The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 150,
May 31, 1916, by Various

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Title: Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 31, 1916

Author: Various

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Language: English

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PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 150.
MAY 31, 1916.

CONTENTS: CHARIVARIA. — THE BRITISH DRAGON. — UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER. — A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT. — THOUGHTS ON NEWSPAPERS. — ABDUL: AN APPRECIATION. — THE DYSPEPTIC'S DILEMMA. — BALLADE OF BOOKS FOR THE WOUNDED. — ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. — A CONVENIENT CONSCIENCE. — SCREEN INFLUENCES. — NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN. — THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT. — OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[353]

Retired Major (to mendicant who has claimed to have seen service in the South African War). 'Wretched impostor! That is an Indian Mutiny ribbon.'

Mendicant. "Lumme! Is it?"

CHARIVARIA.

A conscientious objector told the Cambridge tribunal that he could not pass a butcher's shop without shuddering. The suggestion that he should obviate the shudders by going inside seems almost too simple a solution.

According to a report of the committee appointed to investigate the matter, water is the best agent for suppressing conflagrations caused by bombs. It is not suggested, however, that other remedies now in use for the purpose, such as the censorship of the Press, should be completely abandoned.

According to Reuter (whom we have no reason to doubt) a campaign is now being waged in German East Africa against giraffes, which have been inconveniencing our telegraphic system by scratching the wires with their necks. It will be remembered that the policy of using giraffes instead of telegraph poles was adopted by the War Office in the face of a strong body of adverse opinion.

It is reported that, as the result of the prohibition by Sweden of the exportation of haddock, salmon, cleverly disguised to resemble the former, are being sold by unscrupulous fishmongers in the Mile End Road.

An arsenal worker has pleaded for exemption on the ground that he had seven little pigs to look after. The Tribunal however promised him that in the German trenches he would find as many full-grown pigs to look after as the heart of man could desire.

"In showing how to use as little meat as possible," says a contemporary in the course of a review of the Thrift Exhibition of the National School of Cookery, "a cook mixed the steak for her pudding in with the pastry." This is a striking improvement upon the old-fashioned method of serving the pastry by itself and mixing the steak with the banana-fritters.

"A cricketer from the Front" (says an evening paper) "believes a lot of fellows would escape wounds if they would watch missiles more carefully." It would, of course, be better still if there was a really courageous umpire to cry "No-ball" in all cases of objectionable delivery.

Addressing the staff at Selfridge's on Empire Day, Mr. Gordon Selfridge said he was glad that President Wilson, "who had had his ear to the ground for a long time, had at last seemed to realise that the American nation was at heart wholly with the principles that animated the Allies in this world struggle." But why put his ear to the ground to listen? Does he imagine that the heart of the American nation is in its boots?

The Lord Mayor of London states that he expects that within a couple of years he will be able to reach his estate, seventy miles from London, in half-an-hour by aeroplane. We hope his prophecy may be realised, but we cannot help wondering what would happen if his aeroplane were to turn turtle on the way.

A legal point has been raised as to whether a woman who, while attempting to kill a wasp, breaks her neighbour's window is liable for damages. Counsel is understood to have expressed the view that, if the defendant had broken plaintiff's window while trespassing through the same in pursuit of the wasp, or had failed to give the wasp a reasonable opportunity of departing peaceably, or if it could be shown that the wasp had not previously exhibited a ferocious disposition, then judgment must be for the plaintiff.

"Here in a circular letter from the Home Office we find the sentence: 'The increase in the number of juvenile offenders is mainly caused by an increase of nearly 50 per cent. in cases of larceny.' In ordinary human language this only means that nearly twice as many children were caught thieving as in the year before. But it would be all that an official's place was worth to say so."

The Nation.

Certainly it would, if his duties required a knowledge of elementary arithmetic.

[354]

THE BRITISH DRAGON.

[The Kaiser's Chancellor, in an interview with the American journalist, Karl von Wiegand, accuses England of militarism, and alleges that we pursued towards Germany a policy of envelopment (Einkreisungspolitik).]

O.S.

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XL.

(From a German.)

Yes, and for the very reason that I am a German I am speaking to you, so that you may know what one German at least thinks of you and your deeds. For I know that even where you sit walled about by your flatterers, ramparted against the intrusion of any fresh breath of criticism, and protected by entanglements of barbed wire against any hint of doubt as to your god-like attributes—even there I know that my voice shall in time reach you, and you shall become aware that there is a German who dares to say of you what millions of Germans think and soon will dare to say.

You are the man, Sir, who by a word spoken in a seasonable moment might have forbidden the War, and this word you refused to speak because, knowing your own preparations for war and those of the nations whom you forced to be your enemies, you anticipated an easy and a swift triumph. You believed that, after spending a few thousands of men and a few millions of marks, victory would be yours, and you would be able, as an unquestioned conqueror, to dictate peace to those who had dared to oppose you. And thus in a few months at the most you would return to Berlin and prance along the flower-strewn streets at the head of your victorious and but little-injured regiments. It is told of you that lately, when you visited a great hospital crowded with maimed and shattered men, your vain and shallow mind was for a moment startled by the terrible sight, and you murmured, "It was not I who willed this." In part you were right. You did not consciously will to bring upon your country the suffering and the misery you have caused, because you were willing to take the gambler's chance; but in the sight of God, to whom you often appeal, you will not escape the responsibility for having steadily thrust peace and conciliation aside when, as I say, by one word you might have avoided war.

Germany, you will say, is a great nation and cannot brook being insulted and defied. Great Heaven, Sir, who denied that Germany was great? Who wished to insult or defy her? Not France, whose one desire was to live in peace; not Russia, still bleeding from wounds suffered at the hands of Japan; not England, still, as of old, intent on her commercial development, though anxious, naturally enough, for her Fleet; not Italy, bound to you by a treaty designed to guard against aggression. It is true that all nations were becoming weary of a violent and hectoring diplomacy, of a restless and jealous punctilio seeking out occasions for misunderstandings and quarrels, and rushing wildly from one crisis to another; but under your direction this intolerable system had been patented and put in operation by Germany and by no other nation. It was as though a parvenu, uncertain of his manners and doubtful as to his reception, should burst violently into a salon filled with quiet people and, having upset the furniture and thrown the china ornaments about, should accuse all the rest of treading on his toes and insulting him. So did Germany act, and for such actions you, who had autocratic power—you, at whose nod Chancellors trembled—you loved their tremors—and Generals quaked with fear—must be held responsible. What low strain of vulgarity was it, what coarse desire to bluster and rant yourself into fame and honour, rather than to deserve them by a magnanimous patience and a gentleness beyond reproach, that drove you on your perilous way? It was your pettiness that at the last plunged you into the War.

And now that you have been in it for little short of two years, how stands the Fatherland, and where are the visions of easy and all but immediate victory? Germany is bleeding at every pore. Her soldiers are brave; but to confirm you on your throne you force them day by day to a slaughter in which millions have already been laid low. That other nations are suffering too is for me no consolation. My thoughts are centred on Germany, once so nobly great, and now forced by a restless and jealous lunatic into a war to which there seems no end.

I sign myself in deep sorrow,

A German.

"The Mahogany Tree."

A correspondent writes to Mr. Punch: "In this season's Printer's Pie your old friend and mine, Sir Henry Lucy, speaks of '"the old mahogany tree" in Bouverie Street, under which Thackeray for a while sat.' This tantalising sidelight makes many of us pine for fuller information. Did the incident occur on some particular occasion, or did the great novelist make a practice of this engaging form of self-effacement?"

"At a camp in Essex New Zealand troops joined with the local school children in the celebrations. The men paraded and the New Zealand flag was saluted. Afterwards there was a march past; the National Anthem, Kipling's 'Recessional,' and 'Lest we Forget' were sung."—The Times.

Mr. Kipling seems to have got an encore.

[355]

HELD!

[356]

A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT.

Anne was standing in the hall looking like nothing on earth. One of the reasons why I gave in to Anne and married her was because of her repose. She can look more tragic than Bernhardt, but she never makes a noise. In moments of domestic stress, as when the six hens we had purchased contributed one egg and that in the next garden (date of birth unknown), Anne assumes a plaintive smile that leaves the English language at the post. When the cook, who wears a frayed ulster ornamented with regimental badges ranging from the Royal Scots to the Brixton Cyclists, looked on the wine and went further, Anne did not blurt out crudities. Having shut the kitchen-door behind her, she simply entered the hall and walked smoothly to the plate where any persons who call may leave cards. Already she had soothed the house; and in that splendid silence, that pursuit of the commonplace, she had not merely calmed my dread of the scene that accompanies a cab and a constable, but had carolled, as it were, to Ethel the nursery-maid tilted over the second floor banisters that all was well, or nearly so.

Having stared gravely at a dusty card, which we all knew by heart, Anne turned her face and, raising her eyebrows about an eighth of an inch, shrugged her shoulders very slightly and passed on.

But on the present occasion there was, so far as I was aware, no domestic friction—we had boiled the hens—and I was, I admit, at a loss.

"Come, Herbert," said Anne gently. Then I knew that we were bankrupt—I mean, of course, more bankrupt. I knew that the Government, having crouched in leash, had sprung with a snarl upon the married man of forty-five.

We seated ourselves in Anne's room just as persons do upon the stage, Anne, leaning against the shutter, stared dreamily out of the window.

"Tell me," I said.

Anne is a great artist. She dabbed at her cheeks—but lightly, as though scorned a tear—smiled bravely at me with moist eyes, and, walking to the mantelpiece, adjusted a Dresden shepherdess.

"You have heard me speak of the Ruritanian Relief Fund," she said in a splendid off-hand tone.

"Frequently," I responded, but not impatiently.

"It was, you remember, the only possible fund when dear Lady Rogerson heard about the War. All the other allied countries had been snapped up—there seemed for a while no chance, no hope. Lady Rogerson was so brave. She said to me at the time, 'My dear we will not give in—we have as much right as anyone else to hold meetings and ask for money.'"

"And so you did, dear—surely you have been in the thick of it. Constantly have I seen appeals for Ruritania in the Press."

Anne permitted herself a faint gesture.

"Everything was going so well," she continued, dusting the shepherdess abstractedly. "We had a splendid committee, and Lady Rogerson was leaving for Ruritania with our Ladies' Coffee Unit this morning. They were going to provide hot refreshment for the gallant mountaineers as they marched through their beautiful mountain passes—they have them, haven't they, Herbert?"

"They must have," I said hotly. It was a nice state of affairs if they were going to back out of the coffee on that preposterous ground.

"At the last moment," she sobbed, and, dropping the shepherdess, was quite overcome. I was seriously concerned for poor Anne, whose affection for the Ruritanians was only rivalled by her ignorance of where the blessed country is.

"At the station," she said suddenly in a low voice, "news came that Ruritania was not even at war."

"Monstrous," I cried. "Most monstrous."

"So we all came back, and Lady Rogerson was so splendid and looked so brave in her sombrero and brass buttons. She explained how it was all her own fault—that old Colonel Smith had muddled the names of the Allies, and that we must be patient because who knew what might or might not happen in the future? But would you believe it, several of the Committee said the most awful things about Ruritania and poor Lady Rogerson, and in the middle of it all the telephone bell rang."

"Ah," I said, with a knowing look.

"And Lady Rogerson, after a moment, laid down the receiver, turned like Boadicea, and said in a voice I shall never forget, 'Ladies and gentlemen, Ruritania declared war this afternoon. If the Coffee Unit starts immediately they can catch the night train.'"

Anne paused and made a little cairn of broken china on the mantelpiece.

"I'm so glad," I said, stroking her hand—"so glad. Lady Rogerson deserved her triumph."

Anne made no comment for a moment. When she spoke her voice was poignant.

"The Committee sang the National Anthem," she resumed miserably, "and we all put on our Ruritanian flags. A vote of confidence in dear Lady Rogerson was passed amidst tremendous enthusiasm, and the Coffee Unit set off for the station."

"It must now be on its way," I remarked briskly.

"No," said Anne, "never."

"But Ruritania?"

Anne trailed to the door. She was a wonderful artist in effects.

"Ruritania declared war"—

"I know, my dear—you said so"—

"Upon the Allies," added Anne, and left the room.

It was, considering everything, a rotten thing for Ruritania to do.

Boots (in Irish hotel). 'I've forgotten, Captain, whether you wanted to be called at six or seven.'

Voice from within. "What time is it now?"

Boots. "Eight, yer honour."

Our Helpful Critics.

"Browning's Sordello was literature—but not actable drama."—Daily Chronicle.

The same remark applies to Paradise Lost.

[357]

Charwoman. 'Please, Mum, I ain't coming to work here no more.'

Mistress. "Indeed. How is that?"

Charwoman. "Well, my man's earning so much now that there's plenty coming in. Last week we was obliged to put some in the savings-bank, and I'm afraid we shall have to again this."

THOUGHTS ON NEWSPAPERS.

I swear that this article is not written in the interests of the newspaper trade.

If it bears fruit the newspaper trade will score, but that I cannot help. It is written in the larger interests of humanity and the sweeter life.

The situation briefly is this. One paper is not enough for any house, and some houses or families require many. In the house in which I write, situate in a foreign country, there are many exiles from England and only one paper, which arrives on the fourth day after publication (thus making Wednesday a terrible blank), and sometimes does not complete the round of readers until to-morrow. The result is that a bad spirit prevails. Normally open and candid persons are found concealing the paper against a later and freer hour; terminological inexactitude is even resorted to in order to cover such jackdaw-hoardings; glances become covetous and suspicious.

All this could be obviated.

I remember hearing of a distinguished and original and masterful lady (Sargent has painted her) in the great days, or rather the high-spirited days, of The Pall Mall Gazette—when verse was called Occ, and it was more important that a leading article should have a comic caption than internal sagacity, and six different Autolyci vended their wares every week—who had fifteen copies of the paper delivered at her house every afternoon, and fifteen copies of The Times every morning, so that each one of her family or guests might have a private reading; and she was right.

A newspaper should be as personal as a toothbrush or a pipe, otherwise how can we tear a paragraph out of it if we want to?—as my friend, Mr. Blank, the historian, always does, for that great sociological essay on which he is engaged, entitled The Limit.

But the idea of having enough papers for all has gained no ground. Even clubs don't have enough. And as for dentists——!

Givers of theatre parties have been divided into those who buy a programme for each guest and those who buy one programme for all; and programmes, for some occult reason which seems to satisfy the British ass, cost sixpence each. Yet the enlightened hosts of the first group will cheerfully pack their houses with week-enders and supply but one Observer for the lot. Why?

The suggestion, even with war-time economy as an ideal before us, is not so mad as it sounds. Most of us smoke more cigarettes than we need, to an amount far exceeding the cost of six extra morning papers.

The worst of it is that other people can never read a paper for us. Most people don't try; they put us off.

If ever a La Rochefoucauld compiles the sententiæ of the breakfast-room he must include such apophthegms as these:—

Even the most determined opponent of journalism becomes alert and prehensile on the arrival of the paper.

He is a poor master of a house who does not insist upon the first sight of the paper.

He is a poor master of a house who, on being asked if there is any news of-day, replies in the affirmative.

No papers require so much reading as those with "nothing in them."

He is a poor citizen who could not edit a paper better than its editor.

Into what La Rochefoucauld would say when he came to deal not with the readers of papers but with papers themselves, I cannot enter. That is a different and a vaster matter. But certainly he should include this pensée:—

He is a poor editor who does not know more than the Prime Minister.

[358]

ABDUL: AN APPRECIATION.

I heard the shriek of an approaching shell, something hit the ground beneath my feet, and I went sailing through the ether, to land softly on an iron hospital cot in a small white-walled room. There was no doubt that it was a most extraordinary happening. On the wall beside me was a temperature chart, on a table by my bed was a goolah of water, and in the air was that subtle Cairene smell. Yes, I was undoubtedly back in Cairo. Obviously I must have arrived by that shell.

Then, as I was thinking it all out, appeared to me a vision in a long white galabieh. It smiled, or rather its mouth opened, and disclosed a row of teeth like hailstones on black garden mould.

"Me Abdul," it said coyly; "gotter givit you one wash."

I was washed in sections, and Abdul did it thoroughly. There came a halt after some more than usually strenuous scrubbing at my knees. Mutterings of "mushquais" (no good) and a wrinkled brow showed me that Abdul was puzzled. Then it dawned on me. I had been wearing shorts at Anzac, and Abdul was trying to wash the sunburn off my knees! By dint of bad French, worse Arabic, and much sign language I explained. Abdul went to the door and jodelled down the corridor, "Mo-haaaaamed, Achmed." Two other slaves of the wash-bowl appeared, and to them Abdul disclosed my mahogany knees with much the same air as the gentleman who tells one the fine points of the living skeleton on Hampstead Heath. They gazed in wonder. At last Achmed put his hand on my knee. "This called?" he asked. "Knee," I told him.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "this neece—Arabic; this" (pointing to an unsunburnt part of my leg)—"Eengleesh."

Then the washing proceeded uninterruptedly. "You feelin' very quais (good)?" Abdul asked. I told him I was pretty quais, but that I had been quaiser. "Ginral comin' safternoon and Missus," he informed me, and I gathered that no less a person than the Commander-in-Chief (one of them) was to visit the hospital. And so it happened, for about five o'clock there was a clinking of spurs in the passage, and the matron ushered in an affable brass hat and a very charming lady. In the background hovered several staff officers. Suddenly their ranks were burst asunder and Abdul appeared breathless.

He had nearly missed the show. He stood over me with an air of ownership and suddenly whipped off my bed clothes, displaying my nether limbs. He saw he had made an impression. "Neece is Arabic," he said proudly. It was Abdul's best turn, and he brought the house down. The visitors departed, but for ten minutes I heard loud laughter from down the corridor. Abdul had departed in their wake, doubtless to tell Achmed and Mohammed of the success of his coup.

I had been smoking cigarettes, but found the habit extravagant, as Abdul appreciated them even more than I did. One morning I woke up to see him making a cache in his round cotton cap. I kept quiet until he came nearer, and then I grabbed his hat. It was as I thought, and about ten cigarettes rolled on the floor. I looked sternly at Abdul. He was due to wither up and confess. Instead he broke first into a seraphic grin and then roared with laughter. "Oh, very funny, very, very funny," he said between his paroxysms. Now what could I say after that? I was beaten and I had to admit it, but I decided that I would smoke a pipe. To this end I gave Abdul ten piastres and sent him out to buy me some tobacco. He arrived back in about an hour with two tins worth each eight piastres. "Me quais?" he asked expectantly. "Well, you are pretty hot stuff," I admitted, "but how did you do it?"

Abdul held up one tin.

"Me buy this one," he said solemnly; "this one" (holding up the other one) "got it!"

"What do you mean, 'got it'?"

"Jus' got it," was all the answer I could get. Then to crown the performance he produced two piastres change. Could the genii of the Arabian Nights have done better?

I was in that hospital for three months, and I verily believe that if it had not been for Abdul I should have been in three months more. He had his own way of doing things and people, but he modelled himself unconsciously on some personality half-way between Florence Nightingale and Fagin's most promising pupil. The day I was to go he cleaned my tunic buttons and helmet badge with my tooth-brush and paste and brought them proudly to me for thanks. And I thanked him.

The last I saw of Abdul was as I drove away in the ambulance. A pathetic figure in a white robe stood out on the balcony and mopped his eyes with his cotton cap, and as he took it off his head there fell to the ground half-a-dozen crushed cigarettes. It was a typical finale.

THE DYSPEPTIC'S DILEMMA.

[Maté, an infusion of the prepared leaves of the Ilex paraguayensis, or Brazilian holly, long familiar in South America, is coming into fashion in London.]

A New Reading.

"Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, after first posing for screen purposes in California, promises to produce his Henry VIII. in New York, with himself as Cardinal Richelieu."

Munsey's Magazine.

"Mr. Birrell in the Dock."

Dublin Evening Mail.

This is quite a mistake. He has only been in the nettles.

"The excitement in the Lobby yesterday was reminiscent of the Irish crisis, Members remaining to discuss numberless humours long after they had risen."

Civil and Military Gazette.

The correspondent who sends us the above extract suggests that the Members in question must have been Scotsmen.

[359]

GETTING THE MASCOT ON PARADE.

"Come on!"
"Gee up!"

"Now, then—"
"We'll be late—"
Enter the Decoy.

Well away.
(Never could stand that dog.)

On parade at last—just in time.

[360]

Kindly old Gentleman (distributing cigarettes to soldiers returning home on leave). 'And where's your home, my man?'

Scotsman. "I come fra Paisley—but I canna help that."

BALLADE OF BOOKS FOR THE WOUNDED.

Envoi.

A Test of Valour.

"Mr. Mellish, a regular reader of the Daily Mail for years, was awarded the V.C. last month for conspicuous bravery."—Daily Mail.

"The lack of food is especially irritating to the people, because Bulgaria is a great fool producing country."—Daily Dispatch.

Yet their irritation seems quite intelligent and sane.

How History is Written.

"The Prime Minister passed through Cardiff in a special train this morning on his return from Ireland. The train stopped at the station to change engines, but the right hon. gentleman was only recognised by a few of those on the station."—South Wales Echo.

"Mr. Asquith travelled viá Rosslare and Fishguard. It was eight a.m. when he left the Pembrokeshire port and 10.25 when the special train pulled up for a few moments at Cardiff. The Prime Minister was then soundly asleep in a sleeping car."

Evening Express (Cardiff).

[361]

INJURED INNOCENCE.

The German Ogre. "HEAVEN KNOWS THAT I HAD TO DO THIS IN SELF-DEFENCE; IT WAS FORCED UPON ME." (Aside) "FEE, FI, FO, FUM!"

[According to the Imperial Chancellor's latest utterance Germany is the deeply-wronged victim of British militarism.]

[362]

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Press the button, and up comes the genie.

Monday, May 22nd.—Mr. Asquith returned to his place to-day, looking all the better for his trip to Ireland. No one was more pleased to see him than Mr. Tennant, who had been subjected all last week to a galling fire from the Nationalist snipers. Mr. Timothy Healy had been especially active, employing for the purpose a weapon of unique construction. Although discharged at the Treasury Bench, its most destructive effect is often produced on the Members who sit just behind him. Mr. Dillon is particularly uneasy when Mr. Healy gets his gun out.

When Mr. Acland moved the Vote for the Board of Agriculture there were barely two-score of Members present. He made a capital speech, full of attractive detail and delivered with unbucolic gusto, but did not succeed in greatly increasing the number of his audience.

There was some excuse perhaps for the non-attendance of the Irish Members. They have an Agricultural Department of their own, presided over by an eminent temperance lecturer who teaches Irish farmers how to grow barley for the national beverage. But it might have been supposed that more Englishmen and Scotsmen would have torn themselves away from their other duties in the smoking-room or elsewhere to hear what the Government had to say about the shortage of labour in the fields.

Mr. Acland puts his faith in women. If the farmers would only meet them half-way the situation would be saved. Mr. Prothero thought the farmers' wives would have something to say about that. They did not like "London minxes trapesing about our farmyard." From their point of view conscientious objectors would be a safer substitute.

Tuesday, May 23rd.—Over ten years have passed since Sir Alfred Harmsworth became Baron Northcliffe, yet never until to-day, I believe, has he directly addressed his fellow-Peers, though it is understood that through other channels he has occasionally given them the benefit of his counsel.

His speech was a sad disappointment to those trade-rivals who have not scrupled to attribute his silence to cowardice or incompetence. No justification for such insinuations was to be found in his speech to-day. He had something practical to say—on Lord Montagu's motion regarding the Air-Service—and said it so briefly and modestly as to throw doubt upon the theory that he personally dictates all those leaders in The Times and The Daily Mail.

Colonel Hall-Walker took his seat to-day after a re-election necessitated by the transfer of his racing stud to the Government. Up to the present Ministers have found it a Greek gift. To-day they had to withstand a further attack upon their horse-racing proclivities by Lord Claud Hamilton, who, notwithstanding that he is chairman of the railway that serves Newmarket, denounced with great fervour the continuance during the War of this "most extravagant, alluring and expensive form of public amusement."

In introducing a Vote of Credit for 300 millions, making a total of £2,382,000,000 since August, 1914, the Prime Minister said very little about the War, except that we were still confident in its triumphant issue. Any omission on his part was more than made good by Colonel Churchill, who for an hour or more kept the House interested with his views on the proper employment of our Armies. Whenever he speaks at Westminster one is inclined to remark, "What a strategist!" whereas it is rumoured that his admiring comrades in the trenches used to murmur, "What a statesman!" One of his best points was that the War Office should use their men, not like a heap of shingle, but like pieces of mosaic, each in his right place. [363] Colonel Churchill's supporters are still not quite sure whether he has yet found his own exact place in the national jigsaw.

Wednesday, May 24th.—The House of Lords was well attended this afternoon, in the expectation of hearing Lord Curzon unfold the programme of the new Air Board. But it had to exercise a noble patience. Lord Galway gave an account of a trip in a Zeppelin; Lord Beresford (who, strange to say, is much better heard in the Lords than he was in the Commons) told how the Government were still awaiting from America a large consignment of aeroplanes which as soon as they were delivered would be "obsolete six months ago"; and Lord Haldane (less impressive in mufti than when he wore the Lord Chancellor's wig) delivered once again his celebrated discourse on the importance of "thinking clearly."

Lord Curzon at least did not seem to require the admonition, for his speech indicated that he had carefully considered the possibilities of the Air Board. He did not agree with Colonel Churchill that its future would be one of harmless impotence or of first-class rows. At any rate the second alternative had been rendered less probable by the disappearance from the Government of his critic's own "vivid personality."

Mr. Arthur Ponsonby and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald have inadvertently done signal service to their country's cause. By raising—on Empire Day, too!—the question of peace, and urging the Government to initiate negotiations with Germany, they furnished Sir Edward Grey with an opportunity of dealing faithfully with the recent insidious man[oe]uvres of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg. The only terms of peace that the German Government had ever put forward were terms of victory for Germany, and we could not reason with the German people so long as they were fed with lies. The Foreign Secretary spoke without a note, and carried away the House by his spontaneous indignation. The House had previously passed the Lords' amendments, strengthening the Military Service Bill. Altogether it was a bad day for the pro-Bosches.

Thursday, May 25th.—There was a big attendance in the House of Commons to hear Mr. Asquith unfold his new plan for the regeneration of Ireland. In the Peers' Gallery were Lord Wimborne, still in a state of suspended animation; Lord MacDonnell, wondering whether Mr. Asquith would succeed where he and Mr. Wyndham failed; and Lord Bryce, ex-Chief Secretary, to whom the Sinn Feiners are indebted for the repeal of the Arms Act. On the benches below were the leaders of all the Irish groups, including Mr. Ginnell. Even Mr. Birrell crept in unobtrusively to learn how his chief had solved in nine days the problem that had baffled him for as many years. An Irish debate on the old heroic scale was looked upon as a certainty.

In half-an-hour all was over. The Prime Minister had no panacea of his own to prescribe. All he could say was that Mr. Lloyd George had been deputed by the Cabinet to confer with the various Irish leaders, and that he hoped the House would assist the negotiations by deferring debate on the Irish situation.

His selection of a peacemaker is generally approved. If anyone knows how to handle high explosives without causing a premature concussion, or to unite heterogeneous materials by electrical welding, or to utilise a high temperature in dealing with refractory ores it should be the Minister of Munitions. Everybody wishes him success in his new rôle of Harmonious Blacksmith.

Nevertheless some little disappointment was felt by those who had hoped for a prompter solution. As an Irish Member expressed it, "This has been the dickens of a day. We began with 'Great Expectations' and ended with 'Our Mutual Friend.'"

'I've seen it—'tain't no good.'

"'E gets 'ung, don't 'e?"

"Yus, but they don't show yer that."

The Policeman's Friend.

"Cook wanted, used to coppers."—Daily Paper.

[364]

A CONVENIENT CONSCIENCE.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Theodore," began Mrs. Plapp, opening the door of her husband's study, "but I've just been listening at the top of the kitchen stairs, and from what I overheard I'm certain that girl Louisa is having supper down there with a soldier!"

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Mr. Plapp; "I can't possibly permit any encouragement of militarism under my roof. Just when I'm appealing to be exempted from even non-combatant service, too! Go down and tell her she must get rid of him at once."

"Couldn't you, Theodore?"

"If I did, my love, he would probably refuse to go unless I put him out by force, which, as you are aware, is entirely contrary to my principles."

"I was forgetting for the moment, Theodore. Never mind; I'll go myself."

She had not been long gone before a burly stranger entered unceremoniously by the study window. "'Scuse me, guv'nor," he said, "but ain't you the party whose name I read in the paper—'im what swore 'e wouldn' lift 'is finger not to save 'is own mother from a 'Un?"

"I am," replied Mr. Plapp complacently. "I disbelieve in meeting violence by violence."

"Ah, if there was more blokes like you, Guv'nor, this world 'ud be a better plice, for some on us. Blagg, my name is. Us perfeshnals ain't bin very busy doorin' this War, feelin' it wasn't the square thing, like, to break into 'omes as might 'ave members away fightin' fer our rights and property. But I reckon I ain't doin' nothink unpatriotic in comin' 'ere. So jest you show me where you keeps yer silver."

"The little we possess," said Mr. Plapp, rising, "is on the sideboard in the dining-room. If you will excuse me for a moment I'll go in and get it for you."

"And lock me in 'ere while you ring up the slops!" retorted Mr. Blagg. "You don't go in not without me, you don't; and, unless you want a bullet through yer 'ed, you'd better make no noise neither!"

No one could possibly have made less noise than Mr. Theodore Plapp, as, with the muzzle of his visitor's revolver pressed between his shoulder-blades, he hospitably led the way to the dining-room. There Mr. Blagg, with his back to the open door, superintended the packing of the plate in a bag he had brought for the purpose.

"And now," said Mr. Plapp, as he put in the final fork, "there is nothing to detain you here any longer, unless I may offer you a glass of barley-water and a plasmon biscuit before you go?"

Mr. Blagg consigned these refreshments to a region where the former at least might be more appreciated. "You kerry that bag inter the drorin'-room, will yer?" he said. "There may be one or two articles in there to take my fancy. 'Ere! 'Old 'ard!" he broke off suddenly, "What the blankety blank are you a-doin' of?"

This apostrophe was addressed, however, not to his host, who was doing nothing whatever, but to the unseen owner of a pair of khaki-clad arms which had just pinioned him from behind. During the rough-and-tumble conflict that followed Mr. Plapp discreetly left the room, returning after a brief absence to find the soldier kneeling on Mr. Blagg's chest.

"Good!" he said encouragingly; "you won't have to keep him down long. Help is at hand."

"Why don't you give it me, then?" said the soldier, on whom the strain was evidently beginning to tell.

"Because, my friend," explained Mr. Plapp, "if I did I should be acting against my conscience."

"You 'ear 'im, matey?" panted Mr. Blagg. "'E's agin you, 'e is. Agin all military-ism. So why the blinkin' blazes do you come buttin' in to defend them as don't approve o' bein' defended?"

"Blowed if I know!" was the reply. "'Abit, I expect. Lay still, will you?" But Mr. Blagg, being exceptionally muscular, struggled with such violence that the issue seemed very doubtful indeed till Louisa rushed in to the rescue and, disregarding her employer's protests, succeeded in getting hold of the revolver.

"It was lucky for you," remarked Mr. Plapp, after Mr. Blagg had been forcibly removed by a couple of constables, "that I had the presence of mind to telephone to the police station. I really thought once or twice that that dreadful man would have got the better of you."

"And no thanks to you if he didn't," grunted the soldier. "I notice that, if your conscience goes against lighting yourself, it don't object to calling in others to fight for you."

"As a citizen," Mr. Plapp replied, "I have a legal right to police protection. Your own intervention, though I admit it was timely, was uninvited by me, and, indeed, I consider your presence here requires some explanation."

"I'd come up to tell you, as I told your good lady 'ere, that me and Louisa got married this morning, as I was home on six days' furlough from the Front. And she'll be leaving with me this very night."

"But only for the er—honeymoon, I trust?" cried Mr. Plapp, naturally dismayed at the prospect of losing so faithful and competent a maid-of-all-work altogether. "Although I cannot approve of this marriage, I am willing, under the circumstances, to overlook it and allow her to remain in my service."

"Remain!" said Louisa's husband, in a tone Mr. Plapp thought most uncalled for. "Why, I should never 'ave another 'appy moment in the trenches if I left her 'ere, with no one to protect her but a thing like you! No, she's going to be in the care of someone I can depend on—my old aunt!"

"I don't like losing Louisa," murmured Mrs. Plapp, so softly that her husband failed to catch her remark, "but—I think you're wise."

F. A.

First Slacker (to second ditto). 'Well, no one can say we're not patriots. We're not keeping able-bodied caddies from joining the Army.'

A Dangerous Quest.

"Lost, at Bestwood, Saturday, Irish Terrier Dog, finder rewarded, dead or alive."—Provincial Paper.

[365]

Sergeant. ''Ere, what are you falling out for?'

Excited Cockney. "See that pigeon? I'll swear 'e's got a message on 'im!"

SCREEN INFLUENCES.

The plea, "I saw it at the Cinema," may be offered by others than those of tender years in excuse for vagaries of conduct.

Only the other day a young officer, wearing his Sam Browne equipment the wrong way round and carrying his sword under his left arm, was seen at King's Cross bidding farewell to his fiancée. As the train moved out he drew his sword, threw the scabbard away, and, standing stiffly to attention, saluted the fair lady. On being questioned by the authorities he said he was not aware that his conduct was unusual, as he had often seen that kind of thing done at the Cinema.

In view of the popularity of the Cinema to-day, habitués of our more palatial restaurants cannot be surprised at the growing custom among men about town of wearing the napkin tucked deeply in at the neck, cutting up all their food at one time, and conveying it afterwards to the mouth with the fork grasped in the right hand.

The following incident will show that the Cinema excuse is made to serve in other lands also. A simple Saxon soldier, in a moment of remembrance, stooped to pat the rosy cheek of a small Belgian child, then lifted the little one up and kissed him and kissed him again. A young officer caught him in the act. "What do you mean, you dog, by treating the brat so?" roared the lieutenant, who would have struck the man had not his companion, an older officer, restrained him. Together they waited for the fellow's explanation. "When I was on leave," said the soldier, "I—I saw Prussian soldiers treating little Belgian children like that—at the Cinema."

"The Elements so mixed" again.

"Of two evils always choose the lesser, and on the whole we think we might fall from the frying-pan into the fire if we swopped horses whilst crossing the stream."—Financial Critic.

"Is the German Chancellor alone to be allowed to scatter broadcast his falsifications of history?"—Daily Telegraph.

Oh, no! Some Members of the House of Commons have recently given him valuable assistance.

"How an Irish colleen travelled free from Ireland to London was explained at the Willesden Police Court yesterday, when she was charged with not paying her face."

Daily Sketch.

Rather ungrateful of her, after travelling on it so far.

NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

XV.—Billingsgate.

XVI.—Limehouse and Poplar.

[366]

THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

Late October and a grey morning tinging to gold through the warming mist. A large comfortable dining-room smelling faintly of chrysanthemums and more strongly of coffee and breakfast dishes. In the hearth a great fire, throwing its flames about as with joy of life. The table-cloth, the silver, the dishes, the carpet on the floor, the side-board, the pictures, the wall-paper told of wealth and ease, the fruits of peace, and the arrangement of these things told of the good taste which is so essentially the fruit of long peace.

The room was empty, and the first to enter it that morning was the Mother. She was a tall imposing woman, and her bearing and her little mannerisms were of the kind that the latter-day novelists have delighted to use as matter for their irony. It was the Boy's birthday—his eighteenth birthday, the first he had spent at home since he had been going to his preparatory and his public school. So she departed from the usual routine to place by the side of his napkin the neat little parcels she had brought down with her. Two of them were from her other sons fighting in France. They were a very affectionate and united family—father and mother and the three sons.

After that she went to her husband's end of the table and looked through the heap of letters placed there as usual by the admirable butler. It was understood of old that she opened no letters but those addressed to her, not even the letters from the fighting sons when they happened to write to their father instead of to her.

This time, however, her eye caught at once, between the edges of the others, an official envelope and, lower yet, another. She became rigid and stood for a minute by the table, her mind running vaguely into endless depths. Then she put her hand out and picked the envelopes from the heap and saw that her fears might not be groundless. But they were addressed to her husband, and at that moment she heard his tread and his slight cough as he came slowly down the stairs. Hastily she pushed them back among the others and went to her place. When he came into the room she was busy with the urn.

As usual he was just putting his handkerchief back; as usual he looked out of the window, then walked over to the fire and warmed his hands automatically. All this business of coming down to breakfast had been to him for so many years a leisurely pleasant business in a world free from serious worries, that even the War, with its terrible disturbances, with its breaking up of the family circle, had not succeeded in altering his habits. Everything waited for him—for he was not unpunctual—the letters, the newspaper and the breakfast. But this day was the Boy's birthday and the Father took from his pocket an envelope and placed it with a smile by the side of the little parcels.

Would he never look at his letters? The Mother was on the point of speaking, but long habit, the old habit of obedience to her lord, restrained her. Even now, when she was cold with anxiety, those old concealed forces of habit restrained her. Might she not offend him?

The Father sat down, put on his glasses and began to look at the pile by his side. She noticed the slight start he gave and her eyes met his as he looked up suddenly at her. Deliberately braving Fate, he put those two envelopes aside. It was evident that he meant to read through all the others first, but he was not so strong as he thought. His fingers went again to the official envelopes and he took up the letter-opener placed ready for his use by the admirable butler and slit along the top of one envelope and took the thin paper from it and read.

His head drooped a little, and the Mother came round to his side. Then he opened the other and suddenly sat very still, with his great strong fine hand open on the paper, gazing straight in front of him. His wife bent over him and tried to speak, but her voice had died to a whisper, a hoarse straining sound.

"Dead?" she said at last.

Her husband dropped his head in affirmation.

"Which?"

He did not answer and the Mother understood. "Oh, Harry, not both?"

Again his head drooped and he fumbled for the papers and gave them to her, and as he did so a tear rolled suddenly down his cheek and splashed on a spoon. It seemed to be a sign to him, he felt his courage giving way and visibly pulled himself together. Then he turned to take the Mother's hand, rising from his seat. They stood a little while thus, the Mother looking away, as he had done, into unfathomable distances of time and space. Then she too pulled herself together and went to her place at the other end of the table. They heard steps on the staircase, a voice singing. The door opened and the Boy came in late and expecting a comment from his father, His eyes travelled to the parcels beside his plate, then he felt the silence and saw the strained expressions of his mother and father and lastly the official papers. He came forward and spoke bravely.

"Bad news, Dad?"

There was no answer. He had not expected one, for he read the truth on the face that had never lied. He stood very still for a brief moment, his head up—characteristically—his face a little pale. Both brothers! Then he breathed deeply and turned to his father in expectation. The latter knew what was wanted.

"You are eighteen to-day, Boy. You may apply for your commission."

There was a cry, quickly stifled, from the Mother, and the Boy said very quietly, "Thank you, Dad; of course I must go now." Then he went to his mother and kissed her and was not ashamed to cry.

It was his father who broke the silence.

"May God grant you many returns, many happy returns of the day!"

THE SORROWS OF WILSON.

(With humble apologies to Thackeray.)

"The water in the South-West Norfolk Fens has now subsided about 6 in. Two 6 ft. openings have been cut in the river bank near the Southery engine to let the water flow into the river. Two temporary slackers have been put in the openings, so that they can be closed when the tide is higher in the river."

Provincial Paper.

They might just as well have been put into the trenches.

[367]

Orderly Officer. 'What are you doing without your rifle, Sentry?'

Tommy. "Beg pardon, Sir, but I ain't the Sentry."

Orderly Officer. "Who are you, then, and where is the Sentry?"

Tommy. "Oh, 'e's inside out of the rain. I'm one of the prisoners."

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Herr Hermann Fernau's Because I am a German (Constable) is a sort of postscript to the widely-outside-Germany-circulated J'accuse!, that vigorous indictment by an anonymous German of the Prussian clique as the criminal authors of the War. Herr Fernau summarises the argument of J'accuse! and if anyone cares to have at his finger-tips the essential case against the enemy he could not do better than absorb the six pages in which twenty-four questions put by the anonymous author to the directors of his unhappy country's destiny are most skilfully compressed. Four attempted German answers are shown by our author to have in common an amazing reluctance to deal with any single definite point at issue; and a most unjudicial appeal to popular hatred of the traitor critic. Of course it is a cheap line to welcome as a miracle of wisdom every German who takes a pro-Ally view. But I honestly detect no shadow of pro-Ally bias in this book, and it is certainly no tirade against Germany. What bias there is is that of the extreme republican against his autocratic government. "I have read," says Herr Fernau in effect, "this perfectly serious and definite indictment lucidly drawn in legal form. I hope as a German (not afraid to sign my name) there is an answer. But whereas the Entente Powers have supported their official case by documentary evidence we are asked to accept mere asseveration in the case of Germany. That is the less allowable as the obvious (though not necessarily the true) reading of the facts is against her. Silence and vigorous suppression of the indictment look rather like signs of guilt." Yes, emphatically a book for members of the Independent Labour Party.

Beatrice Lovelace belonged to a family that had come down in the world, and were now Reduced County. So far reduced, indeed, that Beatrice lived with her cross aunt Anastasia and one little maid-of-all-work in a tiny house in a very dull suburb, where the aunt would not allow her to be friends with the neighbours. However, one fine day two things happened. Beatrice got to know the young man next door, and the little servant (whose name, by a silly coincidence which vexed me, happened to be Million) was left a million dollars. So, as the house was already uncomfortable by reason of a row about the young man, Beatrice determined to shake the suburban dust from her shapely feet and take service as maid to her ex-domestic. That is why the story of it is called Miss Million's Maid (Hutchinson). An excellent story, too, told with great verve by Mrs. Oliver Onions. I could never attempt to detail the complicated adventures to which their fantastic situation exposes Beatrice and Million. Of course they have each a lover; indeed, the supply of suitors is soon in excess of the demand. Also there is an apparent abduction of the heiress (which turns out to be no abduction at all, but a very pleasant and kindly episode, which I won't spoil for you), and a complicated affair of a stolen ruby that brings both heroines into the dock. It is all great fun and as unreal as a fairy-tale. For which reason may I [368] suggest that it was an error to date it 1914? Such nonsensical and dream-like imaginings are so happily out of key with the world-tragedy that its introduction strikes a note of discord.

I have just finished reading a distinguished book, One of Our Grandmothers (Chapman and Hall), by Ethel Colburn Mayne—a book full of a delicate insight and very shrewd characterisation. It probes to the heart of the mystery of girlhood—Irish girlhood in this case. I certainly think that Millicent, who was a sort of prig, yet splendidly alive, with her gift of music (which, contrary to custom in these matters, the author makes you really believe in), her temperament, her temper and her limitless demands on life, would have given young Maryon, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a trying time of it; but it would have been worth it. That, by the way, was Jerry's opinion, common, horsey, true-hearted, clean-minded little Jerry, who was the father of Millicent's coarse and something cruel stepmother. I have rarely read a more fragrant chapter than that in which this queer, sensitive, loyal little man tries to cut away the girl's ignorance while healing the hurt that a rougher hand (a woman's), making the same attempt, had caused. Perhaps Miss Mayne was really trying to trace to its source the stream of modern feminism. She is a rare explorer and cartographer.

A Rich Man's Table (Mills and Boon) is one of those stories that I find slightly irritating, because they appear to lead nowhere. Perhaps this attitude is unreasonable, and mere fiction should be all that I have a right to look for. But in that case I confess to wishing a little more body to it. Miss Ella MacMahon's latest novel is somehow a little flat; not even the splintered infinitive on the first page could impart any real snap to it. The rich man was Mr. Bentley Broke, a pompous person, who had one child, a son of literary leanings named Otho. Perhaps I was intended to sympathise with Otho. It looked like it at first; but later, when he left home and married, without paternal blessing, the daughter of his father's great rival, he developed into such a fool—and objectionable at that—that I became uncertain on the matter. Especially as the pompous parent, lacking nerve to carry out a matrimonial venture on his own account, relented and behaved quite decently to the rebellious pair. So the rich man's table would have, as all tables should, more than one pair of legs under it again. Nothing very fresh or thrilling in all this, you may observe. But the characters, for what they are, live, and are drawn briskly enough. And there is some skill in the contrast between a dinner of herbs in Fulham, and a stalled ox, with fatted calf, at the rich man's table in Portman Square. Perhaps this is the point of the story.

So often have I read and admired the novels of "M. E. Francis" that to praise her work has become a habit which it irks me to break. But I am now bound to say that Penton's Captain (Chapman and Hall) has not added to my debt. And the cause of the trouble—as of so many other troubles—is the War. In her own line Mrs. Blundell is inimitable, but here she is just one of a hundred or a thousand whose fiction seems trivial beside the facts of life and death. Apart from this defect, her story is absolutely without offence, a simple tale of love and misunderstandings and war and heroism, and the curtain falls upon a scene of complete happiness. Her only fault is that she has been tempted, excusably enough in these days of upheaval, to wander from her element, and I am looking forward to the day when she returns to it and I can again thank her with the old zest and sincerity.

As a painstaking study of lower middle-class life The Progress of Kay (Constable) is to be remarked and remembered. That is not, however, to say that it is exciting, for Kay's progress consisted so much in just getting older that I suspect Mr. G. W. Bullett's title to be ironical. As a child Kay had some imagination and a sense of mischief; as an adult he would have been all the better for a little military training, and there is no disguising the fact that as a married man and a father he was a dreary creature. I can well believe, from the air of truth which these pages wear, that there are plenty of Kays in the world to-day; and to confess that I was not greatly intrigued by this particular sample when he grew to man's estate is in its way a compliment to his creator. For however much you may like or dislike the mark at which Mr. Bullett has aimed there is no doubt that he has hit it. Villadom, by his art, takes on a revived significance, and Kay's career encourages reflection touched by a vague sadness.

FALSE ECONOMY.

A Tale for the Horse-Marines.

"London, Sunday.

"While a British submarine was rescuing the Zeppelin crew in the North Sea, a German cruiser fired at it.

"The Cavalry from Salonika are pursuing the remainder of the Zeppelin crew."—Egyptian Mail.

"LONDON STOCKS.

Revival in Guilt-Edged Securities."

Manchester Evening Chronicle.

Now we hope our contemporary will coin an equally felicitous description for the pillory.

"Mr. Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister, was carried triumphantly round camp last night after he had addressed nearly two thousand Anzacs on parade. Mr. Hughes was accompanied by Mrs. Hughes, Mr. Fisher, High Commissioner, and Mrs. Fisher. Brigadier-General Sir Newton Moore, Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Forces in England, was also present with Lady Moore."

Morning Paper.

It is regrettable that General and Lady Moore could not share the honours, but probably the chair was constructed to carry four only.

Transcriber's Note: A linked Table of Contents has been provided for the convenience of the reader.

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