THE DANGER OF BEING IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

Punch, July 27, 1904

 

[“During the third stage of the Marseilles-Tours bicycle race the winner, Aucouturier, was attacked by fifty cyclists at Nimes, being rescued by the Editor of the Vélo, who displayed a loaded revolver.”—Daily Press.]

From the Sporting Man of the week after next:—

A disgraceful scene occurred at Lord’s yesterday, on the occasion of Mr. C. B. Fry’s twenty-third consecutive century. When the teams adjourned for lunch, Mr. Fry, who was not out, was intercepted by twenty sporting journalists, who assailed him with pointed epigrams, heavy platitudes, and other lethal weapons. He must have been severely man-handled but for the prompt interference of Mr. Hesketh-Prichard, who speedily scattered the crowd with an over of fast off-theory balls, and enabled the great author to escape at the cost of a rather severely split infinitive. It is true, of course, that hundreds of journalists have been thrown out of work by Mr. Fry and the other batsmen-authors, but nothing can excuse mob-violence, and it is to be hoped that the police will secure the arrest of such of the miscreants as were not l-b-w to Mr. Prichard.

The brutal attack on Shrubb by the defeated competitors in the two-mile race at Lilley Bridge has had a more serious result than was at first considered probable. In spite of a gallant rescue on the part of the Editor of the Rapid Review, Shrubb had to be transplanted to the nearest hospital, where he is now bedded, and looks as if he had taken root.

While Mr. Eustace H. Miles was playing off the semi-final of the North Balham Spiropole Competition last Friday, three hundred readers whom he had previously persuaded to live on Plasmon biscuits and Grape Nuts surrounded him threateningly, and endeavoured to compel him to devour a prime chump chop and mashed. They were aided and abetted by Sunny Jim, the high-jumper, who urged them to try force.

During the dictation of the third chapter of his latest novel Mr. S. R. Crockett was the victim of a savage attack on the part of his type-writing staff, who, maddened by overwork, rose at him in a body with Remingtons. He was rescued by Dr. Robertson Nicoll, who drew off the attack in his own direction by reading extracts from the correspondence of his friend Mr. Claudius Clear.

 

                               

 

Unsigned article as printed; credited to P. G. Wodehouse in the Index to Vol. 127 of Punch.