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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156,
+June 11, 1919, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2004 [EBook #11670]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 156.
+
+
+June 11, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"Every British working man has as much right as any Member of Parliament
+to be paid £400 a year," states a well-known Labour paper. We have never
+questioned this for a moment.
+
+       ***
+
+"Women," says a technical journal, "are a source of grave danger to
+motorists in crowded city streets." It is feared in some quarters that
+they will have to be abolished.
+
+       ***
+
+"Are you getting stout?" asks a Sunday contemporary. Only very
+occasionally, we regret to say.
+
+       ***
+
+The heat was so oppressive in London the other day that a taxi-driver at
+Euston Station was seen to go up to a pedestrian and ask him if he could
+do with a ride. He was eventually pinned down by some colleagues and
+handed over to the care of his relatives.
+
+       ***
+
+"I do not care a straw about Turkey," writes Mr. LOVAT Fraser in _The
+Daily Mail_. It is this dare-devil spirit which has made us the nation
+we are.
+
+       ***
+
+Superstition in regard to marriage is dying out, says a West End
+registrar. Nevertheless the superstition that a man who gets married
+between January 1st and December 31st is asking for trouble is still
+widely held.
+
+       ***
+
+Mr. VAN INGEN, a New York business man, has just started to cross the
+Atlantic for the one hundred and sixtieth time. It is not known whether
+the major ambition of his life is to leave New York or go back and have
+a last look at it.
+
+       ***
+
+"There is no likelihood," says the FOOD-CONTROLLER, "of cheese running
+out during the coming winter." A pan of drinking water left in the
+larder will always prevent its running out and biting someone during the
+dog-days.
+
+       ***
+
+Sympathetic readers will be glad to hear that the little sixpence which
+was found wandering in Piccadilly Circus has been given a good home by
+an Aberdeen gentleman.
+
+       ***
+
+Aeroplane passengers are advised by one enterprising weekly not to throw
+bottles out of the machine. This is certainly good advice. The bottles
+are so apt to get broken.
+
+       ***
+
+Germany, it is expected, will sign the Peace treaty this once, but
+points out that we must not allow it to happen again.
+
+       ***
+
+Of two burglars charged at Stratford one told the Bench that he intended
+to have nothing further to do with his colleague in future. It is said
+that he finds it impossible to work with him owing to his nasty grasping
+ways.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sixty-seven fewer babies were born in one Surrey village last year than
+in previous years. It would be interesting to have their names.
+
+       ***
+
+A grocer, according to a legal writer, is not compelled to take goods
+out of the window to oblige a customer. The suggestion that a grocer is
+expected to oblige anybody in any circumstances is certainly a novelty.
+
+       ***
+
+Uxbridge, says _The Evening News_, has no bandstand. Nor have we, but we
+make no fuss about it.
+
+       ***
+
+The Bolshevists in Russia, we are told, are busy sowing seeds of
+sedition. For some time it has been suspected that the Bolshevists were
+up to no good.
+
+       ***
+
+HERBERT WELSH, aged sixty-seven, has started to walk from New Jersey to
+New Hampshire, U.S.A., a distance of five hundred miles. In the absence
+of fuller details we assume that HERBERT must have lost his train.
+
+       ***
+
+"Postage stamps," says a weekly snippets paper, "can be obtained at all
+post-offices." This should prove a boon to those who have letters to
+write.
+
+       ***
+
+It is thought if a certain well-known judge does not soon ask, "What is
+whisky?" he will have to content himself with the past tense.
+
+       ***
+
+"What to do with a Wasp" is a headline in a contemporary. We have not
+read the article, but our own plan with wasps is to try to dodge them.
+
+       ***
+
+We hear that complications may arise from an unfortunate mistake made at
+a Jazz Competition held in London last week. It appears that the prize
+was awarded to a lady suffering from hysteria who was not competing.
+
+       ***
+
+A taxi-driver in a suburb of London was married last week to a local
+telephone operator. Speculation is now rife as to which will be the
+first to break down and say "Thank you."
+
+       ***
+
+The Press reports the case of a young lady who received slight injuries
+from a slab of ceiling which fell on her head whilst she was asleep in
+bed, but was saved from further damage by the thickness of her hair.
+This should act as a warning to those ladies who adopt the silly habit
+of removing their tresses on retiring for the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Hospital Orderly (taking particulars of new patient_).
+"NAME, SIR?"
+
+_Patient_. "SIR BRUCE BLAZEAWAY."
+
+_Hospital Orderly_. "RANK?"
+
+_Patient_. "LIEUTENANT-GENERAL."
+
+_Hospital Orderly_. "BATTALION?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN?
+
+As Count BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU puts it, quoting from his German translation
+of _Hamlet: "Sein oder nicht sein, dass ist hier die Frage_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The recommendations of the Jerram Committee came before a
+    conference between a representative body of lower deck ratings
+    and members of Parliament who sit for naval constituencies. The
+    veterinary chief petty officer presided."--_Sunday Paper_.
+
+The rank is new to us; but he must be just the man to look after the
+interests of our sea-dogs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the "Transactions" of a photographic society:--
+
+    "Mr. ---- stated that as Architectural Photography covered a large
+    and varied field he purposed to confine his remarks to the line of
+    work most familiar to him, namely, The Interiors of some of the
+    great English Ministers."
+
+Now at last we shall know if the Government's heart is in the right
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO ROBERT OF THE FORCE.
+
+  Since first you loomed upon my infant ken
+    My firm belief has ever been, and still it is,
+  That you are fashioned not as other men
+    (Subject, at best, to mortal disabilities),
+  But come of more than human kin,
+  Immune, or practically so, from sin.
+
+  Godlike the poise that to your bearing lends
+    The aspect of a tower that never totters;
+  There's a divinity hath shaped your ends
+    (Rough-hewn, perhaps--especially your trotters);
+  Your ample chest, your generous girth
+  Have no precise similitude on earth.
+
+  I cannot picture you (though I have tried)
+    Wearing a bowler hat and tweed apparel,
+  Or craving sustenance for your inside
+    Drawn either from the oven or the barrel;
+  Scarcely you figure in my eye
+  As liable, in Nature's course, to die.
+
+  And it was you who almost fell from grace,
+    Striking, like Lucifer, against authority,
+  Leaving your Heaven for another place
+    Not mentioned by your ten-to-one majority,
+  And doomed, to your surprise and pain,
+  Never, like Lucifer, to rise again.
+
+  But you were wise, my Robert, wise in time;
+    And I, who set you far above humanity,
+  High-pedestalled upon my lofty rhyme,
+    Rejoice with you in your recovered sanity;
+  To me I feel it would have mattered
+  Enormously to see my idol shattered.
+
+  But 'ware the Bolsh, who fain would lure your feet
+    To conduct unbecoming in a copper;
+  Once you betrayed us, going off your beat,
+    And now you've nearly come another cropper;
+  If, tempted thrice, you break your trust,
+  You'll have no halo left to readjust.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EMBARRASSMENT AND THE LAWYER.
+
+Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with himself.
+I confess that he has deserved it.
+
+The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no briefs, but
+had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of affairs. Then he went
+to the War and shed his conscience somewhere in the Balkans. So far so
+good. But, when he was demobilised and began to take stock of what had
+been happening at home in the meanwhile, he found to his horror that a
+conscience had again been thrust upon him by the General Council of the
+Bar.
+
+Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won through.
+
+How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in
+this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a
+critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly
+deliberated upon the following fantastic problem:--
+
+"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a plea of
+Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he did commit the
+offence charged?"
+
+With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists propounded the
+following answer:--
+
+"If the confession has been made before the proceedings have been
+commenced it is most undesirable that an advocate to whom the confession
+has been made should undertake the defence, as he would most certainly
+be seriously embarrassed in the conduct of the case, and no harm can be
+done to the accused by requesting him to retain another advocate."
+
+The new Watson was unable to agree with this doctrine, so far as it
+       *       *       *       *       *
+The legal conscience thus gratuitously thrust upon him was soon to
+undergo its first ordeal. An acquaintance of his, in a moment of
+absent-mindedness, murdered somebody, and asked Watson to persuade the
+inevitable jury that he hadn't. The said acquaintance explained to
+Watson that he simply did it when he wasn't thinking.
+
+Watson was in a hole. Obviously this was a case to which the
+embarrassment prescribed by the General Council of the Bar was
+applicable. This legal embarrassment, which, strictly speaking, ought
+now to be his, would not, however, have worried him in the least had
+it not been for another consideration. Suppose, after Watson had
+triumphantly got his client acquitted, it got about that the "innocent"
+had confessed his crime to counsel beforehand? That would mean an end to
+Watson's professional career. One does not thus slight the edicts of the
+mighty with impunity.
+
+Watson was too proud to ask his client to keep the deadly secret, or to
+apply the famous wriggle of _Hippolytus_: "My tongue hath sworn, but my
+heart remains unsworn."
+
+Nevertheless Watson gave his mind to the problem. In the end he decided
+on the following line of defence: "Not Guilty," and in the alternative
+"Guilty under justifiable circumstances, without malice aforethought but
+with intent to benefit the person murdered."
+
+Happily the General Council of the Bar has not yet assigned any
+moral embarrassment to a counsel who pleads "Not Guilty," and in the
+alternative, "Guilty." Watson therefore reasoned that if the jury
+returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative confession
+could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other hand, if he
+were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an ethical asset
+towards securing for him a lenient view of the case.
+
+As I said, Watson behaved well. He proved to his own and the jury's
+satisfaction (1) that his client did not commit the murder; (2) that
+alternatively he did commit the murder, but that he did so for the good
+of everybody concerned; and (3) that in either case he never meant to do
+it.
+
+In the event the prisoner was acquitted without a stain upon his
+       *       *       *       *       *
+Watson is now well established as the last hope of abandoned causes. He
+is a specialist in defence, and criminals of every shade throng to him.
+When a new one swims into his ken Watson meets him on the threshold
+and says, "Don't speak a word. Read this;" and he puts into his hand a
+printed slip. The slip reads:--
+
+    "_ Conditions of Advocacy_.
+
+    "(1) If you put your case into my hands it ceases at once and from
+    that moment to be any concern of your own. You are not entitled, for
+    instance, to express any opinion as to whether you committed the
+    alleged crime or not. That is my affair exclusively.
+
+    "(2) If however there is anything which lies so heavily on your
+    conscience that it must out sooner or later, let it be later. I
+    am open to receive confessions at any time after proceedings have
+    begun.
+
+    "If you accept these conditions, good; if not, go."
+
+Watson says they always accept them, so he never worries about the
+General Council of the Bar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW ISSUE.
+
+OIL GENIE _(gushingly, to Coal-Owner and Mr. SMILLIE)._ "CAN I DO
+ANYTHING TO ALLAY THE TROUBLED WATERS?"
+
+[The discovery of oil in Derbyshire, which threatens the supremacy of
+the mining industry, may affect the questions now in dispute before the
+Coal Commission.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Harassed Mother (having distributed half of her
+offspring on laps of passengers)._ "COME ON, 'ENERY. SQUEEZE IN
+SOMEWHERE. 'TAIN'T EXAC'LY 'OW I LOIKES TO TRAVEL, BUT S'POSE WE'LL 'AVE
+TO PUT UP WITH IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN ERROR IN TACTICS.
+
+In the heart of the Forêt de Roumare there is a spot called Rond du
+Chêne à Leu, where eight paths meet. Why they choose to meet there,
+unless it is for company, one can't imagine. The fact that there is not
+an estaminet within five kilometres nullifies its value as a military
+objective. Therefore, having been decoyed thither by a plausible
+guide-book, it was with surprise that I beheld an ancient representative
+of the British Army smoking his pipe with the air of having been in
+possession for centuries.
+
+"Bit lonely here," I said.
+
+"Rumble's Moor on a wet Friday's busy to it," he said emphatically. "Is
+it reet the War's over?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the information soaked in.
+
+"Who won?"
+
+"The Peace Conference haven't decided yet."
+
+Conversation languished until I remembered the guide-book.
+
+"According to tradition," I said, "it was at this identical spot that
+ROLLO, first Duke of Normandy, hung his golden chain on a sign-post for
+a whole year without having it stolen."
+
+"Tha-at ud be afore we brought our Chinese Labour gang felling timber,"
+he said firmly; "I wudden give it five minutes now."
+
+"I understand, too, that there is a historic ruin hereabouts."
+
+"Theer was," he said; "but he's in hospital."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Ratty Beslow; my owd colleague an' sparring pardner. It's 'im you weer
+talking of, ain't it?"
+
+"It wasn't; but I'm interested in him," I said, sitting down on a pile
+of logs. "How did he get to hospital?"
+
+"Through a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory. You see, me an' Ratty had been
+in th' War a goodish time an' ha-ad lost our o-riginal ferociousness. So
+they put us to this Chink Labour gang for a rest-cure. Likewise Ratty
+'ad got too fa-amous as a timber-scrounger oop th' line, and it was
+thought that if 'e was left in th' middle of a forest, wheer it didn't
+matter a dang if he scrounged wood fra' revally to tattoo, it might
+reform him. But it was deadly dull. We tried a sweepstake f'r th' one as
+could recognise most Chinks at sight, and a raffle for who could guess
+how many trees in a circle; but there wasn't much spice in it. So at
+last Ratty suggested we should try a bit o' poaching.
+
+"'Ah doan't know th' first thing about it,' I says; 'Ah'm town bred.
+Nobbut Ah could knock a few rabbits over if Ah'd got a Lewis gun handy.'
+
+"'Rabbuts be danged!' says he; 'Ah've no use f'r such vermin. Theer's
+stags, so Ah've heerd tell, in this forest.'
+
+"'Ah wudden say no to a haunch o' venison,' I answered; 'but stags is
+artillery work.'
+
+"'They is not,' says Ratty. 'Nor yet rifles nor bombs.'
+
+"'Ah s'pose you stops theer holes an' puts in a ferret,' says I,
+sarcastic; 'or else traps 'em wi' cheese.'
+
+"'That's the only kind o' hunting you've bin used to,' replies Ratty.
+'Stags is caught wi' tactics, a trip-wire an' a lasso.'
+
+"'Well, la-ad,' I says, 'you'd best do th' lassoing. I doan't know the
+habits o' stags.'
+
+"Ratty scrounges a prime rope fra' somewheers, an' we creeps out after
+nightfall. It was a dree night, the owd bracken underfoot damp an'
+sodden, an' th' tall firs looking grim an' gho-ostly in th' gloom. Soon
+theer was a crackling o' twigs, like a tank scouting on tiptoe.
+
+"'Bosch patrol half-left!' whispers I.
+
+"'Stow it, you blighter,' says Ratty. 'This is serious. Can't you see
+th' stag?'
+
+"I peeps round and, loomin' in the da-arkness, see th' hindquarters of a
+stag sticking out ayant a tree. It looked bigger 'n Ah 've seen 'em in
+pictures, but Ah 've noticed Fritzes look bigger in th' dark.
+
+"'Now's your chance, la-ad,' I whispers. 'Trip round an' slip th' noose
+over 'is horns.'
+
+"'Not me,' growls Batty. 'T'other end's safer.'
+
+"He crawls up to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to
+slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left
+an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed
+across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged to be Ratty.
+
+"'Ratty's after altitude records,' says I to meself, 'an' there'll be
+th' ellanall of a row if that rope's lost.'
+
+"However, in a few minutes he started to descend an' made a good landing
+in some soft bracken. By th' time I'd felt him all over, an' found 'e'd
+be fit to go to hospital in th' morning, th' stag had disappeared."
+
+"I never heard of stags kicking like that before," I interrupted.
+
+"Nor hadn't Ratty," said the ancient warrior. "Ah towd you he made a
+mistake in Nacheral 'Istory.
+
+"The next night, feeling mighty lonely, Ah walked five kilometres to th'
+nearest estaminet, the 'Rondyvoo de Chasers,' an' looked upon the _vang_
+while it was _rouge_. When I'd done lookin' and started home th' forest
+looked more gho-ost-like than ever wi' th' young firs bowing an'
+swaying, and drifts o' cloud peeping through the branches. All at once I
+heerd a crackling o' twigs like th' night afore, an' then someone stole
+acrost th' road carrying a rope.
+
+"Ah says to myself, 'It's one of th' Chinks poaching, an' it's 'evin
+'elp 'im if 'e 's after what Ratty nearly caught last night!'
+
+"Seemingly 'e was, for 'e follered th' noise, an' Ah follered 'im--at a
+safe distance. Then, dimlike an' looming big, Ah saw th' stag, an' the
+Chink stealing up behind it.
+
+"'Tother end, you fool!' I whispered; an' he jumps round to its head,
+slips th' noose round its neck an' leads if off as quiet as a lamb."
+
+"You don't expect me to believe," I broke in indignantly, "that a stag
+can be led like a poodle on a lead?"
+
+"P'r'aps not stags," said the veteran, relighting his pipe. "That's weer
+Ratty made the mistake that sent 'im to hospital. But you can do it now
+and then with a transport mule what's broke away, and the Chink done
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Photographer (to Douglas Devereux, the world-famous
+cinema-actor_). "TIKE YER PHOTO, SIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "In reply to your letter to hand, we are very sorry for the delay in
+    sending the Jumper, but the tremendous demand for these has denuded
+    our stock. We are, however, expecting a further delay now in a day
+    or so.
+
+    Yours obediently,
+
+    BROTHERS, LTD."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The spell of hot weather is causing large numbers of the public
+    to migrate to the Kent coast. Thanet, owing to greatly improved
+    travelling facilities, is being specially flavoured. The public well
+    know the magical properties of Thanet air."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+Then why bother about flavouring it?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The Food Controller announced that canned salmon is now free of
+    control, and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on
+    July 1.
+
+    He also intimates that canned salmon is now free of control,
+    and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on July
+    1."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+We hope he will say it once more, on the Bellman's principle that "what
+I tell you three times is true."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Chorus of children (to parent, late Lieut-Col. R.F.A.,
+D.S.O., M.C. and Bar_). "DON'T BE FRIGHTENED, DADDY; SHE'LL ONLY PECK
+YOUR LEGS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HINTS ON SELECTING AN AEROPLANE.
+
+As all the world will soon be in the air a few words of advice on
+choosing an aerial steed may be of assistance to intending fliers who
+have so far had no experience as owners of winged craft.
+
+The first thing is to locate the whereabouts of the best park, for one
+speaks of a park of aeroplanes just as one speaks of a school of whales,
+a grove of wombats or a suite of leeches. Having arrived (wearing, if
+you are wise, a full-grown check cap, with the back to the front and the
+peak protecting the nape of the neck from the bites of savage vendors),
+take a deep breath and look round you knowingly.
+
+By the way, what are you--peer, profiteer, or plain _pater-familias_
+looking for a family air-bus? It is impossible to advise you how to
+select a plane without knowing whether you want one for long-distance
+journeys (with non-starting attachment), for stunting, or merely for
+gadding about and dropping in on your friends. There is a sad story
+afloat of a man who bought an air-bus the other day for world-touring
+and only discovered the insufficiency of cupboards and the want of a
+bathroom after starting on his maiden trip to Patagonia (where the nuts
+drop off).
+
+Let us suppose that you are one of the majority of heavier-than-air
+persons who will shortly be wanting a good steady machine to rise to any
+ordinary occasion.
+
+Well, then, look round you carefully. Observe the demeanour of the
+machines that are trotted out (if such a term may be used) for your
+inspection. The flick of a tail, the purr of an engine or the slope of
+a wing may give the observant a clue as to the disposition of an aerial
+Pegasus.
+
+But however reassuring a preliminary canter may be (to borrow another
+horsey simile) insist on a thorough personal inspection of all parts of
+the machine. Test the musical capacity of the wire entanglement, screw
+and unscrew the turnbuckles till the seller cries for mercy, and run
+your hands well over the body (the aeroplane's, of course) to make quite
+sure that it will support the weight of yourself, of your family and of
+your parasites--remembering in this connection that Aunt Louisa kicks
+the beam at 15.7. Make sure also that the body will not part company
+with the rest of the box of tricks at one of those awkward corners in
+the sky. Also, if you have time, it might be well to glance at the
+engine, the petrol tank and the feed-pipe, as experts consider these of
+importance.
+
+Having satisfied yourself that all these things are as they should be
+in the best of all possible aeroplanes, that the joy-stick works as
+smoothly as a beer-pull, and that the under-carriage has the necessary
+wheels, axles and other things that under-carriages are licensed to
+carry, little remains but to pay for the machine and make a nosedive for
+home.
+
+A longer and more detailed article on "How to Choose a Stunter," by the
+Bishop of Solder and Man, with which is incorporated "A Few Hints on
+Banking for Beginners," by Sir JOHN BRADBURY, will appear in next week's
+issue.
+
+[This is the first I have heard of it.--ED.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a Menu:--
+
+    "Special this day: Boiled Rabbi and Pork."
+
+    A clear case of adding insult to injury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE DERBY.
+
+_Nurse_. "PLEASE IS THIS THE WAY TO THE GRAND PARADE?"
+
+_Soured Spinster_. "DON'T MENTION THE HORRID THING, YOUNG WOMAN, AND ME
+WITH HALF-A-MONTH'S PENSION ON THE PANTHER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF APPROACHING BALDNESS.
+
+  I'm back in civil life, all brawn and chest,
+    Lungs made of leather, heart as right as rain;
+  I still could dine off bully-beef with zest;
+    I've never had a scratch or stitch or sprain;
+    Life seems to throb in every single vein.
+  Yet I'm a whited sepulchre, in brief;
+    I've one foot in the grave, I'm on the wane,
+  I'm heading for the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+  From Mons to Jericho I've borne my crest
+    And back from Jericho to Mons again;
+  I've sampled smells in Araby the Blest
+    Would burst a boiler or corrode a drain;
+    The Blankshires have a port that raises Cain--
+  I've messed with them and never come to grief;
+    And yet I'm dashing like a non-stop train
+  Full steam into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+  It caught me hard this morning when I dressed
+    And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain
+  Is gnawing like a canker at my breast,
+    Is beating like a hammer in my brain;
+    I must speak out or break beneath the strain.
+  _I'm going bald on top_. O cruel reef
+    Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane
+  Whose end is but the sere and yellow leaf!
+
+  ENVOI.
+
+  Prince (Mr. Punch)! on Armageddon's plain
+    My love-locks fell a prey to Time, the thief.
+  Regrets are useless, unguents are in vain;
+    Only remains the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE COMMERCIAL TOUCH.
+
+    "Presiding at the concert given in connection with the ---- Art
+    Club's annual exhibition of oil and water-colours, Mr. ----
+    congratulated the club on the quality of its paintings, which, he
+    thought, were remarkably cheap when cognisance was taken of the
+    present high prices of materials."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+This critic has, as the Art jargon puts it, "a nice feeling for values."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "HOW I DIFFER FROM MY MOTHER."
+
+    By A Modern Woman.
+
+    '_Women differ by the width of Heaven from what their mothers
+    were_.'--MR. JUSTICE DARLING.
+
+    "I do not smoke and I do not wear bare-back dresses, but I agree with
+    Mr. Justice Darling--there is the width of Heaven between my mother
+    and I."--_Evening News_.
+
+Let's hope so, in the matter of grammar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HUMOUR'S LABOUR LOST.
+
+    _Lochtermachty, N.B. May 29th, 1919._
+
+    DEAR MR. PUNCH,--My father and I have fallen out over the question
+    of your literary judgment and sense of humour. If I weren't a filial
+    daughter I'd say that he's a ----; but I am, so I won't call him
+    names.
+
+    The fact is that, before he became a professional Padre, he didn't
+    know that such things as senses of humour existed. All that mattered
+    in his life were Latin and Greek and Hebrew and the other pursuits
+    of the classical scholar. However, during his wanderings with
+    the Army he has somehow managed to acquire what he calls "an
+    appreciation of the laughable." And that is the cause of our divided
+    house.
+
+    This morning at breakfast, while he was reading out the account
+    of the proceedings of the General Assemblies, he came upon the
+    interesting statement--volunteered by an eminent Edinburgh
+    divine--that all the ministers of the Kirk have lost a stone in
+    weight during the War, and that this works out at a loss of five
+    tons of ministerial flesh to the United Free Church of Scotland.
+    Then, after he had tested the accuracy of the statistics, which he
+    found quite incorrect, and I had meditated upon the bulk of matter
+    encircled by the parental Sam Browne, we were both seized with an
+    idea, and said "_Punch!_" at the same instant.
+
+    It took us some time to get rid of the accumulation of marmalade,
+    margarine and bacon fat which we amassed in our attempts to link
+    fingers across the table; but about 10.30 or so we got settled down
+    to work on your behalf.
+
+    Until lunch-time we were fully occupied in giving each other ideas
+    and then explaining why they wouldn't work. After lunch the
+    Padre retired to his study to work out, he said, a satire--after
+    ARISTOPHANES--which would afford him an opportunity of introducing
+    the Archbishop of CANTERBURY'S speech, and making some whimsical
+    allusions to the legend of the strayed lamb come back to tell his
+    lean Scotch brethren of the green meadows and luscious feeding to be
+    had across the Borders.
+
+    My own ambitions were slighter. I would do a conversation perhaps
+    between the shades of JOHNSON and his BOZZY, or a Limerick, or even
+    just an original witty remark, or, failing all of these, I would
+    select an "apt quotation." About tea-time I retired to the garden
+    with a notebook, a pencil and a book of quotations. By 6.30 I had a
+    list of one hundred and two, and was wavering over the final choice
+    of a parody on "Some hae meat wha canna eat," and an adaptation of
+    "Be sooople, Davie, in things immaterial," when my parent came
+    out to the lawn, flushed and excited, with his last three hairs
+    triumphantly erect, and brandished a document in my face.
+
+    It was an ode, Mr. Punch--an ode five (foolscap) pages long, written
+    in Greek!
+
+    I gave him best at once, and then very gently suggested that his
+    composition might not in its present unmitigated form be _quite_
+    suited to your tastes and requirements.
+
+    I shall spare you the details of the ensuing controversy, but I want
+    you to know that I have spared you much else, and in so doing have
+    forfeited not only my father's affection but a projected advance on
+    my next quarter-but-three's dress allowance.
+
+    I hope you need no further proof of my devotion.
+
+    Yours, etc.,
+
+    A DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE.
+
+    P.S.--I was forgetting to say that you will find the bit about the
+    ministers near the bottom of the third column of the tenth page of
+    Thursday's _Scotsman_. Perhaps you can think of a funny treatment
+    yourself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SONGS OF SIMLA.
+
+III.--THE FURRIER.
+
+  Akbar the furrier squats on the floor
+    Sucking an Eastern pipe,
+  Thumbing the lakhs that he's made of yore,
+  Lakhs which creep to the long-dreamed crore
+    In a ledger of Western type.
+
+  And all around him the wild beasts sway,
+    Cured of their mortal ills--
+  Flying squirrels from Sikkim way,
+  Silver foxes that used to play
+    Up on the Kashmir hills.
+
+  On the shelf of a cupboard a polecat lies
+    Laughing between his paws,
+  And there's more than a hint of amused surprise
+  In the gape of the lynx, in the marten's eyes,
+    In the poise of the grey wolf's claws.
+
+  And, should you enter old Akbar's lair
+    And hear what he wants for his skins,
+  You will know why the little red squirrels stare,
+  Why the Bengal tiger gasps for air
+    And the gaunt snow-leopard grins.
+
+  J.M.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Telephone Girl's motto: _Nulla linea sine die_--"Number engaged;
+ring again and again, please."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALAS! POOR PANTHER.
+
+I went to the Derby fully intending to back the favourite--The Panther.
+
+But the cross-currents immediately set in--as they always do.
+
+I began by making the mistake of reading the forecasts of all the
+experts--the gallant Captains and Majors, the Men on the Course, the Men
+on the Heath, the Men on the Spot--all of whom, although they mostly
+favoured The Panther, had serious views as to dangerous rivals,
+supported by what looked like uncontrovertible arguments.
+
+I also had an early evening paper with a summary of forecasts, none of
+which (as it was to turn out) mentioned the winner at all.
+
+I was even so foolish as to glance at some of the advertisements of the
+wizards who are so ready to put the benefit of their knowledge at the
+service of the public and make fortunes for others rather (apparently)
+than for themselves, all of whom hinted at some mysterious long-priced
+outsider whose miraculous qualities of speed were a secret. But of
+course I was too late to profit by these; they merely unsettled me.
+
+Not content with this I was forced to overhear the conversation of
+others in our compartment, each of whom fancied a separate animal,
+arguing with reasons that could not be gainsaid.
+
+In this way I learned that The Panther would win in a canter and would
+be badly beaten; that he was a stranger to the Epsom course; that he was
+ready for anything; that he liked soft going; that he was no good except
+when he could hear his hoofs rattle; that his jockey was not strong
+enough; that his jockey was ideal; that he was sounder than any horse
+had ever been, and that trouble was brewing.
+
+All this naturally left me shaken as to my first decision. Was I wise,
+I asked myself, to trust all my eggs (forgive, Sir ALEC BLACK, the
+poorness of this metaphor) to one doubtful basket?
+
+Having admitted an element of doubt I was the prey of every suspicion
+and began to consider the other candidates. All Alone headed the list.
+I liked the name, because it suggested the corollary: the rest nowhere.
+Also it belonged to a lady--to the only lady owner, in fact--and
+lady--owners were said (by a man with a red beard opposite me who smoked
+cigarettes so short that I was certain it was made of dyed asbestos) to
+be in luck this season. "Always follow the luck," he added. But then, on
+the other hand, what could be more lucky than Colonel BUCHAN, author of
+_Mr. Standfast_ and an excellent History of the War, into whose lap so
+many good things fall? Why not back a horse named after him? Besides,
+was not Buchan third favourite?
+
+I was making a note of Buchan's claims, when a man with a Thermos flask
+lashed to his side began to praise Dominion. Dominion, it seems, was
+third in the Two Thousand Guineas--only just behind Buchan, who was just
+behind The Panther. Many people thought The Panther unduly lucky that
+day. A very different course, too, at Newmarket from that at Epsom.
+Obviously Dominion must be remembered. Moreover he was being greatly
+fancied and some of the best judges looked to him to win the Blue Riband
+for Lord GLANELY. The fact that Lord GLANELY drew his own horse in the
+Baltic Sweep was not to be sneezed at either, said some one. That's an
+omen if there ever was one! And it knocked out Lord GLANELY'S other
+horse, Grand Parade.
+
+"Well, here's a tip," cried a man with a frock-coat and a straw hat.
+"Blest if I've got a single coin left--nothing but paper money. That's
+good enough for me. I shall back Paper Money."
+
+The carriage agreed that that was his duty. "Of course you must," they
+said. "When everyone disagrees in the way that the experts do, you might
+as well take a tip like that as anything."
+
+Paper Money had therefore to be added also to my list of possibles.
+
+"Besides," said another man, "DONOGHUE rides him; our leading jockey,
+you know." I had forgotten to look at the jockeys' names. How absurd! Of
+course one must back DONOGHUE.
+
+But just then, "Give me WHALLEY," said the man with the asbestos beard,
+and, as WHALLEY was riding Bay of Naples, I had to consider him too.
+Naples was a jolly place and I had had a lot of fun there. Hadn't I
+better make that my tip?
+
+But, on the other hand, what about Tangiers? I had had fun there too,
+and more than one fellow-passenger had darkly hinted that this was a
+much better animal than public form proclaimed. Looking for particulars,
+I found that he once "ran Galloper Light to a head;" which had a
+promising sound. He was trained at Lambourne too, and I like Lambourne.
+There is a good inn there and it is a fine walk to White Horse Hill.
+
+"Well," said another man, who had been borrowing matches from his
+neighbour ever since Victoria, "I always had a feeling for a Marcovil
+colt. Marcovil is a good sire. I 've had some very special information
+about Milton, the Marcovil colt, to-day."
+
+MILTON!--one of my favourite poets, and also one of Mr. ASQUITH'S, as he
+said in that lecture last week. Yes, but is Mr. ASQUITH exactly lucky
+just now? Perhaps not. And did not MILTON write _Paradise Lost_? True.
+But, on the other hand, he wrote _Paradise Regained_. You see how
+difficult tip-hunting can be!
+
+And so it went on and I emerged from the Epsom Downs station in a
+maze of indecision, in which one fact and one only shone with crystal
+clearness, and that was that whatever won the race The Panther had no
+better chance, even though it had been made favourite, than any other.
+
+"Besides," as one of the two men who sat on my knees had said, "What's a
+favourite anyway? Very often a horse is made a favourite by the bookies,
+in conjunction with the Press, just so as everyone will back it. No, no
+favourites for me. Give me a likely outsider at good odds. Look what you
+have to put on The Panther to win anything."
+
+In the result I backed--well, I am not going to tell you; but they "also
+ran."
+
+The moral of this story--if it has one--is either don't bet at all, or,
+if you do bet, draw the horse from a hat at random, and, having drawn
+it, stick to it. No one, as the failure of The Panther proves, can
+possibly _know_ more than you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Daphne_. "I MUSTN'T HAVE ANY CAKE TILL I DON'T ASK FOR
+IT, MUST I?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Wife_. "HOW ABOUT SEAHAVEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS? I HEAR IT'S
+VERY PICTURESQUE."
+
+_Profiteer_. "NOT OUR CLASS, MY DEAR. TOO QUIET--SORT O' PLACE THE
+_NOUVEAUX PAUVRES_ GO TO."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TECHNICAL TERMS.
+
+When Ernest asked me to take a run in his car I took advantage of the
+invitation because there are times when I think that life is less joyful
+without a car and that one day I shall slip out and buy one. I should
+love to grip the wheel and sweep the countryside and listen to the soft
+purr of the engine. So we started sweeping the countryside, Ernest and
+I; but we had not swept very much of it before the soft purr developed a
+kind of cough and the car stopped.
+
+Ernest coaxed and petted her. He tried kindness, while I helped him with
+sarcasm. He tried hauteur and then a little bad temper.
+
+Eventually he decided to send for the local motor engineer, and it was
+when this gentleman arrived with his mate that I decided that motoring
+was not for me and that I should have to fall back on fretwork or tame
+mice for my recreation.
+
+"Here, Bill," said Overalls-in-Chief, "just hold up the Ding-dong."
+
+His mate did as instructed and up went the Ding-dong.
+
+"Now hand me the Doo-dal," he went on; "and while I tune up the old
+Jig-jig you get the Pipety-pip and clean it out.
+
+"Now get the Tick-tick and just give me a tap here with the Ooh-jah,
+while I give the Thing-a-me-tight a couple for his nob.
+
+"See that?" he shouted at me. "Would you believe it? Easy as
+winking. See, it was like this. The What's-a-name here, as kept the
+Tiddley-um-tum in place, was sort of riding on the Squeak-box, so as the
+Tiddley-om-pom and the other Jigger sort of gave the half-seas-over
+to the Thing-a-me-bob and missed the Rum-ti-tum. Simple, ain't it,
+Guv'nor?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, "quite simple."
+
+But I have decided to give up all idea of buying a car. I should never
+learn the language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE GREY WATER.
+
+  Little Grey Water, my heart is with you
+    In the loop of the hills where the lone heron feeds,
+  Where your cloak is a cloud with a lining of blue,
+    And your lover a wind riding over the reeds.
+
+  Little Grey Water, I know that you know
+    What the teal and the black duck are dreaming at noon,
+  And the way of the wistful wild geese as they go
+    Through the haze of the hills to keep tryst with the moon.
+
+  Little Grey Water, folk say and they say
+    That the homing hill-shepherd, benighted, has heard
+  A song in the reeds, 'twixt the dawn and the day,
+    That was never the song of a breeze or a bird.
+
+  But I know you so silent, so silent and still,
+    And so proud of your trust that you'll never betray
+  What the fairies that gather from Grundiston Hill
+    Tell the stars before morning to witch them away.
+
+  W.H.O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FAITH RESTORED.
+
+MR. PUNCH. "STANDS ROBERT WHERE HE DID? GOOD! I WAS AFRAID FOR A MOMENT
+THAT MY IDOL HAD FEET OF CLAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, June 2nd_.--The Lords seldom sit _die Lunae_, and were perhaps
+feeling what humbler folk call "rather Mondayish" at being summoned from
+their week-end pleasaunces to put the Local Government (Ireland) Bill
+through its final stages. Anyhow they developed some eleventh-hour
+criticisms. The sad case of the Belfast Water Commissioners attracted
+Lord STUART OF WORTLEY. There are fifteen of them--one each for the
+existing wards. But under the Bill Belfast is to be divided into ten
+wards; and fifteen into ten won't go, even in Ireland. Lord PEEL
+considered that while Lord STUART'S arithmetic was impeccable his fears
+were exaggerated. If Belfast drinks its whiskey neat it will not be for
+want of Water Commissioners.
+
+In the Commons Members were disappointed to learn from Sir AUCKLAND
+GEDDES that he had no idea of the time when railway-fares would be
+reduced to the amount printed on the tickets. Nor were they much
+consoled by his promise to consider the suggestion that as the fare
+cannot be brought down to the ticket the ticket shall be brought up to
+the fare. We should not lightly part with our few reminders of the cheap
+dead days that are no more. In fact it would be a salutary thing if
+other tradesmen imitated the "commercial candour" of the railways and
+ticketed their goods with the pre-war value in addition to the present
+charge.
+
+There is a juvenile impulsiveness about Sir HENRY CRAIK which reminds
+one of "the boy who wouldn't grow up," and may account for his keen
+interest in Kensington Gardens. Dissatisfied with an assurance of the
+FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS that he was doing his best to get the War
+Office to clear away their hutments he burst out, "Could he not attempt
+to use some disciplinary action against the obstinacy, the stupidity,
+the slackness, the carelessness of those who are responsible?" Swept
+away by this spate of sibilants Sir ALFRED MOND essayed no further
+answer.
+
+After less than an hour's debate the House gave the CHANCELLOR OF THE
+EXCHEQUER power to borrow a trifle of two hundred and fifty millions,
+to square this year's account, _plus_ an undefined sum to enable him to
+fund the floating debt, now amounting to close on two thousand millions.
+Even Sir FREDERICK BANBURY had no serious objection to raise, his chief
+anxiety being that everyone, and not merely the plutocratic holders of
+Treasury Bills, should be permitted to subscribe to the new loan. Mr.
+CHAMBERLAIN assured him that it was a case of "Let 'em all come."
+
+[Illustration: ANOTHER VISIT--AND IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.
+
+MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS.
+
+"AM I REALLY SUFFERING FROM SENILE DECAY?"]
+
+_Tuesday, June 3rd_.--According to the view of Major WOOD and his
+friends the Mother of Parliaments is played out. The Grand Committees
+which were to have restored her vigour have left her more enfeebled
+than ever, and unless she devolves a large part of her duties upon
+subordinate assemblies her end is near. But I noticed that, although
+Ireland was expressly excepted from their resolution, most of them
+talked of little else, and I fancy that but for Dublin we should not
+have heard much of devolution.
+
+As a statesman His Grace of CANTERBURY has hitherto enjoyed the
+reputation of being "safe" rather than dashing. But that is evidently a
+mistake, for in introducing the Bill which is to enable the Church to
+free itself from some of the trammels imposed upon it by the State he
+begged his hearers not to be afraid of "brave adventurous legislation."
+His appeal was quite lost upon Lord HALDANE, who was shocked by the
+terrible possibilities of the measure, and warned the PRIMATE that
+if the Bill became law he would have signed the death-warrant of the
+Establishment. Coming from a Presbyterian who helped to disestablish the
+Church in Wales, this showed the heights of altruism to which a real
+philosopher may rise.
+
+Colonel WEDGWOOD was shocked to learn that in the occupied territories
+Germans had to take off their hats when addressing British officers.
+But it would be a mistake to assume that his concern was due to any
+tenderness for our foes. On the contrary, it was exhibited out of regard
+for the feelings of British officers. Mr. CHURCHILL regretted
+the inconvenience, but pointed out that it had always been the
+practice--even in Belgium--for an Army of Occupation to exact certain
+acts of respect from the inhabitants.
+
+Mr. KELLAWAY, who announced last week with such pride that "the
+Government have struck oil," was now able to state that the oil had
+reached a height of 2,400 feet and was still rising steadily. There is
+some talk of inviting the successful engineers to put down bores at
+Westminster.
+
+_Wednesday, June 4th_.--Complaint was made recently that under the new
+Rules of Procedure Members were expected to be in three places at once.
+I fancy that a good many of them settled their difficulty to-day by
+betaking themselves to a fourth place, not in the precincts of the
+Palace of Westminster.
+
+There was anything but a Grand Parade on the green benches, and the
+faithful few who were present put a good many questions "on behalf of my
+honourable friend." The Front Benches were well manned, however, and
+Mr. LONG had quite a busy time explaining to Commander BELLAIRS why the
+Admiralty thought it inadvisable at this date to hold courts-martial in
+regard to the Naval losses of 1914. The House was more interested to
+hear that the Peace celebrations will include a Naval procession through
+London, and that there will be a display in the Thames of war-ships of
+various classes, including, possibly, some of those captured from the
+enemy.
+
+A feature of the afternoon was Mr. MACQUISTEN'S brief comments upon
+Ministerial replies. Divorced from their setting, such remarks as "Fish
+is very dear!" (_à propos_ of Admiralty parsimony in compensating the
+owners of drifters) or "By thought-reading?" (when the best method of
+ascertaining native opinion on the future of Rhodesia was in question),
+may not sound particularly funny, but, when delivered in a voice of
+peculiar penetration and "Scotchiness," at precisely the right moments,
+they were sufficient to convulse the Benches. Mr. MACQUISTEN must be
+careful or he will soon be a spoiled DARLING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Waiter (at public dinner, to very hot and red-faced
+diner_). "I'M GOING NOW, SIR. ANYTHING MORE I CAN GET YOU? BRANDY OR
+PORT? NO, SIR? SHALL I GET YOU A COOL CHAIR, SIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Cigar smokers will be interested very much in the likelihood of
+    that luxury being soon dearer than ever.... It will most likely
+    develop into a habit of getting the very last whiffff ffffout of
+    every cigar."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+The printer would seem to be practising already.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"HOW TO HEAR MUSIC."
+
+_(With humble acknowledgments to the critic of "The Times.")_
+
+We were grateful to Mlle. Snouck Hugronje for giving us an opportunity
+of hearing the Violin Concertos of Prenk Bib Doda in C sharp minor, and
+of Basil Tulkinghorn in the composite key of F.E. The latter work, we
+may explain, is dedicated to Lord BIRKENHEAD. Doda's work is so rarely
+played that Mr. ERNEST NEWMAN has wittily suggested that he ought to be
+renamed Dodo. But let that pass. Here he is abundantly like himself,
+rich in self-determining phrases which emerge from a Hinterland of wild
+surmise, and tower aloft in peaks of Himalayan majesty like Haramokh or
+Siniolchum ---- Mr. CANDLER must finish this sentence.
+
+Tulkinghorn is also a master of transcendental effects, and as
+relentless in pushing home his points as Mr. SMILLIE when examining a
+duke before the Coal Commission. But he is not always to be trusted. He
+lacks the architectonic faculty. In between the clusters of clear-cut
+phrases there are too many nebulae of gaseous formation and spiral type,
+which deflect the orbital movement of his essentially electronic melody
+and impair its impact on the naked ear.
+
+But when Mlle. Snouck Hugronje plays you forget all about
+self-determination, syndicalism, guild-control, proletariats, sunspots
+and even Mr. SMILLIE. If you are a poet, and we are all poets nowadays,
+you dream yourself into a punt on the Sonning backwater, wondering if
+the summer was ever so amazing before, nearly being shipwrecked on
+a sandy spit, startling moorfowl or it may be dabchicks, sending a
+_frisson_ into the fritillaries, losing and regaining your punt-pole,
+always believing that the next bend ---- Mr. FILSON YOUNG must really
+finish the sentence.
+
+If you are a musician and an occultist you will, by due concentration of
+your pineal gland and pituitary body, rise with the rapidity of a HAWKER
+to astral altitudes immune from all mundane disquiet. You will notice
+---- However, this is best, left to Mr. CYRIL SCOTT or Sir RABINDRANATH
+TAGORE or Sir OLIVER LODGE. But if you are a mere listener you will
+listen and be thankful. But if you never go to concerts you will still
+be able, by the aid of the New Criticism, to attain to an ecstasy of
+appreciation far greater than if you had relied on the crude medium of
+your senses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Niece_. "BUT AREN'T YOU GOING TO GIVE THAT NICE PORTER A
+TIP, AUNTIE? HE'S AN OLD SOLDIER."
+
+_Aunt_. "_EXACTLY_, MY DEAR. MUCH TOO POLITE TO BE UNPLEASANT TO ONE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CONSCRIPTION OF BRAINS.
+
+PROGRESS OF THE COMMISSION.
+
+The Literary section of the Nationalisation Commission met last Friday.
+Before evidence was taken the Chairman, Mr. ROBERT WILLIAMS, said that
+as their Report must be delivered in less than a week the Commission had
+decided not to summon Lord MORLEY, Lord ROSEBERY or Mr. THOMAS HARDY,
+but hoped in the few days still available, to hear the evidence of Sir
+THOMAS HALL CAINE, Lady WARWICK, Mrs. BARCLAY, Mr. SPACKMAN and Mr.
+SMILLIE.
+
+Mr. EDWARD MARSH read an interesting Report on the State Remuneration of
+Poets. He was of opinion that poets, if they could be shown to be of the
+authentic Georgian brand, ought to be secured a reasonable salary quite
+irrespective of the views which they expressed. They must never be
+expected to glorify or approve of the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, but
+should be perfectly free to criticise or attack him. No attempt should
+be made to impose any metrical constraint on their verse. But he thought
+it desirable that for the purpose of bringing them to the notice of
+the public a State chaperon should be appointed to provide suitable
+introductions and biographical details. He also advocated the
+multiplication of poetry tea-shops, where pure China tea and wholesome
+confectionery should be supplied gratis to all poets whose works had
+been favourably noticed in _The Times Literary Supplement_.
+
+The CHAIRMAN. What is your idea of the minimum wage for poets?--In view
+of the present purchasing power of the sovereign I should put it at
+eight hundred pounds a year. Modern poets require an extra amount of
+nourishment, owing to the nervous strain involved in production, and
+their requirements in the matter of dress are often difficult to
+satisfy. I understand that the price of sandals has gone up two hundred
+per cent.
+
+Mr. CHARLES GARVICE, the next witness, stated that he did not think
+the literary quality of novels would be necessarily improved by
+nationalisation. Speaking for himself he did not think it would affect
+his output. But if the State took over this industry it should be
+liberal in affording novel-producers facilities for obtaining fresh
+material, local colour, etc. At all costs the output of salubrious
+and sedative fiction must be maintained if only as an antidote to the
+subversive and revolutionary literature now freely disseminated among
+the proletariat.
+
+COLONEL WEDGWOOD. HOW do you expect a workman earning only three
+pounds a week to afford seven shillings for every novel that he
+buys?--Personally I should like to see the cost reduced, but I
+understand that if the price of novels were fixed at one shilling
+it would involve the State in an expenditure of ten million pounds
+annually, even with the present reduced output of novels, which has
+fallen during the War to little over twenty million tons.
+
+Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE declared himself a whole-hearted supporter of
+nationalisation. There was something extraordinarily uplifting in the
+notion of consecrating one's talents to the State. Publishers were too
+often callous individualists. Here one would be working for humanity. If
+his interview with the KAISER had been issued under State sanction he
+believed that the Peace would have been signed months sooner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OFFICIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "TELEGRAPHIC NOTICE.
+
+    Public is hereby informed that delays to and from offices in Punjab
+    are normal."--_Indian Paper_.
+
+Same here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    OUR VETERANS.
+
+    "London Rifle Brigade, 40 strong, of the 1st Battalion, which
+    went out in 1814, arrived in London from France at mid-day
+    yesterday."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A ROYAL INTERVIEW.
+
+"Someone to see you, Miss."
+
+Thus Mary at about nine o'clock on an April evening at the door of my
+tiny sitting-room.
+
+There was a strange little quiver in her voice.
+
+Mary is so extremely well trained, and so accustomed, moreover, to queer
+visitors at the flat, that I looked up in surprise.
+
+"Yes?" I said. "Is it a lady?"
+
+Mary did not reply immediately; she seemed half-dazed.
+
+"Is it a lady?" I repeated a little sharply. My usually imperturbable
+parlourmaid appeared to have taken leave of her senses.
+
+"She said she was a queen, Miss," she gasped.
+
+At that moment the visitor, evidently grown tired of waiting, calmly
+floated in through the half-open door and settled down gracefully in the
+centre of a large gold cushion lying on the end of the Chesterfield.
+
+Fortunately I grasped the situation at once.
+
+"Thank you, Mary," I said, with what I now feel to have been most
+commendable coolness in the entirely unprecedented circumstances; "I
+will ring if I want tea later."
+
+When the door had closed upon the still gasping Mary I turned
+apologetically to my visitor.
+
+"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," I said. "You see, my maid was not
+unnaturally a little surprised--"
+
+"It's _quite_ all right," said the Fairy Queen graciously; "I thought
+you wouldn't mind my coming in."
+
+"Of course not," I said; "I am only too delighted. Won't you come nearer
+the fire?"
+
+She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then she looked
+up at me and smiled.
+
+"I don't like to leave it," she said; "it's so pretty." And she stroked
+the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.
+
+"Yes," I said; "and your lovely frock goes with it so beautifully. But
+how would this be?"
+
+I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden and put it
+down on the floor in front of the fire. "There--how is that?"
+
+"That's delightful," said the Fairy Queen. "I'm so glad you like my
+frock," she went on. "Paris, of course. That is to say, the idea came
+from there. My own people did the actual making. After all, no one can
+touch the French when it comes to real _chic_. Don't you think so?"
+
+I acquiesced. Oh, yes, Paris was certainly the best.
+
+"But I didn't come here to discuss clothes," said my visitor. She made a
+quick movement and leaned suddenly forward on the cushion, her delicate
+golden head supported on her slender hand. "Do you know the Editor of
+_Punch_?" she asked abruptly.
+
+I hesitated. "I can't exactly say that I _know_ him," I said.
+
+The Fairy Queen looked very disappointed.
+
+"Oh, dear, then I'm afraid it's no good. I thought you'd be sure to know
+him."
+
+"But although I don't know him personally I am in communication with
+him," I said. "Perhaps--"
+
+She brightened up a little.
+
+"I suppose you _could_ write," she said; "though of course it would be
+far better to see him."
+
+"It's about that cover," she went on. I looked at her blankly.
+
+"The cover of _Punch_, you know."
+
+Vague pictures of Mr. Punch surrounded by little dancing figures, an
+easel, Toby, a lion--surely there was a lion somewhere--flitted across
+my mind. What on earth had the cover of _Punch_ got to do with the Fairy
+Queen?
+
+I went over to the little table where lay the latest copy, and came back
+with it in my hand and knelt down on the floor near the cushion.
+
+The Fairy Queen came close to me and peered over the edge of the paper.
+
+"Look at the fairies," she said, pointing with a tiny indignant finger.
+"_Look_ at them. They're most dreadfully old-fashioned. Nobody in
+fairyland looks in the least like that now."
+
+I looked. Certainly the little figures had rather an early-Victorian air
+about them.
+
+"Of course we should never dream of being tremendously fashionable or
+anything of that kind. I would not for one moment think of allowing any
+of my court-ladies to cut their hair short, for instance, or to wear one
+of those foolish hobble skirts; but nobody, nobody could accuse us of
+being dowdy. Now tell me, have you ever seen one of us looking like
+that, or like that?"
+
+"But are you quite sure," I said, not without hesitation, for she was by
+way of being rather an autocratic and imperious little person and I was
+the least little bit afraid of her--"are you quite sure that they _are_
+fairies?"
+
+"Of course they are," she replied quickly. "What else could they be?
+Naturally Mr. Punch would have fairies all round him. He loves us. You
+have no idea how much we have in common."
+
+I didn't reply at once. I was engaged in staring at the familiar design.
+
+"They haven't any wings," I said, still rather doubtfully, "except this
+one at the bottom."
+
+But the Fairy Queen was very decided indeed. "All fairies don't have
+wings," she said; "and with regard to that particular one at the
+bottom," she glanced a little superciliously at the buxom lady with the
+trumpet, "as a matter of fact, she isn't a fairy at all. I don't quite
+know what she is, an angel perhaps, but not a fairy, certainly not
+a fairy. But the others are, of course." She glanced at me a little
+defiantly with her bright eyes. "Surely, my dear, I ought to know
+a fairy when I see one. At the time when these were done they were
+perfectly all right; they only want bringing up to date, like the
+pictures inside, that's all. Now you will see whether you can do
+anything, won't you?"
+
+It was difficult to refuse, but I didn't feel very hopeful.
+
+"I'll try," I said. "I'll write to the Editor; but I'm afraid it's not
+very likely that he will do anything in the matter. You see the cover's
+been like that for years and years. Almost ever since _Punch_ began.
+It's--well, it's part of the _Punch_ tradition. We all love it. Nobody
+would like to see it altered; it wouldn't seem the same thing."
+
+The Fairy Queen was busy with her cloak and didn't pay much attention to
+what I was saying,
+
+"Won't you stay a little longer and have some tea or something?" I
+begged.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"A chocolate?"
+
+She smiled. "I can't resist a chocolate," she said. She took a very
+little one and nibbled at it daintily, flitting about the room meanwhile
+and chattering away in the friendliest fashion in her tiny high voice.
+
+"I must go," she said at last. "I have enjoyed it so much. May I come
+again some day? I should love to come again."...
+
+I went out with her into the little lobby and down the stairs, and stood
+at the hall door to watch her go.
+
+"Now don't forget," were her last words as she floated out into the
+night. "Tell him, tell him exactly what we really look like."
+
+"I can't," I called after her desperately; "I can't."
+
+But she had already disappeared in the soft haze. I went slowly up the
+stairs and back to my quiet room and the dying fire.
+
+"I can't," I said again. "I only wish I could."
+
+R. F.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Bandsmen Wanted for Municipal Band. Solo Cornet and others. Work
+    found for bricklayer, carpenter, painter and paperhanger."--_Daily
+    Paper_.
+
+With whose assistance we may expect some jazzling effects.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LURE OF THE LAND.
+
+ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO BOUGHT A FARM--
+
+--BECAUSE AN OPEN-AIR LIFE APPEALED TO HIM--
+
+--AND BECAUSE IT MADE ONE ONE'S OWN MASTER--
+
+--BECAUSE, MOREOVER, HE WAS FOND OF ANIMALS--
+
+--AND ALSO BECAUSE ANY AMOUNT OF EXPERT OPINION WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE IN
+CASES OF DOUBT--
+
+--BECAUSE, AGAIN, THE ELEMENT OF UNCERTAINTY GAVE SUCH A CHARM TO IT--
+
+--AND, FURTHER, BECAUSE CERTAIN SECTIONS WERE BOUND TO BE PROFITABLE--
+
+--IN ADDITION BECAUSE UP-TO-DATE APPLIANCES MADE EVERYTHING SO EASY--
+
+--BECAUSE, IN PARTICULAR, IT TOOK ONE BACK TO NATURE, AND HELPED ONE TO
+AN UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL LAWS--
+
+--AND, LASTLY, BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, ONE COULD ALWAYS GET RID OF THE
+BEASTLY THING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Author_. "YOU REMEMBER MY LAST BOOK?"
+
+_Artist_. "THE ONE I ILLUSTRATED?"
+
+_Author_. "YES. WELL, SIR BARNES STORMER WANTS ME TO DRAMATISE IT FOR
+HIS NEXT WEST-END PRODUCTION."
+
+_Artist_. "I SAY! THAT'S SPLENDID. I MUST READ IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MURMANSK MOSQUITO.
+
+My particular interest having been aroused by descriptions recently
+published in the English Press of the Murmansk mosquito, I made a point,
+on my arrival in North Russia with the Relief Force, of collecting
+further data from officers whose experience entitles them to speak with
+authority upon the habits of the local fauna.
+
+From them I have gathered some curious information which should interest
+even those whose enthusiasm for the phenomena of natural history
+is normally but languid, and cannot fail to intrigue not only the
+entomologist but also the big game hunter, who would find it well
+worth his while to observe and study the tactics of this sagacious and
+formidable insect.
+
+Judging from the evidence at my command the true Murmansk mosquito is
+considerably larger and fiercer than the Archangel variety, owing no
+doubt to the genial influence of the Gulf Stream. Both types are however
+sufficiently ferocious, and, save when rendered comatose by excess of
+nutrition, will attack human beings without provocation. The female
+of the species, if disturbed while accompanied by her young, will
+invariably charge with such fury that only by an exceptional combination
+of skill and courage can she be driven off. The shrill and vibrating cry
+of the Russian mosquito as it swoops to the attack is, I am assured,
+qualified to shake the fortitude of even experienced troops.
+
+So surprising are some of the current stories of the size, strength and
+agility of these dreaded carnivora that one would suspect their veracity
+were they not vouched for by military and naval officers, and supported
+by such concrete evidence as that of the local architecture. The houses
+are almost universally constructed of substantial logs, undoubtedly for
+the reason that brickwork would be more easily displaced by the furious
+assault of the mosquito, which usually hunts in droves, packs or
+swarms, and has been known to surround and make concerted attacks, upon
+buildings occupied by particularly well-nourished personnel.
+
+As evidence of the determination of their attacks, veterans of this
+front have pointed out to me, in the walls of local buildings, massive
+timbers which have been scarred and splintered by the teeth and claws of
+these monsters, emboldened by hunger and incensed by resistance.
+
+The peculiar ferocity of the mosquito of these high latitudes is,
+of course, accounted for by the brevity of its actual life. Immured
+throughout the prolonged winter within its icy sarcophagus, it is not
+released before the middle of June, while the premature severity of
+August rapidly lowers its vitality. Such is its offensive spirit during
+the first relaxation of wintry rigour that it is dangerous in the
+extreme for anyone to walk about alone, for naturally the mosquito which
+the sunshine has just liberated, fasting and impatient, will make a
+determined effort to partake of the first likely repast which presents
+itself. Single newly-thawed specimens have been known to lie in ambush
+by frequented paths and fall upon lonely wayfarers with the desperate
+courage of starvation. I am credibly informed that, if duty necessitates
+an unescorted journey at this season, it is a wise precaution to provide
+oneself with several joints of reindeer flesh, which, in the event of
+attack by mosquitoes, may be thrown to them and so effect at least a
+temporary diversion.
+
+The revolver is of little service against this formidable creature,
+owing to its cunning and the rapidity with which it manoeuvres, while
+its bristly hide is stout enough to defy the ordinary shotgun. It
+is proposed to detail certain anti-aircraft batteries to deal with
+high-flying swarms, while a young friend of my own, who was with a
+special company of the R.E. in France, is prepared to design a haversack
+projector for issue to all ranks. But against this it is urged by those
+familiar with North Russian towns in summer that nothing of such a
+nature can materially damage the _moral_ of the local mosquito.
+
+Thrilling stories are told of escapes from these dangerous brutes. A
+senior officer of notoriously full habit of body, having attracted the
+attention of several immense specimens, was by them surrounded in his
+office, and rescued only just in time by the gallant efforts of an
+allied fatigue party which the besieged officer had the presence of mind
+to detail over the telephone. While awaiting (or pending) their arrival
+he passed through a period of mental agony (which has left unmistakable
+marks upon him) as he listened to the roar of their wings and the
+crunching of their fangs upon the outer timbers, or fixed his fascinated
+gaze upon the sweep, of their antennae under the front door, where they
+were trying for a purchase in order to force an entry.
+
+On another occasion a patrol which was attacked by a large swarm was
+only saved by the _savoir faire_ of its commander, who ordered his men
+each to ward off the rush of the hungry insects with a ration biscuit
+held out to them at arm's length. In their impetuous ferocity the
+creatures blindly snapped at the biscuits, with the result foreseen by
+the experienced leader; the swarm, with every appearance of complete
+demoralisation, broke and fled, several being weakened by the fracture
+of their mandibles and falling an easy prey to the bayonets of the
+exultant patrol.
+
+With its naturally ardent temperament irritated by months of bitter
+cold, its constitutional hunger aggravated by a prolonged fast, its
+appetite tempted by a novel diet in the form of British soldiery
+well-washed and firm-fleshed after years of Army rations, the North
+Russian mosquito is likely, in the opinion of experts, to take a high
+place among the more deadly horrors of war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sergeant_. "NOW THEN, ARE YOU THE FOUR MEN WITH A
+KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC I WAS ASKING FOR?"
+
+_Chorus_. "YES, SERGEANT."
+
+_Sergeant_. "RIGHT. PARADE OFFICERS' MESS 11.30 TO MOVE GRAND PIANO TO
+MARQUEE--DISTANCE 500 YARDS--FOR CONCERT THIS EVENING." ]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
+
+That audacious paraphrase of the Book of Job, _The Undying Fire_
+(CASSELL), seems to me to be marred by a fundamentally false note. I am
+sure that Mr. WELLS is as serious about his new God in the Heart of
+Man as he was about the Invisible King--I've no sort of intention of
+sneering--but I cannot credit him with belief in the Adversary, who by
+arrangement with the Almighty (as set forth in a discreetly flippant
+prologue with something of the flavour of those irreverent yarns
+invented and retailed by Italian ecclesiastics about Dominiddio) visits
+_Job Huss_, the headmaster of Woldingstanton, with the plagues of his
+desperate trial. However I take it that the author was anxious that his
+parody should be as complete in form as possible, and, being rather
+impressed by the insouciance, not to say insolence, of the Satan of the
+original, seized his chance of bizarre characterisation and "celestial
+badinage" and let consistency go hang for the time. Certainly the
+theological disquisitions of Mr. WELLS are remarkable not for their
+formal logic, but for their provocative quality and the very real
+eloquence of detached passages of the rambling argument. In particular,
+taking up again the thread of _Joan and Peter_, he gives such a survey
+of the scope and glories of a new education that is to salve the world's
+wounds as would move the heart of a jelly-fish. Mr. WELLS has his own
+methods of justifying the ways of God to man. He may be discursive,
+impatient, rash, perhaps a little shallow; but he has an undying fire of
+his own. He is certainly not dull. And therefore orthodox divines and
+pedagogues may perhaps have a real grievance against him. But I can't
+imagine any serious-minded man in a serious time reading this book and
+not getting hope and courage from it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Victory Over Blindness_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a book whose title
+gives you at once the key to its contents and to the spirit that
+animates them. It is the record by Sir ARTHUR PEARSON of one of the most
+finely successful enterprises that the War has called forth. Everyone
+to-day has at least a vague idea of the work carried on at St.
+Dunstan's, "the biggest individual business," Sir ARTHUR terms it, "that
+I have ever conducted." A study of these pages will transform that vague
+idea into wonder and admiration. Big the business might well be called,
+since it is nothing less than the bringing back, almost to normal life,
+of men apparently condemned to an existence of helpless inactivity and
+dependence. Few things will strike you more forcibly in this book than
+its practical common sense. That and an unsentimental optimism seem to
+be the dominant notes of all Sir ARTHUR'S effort. Without doubt the
+success of this has been beyond measure helped by the fact that the
+originator was himself a sharer in the adversity that it was designed
+to lessen. Two chapters especially in the book, called "Learning to be
+Blind," a brief manual of practical suggestions by one whom experience
+has rendered expert, supply a clue to the difference between the work
+at St. Dunstan's and the best-intentioned efforts of outside sympathy,
+_Victory Over Blindness_ is a proud and rewarding motto; this little
+volume will show how thoroughly it has been earned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I fancy that Miss JOAN THOMPSON had some design of symbolism in the
+choice of a name for her heroine, _Mary England_ (METHUEN). The
+publishers indeed consider that she might be called "Every Woman," so
+typical is she of her sex, and "so like to the emotional careers of so
+many English girls is her own." Perhaps, on the other hand (without
+disparagement to the skill of Miss THOMPSON'S portraiture), I should
+have expected the typical maiden of _Mary's_ class to show greater
+initiative. Many things nearly happened to _Mary_; practically nothing
+in her life was fashioned by her own intent. Of the two men who might
+have made her happy, one didn't propose at all, and one did it in the
+wrong fashion. Other two, who seemed possibly menacing, both drifted
+away with their evil purpose (if any) unfulfilled. I am wrong, though,
+in recalling _Mary_ as invariably passive. She was once roused to the
+action of destroying the manuscript of a novel, in which the writer, the
+man who didn't propose, had too faithfully revealed his perception of
+herself. But though, as a reviewer, I may applaud this achievement on
+general grounds, it provided no kind of solution for the problem of her
+existence. This was left to be settled, very much offhand, by a detached
+iceberg, which sank the ship in which _Mary_ was emigrating. I thought
+that iceberg rather an evasion on the part of Miss THOMPSON. Perhaps
+however all this effect of drift is part of a subtle intention. I
+can certainly call the book admirably written, with restraint and an
+emotional sympathy that impressed me as the outcome probably of an
+intimate knowledge of the scenes and persons described. Whether her
+lethargy is "typical" or not, as a study _Mary England_ will hold you at
+least sufficiently curious to deplore its arbitrary end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has written a book which I find it difficult to
+define. His publishers and Mr. H.G. WELLS call it a novel, but bits of a
+biography and an autobiography and an African explorer's account of his
+travels have all somehow squeezed themselves into it, and for readers
+whose birthdays began before the last quarter of the nineteenth century
+_The Gay-Dombeys_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) will best justify itself as a
+_chronique scandaleuse_. To penetrate the thin disguises in which the
+author has dressed his notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid
+personalities into their component parts should provide the initiated
+with congenial if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also
+a DICKENS enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or
+outraged to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a
+continuation of _Dombey and Son_. Many of his characters are either the
+creations of Boz or their children and he contrives to carry on the
+interweaving of their lives to an unbelievable extent--even when
+the fullest allowance has been made for the smallness of the world.
+_Florence Dombey_ and _Walter Gay_, as _Mr._ and _Mrs. Gay-Dombey_,
+actually survive well into the present book, while Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S
+_Eustace Morven_, who tells us that he has reverted to the ancient
+spelling of his name, is the son of _Harriet Carker_ and that hazel-eyed
+bachelor, _Mr. Morfin_, who lived and loved in _Dombey and Son_. But
+save in the chapter describing _Eustace Morven's_ appearance at the
+annual dinner-party given by _Florence_ and _Walter_ to celebrate the
+re-establishment of the firm, Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S work has not a very
+pronounced flavour of DICKENS. It is to be hoped that this method of
+writing novels will not become popular. A series of sequels to everybody
+by somebody else opens up an intimidating prospect, at least for the
+reviewer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. PHILIP GIBBS has gathered together, under the title. _Open Warfare,
+the Way to Victory_ (HEINEMANN), his despatches written from the Western
+front during the last year of the War. What strikes one most on seeing
+them again in book form is the obscurity in which they veil the events
+they record. They so shine, as it were, with a luminous mist that they
+seem to reveal everything, yet in sober truth very often it is only
+in the light of later knowledge that they reveal anything at all.
+Congratulations, therefore, to Mr. GIBBS, the perfect war correspondent!
+I defy anyone from these papers alone (apart from the plentiful and
+excellent maps) to form anything like an adequate conception of the
+disaster that swept down upon the British Armies in the Spring of 1918.
+And yet in a sense it is all there, gorgeously camouflaged under the
+control--I daresay the wise and necessary control--of the censorship.
+The author, watching the very moulding of history with every advantage
+of proximity, has written down, if not much bare statement, yet an
+amazing sequence of heroic detail, associated with such stirring names
+as Arras or Givenchy or Cambrai. Curiously enough, though each chapter
+is intensely vivid, they become, through much instancing of the same
+unconquerable spirit, something monotonous, though never wearisome, in
+bulk. One trusts that a future generation will realise that the value of
+a book of this order consists in its first-hand record of such incidents
+of valour; it would be pitiful to have it hastily assumed, because so
+much is slurred or omitted to deceive the enemy, that England was
+so feeble-hearted as to require her evil news predigested before
+consumption in this manner. It should be added that the writer gives us
+a good sound introduction that goes a long way to fill the yawning gaps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Gatekeeper (at castle of unpopular baron--to new
+grocer's boy)._ "YOU SILLY IDIOT! WHY DON'T YOU GO ROUND TO THE
+TRADESMEN'S GATE? GOOD THING YOU DIDN'T PULL THE BELL, OR YOU'D 'AVE
+GOT A 'ALF TON OF BOILING LEAD ON TOP OF YOU. THIS IS THE _VISITORS_'
+DOOR!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "GIRL WANTED.--A reliable girl for the summer months to go across
+    the Arm."--_Halifax Evening Mail_.
+
+To prevent misapprehension we ought to say that the western part of the
+bay at Halifax, Nova Scotia, is locally known as the "Arm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+156, June 11, 1919, by Various
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156,
+June 11, 1919, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2004 [EBook #11670]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>PUNCH,<br />
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+<h2>Vol. 156.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>June 11, 1919.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page453" id="page453"></a>[pg
+453]</span>
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+<p>"Every British working man has as much right as any Member of
+Parliament to be paid &pound;400 a year," states a well-known
+Labour paper. We have never questioned this for a moment.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"Women," says a technical journal, "are a source of grave danger
+to motorists in crowded city streets." It is feared in some
+quarters that they will have to be abolished.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"Are you getting stout?" asks a Sunday contemporary. Only very
+occasionally, we regret to say.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The heat was so oppressive in London the other day that a
+taxi-driver at Euston Station was seen to go up to a pedestrian and
+ask him if he could do with a ride. He was eventually pinned down
+by some colleagues and handed over to the care of his
+relatives.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"I do not care a straw about Turkey," writes Mr. LOVAT Fraser in
+<i>The Daily Mail</i>. It is this dare-devil spirit which has made
+us the nation we are.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Superstition in regard to marriage is dying out, says a West End
+registrar. Nevertheless the superstition that a man who gets
+married between January 1st and December 31st is asking for trouble
+is still widely held.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Mr. VAN INGEN, a New York business man, has just started to
+cross the Atlantic for the one hundred and sixtieth time. It is not
+known whether the major ambition of his life is to leave New York
+or go back and have a last look at it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"There is no likelihood," says the FOOD-CONTROLLER, "of cheese
+running out during the coming winter." A pan of drinking water left
+in the larder will always prevent its running out and biting
+someone during the dog-days.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Sympathetic readers will be glad to hear that the little
+sixpence which was found wandering in Piccadilly Circus has been
+given a good home by an Aberdeen gentleman.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Aeroplane passengers are advised by one enterprising weekly not
+to throw bottles out of the machine. This is certainly good advice.
+The bottles are so apt to get broken.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Germany, it is expected, will sign the Peace treaty this once,
+but points out that we must not allow it to happen again.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Of two burglars charged at Stratford one told the Bench that he
+intended to have nothing further to do with his colleague in
+future. It is said that he finds it impossible to work with him
+owing to his nasty grasping ways.</p>
+<hr />
+<p>Sixty-seven fewer babies were born in one Surrey village last
+year than in previous years. It would be interesting to have their
+names.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A grocer, according to a legal writer, is not compelled to take
+goods out of the window to oblige a customer. The suggestion that a
+grocer is expected to oblige anybody in any circumstances is
+certainly a novelty.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Uxbridge, says <i>The Evening News</i>, has no bandstand. Nor
+have we, but we make no fuss about it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Bolshevists in Russia, we are told, are busy sowing seeds of
+sedition. For some time it has been suspected that the Bolshevists
+were up to no good.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>HERBERT WELSH, aged sixty-seven, has started to walk from New
+Jersey to New Hampshire, U.S.A., a distance of five hundred miles.
+In the absence of fuller details we assume that HERBERT must have
+lost his train.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"Postage stamps," says a weekly snippets paper, "can be obtained
+at all post-offices." This should prove a boon to those who have
+letters to write.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>It is thought if a certain well-known judge does not soon ask,
+"What is whisky?" he will have to content himself with the past
+tense.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"What to do with a Wasp" is a headline in a contemporary. We
+have not read the article, but our own plan with wasps is to try to
+dodge them.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>We hear that complications may arise from an unfortunate mistake
+made at a Jazz Competition held in London last week. It appears
+that the prize was awarded to a lady suffering from hysteria who
+was not competing.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A taxi-driver in a suburb of London was married last week to a
+local telephone operator. Speculation is now rife as to which will
+be the first to break down and say "Thank you."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Press reports the case of a young lady who received slight
+injuries from a slab of ceiling which fell on her head whilst she
+was asleep in bed, but was saved from further damage by the
+thickness of her hair. This should act as a warning to those ladies
+who adopt the silly habit of removing their tresses on retiring for
+the night.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:40%;"><a href=
+"images/453.png"><img width="100%" src="images/453.png" alt=
+"" /></a><i>Hospital Orderly (taking particulars of new
+patient).</i>"NAME, SIR?"<br />
+<i>Patient</i>. "SIR BRUCE BLAZEAWAY."<br />
+<i>Hospital Orderly</i>. "RANK?"<br />
+<i>Patient</i>. "LIEUTENANT-GENERAL."<br />
+<i>Hospital Orderly</i>. "BATTALION?"</div>
+<hr />
+<h4>To Sign or not to Sign?</h4>
+<p>As Count BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU puts it, quoting from his German
+translation of <i>Hamlet: "Sein oder nicht sein, dass ist hier die
+Frage</i>."</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The recommendations of the Jerram Committee came before a
+conference between a representative body of lower deck ratings and
+members of Parliament who sit for naval constituencies. The
+veterinary chief petty officer presided."&mdash;<i>Sunday
+Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The rank is new to us; but he must be just the man to look after
+the interests of our sea-dogs.</p>
+<hr />
+<p>From the "Transactions" of a photographic society:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Mr. &mdash;&mdash; stated that as Architectural Photography
+covered a large and varied field he purposed to confine his remarks
+to the line of work most familiar to him, namely, The Interiors of
+some of the great English Ministers."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Now at last we shall know if the Government's heart is in the
+right place.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page454" id="page454"></a>[pg
+454]</span>
+<h2>TO ROBERT OF THE FORCE.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Since first you loomed upon my infant ken</p>
+<p class="i2">My firm belief has ever been, and still it is,</p>
+<p>That you are fashioned not as other men</p>
+<p class="i2">(Subject, at best, to mortal disabilities),</p>
+<p>But come of more than human kin,</p>
+<p>Immune, or practically so, from sin.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Godlike the poise that to your bearing lends</p>
+<p class="i2">The aspect of a tower that never totters;</p>
+<p>There's a divinity hath shaped your ends</p>
+<p class="i2">(Rough-hewn, perhaps&mdash;especially your
+trotters);</p>
+<p>Your ample chest, your generous girth</p>
+<p>Have no precise similitude on earth.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>I cannot picture you (though I have tried)</p>
+<p class="i2">Wearing a bowler hat and tweed apparel,</p>
+<p>Or craving sustenance for your inside</p>
+<p class="i2">Drawn either from the oven or the barrel;</p>
+<p>Scarcely you figure in my eye</p>
+<p>As liable, in Nature's course, to die.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>And it was you who almost fell from grace,</p>
+<p class="i2">Striking, like Lucifer, against authority,</p>
+<p>Leaving your Heaven for another place</p>
+<p class="i2">Not mentioned by your ten-to-one majority,</p>
+<p>And doomed, to your surprise and pain,</p>
+<p>Never, like Lucifer, to rise again.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>But you were wise, my Robert, wise in time;</p>
+<p class="i2">And I, who set you far above humanity,</p>
+<p>High-pedestalled upon my lofty rhyme,</p>
+<p class="i2">Rejoice with you in your recovered sanity;</p>
+<p>To me I feel it would have mattered</p>
+<p>Enormously to see my idol shattered.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>But 'ware the Bolsh, who fain would lure your feet</p>
+<p class="i2">To conduct unbecoming in a copper;</p>
+<p>Once you betrayed us, going off your beat,</p>
+<p class="i2">And now you've nearly come another cropper;</p>
+<p>If, tempted thrice, you break your trust,</p>
+<p>You'll have no halo left to readjust.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>O.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>EMBARRASSMENT AND THE LAWYER.</h2>
+<p>Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with
+himself. I confess that he has deserved it.</p>
+<p>The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no
+briefs, but had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of
+affairs. Then he went to the War and shed his conscience somewhere
+in the Balkans. So far so good. But, when he was demobilised and
+began to take stock of what had been happening at home in the
+meanwhile, he found to his horror that a conscience had again been
+thrust upon him by the General Council of the Bar.</p>
+<p>Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won
+through.</p>
+<p>How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened
+in this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence
+and at a critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed
+lawyers solemnly deliberated upon the following fantastic
+problem:&mdash;</p>
+<p>"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a
+plea of Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he
+did commit the offence charged?"</p>
+<p>With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists
+propounded the following answer:&mdash;</p>
+<p>"If the confession has been made before the proceedings have
+been commenced it is most undesirable that an advocate to whom the
+confession has been made should undertake the defence, as he would
+most certainly be seriously embarrassed in the conduct of the case,
+and no harm can be done to the accused by requesting him to retain
+another advocate."</p>
+<p>The new Watson was unable to agree with this doctrine, so far as
+it concerned himself. Nevertheless he had no choice but to accept
+it.</p>
+<p>The legal conscience thus gratuitously thrust upon him was soon to
+undergo its first ordeal. An acquaintance of his, in a moment of
+absent-mindedness, murdered somebody, and asked Watson to persuade
+the inevitable jury that he hadn't. The said acquaintance explained
+to Watson that he simply did it when he wasn't thinking.</p>
+<p>Watson was in a hole. Obviously this was a case to which the
+embarrassment prescribed by the General Council of the Bar was
+applicable. This legal embarrassment, which, strictly speaking,
+ought now to be his, would not, however, have worried him in the
+least had it not been for another consideration. Suppose, after
+Watson had triumphantly got his client acquitted, it got about that
+the "innocent" had confessed his crime to counsel beforehand? That
+would mean an end to Watson's professional career. One does not
+thus slight the edicts of the mighty with impunity.</p>
+<p>Watson was too proud to ask his client to keep the deadly
+secret, or to apply the famous wriggle of <i>Hippolytus</i>: "My
+tongue hath sworn, but my heart remains unsworn."</p>
+<p>Nevertheless Watson gave his mind to the problem. In the end he
+decided on the following line of defence: "Not Guilty," and in the
+alternative "Guilty under justifiable circumstances, without malice
+aforethought but with intent to benefit the person murdered."</p>
+<p>Happily the General Council of the Bar has not yet assigned any
+moral embarrassment to a counsel who pleads "Not Guilty," and in
+the alternative, "Guilty." Watson therefore reasoned that if the
+jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative
+confession could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other
+hand, if he were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an
+ethical asset towards securing for him a lenient view of the
+case.</p>
+<p>As I said, Watson behaved well. He proved to his own and the
+jury's satisfaction (1) that his client did not commit the murder;
+(2) that alternatively he did commit the murder, but that he did so
+for the good of everybody concerned; and (3) that in either case he
+never meant to do it.</p>
+<p>In the event the prisoner was acquitted without a stain upon his
+character or upon his advocate's.</p>
+<p>Watson is now well established as the last hope of abandoned
+causes. He is a specialist in defence, and criminals of every shade
+throng to him. When a new one swims into his ken Watson meets him
+on the threshold and says, "Don't speak a word. Read this;" and he
+puts into his hand a printed slip. The slip reads:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>" <i>Conditions of Advocacy</i>.</p>
+<p>"(1) If you put your case into my hands it ceases at once and
+from that moment to be any concern of your own. You are not
+entitled, for instance, to express any opinion as to whether you
+committed the alleged crime or not. That is my affair
+exclusively.</p>
+<p>"(2) If however there is anything which lies so heavily on your
+conscience that it must out sooner or later, let it be later. I am
+open to receive confessions at any time after proceedings have
+begun.</p>
+<p>"If you accept these conditions, good; if not, go."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Watson says they always accept them, so he never worries about
+the General Council of the Bar.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page455" id="page455"></a>[pg
+455]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/455.png"><img width="100%" src="images/455.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>THE NEW ISSUE.</h3>
+<p>OIL GENIE <i>(gushingly, to Coal-Owner and Mr. SMILLIE).</i>
+"CAN I DO ANYTHING TO ALLAY THE TROUBLED WATERS?"</p>
+<br />
+<p>[The discovery of oil in Derbyshire, which threatens the
+supremacy of the mining industry, may affect the questions now in
+dispute before the Coal Commission.]</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page456" id="page456"></a>[pg
+456]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/456.png"><img width="100%" src="images/456.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Harassed Mother (having distributed half of her offspring on
+laps of passengers).</i> "COME ON, 'ENERY. SQUEEZE IN SOMEWHERE.
+'TAIN'T EXAC'LY 'OW I LOIKES TO TRAVEL, BUT S'POSE WE'LL 'AVE TO
+PUT UP WITH IT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>AN ERROR IN TACTICS.</h2>
+<p>In the heart of the For&ecirc;t de Roumare there is a spot
+called Rond du Ch&ecirc;ne &agrave; Leu, where eight paths meet.
+Why they choose to meet there, unless it is for company, one can't
+imagine. The fact that there is not an estaminet within five
+kilometres nullifies its value as a military objective. Therefore,
+having been decoyed thither by a plausible guide-book, it was with
+surprise that I beheld an ancient representative of the British
+Army smoking his pipe with the air of having been in possession for
+centuries.</p>
+<p>"Bit lonely here," I said.</p>
+<p>"Rumble's Moor on a wet Friday's busy to it," he said
+emphatically. "Is it reet the War's over?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the information
+soaked in.</p>
+<p>"Who won?"</p>
+<p>"The Peace Conference haven't decided yet."</p>
+<p>Conversation languished until I remembered the guide-book.</p>
+<p>"According to tradition," I said, "it was at this identical spot
+that ROLLO, first Duke of Normandy, hung his golden chain on a
+sign-post for a whole year without having it stolen."</p>
+<p>"Tha-at ud be afore we brought our Chinese Labour gang felling
+timber," he said firmly; "I wudden give it five minutes now."</p>
+<p>"I understand, too, that there is a historic ruin
+hereabouts."</p>
+<p>"Theer was," he said; "but he's in hospital."</p>
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Ratty Beslow; my owd colleague an' sparring pardner. It's 'im
+you weer talking of, ain't it?"</p>
+<p>"It wasn't; but I'm interested in him," I said, sitting down on
+a pile of logs. "How did he get to hospital?"</p>
+<p>"Through a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory. You see, me an' Ratty
+had been in th' War a goodish time an' ha-ad lost our o-riginal
+ferociousness. So they put us to this Chink Labour gang for a
+rest-cure. Likewise Ratty 'ad got too fa-amous as a
+timber-scrounger oop th' line, and it was thought that if 'e was
+left in th' middle of a forest, wheer it didn't matter a dang if he
+scrounged wood fra' revally to tattoo, it might reform him. But it
+was deadly dull. We tried a sweepstake f'r th' one as could
+recognise most Chinks at sight, and a raffle for who could guess
+how many trees in a circle; but there wasn't much spice in it. So
+at last Ratty suggested we should try a bit o' poaching.</p>
+<p>"'Ah doan't know th' first thing about it,' I says; 'Ah'm town
+bred. Nobbut Ah could knock a few rabbits over if Ah'd got a Lewis
+gun handy.'</p>
+<p>"'Rabbuts be danged!' says he; 'Ah've no use f'r such vermin.
+Theer's stags, so Ah've heerd tell, in this forest.'</p>
+<p>"'Ah wudden say no to a haunch o' venison,' I answered; 'but
+stags is artillery work.'</p>
+<p>"'They is not,' says Ratty. 'Nor yet rifles nor bombs.'</p>
+<p>"'Ah s'pose you stops theer holes an' puts in a ferret,' says I,
+sarcastic; 'or else traps 'em wi' cheese.'</p>
+<p>"'That's the only kind o' hunting you've bin used to,' replies
+Ratty. 'Stags is caught wi' tactics, a trip-wire an' a lasso.'</p>
+<p>"'Well, la-ad,' I says, 'you'd best do th' lassoing. I doan't
+know the habits o' stags.'</p>
+<p>"Ratty scrounges a prime rope fra' somewheers, an' we creeps out
+after nightfall. It was a dree night, the owd bracken underfoot
+damp an' sodden, an' th' tall firs looking grim an' gho-ostly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page457" id="page457"></a>[pg
+457]</span> in th' gloom. Soon theer was a crackling o' twigs, like
+a tank scouting on tiptoe.</p>
+<p>"'Bosch patrol half-left!' whispers I.</p>
+<p>"'Stow it, you blighter,' says Ratty. 'This is serious. Can't
+you see th' stag?'</p>
+<p>"I peeps round and, loomin' in the da-arkness, see th'
+hindquarters of a stag sticking out ayant a tree. It looked bigger
+'n Ah 've seen 'em in pictures, but Ah 've noticed Fritzes look
+bigger in th' dark.</p>
+<p>"'Now's your chance, la-ad,' I whispers. 'Trip round an' slip
+th' noose over 'is horns.'</p>
+<p>"'Not me,' growls Batty. 'T'other end's safer.'</p>
+<p>"He crawls up to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was
+going to slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint
+wi' its left an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin.
+A shadow passed across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged to be
+Ratty.</p>
+<p>"'Ratty's after altitude records,' says I to meself, 'an'
+there'll be th' ellanall of a row if that rope's lost.'</p>
+<p>"However, in a few minutes he started to descend an' made a good
+landing in some soft bracken. By th' time I'd felt him all over,
+an' found 'e'd be fit to go to hospital in th' morning, th' stag
+had disappeared."</p>
+<p>"I never heard of stags kicking like that before," I
+interrupted.</p>
+<p>"Nor hadn't Ratty," said the ancient warrior. "Ah towd you he
+made a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory.</p>
+<p>"The next night, feeling mighty lonely, Ah walked five
+kilometres to th' nearest estaminet, the 'Rondyvoo de Chasers,' an'
+looked upon the <i>vang</i> while it was <i>rouge</i>. When I'd
+done lookin' and started home th' forest looked more gho-ost-like
+than ever wi' th' young firs bowing an' swaying, and drifts o'
+cloud peeping through the branches. All at once I heerd a crackling
+o' twigs like th' night afore, an' then someone stole acrost th'
+road carrying a rope.</p>
+<p>"Ah says to myself, 'It's one of th' Chinks poaching, an' it's
+'evin 'elp 'im if 'e 's after what Ratty nearly caught last
+night!'</p>
+<p>"Seemingly 'e was, for 'e follered th' noise, an' Ah follered
+'im&mdash;at a safe distance. Then, dimlike an' looming big, Ah saw
+th' stag, an' the Chink stealing up behind it.</p>
+<p>"'Tother end, you fool!' I whispered; an' he jumps round to its
+head, slips th' noose round its neck an' leads if off as quiet as a
+lamb."</p>
+<p>"You don't expect me to believe," I broke in indignantly, "that
+a stag can be led like a poodle on a lead?"</p>
+<p>"P'r'aps not stags," said the veteran, relighting his pipe.
+"That's weer Ratty made the mistake that sent 'im to hospital. But
+you can do it now and then with a transport mule what's broke away,
+and the Chink done it."</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/457.png"><img width="100%" src="images/457.png" alt=
+"" /></a><i>Photographer (to Douglas Devereux, the world-famous
+cinema-actor</i>). "TIKE YER PHOTO, SIR?"</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<h4>Commercial Candour.</h4>
+<p>"In reply to your letter to hand, we are very sorry for the
+delay in sending the Jumper, but the tremendous demand for these
+has denuded our stock. We are, however, expecting a further delay
+now in a day or so.</p>
+<p>Yours obediently,</p>
+<p>BROTHERS, LTD."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The spell of hot weather is causing large numbers of the public
+to migrate to the Kent coast. Thanet, owing to greatly improved
+travelling facilities, is being specially flavoured. The public
+well know the magical properties of Thanet air."&mdash;<i>Evening
+Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Then why bother about flavouring it?</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The Food Controller announced that canned salmon is now free of
+control, and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on
+July 1.</p>
+<p>He also intimates that canned salmon is now free of control, and
+that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on July
+1."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We hope he will say it once more, on the Bellman's principle
+that "what I tell you three times is true."</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page458" id="page458"></a>[pg
+458]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/458.png"><img width="100%" src="images/458.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Chorus of children (to parent, late Lieut-Col. R.F.A.,
+D.S.O., M.C. and Bar</i>). "DON'T BE FRIGHTENED, DADDY; SHE'LL ONLY
+PECK YOUR LEGS."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>HINTS ON SELECTING AN AEROPLANE.</h2>
+<p>As all the world will soon be in the air a few words of advice
+on choosing an aerial steed may be of assistance to intending
+fliers who have so far had no experience as owners of winged
+craft.</p>
+<p>The first thing is to locate the whereabouts of the best park,
+for one speaks of a park of aeroplanes just as one speaks of a
+school of whales, a grove of wombats or a suite of leeches. Having
+arrived (wearing, if you are wise, a full-grown check cap, with the
+back to the front and the peak protecting the nape of the neck from
+the bites of savage vendors), take a deep breath and look round you
+knowingly.</p>
+<p>By the way, what are you&mdash;peer, profiteer, or plain
+<i>pater-familias</i> looking for a family air-bus? It is
+impossible to advise you how to select a plane without knowing
+whether you want one for long-distance journeys (with non-starting
+attachment), for stunting, or merely for gadding about and dropping
+in on your friends. There is a sad story afloat of a man who bought
+an air-bus the other day for world-touring and only discovered the
+insufficiency of cupboards and the want of a bathroom after
+starting on his maiden trip to Patagonia (where the nuts drop
+off).</p>
+<p>Let us suppose that you are one of the majority of
+heavier-than-air persons who will shortly be wanting a good steady
+machine to rise to any ordinary occasion.</p>
+<p>Well, then, look round you carefully. Observe the demeanour of
+the machines that are trotted out (if such a term may be used) for
+your inspection. The flick of a tail, the purr of an engine or the
+slope of a wing may give the observant a clue as to the disposition
+of an aerial Pegasus.</p>
+<p>But however reassuring a preliminary canter may be (to borrow
+another horsey simile) insist on a thorough personal inspection of
+all parts of the machine. Test the musical capacity of the wire
+entanglement, screw and unscrew the turnbuckles till the seller
+cries for mercy, and run your hands well over the body (the
+aeroplane's, of course) to make quite sure that it will support the
+weight of yourself, of your family and of your
+parasites&mdash;remembering in this connection that Aunt Louisa
+kicks the beam at 15.7. Make sure also that the body will not part
+company with the rest of the box of tricks at one of those awkward
+corners in the sky. Also, if you have time, it might be well to
+glance at the engine, the petrol tank and the feed-pipe, as experts
+consider these of importance.</p>
+<p>Having satisfied yourself that all these things are as they
+should be in the best of all possible aeroplanes, that the
+joy-stick works as smoothly as a beer-pull, and that the
+under-carriage has the necessary wheels, axles and other things
+that under-carriages are licensed to carry, little remains but to
+pay for the machine and make a nosedive for home.</p>
+<p>A longer and more detailed article on "How to Choose a Stunter,"
+by the Bishop of Solder and Man, with which is incorporated "A Few
+Hints on Banking for Beginners," by Sir JOHN BRADBURY, will appear
+in next week's issue.</p>
+<p>[This is the first I have heard of it.&mdash;ED.]</p>
+<hr />
+<p>From a Menu:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Special this day: Boiled Rabbi and Pork."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>A clear case of adding insult to injury.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page459" id="page459"></a>[pg
+459]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/459.png"><img width="100%" src="images/459.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE DERBY.</h3>
+<p><i>Nurse</i>. "PLEASE IS THIS THE WAY TO THE GRAND PARADE?"</p>
+<p><i>Soured Spinster</i>. "DON'T MENTION THE HORRID THING, YOUNG
+WOMAN, AND ME WITH HALF-A-MONTH'S PENSION ON THE PANTHER."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>BALLADE OF APPROACHING BALDNESS.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>I'm back in civil life, all brawn and chest,</p>
+<p class="i2">Lungs made of leather, heart as right as rain;</p>
+<p>I still could dine off bully-beef with zest;</p>
+<p class="i2">I've never had a scratch or stitch or sprain;</p>
+<p class="i2">Life seems to throb in every single vein.</p>
+<p>Yet I'm a whited sepulchre, in brief;</p>
+<p class="i2">I've one foot in the grave, I'm on the wane,</p>
+<p>I'm heading for the sere and yellow leaf.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>From Mons to Jericho I've borne my crest</p>
+<p class="i2">And back from Jericho to Mons again;</p>
+<p>I've sampled smells in Araby the Blest</p>
+<p class="i2">Would burst a boiler or corrode a drain;</p>
+<p class="i2">The Blankshires have a port that raises
+Cain&mdash;</p>
+<p>I've messed with them and never come to grief;</p>
+<p class="i2">And yet I'm dashing like a non-stop train</p>
+<p>Full steam into the sere and yellow leaf.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>It caught me hard this morning when I dressed</p>
+<p class="i2">And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain</p>
+<p>Is gnawing like a canker at my breast,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is beating like a hammer in my brain;</p>
+<p class="i2">I must speak out or break beneath the strain.</p>
+<p><i>I'm going bald on top</i>. O cruel reef</p>
+<p class="i2">Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane</p>
+<p>Whose end is but the sere and yellow leaf!</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i16">ENVOI.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Prince (Mr. Punch)! on Armageddon's plain</p>
+<p class="i2">My love-locks fell a prey to Time, the thief.</p>
+<p>Regrets are useless, unguents are in vain;</p>
+<p class="i2">Only remains the sere and yellow leaf.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h4>The Commercial Touch.</h4>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Presiding at the concert given in connection with the
+&mdash;&mdash; Art Club's annual exhibition of oil and
+water-colours, Mr. &mdash;&mdash; congratulated the club on the
+quality of its paintings, which, he thought, were remarkably cheap
+when cognisance was taken of the present high prices of
+materials."&mdash;<i>Provincial Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This critic has, as the Art jargon puts it, "a nice feeling for
+values."</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"HOW I DIFFER FROM MY MOTHER."</p>
+<p>By A Modern Woman.</p>
+<p>'<i>Women differ by the width of Heaven from what their mothers
+were</i>.'&mdash;MR. JUSTICE DARLING.</p>
+<p>"I do not smoke and I do not wear bare-back dresses, but I agree
+with Mr. Justice Darling&mdash;there is the width of Heaven between
+my mother and I."&mdash;<i>Evening News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Let's hope so, in the matter of grammar.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page460" id="page460"></a>[pg
+460]</span>
+<h2>HUMOUR'S LABOUR LOST.</h2>
+<blockquote>
+<p class="author"><i>Lochtermachty, N.B.<br />
+May 29th, 1919.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+<p>DEAR MR. PUNCH,&mdash;My father and I have fallen out over the
+question of your literary judgment and sense of humour. If I
+weren't a filial daughter I'd say that he's a &mdash;&mdash;; but I
+am, so I won't call him names.</p>
+<p>The fact is that, before he became a professional Padre, he
+didn't know that such things as senses of humour existed. All that
+mattered in his life were Latin and Greek and Hebrew and the other
+pursuits of the classical scholar. However, during his wanderings
+with the Army he has somehow managed to acquire what he calls "an
+appreciation of the laughable." And that is the cause of our
+divided house.</p>
+<p>This morning at breakfast, while he was reading out the account
+of the proceedings of the General Assemblies, he came upon the
+interesting statement&mdash;volunteered by an eminent Edinburgh
+divine&mdash;that all the ministers of the Kirk have lost a stone
+in weight during the War, and that this works out at a loss of five
+tons of ministerial flesh to the United Free Church of Scotland.
+Then, after he had tested the accuracy of the statistics, which he
+found quite incorrect, and I had meditated upon the bulk of matter
+encircled by the parental Sam Browne, we were both seized with an
+idea, and said "<i>Punch!</i>" at the same instant.</p>
+<p>It took us some time to get rid of the accumulation of
+marmalade, margarine and bacon fat which we amassed in our attempts
+to link fingers across the table; but about 10.30 or so we got
+settled down to work on your behalf.</p>
+<p>Until lunch-time we were fully occupied in giving each other
+ideas and then explaining why they wouldn't work. After lunch the
+Padre retired to his study to work out, he said, a
+satire&mdash;after ARISTOPHANES&mdash;which would afford him an
+opportunity of introducing the Archbishop of CANTERBURY'S speech,
+and making some whimsical allusions to the legend of the strayed
+lamb come back to tell his lean Scotch brethren of the green
+meadows and luscious feeding to be had across the Borders.</p>
+<p>My own ambitions were slighter. I would do a conversation
+perhaps between the shades of JOHNSON and his BOZZY, or a Limerick,
+or even just an original witty remark, or, failing all of these, I
+would select an "apt quotation." About tea-time I retired to the
+garden with a notebook, a pencil and a book of quotations. By 6.30
+I had a list of one hundred and two, and was wavering over the
+final choice of a parody on "Some hae meat wha canna eat," and an
+adaptation of "Be sooople, Davie, in things immaterial," when my
+parent came out to the lawn, flushed and excited, with his last
+three hairs triumphantly erect, and brandished a document in my
+face.</p>
+<p>It was an ode, Mr. Punch&mdash;an ode five (foolscap) pages
+long, written in Greek!</p>
+<p>I gave him best at once, and then very gently suggested that his
+composition might not in its present unmitigated form be
+<i>quite</i> suited to your tastes and requirements.</p>
+<p>I shall spare you the details of the ensuing controversy, but I
+want you to know that I have spared you much else, and in so doing
+have forfeited not only my father's affection but a projected
+advance on my next quarter-but-three's dress allowance.</p>
+<p>I hope you need no further proof of my devotion.</p>
+<p>Yours, etc.,</p>
+<p>A DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE.</p>
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I was forgetting to say that you will find the bit
+about the ministers near the bottom of the third column of the
+tenth page of Thursday's <i>Scotsman</i>. Perhaps you can think of
+a funny treatment yourself.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr />
+<h2>SONGS OF SIMLA.</h2>
+<p class="center">III.&mdash;THE FURRIER.</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Akbar the furrier squats on the floor</p>
+<p class="i2">Sucking an Eastern pipe,</p>
+<p>Thumbing the lakhs that he's made of yore,</p>
+<p>Lakhs which creep to the long-dreamed crore</p>
+<p class="i2">In a ledger of Western type.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>And all around him the wild beasts sway,</p>
+<p class="i2">Cured of their mortal ills&mdash;</p>
+<p>Flying squirrels from Sikkim way,</p>
+<p>Silver foxes that used to play</p>
+<p class="i2">Up on the Kashmir hills.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>On the shelf of a cupboard a polecat lies</p>
+<p class="i2">Laughing between his paws,</p>
+<p>And there's more than a hint of amused surprise</p>
+<p>In the gape of the lynx, in the marten's eyes,</p>
+<p class="i2">In the poise of the grey wolf's claws.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>And, should you enter old Akbar's lair</p>
+<p class="i2">And hear what he wants for his skins,</p>
+<p>You will know why the little red squirrels stare,</p>
+<p>Why the Bengal tiger gasps for air</p>
+<p class="i2">And the gaunt snow-leopard grins.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>J.M.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<p>The Telephone Girl's motto: <i>Nulla linea sine
+die</i>&mdash;"Number engaged; ring again and again, please."</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>ALAS! POOR PANTHER.</h2>
+<p>I went to the Derby fully intending to back the
+favourite&mdash;The Panther.</p>
+<p>But the cross-currents immediately set in&mdash;as they always
+do.</p>
+<p>I began by making the mistake of reading the forecasts of all
+the experts&mdash;the gallant Captains and Majors, the Men on the
+Course, the Men on the Heath, the Men on the Spot&mdash;all of
+whom, although they mostly favoured The Panther, had serious views
+as to dangerous rivals, supported by what looked like
+uncontrovertible arguments.</p>
+<p>I also had an early evening paper with a summary of forecasts,
+none of which (as it was to turn out) mentioned the winner at
+all.</p>
+<p>I was even so foolish as to glance at some of the advertisements
+of the wizards who are so ready to put the benefit of their
+knowledge at the service of the public and make fortunes for others
+rather (apparently) than for themselves, all of whom hinted at some
+mysterious long-priced outsider whose miraculous qualities of speed
+were a secret. But of course I was too late to profit by these;
+they merely unsettled me.</p>
+<p>Not content with this I was forced to overhear the conversation
+of others in our compartment, each of whom fancied a separate
+animal, arguing with reasons that could not be gainsaid.</p>
+<p>In this way I learned that The Panther would win in a canter and
+would be badly beaten; that he was a stranger to the Epsom course;
+that he was ready for anything; that he liked soft going; that he
+was no good except when he could hear his hoofs rattle; that his
+jockey was not strong enough; that his jockey was ideal; that he
+was sounder than any horse had ever been, and that trouble was
+brewing.</p>
+<p>All this naturally left me shaken as to my first decision. Was I
+wise, I asked myself, to trust all my eggs (forgive, Sir ALEC
+BLACK, the poorness of this metaphor) to one doubtful basket?</p>
+<p>Having admitted an element of doubt I was the prey of every
+suspicion and began to consider the other candidates. All Alone
+headed the list. I liked the name, because it suggested the
+corollary: the rest nowhere. Also it belonged to a lady&mdash;to
+the only lady owner, in fact&mdash;and lady&mdash;owners were said
+(by a man with a red beard opposite me who smoked cigarettes so
+short that I was certain it was made of dyed asbestos) to be in
+luck this season. "Always follow the luck," he added. But then, on
+the other hand, what could be more lucky than Colonel BUCHAN,
+author of <i>Mr. Standfast</i> and an excellent History of the War,
+into <span class="pagenum"><a name="page461" id="page461"></a>[pg
+461]</span> whose lap so many good things fall? Why not back a
+horse named after him? Besides, was not Buchan third favourite?</p>
+<p>I was making a note of Buchan's claims, when a man with a
+Thermos flask lashed to his side began to praise Dominion.
+Dominion, it seems, was third in the Two Thousand
+Guineas&mdash;only just behind Buchan, who was just behind The
+Panther. Many people thought The Panther unduly lucky that day. A
+very different course, too, at Newmarket from that at Epsom.
+Obviously Dominion must be remembered. Moreover he was being
+greatly fancied and some of the best judges looked to him to win
+the Blue Riband for Lord GLANELY. The fact that Lord GLANELY drew
+his own horse in the Baltic Sweep was not to be sneezed at either,
+said some one. That's an omen if there ever was one! And it knocked
+out Lord GLANELY'S other horse, Grand Parade.</p>
+<p>"Well, here's a tip," cried a man with a frock-coat and a straw
+hat. "Blest if I've got a single coin left&mdash;nothing but paper
+money. That's good enough for me. I shall back Paper Money."</p>
+<p>The carriage agreed that that was his duty. "Of course you
+must," they said. "When everyone disagrees in the way that the
+experts do, you might as well take a tip like that as
+anything."</p>
+<p>Paper Money had therefore to be added also to my list of
+possibles.</p>
+<p>"Besides," said another man, "DONOGHUE rides him; our leading
+jockey, you know." I had forgotten to look at the jockeys' names.
+How absurd! Of course one must back DONOGHUE.</p>
+<p>But just then, "Give me WHALLEY," said the man with the asbestos
+beard, and, as WHALLEY was riding Bay of Naples, I had to consider
+him too. Naples was a jolly place and I had had a lot of fun there.
+Hadn't I better make that my tip?</p>
+<p>But, on the other hand, what about Tangiers? I had had fun there
+too, and more than one fellow-passenger had darkly hinted that this
+was a much better animal than public form proclaimed. Looking for
+particulars, I found that he once "ran Galloper Light to a head;"
+which had a promising sound. He was trained at Lambourne too, and I
+like Lambourne. There is a good inn there and it is a fine walk to
+White Horse Hill.</p>
+<p>"Well," said another man, who had been borrowing matches from
+his neighbour ever since Victoria, "I always had a feeling for a
+Marcovil colt. Marcovil is a good sire. I 've had some very special
+information about Milton, the Marcovil colt, to-day."</p>
+<p>MILTON!&mdash;one of my favourite poets, and also one of Mr.
+ASQUITH'S, as he said in that lecture last week. Yes, but is Mr.
+ASQUITH exactly lucky just now? Perhaps not. And did not MILTON
+write <i>Paradise Lost</i>? True. But, on the other hand, he wrote
+<i>Paradise Regained</i>. You see how difficult tip-hunting can
+be!</p>
+<p>And so it went on and I emerged from the Epsom Downs station in
+a maze of indecision, in which one fact and one only shone with
+crystal clearness, and that was that whatever won the race The
+Panther had no better chance, even though it had been made
+favourite, than any other.</p>
+<p>"Besides," as one of the two men who sat on my knees had said,
+"What's a favourite anyway? Very often a horse is made a favourite
+by the bookies, in conjunction with the Press, just so as everyone
+will back it. No, no favourites for me. Give me a likely outsider
+at good odds. Look what you have to put on The Panther to win
+anything."</p>
+<p>In the result I backed&mdash;well, I am not going to tell you;
+but they "also ran."</p>
+<p>The moral of this story&mdash;if it has one&mdash;is either
+don't bet at all, or, if you do bet, draw the horse from a hat at
+random, and, having drawn it, stick to it. No one, as the failure
+of The Panther proves, can possibly <i>know</i> more than you.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/461.png"><img width="100%" src="images/461.png" alt=
+"" /></a> <i>Daphne</i>. "I MUSTN'T HAVE ANY CAKE TILL I DON'T ASK
+FOR IT, MUST I?"</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page462" id="page462"></a>[pg
+462]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/462.png"><img width="100%" src="images/462.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Wife</i>. "HOW ABOUT SEAHAVEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS? I HEAR IT'S
+VERY PICTURESQUE."</p>
+<p><i>Profiteer</i>. "NOT OUR CLASS, MY DEAR. TOO QUIET&mdash;SORT
+O' PLACE THE <i>NOUVEAUX PAUVRES</i> GO TO."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>TECHNICAL TERMS.</h3>
+<p>When Ernest asked me to take a run in his car I took advantage
+of the invitation because there are times when I think that life is
+less joyful without a car and that one day I shall slip out and buy
+one. I should love to grip the wheel and sweep the countryside and
+listen to the soft purr of the engine. So we started sweeping the
+countryside, Ernest and I; but we had not swept very much of it
+before the soft purr developed a kind of cough and the car
+stopped.</p>
+<p>Ernest coaxed and petted her. He tried kindness, while I helped
+him with sarcasm. He tried hauteur and then a little bad
+temper.</p>
+<p>Eventually he decided to send for the local motor engineer, and
+it was when this gentleman arrived with his mate that I decided
+that motoring was not for me and that I should have to fall back on
+fretwork or tame mice for my recreation.</p>
+<p>"Here, Bill," said Overalls-in-Chief, "just hold up the
+Ding-dong."</p>
+<p>His mate did as instructed and up went the Ding-dong.</p>
+<p>"Now hand me the Doo-dal," he went on; "and while I tune up the
+old Jig-jig you get the Pipety-pip and clean it out.</p>
+<p>"Now get the Tick-tick and just give me a tap here with the
+Ooh-jah, while I give the Thing-a-me-tight a couple for his
+nob.</p>
+<p>"See that?" he shouted at me. "Would you believe it? Easy as
+winking. See, it was like this. The What's-a-name here, as kept the
+Tiddley-um-tum in place, was sort of riding on the Squeak-box, so
+as the Tiddley-om-pom and the other Jigger sort of gave the
+half-seas-over to the Thing-a-me-bob and missed the Rum-ti-tum.
+Simple, ain't it, Guv'nor?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered, "quite simple."</p>
+<p>But I have decided to give up all idea of buying a car. I should
+never learn the language.</p>
+<hr />
+<h3>LITTLE GREY WATER.</h3>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Little Grey Water, my heart is with you</p>
+<p class="i2">In the loop of the hills where the lone heron
+feeds,</p>
+<p>Where your cloak is a cloud with a lining of blue,</p>
+<p class="i2">And your lover a wind riding over the reeds.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Little Grey Water, I know that you know</p>
+<p class="i2">What the teal and the black duck are dreaming at
+noon,</p>
+<p>And the way of the wistful wild geese as they go</p>
+<p class="i2">Through the haze of the hills to keep tryst with the
+moon.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Little Grey Water, folk say and they say</p>
+<p class="i2">That the homing hill-shepherd, benighted, has
+heard</p>
+<p>A song in the reeds, 'twixt the dawn and the day,</p>
+<p class="i2">That was never the song of a breeze or a bird.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>But I know you so silent, so silent and still,</p>
+<p class="i2">And so proud of your trust that you'll never
+betray</p>
+<p>What the fairies that gather from Grundiston Hill</p>
+<p class="i2">Tell the stars before morning to witch them away.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>W.H.O.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page463" id="page463"></a>[pg
+463]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/463.png"><img width="100%" src="images/463.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>FAITH RESTORED.</h3>
+<p>MR. PUNCH. "STANDS ROBERT WHERE HE DID? GOOD! I WAS AFRAID FOR A
+MOMENT THAT MY IDOL HAD FEET OF CLAY."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<!--Blank Page 464-->
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page465" id="page465"></a>[pg
+465]</span>
+<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+<p><i>Monday, June 2nd</i>.&mdash;The Lords seldom sit <i>die
+Lunae</i>, and were perhaps feeling what humbler folk call "rather
+Mondayish" at being summoned from their week-end pleasaunces to put
+the Local Government (Ireland) Bill through its final stages.
+Anyhow they developed some eleventh-hour criticisms. The sad case
+of the Belfast Water Commissioners attracted Lord STUART OF
+WORTLEY. There are fifteen of them&mdash;one each for the existing
+wards. But under the Bill Belfast is to be divided into ten wards;
+and fifteen into ten won't go, even in Ireland. Lord PEEL
+considered that while Lord STUART'S arithmetic was impeccable his
+fears were exaggerated. If Belfast drinks its whiskey neat it will
+not be for want of Water Commissioners.</p>
+<p>In the Commons Members were disappointed to learn from Sir
+AUCKLAND GEDDES that he had no idea of the time when railway-fares
+would be reduced to the amount printed on the tickets. Nor were
+they much consoled by his promise to consider the suggestion that
+as the fare cannot be brought down to the ticket the ticket shall
+be brought up to the fare. We should not lightly part with our few
+reminders of the cheap dead days that are no more. In fact it would
+be a salutary thing if other tradesmen imitated the "commercial
+candour" of the railways and ticketed their goods with the pre-war
+value in addition to the present charge.</p>
+<p>There is a juvenile impulsiveness about Sir HENRY CRAIK which
+reminds one of "the boy who wouldn't grow up," and may account for
+his keen interest in Kensington Gardens. Dissatisfied with an
+assurance of the FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS that he was doing his
+best to get the War Office to clear away their hutments he burst
+out, "Could he not attempt to use some disciplinary action against
+the obstinacy, the stupidity, the slackness, the carelessness of
+those who are responsible?" Swept away by this spate of sibilants
+Sir ALFRED MOND essayed no further answer.</p>
+<div class="figright" style="width:35%;"><a href=
+"images/465-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/465-1.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p class="center">ANOTHER VISIT&mdash;AND IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.</p>
+<p class="center">MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.</p>
+</div>
+<p>After less than an hour's debate the House gave the CHANCELLOR
+OF THE EXCHEQUER power to borrow a trifle of two hundred and fifty
+millions, to square this year's account, <i>plus</i> an undefined
+sum to enable him to fund the floating debt, now amounting to close
+on two thousand millions. Even Sir FREDERICK BANBURY had no serious
+objection to raise, his chief anxiety being that everyone, and not
+merely the plutocratic holders of Treasury Bills, should be
+permitted to subscribe to the new loan. Mr. CHAMBERLAIN assured him
+that it was a case of "Let 'em all come."</p>
+<p><i>Tuesday, June 3rd</i>.&mdash;According to the view of Major
+WOOD and his friends the Mother of Parliaments is played out. The
+Grand Committees which were to have restored her vigour have left
+her more enfeebled than ever, and unless she devolves a large part
+of her duties upon subordinate assemblies her end is near. But I
+noticed that, although Ireland was expressly excepted from their
+resolution, most of them talked of little else, and I fancy that
+but for Dublin we should not have heard much of devolution.</p>
+<p>As a statesman His Grace of CANTERBURY has hitherto enjoyed the
+reputation of being "safe" rather than dashing. But that is
+evidently a mistake, for in introducing the Bill which is to enable
+the Church to free itself from some of the trammels imposed upon it
+by the State he begged his hearers not to be afraid of "brave
+adventurous legislation." His appeal was quite lost upon Lord
+HALDANE, who was shocked by the terrible possibilities of the
+measure, and warned the PRIMATE that if the Bill became law he
+would have signed the death-warrant of the Establishment. Coming
+from a Presbyterian who helped to disestablish the Church in Wales,
+this showed the heights of altruism to which a real philosopher may
+rise.</p>
+<div class="figleft" style="width:35%;"><a href=
+"images/465-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/465-1.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS.</p>
+<p>"AM I REALLY SUFFERING FROM SENILE DECAY?"</p>
+</div>
+<p>Colonel WEDGWOOD was shocked to learn that in the occupied
+territories Germans had to take off their hats when addressing
+British officers. But it would be a mistake to assume that his
+concern was due to any tenderness for our foes. On the contrary, it
+was exhibited out of regard for the feelings of British officers.
+Mr. CHURCHILL regretted the inconvenience, but pointed out that it
+had always been the practice&mdash;even in Belgium&mdash;for an
+Army of Occupation to exact certain acts of respect from the
+inhabitants.</p>
+<p>Mr. KELLAWAY, who announced last week with such pride that "the
+Government have struck oil," was now able to state that the oil had
+reached a height of 2,400 feet and was still rising steadily. There
+is some talk of inviting the successful engineers to put down bores
+at Westminster.</p>
+<p><i>Wednesday, June 4th</i>.&mdash;Complaint was made recently
+that under the new Rules of Procedure Members were expected to be
+in three places at once. I fancy that a good many of them settled
+their difficulty to-day by betaking themselves to a fourth place,
+not in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster.</p>
+<p>There was anything but a Grand Parade on the green benches, and
+the faithful few who were present put a good many questions "on
+behalf of my honourable friend." The Front Benches were well
+manned, however, and Mr. LONG had quite a busy time explaining to
+Commander BELLAIRS why the Admiralty thought it inadvisable at this
+date to hold courts-martial in regard to the Naval losses of 1914.
+The House was more interested to hear that the Peace celebrations
+will include a Naval procession through London, and that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page466" id="page466"></a>[pg
+466]</span> there will be a display in the Thames of war-ships of
+various classes, including, possibly, some of those captured from
+the enemy.</p>
+<p>A feature of the afternoon was Mr. MACQUISTEN'S brief comments
+upon Ministerial replies. Divorced from their setting, such remarks
+as "Fish is very dear!" (<i>&agrave; propos</i> of Admiralty
+parsimony in compensating the owners of drifters) or "By
+thought-reading?" (when the best method of ascertaining native
+opinion on the future of Rhodesia was in question), may not sound
+particularly funny, but, when delivered in a voice of peculiar
+penetration and "Scotchiness," at precisely the right moments, they
+were sufficient to convulse the Benches. Mr. MACQUISTEN must be
+careful or he will soon be a spoiled DARLING.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/466.png"><img width="100%" src="images/466.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Waiter (at public dinner, to very hot and red-faced
+diner</i>). "I'M GOING NOW, SIR. ANYTHING MORE I CAN GET YOU?
+BRANDY OR PORT? NO, SIR? SHALL I GET YOU A COOL CHAIR, SIR?"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Cigar smokers will be interested very much in the likelihood of
+that luxury being soon dearer than ever.... It will most likely
+develop into a habit of getting the very last whiffff ffffout of
+every cigar."&mdash;<i>Provincial Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The printer would seem to be practising already.</p>
+<hr />
+<h3>"HOW TO HEAR MUSIC."</h3>
+<p><i>(With humble acknowledgments to the critic of "The
+Times.")</i></p>
+<p>We were grateful to Mlle. Snouck Hugronje for giving us an
+opportunity of hearing the Violin Concertos of Prenk Bib Doda in C
+sharp minor, and of Basil Tulkinghorn in the composite key of F.E.
+The latter work, we may explain, is dedicated to Lord BIRKENHEAD.
+Doda's work is so rarely played that Mr. ERNEST NEWMAN has wittily
+suggested that he ought to be renamed Dodo. But let that pass. Here
+he is abundantly like himself, rich in self-determining phrases
+which emerge from a Hinterland of wild surmise, and tower aloft in
+peaks of Himalayan majesty like Haramokh or Siniolchum
+&mdash;&mdash; Mr. CANDLER must finish this sentence.</p>
+<p>Tulkinghorn is also a master of transcendental effects, and as
+relentless in pushing home his points as Mr. SMILLIE when examining
+a duke before the Coal Commission. But he is not always to be
+trusted. He lacks the architectonic faculty. In between the
+clusters of clear-cut phrases there are too many nebulae of gaseous
+formation and spiral type, which deflect the orbital movement of
+his essentially electronic melody and impair its impact on the
+naked ear.</p>
+<p>But when Mlle. Snouck Hugronje plays you forget all about
+self-determination, syndicalism, guild-control, proletariats,
+sunspots and even Mr. SMILLIE. If you are a poet, and we are all
+poets nowadays, you dream yourself into a punt on the Sonning
+backwater, wondering if the summer was ever so amazing before,
+nearly being shipwrecked on a sandy spit, startling moorfowl or it
+may be dabchicks, sending a <i>frisson</i> into the fritillaries,
+losing and regaining your punt-pole, always believing that the next
+bend &mdash;&mdash; Mr. FILSON YOUNG must really finish the
+sentence.</p>
+<p>If you are a musician and an occultist you will, by due
+concentration of your pineal gland and pituitary body, rise with
+the rapidity of a HAWKER to astral altitudes immune from all
+mundane disquiet. You will notice &mdash;&mdash; However, this is
+best, left to Mr. CYRIL SCOTT or Sir RABINDRANATH TAGORE or Sir
+OLIVER LODGE. But if you are a mere <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+"page467" id="page467"></a>[pg 467]</span> listener you will listen
+and be thankful. But if you never go to concerts you will still be
+able, by the aid of the New Criticism, to attain to an ecstasy of
+appreciation far greater than if you had relied on the crude medium
+of your senses.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:65%;"><a href=
+"images/467.png"><img width="100%" src="images/467.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Niece</i>. "BUT AREN'T YOU GOING TO GIVE THAT NICE PORTER A
+TIP, AUNTIE? HE'S AN OLD SOLDIER."</p>
+<p><i>Aunt</i>. "<i>EXACTLY</i>, MY DEAR. MUCH TOO POLITE TO BE
+UNPLEASANT TO ONE."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>THE CONSCRIPTION OF BRAINS.</h3>
+<p>PROGRESS OF THE COMMISSION.</p>
+<p>The Literary section of the Nationalisation Commission met last
+Friday. Before evidence was taken the Chairman, Mr. ROBERT
+WILLIAMS, said that as their Report must be delivered in less than
+a week the Commission had decided not to summon Lord MORLEY, Lord
+ROSEBERY or Mr. THOMAS HARDY, but hoped in the few days still
+available, to hear the evidence of Sir THOMAS HALL CAINE, Lady
+WARWICK, Mrs. BARCLAY, Mr. SPACKMAN and Mr. SMILLIE.</p>
+<p>Mr. EDWARD MARSH read an interesting Report on the State
+Remuneration of Poets. He was of opinion that poets, if they could
+be shown to be of the authentic Georgian brand, ought to be secured
+a reasonable salary quite irrespective of the views which they
+expressed. They must never be expected to glorify or approve of the
+CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, but should be perfectly free to
+criticise or attack him. No attempt should be made to impose any
+metrical constraint on their verse. But he thought it desirable
+that for the purpose of bringing them to the notice of the public a
+State chaperon should be appointed to provide suitable
+introductions and biographical details. He also advocated the
+multiplication of poetry tea-shops, where pure China tea and
+wholesome confectionery should be supplied gratis to all poets
+whose works had been favourably noticed in <i>The Times Literary
+Supplement</i>.</p>
+<p>The CHAIRMAN. What is your idea of the minimum wage for
+poets?&mdash;In view of the present purchasing power of the
+sovereign I should put it at eight hundred pounds a year. Modern
+poets require an extra amount of nourishment, owing to the nervous
+strain involved in production, and their requirements in the matter
+of dress are often difficult to satisfy. I understand that the
+price of sandals has gone up two hundred per cent.</p>
+<p>Mr. CHARLES GARVICE, the next witness, stated that he did not
+think the literary quality of novels would be necessarily improved
+by nationalisation. Speaking for himself he did not think it would
+affect his output. But if the State took over this industry it
+should be liberal in affording novel-producers facilities for
+obtaining fresh material, local colour, etc. At all costs the
+output of salubrious and sedative fiction must be maintained if
+only as an antidote to the subversive and revolutionary literature
+now freely disseminated among the proletariat.</p>
+<p>COLONEL WEDGWOOD. HOW do you expect a workman earning only three
+pounds a week to afford seven shillings for every novel that he
+buys?&mdash;Personally I should like to see the cost reduced, but I
+understand that if the price of novels were fixed at one shilling
+it would involve the State in an expenditure of ten million pounds
+annually, even with the present reduced output of novels, which has
+fallen during the War to little over twenty million tons.</p>
+<p>Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE declared himself a whole-hearted supporter of
+nationalisation. There was something extraordinarily uplifting in
+the notion of consecrating one's talents to the State. Publishers
+were too often callous individualists. Here one would be working
+for humanity. If his interview with the KAISER had been issued
+under State sanction he believed that the Peace would have been
+signed months sooner.</p>
+<hr />
+<h4>Official Candour.</h4>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"TELEGRAPHIC NOTICE.</p>
+<p>Public is hereby informed that delays to and from offices in
+Punjab are normal."&mdash;<i>Indian Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Same here.</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<h4>Our Veterans.</h4>
+<p>"London Rifle Brigade, 40 strong, of the 1st Battalion, which
+went out in 1814, arrived in London from France at mid-day
+yesterday."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page468" id="page468"></a>[pg
+468]</span>
+<h2>A ROYAL INTERVIEW.</h2>
+<p>"Someone to see you, Miss."</p>
+<p>Thus Mary at about nine o'clock on an April evening at the door
+of my tiny sitting-room.</p>
+<p>There was a strange little quiver in her voice.</p>
+<p>Mary is so extremely well trained, and so accustomed, moreover,
+to queer visitors at the flat, that I looked up in surprise.</p>
+<p>"Yes?" I said. "Is it a lady?"</p>
+<p>Mary did not reply immediately; she seemed half-dazed.</p>
+<p>"Is it a lady?" I repeated a little sharply. My usually
+imperturbable parlourmaid appeared to have taken leave of her
+senses.</p>
+<p>"She said she was a queen, Miss," she gasped.</p>
+<p>At that moment the visitor, evidently grown tired of waiting,
+calmly floated in through the half-open door and settled down
+gracefully in the centre of a large gold cushion lying on the end
+of the Chesterfield.</p>
+<p>Fortunately I grasped the situation at once.</p>
+<p>"Thank you, Mary," I said, with what I now feel to have been
+most commendable coolness in the entirely unprecedented
+circumstances; "I will ring if I want tea later."</p>
+<p>When the door had closed upon the still gasping Mary I turned
+apologetically to my visitor.</p>
+<p>"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," I said. "You see, my maid was not
+unnaturally a little surprised&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"It's <i>quite</i> all right," said the Fairy Queen graciously;
+"I thought you wouldn't mind my coming in."</p>
+<p>"Of course not," I said; "I am only too delighted. Won't you
+come nearer the fire?"</p>
+<p>She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then
+she looked up at me and smiled.</p>
+<p>"I don't like to leave it," she said; "it's so pretty." And she
+stroked the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said; "and your lovely frock goes with it so
+beautifully. But how would this be?"</p>
+<p>I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden
+and put it down on the floor in front of the fire. "There&mdash;how
+is that?"</p>
+<p>"That's delightful," said the Fairy Queen. "I'm so glad you like
+my frock," she went on. "Paris, of course. That is to say, the idea
+came from there. My own people did the actual making. After all, no
+one can touch the French when it comes to real <i>chic</i>. Don't
+you think so?"</p>
+<p>I acquiesced. Oh, yes, Paris was certainly the best.</p>
+<p>"But I didn't come here to discuss clothes," said my visitor.
+She made a quick movement and leaned suddenly forward on the
+cushion, her delicate golden head supported on her slender hand.
+"Do you know the Editor of <i>Punch</i>?" she asked abruptly.</p>
+<p>I hesitated. "I can't exactly say that I <i>know</i> him," I
+said.</p>
+<p>The Fairy Queen looked very disappointed.</p>
+<p>"Oh, dear, then I'm afraid it's no good. I thought you'd be sure
+to know him."</p>
+<p>"But although I don't know him personally I am in communication
+with him," I said. "Perhaps&mdash;"</p>
+<p>She brightened up a little.</p>
+<p>"I suppose you <i>could</i> write," she said; "though of course
+it would be far better to see him."</p>
+<p>"It's about that cover," she went on. I looked at her
+blankly.</p>
+<p>"The cover of <i>Punch</i>, you know."</p>
+<p>Vague pictures of Mr. Punch surrounded by little dancing
+figures, an easel, Toby, a lion&mdash;surely there was a lion
+somewhere&mdash;flitted across my mind. What on earth had the cover
+of <i>Punch</i> got to do with the Fairy Queen?</p>
+<p>I went over to the little table where lay the latest copy, and
+came back with it in my hand and knelt down on the floor near the
+cushion.</p>
+<p>The Fairy Queen came close to me and peered over the edge of the
+paper.</p>
+<p>"Look at the fairies," she said, pointing with a tiny indignant
+finger. "<i>Look</i> at them. They're most dreadfully
+old-fashioned. Nobody in fairyland looks in the least like that
+now."</p>
+<p>I looked. Certainly the little figures had rather an
+early-Victorian air about them.</p>
+<p>"Of course we should never dream of being tremendously
+fashionable or anything of that kind. I would not for one moment
+think of allowing any of my court-ladies to cut their hair short,
+for instance, or to wear one of those foolish hobble skirts; but
+nobody, nobody could accuse us of being dowdy. Now tell me, have
+you ever seen one of us looking like that, or like that?"</p>
+<p>"But are you quite sure," I said, not without hesitation, for
+she was by way of being rather an autocratic and imperious little
+person and I was the least little bit afraid of her&mdash;"are you
+quite sure that they <i>are</i> fairies?"</p>
+<p>"Of course they are," she replied quickly. "What else could they
+be? Naturally Mr. Punch would have fairies all round him. He loves
+us. You have no idea how much we have in common."</p>
+<p>I didn't reply at once. I was engaged in staring at the familiar
+design.</p>
+<p>"They haven't any wings," I said, still rather doubtfully,
+"except this one at the bottom."</p>
+<p>But the Fairy Queen was very decided indeed. "All fairies don't
+have wings," she said; "and with regard to that particular one at
+the bottom," she glanced a little superciliously at the buxom lady
+with the trumpet, "as a matter of fact, she isn't a fairy at all. I
+don't quite know what she is, an angel perhaps, but not a fairy,
+certainly not a fairy. But the others are, of course." She glanced
+at me a little defiantly with her bright eyes. "Surely, my dear, I
+ought to know a fairy when I see one. At the time when these were
+done they were perfectly all right; they only want bringing up to
+date, like the pictures inside, that's all. Now you will see
+whether you can do anything, won't you?"</p>
+<p>It was difficult to refuse, but I didn't feel very hopeful.</p>
+<p>"I'll try," I said. "I'll write to the Editor; but I'm afraid
+it's not very likely that he will do anything in the matter. You
+see the cover's been like that for years and years. Almost ever
+since <i>Punch</i> began. It's&mdash;well, it's part of the
+<i>Punch</i> tradition. We all love it. Nobody would like to see it
+altered; it wouldn't seem the same thing."</p>
+<p>The Fairy Queen was busy with her cloak and didn't pay much
+attention to what I was saying,</p>
+<p>"Won't you stay a little longer and have some tea or something?"
+I begged.</p>
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+<p>"A chocolate?"</p>
+<p>She smiled. "I can't resist a chocolate," she said. She took a
+very little one and nibbled at it daintily, flitting about the room
+meanwhile and chattering away in the friendliest fashion in her
+tiny high voice.</p>
+<p>"I must go," she said at last. "I have enjoyed it so much. May I
+come again some day? I should love to come again."...</p>
+<p>I went out with her into the little lobby and down the stairs,
+and stood at the hall door to watch her go.</p>
+<p>"Now don't forget," were her last words as she floated out into
+the night. "Tell him, tell him exactly what we really look
+like."</p>
+<p>"I can't," I called after her desperately; "I can't."</p>
+<p>But she had already disappeared in the soft haze. I went slowly
+up the stairs and back to my quiet room and the dying fire.</p>
+<p>"I can't," I said again. "I only wish I could."</p>
+<p>R. F.</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Bandsmen Wanted for Municipal Band. Solo Cornet and others.
+Work found for bricklayer, carpenter, painter and
+paperhanger."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>With whose assistance we may expect some jazzling effects.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page469" id="page469"></a>[pg
+469]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+<h3>LURE OF THE LAND.</h3>
+<a href="images/469-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/469-1.png"
+alt="" /></a>
+<table width="100%" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td width="35%">ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO BOUGHT A
+FARM&mdash;</td>
+<td>&mdash;BECAUSE AN OPEN-AIR LIFE APPEALED TO HIM&mdash;</td>
+<td width="35%">&mdash;AND BECAUSE IT MADE ONE ONE'S OWN
+MASTER&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/469-2.png"><img width="100%" src="images/469-2.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<table width="100%" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td width="35%">&mdash;BECAUSE, MOREOVER, HE WAS FOND OF
+ANIMALS&mdash;</td>
+<td width="65%">&mdash;AND ALSO BECAUSE ANY AMOUNT OF EXPERT
+OPINION WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE IN CASES OF DOUBT&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/469-3.png"><img width="100%" src="images/469-3.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<table width="100%" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td width="35%">&mdash;BECAUSE, AGAIN, THE ELEMENT OF UNCERTAINTY
+GAVE SUCH A CHARM TO IT&mdash;</td>
+<td>&mdash;AND, FURTHER, BECAUSE CERTAIN SECTIONS WERE BOUND TO BE
+PROFITABLE&mdash;</td>
+<td width="35%">&mdash;IN ADDITION BECAUSE UP-TO-DATE APPLIANCES
+MADE EVERYTHING SO EASY&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/469-4.png"><img width="100%" src="images/469-4.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<table width="100%" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td width="65%">&mdash;BECAUSE, IN PARTICULAR, IT TOOK ONE BACK TO
+NATURE, AND HELPED ONE TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL
+LAWS&mdash;</td>
+<td width="35%">&mdash;AND, LASTLY, BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, ONE COULD
+ALWAYS GET RID OF THE BEASTLYTHING.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page470" id="page470"></a>[pg
+470]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:65%;"><a href=
+"images/470.png"><img width="100%" src="images/470.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Author</i>. "YOU REMEMBER MY LAST BOOK?"</p>
+<p><i>Artist</i>. "THE ONE I ILLUSTRATED?"</p>
+<p><i>Author</i>. "YES. WELL, SIR BARNES STORMER WANTS ME TO
+DRAMATISE IT FOR HIS NEXT WEST-END PRODUCTION."</p>
+<p><i>Artist</i>. "I SAY! THAT'S SPLENDID. I MUST READ IT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE MURMANSK MOSQUITO.</h2>
+<p>My particular interest having been aroused by descriptions
+recently published in the English Press of the Murmansk mosquito, I
+made a point, on my arrival in North Russia with the Relief Force,
+of collecting further data from officers whose experience entitles
+them to speak with authority upon the habits of the local
+fauna.</p>
+<p>From them I have gathered some curious information which should
+interest even those whose enthusiasm for the phenomena of natural
+history is normally but languid, and cannot fail to intrigue not
+only the entomologist but also the big game hunter, who would find
+it well worth his while to observe and study the tactics of this
+sagacious and formidable insect.</p>
+<p>Judging from the evidence at my command the true Murmansk
+mosquito is considerably larger and fiercer than the Archangel
+variety, owing no doubt to the genial influence of the Gulf Stream.
+Both types are however sufficiently ferocious, and, save when
+rendered comatose by excess of nutrition, will attack human beings
+without provocation. The female of the species, if disturbed while
+accompanied by her young, will invariably charge with such fury
+that only by an exceptional combination of skill and courage can
+she be driven off. The shrill and vibrating cry of the Russian
+mosquito as it swoops to the attack is, I am assured, qualified to
+shake the fortitude of even experienced troops.</p>
+<p>So surprising are some of the current stories of the size,
+strength and agility of these dreaded carnivora that one would
+suspect their veracity were they not vouched for by military and
+naval officers, and supported by such concrete evidence as that of
+the local architecture. The houses are almost universally
+constructed of substantial logs, undoubtedly for the reason that
+brickwork would be more easily displaced by the furious assault of
+the mosquito, which usually hunts in droves, packs or swarms, and
+has been known to surround and make concerted attacks, upon
+buildings occupied by particularly well-nourished personnel.</p>
+<p>As evidence of the determination of their attacks, veterans of
+this front have pointed out to me, in the walls of local buildings,
+massive timbers which have been scarred and splintered by the teeth
+and claws of these monsters, emboldened by hunger and incensed by
+resistance.</p>
+<p>The peculiar ferocity of the mosquito of these high latitudes
+is, of course, accounted for by the brevity of its actual life.
+Immured throughout the prolonged winter within its icy sarcophagus,
+it is not released before the middle of June, while the premature
+severity of August rapidly lowers its vitality. Such is its
+offensive spirit during the first relaxation of wintry rigour that
+it is dangerous in the extreme for anyone to walk about alone, for
+naturally the mosquito which the sunshine has just liberated,
+fasting and impatient, will make a determined effort to partake of
+the first likely repast which presents itself. Single newly-thawed
+specimens have been known to lie in ambush by frequented paths and
+fall upon lonely wayfarers with the desperate courage of
+starvation. I am credibly informed that, if duty necessitates an
+unescorted journey at this season, it is a wise precaution to
+provide oneself with several joints of reindeer flesh, which, in
+the event of attack by mosquitoes, may be thrown to them and so
+effect at least a temporary diversion.</p>
+<p>The revolver is of little service against this formidable
+creature, owing to its cunning and the rapidity with which it
+manoeuvres, while its bristly hide is stout enough to defy the
+ordinary shotgun. It is proposed to detail certain anti-aircraft
+batteries to deal with high-flying swarms, while a young friend of
+my own, who was with a special company of the R.E. in France, is
+prepared to design a haversack projector for issue to all ranks.
+But against this it is urged by those familiar with North Russian
+towns in summer that nothing of such a nature can materially damage
+the <i>moral</i> of the local mosquito.</p>
+<p>Thrilling stories are told of escapes from these dangerous
+brutes. A senior officer of notoriously full habit of body, having
+attracted the attention of several immense specimens, was by them
+surrounded in his office, and rescued only just in time by the
+gallant efforts of an allied fatigue party which the besieged
+officer had the presence of mind to detail over the telephone.
+While awaiting (or pending) their arrival he passed through a
+period of mental agony (which has left unmistakable marks upon him)
+as he listened to the roar of their wings and the crunching of
+their fangs upon the outer timbers, or fixed his fascinated gaze
+upon the sweep, of their antennae under the front door, where they
+were trying for a purchase in order to force an entry.</p>
+<p>On another occasion a patrol which was attacked by a large swarm
+was only saved by the <i>savoir faire</i> of its commander, who
+ordered his men each to ward off the rush of the hungry insects
+with a ration biscuit held out to them at arm's length. In their
+impetuous ferocity the creatures blindly snapped at the biscuits,
+with the result foreseen by the experienced leader; the swarm, with
+every appearance of complete demoralisation, broke and fled,
+several being weakened by the fracture of their mandibles and
+falling an easy prey to the bayonets of the exultant patrol.</p>
+<p>With its naturally ardent temperament irritated by months of
+bitter cold, its constitutional hunger aggravated by a prolonged
+fast, its appetite tempted by a novel diet in the form of British
+soldiery well-washed and firm-fleshed after years of Army rations,
+the North Russian mosquito is likely, in the opinion of experts, to
+take a high place among the more deadly horrors of war.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page471" id="page471"></a>[pg
+471]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/471.png"><img width="100%" src="images/471.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Sergeant</i>. "NOW THEN, ARE YOU THE FOUR MEN WITH A
+KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC I WAS ASKING FOR?"</p>
+<p><i>Chorus</i>. "YES, SERGEANT."</p>
+<p><i>Sergeant</i>. "RIGHT. PARADE OFFICERS' MESS 11.30 TO MOVE
+GRAND PIANO TO MARQUEE&mdash;DISTANCE 500 YARDS&mdash;FOR CONCERT
+THIS EVENING."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+<p class="center"><i>(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)</i></p>
+<p>That audacious paraphrase of the Book of Job, <i>The Undying
+Fire</i> (CASSELL), seems to me to be marred by a fundamentally
+false note. I am sure that Mr. WELLS is as serious about his new
+God in the Heart of Man as he was about the Invisible
+King&mdash;I've no sort of intention of sneering&mdash;but I cannot
+credit him with belief in the Adversary, who by arrangement with
+the Almighty (as set forth in a discreetly flippant prologue with
+something of the flavour of those irreverent yarns invented and
+retailed by Italian ecclesiastics about Dominiddio) visits <i>Job
+Huss</i>, the headmaster of Woldingstanton, with the plagues of his
+desperate trial. However I take it that the author was anxious that
+his parody should be as complete in form as possible, and, being
+rather impressed by the insouciance, not to say insolence, of the
+Satan of the original, seized his chance of bizarre
+characterisation and "celestial badinage" and let consistency go
+hang for the time. Certainly the theological disquisitions of Mr.
+WELLS are remarkable not for their formal logic, but for their
+provocative quality and the very real eloquence of detached
+passages of the rambling argument. In particular, taking up again
+the thread of <i>Joan and Peter</i>, he gives such a survey of the
+scope and glories of a new education that is to salve the world's
+wounds as would move the heart of a jelly-fish. Mr. WELLS has his
+own methods of justifying the ways of God to man. He may be
+discursive, impatient, rash, perhaps a little shallow; but he has
+an undying fire of his own. He is certainly not dull. And therefore
+orthodox divines and pedagogues may perhaps have a real grievance
+against him. But I can't imagine any serious-minded man in a
+serious time reading this book and not getting hope and courage
+from it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>Victory Over Blindness</i> (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a book
+whose title gives you at once the key to its contents and to the
+spirit that animates them. It is the record by Sir ARTHUR PEARSON
+of one of the most finely successful enterprises that the War has
+called forth. Everyone to-day has at least a vague idea of the work
+carried on at St. Dunstan's, "the biggest individual business," Sir
+ARTHUR terms it, "that I have ever conducted." A study of these
+pages will transform that vague idea into wonder and admiration.
+Big the business might well be called, since it is nothing less
+than the bringing back, almost to normal life, of men apparently
+condemned to an existence of helpless inactivity and dependence.
+Few things will strike you more forcibly in this book than its
+practical common sense. That and an unsentimental optimism seem to
+be the dominant notes of all Sir ARTHUR'S effort. Without doubt the
+success of this has been beyond measure helped by the fact that the
+originator was himself a sharer in the adversity that it was
+designed to lessen. Two chapters especially in the book, called
+"Learning to be Blind," a brief manual of practical suggestions by
+one whom experience has rendered expert, supply a clue to the
+difference between the work at St. Dunstan's and the
+best-intentioned efforts of outside sympathy, <i>Victory Over
+Blindness</i> is a proud and rewarding motto; this little volume
+will show how thoroughly it has been earned.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page472" id="page472"></a>[pg
+472]</span>
+<p>I fancy that Miss JOAN THOMPSON had some design of
+symbolism in the choice of a name for her heroine, <i>Mary
+England</i> (METHUEN). The publishers indeed consider that she
+might be called "Every Woman," so typical is she of her sex, and
+"so like to the emotional careers of so many English girls is her
+own." Perhaps, on the other hand (without disparagement to the
+skill of Miss THOMPSON'S portraiture), I should have expected the
+typical maiden of <i>Mary's</i> class to show greater initiative.
+Many things nearly happened to <i>Mary</i>; practically nothing in
+her life was fashioned by her own intent. Of the two men who might
+have made her happy, one didn't propose at all, and one did it in
+the wrong fashion. Other two, who seemed possibly menacing, both
+drifted away with their evil purpose (if any) unfulfilled. I am
+wrong, though, in recalling <i>Mary</i> as invariably passive. She
+was once roused to the action of destroying the manuscript of a
+novel, in which the writer, the man who didn't propose, had too
+faithfully revealed his perception of herself. But though, as a
+reviewer, I may applaud this achievement on general grounds, it
+provided no kind of solution for the problem of her existence. This
+was left to be settled, very much offhand, by a detached iceberg,
+which sank the ship in which <i>Mary</i> was emigrating. I thought
+that iceberg rather an evasion on the part of Miss THOMPSON.
+Perhaps however all this effect of drift is part of a subtle
+intention. I can certainly call the book admirably written, with
+restraint and an emotional sympathy that impressed me as the
+outcome probably of an intimate knowledge of the scenes and persons
+described. Whether her lethargy is "typical" or not, as a study
+<i>Mary England</i> will hold you at least sufficiently curious to
+deplore its arbitrary end.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has written a book which I find it difficult
+to define. His publishers and Mr. H.G. WELLS call it a novel, but
+bits of a biography and an autobiography and an African explorer's
+account of his travels have all somehow squeezed themselves into
+it, and for readers whose birthdays began before the last quarter
+of the nineteenth century <i>The Gay-Dombeys</i> (CHATTO AND
+WINDUS) will best justify itself as a <i>chronique scandaleuse</i>.
+To penetrate the thin disguises in which the author has dressed his
+notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid personalities into
+their component parts should provide the initiated with congenial
+if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also a DICKENS
+enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or outraged
+to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a
+continuation of <i>Dombey and Son</i>. Many of his characters are
+either the creations of Boz or their children and he contrives to
+carry on the interweaving of their lives to an unbelievable
+extent&mdash;even when the fullest allowance has been made for the
+smallness of the world. <i>Florence Dombey</i> and <i>Walter
+Gay</i>, as <i>Mr.</i> and <i>Mrs. Gay-Dombey</i>, actually survive
+well into the present book, while Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S <i>Eustace
+Morven</i>, who tells us that he has reverted to the ancient
+spelling of his name, is the son of <i>Harriet Carker</i> and that
+hazel-eyed bachelor, <i>Mr. Morfin</i>, who lived and loved in
+<i>Dombey and Son</i>. But save in the chapter describing
+<i>Eustace Morven's</i> appearance at the annual dinner-party given
+by <i>Florence</i> and <i>Walter</i> to celebrate the
+re-establishment of the firm, Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S work has not a
+very pronounced flavour of DICKENS. It is to be hoped that this
+method of writing novels will not become popular. A series of
+sequels to everybody by somebody else opens up an intimidating
+prospect, at least for the reviewer.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Mr. PHILIP GIBBS has gathered together, under the title. <i>Open
+Warfare, the Way to Victory</i> (HEINEMANN), his despatches written
+from the Western front during the last year of the War. What
+strikes one most on seeing them again in book form is the obscurity
+in which they veil the events they record. They so shine, as it
+were, with a luminous mist that they seem to reveal everything, yet
+in sober truth very often it is only in the light of later
+knowledge that they reveal anything at all. Congratulations,
+therefore, to Mr. GIBBS, the perfect war correspondent! I defy
+anyone from these papers alone (apart from the plentiful and
+excellent maps) to form anything like an adequate conception of the
+disaster that swept down upon the British Armies in the Spring of
+1918. And yet in a sense it is all there, gorgeously camouflaged
+under the control&mdash;I daresay the wise and necessary
+control&mdash;of the censorship. The author, watching the very
+moulding of history with every advantage of proximity, has written
+down, if not much bare statement, yet an amazing sequence of heroic
+detail, associated with such stirring names as Arras or Givenchy or
+Cambrai. Curiously enough, though each chapter is intensely vivid,
+they become, through much instancing of the same unconquerable
+spirit, something monotonous, though never wearisome, in bulk. One
+trusts that a future generation will realise that the value of a
+book of this order consists in its first-hand record of such
+incidents of valour; it would be pitiful to have it hastily
+assumed, because so much is slurred or omitted to deceive the
+enemy, that England was so feeble-hearted as to require her evil
+news predigested before consumption in this manner. It should be
+added that the writer gives us a good sound introduction that goes
+a long way to fill the yawning gaps.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href=
+"images/472.png"><img width="100%" src="images/472.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Gatekeeper (at castle of unpopular baron&mdash;to new
+grocer's boy).</i> "YOU SILLY IDIOT! WHY DON'T YOU GO ROUND TO THE
+TRADESMEN'S GATE? GOOD THING YOU DIDN'T PULL THE BELL, OR YOU'D
+'AVE GOT A 'ALF TON OF BOILING LEAD ON TOP OF YOU. THIS IS THE
+<i>VISITORS'</i> DOOR!"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"GIRL WANTED.&mdash;A reliable girl for the summer months to go
+across the Arm."&mdash;<i>Halifax Evening Mail</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>To prevent misapprehension we ought to say that the western part
+of the bay at Halifax, Nova Scotia, is locally known as the
+"Arm."</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+156, June 11, 1919, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,2210 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156,
+June 11, 1919, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2004 [EBook #11670]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 156.
+
+
+June 11, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"Every British working man has as much right as any Member of Parliament
+to be paid L400 a year," states a well-known Labour paper. We have never
+questioned this for a moment.
+
+       ***
+
+"Women," says a technical journal, "are a source of grave danger to
+motorists in crowded city streets." It is feared in some quarters that
+they will have to be abolished.
+
+       ***
+
+"Are you getting stout?" asks a Sunday contemporary. Only very
+occasionally, we regret to say.
+
+       ***
+
+The heat was so oppressive in London the other day that a taxi-driver at
+Euston Station was seen to go up to a pedestrian and ask him if he could
+do with a ride. He was eventually pinned down by some colleagues and
+handed over to the care of his relatives.
+
+       ***
+
+"I do not care a straw about Turkey," writes Mr. LOVAT Fraser in _The
+Daily Mail_. It is this dare-devil spirit which has made us the nation
+we are.
+
+       ***
+
+Superstition in regard to marriage is dying out, says a West End
+registrar. Nevertheless the superstition that a man who gets married
+between January 1st and December 31st is asking for trouble is still
+widely held.
+
+       ***
+
+Mr. VAN INGEN, a New York business man, has just started to cross the
+Atlantic for the one hundred and sixtieth time. It is not known whether
+the major ambition of his life is to leave New York or go back and have
+a last look at it.
+
+       ***
+
+"There is no likelihood," says the FOOD-CONTROLLER, "of cheese running
+out during the coming winter." A pan of drinking water left in the
+larder will always prevent its running out and biting someone during the
+dog-days.
+
+       ***
+
+Sympathetic readers will be glad to hear that the little sixpence which
+was found wandering in Piccadilly Circus has been given a good home by
+an Aberdeen gentleman.
+
+       ***
+
+Aeroplane passengers are advised by one enterprising weekly not to throw
+bottles out of the machine. This is certainly good advice. The bottles
+are so apt to get broken.
+
+       ***
+
+Germany, it is expected, will sign the Peace treaty this once, but
+points out that we must not allow it to happen again.
+
+       ***
+
+Of two burglars charged at Stratford one told the Bench that he intended
+to have nothing further to do with his colleague in future. It is said
+that he finds it impossible to work with him owing to his nasty grasping
+ways.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sixty-seven fewer babies were born in one Surrey village last year than
+in previous years. It would be interesting to have their names.
+
+       ***
+
+A grocer, according to a legal writer, is not compelled to take goods
+out of the window to oblige a customer. The suggestion that a grocer is
+expected to oblige anybody in any circumstances is certainly a novelty.
+
+       ***
+
+Uxbridge, says _The Evening News_, has no bandstand. Nor have we, but we
+make no fuss about it.
+
+       ***
+
+The Bolshevists in Russia, we are told, are busy sowing seeds of
+sedition. For some time it has been suspected that the Bolshevists were
+up to no good.
+
+       ***
+
+HERBERT WELSH, aged sixty-seven, has started to walk from New Jersey to
+New Hampshire, U.S.A., a distance of five hundred miles. In the absence
+of fuller details we assume that HERBERT must have lost his train.
+
+       ***
+
+"Postage stamps," says a weekly snippets paper, "can be obtained at all
+post-offices." This should prove a boon to those who have letters to
+write.
+
+       ***
+
+It is thought if a certain well-known judge does not soon ask, "What is
+whisky?" he will have to content himself with the past tense.
+
+       ***
+
+"What to do with a Wasp" is a headline in a contemporary. We have not
+read the article, but our own plan with wasps is to try to dodge them.
+
+       ***
+
+We hear that complications may arise from an unfortunate mistake made at
+a Jazz Competition held in London last week. It appears that the prize
+was awarded to a lady suffering from hysteria who was not competing.
+
+       ***
+
+A taxi-driver in a suburb of London was married last week to a local
+telephone operator. Speculation is now rife as to which will be the
+first to break down and say "Thank you."
+
+       ***
+
+The Press reports the case of a young lady who received slight injuries
+from a slab of ceiling which fell on her head whilst she was asleep in
+bed, but was saved from further damage by the thickness of her hair.
+This should act as a warning to those ladies who adopt the silly habit
+of removing their tresses on retiring for the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Hospital Orderly (taking particulars of new patient_).
+"NAME, SIR?"
+
+_Patient_. "SIR BRUCE BLAZEAWAY."
+
+_Hospital Orderly_. "RANK?"
+
+_Patient_. "LIEUTENANT-GENERAL."
+
+_Hospital Orderly_. "BATTALION?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN?
+
+As Count BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU puts it, quoting from his German translation
+of _Hamlet: "Sein oder nicht sein, dass ist hier die Frage_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The recommendations of the Jerram Committee came before a
+    conference between a representative body of lower deck ratings
+    and members of Parliament who sit for naval constituencies. The
+    veterinary chief petty officer presided."--_Sunday Paper_.
+
+The rank is new to us; but he must be just the man to look after the
+interests of our sea-dogs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the "Transactions" of a photographic society:--
+
+    "Mr. ---- stated that as Architectural Photography covered a large
+    and varied field he purposed to confine his remarks to the line of
+    work most familiar to him, namely, The Interiors of some of the
+    great English Ministers."
+
+Now at last we shall know if the Government's heart is in the right
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO ROBERT OF THE FORCE.
+
+  Since first you loomed upon my infant ken
+    My firm belief has ever been, and still it is,
+  That you are fashioned not as other men
+    (Subject, at best, to mortal disabilities),
+  But come of more than human kin,
+  Immune, or practically so, from sin.
+
+  Godlike the poise that to your bearing lends
+    The aspect of a tower that never totters;
+  There's a divinity hath shaped your ends
+    (Rough-hewn, perhaps--especially your trotters);
+  Your ample chest, your generous girth
+  Have no precise similitude on earth.
+
+  I cannot picture you (though I have tried)
+    Wearing a bowler hat and tweed apparel,
+  Or craving sustenance for your inside
+    Drawn either from the oven or the barrel;
+  Scarcely you figure in my eye
+  As liable, in Nature's course, to die.
+
+  And it was you who almost fell from grace,
+    Striking, like Lucifer, against authority,
+  Leaving your Heaven for another place
+    Not mentioned by your ten-to-one majority,
+  And doomed, to your surprise and pain,
+  Never, like Lucifer, to rise again.
+
+  But you were wise, my Robert, wise in time;
+    And I, who set you far above humanity,
+  High-pedestalled upon my lofty rhyme,
+    Rejoice with you in your recovered sanity;
+  To me I feel it would have mattered
+  Enormously to see my idol shattered.
+
+  But 'ware the Bolsh, who fain would lure your feet
+    To conduct unbecoming in a copper;
+  Once you betrayed us, going off your beat,
+    And now you've nearly come another cropper;
+  If, tempted thrice, you break your trust,
+  You'll have no halo left to readjust.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EMBARRASSMENT AND THE LAWYER.
+
+Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with himself.
+I confess that he has deserved it.
+
+The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no briefs, but
+had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of affairs. Then he went
+to the War and shed his conscience somewhere in the Balkans. So far so
+good. But, when he was demobilised and began to take stock of what had
+been happening at home in the meanwhile, he found to his horror that a
+conscience had again been thrust upon him by the General Council of the
+Bar.
+
+Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won through.
+
+How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in
+this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a
+critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly
+deliberated upon the following fantastic problem:--
+
+"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a plea of
+Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he did commit the
+offence charged?"
+
+With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists propounded the
+following answer:--
+
+"If the confession has been made before the proceedings have been
+commenced it is most undesirable that an advocate to whom the confession
+has been made should undertake the defence, as he would most certainly
+be seriously embarrassed in the conduct of the case, and no harm can be
+done to the accused by requesting him to retain another advocate."
+
+The new Watson was unable to agree with this doctrine, so far as it
+       *       *       *       *       *
+The legal conscience thus gratuitously thrust upon him was soon to
+undergo its first ordeal. An acquaintance of his, in a moment of
+absent-mindedness, murdered somebody, and asked Watson to persuade the
+inevitable jury that he hadn't. The said acquaintance explained to
+Watson that he simply did it when he wasn't thinking.
+
+Watson was in a hole. Obviously this was a case to which the
+embarrassment prescribed by the General Council of the Bar was
+applicable. This legal embarrassment, which, strictly speaking, ought
+now to be his, would not, however, have worried him in the least had
+it not been for another consideration. Suppose, after Watson had
+triumphantly got his client acquitted, it got about that the "innocent"
+had confessed his crime to counsel beforehand? That would mean an end to
+Watson's professional career. One does not thus slight the edicts of the
+mighty with impunity.
+
+Watson was too proud to ask his client to keep the deadly secret, or to
+apply the famous wriggle of _Hippolytus_: "My tongue hath sworn, but my
+heart remains unsworn."
+
+Nevertheless Watson gave his mind to the problem. In the end he decided
+on the following line of defence: "Not Guilty," and in the alternative
+"Guilty under justifiable circumstances, without malice aforethought but
+with intent to benefit the person murdered."
+
+Happily the General Council of the Bar has not yet assigned any
+moral embarrassment to a counsel who pleads "Not Guilty," and in the
+alternative, "Guilty." Watson therefore reasoned that if the jury
+returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative confession
+could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other hand, if he
+were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an ethical asset
+towards securing for him a lenient view of the case.
+
+As I said, Watson behaved well. He proved to his own and the jury's
+satisfaction (1) that his client did not commit the murder; (2) that
+alternatively he did commit the murder, but that he did so for the good
+of everybody concerned; and (3) that in either case he never meant to do
+it.
+
+In the event the prisoner was acquitted without a stain upon his
+       *       *       *       *       *
+Watson is now well established as the last hope of abandoned causes. He
+is a specialist in defence, and criminals of every shade throng to him.
+When a new one swims into his ken Watson meets him on the threshold
+and says, "Don't speak a word. Read this;" and he puts into his hand a
+printed slip. The slip reads:--
+
+    "_ Conditions of Advocacy_.
+
+    "(1) If you put your case into my hands it ceases at once and from
+    that moment to be any concern of your own. You are not entitled, for
+    instance, to express any opinion as to whether you committed the
+    alleged crime or not. That is my affair exclusively.
+
+    "(2) If however there is anything which lies so heavily on your
+    conscience that it must out sooner or later, let it be later. I
+    am open to receive confessions at any time after proceedings have
+    begun.
+
+    "If you accept these conditions, good; if not, go."
+
+Watson says they always accept them, so he never worries about the
+General Council of the Bar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW ISSUE.
+
+OIL GENIE _(gushingly, to Coal-Owner and Mr. SMILLIE)._ "CAN I DO
+ANYTHING TO ALLAY THE TROUBLED WATERS?"
+
+[The discovery of oil in Derbyshire, which threatens the supremacy of
+the mining industry, may affect the questions now in dispute before the
+Coal Commission.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Harassed Mother (having distributed half of her
+offspring on laps of passengers)._ "COME ON, 'ENERY. SQUEEZE IN
+SOMEWHERE. 'TAIN'T EXAC'LY 'OW I LOIKES TO TRAVEL, BUT S'POSE WE'LL 'AVE
+TO PUT UP WITH IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN ERROR IN TACTICS.
+
+In the heart of the Foret de Roumare there is a spot called Rond du
+Chene a Leu, where eight paths meet. Why they choose to meet there,
+unless it is for company, one can't imagine. The fact that there is not
+an estaminet within five kilometres nullifies its value as a military
+objective. Therefore, having been decoyed thither by a plausible
+guide-book, it was with surprise that I beheld an ancient representative
+of the British Army smoking his pipe with the air of having been in
+possession for centuries.
+
+"Bit lonely here," I said.
+
+"Rumble's Moor on a wet Friday's busy to it," he said emphatically. "Is
+it reet the War's over?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the information soaked in.
+
+"Who won?"
+
+"The Peace Conference haven't decided yet."
+
+Conversation languished until I remembered the guide-book.
+
+"According to tradition," I said, "it was at this identical spot that
+ROLLO, first Duke of Normandy, hung his golden chain on a sign-post for
+a whole year without having it stolen."
+
+"Tha-at ud be afore we brought our Chinese Labour gang felling timber,"
+he said firmly; "I wudden give it five minutes now."
+
+"I understand, too, that there is a historic ruin hereabouts."
+
+"Theer was," he said; "but he's in hospital."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Ratty Beslow; my owd colleague an' sparring pardner. It's 'im you weer
+talking of, ain't it?"
+
+"It wasn't; but I'm interested in him," I said, sitting down on a pile
+of logs. "How did he get to hospital?"
+
+"Through a mistake in Nacheral 'Istory. You see, me an' Ratty had been
+in th' War a goodish time an' ha-ad lost our o-riginal ferociousness. So
+they put us to this Chink Labour gang for a rest-cure. Likewise Ratty
+'ad got too fa-amous as a timber-scrounger oop th' line, and it was
+thought that if 'e was left in th' middle of a forest, wheer it didn't
+matter a dang if he scrounged wood fra' revally to tattoo, it might
+reform him. But it was deadly dull. We tried a sweepstake f'r th' one as
+could recognise most Chinks at sight, and a raffle for who could guess
+how many trees in a circle; but there wasn't much spice in it. So at
+last Ratty suggested we should try a bit o' poaching.
+
+"'Ah doan't know th' first thing about it,' I says; 'Ah'm town bred.
+Nobbut Ah could knock a few rabbits over if Ah'd got a Lewis gun handy.'
+
+"'Rabbuts be danged!' says he; 'Ah've no use f'r such vermin. Theer's
+stags, so Ah've heerd tell, in this forest.'
+
+"'Ah wudden say no to a haunch o' venison,' I answered; 'but stags is
+artillery work.'
+
+"'They is not,' says Ratty. 'Nor yet rifles nor bombs.'
+
+"'Ah s'pose you stops theer holes an' puts in a ferret,' says I,
+sarcastic; 'or else traps 'em wi' cheese.'
+
+"'That's the only kind o' hunting you've bin used to,' replies Ratty.
+'Stags is caught wi' tactics, a trip-wire an' a lasso.'
+
+"'Well, la-ad,' I says, 'you'd best do th' lassoing. I doan't know the
+habits o' stags.'
+
+"Ratty scrounges a prime rope fra' somewheers, an' we creeps out after
+nightfall. It was a dree night, the owd bracken underfoot damp an'
+sodden, an' th' tall firs looking grim an' gho-ostly in th' gloom. Soon
+theer was a crackling o' twigs, like a tank scouting on tiptoe.
+
+"'Bosch patrol half-left!' whispers I.
+
+"'Stow it, you blighter,' says Ratty. 'This is serious. Can't you see
+th' stag?'
+
+"I peeps round and, loomin' in the da-arkness, see th' hindquarters of a
+stag sticking out ayant a tree. It looked bigger 'n Ah 've seen 'em in
+pictures, but Ah 've noticed Fritzes look bigger in th' dark.
+
+"'Now's your chance, la-ad,' I whispers. 'Trip round an' slip th' noose
+over 'is horns.'
+
+"'Not me,' growls Batty. 'T'other end's safer.'
+
+"He crawls up to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to
+slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left
+an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed
+across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged to be Ratty.
+
+"'Ratty's after altitude records,' says I to meself, 'an' there'll be
+th' ellanall of a row if that rope's lost.'
+
+"However, in a few minutes he started to descend an' made a good landing
+in some soft bracken. By th' time I'd felt him all over, an' found 'e'd
+be fit to go to hospital in th' morning, th' stag had disappeared."
+
+"I never heard of stags kicking like that before," I interrupted.
+
+"Nor hadn't Ratty," said the ancient warrior. "Ah towd you he made a
+mistake in Nacheral 'Istory.
+
+"The next night, feeling mighty lonely, Ah walked five kilometres to th'
+nearest estaminet, the 'Rondyvoo de Chasers,' an' looked upon the _vang_
+while it was _rouge_. When I'd done lookin' and started home th' forest
+looked more gho-ost-like than ever wi' th' young firs bowing an'
+swaying, and drifts o' cloud peeping through the branches. All at once I
+heerd a crackling o' twigs like th' night afore, an' then someone stole
+acrost th' road carrying a rope.
+
+"Ah says to myself, 'It's one of th' Chinks poaching, an' it's 'evin
+'elp 'im if 'e 's after what Ratty nearly caught last night!'
+
+"Seemingly 'e was, for 'e follered th' noise, an' Ah follered 'im--at a
+safe distance. Then, dimlike an' looming big, Ah saw th' stag, an' the
+Chink stealing up behind it.
+
+"'Tother end, you fool!' I whispered; an' he jumps round to its head,
+slips th' noose round its neck an' leads if off as quiet as a lamb."
+
+"You don't expect me to believe," I broke in indignantly, "that a stag
+can be led like a poodle on a lead?"
+
+"P'r'aps not stags," said the veteran, relighting his pipe. "That's weer
+Ratty made the mistake that sent 'im to hospital. But you can do it now
+and then with a transport mule what's broke away, and the Chink done
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Photographer (to Douglas Devereux, the world-famous
+cinema-actor_). "TIKE YER PHOTO, SIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "In reply to your letter to hand, we are very sorry for the delay in
+    sending the Jumper, but the tremendous demand for these has denuded
+    our stock. We are, however, expecting a further delay now in a day
+    or so.
+
+    Yours obediently,
+
+    BROTHERS, LTD."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The spell of hot weather is causing large numbers of the public
+    to migrate to the Kent coast. Thanet, owing to greatly improved
+    travelling facilities, is being specially flavoured. The public well
+    know the magical properties of Thanet air."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+Then why bother about flavouring it?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The Food Controller announced that canned salmon is now free of
+    control, and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on
+    July 1.
+
+    He also intimates that canned salmon is now free of control,
+    and that chocolates and other sweetmeats will be freed on July
+    1."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+We hope he will say it once more, on the Bellman's principle that "what
+I tell you three times is true."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Chorus of children (to parent, late Lieut-Col. R.F.A.,
+D.S.O., M.C. and Bar_). "DON'T BE FRIGHTENED, DADDY; SHE'LL ONLY PECK
+YOUR LEGS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HINTS ON SELECTING AN AEROPLANE.
+
+As all the world will soon be in the air a few words of advice on
+choosing an aerial steed may be of assistance to intending fliers who
+have so far had no experience as owners of winged craft.
+
+The first thing is to locate the whereabouts of the best park, for one
+speaks of a park of aeroplanes just as one speaks of a school of whales,
+a grove of wombats or a suite of leeches. Having arrived (wearing, if
+you are wise, a full-grown check cap, with the back to the front and the
+peak protecting the nape of the neck from the bites of savage vendors),
+take a deep breath and look round you knowingly.
+
+By the way, what are you--peer, profiteer, or plain _pater-familias_
+looking for a family air-bus? It is impossible to advise you how to
+select a plane without knowing whether you want one for long-distance
+journeys (with non-starting attachment), for stunting, or merely for
+gadding about and dropping in on your friends. There is a sad story
+afloat of a man who bought an air-bus the other day for world-touring
+and only discovered the insufficiency of cupboards and the want of a
+bathroom after starting on his maiden trip to Patagonia (where the nuts
+drop off).
+
+Let us suppose that you are one of the majority of heavier-than-air
+persons who will shortly be wanting a good steady machine to rise to any
+ordinary occasion.
+
+Well, then, look round you carefully. Observe the demeanour of the
+machines that are trotted out (if such a term may be used) for your
+inspection. The flick of a tail, the purr of an engine or the slope of
+a wing may give the observant a clue as to the disposition of an aerial
+Pegasus.
+
+But however reassuring a preliminary canter may be (to borrow another
+horsey simile) insist on a thorough personal inspection of all parts of
+the machine. Test the musical capacity of the wire entanglement, screw
+and unscrew the turnbuckles till the seller cries for mercy, and run
+your hands well over the body (the aeroplane's, of course) to make quite
+sure that it will support the weight of yourself, of your family and of
+your parasites--remembering in this connection that Aunt Louisa kicks
+the beam at 15.7. Make sure also that the body will not part company
+with the rest of the box of tricks at one of those awkward corners in
+the sky. Also, if you have time, it might be well to glance at the
+engine, the petrol tank and the feed-pipe, as experts consider these of
+importance.
+
+Having satisfied yourself that all these things are as they should be
+in the best of all possible aeroplanes, that the joy-stick works as
+smoothly as a beer-pull, and that the under-carriage has the necessary
+wheels, axles and other things that under-carriages are licensed to
+carry, little remains but to pay for the machine and make a nosedive for
+home.
+
+A longer and more detailed article on "How to Choose a Stunter," by the
+Bishop of Solder and Man, with which is incorporated "A Few Hints on
+Banking for Beginners," by Sir JOHN BRADBURY, will appear in next week's
+issue.
+
+[This is the first I have heard of it.--ED.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a Menu:--
+
+    "Special this day: Boiled Rabbi and Pork."
+
+    A clear case of adding insult to injury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE DERBY.
+
+_Nurse_. "PLEASE IS THIS THE WAY TO THE GRAND PARADE?"
+
+_Soured Spinster_. "DON'T MENTION THE HORRID THING, YOUNG WOMAN, AND ME
+WITH HALF-A-MONTH'S PENSION ON THE PANTHER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF APPROACHING BALDNESS.
+
+  I'm back in civil life, all brawn and chest,
+    Lungs made of leather, heart as right as rain;
+  I still could dine off bully-beef with zest;
+    I've never had a scratch or stitch or sprain;
+    Life seems to throb in every single vein.
+  Yet I'm a whited sepulchre, in brief;
+    I've one foot in the grave, I'm on the wane,
+  I'm heading for the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+  From Mons to Jericho I've borne my crest
+    And back from Jericho to Mons again;
+  I've sampled smells in Araby the Blest
+    Would burst a boiler or corrode a drain;
+    The Blankshires have a port that raises Cain--
+  I've messed with them and never come to grief;
+    And yet I'm dashing like a non-stop train
+  Full steam into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+  It caught me hard this morning when I dressed
+    And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain
+  Is gnawing like a canker at my breast,
+    Is beating like a hammer in my brain;
+    I must speak out or break beneath the strain.
+  _I'm going bald on top_. O cruel reef
+    Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane
+  Whose end is but the sere and yellow leaf!
+
+  ENVOI.
+
+  Prince (Mr. Punch)! on Armageddon's plain
+    My love-locks fell a prey to Time, the thief.
+  Regrets are useless, unguents are in vain;
+    Only remains the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE COMMERCIAL TOUCH.
+
+    "Presiding at the concert given in connection with the ---- Art
+    Club's annual exhibition of oil and water-colours, Mr. ----
+    congratulated the club on the quality of its paintings, which, he
+    thought, were remarkably cheap when cognisance was taken of the
+    present high prices of materials."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+This critic has, as the Art jargon puts it, "a nice feeling for values."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "HOW I DIFFER FROM MY MOTHER."
+
+    By A Modern Woman.
+
+    '_Women differ by the width of Heaven from what their mothers
+    were_.'--MR. JUSTICE DARLING.
+
+    "I do not smoke and I do not wear bare-back dresses, but I agree with
+    Mr. Justice Darling--there is the width of Heaven between my mother
+    and I."--_Evening News_.
+
+Let's hope so, in the matter of grammar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HUMOUR'S LABOUR LOST.
+
+    _Lochtermachty, N.B. May 29th, 1919._
+
+    DEAR MR. PUNCH,--My father and I have fallen out over the question
+    of your literary judgment and sense of humour. If I weren't a filial
+    daughter I'd say that he's a ----; but I am, so I won't call him
+    names.
+
+    The fact is that, before he became a professional Padre, he didn't
+    know that such things as senses of humour existed. All that mattered
+    in his life were Latin and Greek and Hebrew and the other pursuits
+    of the classical scholar. However, during his wanderings with
+    the Army he has somehow managed to acquire what he calls "an
+    appreciation of the laughable." And that is the cause of our divided
+    house.
+
+    This morning at breakfast, while he was reading out the account
+    of the proceedings of the General Assemblies, he came upon the
+    interesting statement--volunteered by an eminent Edinburgh
+    divine--that all the ministers of the Kirk have lost a stone in
+    weight during the War, and that this works out at a loss of five
+    tons of ministerial flesh to the United Free Church of Scotland.
+    Then, after he had tested the accuracy of the statistics, which he
+    found quite incorrect, and I had meditated upon the bulk of matter
+    encircled by the parental Sam Browne, we were both seized with an
+    idea, and said "_Punch!_" at the same instant.
+
+    It took us some time to get rid of the accumulation of marmalade,
+    margarine and bacon fat which we amassed in our attempts to link
+    fingers across the table; but about 10.30 or so we got settled down
+    to work on your behalf.
+
+    Until lunch-time we were fully occupied in giving each other ideas
+    and then explaining why they wouldn't work. After lunch the
+    Padre retired to his study to work out, he said, a satire--after
+    ARISTOPHANES--which would afford him an opportunity of introducing
+    the Archbishop of CANTERBURY'S speech, and making some whimsical
+    allusions to the legend of the strayed lamb come back to tell his
+    lean Scotch brethren of the green meadows and luscious feeding to be
+    had across the Borders.
+
+    My own ambitions were slighter. I would do a conversation perhaps
+    between the shades of JOHNSON and his BOZZY, or a Limerick, or even
+    just an original witty remark, or, failing all of these, I would
+    select an "apt quotation." About tea-time I retired to the garden
+    with a notebook, a pencil and a book of quotations. By 6.30 I had a
+    list of one hundred and two, and was wavering over the final choice
+    of a parody on "Some hae meat wha canna eat," and an adaptation of
+    "Be sooople, Davie, in things immaterial," when my parent came
+    out to the lawn, flushed and excited, with his last three hairs
+    triumphantly erect, and brandished a document in my face.
+
+    It was an ode, Mr. Punch--an ode five (foolscap) pages long, written
+    in Greek!
+
+    I gave him best at once, and then very gently suggested that his
+    composition might not in its present unmitigated form be _quite_
+    suited to your tastes and requirements.
+
+    I shall spare you the details of the ensuing controversy, but I want
+    you to know that I have spared you much else, and in so doing have
+    forfeited not only my father's affection but a projected advance on
+    my next quarter-but-three's dress allowance.
+
+    I hope you need no further proof of my devotion.
+
+    Yours, etc.,
+
+    A DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE.
+
+    P.S.--I was forgetting to say that you will find the bit about the
+    ministers near the bottom of the third column of the tenth page of
+    Thursday's _Scotsman_. Perhaps you can think of a funny treatment
+    yourself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SONGS OF SIMLA.
+
+III.--THE FURRIER.
+
+  Akbar the furrier squats on the floor
+    Sucking an Eastern pipe,
+  Thumbing the lakhs that he's made of yore,
+  Lakhs which creep to the long-dreamed crore
+    In a ledger of Western type.
+
+  And all around him the wild beasts sway,
+    Cured of their mortal ills--
+  Flying squirrels from Sikkim way,
+  Silver foxes that used to play
+    Up on the Kashmir hills.
+
+  On the shelf of a cupboard a polecat lies
+    Laughing between his paws,
+  And there's more than a hint of amused surprise
+  In the gape of the lynx, in the marten's eyes,
+    In the poise of the grey wolf's claws.
+
+  And, should you enter old Akbar's lair
+    And hear what he wants for his skins,
+  You will know why the little red squirrels stare,
+  Why the Bengal tiger gasps for air
+    And the gaunt snow-leopard grins.
+
+  J.M.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Telephone Girl's motto: _Nulla linea sine die_--"Number engaged;
+ring again and again, please."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALAS! POOR PANTHER.
+
+I went to the Derby fully intending to back the favourite--The Panther.
+
+But the cross-currents immediately set in--as they always do.
+
+I began by making the mistake of reading the forecasts of all the
+experts--the gallant Captains and Majors, the Men on the Course, the Men
+on the Heath, the Men on the Spot--all of whom, although they mostly
+favoured The Panther, had serious views as to dangerous rivals,
+supported by what looked like uncontrovertible arguments.
+
+I also had an early evening paper with a summary of forecasts, none of
+which (as it was to turn out) mentioned the winner at all.
+
+I was even so foolish as to glance at some of the advertisements of the
+wizards who are so ready to put the benefit of their knowledge at the
+service of the public and make fortunes for others rather (apparently)
+than for themselves, all of whom hinted at some mysterious long-priced
+outsider whose miraculous qualities of speed were a secret. But of
+course I was too late to profit by these; they merely unsettled me.
+
+Not content with this I was forced to overhear the conversation of
+others in our compartment, each of whom fancied a separate animal,
+arguing with reasons that could not be gainsaid.
+
+In this way I learned that The Panther would win in a canter and would
+be badly beaten; that he was a stranger to the Epsom course; that he was
+ready for anything; that he liked soft going; that he was no good except
+when he could hear his hoofs rattle; that his jockey was not strong
+enough; that his jockey was ideal; that he was sounder than any horse
+had ever been, and that trouble was brewing.
+
+All this naturally left me shaken as to my first decision. Was I wise,
+I asked myself, to trust all my eggs (forgive, Sir ALEC BLACK, the
+poorness of this metaphor) to one doubtful basket?
+
+Having admitted an element of doubt I was the prey of every suspicion
+and began to consider the other candidates. All Alone headed the list.
+I liked the name, because it suggested the corollary: the rest nowhere.
+Also it belonged to a lady--to the only lady owner, in fact--and
+lady--owners were said (by a man with a red beard opposite me who smoked
+cigarettes so short that I was certain it was made of dyed asbestos) to
+be in luck this season. "Always follow the luck," he added. But then, on
+the other hand, what could be more lucky than Colonel BUCHAN, author of
+_Mr. Standfast_ and an excellent History of the War, into whose lap so
+many good things fall? Why not back a horse named after him? Besides,
+was not Buchan third favourite?
+
+I was making a note of Buchan's claims, when a man with a Thermos flask
+lashed to his side began to praise Dominion. Dominion, it seems, was
+third in the Two Thousand Guineas--only just behind Buchan, who was just
+behind The Panther. Many people thought The Panther unduly lucky that
+day. A very different course, too, at Newmarket from that at Epsom.
+Obviously Dominion must be remembered. Moreover he was being greatly
+fancied and some of the best judges looked to him to win the Blue Riband
+for Lord GLANELY. The fact that Lord GLANELY drew his own horse in the
+Baltic Sweep was not to be sneezed at either, said some one. That's an
+omen if there ever was one! And it knocked out Lord GLANELY'S other
+horse, Grand Parade.
+
+"Well, here's a tip," cried a man with a frock-coat and a straw hat.
+"Blest if I've got a single coin left--nothing but paper money. That's
+good enough for me. I shall back Paper Money."
+
+The carriage agreed that that was his duty. "Of course you must," they
+said. "When everyone disagrees in the way that the experts do, you might
+as well take a tip like that as anything."
+
+Paper Money had therefore to be added also to my list of possibles.
+
+"Besides," said another man, "DONOGHUE rides him; our leading jockey,
+you know." I had forgotten to look at the jockeys' names. How absurd! Of
+course one must back DONOGHUE.
+
+But just then, "Give me WHALLEY," said the man with the asbestos beard,
+and, as WHALLEY was riding Bay of Naples, I had to consider him too.
+Naples was a jolly place and I had had a lot of fun there. Hadn't I
+better make that my tip?
+
+But, on the other hand, what about Tangiers? I had had fun there too,
+and more than one fellow-passenger had darkly hinted that this was a
+much better animal than public form proclaimed. Looking for particulars,
+I found that he once "ran Galloper Light to a head;" which had a
+promising sound. He was trained at Lambourne too, and I like Lambourne.
+There is a good inn there and it is a fine walk to White Horse Hill.
+
+"Well," said another man, who had been borrowing matches from his
+neighbour ever since Victoria, "I always had a feeling for a Marcovil
+colt. Marcovil is a good sire. I 've had some very special information
+about Milton, the Marcovil colt, to-day."
+
+MILTON!--one of my favourite poets, and also one of Mr. ASQUITH'S, as he
+said in that lecture last week. Yes, but is Mr. ASQUITH exactly lucky
+just now? Perhaps not. And did not MILTON write _Paradise Lost_? True.
+But, on the other hand, he wrote _Paradise Regained_. You see how
+difficult tip-hunting can be!
+
+And so it went on and I emerged from the Epsom Downs station in a
+maze of indecision, in which one fact and one only shone with crystal
+clearness, and that was that whatever won the race The Panther had no
+better chance, even though it had been made favourite, than any other.
+
+"Besides," as one of the two men who sat on my knees had said, "What's a
+favourite anyway? Very often a horse is made a favourite by the bookies,
+in conjunction with the Press, just so as everyone will back it. No, no
+favourites for me. Give me a likely outsider at good odds. Look what you
+have to put on The Panther to win anything."
+
+In the result I backed--well, I am not going to tell you; but they "also
+ran."
+
+The moral of this story--if it has one--is either don't bet at all, or,
+if you do bet, draw the horse from a hat at random, and, having drawn
+it, stick to it. No one, as the failure of The Panther proves, can
+possibly _know_ more than you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Daphne_. "I MUSTN'T HAVE ANY CAKE TILL I DON'T ASK FOR
+IT, MUST I?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Wife_. "HOW ABOUT SEAHAVEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS? I HEAR IT'S
+VERY PICTURESQUE."
+
+_Profiteer_. "NOT OUR CLASS, MY DEAR. TOO QUIET--SORT O' PLACE THE
+_NOUVEAUX PAUVRES_ GO TO."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TECHNICAL TERMS.
+
+When Ernest asked me to take a run in his car I took advantage of the
+invitation because there are times when I think that life is less joyful
+without a car and that one day I shall slip out and buy one. I should
+love to grip the wheel and sweep the countryside and listen to the soft
+purr of the engine. So we started sweeping the countryside, Ernest and
+I; but we had not swept very much of it before the soft purr developed a
+kind of cough and the car stopped.
+
+Ernest coaxed and petted her. He tried kindness, while I helped him with
+sarcasm. He tried hauteur and then a little bad temper.
+
+Eventually he decided to send for the local motor engineer, and it was
+when this gentleman arrived with his mate that I decided that motoring
+was not for me and that I should have to fall back on fretwork or tame
+mice for my recreation.
+
+"Here, Bill," said Overalls-in-Chief, "just hold up the Ding-dong."
+
+His mate did as instructed and up went the Ding-dong.
+
+"Now hand me the Doo-dal," he went on; "and while I tune up the old
+Jig-jig you get the Pipety-pip and clean it out.
+
+"Now get the Tick-tick and just give me a tap here with the Ooh-jah,
+while I give the Thing-a-me-tight a couple for his nob.
+
+"See that?" he shouted at me. "Would you believe it? Easy as
+winking. See, it was like this. The What's-a-name here, as kept the
+Tiddley-um-tum in place, was sort of riding on the Squeak-box, so as the
+Tiddley-om-pom and the other Jigger sort of gave the half-seas-over
+to the Thing-a-me-bob and missed the Rum-ti-tum. Simple, ain't it,
+Guv'nor?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, "quite simple."
+
+But I have decided to give up all idea of buying a car. I should never
+learn the language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LITTLE GREY WATER.
+
+  Little Grey Water, my heart is with you
+    In the loop of the hills where the lone heron feeds,
+  Where your cloak is a cloud with a lining of blue,
+    And your lover a wind riding over the reeds.
+
+  Little Grey Water, I know that you know
+    What the teal and the black duck are dreaming at noon,
+  And the way of the wistful wild geese as they go
+    Through the haze of the hills to keep tryst with the moon.
+
+  Little Grey Water, folk say and they say
+    That the homing hill-shepherd, benighted, has heard
+  A song in the reeds, 'twixt the dawn and the day,
+    That was never the song of a breeze or a bird.
+
+  But I know you so silent, so silent and still,
+    And so proud of your trust that you'll never betray
+  What the fairies that gather from Grundiston Hill
+    Tell the stars before morning to witch them away.
+
+  W.H.O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FAITH RESTORED.
+
+MR. PUNCH. "STANDS ROBERT WHERE HE DID? GOOD! I WAS AFRAID FOR A MOMENT
+THAT MY IDOL HAD FEET OF CLAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, June 2nd_.--The Lords seldom sit _die Lunae_, and were perhaps
+feeling what humbler folk call "rather Mondayish" at being summoned from
+their week-end pleasaunces to put the Local Government (Ireland) Bill
+through its final stages. Anyhow they developed some eleventh-hour
+criticisms. The sad case of the Belfast Water Commissioners attracted
+Lord STUART OF WORTLEY. There are fifteen of them--one each for the
+existing wards. But under the Bill Belfast is to be divided into ten
+wards; and fifteen into ten won't go, even in Ireland. Lord PEEL
+considered that while Lord STUART'S arithmetic was impeccable his fears
+were exaggerated. If Belfast drinks its whiskey neat it will not be for
+want of Water Commissioners.
+
+In the Commons Members were disappointed to learn from Sir AUCKLAND
+GEDDES that he had no idea of the time when railway-fares would be
+reduced to the amount printed on the tickets. Nor were they much
+consoled by his promise to consider the suggestion that as the fare
+cannot be brought down to the ticket the ticket shall be brought up to
+the fare. We should not lightly part with our few reminders of the cheap
+dead days that are no more. In fact it would be a salutary thing if
+other tradesmen imitated the "commercial candour" of the railways and
+ticketed their goods with the pre-war value in addition to the present
+charge.
+
+There is a juvenile impulsiveness about Sir HENRY CRAIK which reminds
+one of "the boy who wouldn't grow up," and may account for his keen
+interest in Kensington Gardens. Dissatisfied with an assurance of the
+FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS that he was doing his best to get the War
+Office to clear away their hutments he burst out, "Could he not attempt
+to use some disciplinary action against the obstinacy, the stupidity,
+the slackness, the carelessness of those who are responsible?" Swept
+away by this spate of sibilants Sir ALFRED MOND essayed no further
+answer.
+
+After less than an hour's debate the House gave the CHANCELLOR OF THE
+EXCHEQUER power to borrow a trifle of two hundred and fifty millions,
+to square this year's account, _plus_ an undefined sum to enable him to
+fund the floating debt, now amounting to close on two thousand millions.
+Even Sir FREDERICK BANBURY had no serious objection to raise, his chief
+anxiety being that everyone, and not merely the plutocratic holders of
+Treasury Bills, should be permitted to subscribe to the new loan. Mr.
+CHAMBERLAIN assured him that it was a case of "Let 'em all come."
+
+[Illustration: ANOTHER VISIT--AND IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.
+
+MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS.
+
+"AM I REALLY SUFFERING FROM SENILE DECAY?"]
+
+_Tuesday, June 3rd_.--According to the view of Major WOOD and his
+friends the Mother of Parliaments is played out. The Grand Committees
+which were to have restored her vigour have left her more enfeebled
+than ever, and unless she devolves a large part of her duties upon
+subordinate assemblies her end is near. But I noticed that, although
+Ireland was expressly excepted from their resolution, most of them
+talked of little else, and I fancy that but for Dublin we should not
+have heard much of devolution.
+
+As a statesman His Grace of CANTERBURY has hitherto enjoyed the
+reputation of being "safe" rather than dashing. But that is evidently a
+mistake, for in introducing the Bill which is to enable the Church to
+free itself from some of the trammels imposed upon it by the State he
+begged his hearers not to be afraid of "brave adventurous legislation."
+His appeal was quite lost upon Lord HALDANE, who was shocked by the
+terrible possibilities of the measure, and warned the PRIMATE that
+if the Bill became law he would have signed the death-warrant of the
+Establishment. Coming from a Presbyterian who helped to disestablish the
+Church in Wales, this showed the heights of altruism to which a real
+philosopher may rise.
+
+Colonel WEDGWOOD was shocked to learn that in the occupied territories
+Germans had to take off their hats when addressing British officers.
+But it would be a mistake to assume that his concern was due to any
+tenderness for our foes. On the contrary, it was exhibited out of regard
+for the feelings of British officers. Mr. CHURCHILL regretted
+the inconvenience, but pointed out that it had always been the
+practice--even in Belgium--for an Army of Occupation to exact certain
+acts of respect from the inhabitants.
+
+Mr. KELLAWAY, who announced last week with such pride that "the
+Government have struck oil," was now able to state that the oil had
+reached a height of 2,400 feet and was still rising steadily. There is
+some talk of inviting the successful engineers to put down bores at
+Westminster.
+
+_Wednesday, June 4th_.--Complaint was made recently that under the new
+Rules of Procedure Members were expected to be in three places at once.
+I fancy that a good many of them settled their difficulty to-day by
+betaking themselves to a fourth place, not in the precincts of the
+Palace of Westminster.
+
+There was anything but a Grand Parade on the green benches, and the
+faithful few who were present put a good many questions "on behalf of my
+honourable friend." The Front Benches were well manned, however, and
+Mr. LONG had quite a busy time explaining to Commander BELLAIRS why the
+Admiralty thought it inadvisable at this date to hold courts-martial in
+regard to the Naval losses of 1914. The House was more interested to
+hear that the Peace celebrations will include a Naval procession through
+London, and that there will be a display in the Thames of war-ships of
+various classes, including, possibly, some of those captured from the
+enemy.
+
+A feature of the afternoon was Mr. MACQUISTEN'S brief comments upon
+Ministerial replies. Divorced from their setting, such remarks as "Fish
+is very dear!" (_a propos_ of Admiralty parsimony in compensating the
+owners of drifters) or "By thought-reading?" (when the best method of
+ascertaining native opinion on the future of Rhodesia was in question),
+may not sound particularly funny, but, when delivered in a voice of
+peculiar penetration and "Scotchiness," at precisely the right moments,
+they were sufficient to convulse the Benches. Mr. MACQUISTEN must be
+careful or he will soon be a spoiled DARLING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Waiter (at public dinner, to very hot and red-faced
+diner_). "I'M GOING NOW, SIR. ANYTHING MORE I CAN GET YOU? BRANDY OR
+PORT? NO, SIR? SHALL I GET YOU A COOL CHAIR, SIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Cigar smokers will be interested very much in the likelihood of
+    that luxury being soon dearer than ever.... It will most likely
+    develop into a habit of getting the very last whiffff ffffout of
+    every cigar."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+The printer would seem to be practising already.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"HOW TO HEAR MUSIC."
+
+_(With humble acknowledgments to the critic of "The Times.")_
+
+We were grateful to Mlle. Snouck Hugronje for giving us an opportunity
+of hearing the Violin Concertos of Prenk Bib Doda in C sharp minor, and
+of Basil Tulkinghorn in the composite key of F.E. The latter work, we
+may explain, is dedicated to Lord BIRKENHEAD. Doda's work is so rarely
+played that Mr. ERNEST NEWMAN has wittily suggested that he ought to be
+renamed Dodo. But let that pass. Here he is abundantly like himself,
+rich in self-determining phrases which emerge from a Hinterland of wild
+surmise, and tower aloft in peaks of Himalayan majesty like Haramokh or
+Siniolchum ---- Mr. CANDLER must finish this sentence.
+
+Tulkinghorn is also a master of transcendental effects, and as
+relentless in pushing home his points as Mr. SMILLIE when examining a
+duke before the Coal Commission. But he is not always to be trusted. He
+lacks the architectonic faculty. In between the clusters of clear-cut
+phrases there are too many nebulae of gaseous formation and spiral type,
+which deflect the orbital movement of his essentially electronic melody
+and impair its impact on the naked ear.
+
+But when Mlle. Snouck Hugronje plays you forget all about
+self-determination, syndicalism, guild-control, proletariats, sunspots
+and even Mr. SMILLIE. If you are a poet, and we are all poets nowadays,
+you dream yourself into a punt on the Sonning backwater, wondering if
+the summer was ever so amazing before, nearly being shipwrecked on
+a sandy spit, startling moorfowl or it may be dabchicks, sending a
+_frisson_ into the fritillaries, losing and regaining your punt-pole,
+always believing that the next bend ---- Mr. FILSON YOUNG must really
+finish the sentence.
+
+If you are a musician and an occultist you will, by due concentration of
+your pineal gland and pituitary body, rise with the rapidity of a HAWKER
+to astral altitudes immune from all mundane disquiet. You will notice
+---- However, this is best, left to Mr. CYRIL SCOTT or Sir RABINDRANATH
+TAGORE or Sir OLIVER LODGE. But if you are a mere listener you will
+listen and be thankful. But if you never go to concerts you will still
+be able, by the aid of the New Criticism, to attain to an ecstasy of
+appreciation far greater than if you had relied on the crude medium of
+your senses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Niece_. "BUT AREN'T YOU GOING TO GIVE THAT NICE PORTER A
+TIP, AUNTIE? HE'S AN OLD SOLDIER."
+
+_Aunt_. "_EXACTLY_, MY DEAR. MUCH TOO POLITE TO BE UNPLEASANT TO ONE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CONSCRIPTION OF BRAINS.
+
+PROGRESS OF THE COMMISSION.
+
+The Literary section of the Nationalisation Commission met last Friday.
+Before evidence was taken the Chairman, Mr. ROBERT WILLIAMS, said that
+as their Report must be delivered in less than a week the Commission had
+decided not to summon Lord MORLEY, Lord ROSEBERY or Mr. THOMAS HARDY,
+but hoped in the few days still available, to hear the evidence of Sir
+THOMAS HALL CAINE, Lady WARWICK, Mrs. BARCLAY, Mr. SPACKMAN and Mr.
+SMILLIE.
+
+Mr. EDWARD MARSH read an interesting Report on the State Remuneration of
+Poets. He was of opinion that poets, if they could be shown to be of the
+authentic Georgian brand, ought to be secured a reasonable salary quite
+irrespective of the views which they expressed. They must never be
+expected to glorify or approve of the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, but
+should be perfectly free to criticise or attack him. No attempt should
+be made to impose any metrical constraint on their verse. But he thought
+it desirable that for the purpose of bringing them to the notice of
+the public a State chaperon should be appointed to provide suitable
+introductions and biographical details. He also advocated the
+multiplication of poetry tea-shops, where pure China tea and wholesome
+confectionery should be supplied gratis to all poets whose works had
+been favourably noticed in _The Times Literary Supplement_.
+
+The CHAIRMAN. What is your idea of the minimum wage for poets?--In view
+of the present purchasing power of the sovereign I should put it at
+eight hundred pounds a year. Modern poets require an extra amount of
+nourishment, owing to the nervous strain involved in production, and
+their requirements in the matter of dress are often difficult to
+satisfy. I understand that the price of sandals has gone up two hundred
+per cent.
+
+Mr. CHARLES GARVICE, the next witness, stated that he did not think
+the literary quality of novels would be necessarily improved by
+nationalisation. Speaking for himself he did not think it would affect
+his output. But if the State took over this industry it should be
+liberal in affording novel-producers facilities for obtaining fresh
+material, local colour, etc. At all costs the output of salubrious
+and sedative fiction must be maintained if only as an antidote to the
+subversive and revolutionary literature now freely disseminated among
+the proletariat.
+
+COLONEL WEDGWOOD. HOW do you expect a workman earning only three
+pounds a week to afford seven shillings for every novel that he
+buys?--Personally I should like to see the cost reduced, but I
+understand that if the price of novels were fixed at one shilling
+it would involve the State in an expenditure of ten million pounds
+annually, even with the present reduced output of novels, which has
+fallen during the War to little over twenty million tons.
+
+Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE declared himself a whole-hearted supporter of
+nationalisation. There was something extraordinarily uplifting in the
+notion of consecrating one's talents to the State. Publishers were too
+often callous individualists. Here one would be working for humanity. If
+his interview with the KAISER had been issued under State sanction he
+believed that the Peace would have been signed months sooner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OFFICIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "TELEGRAPHIC NOTICE.
+
+    Public is hereby informed that delays to and from offices in Punjab
+    are normal."--_Indian Paper_.
+
+Same here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    OUR VETERANS.
+
+    "London Rifle Brigade, 40 strong, of the 1st Battalion, which
+    went out in 1814, arrived in London from France at mid-day
+    yesterday."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A ROYAL INTERVIEW.
+
+"Someone to see you, Miss."
+
+Thus Mary at about nine o'clock on an April evening at the door of my
+tiny sitting-room.
+
+There was a strange little quiver in her voice.
+
+Mary is so extremely well trained, and so accustomed, moreover, to queer
+visitors at the flat, that I looked up in surprise.
+
+"Yes?" I said. "Is it a lady?"
+
+Mary did not reply immediately; she seemed half-dazed.
+
+"Is it a lady?" I repeated a little sharply. My usually imperturbable
+parlourmaid appeared to have taken leave of her senses.
+
+"She said she was a queen, Miss," she gasped.
+
+At that moment the visitor, evidently grown tired of waiting, calmly
+floated in through the half-open door and settled down gracefully in the
+centre of a large gold cushion lying on the end of the Chesterfield.
+
+Fortunately I grasped the situation at once.
+
+"Thank you, Mary," I said, with what I now feel to have been most
+commendable coolness in the entirely unprecedented circumstances; "I
+will ring if I want tea later."
+
+When the door had closed upon the still gasping Mary I turned
+apologetically to my visitor.
+
+"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," I said. "You see, my maid was not
+unnaturally a little surprised--"
+
+"It's _quite_ all right," said the Fairy Queen graciously; "I thought
+you wouldn't mind my coming in."
+
+"Of course not," I said; "I am only too delighted. Won't you come nearer
+the fire?"
+
+She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then she looked
+up at me and smiled.
+
+"I don't like to leave it," she said; "it's so pretty." And she stroked
+the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.
+
+"Yes," I said; "and your lovely frock goes with it so beautifully. But
+how would this be?"
+
+I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden and put it
+down on the floor in front of the fire. "There--how is that?"
+
+"That's delightful," said the Fairy Queen. "I'm so glad you like my
+frock," she went on. "Paris, of course. That is to say, the idea came
+from there. My own people did the actual making. After all, no one can
+touch the French when it comes to real _chic_. Don't you think so?"
+
+I acquiesced. Oh, yes, Paris was certainly the best.
+
+"But I didn't come here to discuss clothes," said my visitor. She made a
+quick movement and leaned suddenly forward on the cushion, her delicate
+golden head supported on her slender hand. "Do you know the Editor of
+_Punch_?" she asked abruptly.
+
+I hesitated. "I can't exactly say that I _know_ him," I said.
+
+The Fairy Queen looked very disappointed.
+
+"Oh, dear, then I'm afraid it's no good. I thought you'd be sure to know
+him."
+
+"But although I don't know him personally I am in communication with
+him," I said. "Perhaps--"
+
+She brightened up a little.
+
+"I suppose you _could_ write," she said; "though of course it would be
+far better to see him."
+
+"It's about that cover," she went on. I looked at her blankly.
+
+"The cover of _Punch_, you know."
+
+Vague pictures of Mr. Punch surrounded by little dancing figures, an
+easel, Toby, a lion--surely there was a lion somewhere--flitted across
+my mind. What on earth had the cover of _Punch_ got to do with the Fairy
+Queen?
+
+I went over to the little table where lay the latest copy, and came back
+with it in my hand and knelt down on the floor near the cushion.
+
+The Fairy Queen came close to me and peered over the edge of the paper.
+
+"Look at the fairies," she said, pointing with a tiny indignant finger.
+"_Look_ at them. They're most dreadfully old-fashioned. Nobody in
+fairyland looks in the least like that now."
+
+I looked. Certainly the little figures had rather an early-Victorian air
+about them.
+
+"Of course we should never dream of being tremendously fashionable or
+anything of that kind. I would not for one moment think of allowing any
+of my court-ladies to cut their hair short, for instance, or to wear one
+of those foolish hobble skirts; but nobody, nobody could accuse us of
+being dowdy. Now tell me, have you ever seen one of us looking like
+that, or like that?"
+
+"But are you quite sure," I said, not without hesitation, for she was by
+way of being rather an autocratic and imperious little person and I was
+the least little bit afraid of her--"are you quite sure that they _are_
+fairies?"
+
+"Of course they are," she replied quickly. "What else could they be?
+Naturally Mr. Punch would have fairies all round him. He loves us. You
+have no idea how much we have in common."
+
+I didn't reply at once. I was engaged in staring at the familiar design.
+
+"They haven't any wings," I said, still rather doubtfully, "except this
+one at the bottom."
+
+But the Fairy Queen was very decided indeed. "All fairies don't have
+wings," she said; "and with regard to that particular one at the
+bottom," she glanced a little superciliously at the buxom lady with the
+trumpet, "as a matter of fact, she isn't a fairy at all. I don't quite
+know what she is, an angel perhaps, but not a fairy, certainly not
+a fairy. But the others are, of course." She glanced at me a little
+defiantly with her bright eyes. "Surely, my dear, I ought to know
+a fairy when I see one. At the time when these were done they were
+perfectly all right; they only want bringing up to date, like the
+pictures inside, that's all. Now you will see whether you can do
+anything, won't you?"
+
+It was difficult to refuse, but I didn't feel very hopeful.
+
+"I'll try," I said. "I'll write to the Editor; but I'm afraid it's not
+very likely that he will do anything in the matter. You see the cover's
+been like that for years and years. Almost ever since _Punch_ began.
+It's--well, it's part of the _Punch_ tradition. We all love it. Nobody
+would like to see it altered; it wouldn't seem the same thing."
+
+The Fairy Queen was busy with her cloak and didn't pay much attention to
+what I was saying,
+
+"Won't you stay a little longer and have some tea or something?" I
+begged.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"A chocolate?"
+
+She smiled. "I can't resist a chocolate," she said. She took a very
+little one and nibbled at it daintily, flitting about the room meanwhile
+and chattering away in the friendliest fashion in her tiny high voice.
+
+"I must go," she said at last. "I have enjoyed it so much. May I come
+again some day? I should love to come again."...
+
+I went out with her into the little lobby and down the stairs, and stood
+at the hall door to watch her go.
+
+"Now don't forget," were her last words as she floated out into the
+night. "Tell him, tell him exactly what we really look like."
+
+"I can't," I called after her desperately; "I can't."
+
+But she had already disappeared in the soft haze. I went slowly up the
+stairs and back to my quiet room and the dying fire.
+
+"I can't," I said again. "I only wish I could."
+
+R. F.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Bandsmen Wanted for Municipal Band. Solo Cornet and others. Work
+    found for bricklayer, carpenter, painter and paperhanger."--_Daily
+    Paper_.
+
+With whose assistance we may expect some jazzling effects.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LURE OF THE LAND.
+
+ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO BOUGHT A FARM--
+
+--BECAUSE AN OPEN-AIR LIFE APPEALED TO HIM--
+
+--AND BECAUSE IT MADE ONE ONE'S OWN MASTER--
+
+--BECAUSE, MOREOVER, HE WAS FOND OF ANIMALS--
+
+--AND ALSO BECAUSE ANY AMOUNT OF EXPERT OPINION WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE IN
+CASES OF DOUBT--
+
+--BECAUSE, AGAIN, THE ELEMENT OF UNCERTAINTY GAVE SUCH A CHARM TO IT--
+
+--AND, FURTHER, BECAUSE CERTAIN SECTIONS WERE BOUND TO BE PROFITABLE--
+
+--IN ADDITION BECAUSE UP-TO-DATE APPLIANCES MADE EVERYTHING SO EASY--
+
+--BECAUSE, IN PARTICULAR, IT TOOK ONE BACK TO NATURE, AND HELPED ONE TO
+AN UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL LAWS--
+
+--AND, LASTLY, BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, ONE COULD ALWAYS GET RID OF THE
+BEASTLY THING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Author_. "YOU REMEMBER MY LAST BOOK?"
+
+_Artist_. "THE ONE I ILLUSTRATED?"
+
+_Author_. "YES. WELL, SIR BARNES STORMER WANTS ME TO DRAMATISE IT FOR
+HIS NEXT WEST-END PRODUCTION."
+
+_Artist_. "I SAY! THAT'S SPLENDID. I MUST READ IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MURMANSK MOSQUITO.
+
+My particular interest having been aroused by descriptions recently
+published in the English Press of the Murmansk mosquito, I made a point,
+on my arrival in North Russia with the Relief Force, of collecting
+further data from officers whose experience entitles them to speak with
+authority upon the habits of the local fauna.
+
+From them I have gathered some curious information which should interest
+even those whose enthusiasm for the phenomena of natural history
+is normally but languid, and cannot fail to intrigue not only the
+entomologist but also the big game hunter, who would find it well
+worth his while to observe and study the tactics of this sagacious and
+formidable insect.
+
+Judging from the evidence at my command the true Murmansk mosquito is
+considerably larger and fiercer than the Archangel variety, owing no
+doubt to the genial influence of the Gulf Stream. Both types are however
+sufficiently ferocious, and, save when rendered comatose by excess of
+nutrition, will attack human beings without provocation. The female
+of the species, if disturbed while accompanied by her young, will
+invariably charge with such fury that only by an exceptional combination
+of skill and courage can she be driven off. The shrill and vibrating cry
+of the Russian mosquito as it swoops to the attack is, I am assured,
+qualified to shake the fortitude of even experienced troops.
+
+So surprising are some of the current stories of the size, strength and
+agility of these dreaded carnivora that one would suspect their veracity
+were they not vouched for by military and naval officers, and supported
+by such concrete evidence as that of the local architecture. The houses
+are almost universally constructed of substantial logs, undoubtedly for
+the reason that brickwork would be more easily displaced by the furious
+assault of the mosquito, which usually hunts in droves, packs or
+swarms, and has been known to surround and make concerted attacks, upon
+buildings occupied by particularly well-nourished personnel.
+
+As evidence of the determination of their attacks, veterans of this
+front have pointed out to me, in the walls of local buildings, massive
+timbers which have been scarred and splintered by the teeth and claws of
+these monsters, emboldened by hunger and incensed by resistance.
+
+The peculiar ferocity of the mosquito of these high latitudes is,
+of course, accounted for by the brevity of its actual life. Immured
+throughout the prolonged winter within its icy sarcophagus, it is not
+released before the middle of June, while the premature severity of
+August rapidly lowers its vitality. Such is its offensive spirit during
+the first relaxation of wintry rigour that it is dangerous in the
+extreme for anyone to walk about alone, for naturally the mosquito which
+the sunshine has just liberated, fasting and impatient, will make a
+determined effort to partake of the first likely repast which presents
+itself. Single newly-thawed specimens have been known to lie in ambush
+by frequented paths and fall upon lonely wayfarers with the desperate
+courage of starvation. I am credibly informed that, if duty necessitates
+an unescorted journey at this season, it is a wise precaution to provide
+oneself with several joints of reindeer flesh, which, in the event of
+attack by mosquitoes, may be thrown to them and so effect at least a
+temporary diversion.
+
+The revolver is of little service against this formidable creature,
+owing to its cunning and the rapidity with which it manoeuvres, while
+its bristly hide is stout enough to defy the ordinary shotgun. It
+is proposed to detail certain anti-aircraft batteries to deal with
+high-flying swarms, while a young friend of my own, who was with a
+special company of the R.E. in France, is prepared to design a haversack
+projector for issue to all ranks. But against this it is urged by those
+familiar with North Russian towns in summer that nothing of such a
+nature can materially damage the _moral_ of the local mosquito.
+
+Thrilling stories are told of escapes from these dangerous brutes. A
+senior officer of notoriously full habit of body, having attracted the
+attention of several immense specimens, was by them surrounded in his
+office, and rescued only just in time by the gallant efforts of an
+allied fatigue party which the besieged officer had the presence of mind
+to detail over the telephone. While awaiting (or pending) their arrival
+he passed through a period of mental agony (which has left unmistakable
+marks upon him) as he listened to the roar of their wings and the
+crunching of their fangs upon the outer timbers, or fixed his fascinated
+gaze upon the sweep, of their antennae under the front door, where they
+were trying for a purchase in order to force an entry.
+
+On another occasion a patrol which was attacked by a large swarm was
+only saved by the _savoir faire_ of its commander, who ordered his men
+each to ward off the rush of the hungry insects with a ration biscuit
+held out to them at arm's length. In their impetuous ferocity the
+creatures blindly snapped at the biscuits, with the result foreseen by
+the experienced leader; the swarm, with every appearance of complete
+demoralisation, broke and fled, several being weakened by the fracture
+of their mandibles and falling an easy prey to the bayonets of the
+exultant patrol.
+
+With its naturally ardent temperament irritated by months of bitter
+cold, its constitutional hunger aggravated by a prolonged fast, its
+appetite tempted by a novel diet in the form of British soldiery
+well-washed and firm-fleshed after years of Army rations, the North
+Russian mosquito is likely, in the opinion of experts, to take a high
+place among the more deadly horrors of war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sergeant_. "NOW THEN, ARE YOU THE FOUR MEN WITH A
+KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC I WAS ASKING FOR?"
+
+_Chorus_. "YES, SERGEANT."
+
+_Sergeant_. "RIGHT. PARADE OFFICERS' MESS 11.30 TO MOVE GRAND PIANO TO
+MARQUEE--DISTANCE 500 YARDS--FOR CONCERT THIS EVENING." ]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
+
+That audacious paraphrase of the Book of Job, _The Undying Fire_
+(CASSELL), seems to me to be marred by a fundamentally false note. I am
+sure that Mr. WELLS is as serious about his new God in the Heart of
+Man as he was about the Invisible King--I've no sort of intention of
+sneering--but I cannot credit him with belief in the Adversary, who by
+arrangement with the Almighty (as set forth in a discreetly flippant
+prologue with something of the flavour of those irreverent yarns
+invented and retailed by Italian ecclesiastics about Dominiddio) visits
+_Job Huss_, the headmaster of Woldingstanton, with the plagues of his
+desperate trial. However I take it that the author was anxious that his
+parody should be as complete in form as possible, and, being rather
+impressed by the insouciance, not to say insolence, of the Satan of the
+original, seized his chance of bizarre characterisation and "celestial
+badinage" and let consistency go hang for the time. Certainly the
+theological disquisitions of Mr. WELLS are remarkable not for their
+formal logic, but for their provocative quality and the very real
+eloquence of detached passages of the rambling argument. In particular,
+taking up again the thread of _Joan and Peter_, he gives such a survey
+of the scope and glories of a new education that is to salve the world's
+wounds as would move the heart of a jelly-fish. Mr. WELLS has his own
+methods of justifying the ways of God to man. He may be discursive,
+impatient, rash, perhaps a little shallow; but he has an undying fire of
+his own. He is certainly not dull. And therefore orthodox divines and
+pedagogues may perhaps have a real grievance against him. But I can't
+imagine any serious-minded man in a serious time reading this book and
+not getting hope and courage from it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Victory Over Blindness_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a book whose title
+gives you at once the key to its contents and to the spirit that
+animates them. It is the record by Sir ARTHUR PEARSON of one of the most
+finely successful enterprises that the War has called forth. Everyone
+to-day has at least a vague idea of the work carried on at St.
+Dunstan's, "the biggest individual business," Sir ARTHUR terms it, "that
+I have ever conducted." A study of these pages will transform that vague
+idea into wonder and admiration. Big the business might well be called,
+since it is nothing less than the bringing back, almost to normal life,
+of men apparently condemned to an existence of helpless inactivity and
+dependence. Few things will strike you more forcibly in this book than
+its practical common sense. That and an unsentimental optimism seem to
+be the dominant notes of all Sir ARTHUR'S effort. Without doubt the
+success of this has been beyond measure helped by the fact that the
+originator was himself a sharer in the adversity that it was designed
+to lessen. Two chapters especially in the book, called "Learning to be
+Blind," a brief manual of practical suggestions by one whom experience
+has rendered expert, supply a clue to the difference between the work
+at St. Dunstan's and the best-intentioned efforts of outside sympathy,
+_Victory Over Blindness_ is a proud and rewarding motto; this little
+volume will show how thoroughly it has been earned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I fancy that Miss JOAN THOMPSON had some design of symbolism in the
+choice of a name for her heroine, _Mary England_ (METHUEN). The
+publishers indeed consider that she might be called "Every Woman," so
+typical is she of her sex, and "so like to the emotional careers of so
+many English girls is her own." Perhaps, on the other hand (without
+disparagement to the skill of Miss THOMPSON'S portraiture), I should
+have expected the typical maiden of _Mary's_ class to show greater
+initiative. Many things nearly happened to _Mary_; practically nothing
+in her life was fashioned by her own intent. Of the two men who might
+have made her happy, one didn't propose at all, and one did it in the
+wrong fashion. Other two, who seemed possibly menacing, both drifted
+away with their evil purpose (if any) unfulfilled. I am wrong, though,
+in recalling _Mary_ as invariably passive. She was once roused to the
+action of destroying the manuscript of a novel, in which the writer, the
+man who didn't propose, had too faithfully revealed his perception of
+herself. But though, as a reviewer, I may applaud this achievement on
+general grounds, it provided no kind of solution for the problem of her
+existence. This was left to be settled, very much offhand, by a detached
+iceberg, which sank the ship in which _Mary_ was emigrating. I thought
+that iceberg rather an evasion on the part of Miss THOMPSON. Perhaps
+however all this effect of drift is part of a subtle intention. I
+can certainly call the book admirably written, with restraint and an
+emotional sympathy that impressed me as the outcome probably of an
+intimate knowledge of the scenes and persons described. Whether her
+lethargy is "typical" or not, as a study _Mary England_ will hold you at
+least sufficiently curious to deplore its arbitrary end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has written a book which I find it difficult to
+define. His publishers and Mr. H.G. WELLS call it a novel, but bits of a
+biography and an autobiography and an African explorer's account of his
+travels have all somehow squeezed themselves into it, and for readers
+whose birthdays began before the last quarter of the nineteenth century
+_The Gay-Dombeys_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) will best justify itself as a
+_chronique scandaleuse_. To penetrate the thin disguises in which the
+author has dressed his notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid
+personalities into their component parts should provide the initiated
+with congenial if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also
+a DICKENS enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or
+outraged to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a
+continuation of _Dombey and Son_. Many of his characters are either the
+creations of Boz or their children and he contrives to carry on the
+interweaving of their lives to an unbelievable extent--even when
+the fullest allowance has been made for the smallness of the world.
+_Florence Dombey_ and _Walter Gay_, as _Mr._ and _Mrs. Gay-Dombey_,
+actually survive well into the present book, while Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S
+_Eustace Morven_, who tells us that he has reverted to the ancient
+spelling of his name, is the son of _Harriet Carker_ and that hazel-eyed
+bachelor, _Mr. Morfin_, who lived and loved in _Dombey and Son_. But
+save in the chapter describing _Eustace Morven's_ appearance at the
+annual dinner-party given by _Florence_ and _Walter_ to celebrate the
+re-establishment of the firm, Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S work has not a very
+pronounced flavour of DICKENS. It is to be hoped that this method of
+writing novels will not become popular. A series of sequels to everybody
+by somebody else opens up an intimidating prospect, at least for the
+reviewer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. PHILIP GIBBS has gathered together, under the title. _Open Warfare,
+the Way to Victory_ (HEINEMANN), his despatches written from the Western
+front during the last year of the War. What strikes one most on seeing
+them again in book form is the obscurity in which they veil the events
+they record. They so shine, as it were, with a luminous mist that they
+seem to reveal everything, yet in sober truth very often it is only
+in the light of later knowledge that they reveal anything at all.
+Congratulations, therefore, to Mr. GIBBS, the perfect war correspondent!
+I defy anyone from these papers alone (apart from the plentiful and
+excellent maps) to form anything like an adequate conception of the
+disaster that swept down upon the British Armies in the Spring of 1918.
+And yet in a sense it is all there, gorgeously camouflaged under the
+control--I daresay the wise and necessary control--of the censorship.
+The author, watching the very moulding of history with every advantage
+of proximity, has written down, if not much bare statement, yet an
+amazing sequence of heroic detail, associated with such stirring names
+as Arras or Givenchy or Cambrai. Curiously enough, though each chapter
+is intensely vivid, they become, through much instancing of the same
+unconquerable spirit, something monotonous, though never wearisome, in
+bulk. One trusts that a future generation will realise that the value of
+a book of this order consists in its first-hand record of such incidents
+of valour; it would be pitiful to have it hastily assumed, because so
+much is slurred or omitted to deceive the enemy, that England was
+so feeble-hearted as to require her evil news predigested before
+consumption in this manner. It should be added that the writer gives us
+a good sound introduction that goes a long way to fill the yawning gaps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Gatekeeper (at castle of unpopular baron--to new
+grocer's boy)._ "YOU SILLY IDIOT! WHY DON'T YOU GO ROUND TO THE
+TRADESMEN'S GATE? GOOD THING YOU DIDN'T PULL THE BELL, OR YOU'D 'AVE
+GOT A 'ALF TON OF BOILING LEAD ON TOP OF YOU. THIS IS THE _VISITORS_'
+DOOR!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "GIRL WANTED.--A reliable girl for the summer months to go across
+    the Arm."--_Halifax Evening Mail_.
+
+To prevent misapprehension we ought to say that the western part of the
+bay at Halifax, Nova Scotia, is locally known as the "Arm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+156, June 11, 1919, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
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