CHARIVARIA.

Punch, February 12, 1913

 

In connection with Scotland’s refusal to meet France at Rugby football, as the result of the violence of the French crowd, fair-minded people are pointing out that it should be remembered that Scotland has for years made a practice of allowing the bag-pipes to be played during international matches at Inverleith.

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The young man who is alleged to have threatened to shoot a popular actress, unless he were paid £1,000, is also stated to have demanded £400 on similar conditions from the King. Nothing but genuine loyalty could have caused this sensational reduction in terms.

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Speaking at Regent’s Park Chapel on Sunday, the Rev. F. B. Meyer alluded to the possibility of his being described as a kill-joy. How he gets these bizarre notions we cannot understand.

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A marked copy of the February number of The Birmingham Diocesan Magazine, containing Dr. Russell Wakefield’s strong remarks on Lenten fasting, has been sent to the Cryptoprocta Ferox at the Zoo. This peckish animal eats one hundred and ninety-two pounds of food daily, in addition to most of the woodwork and all the paint of his cage; and it is hoped that during Lent he may be induced at least to swear off paint.

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Three young gentlemen of the Bowery have got themselves into trouble in New York by shooting a man they were not hired to shoot. This kind of gratuitous outrage is always sternly repressed by the New York police.

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According to a men’s fashion paper, Spring socks will be black and Spring ties a quiet blue. A strike of nuts is expected at any moment.

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Little Hints for Everyday Life:— No. 1. Do not whistle “Everybody’s Doing It” as you pass the Reform Club. The Committee dislike it.

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Not content with their recent postponements, the Government has decided to shelve the Bee Disease Bill until next session. The sticky substance recently found in a pillar-box “not a hundred miles from” Downing Street is said to have been honey.

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The Mr. George to whom The Daily Telegraph alludes as a “force to be reckoned with in fiction” is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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Tracking him by his teeth-marks in the butter, which he had apparently eaten neat in large mouthfuls, the French police captured a burglar the morning after he had broken into a house. On being arrested, he denied the charge and said: “I don’t like butter.” At the moment we should imagine this to be the truth.

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The management of the Garrick Theatre insist on money down from those who wish to see Trust the People.

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It is not stated whether the thumb which Mr. Lloyd George has injured is the one under which he has been keeping his colleagues of the Cabinet.

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Mr. Filson Young’s remark that “one is inclined to think of the Courts of Justice as a species of gold mine for those professionally engaged in their precincts” seems curiously apposite. Only last week a pickpocket relieved a spectator at Bow Street of his watch and purse.

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Real rain is to be a feature of a forthcoming play. Nervous playgoers are hoping that the Reinhardt craze will not cause it to enter from the auditorium.

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One orange a week is to be given to each child in the Lambeth Guardians’ schools at Norwood as a preventive against influenza. All we can say is that, if the influenza germ is to be intimidated by one orange a week, it has sadly lost its pluck since we last met it.

 

 

                               

 

Unsigned column as printed; credited to P. G. Wodehouse in the Index to Vol. 144 of Punch. Wodehouse wrote seven columns in early 1913, taking over temporarily from Walter Emanuel, the longtime author of the “Charivaria” column.