Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 25th, 1920Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 25th, 1920
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Not that Jane calls it eating, by the way. She calls it "touching," and
there are any number of things that she doesn't fancy touching. She will
touch enormous platefuls of bacon or sausages or almost any derivative of
the domestic pig, and the same applies to puddings and cake. But beef and
mutton she does not touch, nor margarine, and we have to be almost as
careful that Jane Harrison has plenty of the right things to touch as about
the whole of the rest of the family.
Now here again I think it would be quite possible to induce the people of
England in our large industrial centres to ration themselves on boiled
herring and bird-seed. We should not use those names, of course. The
advertisements on the hoardings would say:--
THE BOUNTIFUL HARVEST OF THE SEA BROUGHT TO THE BREAKFAST TABLE
or
WHAT MAKES THE SKYLARK SO HAPPY?
TRY HARRABY'S HEMP. A SONG IN EVERY SPOONFUL.
But propaganda of that sort would have no effect on Jane. She would simply
say that she never cared to touch herrings and that she did not fancy
hemp-seed.
When I consider the cases of George and Jane I am bound to believe either
that the Russian moujiks (if this is still the right word) are more docile
and tractable than ours, or else that the Soviet _regime_ will need a great
deal of adaptation before it can be extended to our English villages. Or,
of course, it may be possible that some of the minuter details of M.
LENIN'S administration have not been fully revealed to me. I shall find out
about this no doubt when I return to London. In the meantime I am banking
on George and Jane, whatever the COUNCIL OF ACTION may do.
EVOE.
* * * * *
THE OLD ORDER CHANGES.
"'He brightened up a lot when his mother-in-law arrived,' said an
onlooker.--"_Provincial Paper._
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Wee Donald Angus._ "PLEASE, SIRR, WHAT TIME WULL IT BE?"
_Literal Gentleman._ "WHEN?"]
* * * * *
LUCERNE.
O, every dog must have its day
And ev'ry town its turn;
For fair is fair ... and, anyway,
Let's talk about Lucerne.
Lucerne is in Switzerland, and I am in Lucerne. The moment I heard that Mr.
LLOYD GEORGE was coming to Lucerne I felt that a new importance was added
to Switzerland, to Lucerne, to me and, if I may say so, to Mr. LLOYD
GEORGE. But I felt that, if I didn't do something about it, Lucerne and Mr.
LLOYD GEORGE would get away with all the credit and my part in the affair
would be overlooked.
The question arose as to what to call that "something"? After a great deal
of thought I decided to try you with a short and simple "Lucerne," one of
my reasons being that, if you get down to the hard facts, there is no such
place.
Try (as the G.P.O. suggests to disappointed envelopes)--try
LUZERN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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