Sassy, hose wielding lady from the 1980s

The following borderline NSFW image is from an an old Vogue Australia article featuring designer Arabella Ramsay's scrapbook. Not really sure what is going on here [innocent look].



At a stretch it could be by iconic, 1980s illustrator Antonio Lopez - although his style is usually less overt.

The Naughty Mouse

The Naughty Mouse.

In a nice little house,
Lived a silly young mouse,
So snug at the back of a shed;
He would spend all of the day
In fine gambols of play,
Then go to warm little bed.

He had a kind mother,
A good little brother,
And plenty of nice wholesome food;
Oh! how naughty was he,
Discontented to be;
He should have been happy and good.

'Tis with sorrow indeed,
I must say he would heed
No word that his fond mother spoke;
If she told him to stay,
He would scamper away,
And think it a very fine joke.


Now one day on the green
His good parent had seen
A cat, fast asleep in the sun;
So to Mousey she said,
"Pray go back to your bed,
And near that fine creature don't run."


But alas! you will find,
No advice would he mind,
He soon went away with a squeak;
For he thought 'twould be fun
Round the big cat to run,
She looked both so tame and so sleek.

But he made a mistake,
For Miss Puss was awake,
Asleep though pretending to be;
None so deaf do appear
As are those who won't hear,
So blind as all those who won't see.


Little mouse feared no ill,
For the cat lay so still,
Alarm never entered his head;
So he frolicked about,
Till puss put her paw out,
Gave a pat - and the mousey was dead!

Little people attend
To advice from a friend;
Both love and obedience too,
Ever practice to those
Who you may suppose,
If older, are wiser than you.

Poem by Maria Corbould.
Images by Whymper* (first name uncertain) from The Child's Companion and Juvenile Instructor, Vol. XXXIII, 1893, page 49-50

*Probably Edward Whymper. He was both a professional engraver and a famous mountaineer hence why he is listed as one of the 'etc' illustrators rather than listed by name. The etching signature matches known works.

Clever Rats

Clever Rats
Image by Whymper* (first name uncertain) from The Child's Companion and Juvenile Instructor, Vol. XXXIII, 1893, page 121

'The sagacity of rats is a fact that has long been known to naturalists. La Fontaine, in his "Fables," records that "Two rats in foraging, fell on an egg." And the story goes on to tell how
"Brimful of joy and appetite,
They were about to sack the box
So tight without the aid of locks,"
when a fox came into sight. Eager to save their booty, one turned upon his back holding the egg in his paws, and the other dragged him along by his tail to a place of safety.'

Then the following anecdote:

'The other day a son of mine, about eleven, said that through a chink in the floor he could see a rat rolling something that seemed like an egg. I got a saw and cut away the board, and found seven perfectly fresh eggs, not a crack in any except where I had unfortunately cracked a couple with my saw, and we could see that they were quite freshly broken. The nursery (the room in question) is upstairs, and as none of the hens ever lay within thirty or forty yards, and the eggs are collected every day, at what time they (the rats) went to work, or how they got them up the stairs, I can not imagine. We have often missed by the evening the eggs we had seen in the morning, and thougtht the hens had eaten them.'


*Probably Edward Whymper in an enjoyable side project? He was both a professional engraver and a famous mountaineer hence why he he listed as one of the 'etc' illustrators rather than listed by name. The etching signature matches known works.

Sometimes a misheard lyric still makes sense.

My housemate slightly amused and incredulous to me as we're listening to David Bowie's Secret Life of Arabia, from the rather excellent Heroes.
"Did he just say 'the secret life of a labia?'"