Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, August 20, 1892

Excerpt

AD PUELLAM.

["Detective cameras have become favourite playthings with ladies of fashion."—Ladies' Paper.]

You used to prate of plates and prints

And "quick developers" before,

In spite of not unfrequent hints

That these in time become a bore;

But then this photographic craze

Seemed little but a foolish fad,

While now its very latest phase

Appears to me distinctly bad.

Since even your devoted friends

At sight of you were wont to fly,

You manage still to gain your ends,

And photograph them on the sly;

The muff, the cloak with ample folds,

The parcel, and the biscuit-tin,

I know that each discreetly holds

Detective lenses hid within.

Should CROESUS greet you with a smile,

A "bromide" will record the fact;

Should STREPHON help you o'er a stile,

The film will take him in the act.

Yet this renown, if truth be said,

Is fame they'd rather be without;

Nor, I assure you, will they wed

A lady photographic tout.

ANTIQUITY OF GOLF.

That Golf was a game probably known to and played by pre-Adamite Man (whoever he may have been; name and address not given) is evidenced by the learned Canon TRISTRAM's observation in the Biology Section of the British Association Meeting last week, to the effect that "he (the Canon) had never seen a better collection of these Links connecting the present with the past world." This must be most interesting to all Golf-players.

First Passenger (reading Morning Paper). "'PSYCHICAL CHARACTER OF HYSTERICAL AMBLYOPIA'!! DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT 'PSYCHICAL' MEANS! WHAT DOES IT MEAN, OLD MAN?"

Fellow Passenger. "DON'T KNOW, I'M SURE, DEAR BOY! SOMETHING TO DO WITH BRAINS, I B'LIEVE. NOT AT ALL IN MY LINE!"

A Realistic Rhapsody.

(With Apologies to Mr. Henry Kendatt, Author of "Astarte," in the "Bookman.")

Across the wind-blown bridges,

O look, lugubrious Night!

She comes, the red-haired beauty

Illumined by gaslight!

By London's dim gaslight!

So hush, ye cads, your roar!

Behind her plumes are waving

Her oil'd fringe flaps before.

O 'ARRIET, Cockney sister,

Your face is writhed with jeers;

How awful is the angle

Of those protuberant ears!

Those red, protuberant ears!

And your splay feet—O lor!!!

My loud, my Cockney sister,

Where oil'd fringe flops before!

Ah, 'ARRIET! gracious 'eavens,

How your greased locks do glow!

I swoon! The "hodoration"

(I heard you call it so)

Sickens my senses so;

'Tis "Citronel"—no more,

That scents, like a cheap barber's,

That oil'd fringe hung before.

'ARRIET, my knowing darling,

Your eyes a cross-watch keep,

You're togged in shop-girl's fashion,

Your cloak is bugled deep,

Black-bugled broad and deep,

With buttons dappled o'er,

Good gr-racious! how it's grown, too—

That oil'd fringe flopped before!

That "bang" is awfully trying,

That odour maddens me.

By Jingo! you've been dyeing

Those rufous locks, I see,

Those sandy locks, I see,

They're darker than of yore.

Avaunt! I'd be forgetting

That oil'd fringe flopped before.

RATHER APPROPRIATE.

Under the heading "Military Education," there appears in The Tablet, an advertisement concerning preparation for examinations at Woolwich and Sandhurst by "the Rev....