Baboo Jabberjee, B.A.

by F. Anstey.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM BABOO JABBERJEE.

_To the Hon'ble ---- Punch._

VENERABLE AND LUDICROUS SIR.--Permit me most respectfully to bring beneath your notice a proposal which I serenely antic.i.p.ate will turn up trumps under the fructifying sunshine of your esteemed approbation.

Sir, I am an able B.A. of a respectable Indian University, now in this country for purposes of being crammed through Inns of Court and Law Exam., and rendering myself a completely fledged Pleader or Barrister in the Native Bar of the High Court.

Since my sojourn here, I have accomplished the laborious perusal of your transcendent and tip-top periodical, and, hoity toity! I am like a duck in thunder with admiring wonderment at the drollishness and jocosity with which your paper is ready to burst in its pictorial department.

But, alack! when I turn my critical attention to the literary contents, I am met with a lamentable deficiency and no great shakes, for I note there the fly in the ointment and _hiatus valde deflendus_--to wit the utter absenteeism of a correct and cla.s.sical style in English composition.

To the highly educated native gentleman who searches your printed articles, hoping fondly to find himself in a well of English pure and undefiled, it proves merely to fish in the air. Conceive, Sir, the disgustful result to one saturated to the skin of his teeth in best English masterpieces of immaculate and moderately good prose extracts and dramatic pa.s.sages, published with notes for the use of the native student, at weltering in a hotchpot and hurley-burley of arbitrarily distorted and very vulgarised c.o.c.kneydoms and purely London provincialities, which must be of necessity to him as casting pearls before a swine!

And I have the honour to inform you of a number of cultivated lively young native B.A.'s, both here and in my country, who are quite capable to appreciate really fine writing and sonoriferous periods if published in your paper, and which would infallibly result in a feather in your cap and bring increase of grit to the mill.

If, Honoured Sir, you feel disposed to bolster yourself up with the wet blanket of a _non possumus_, and reply to me that your existing quill-drivers are too fat-witted and shallow-pated for the production of more pretentiously polished lucubrations--aye, not even if they burn the night-light oil and hear the chimes at midnight! I will not be hoodwinked by the superficiality of your _cui bono_, and shall make you the answer that I am willing _for an exceedingly paltry honorarium_ to rush into the Gordian knot and write you the most superior essays on every conceivable and inconceivable subject under the sun, as per enclosed samples which I forward respectfully for your delightful and golden opinions, guaranteeing faithfully that all of your readers in every hemisphere and postal district will fall in love with such a new departure and fresh tack.

The specimens I send are _not my best_, only very ordinary and humdrum affairs--but _ex pede Herculem!_ Hon'ble Sir, and you will see how transcendentally superior are even such poor effusions compared to the fiddle-faddle and gim-crack style of article with which you are being fobbed off by puzzle-headed and self-opiniated nincomp.o.o.ps.

I can also turn out rhymed poetry after models of Poets TENNYSON, COWPER, Mrs HEMANS, SOUTHEY, & Co., _done to a t.i.ttle_, so as not to be detected, even by the cynosure, as mere spurious imitation, but in every respect up to the mark and the real Simon Pure.

Therefore, Hon'ble Sir, do not hesitate to strike while the iron is incandescent and bleed freely, even if it should be necessary, prior to engaging your humble pet.i.tioner's services, to turn out one or more of your present contributioners crop and heels, and lay them on the shelf of their own incompetencies. Remember that the slightest act of volition on your part can exalt my pecuniary status to the skies, as well as confer distinguished and unparagoned enn.o.blement upon your _cacoethes scribendi_.

I remain, respected Sir, Your most obsequious Servant,

HURRY BUNGSHO JABBERJEE, B.A.

P.S. and N.B.--Being so unacquainted with the limner's art, I cannot _at present_ undertake the etching of caricatures _et hoc genus omne_.

However, if such is your will, Hon'ble Sir, I will take the cow by the horns, after preliminary course of instruction at Government Art School, all expenses, &c., to be defrayed on the nail out of your purse of Fortunatus, seeing that your esteemed correspondent is so hard up between two stools that he is reduced to a choice of Hodson's Horse!

H. B. J.

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I

_Mr Jabberjee apologises for the unambitious scope of his work; sundry confidences, criticisms and complaints._

When I first received intimation from the supernal and spanking hand of Hon'ble _Mr Punch_, that he smiled with fatherly benignity at my humble request that he should offer myself as a regular poorly-paid contributor, I blessed my stars and was as if to jump over the moon for jubilation and sprightfulness.

But, heigh-ho! _surgit amari aliquid_, and his condescending patronage was dolefully alloyed with the inevitable dash of bitters which, as Poet SHAKSPEARE remarks, withers the galled jade until it winces. For with an iron heel has Hon'ble _Mr P._ declined sundry essays of enormous length and importance, composed in Addisonian, Johnsonian, and Gibbonian phraseology on a.s.sorted topics, such as "Love," "Civilisation,"

"Matrimony," "Superst.i.tion," "Is Courage a Virtue, or _Vice Versa_?" and has recommended me instead to devote my pen to quite ephemeral and fugacious topics, and merely commit to paper such reflections, critical opinions, and experiences as may turn up in the potluck of my daily career.

What wonder that on reading such a _sine qua non_ and ultimatum my _vox faucibus haesit_ and stuck in my gizzard with bashful sheepishness, for how to convulse the Thames and set it on fire and all agog with amazement at the humdrum incidents of so very ordinary an existence as mine, which is spent in the diligent study of Roman, Common, International, and Canonical Law from morn to dewy eve in the lecture-hall or the library of my inn, and, as soon as the shades of night are falling fast, in returning to my domicilium at Ladbroke Grove with the undeviating punctuality of a tick?

However, being above all things desirous not to let slip the golden opportunity and pocket the root of all evil, I decided to let my diffidence go to the wall and boldly record every jot and t.i.ttle, however humdrum, with the critical reflections and censorious observations arising therefrom, remembering that, though the fabulous and mountain-engendered mouse was no doubt at the time considered but a fiasco and flash in the pan by its maternal progenitor, nevertheless that same identical mouse rendered yeomanry services at a subsequent period to the lion involved in the compromising intricacies of a landing-net!

Benevolent reader, _de te fabula narratur_. Perchance the mousey bantlings of my insignificant brain may nibble away the cords of prejudice and exclusiveness now encircling many highly respectable British lions. Be not angry with me therefore, if in the character of a d.a.m.ned but good-natured friend, I venture on occasions to "hint dislike and hesitate disgust."

The majestic and magnificent matron, under whose aegis I reside for rs.

20 per week, is of lofty lineage, though fallen from that high estate into the peck of troubles, and compelled (owing to severely social disposition) to receive a number of small and select boarders.

Like _Jepthah_, in the play of _Hamlet_, she has one fair daughter and no more, a bewitching and well-proportioned damsel, as fine as a fivepence or a May-day queen. Notwithstanding this, when I summon up my courage to address her, she receives my laborious politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circ.u.mstance that I am a native gentleman of a dark complexion.

In addition, I have the honour to inform you of further specimens of this inurbanity and bearishness from officials who are perfect strangers to the writer. Each morning I journey through the subterranean bowels of the earth to the Temple, and on a recent occasion, when I was descending the stairs in haste to pop into the train, lo and behold, just as I reached the gate, it was shut in my nose by the churlishness of the jack-in-office!

At which, stung to the quick at so unprovoked and unpremeditated an affront, I accosted him severely through the bars of the wicket, demanding sarcastically, "Is _this_ your boasted British Jurisprudence?"

The savage heart of the Collector was moved by my expostulation, and he consented to open the gate, and imprint a perforated hole on my ticket; but, alack! his repentance was a day after the fair, for the train had already taken its hook into the Cimmerian gloom of a tunnel! When the next train arrived, I, waiting prudently until it was quiescent, stepped into a compartment, wherein I was dismayed and terrified to find myself alone with an individual and two lively young terriers, which barked minaciously at my legs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LET OUT! LET OUT!!"]

But I, with much presence of mind, protruded my head from the window, vociferating to those upon the platform, "Let out! Let out!! Fighting dogs are here!!!"

And they met my appeal with unmannerly jeerings, until the controller of the train, seeing that I was firm in upholding my dignity of British subject, and claiming my just rights, unfastened the door and permitted me to escape; but, while I was yet in search of a compartment where no canine elements were in the manger, the train was once more in motion, and I, being no daredevil to take such leap into the dark, was a second time left behind, and a loser of two trains. Moreover, though I have written a humbly indignant pet.i.tion to the Hon'ble Directors of the Company pointing out loss of time and inconvenience through incivility, and asking them for small pecuniary compensation, they have a.s.sumed the rhinoceros hide, and nilled my request with dry eyes.

But I shall next make the further complaint that, even when making every effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and--as King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil, politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took to decapitate--so I, too, must draw attention to the fact that the duration of formal ceremonious visits, is far too protracted and long drawn out.

_Crede experto._ A certain young English gentleman, dwelling in the Temple, whose acquaintance I have formed, earnestly requested that I should do him the honour of a visit; and recently, wishing to be hail fellow well met, I presented myself before him about 9.30 A.M.

He greeted me with effusion, shaking me warmly by the hand, and begging me to be seated, and making many inquiries, whether I preferred India to England, and what progress I was making in my studies, &c., and so forth, all of which I answered faithfully, to the best of my abilities.

After that he addressed me by fits and starts and _longo intervallo_, yet displaying so manifest and absorbent a delight in my society that he could not bring himself to terminate the audience, while I was to conceal my immense wearisomeness and the ardent desire I had conceived to leave him.

And thus he detained me there hour after hour, until five minutes past one P.M., when he recollected, with many professions of chagrin, that he had an appointment to take his tiffin, and dismissed me, inviting me cordially to come again.

If, however, it is expected of me that I can devote three hours and a half to ceremonial civilities, I must respectfully answer with a _Nolo episcopari_, for my time is more precious than rubies, and so I will beg not only Mr MELLADEW, Esq., Barrister-at-law, but all other Anglo-Saxon friends and their families, to accept this as a _verb.u.m sap._ and wink to a blind horse.

II

_Some account of Mr Jabberjee's experiences at the Westminster Play._

Being forearmed by editorial beneficence with ticket of admission to theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at Westminster College, I presented myself at the scene of acting in a state of liveliest and frolicsome antic.i.p.ation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of December last, about 7.20 P.M.

At the summit of the stairs I was received by a posse of polite and stalwart striplings in white kids, who, after abstracting large circular orifice from my credentials, ordered me to ascend to a lofty gallery, where, on arriving, I found every chair pre-occupied, and moreover was restricted to a prospect of the backs of numerous juvenile heads, while expected to remain the livelong evening on the tiptoe of expectation and Shank's mare!