Title:  Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892

Author:  Various

Release Date:  February 22, 2005 [EBook #15144]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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PUNCH,

Or the London charivari.

Vol. 103.

August 27, 1892.

TWO-PENN’ORTH OF THEOSOPHY.

(A SKETCH AT THE ISLINGTON ARCADIA.)

Scene—­The Agricultural Hall.  A large Steam-Circus is revolving with its organ in full blast; near it is a “Razzle-Dazzle” Machine, provided with a powerful mechanical piano.  To the combined strains of these instruments, the merrier hearts of Islington are performing a desultory dance, which seems to consist chiefly in the various couples charging each other with desperate gallantry.  At the further end of the Hall is a Stage, on which a Variety Performance is in progress, and along the side of the gallery a Switchback, the rolling thunder of which, accompanied by masculine whoops and feminine squeaks, is distinctly audible.  Near the entrance is a painted house-front with two doors, which are being pitilessly battered with wooden balls; from time to time a well-directed missile touches a spring, one of the doors opens, and an idiotic effigy comes blandly goggling and sliding down an inclined plane, to be saluted with yells of laughter, and ignominiously pushed back into domestic privacy.  Amidst surroundings thus happily suggesting the idyllic and pastoral associations of Arcady, is an unpretending booth, the placards on which announce it to be the temporary resting-place of the “Far-famed Adepts of Thibet,” who are there for a much-needed change, after a “3500 years’ residence in the Desert of Gobi.”  There is also a solemn warning that “it is impossible to spoof a Mahatma.”  In front of this booth, a fair-headed, round-faced, and Spectacled Gentleman, in evening clothes, and a particularly crumpled shirt-front—­who presents a sort of compromise between the Scientific Savant and the German Waiter has just locked up his Assistant in a wooden pillory, for no obvious reason except to attract a crowd.  The crowd collects accordingly, and includes a Comic Coachman, who, with his Friend—­a tall and speechless nonentity—­has evidently come out to enjoy himself.

[Illustration:  “I have here two ordinary clean clay pipes.”]