MRS. BROWN ON GUY FAWKES. I'm sure it's a wonder as I'm alive to tell the tale, that it is, and I do think as to Mrs. GIDDINS she must have a charmed life, as the sayin' is, as a cat's is nothin' to, for I see her a mask of flames myself a screaming in her pattens with them things a blazin' all around, and if it hadn't been as I throw'd a pail of hot suds all over her, ashes she must have been. And to think as it was all thro' them boys a-darin' for to make a bonfire in that field at the back as Mr. WALKER encouraged 'em in, thro' keepin' of a school with a tar barrel rolled all along the road by them roughs, as it's a mercy no horses wasn't frightened as well I remember 'appened in the Bow-road one time as was nearly my death, thro' the fright as I got a meetin' them boys with those masks and lettin' off a cracker lighted under me, and never left my room again till our Lucy was six weeks old. But it so fell out as it come on a Sunday and was kep' of a Monday, as is ridiculous altogether, as I says to Mr. WALKER as keeps the school, as called about the accident. I says, "Whatever is the use of teachin' a lot of boys for to insult other parties as tho' Irish is their elders and I'm sure as their feelin's like flesh and blood." "Oh," says he, “down with the Pope." I says, certingly if he have done what is wrong as can be proved, let him be punished, but not," I says, "with squibs and crackers, a-frightenin' parties to death and don't do him no harm, a-livin' over there. But," I says, "the Pope won't pay me for them things as is consumed," I says, "and you must." 66 as the sayin' is; and being insured heavy come out with a independence, and her a-havin' a-somethin' of her own. boys had had their fireworks in, you'd have said as there'd been a If you'd seen my garden the next morning and the field as them fiery snow storm, and the grass all burnt in a black ring where the break out, and BROWN had burnt his hand with my cap, as raw I never slept a wink all night for thinking as fire might potato scraped give him ease. bonfire was. Poor Mrs. GIDDINS, she went home more dead nor alive tho' she did have her supper and a good allowance hot for to keep up her spirits as had received a great shock, but she come the next day all right, and BROWN's burn wasn't much, so we had reason to be thankful except for the sheet as was cinders and a large hole in the counterpane as is my best, things as I did ought to have had washed up before, only thro' moving was throwed out everyway. But when that schoolmaster come in, as is a white-faced soapylooking chap in a white stock, as I'm told is a tyrant to the boys, and says as he wishes to act becomin' a Christian, tho' accidents will 'appen in the best of families, as is a excuse I've heard give for goings on as I don't hold with, I says to him I says, "Them boys of yourn did it a purpose for to aggrawate me, for I spoke to 'em over the wall twice a-standing on them short steps as I hangs out with, and one on 'em shied a empty squib at me and encouraged the others for to call me a reglar old guy, and certainly I did forget as I had my night cap on with a handkercher tied over it, as was the reason of their jeers." What I do not hold with is that schoolmaster's ways, as is mean, for I will make him pay Mrs. GIDDINS for the fright if I gets nothin' for that sheet. Well he up and talked a-deal of rubbish, a-sayin' as I didn't ought to have washed on the fifth of November, as I says, excuse me it were He come a deal of palaver as don't go down with me nor BROWN the sixth, and I'm not a-going for to go beyond a month for all your neither, for he was come in first afore the schoolmaster and pretty, GUY FOXES as ever lived, but," I says, "the way as they're hunted soon settled his rubbish about the Pope, for he says, "You leave him down after death is disgraceful." He says "It's a glorious anad-alone and he won't interfere with you.' Says the schoolmaster, "He versity." will." horse will bear. I says, "That's what may happen to any one, and didn't ought to be throwed in their teeth," as that cracker was in mine just a-openin' of the garden door for to tell them boys to be careful how they throwed their squibs about my linen, as they kep' a-lettin' 'em off long afore it was dark. I says, "Mrs. GIDDINS, p'raps it will be as well for to have that large sheet in," I says, "and dry it by the fire, as the clothes So she steps out for to get it and gethers it up in her arms, when if a squib didn't come, full but, on to her, sheet and all, she unawares thro' being partly covered in it. I opens the wash door for her, and there she was like a fiery apparition, and but for the copper being that handy I never should have put her out in this world, and it's a mercy as the water was not a-bilin' or I should have scalded her to death a-tryin' to save her from a fiery grave, as the sayin' is; and as it was, her cap was burnt to her head, and her eyebrows that scarified as I didn't hardly know her. As luck would have it BROWN had just come in, and hearin' the noise opened the washus door just as my cap took fire, as he very nigh strangled me a-tearin' off, and throwed, with my hair and all, bang into the wash tub, as will never curl up no more to look decent in. Of all the agony as ever I felt it was Mrs. GIDDINS a-standin' with all her weight on my foot with her pattens on, as I thought she'd cut clean in half thro' givin' a stamp that wiolent in her terrors as was nat'ral in fire as I'm sure I feel myself, and even dumb creatures can't face, as well I remembers all the horses bein' burnt in the brewery at Stratford, as their screams was heart rendering as nothing wouldn't induce for to face the flames thro' a smellin' it even with their heads in sacks; and the engines a-playin' all the time, tho' I'm sure one of them streams of water would be as bad to me as the fire, thro' a-comin' with that force for to knock any one down, as happened to a aunt of mine a-passin' down thro' Westminster when they was only a-practisin' and not meanin' no harm, but she come sudden round the corner for to get it right in her chest as rolled her over and over with her ancle sprained and her elbow put out, as walked lame to her dyin' day. As to them fire escapes they certainly are wonderful, tho' for my part I'd as soon slide down a factory chimbly as they looks like, tho' I've heard say as the firemen is wonderful a-grapplin' with you at the bottom, as saved old Mr. ARDIN as kep' the "Risin' Sun" with a clump foot, as was a hard drinkin' man, and the cause of the fire thro' a-puttin' the candle under the bed; and must have perished with the door locked but for them firemen as bust into the window and a-graspin' on him by his clump as he'd gone to bed in unawares, and pitched him head-first down tho' the escape, and was saved at the bottom by the man as was a-waitin' for him in a leather bucket of cold water, as cured his drinkin' for he put his other hip out and was a helpless cripple, and Mrs. ARDIN nussed him, and never would allow him more than three glasses of sperrits and water of a night to his dyin' day, and being retired from the public line, as that fire took 'em out of, he didn't get the chance on, tho' never in my opinion a-payin' business thro' old ARDIN havin' lots a-friends as stepped in for to take a drain, I says "Go on with your rubbish; however can he ?" "Why," he says, he'll undermind the constitution." 66 'Well," I says, "you don't look delicate, but if you was to ask my opinion you only wants plenty of exercise for to keep you in health, and not to eat too much,"-havin' heard say, thro' Mrs. GIDDINS, as he was a hog to eat, and special them hot suppers when the boys was a-bed, and a-sendin' the husher in bread and cheese to the schoolroom. Well he talked a good deal of rubbish, and at last he pulls out a couple of shillins and says, "I think this will be quite sufficient for the washerwoman," and he says, "anything in reason I'll pay for your linen, my good woman." So I says, "My good man you'll please for to pay five-and-twenty shillin's for my quilt as is as good as new, and the first time of washin' as cost thirty, and that large linen sheet fifteen shillins won't replace as I can prove to you by the fellow as is down stairs, and half a yard shorter thro' bein' the bottom one." "Well then," he says, "p'raps I'd better speak to my solicitor." I says, "Speak to any one you pleases, but I tell you what it is, if you give me any of your airs and rubbish I'll pretty soon summons your boys for lettin' off fireworks in the public ways, and," I says, "two shillins for that poor woman, as would hardly replace her cap, let alone the fright, won't never do." So out he walks, very grand and protrudin', all down the steps without sayin' good evenin; but his good lady come in early next day and made it all square, as the sayin' is, being a party as is sharp, tho' I soon found out as they was going to make the boys pay for the damage out of their weekly pocket money, as is a mean action, but jest like them schoolmasters, as I've knowed myself charged seven shilling for shoe strings. But all I've got to say is as no doubt Guy Fox was very wrong in tryin' for to let them fireworks off under Parliament, and as to his blowin' up the royal family, why it's out of all reason. But why other parties should be set in flames every year in remembrance on him I can't think, as was a good-for-nothin' wagabone as the sooner he's forgot the better. Literary Note. PEOPLE have been greatly puzzled to understand the changes in the name of the firm of LONGMAN. Once there was a BROWN, and then there was a GREEN. But now the mystery is explained there is a DYER in the firm. AMUSEMENT FOR SHORT MONDAY MORNINGS. BATCHES of new games are advertised with a frequency which denotes great love of change among the industriously idle classes. In one very recent batch we find a game with the rather startling, not to say morbidly sensational title, "Capital Punishment." Nice sort of thing this for introduction into quiet, respectable families. Though a game so denominated may be capital punishment, we are very much inclined to doubt its being capital fun. Why in damp places will they leave my salt, I long to extirpate-but can't, alas!- Must servants answer when they've smashed my glass, "It came off in my hand ?" I hate paraders in a draper's shop; And dread a hidden stair; When omnibuses on a crossing stop, I feel inclined to swear. I cannot swallow cant from "worthy " men- I hate mankind in general now and then, IN RE THE READE-ER. THE Reader which, eighteen months ago, was one of our most respectable and cleverly-conducted weeklies, has changed hands so frequently since that date, that only a little of its original flavour remains to it, and on Saturday week last it completed its degradation by inserting in its columns such a letter from MR. CHARLES READE, the author of "Never too Late to Mend," as we verily believe only MR. READE could be found to write, and only the dramatic editor of the Reader to publish. It reflects upon a clever criticism by MR. FREDERICK GUEST TOMLINS, the late dramatic critic of the Reader, on the astounding drama recently produced by MR. VINING at the Princess's Theatre. The letter commences in the following strain : "To the Editor of THE READER. "Sir,-You have published (inadvertently I hope) two columns of intemperate abuse aimed at my drama, and mendacious personalities levelled at myself. "The author of all this spite is not ashamed to sympathise with the heartless robbers from whom justice and law have rescued my creation and my property. (Query-Was he not set on by those very robbers?) He even eulogises a ruffian who, on the 4th October, raised a disturbance in the Princess's Theatre, and endeavoured to put down my play by clamour, but was called to order by the respectable portion of the audience." The "ruffian" here alluded to was, as MR. READE subsequently informs us, no other than MR. TOMLINS himself, who, in company with many other dramatic critics, protested in indignant terms against the introduction of such disgusting details of prison discipline as MR. VINING had placed before the audience in the second act of the preposterous piece in question. His protest on that occasion was so energetically backed by the audience en masse, that MR. VINING was compelled to address them from the footlights in apologetic terms, and the best evidence as to the unanimity of the house on that occasion is to be found in the fact that the objectionable portions of the second act have been materially modified since the production of the piece. MR. VINING plumes himself on the intense realism of the scenes in question. Probably MR. TOMLINS, and those who sided with him, were unable to appreciate the fidelity with which the treadmill, the crank, and the strait waistcoat, were placed before them, and this fact may account for the effect of the scene being lost upon them. That it was not lost upon all we are bound to admit, for there was some counter applause, and it came from that part of the house where those who would be able to appreciate the realistic beauties of such a scene would probably be found. MR. READE's letter concludes thus: "Have you any sense of justice and fair play where the party assailed is only an author of repute, and the assailant has the advantage of being an obscure scribbler? If so, you will give me a hearing in my defence. I reply in one sentence to two columns of venom and drivel. I just beg to inform honest men and women that your anonymous contributor, who sides with piratical thieves against the honest inventor, and disparages CHARLES READE, and applauds one TOMLINS-is Tomlins. -I am your obedient servant, CHARLES READE. "92, St. George's-road, South Belgravia, October 21, 1865." A dramatic critic is, in one sense, a reporter also, and it is his duty to chronicle the important features of a performance, whether they are to be found before or behind the footlights. On the occasion of the first performance of It is Never too Late to Mend, MR. TOMLINS and other gentlemen addressed MR. VINING in indignant terms from their seats in the stalls, and MR. VINING replied to them. Under these circumstances it was the critic's duty (whether the critic was MR. TOMLINS or any one else) to mention the fact that such a conversation took place, and to express his opinions on the merits of the question generally. The article which aroused MR. READE'S indignation, and which he characterises as anonymous, was signed "F. G. T.", a combination of letters as familiar to the literary world and to the reading public as "S. G. O." and "J. O." of the Times. They are known to be the initials of a gentleman who is not only one of our oldest, but also one of our best, dramatic critics; and the article in question cannot, therefore, fairly be called anonymous. But, by the way, who is the dramatic editor who publishes a letter which reflects in such disgraceful language on the character of his own paper? Why, we will inform honest men and women that the dramatic editor who sides with one CHARLES READE and disparages FREDERICK GUEST TOMLINS, is Mr Charles Reade's nephew!!! SIR,-Sensation dramas should mirror Society as it is, not as it ought to be. But in its existing phase Virtue is invariably triumphant in the long run-I may say the very long run-and Vice is introduced simply that it may be utterly and irrevocably overwhelmed in the last act. Is this true to nature? I, for one, have spent a long and laborious life in the exercise of the strictest virtue, and I have never triumphed. Now in my old age I intend to go in for a course of hideous and blood-curdling wickedness, and, as a first step of my career of infamy, I publish a Sensation Drama in support of my views. Yours, AN AGED CURATE. SIR ROCKHEART THE REVENGEFUL; OR, A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE. SCENE.-Drawing-room in SIR ROCKHEART's castle. Enter the crew of H.M.S. Matilda Jane. They clear the room of all the furniture for a hornpipe. OLD BOB BACKSTAY.-My dear eyes! I am bosun's mate of the Matilda Jane. SIR ROCKHEART has invited us all to dinner in the servant's hall! ALL. He has. Hurrah! OLD B. B.-Three cheers for the noble SIR ROCKHEART! Here's may prosperity be his mainstay, and may blessings be showered Enter SIR ROCKHEART. SIR R.-Confound it, what are you rabble doing in my drawingroom? Bear off to the servants' hall, ye varlets, or by the Lord Harry I'll make mincemeat of every mother's son of ye! OLD B. B.-Ay, ay, yer honour! (They all go out disconcerted.) SIR R. (moodily).-I am SIR ROCKHEART the Revengeful, and I war against society. I have no particular reason for being revengeful, for depravity of all kinds. This morning I boiled my aunt; this afterno one has ever injured me, so I attribute it to an inherent taste for noon I chopped up my prattling babe. Enter THE LADY CLARIBEL. THE LADY C.-Father, I love ULRIC the Unimpeachable. Consent to our union. (She prays.) SIR R. He is a worthy young man with an undeniable rent-roll, and perfectly unobjectionable in every respect. I know, dear CLARIBEL, that he loves you devotedly, and I am perfectly certain that bliss unutterable would characterize your wedded life. But he dies to-morrow! LADY C.-Oh, father! SIR R.-What!!! Dare to dictate. (He seizes her by the feet, and is about to dash her brains out upon the wall, when who should come in but OLD BOB BACKSTAY.) OLD B. B.-What do I see? A lubberly old three-decker bearing down upon an unarmed punt! Dash my old eyes, that ain't fair! Sheer off, yer ugly old swab, or abaft my funnel if I don't make you see more stars than were ever dreamt of in your philosophy. SHAKESPEARE, ahem! FROM OUR STALL. WE should be very glad to know what the English language has done to certain English actors of tragedy that they should purposely mispronounce it? Will any of those ingenious gentlemen who write the correct answers to the impossible questions in Notes and Queries, inform us why a noble Roman should utter the sound dath for the word death. Dath means nothing. It conveys no idea of mortality, immortality, decease, or anything else; whereas death is solemnly sonorous. At the same time let us propose another question apropos of the revival of Julius Cæsar at Drury Lane. Why should (Reader, this is not a conundrum) why should the poetry of SHAKESPEARE be spoken as if it were a lesson in one syllable for little boys? Such grand English as "Ere to black Hecate's summons SIR R. (bitterly).-And this, this is a British seaman's return for my princely hospitality! OLD B. B. (touched).—No, no, SIR ROCKHEART, don't say that. I've eaten of your beer and drunk of your cheese, I know; and if so be as ever you're in want of a dinner, you may reckon on OLD BOB BACKSTAY'S sharing his last halfpenny with your honour; but the lubber who would stand by and see a innocent and conwulsively beautiful young gal slaughtered in cold blood by a weak and defenceless old man without expostulooralating is a wretch whom "twere gross flattery to term a coward!" (Unmanned, but recollects himself should not be hashed up into, and his authority.) TOBIN, ahem! SIR R.-You are right, worthy fellow, quite right. But I mean to kill her notwithstanding. OLD B. B.-Then speak to the man at my wheel, if I don't summon the whole ship's crew, who will help me to secure your darned old carcase, "you burgoo-eating, pea-soup-swilling son of a sea-cook!" MARRYAT, ahem! The shard-borne beetle, wilh his drowsy hums Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done "Ere-to-black-Hec-cate's-summons Ther-shard-borne-beetle-with-his-drow-sy-hums, Deed-of-dread-ful-note!" SHAKESPEARE should not be sliced up like a sausage. Ministers and tragedians take the advice of those who, though they wear motley, love their WILLIAM of Stratford,-and reform it altogether. At the St. James's MR. MARK LEMON'S farce of The Ladies' Club has been successfully revived. The honours are divided between Miss HERBERT, MRS. FRANK MATTHEWS, and MR. FRED ROBSON. If the world, or we should say, the readers of FUN, should wish to have proper justice done to the personal charms of the members of the club, MR. ALFRED TENNYSON and MR. ROBERT BROWNING are the men to apply to. "We keeps a poet," as the publisher's wife said; a hack cannot be expected to have a knack for writing an anacreontic. And talking of ANACREON we have seen Anak (your kind admiration is requested for the admirable manner in which we have led up to this formidable joke). Well, Anak is a giant, he is young, he is twenty-five years of age, and eight feet high. He is to be seen at the St. James's Hall alive, alive, alive, oh! So is MR. MACCABE, so is PROFESSOR ANDERSON. Go early. Come away early. Children half SIR R.-Ye may say that. (Takes a revolver from his pocket, and price. Nature, "She is a rum'un is natur," as Mr. Squeers saidshoots them all.) Now who shall stay me? Enter ULRIC the Unimpeachable. ULRIC. I will! SIR R.-Not so! ULRIC.-Yes! I love CLARIREL devotedly, and cannot consent to stand calmly by while you are dashing her brains out. SIR R. This to me in my own freehold? (Aside.) I have a reversionary interest in all his property, and, if I kill him, twelve thousand acres of the richest pasture land, all the castles on the Rhine, the vineyards of Ay and Epernay, most of Africa, the Isle of Wight, the Summer Palace at Pekin, the Island of Ceylon, and the British Museum will all be mine! Shall I hesitate? No! (Desperate combat, in which ULRIC is killed.) SIR R. So fare all in whose property SIR ROCKHEART THE REVENGEFUL has an interest in reversion or remainder! By-the-bye, the property is entailed on myself and the children of my late wife. (Sheds a tear.) My late wife is dead (sighs), and (recovering himself) if I kill CLARIBEL I shall be (triumphantly) Tenant-in-Tail-after-Possibility-of-Issue-Extinct! (Kills CLARIBEL and takes possession of all the property. His new An Acid-uous Hint. We clip the following from a fashionable cotemporary: "A great many experiments are being made, by order, with glycerine treated with acids as an explosive agent for cannoas and small arms. The power is twenty times greater than gunpowder." Some old maids who use glycerine to conceal the ravages of tightlacingon their noses should be on their guard-No! though; of course they wouldn't mind it. They only wish they could "go off." Quilling on Reasonable Terms. THE judges of the High Court in India have appealed to the Governor-General against the Stationery Office. They are only allowed two dozen quills a-piece every year, and they say they can't do with less than fifty. What nonsense! Why, the original geese did with far less :--but these lawyers will have their "quillets." perhaps exhausted by the terrible dimensions of Anak the Anakim (PROFESSOR ANDERSON, please polish up your Hebrew, and learn the difference between the singular number and the plural) has, by way of compensation invented "little Tom Dot," who is to Anak as the Trafalgar-square fountain to Niagara. The Christian name of Anak is JEAN JOSEPH, and his surname BRICE. Not being, like Cassio, great arithmeticians-a fact to the truth of which our laundress is willing to take oath before any bench of magistrates-we cannot say how much taller is Anak from the Vosges mountains than CHANG from China. Perhaps An-ak-Chang (an action) at law might decide the question; in the meantime we doubt not that the proprietor of the Psychomanteum will find Anak an acquisition.* Interesting News from Knowsley. EARL and COUNTESS OF DERBY, and the occasion has been seized, possibly even improved, for paying printed compliments to the hospitality of the house of STANLEY, and for republishing in the daily papers some entertaining and instructive matter from topographical records, which is all very right and proper. But the Liverpool journalists go a great way beyond their modest Cockney brethren, and one zealous reporter seems to have visited Knowsley with a twofoot rule in his pocket. This indomitable penny-a-liner has given for the information of the world (of Liverpool) the dimensions of LORD DERBY's dinner-table. Another kind of two-foot rule might advantageously be employed against the intrusive and servile busy-bodies who disgrace the public press-a rule, that is to say, that every two-footed animal found where he is not wanted, and where he has no earthly right to be, shall be instantly required to put his best foot forward in the direction of the place whence he may happen to have come. THE PRINCE and PRINCESS OF WALES have been on a visit to the "Con-firm-ation Strong." A DEAD wall at Blackrock was posted the other day with a notice to say that "whereas the Channel Fleet had been destroyed at Bantry strikes us that the Fenians are a firm whose affairs are being wound Bay by the firm Fenians all republicans must be ready to strike." It up in the Bankruptcy Court, and have nothing to do with the Fleet. * We trust that our contributor will be sufficiently punished by the insertion of his article without editorial rrection or emendation.-EDITOR'S NOTE. |