Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, August 16, 1890Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, August 16, 1890
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
He is, as a rule, a dweller in London, for it is there that he finds
the largest stock of credulity and tolerance. To walk with him in the
streets, or to travel with him in a train, is to receive for nothing
a liberal education in sport. No man has ever shot a greater number
of rocketing pheasants with a more unerring accuracy than he has--in
Pall Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly. He will point out to you
the exact spot where he would post himself if the birds were being
driven from St. James's Square over the Junior Carlton Club. He will
then expatiate learnedly on angle, and swing, and line of flight,
and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder, by way of an
example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive passer-by. This
incident will remind him of an adventure he had while shooting with
Lord X.--"A deuced good chap at bottom; a bit stiff at first, but the
best fellow going when you really know him"--through the well-known
coverts of his lordship's estate. When travelling safely in a
railway-carriage, he is the boldest cross-country rider in existence.
He will indicate to you a fence full of dangers, and having taught you
how it may best be cleared, will add, that it is nothing to one that
he jumped last season with the Quytchley. "My dear Sir," he will say,
"a man who was riding behind me was so astounded that he measured it
then and there with a tape he happened to have with him; Six foot of
post and rail as stiff as an iron-clad, and twenty foot of gravel-pit
beyond." He will also speak with infinite contempt of those who
"crane" or stick to the roads. It will sometimes happen to him to
get invited--really invited--to an actual country house where genuine
sport is carried on. Here, however, he will generally have brought
with him his wrong gun, or his "idiot of a man" will have packed the
wrong kind of cartridges, or his horse will have suddenly developed an
unaccountable trick of refusing, which results in a crushed hat and
a mud-stained coat for his rider. These little accidents will by no
means dash his spirits, or impair his volubility in the smoking-room,
where he may be heard conducting a dull discussion on sporting
records, or carrying on an animated controversy about powder, size of
shot or bore, choke, the proper kind of gaiter, or the right stamp of
horse for the country. Having shot with indifferent results on a very
big day through coverts, he will afterwards aver that such sport is
very poor fun, and that what he really cares about is a tramp over
heather or turnips, and a small bag at the end of the day; but if he
should ever be found on a grouse moor, or a partridge shooting, he
will sneer at the inferior quality of a sport which requires that a
man should exhaust himself with useless walking exercise before he
gets near his birds. "Covert-shooting is the game, my boy;" he will
say, "most difficult thing in the world when the pheasants are tall,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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