»l the first frail seedling of Australian Federation shows up through the stubborn soil. Sir Henry Parkes lias declared that if the colonies continue apart they must become hostile to each other. Therefore one great Union Government must be achieved. Whereupon a i symmetrically appointed boatload of young colonials is seen spanking along the Eiver of Timp, steered by a Kangaroo with Mr. Leo Britannieus on the bank bursting into paeans of parental pride:— , • Look a most likely lot, Tjionlets lithe and young ;— Pace? They will make it hot,. Few can have feathered and swung Better. Tall talk is rot, But haug it, I must give tongue. Who would have guessed that the dawning hopes of Woman Suffrage were turned towards the Tories in 1891? Yet here, at a meeting of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, a resolution is carried to consider the claims of women to the franchise when the owners or occupiers of property up to specified value.. And it is Mrs. Faweett herself who declares, as she has declared in other company since, that- the proposed addition (then a bagatelle of 800,000 voters) would be against the disintegrating powers of anarchy, socialism, and revolt. A more anti-re-volutionary force, she repeats, could not bo found than such a phalanx of women, mainly' middle-aged and anchored. But Punch the Seer knows his Lords better than that, and- chants, like tHo oracle he is:— . Partlet-s may save duf Oapitol as geese Onco did the Itomau-nigh a million Junos 801 l back the tido of Revolution. Who knowsP \ Not PriamrSaliYonry. Does he look askance At- the new Amazonian Queen's advance? Achilles Gladstone sorely- they mietrusT. Which side will give them more thaa fsin it must? Tlio middle week of July, 1801, rounds "Punch's" jubilee, and the Ever-Young breaks forth' in meditative eong:— Fifty years ago, my public, fifty years ago! . . Forty-one was fierce and licry. young Disraeli then Bravely buttered stout Sir Robert as Ihe best of men. Pheugh! But in how) short a time was Ben's envenomed steel Pestincd to find l'ank lodgment in the breast ot Poel. Then the Corn Laws crushed Free Trade. Free competition now

Breeds the sweater, iarsh exploiter of the toiler's brow. When bravo Peel achieved repeal tome deemed tho task was done. But Commissions upon Labour sit :'n Ninety-One. Then Tom Hood could sing that sons that could move a world to tears. Condon Lanndrydom on strilie now in Hyde Park appears. True, Punch, like the knight he is, now is fighting for the London washerwomen, just as in Eighty-one he joined Annie Besant in the battle of the matchgirls. A poetic license, and wholly pardonable, is the anachronism that dates Hood's "Song of the Shirt" back two years to round the retrospective cycle of chivalry in Forty^one. Finally, no one will dispute the closing couplet:—

Science, Liberty, Pure Mannere, Order. Peace, Goodwill, ! "Punch." for fifty years has championed and . will champion still. In 1891 F. CI Burnand sits in the editorial chair, but the kindly "Punch" tradition of Lemon, Landells, and Mayhew lives on in this jubilee number and after. There is anger in Britain when the wail of Jewish victims i 3 heard in Russia. The. Tsar is depicted as wooed on each side by the two winsome Republics, Prance and America, to lighten his yoke both upon his own people and on the Jewish strangers within his gates. Late in the year the bells of London ring for a Eoyal wedding, and "Punch" echoes the words of the Prince of Walee when he speaks of his English daughter-in-law:— The Prince's word still -will strike a. chord Of sympathy and pleasure In English hearts. Not from abroad Young Clarence brought his Fair home-grown flower, brlsht English May

Whose promise cheers December. Does Mr. Balfoni, we wonder, ever turn to that page of 1891 which to many a thinker now reads like the sowing of Cadmus? True, 'there were dragons' teeth enough, round Tara before Lord Salisbury's, nephew went in the late 'eighties to be Chief Secretary for Irelaud and put down the epidemic of crime that raged round the unsottled land question. ; Beside the ■ "ladyljko manners" objected to by Lord Randolph Churchill on an earlier occasion.- Mr. Balfour displayed an unexpectedly firm hand and set of unalterable convictions. When he returned he left order behind him, but not love. This is how "Punch" beheld the situation in. the dying days Of 1891. The fair Colleen, Ireland, is depicted in the role of Kdtherine the Shrew. Beeide her etands her bluff Petruchio in the contemptuous majesty of rags and patches. On one side, Petruchio's henchman offers Kate a trim cap labelled "Social Government," while on the other Gladstone, as a-Haberdasher, offers her a, stately-plumed hat labelled "Home Eule," and the play takes up.tho soliloquy of the masterful bridegroom: / ' "Last session she ruled not, nor shall next session. Resolute government is the only way To smooth these stormy spirits. All tho same, After the hurly-burly I intend ( All shall be done in .reverend ca-je of her, And in conclusion , • she shall • nave her rights If she will cease to rise and rail and . brawl. • ' He that knows better how- to tame a. .shrew, !Let liim- epefl-k ont! . Kath.: I—l who never knew how to submit i i Am starved for strife, stupid for lack of struggle, With Law kept bridled and with Order saddled. Pot.: Kathleen, thou mend'st apace! And now, my love, Will we return Into thy father's houEe And ruffle it as bravely as the rest . . . With orangle tissue, trimmed with, trucbluo bravery— Eschewing wearing of tie ercen—thot's knavery, A cap of mine own choice, come fresh from town. It will become.theo better than a crown. ' At this tho Haberdasher holds out his merchandise, saying— Here is the hat the lady did bespeak. Pet.: Why this was moulded on a. foreign block, A Phrygian cap. Fie, fie! 'tis crude end flaiiuting. Away with it! Come, let me have a smaller. Kath.: I'll have no smaller:' this doth fit the tinje. Pet.: 'Tis & paltry hat This Haberdasher would fob off on theo.. I love thee well, but ho, he lovee thee not. Kath.: Love> mo or lovo- me not, I like the hat. And it I will have, or I will have none. And Petruchio's man says to hiinsolf. as the curtain falls, "Then is she like to 'go bareheaded long." And "Punch" completes the stage directions:—"(Left arguing. Sequel —some day.)" , The "eome day" happens to be this day. (To be'eontinued.)