Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893

SIR,--I have been deeply thrilled by the suggestion for curing the Agricultural depression which Messrs. MACDOUGALL, of Mark Lane, have made. I am not myself an Agriculturist; still, in--or rather near--the suburban villa in which I reside, I have an old cow, and a donkey on which my children ride. Directly I heard that the way to keep animals warm and comfortable in Winter was to smear them all over with oil, thus saving much of the cost of feeding them, I tried the plan on the aged cow. Perhaps the oil I used was not sufficiently pure. At all events the animal, which had never been known before to do more than proceed at a leisurely walk, rushed at frantic speed into the garden, and tossed my wife's mother into a cucumber-frame. She has now gone home. Undeterred by the comparative failure of this attempt, I smeared our donkey with a pint of the best castor-oil, just before setting out on its daily amble, with the children (in panniers) on its back. It did not appear to relish the treatment, as it instantly broke loose, and was found, five miles off, in a village pound, while the children were landed in a neighbouring ditch. I am writing to Messrs. MACDOUGALL, to ask for particulars of how the oil is to be applied. I am sure it is an excellent idea, if the animals could be brought to see it in the same light.

Yours, experimentally, DARWIN EDISON GUBBINS.

MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,--SMITH Minor, who is staying at our house for part of the holidays, said what good fun it would be to try the MACDOUGALL plan on my Uncle from India. He is always cold and shivering. We waited till he was having a nap after dinner in the arm-chair, and we coated him over with butter that SMITH Minor got from Cook. (Cook never will give me butter.) When we got to his hair he unfortunately woke up, so that is probably why the plan did not succeed. We thought he would be pleased to feel warmer, but he wasn't. Uncles are often ungrateful, SMITH Minor says. And it did succeed in one way, because he seemed awfully hot and red in the face when he found what we had been doing. Perhaps we ought not to have tried smearing him on his clothes, but how could we get his clothes off without waking him? SMITH Minor says it's a pity we didn't drug him. N.B.--I have been stopped going to the Pantomime for this, and SMITH Minor is to be sent home!

Your dejected TOMMY.

SIR,--I want to bring an action against Messrs. MACDOUGALL, of Mark Lane. I tried their smearing plan on a horse in my stable that had a huge appetite, and was always getting cold if left out in the wet. I used paraffin, and at first the animal seemed really grateful. In the night I was called up by a fearful noise, and found that the horse's appetite had not got at all less owing to the oil; on the contrary, it seemed to have eaten up most of the woodwork of the stable, and was plunging about madly. The paraffin caught light, and the stable was burned, and the horse too. In future I shall feed my horse in the usual way, not on the outside.

Yours, TITUS OATS.

Tommy Atkins, loquitur:--

"WE'VE fought with many men acrost the seas, And some of 'em was brave, an' some was not." (So Mister KIPLING says. His 'ealth, boys, please! '_E_ doesn't give us TOMMIES Tommy-rot.) We didn't think you over-full of pluck, When you scuttled from our baynicks like wild 'orses; But you're mendin', an' 'ere's wishing of you luck! Wich you're proving an addition to our forces. So 'ere's to you, though 'tis true that at El Teb you cut and ran; You're improvin' from a scuttler to a first-class fighting man; You can 'old your own at present when the bullets hiss and buzz, And in time you may be equal to a round with Fuzzy-Wuz!

You've been lammed and licked sheer out of go an' grit, From the times of Pharaoh down to the Khe-_dive_; Till you 'ardly feel yerself one bloomin' bit, And I almost wonder you are left alive. But we've got you out of a good deal of that, Sir EVELYN and the rest of us. You foller; And you'll fight yer weight in (Soudanese) wild cat One day, nor let the Fuzzies knock you oller. Then 'ere's to you, my fine Fellah, and the missis and the kid! When you stand a Dervish devil-rush, and do as you are bid, You'll just make a TOMMY ATKINS of a quiet Coptic sort; And I shouldn't wonder then, mate, if the Fuzzies see some sport.

Some would like us lads to clear out! Wot say you? We don't tumble to the Parties and their fakes; But I guess we don't mean scuttle. If we do, We shall make the bloomingest o' black mistakes; With the 'owling Dervishes you've stood a brush, With a baynick you can cross a shovel-spear; But leave yer to the French, and Fuzzy's rush? That won't be a 'ealthy game for many a year. So 'ere's to you, my fine Fellah! May you cut and run no more, Though the 'acking, 'owling, 'ayrick-'eaded niggers rush and roar, We back you, 'elp you, train you, and to make the bargain fair, We won't leave you--yet--to Fuz-Wuz--him as broke a British Square.

You ain't no "thin red" 'eroes, no, not yet, But a patient, docile, plucky, "thin brown line." May be useful in its way, my boy, you bet'! All good fighters may shake fists, you know--'ere's mine! You're a daisy, you're a dasher, you're a dab! I'll fight with you, or join you on a spree Let the skulkers and the scuttlers stow their gab, TOMMY ATKINS drinks your 'ealth with three times three! So 'ere's to you, my fine Fellah! 'E who funked the 'ot Soudan, And the furious Fuzzy-Wuzzies, grows a first-class fighting-man: An' 'ere's to you, my fine Fellah, coffee 'ide and inky hair May yet shoulder stand to shoulder with me in a British Square!

Yes, life is hard. Our fellows judge us coldly; We mostly dwell in fog, and dance in fetters; But sweeter far to face oblivion boldly, Than front posterity through a Life and Letters. That Memory's the Mother of the Muses, We're told. Alas! it must have been the Furies! Mnemosyne her privilege abuses,-- Nothing from her distorting glass secure is. Life is a Sphinx: folk cannot solve her riddles, So they've recourse to spiteful taradiddles, Which they dub "Reminiscences." Kind fate, From, the fool's Memory preserve the Great!