(As sung sweetly by a Public-House-Baritone.)]

* * * * *

SMOKED OFF!

(AN APPEAL FROM THE KNIFE-BOARD OF A CITY OMNIBUS.)

    [The latest complaint of “the Ladies” is that they are being
    “smoked off” the tops of the omnibuses.]

[Illustration]

  The “knife-board,” sacred once to broad male feet,
    The “Happy Garden Seat,”
  Invaded now by the non-smoking sex,
    Virginal scruples vex,
  And matronly anathemas assail. 
    Alas! and what avail
  Man’s immunities of time or place? 
    The sweet she-creatures chase
  From all old coigns of vantage harried man. 
    In vain, how vain to ban
  Beauty from billiard-room or—­Morning Bus
    What use to fume or fuss? 
  And yet, and yet indeed it is no joke! 
    Where shall one get a smoke
  Without annoying Shes with our cheroots,
    And being badged as “brutes”? 
  If a poor fellow may not snatch a whiff
    (Without the feminine sniff)
  Upon the “Bus-roof,” where in thunder’s name
    Shall he draw that same! 
  The ladies, climb, sit, suffocate, and scoff,
    Declare they are “smoked off,”
  Is there no room inside?  If smoke means Hades,
    We, “to oblige the ladies,”
  Have taken outside seats this many a year,
    Cold, but with weeds to cheer
  Our macintosh-enswathed umbrella’d bodies;
    Now we are called churl-noddies
  Because we puff the humble briar-root. 
    Is man indeed a “brute”
  Because he may upon the knife-board’s rack owe
    Some solace to Tobacco? 
  If so it be, then man’s last, only chance,
    Is in the full advance
  Of the “emancipated” sex.  Sweet elves,
    Pray learn to smoke yourselves!
  Don’t crowd us out, don’t snub, and sneer, and sniff,
    But—­join us in a whiff!

* * * * *

A SHILLING IN THE POUND WISE.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­As the School Board rate has already touched a shilling, and seems likely to go even higher, why should not some of our money be expended in teaching the young idea of the lower classes how to develop into more valuable citizens than they seem likely to become under present conditions?  To carry out this idea, I jot down a few questions to be put to a School-Board scholar before the granting of the customary certificates:—­

1.  Describe the formation of a Regiment, and explain its position and duties in Brigade.

2.  What are the duties of a Special Constable?

3.  How would you set about putting horses into a fire-engine?

4.  Describe the process of resuscitating a person apparently drowned.  How would you revive a person rendered insensible by (1) cold, (2) by sunstroke.

5.  Give simple remedies to be applied at once in case of bites by a mad dog, accidental poisoning by arsenic, and swallowing of spurious coin.