English wit and humor; English wit and humor, Pictorial; Seashore -- Humor
Arrived at the Pier, I found there was twopence to pay for the privilege
of using the extension, which included a restaurant, a band, some
talented fleas, and a shop with a window partly devoted to the display
of glass tumblers, engraved with legends of an amusing character, such
as "Good old Mother-in-Law", "Jack's Night Cap", "Aunt Julia's Half
Pint", and so on. There were a number of seats and shelters, and below
the level of the shops was a landing-stage, at which twice a day two
steamers from or to London removed or landed passengers. During the rest
of the four-and-twenty hours it seemed to be occupied by a solitary
angler, catching chiefly seaweed. The Band, in spite of its uniform, was
not nearly so military as that at "Urn Bye." It contained a
pianoforte--an instrument upon which I found the young gentleman who
sold the programmes practising during a pause between the morning's
selection and the afternoon's performances. But still the Band was a
very tuneful one, and increased the pleasure that the presence of so
many delightful promenaders was bound to produce. Many of the ladies who
walked round and round, talking courteously to 'Arry in all his
varieties, wore men's _habits_, _pur et simple_ (giving them the
semblance of appearing in their shirt-sleeves), while their heads were
adorned with fair wigs and sailor hats, apparently fixed on together.
These free-and-easy-looking damsels did not seem to find favour in the
eyes of certain other ladies of a sedater type, who regarded them (over
their novels) with undisguised contempt. These other ladies, I should
think, from their conversation and appearance, must have been the very
flowers of the flock of Brixton Rise, and the _crème de la crême_ of
Peckham Rye society. Of course there were a number of more or less known
actors and actresses from London, some of them enjoying a brief holiday,
and others engaged in the less lucrative occupation of "resting."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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