PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 101.

November 21st, 1891.

[Illustration:  Cars, in honour of the Welsh Lord Mayor,

Strangely enough omitted from the procession on the ninth.]

* * * * *

Cancel, or recall.

The World last week sounded a note about the compulsory retirement, by reason of age, from one of the large Revenue Departments, of a gentleman who has the great honour to be the son of “the most distinguished Irishman of this century.”  If this sentence has really been passed authoritatively, which Mr. Punch takes leave to doubt, then said “Authority” will do well to recall it in favour of the son of the Liberator, which his name is also “Dan.”  And, to give the well-known lines so often quoted,—­

  “When DAN’L saw the writing on the wall,
  At first he couldn’t make it out at all.”

And the sooner the official writing on the wall—­if it exists—­be obliterated, the better for the public service, as, when the public, like the Captain in the ballad of “Billy Taylor,” “Comes for to hear on’t,” the said British Public will “werry much applaud what has been done” in suppressing, not issuing, reconsidering, or revoking the order.  So says “Mr. P.,” and the “B.P.” will agree with him.

* * * * *

The ancient Milliner.

(His Reminiscences of the Recent Gale.)

PART I.

  It was the Ancient Milliner
    Stood by his open door;
  The tale he told was something like
    A tale I’d heard before.

* * * * *

  I called forthwith a Hansom, and
    “Now, Cabman, drive!” I cried;
  “For I must get this bandbox home
    Before the eventide.

  “The bride a-pacing up the aisle
    Mad as a dog would be,
  Without this sweet confection of
    Silk and passementerie.”

  Westward the good cab flew.  The horse
    Was kick-some, wild, and gay;
  He tossed his head from side to side
    In an offensive way.

  He tossed his head, he shook his mane,
    And he was big and black;
  He wore a little mackintosh
    Upon his monstrous back.

  I mused upon that mackintosh,
    All mournfully mused I;
  It was too small a thing to keep
    So large a beastie dry.

  And on we went up Oxford Street
    With a short, uneasy motion;
  What made the beast go sideways I
    Have not the faintest notion
  But we ran into an omnibus
    With a short, uneasy motion.

  All in a hot, improper way. 
    The rude ’bus-driver said,
  That them what couldn’t drive a horse
    Should try a moke instead.