"Where are you staying? I'll call and see you."
"Don't! You'll only think the Worse of me when you see my Surroundings!"
"Oh, my dear Fellow, that's impossible, you know!"
"SMALL BY DEGREES, AND BEAUTIFULLY LESS."
Dear Mr. Punch,—I see that the authorities at Monte Carlo very properly have refused permission to Doctors, their wives and families, to visit the tables of the Casino. I have not yet ascertained the reason for the prohibition, but no doubt it is because the "powers that be" consider Physicians too valuable to the community to run the risk of endangering their lives in the excitement of play. If we may accept this as a basis, we can see how the idea can be developed. If it is right to exclude Doctors, why then, as a kindred class, Lawyers should also be refused admission. Of course Clergymen of all denominations are, even now, conspicuous by their absence. If they are not, the decree of banishment should refer also to the wearers of the cloth.
We have now got rid of Doctors, Lawyers, and Parsons—three of the Professions. To be consistent, we must take the fourth. This will prevent Musicians from gambling. But if Musicians are tabooed, why not Actors? And if Actors, why not Artists? And if we except Artists, we must join Literature and Science, or there might be jealousy. And now we have excluded Doctors, Lawyers, Parsons, Musicians, Actors, Artists, Authors, Men of Science, and everyone more or less connected with them.
Now we must remember what is bad for the master must be equally bad for the man. So if a Doctor is excluded, a Chemist, an Undertaker, and a Grave-digger would also be kept away. A Lawyer would carry with him Judges, Magistrates, Clerks, and Law Stationers. The Clergy would represent everyone connected with a church, from an Archbishop to a Bell-ringer. Then, if we are to take away the Professions, Commerce must follow—wholesale and retail. In one blow we keep out of the rooms nearly the entire community.
Still there are the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service. But these are all more or less branches of the original class. They, like the Doctors, work for the public good. Without an Army and Navy and a Civil Service, how would the State exist? So they must go. And now we have very little left. We have lost the Doctors, the Clergy, the Lawyers, the Contributors to Fine Arts, the Merchants, the Traders, and the Servants of the Crown. Naturally the lower orders would follow the lead of the upper classes, and then there would be only the Croupiers left. And as the Croupiers may not play themselves, and would have the play of no one to superintend, they, too, might be excused, as their labour would be in vain.
And now having reduced the visitors of the tables to an unknown quantity, I may disappear myself. Yours retiringly,