"HERE BE TRUTHS." WE rather feel for MR. ALEXANDER BROGDEN, the Liberal M.P. for Wednesbury, a place we have always had a regard for ever since we read of a certain cock-fight, at which the combatants and most of the spectators came to singular grief. MR. BROGDEN has been convicted out of his own mouth, by the Commissioners at Bridgewater, of bribery at the election of MR. VANDERBYL. "THE CHAIRMAN reminded the witness that the voters bribed had said they should not have been tempted if the gentlemen had not brought the money. "MR. BROGDEN, M.P. My experience is exactly the other way. If electors did not exact such requirements, the gentlemen would not be induced to resort to such practices." MR. CHISHOLM ANSTEY's rejoinder to this was a crusher. He supposed that, if people would only abstain from having valuables, other people would not steal them. But, if we feel for MR. BROGDEN, we must, in justice, feel also for MR. CHRISTOPHER SYKES, the Conservative M.P. for Beverley. We don't know that we have any regard for Beverley, except in that it gives name to the heroes of the Gamester and of the Rivals; but the Honourable Member is a son of SIR TATTON SYKES, whom every body honoured. MR. SYKES, examined, said :— : "Until the winter I only suspected it (Conservative bribery) in the fairest possible manner. I suspected it partially because Beverley had always been more or less influenced from that source, and partly also from my knowledge that every borough in England, in some degree or other, is influenced by it. "The CHIEF COMMISSIONER. Don't say that. I wish you would withdraw it. You are a Member of the House of Commons. You had better confine yourself to facts." And after a good many "facts" had come out, one of which was MR. SYKES's sending a cheque to somebody who had told SIR HENRY EDWARDS that the Conservatives should come in for very little money, this occurred :: "The CHIEF COMMISSIONER. As a Member of the House of Commons you know that if you pay money that has been illegally expended, by Act of Parliament it is bribery? "MR. SYKES.-Yes. And, of course, at that time you knew that money had been illegally expended?-Yes, after the sum was presented to me. "But, like others, you prefer to do an illegal act rather than allow persons who advance money for you to be at a loss?--I should think so." [Exit Mr. Punch, whistling "Little Boy Ballot, come Blow me your Horn!" MR. PUNCH, A PUZZLE ON THE MAP. WHEN I was a boy Guildford was in Surrey, and Surrey was suppose all this is altered since my time, and that there must have been not generally considered to be one of the Western Counties. But I wonderful changes in geography, as in farming, and drinking, and travelling, and everything else during the last half-century. At least, I conclude so after reading the following paragraph : "At an influential meeting held at Guildford on Saturday afternoon, it was decided to invite the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society to hold its meeting in 1871 in that town." I rubbed my eyes and my glasses, and suspected myself of a great blunder over my paper, but my daughter assured me I had made no mistake, and suggested that I should ask you for an explanation of this puzzle. Which will oblige Yours obediently, DOMESTIC SERVANTS. cc HERE is a saying that when things come to the worst there must be a change for the better." Now, dear Mr. Punch, can you tell how we mistresses can bring to the worst our difficulties about domestic servants? When I tell you what most of us are doing towards this end, I am sure you will say we deserve encouragement. We spend many half-crowns and many more half days at the Register Offices, offering any amount of wages to any sort of incompetent servants. Wages are no object at all, and we omit no opportunity of saying so. If we are in treaty with a young girl who knows nothing; whose mother sends her to service because she is undutiful at home, or because she costs too much, we offer her £10. If with one who has had a little more experience, but who is a great deal more extravagant, and a great deal more impertinent, we propose £15. If she objects to washing, we put it out; if to waiting, we engage a parlour-maid; if to cleaning boots, we hire a boy-and so on. Some object to children, but that's awkward. We can easily manage about the perambulator, but we have not quite decided to put the children out. We send them to school before they are old enough; and in the holidays we hurry them off to the sea-side, lest they should increase the work at home, but that's all we are doing at present. Observe, we don't make these concessions to servants who have been with us a year or two, but always to new and untried ones; thus offering a premium to those who go from place to place, and unsettling such as would otherwise stay in comfortable situations. Then we are content with a written character, or a three months' character, or without any character at all; and if they turn out dirty, or untruthful, or dishonest, we pass them on as well as we can, to spoil other servants and to disturb other homes. You see, Mr. Punch, this teaches them that they can get on quite as well with a bad character as with a good one, perhaps better; so it must help to bring things to the worst. We try many other ways, according to circumstances; in fact we leave no stone unturned. For instance we allow the cook to consider the kitchen and larder, her kitchen and larder, and so we seldom intrude. We should like to take our daughters in sometimes, but as it would not be agreeable, of course we give way. If the cold ducks or chickens are not served up again, we don't ask for them; we conclude her cousin has been having supper with her. If she drinks more beer than we allow, we don't mention it, but order in another barrel. When she spoils a dinner we do venture to speak, and then there are "a few words." "She's sorry she can't give satisfaction; she's never been found fault with before! Never! Never since she was in service has she been told that she didn't cook fish nicely. But if she can't please, somebody else may try! She'll go that day month, that she will! If Misses can get a better cook, she knows she can get better place! Yes, and better wages, too! a In a case like this we wait a week or so, and then we make her a present of a new dress; and then we hint that we don't want to change, that if an advance of two or three pounds will satisfy her, she shall have it. If she is good enough to accept this reward for her outbreak of temper, she stays a little longer, just long enough to suit her own convenience, and to set a bad example to all her fellow-servants. Few plans answer the end we are aiming at better than this. We commend it to the notice of mistresses. There are, however, some ladies who do not adopt our views or plans; they look well after their domestics. They combine firmness with kindness: they know what to allow, and what to refuse. They advertise, and ignore Register Offices; believing that good servants and good places may be suited without their intervention. They decline to expose to everybody the internal arrangements of their home, or add to the number of tit-bits, which, true or false, must be circulated by their means. These thwart our efforts a little, but we are not greatly discouraged. As long as we persist in offering to new servants higher wages than they received in their last places, before their capabilities and characters are tested in the new ones, things will go worse-they must go worse. There are, no doubt, many other ways of reaching the crisis, but so far as we have observed, this answers better than all the rest put together. But if you, Mr. Punch, can suggest anything else, we mistresses will not fail to try it. We have, as you know, exerted ourselves to the utmost for many years past, and not without great success. Even now, the cook who spoils our dinner demands more consideration than the Governess who teaches our children. Our husbands and sons prefer the Club and the table-d'hôte to their own comfortless dinner-table; our daughters look down upon household duties as irritating and degrading; and their "Admirers" are deterred from matrimony by the fear of unreasonable expenses. If things are not to be better, until they are worse than this, the kindest wish we can express for you, good Mr. Punch, is that you may not be there to see. OCCASIONAL SONNETS. XIII.-CROQUET. SMOOTH as a billiard-table spread the lawn Brisk "youth and eld," black coat and muslin blent, O happy hour! when first I learnt the game, Mystic and Seer, who stand above the crowd, Or do you mock us with some idle mumming? Our balm and comfort when the need is sorest ?- AN ADVANCE ON BABY-SHOWS. the Daily News, had place the other day at Gregory's Point, ConnectiTHIS is an age of interesting exhibitions. One such, according to cut. This was a show of fat men. They boxed, performed athletic exercises, and played at a game which was called leap-frog, but, bloated as the players may be supposed to have been, would perhaps have been more happily named leap-toad. Obesity is an excess of adipose tissue. It may be general or partial. As an exhibition of the former has proved popular, so may a show of the latter. States. Two of them weighed respectively 258 lbs. and 235 lbs. This That American show consisted of the fattest men in the United it is as well to mention; for, in some English minds, the idea of a fat American is less suggestive of a DANIEL LAMBERT than of a DANIEL DANCER. A HINT ON HIGH HEELS. WE-when speaking of a feminine dress, we mean to say that it is, has been, or is to be made-say, simply made, or made up, however elegant the dress may be. But if a toilette is pretty, French milliners call it confectionée. This word suggests the idea of something not only nice but savoury. Such a thing is gravy soup-Gallicè consommé. Couldn't a dress be called consommé as well as a soup? The short dress with the high heels which convert a pretty foot into the likeness of MOTHER SHIPTON's, the nearest possible approach to a cloven one, might then, in bagman's French, be denominated Consommé aux Hoofs. Awkward Seats. In a rabid speech in which MR. G. H. MOORE, M.P., endeavoured to terrify the Government into letting loose another batch of Fenian convicts, he is reported to have said that "England had always been throned on the gallows." This beats the trunk-maker, in Bubbles of the Day, who compliments the aristocratic orator for his beautiful picture of "Britannia sitting on her polished trident." But a more ridiculous seat than either is MR. MOORE's, in Parliament. PITY THE POOR FENIANS. RELEASE the Fenian Convicts? Yes. Of penalties most richly due, The pardon of the QUEEN implore, His Royal Mistress could, or no, "A DULL BOY." A THOUGHT IN MADDOX STREET. THE poor ill-used cattle have found a good friend in MISS BURDETT COUTTS; and as they have HELPS besides, Podgkinson (determined to "be off" somewhere). "ALFRED, JUST BRING ME AN there seems to be a hope of better treatment for them. ATLAS." Jaded Club Servant (with his mind running on American drinks). "VERY SORRY, SIR, BUT WE'RE OUT OF IT!!" MORE HAPPY THOUGHTS. I NEVER saw such a fellow as CAZELL. I mean, he 'd make anyone (who wasn't strong-minded, and able to view things philosophically) discontented with everything around him. Happy Thought.-Never ask anyone to stop at your house suddenly. When I note down " suddenly," I mean, don't ask a stranger, or a comparative stranger. CAZELL is a positive stranger. [Note that down on a side page as either for repartee, or a story from SHERIDAN. I see how it might be done. Story about a stranger who laid down the law to SHERIDAN. Some one says to SHERIDAN, "So rude too from a comparative stranger." Comparative," replied SHERRY, "Gad, Sir, he's a positive stranger." This will make story No. 6. Good.] We arrive at Mede Lodge. A little time ago I called it Asphodel Cottage, but, as there are no Asphodels, and it isn't exactly a cottage, I said one day. Happy Thought.-Call it Mede Lodge. Why Mede?" says CAZELL. Because," I answer, triumphantly, "it is in the midst of medes, or meadows." Might as well call it Persian," says CAZELL. MR. PUNCH knows a Young Man who is so Lazy that he will not even Labour under an Impression. "I tell you what you ought to do," says CAZELL, seizing the opportunity. "You ought to have a bell attached to the House "This is attached to the House," I return rather snappishly, I own. stranger. But then Comparative Stranger ought not to go on telling Happy Thought.-Host mustn't lose his temper with comparative me what I ought to do," as if I didn't know. "Yes," he continues, imperturbably; "but don't you see, if it was attached by means of a metal-plated zinc tube impervious to wet, it would never be out of order, as it is now." I should have liked would have been one servant rushing out to open I ring again violently. No one comes. Most disappointing. What the gate, another at door (both smiling at my return) to receive luggage, my wife in the hall, beaming, dogs rushing, barking, jumping up and fondling me. Recollect how SIR WALTER SCOTT used to be welcomed by his Deerhounds. me. Happy Thought.-Buy a deerhound, and teach him to welcome I apologise to CAZELL. I say, "I suppose the servants, and all of them" (meaning my wife, and MRS. SYMPERSON, with perhaps nurse and baby) are in the garden, and don't hear the bell." "It's certain they don't hear the bell," says CAZELL, "It's dangerous, too, in such a lonely place as this. I tell you what you ought to do; you ought to have dogs about." I inform him that I have dogs about-four dogs, somewhere. I got them because the place was lonely. I purchased a magnificent stableyard dog that has been chained up ever since we've had him to make him savage, but he won't be vicious at at all, and only plays with all the tradesmen and any strangers who may come in. If a burglar came at night I'm convinced the idiotic brute would play with him, and be rather delighted to see him at midnight (when he must feel it very lonely) than otherwise. Now I come to think of it, a burglar would be quite a godsend to the animal as a playmate. Happy Thought.-When the dog first came. To call him Lion. |