Mr. Punch on Tour: The Humour of Travel at Home and Abroad by J. A. Hammerton (best mobile ebook reader txt) đź“•
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- Author: J. A. Hammerton
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[Pg 128]
Tourist (at small Irish inn, miles from anywhere). "Look here, what does this mean? I left my boots out last night, and they haven't been touched."
Landlord (with honest pride). "Thrue for ye, sorr! An' begorr', if ye'd left your gowld watch an' chain out, div'l a sowl wud 'a touched them nayther!"
[Pg 129]
Guide. "Monsieur finds eet a vairy eenteresting old place, ees eet not?" 'Arry (who will speak French). "Pas demi!"
[Pg 130]
BY THE SILVER SEA Drainsmouth.This popular health resort is now filled to over-flowing. The entertainments on the pier include animated photographs of a procession to the Woking Crematorium, and other cheerful and interesting subjects. The smells of the harbour may still be enjoyed to perfection at low water.
Shrimpley.The question of mixed bathing here has at length been set at rest by the Town Council issuing an order that nobody is to bathe at all. A decision so impartial as between the rival factions cannot fail to give satisfaction to all except the captious. Professor De Bach, with his performing dogs, gives an exhibition twice each day at the Pier Pavilion.
Lodgington-on-Sea.Warm and sunny weather still continues in this favoured spot. People wait half the morning for a bathing-machine and then look rather disappointed when they get it. The Simperton-[Pg 132] Swaggeringtons arrived yesterday, travelling first-class from the junction, two miles off (up to which point they had come third). This has excited some unfavourable comment in the town.
Smellington-Super-Mare.Large numbers of tripp—visitors, I mean, continue to pour into the town from Saturdays to Mondays, benefiting greatly by their small change. The lodging-house keepers also derive considerable benefit from their (the visitors') small change, especially when left lying about on the mantelpiece. No one could complain of dulness here now, for as I write, twenty-three barrel-organs, eleven troupes of nigger minstrels and four blind beggars with fiddles are amusing and delighting their listeners on the sands. The place is thoroughly lively, hardly an hour of the day passing without at least two street rows between inebriated excursionists taking place. The police force has been doubled, and the magistrates have given notice that, for the future, they will give no "option," and that all sentences for assaults in the streets will be with hard labour.
[Pg 131]
First English Groom (new to Paris). "And the French gent as he drives round the corner, he pulls up quick, and calls out 'Woa!'"
Second ditto (who has been in Paris some time). "He couldn't have said 'Woa!' as there ain't no 'W' in French."
First ditto. "No 'W' in French? Then 'ow d'yer spell 'wee'?"
[Pg 133]
Alarming appearance of a harmless guana just as he has found a nice corner of Sydney Harbour for a sketch.
[Pg 134]
Mr. Townmouse takes lodgings for his family at a farmhouse in a remote district. Delightful spot; but they weren't so well off for butcher's meat as they could wish.
Farmer. "Now, if your lady 'ud like some nice pork—Oh! she does like pork?—Well, then, we shall kill a pig the week arter next."
[Pg 135]
Traveller (benighted in the Black Country). "Not a bed-room disengaged! Tut-t-t-t!"
Landlady (who is evidently in the coal business as well). "Oh, we'll accommodate you somehow, sir, if me and my 'usband gives you up our own bed, sir!"
[Pg 136]
Professor Chatterleigh. "By George! I'm so hungry I can't talk!"
Fair Hostess (on hospitable thoughts intent). "Oh, I'm so glad!"
[Pg 137]
Indiscreet Sister. "Why, Harry, your legs are getting more Chippendale than ever!"
[Pg 138]
Traveller. "I say, your razor's pulling most confoundedly!"
Local Torturer. "Be it, zur? Wull, 'old on tight to the chair, an' we'll get it off zummow!"
[Pg 139]
First Artist (on a pedestrian tour). "Can you tell which is the best inn in Baconhurst?"
Rustic (bewildered). "Dunno."
Second Artist (tired). "But we can get beds there, I suppose? Where do travellers generally go?"
Rustic. "Go to the union moostly!"
[Pg 140]
Cotton-Man (fro' Shoddydale). "What dun yo' co' that wayter?"
Coachman. "Ah, ain't it beautiful? That's Grassmere Lake, that is——"
Cotton-Man. "Yo' co'n 'um all la-akes an' meres i' these pa-arts. We co'n 'um rezzer-voyers where ah com' fro'!!"
Would the epigrammatic translation of "sede vacanti" as "Not well and gone away for a holiday" be accepted by an examiner?
Winter Resort for Bronchially-affected Persons.—Corfe Castle.
[Pg 141]
Visitor. "And so you've never been to London! Oh, but you must go. It's quite an easy journey, you know."
Gaffer Stokes. "Ah, Oi'd main loike to see Lunnon, Oi wud. Reckon Oi must go afore Oi'm done for. Now which moight be their busy day there, mister?"
To Intending Tourists—"Where shall we go?" All depends on the "coin of 'vantage." Switzerland? Question of money. Motto.—"Point d'argent point de Suisse."
Scene—On the Quay. Ocean liner's syren fog-horn emitting short, sharp grunts.
Little Girl. Oh, mamma, that poor ship must have a drefful pain in its cabin!
[Pg 142]
Wasted Sympathy.—Scene—Interior of Railway Carriage. Lady (to gentleman who has just entered and is placing one of his fellow passenger's bags on the floor where there is a hot-water bottle). Oh! Excuse me, sir, but, please don't put that near the hot-water bottle. I've got a little bird in the bag.
Elderly Gentleman (who is an enthusiastic Anti-Vivisectionist and prominent member of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Good Heavens, madam! a bird in there! Please consider! How cruel! how inhuman! how—— (gasps for words).
Lady. Not at all, my dear sir. It's a roast partridge, cold, for lunch.
[Collapse of Enthusiast.
Unpleasantly Suggestive Names of "Cure" Places Abroad.—Bad Gastein. Which must be worse than the first day's sniff at Bad-Eggs-la-Chapelle.
Rotatory Knife (and Fork) Machines.—Pullman dining cars.
The Line which is often Drawn.—The Equator.
[Pg 143]
Thorough but not Pedantic. (Overheard at the Louvre.)—American Tourist (suspiciously). "Say, guide, haven't we seen this room before?"
Guide. "Oh no, monsieur."
Tourist. "Well, see here. We want to see everything, but we don't want to see anything twice!"
[Pg 144]
Captain Brown (narrating his trip to the Continent). "Then, of course, we ran down to Granada, and saw the Alhambra——"
Captain Jinks (untravelled athlete). "No!! What, have they got one there too!!"
[Pg 145]
"Going to Paris to-morrow, Tom!"
"How's that?"
"My poor old governor's taken ill there!"
"Going by Dieppe or Boulogne?"
"Rather think I shall go via Monaco!"
[Pg 146]
Sympathiser. "Sorry you look so seedy after your holiday, old chap!"
Too Energetic Sight-seer. "Well, I am a bit done up, but the doctor says that with rest and great care I may be well enough to have a run-round as usual next year."
[Pg 147]
Gushing Young Lady (to Mr. Dunk, who has just returned from Rome). "They say, Mr. Dunk, that when one sets foot in Rome for the first time, one experiences a profound feeling of awe. The chaos of ruined grandeur, the magnificent associations, seem too much for one to grasp. Tell me, oh tell me, Mr. Dunk, what did you think of it all?"
Mr. Dunk (deliberately, after considering awhile). "Very nice!"
[Pg 148]
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE.—Miss Tomboy. Mamma, I think those French women were beastly rude.
Mother. You mustn't speak like that of those ladies, it's very wrong. And how often have I told you not to say "beastly"?
Miss Tomboy. Well, they were rude. They called me a little cabbage (mon petit chou). The next time they do that I shall call them old French beans.
[Pg 149]
[Pg 150]
DE GUSTIBUS——I am an unadventurous man,
And always go upon the plan
Of shunning danger where I can.
And so I fail to understand
Why every year a stalwart band
Of tourists go to Switzerland,
And spend their time for several weeks,
With quaking hearts and pallid cheeks,
Scaling abrupt and windy peaks.
In fact, I'm old enough to find
Climbing of almost any kind
Is very little to my mind.
A mountain summit white with snow
Is an attractive sight, I know,
But why not see it from below?
Why leave the hospitable plain
And scale Mont Blanc with toil and pain
Merely to scramble down again?
Some men pretend they think it bliss
To clamber up a precipice
Or dangle over an abyss,
To crawl along a mountain side,
Supported by a rope that's tied,
—Not too securely—to a guide;
But such pretences, it is clear,
In the aspiring mountaineer
Are usually insincere.[Pg 152]
And many a climber, I'll be bound,
Whom scarped and icy crags surround,
Wishes himself on level ground.
So I, for one, do not propose,
To cool my comfortable toes
In regions of perpetual snows,
As long as I can take my ease,
Fanned by a soothing southern breeze,
Under the shade of English trees.
And anyone who leaves my share
Of English fields and English air
May take the Alps for aught I care!
Sport most Appropriate to the Locality.—Shooting pigeons at Monte Carlo.
Pleasure � la Russe.—Q. When does a Russian give a Polish peasant a holiday?
A. When he gives him a knouting.
The Cry of the Holiday-loving Clerk.—"Easterward Ho!"
A dish that disagrees with most Persons when Travelling.—The Chops of the Channel.
The Greatest Bore in Creation.—The Simplon Tunnel.
[Pg 151]
The Brown Family Resolve To Spend Their Vacation Each After His Own Fashion, Instead Of en Famille.I tell you there is not
a city in the whole
of Europe that is a
patch upon Florence. Why
I found the finest
English chemists there
that I have come across
in all my travels."
[Pg 153]
Tourist (in Cornwall). "May I be permitted to examine that interesting stone in your field? These ancient Druidical remains are most interesting!"
Farmer. "Sart'nly,
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