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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158,
+March 24, 1920., 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. 158, March 24, 1920.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2005 [EBook #15912]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 158.
+
+
+
+March 24, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"Nobody knows," says a Berlin message, "how near the KAPP
+counter-revolution came to being a success." A kind word from
+Commander KENWORTHY, it is believed, would have made all the
+difference.
+
+       ***
+
+It is reported that Miss ISOBEL ELSOM, the cinema star, tried to get
+knocked down by a taxi-cab for the purposes of a film, but failed. We
+can only suppose that the driver must have been new to his job.
+
+       ***
+
+A vicar has written to the Press complaining indignantly of a London
+firm's offer to supply sermons at five shillings each. We are not
+surprised. Five shillings is a lot of money to give for a sermon.
+
+       ***
+
+The Llangollen Golf Club has decided to allow Sunday golf. In
+extenuation it is pointed out that the Welsh for "stymied" does not
+constitute a breach of the Sabbath, as is the case with the Scots
+equivalent.
+
+       ***
+
+At Caterham a robin has built its nest in a bully beef tin. These are
+the little things that give the Disposals Board a bad name.
+
+       ***
+
+A North of Ireland man who has just died at the age of 107 boasted
+that he had never had a bath. This should silence the faddists who
+pretend that they can hardly wait till Saturday night.
+
+       ***
+
+The ruins of Whitby Abbey, it is announced, are to be presented by
+their owner to the nation. On the other hand, the report that Mr.
+LLOYD GEORGE intends to present the ruins of the Liberal Party to
+Manchester City is not confirmed.
+
+       ***
+
+The latest information is that the recent German revolution had to be
+abandoned owing to the weather.
+
+       ***
+
+From a weekly paper article we gather that the trousers-crease will be
+in its accustomed frontal position this year. It is unfortunate that
+this announcement should have clashed with the attempted restoration
+of the Monarchy in Berlin.
+
+       ***
+
+Hot Cross Buns will probably cost threepence this year. An economical
+plan is for the householder to make his own hot cross and then get the
+local confectioner to fit a bun to it.
+
+       ***
+
+"There will be no whisky in Scotland in the year 1925," says a
+Prohibitionist speaker. He did not say whether there will be any
+Scotsmen.
+
+       ***
+
+No arrangement has yet been made for the carrying on of the Food
+Ministry, though it is said that one food profiteer has offered to buy
+the place as a memento.
+
+       ***
+
+"All the great men are dead," states a London newspaper. This sly dig
+at Mr. CHURCHILL'S robust health is surely in bad taste.
+
+       ***
+
+We are glad to hear that the strap-hanger who was summoned by a
+fellow-passenger on the Underground Railway for refusing to remove his
+foot from off the plaintiff's toes has now been acquitted by the jury.
+It appears that he was able to prove that he was not in a position to
+do so as his was not the top foot of the heap.
+
+       ***
+
+According to a trade journal the latest fashion in umbrellas is a
+pigeon's head carved on the handle. This, we understand, is the first
+step towards a really reliable homing umbrella.
+
+       ***
+
+The appearance of a hen blackbird without any trace of feathers on its
+neck or back is reported by a Worcester ornithologist. The attempt
+on the part of this bird to follow our present fashions is most
+interesting.
+
+       ***
+
+So much difficulty is being experienced in deciding whose incendiary
+bullet was the most effective, that it is thought possible that the
+Government may arrange for the Zeppelin raids to be revived.
+
+       ***
+
+A society paper reports that a large number of millionaires are now
+staying on the Riviera. It is not known where the other shareholders
+of COATS'S are staying.
+
+       ***
+
+In order to influence the exchange a contemporary suggests that we
+should sell our treasures to America. We understand that a cable to
+New York asking what they are prepared to pay for Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
+remains unanswered.
+
+       ***
+
+An egg weighing nine-and-a-half ounces has been laid at Bayonne,
+France. It looks like a walk-over unless _The Spectator_ has something
+up its sleeve.
+
+       ***
+
+"One hears the crying of the new-born lambs on all sides," writes a
+Nature correspondent. On the other hand the unmistakable bubbling note
+of the mint-sauce will not be heard for another month or so.
+
+       ***
+
+Will the A.S.C. private who in 1917 was ordered to take a mule to
+Sutton Coldfield please note that the animal has been sighted in
+California still chewing an army tunic, but the badges are missing?
+
+       ***
+
+"So many letters are being lost in the post nowadays," states a
+daily paper, "that drastic action should be taken in the matter." We
+understand that the POSTMASTER-GENERAL has expressed his willingness
+to be searched.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Hygienist_. "FEELING THE COLD, EH? AHA--LOOK AT ME. I
+DON'T KNOW WHAT COLD IS."
+
+_Normal Individual_. "THEN N-NATURALLY YOU D-DON'T FEEL IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A VULNERABLE SPOT.
+
+  "Lady, a word--but oh, beware!
+    And prithee do not slight it--
+  If you will have your back so bare,
+    Someone is sure to bite it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "An official of the Coal Controller's Department said that
+    everything possible would be done to relieve the situation.
+
+    'No stone will be left unturned,' he said, 'to ease the
+    position.'"--_Daily Paper_.
+
+This accounts, no doubt, for the stuff in our last half-hundredweight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A JUNKER INTERLUDE.
+
+  Once more the Militant Mode recurs
+  With clank of sabre and clink of spurs;
+  Once more the long grey cloaks adorn
+  The bellicose backs of the high-well-born;
+  Once more to the click of martial boots
+  Junkers exchange their grave salutes,
+  Taking the pavement, large with side,
+  Shoulders padded and elbows wide;
+  And if a civilian dares to mutter
+  They boost him off and he bites the gutter.
+
+  Down by the Brandenburger Thor
+  Kitchens are worked by cooks of war;
+  Loyal moustaches cease to sag,
+  Leaping for joy of the old war-flag;
+  Drums are beating and bugles blare
+  And passionate bandsmen rip the air;
+  Prussia's original ardour rallies
+  At the sound of _Deutschland ueber alles_,
+  And warriors slap their fighting pants
+  To the tune _Heil dir im Siegeskranz_.
+
+  Life, in a word, recalls the phase
+  Of the glorious Hohenzollern days.
+  What if a War's meanwhile occurred
+  And talk of a humbling Peace been heard?
+  Treaties are meant to be torn in two
+  And wars are made to be fought anew.
+  _Hoch_! for the _Tag_, by land and main,
+  When the Monarchy comes to its own again.
+
+  Surely tho wind of it, faint but sweet,
+  The Old Man sniffed in his Dutch retreat;
+  Surely it gave his pulse a jog
+  As he went for his thirteen thousandth log,
+  Possibly causing the axe to jam
+  When he thought of his derelict Potsdam,
+  Of his orb mislaid and his head's deflation,
+  And visions arose of a Restoration.
+  (If not for himself, it might be done
+  For LITTLE WILLIE or WILLIE'S son).
+
+  Alas for the chances of child or sire!
+  The _coup_ went phut, for the KAPP missed fire.
+
+O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A FLAT TO LET.
+
+It was twelve o'clock (noon) and I was sitting over the fire in our
+squalid lodgings reading the attractive advertisements of country
+mansions in a weekly journal. I had just decided on a delightful Tudor
+manor-house with every modern convenience, a nice little park and
+excellent fishing and shooting, when Betty burst upon me like a
+whirlwind.
+
+Her face was flushed and a fierce light shone in her usually mild
+blue eyes. She looked like a Maenad or the incarnation of Victory at a
+bargain sale.
+
+"Come on," she gasped, seizing me by the arm. "Hurry."
+
+"Good heavens! Is the house on fire? My child! Let me save my child."
+
+"Oh, do come on," cried Betty; "there's not a moment to be lost."
+
+"But how can I come on in slippers?" I demanded. "If I may not save
+the young Henry Augustus, at any rate let me put on my boots."
+
+Betty's only reply was to drag me from the room, hustle me through the
+hall, where I dexterously caught my hat from the stand in passing, and
+thrust me into the street.
+
+"I've got a flat," she panted. "That is, I've got it if we're quick
+enough. Hi, taxi!"
+
+"But, my dear," I remonstrated as the taxi-driver, cowed by the look
+in her eye, drew up to the kerb, "if we take a taxi we shan't have
+anything left to pay for the flat."
+
+"Victory Mansions, Trebarwith Road. Drive fast!" shouted Betty as she
+pushed me into the cab.
+
+"Now you've done it," I said bitterly. "Do you know I've only five
+pounds ten on me at the moment? We shall lose the flat while we're
+quarrelling with the driver."
+
+"Oh, dear," cried Betty, "can't you see that this is serious? It was a
+wonderful piece of luck. I was passing the mansions and I happened to
+look up just as someone was sticking up a notice, 'Flat to Let,' in
+one of the windows. There was a beast of a man on the other side of
+the street and he simply leapt across the road. I slipped, or I should
+have beaten him. As it was he got to the door a yard ahead of me. We
+looked over the flat together, but of course he was first, and he
+said he was sure it would suit him, only he must ask his wife. It was
+awful! I felt as if I must kill him."
+
+"So you followed him out and pushed him down the lift-shaft? My dear
+brave girl!"
+
+"No, but I heard him say he could be back in half-an-hour. I knew I
+could do it in twenty-five minutes. Look!" Betty crushed my hand as in
+a vice. "There he is."
+
+As we took a corner on two wheels I looked out and saw a man running.
+"Taxi!" he shouted in the hoarse voice of despair. Our driver sat like
+a graven image and we swept on in triumph.
+
+"Oh!" cried Betty suddenly, "suppose that, after all, somebody
+else----" She choked on a sob.
+
+"Courage, dear heart," I said. "All is not yet lost."
+
+A moment later we had reached Victory Mansions and made a dash for the
+flat.
+
+"Are we in time?" asked Betty as the door was opened.
+
+"I think so, Ma'am," said the smiling maid and ushered us into the
+presence of the out-going tenant. A tour of the rooms at express speed
+showed the flat to be a desirable one enough. There were three years
+to run and the rent was not extortionate--for the times.
+
+"I'll sign the agreement now," said I.
+
+"Half-a-minute," said the out-going tenant as he produced the
+documents; "I'll get a pen and ink."
+
+The whirr of an electric bell resounded through the flat.
+
+"Quick!" panted Betty. "Your fountain pen." I produced it and wrote my
+name with a hand trembling with eagerness.
+
+"A gentleman about the flat, Sir," said the maid, and, haggard, pale
+and exhausted, our defeated rival staggered into the room.
+
+He looked at us with a dumb agony in his eyes, and neither of us two
+men had the courage to deal the fatal blow. It was Betty who spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry, but we've just taken this flat," she said sweetly, and
+added with true feminine cruelty, "I saw it first, you know."
+
+The stranger lost control and crashed badly on the hearth-rug.
+
+"Poor man," said Betty to the late tenant. "Be kind to him for our
+sakes." Then she led the way to our cab.
+
+"Hotel Splendid!" I said magnificently to the driver.
+
+"Wot," he growled, "not in them slippers?"
+
+"True," I said, with what dignity I could muster, and gave him the
+address of our lodgings.
+
+"None the less," I said to Betty, "you shall lunch among the
+profiteers. This is a great day, and it is yours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    THE INTER-UNIVERSITY SPORTS.
+
+    Great interest is being taken in the plucky attempt of Cambridge
+    to beat America, Africa and Europe (with Oxford).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHAT'S IN A NAME?
+
+MATE. "WHILE WE _ARE_ DOIN' HER UP, WHAT ABOUT GIVIN' HER A NEW NAME?
+HOW WOULD 'FUSION' DO?"
+
+CAPTAIN. "'FUSION' OR 'CONFUSION'--IT'S ALL ONE TO ME SO LONG AS I'M
+SKIPPER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _First Juvenile Spectator (as the Oxford crew go out
+to practice)_. "THERE Y'ARE, 'ERR--WOT DID I TELL YER? THEY '_AVE_ GOT
+ONLY ONE OAR EACH!"
+
+_Second ditto_. "YOU WAIT TILL THE DAY OF THE RACE!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LAST OF THE WATCH DOGS.
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--In all the stirring history of the War I don't know
+which has been the most moving sight: the War Office trying to get me
+to be a soldier, or the War Oflice trying to get me to stop being a
+soldier.
+
+Before the late Summer of 1914, England had evinced no burning
+interest in its Henry. It had, in fact, left me to make my own way,
+contenting itself with cautioning me if I didn't stick to the right
+side of the road, or to fining me if I exceeded the speed limit. In
+August of that memorable year it got, you will remember, mixed up
+in rather a nasty bother. Searching for friends to get it out, it
+bethought itself of Henry, along with 499,999 others whose names for
+the moment I do not recall. Between us (with subsequent assistance) we
+set things to rights, and nothing remained for Old England save to rid
+itself gracefully of what remained of its few millions of new-found
+friends. There was, however, no shaking off its bosom pal, Henry. I
+am one of those loyal characters whose affection, once gained, nothing
+can undo. No use saying to me: "Well, old man, it's getting late now;
+you must come and see us again some other day." I am one of the sort
+who answer: "Don't you worry yourself about that. I'm going to stay
+and go on seeing you now."
+
+In the early days of demobilisation there was, I think, a certain
+novelty and attraction about my attitude to the problem. In contrast
+to the impatient hordes crowding the entrance of the War Office,
+ringing the front-door bell violently, tapping on the window-panes
+and generally disturbing that serene atmosphere of peace which was the
+great feature of the War in Whitehall, it was refreshing to think
+of Henry, plugging quietly away elsewhere at his military duties,
+undeterred by armistices, peaces and things of that kind. I fancy I
+was well thought of in those days at the War House.
+
+"Say what you like about him," I can hear A.G.4 remarking to M.S.19
+(decimal 9 recurring) as they met in the corridor on their way to
+lunch, "but I find him a patient, well-behaved young fellow."
+
+"Yes," would be the thoughtful answer, "it seems almost a pity we are
+going to lose him."
+
+Speaking strictly between ourselves, I have never thought much of the
+Military Secretary branch. What made them think they were going to
+lose me as easily as all that?
+
+What I said to myself was: "Henry, my lad, thirteen shillings and
+elevenpence a day is thirteen shillings and elevenpence a day; now
+isn't it? And war isn't war when there is a peace coming on. Why then
+throw up a fat income just for the sake of getting into long trousers?
+You stay where you are till they come and fetch you."
+
+So I just stayed where I was, and I conducted the operation with such
+ability and tact that Whitehall came to forget all about me. My name
+went on appearing, with ever-increasing dignity and beauty, in the
+Army List; but that made no difference. You see, though lots of people
+write the Army List, no one ever reads it; only from time to time
+a man will surreptitiously turn up his own name, just to renew his
+feeling of self-importance, or in an emergency he will look up the
+name of a friend in order to get the right initials after it and not
+risk giving that personal offence which may prevent the loan....
+
+But when I say that I stayed where I was I don't mean to suggest that
+I didn't go on leave in the usual way. Indeed I often came home, in
+full regimentals, too, partly to impress you and partly to travel
+first-class at your expense. Fellow-passengers never thought of
+turning on me and rending me, as being the cause of
+six-shillings-in-the-pound. They would be extremely polite and make
+friendly conversation with me, leading up to the point that they had
+been soldiers themselves once, but had given it up, owing to having
+been told that the War was finished.
+
+I would be just as polite to them, telling them they might count on
+me to return to the discomforts and risks of civil life as soon as I
+could be spared from the front. They had never the intelligence, or
+daring to ask, "The front of what?"
+
+Now the climax has arrived; I am asked if they must throw me out or
+will I go quietly? I fancy I have been caught by one of those
+card-indexes. I suspect some Departmental General of showing off to a
+friend. "This is my IN basket," I can hear him explaining as he shows
+his audience his office; "every letter which comes in goes into the
+IN. That is my OUT basket, and every letter which goes out goes out of
+the OUT.
+
+"And then, Sir, we have the Card Index. A complete record of every
+officer in the Army, permanent or temporary."
+
+"Are there still temporary officers in the Army?" asks the audience,
+not being able to think of anything better to ask, and clearly being
+called upon to ask something.
+
+"Sergeant-Major, turn up 'Officers, army, temporary, the, in,' for
+this gentleman."
+
+And thus the shameful truth comes out. One card only--mine.
+
+Exit audience wondering what manner of intrepid man this Henry might
+be.
+
+Originally the W.O. had had a great idea; they caused my regiment
+softly and silently to vanish away, thinking that I would vanish with
+it. But I had been too sharp for them. Learning that they were bent
+on "disembodying" me, and not liking the sound of the word, I had very
+quietly removed myself from my regiment to the Staff. Thus for a few
+happy months we see the W.O. rendered inert.
+
+My final defeat was due to a chance remark of my own, made to one of
+the fifty-nine officers under whose direct command I served. Upon
+my first arriving on his Staff he had said to me, "Oh, by the way,
+P.S.C., of course?" Quite affable, frank and to the point; "P.S.C., of
+course?"
+
+Not knowing the language, I could not make an equally affable answer.
+I asked him to repeat the question, but to change the code.
+
+"You have Passed Staff College, of course?" he said a little less
+affably.
+
+I then had the misfortune to answer: "Why, of course, if you mean that
+tall building on the right as I came up here from the station?"
+
+He then made up his mind that I was not only wanting in essential
+parts, but was also the sort of person who jested on religious
+subjects. He never forgot the matter; indeed, when applied to (under
+"Secret and Confidential" cover) to suggest a means of getting rid of
+me, he very clearly remembered it. At once every department in the War
+House got busy; the interest of the Secretary of State was enlisted,
+and the War Cabinet decided that for permanent purposes my post
+must necessarily be held by a P.S.C. man. Done in by what was little
+better, when you come to think of it, than a mere postscript.
+
+Please understand that there was no talk of discharging me; no talk
+of demobilising me; no talk even of disembodying me. Without any
+reflection on my conduct and merely upon the grounds that, not being
+P.S.C., I could not be regarded as quite right in the head, they
+intimated their intention of vacating my appointment by the simple
+process of an advertisement in the fashionable columns of _The London
+Gazette_.
+
+"What happens next?" I asked.
+
+"You will return to regimental duty," they said.
+
+"But there isn't any regiment," I pointed out triumphantly, "therefore
+there won't be any duty."
+
+They didn't seem to mind that, and for some time I wondered why. Then
+a thought occurred to me.
+
+"But here, I say, what about my pay?"
+
+"Ah!" said they unhelpfully....
+
+And that, my dear Charles, is why, if you keep your eye on the
+journals of (say) the Summer of 1925, you will read in the Stop-press
+Column an urgent telegram from the W.O.: "On April 1st, 1920, the
+following relinquishes his appointment
+
+(Remaining, however,
+    Yours always),   HENRY."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.
+
+    "MOTHERS' UNION.-- ... A helpful discussion followed on 'How
+    to Deal with Unworthy Members.' There were about 50
+    present."--_Parish Magazine_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Old Lady_. "WILL YOU PLEASE PUT ME DOWN AT THE SAME
+PLACE AS YOU DID LAST FRIDAY WEEK?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PRACTICE OF THE CREWS.
+
+(_Ballad after C.S.C._)
+
+  The reporter aired his aquatic lore
+    (_Popply water in Corney Reach_,)
+  A thing he had yearly essayed before;
+    And a rowing jargon obscured his speech.
+
+  The coach he coached with a megaphone
+    (_Crabtree, Craven and Chiswick Eyot_)
+  Till the crew were prone to emit a groan,
+    And the Cox said nothing but "Bow, you're late."
+
+  The Stroke he quickened to thirty-four
+    (_In the first half-minute struck seventeen_)
+  Some clocks returned it a trifle more,
+    Which wasn't so good as it might have been.
+
+  The towpath critic he shook his head
+    (_Thornycroft's, where they began to row_):
+  "Hung over the stretcher" was what he said,
+    And "missed the beginning," and "hands too slow."
+
+  The towpath critic, whoe'er he be
+    (_A tug and some barges blocked the way_),
+  For thirty odd years, it seems to me,
+    Has never found anything else to say.
+
+  The towpath critic's remarks are trite
+    (_Off Ayling's Yard in a stiffish breeze_),
+  Yet I study religiously morn and night
+    Whole columns consisting of words like these.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES.
+
+THE COMPANY-PROMOTER'S PROBLEM--HOW TO UTILISE THE BOOM IN SPRING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE GENIUS OF MR. BRADSHAW.
+
+(_By our Literary Expert._)
+
+No one will be surprised to hear that the Christian name of Mr.
+BRADSHAW was George. Indeed, it is difficult to think what other name
+a man of his calibre could have had. But many people will be surprised
+to hear that Mr. BRADSHAW is no longer alive. Whatever one thinks
+of his work one is inclined to think of him as a living personality,
+working laboriously at some terminus--probably at the Charing Cross
+Hotel. But it is not so. He died, in fact, in 1853. His first book--or
+rather the first edition of his book[1] was published in 1839; yet,
+unlike the author, it still lives. He is, in fact, the supreme example
+of the posthumous serial writer. I have no information about Mr.
+DEBRETT and Mr. BURKE, but the style and substance of their work are
+relatively so flimsy that one is justified, I think, in neglecting
+them. In any case their public is a limited one. So, of course, is Mr.
+BRADSHAW'S; but it is better than theirs. Mr. DEBRETT'S book we read
+idly in an idle hour; when we read Mr. BRADSHAW'S it is because we
+feel that we simply must; and that perhaps is the surest test of
+genius.
+
+It is no wonder that in some circles Mr. BRADSHAW holds a position
+comparable only to the position of HOMER. I once knew an elderly
+clergyman who knew the whole of Mr. BRADSHAW'S book by heart. He could
+tell you without hesitation the time of any train from anywhere to
+anywhere else. He looked forward each month to the new number, as
+other people look forward to the new numbers of magazines. When it
+came he skimmed eagerly through its pages and noted with a fierce
+excitement that they had taken off the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or
+that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He
+knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if
+you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand
+whether it was a Saturdays Only or a Saturdays Excepted.
+
+This is the exact truth, and I gathered that he was not unique. It
+seems that there is a Bradshaw cult; there may even be a Bradshaw
+club, where they meet at intervals for Bradshaw dinners, after which
+a paper is read on "Changes I have made, with some Observations on
+Salisbury." I suppose some of them have first editions, and talk about
+them very proudly; and they have hot academic discussions on the best
+way to get from Barnham Junction to Cardiff without going through
+Bristol. Then they drink the toast of "The Master" and go home in
+omnibuses. My friend was a schoolmaster and took a small class of boys
+in Bradshaw; he said they knew as much about it as he did. I call that
+corrupting the young.
+
+But apart from this little band of admirers I am afraid that the book
+does suffer from neglect. Who is there, for example, who has read
+the "Directions" on page 1, where we are actually shown the method
+of reading tentatively suggested by the author himself? The ordinary
+reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, lightly dismisses
+it as a misprint or a restaurant car on Fridays. If he had read the
+Preface he would know that it meant a SHUNT. He would know that a
+SHUNT means that passengers are enabled to continue their journey by
+changing into the next train. Whether he would know what that means I
+do not know. The best authorities suppose it to be a poetical way of
+saying that you have to change--what is called an euphemism.
+
+No, you must not neglect the Preface; and you must not neglect the
+Appendix on Hotels. As sometimes happens in works of a philanthropic
+character, Mr. BRADSHAW'S Appendix has a human charm that is lacking
+in his treatment of his principal theme, the arrival and departure
+of trains. To the careful student it reveals also a high degree
+of organisation among his collaborators, the hotel-managers. It is
+obvious, for example, that at Bournemouth there must be at least one
+hotel which has the finest situation on the South coast. Indeed
+one would expect to find that there was more than one. But no;
+Bournemouth, exceptionally fortunate in having at once the most select
+hotel on the South coast, the largest and best-appointed hotel on the
+South coast and the largest and most up-to-date hotel on the South
+coast, has positively only one which has the finest position on
+the South coast. Indeed, there is only one of these in the whole of
+England, though there are two which have the finest position on the
+East coast.
+
+How is it, we wonder, that with so much variation on a single theme
+such artistic restraint is achieved? It is clear, I think, that before
+they send in their manuscripts the hotel-managers must meet somewhere
+and agree together the exact terms of their contributions to the book.
+"The George" agrees that for the coming year "The Crown" shall have
+the "finest cuisine in England," provided "The George" may have "the
+most charming situation imaginable," and so on. I should like to be at
+one of those meetings.
+
+This is the only theory which accounts for the curious phrases we
+find so frequently in the text:--"_Acknowledged_ to be the finest";
+"_Admittedly_ in the best position." Who is it that acknowledges or
+admits these things? It must be the other managers at these annual
+meetings. Yes, the restraint of the collaborators is wonderful, and in
+one point only has it broken down. There are no fewer than seventeen
+hotels with an Unrivalled Situation, and two of these are at
+Harrogate. For a small place like the British Isles it seems to me
+that this is too many.
+
+For the rest, what imagery, what exaltation we find in this Appendix!
+Dazed with imagined beauty we pass from one splendid haunt to another.
+One of them has _three_ golf-courses of its own; several are _replete_
+with every comfort (and is not "replete" the perfect epithet?). Here
+is a seductive one "on the sea-edge," and another whose principal
+glory is its sanitary certificate. Another stands on the spot where
+TENNYSON received his inspiration for the _Idylls of the King_, and
+leaves it at that. In such a spot even "cuisine" is negligible.
+
+On the whole, from a literary point of view, the hydros come out
+better than the mere hotels. But of course they have unequalled
+advantages. With such material as Dowsing Radiant Heat, D'Arsonval
+High Frequency and Fango Mud Treatment almost any writer could be
+sensational. What is High Frequency, I wonder? It is clear, at any
+rate, that it would be madness to have a hydro without it.
+
+Well, I have selected my hotel--on purely literary grounds. Or rather
+I have selected two. One is the place where they have the Famous
+Whirlpool Baths. I shall go there at once.
+
+The manager of the other is a great artist; alone among the
+collaborators he understands simplicity. His contribution occupies
+a whole page; but there is practically nothing in it, nothing about
+cuisine or sanitation, or elegance or comfort. Only, in the middle, he
+writes quite simply THE MOST PERFECT HOTEL IN THE WORLD.
+
+A.P.H.
+
+[Footnote 1: "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide
+for Great Britain and Ireland."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A ZOOLOGICAL CURIOSITY.
+
+    "The complaint made was that men came to the district and
+    asked inflated prices for shares, far above the market value,
+    and it was argued that the new exchange would tend to obviate
+    this system of sharks feathering their nests."--_Lancashire
+    Paper_.
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.
+
+"THAT'S FINE. BUT, AS I HAVEN'T GOT ANY FILMS LEFT, I SUPPOSE THERE'S
+NO USE STAYING HERE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN INTER-SERVICE MATCH.
+
+(_With the British Army in France_.)
+
+Frederick entered the Mess with a decided sea-roll, hitched his slacks
+and berthed himself on the starboard settee.
+
+"Cheerio, my hearties," said he breezily. "Everybody on the old lugger
+still luffing along all serene?"
+
+"Why so oppressively nautical?" inquired Percival. "You haven't been
+on the leave-boat lately."
+
+"'Tis true, old messmate. I'm under the influence of my new batman,
+one 'Enery 'Enson. After a lifetime in the Marines he's now spending
+his declining days in the Army, and he's terribly infectious. I found
+myself saying, 'Ay, ay, Sir,' when the C.O. spoke to me."
+
+"I think I've noticed your 'Enery," said Percival. "Isn't he about
+ten feet high by six broad, tattooed all over like a circulating art
+gallery, and addicted to chewing quids and swabbing out your hut in
+his bare feet?"
+
+"My cabin, you mean. And says he's going ashore when he takes a trip
+down the village. That's 'Enery."
+
+"Incidentally he's a confirmed bath-lifter," interjected Binnie.
+"Yesterday morning my batman prepared me a tub, and while he was
+fetching me along your hulking pirate boosted out my sponge and towels
+and installed your lily-white self in it. You were so busy wallowing
+in my hot water that you never heard my protests on the door. You
+really must curb his buccaneering instincts, old Tirps."
+
+"I accept no responsibility for his methods," said Frederick
+haughtily; "I merely profit by them. In any case I didn't _take_ your
+hot water; I simply used it. You should live near the bath-house and
+get up promptly when you are called, as I do."
+
+"Well, I don't mind the British Navy ruling the waves," grumbled
+Binnie, "but I object to its extending its sphere of influence over my
+bath-water."
+
+"It jolly well doesn't extend over mine," said Percival with pride.
+"Frederick's 'Enery doesn't get the better of my Elfred. This morning
+a queue, consisting of two perfectly good Loots, a really excellent
+Skipper and a priceless Major were waiting for vacant baths. But was
+Elfred Fry dismayed? To forestall an answer that might possibly be
+wrong I may say that he wasn't. He promptly appropriated a cubicle
+that happened to be unoccupied--"
+
+"Really, my frowsty old Camembert, don't ask us to believe that they
+had _all_ overlooked it," expostulated Frederick.
+
+"Not for worlds would I endeavour to impose on your gentle trusting
+natures. So far from their overlooking it the bath had been the
+subject of earnest scrutiny, and they had all regretfully come to
+the conclusion that it lacked one important attribute of a bath--it
+wouldn't hold water. The plug was missing."
+
+"And by a singular chance the plug happened to be in the possession of
+your Elfred?"
+
+"That is my case, me luds," said Percival simply. "If the silent Navy
+wants to beat my Elfred it's got to rise very early in the morning."
+
+"We shall see," said Frederick darkly. "I'm going to tell this tale to
+the Marines."
+
+That evening the troops had organised a stupendous boxing tournament
+in the Recreation Hut. Binnie by invitation combined the offices
+of referee, M.C. and timekeeper, and Frederick and Percival at the
+ring-side unanimously disagreed with his verdicts.
+
+"Most appalling decision," said Percival in a loud whisper. "The
+referee has obviously been got at."
+
+"Sh!" replied Frederick. "He hasn't been told it's a boxing contest.
+He thinks it's a clog-dancing competition and is giving the points for
+footwork."
+
+Unfortunately the M.C. did not hear. He was speaking himself.
+
+"The next bout should conclude our programme," he said, "but I am
+asked to announce that Private Henson challenges Private Fry to box
+six two-minute rounds, backing himself for five francs against a small
+article of no intrinsic value."
+
+Enthusiastic applause greeted the announcement. A disturbance in the
+rear of the hut indicated that Elfred was heading for cover.
+
+"'E 's twice my size," he wailed as strong hands hauled him back.
+
+"The challenger admits that he holds a slight advantage in weight,"
+continued the M.C., "but considers that is counterbalanced by his
+advanced years."
+
+"This is _your_ fiendish work," hissed Percival to Frederick.
+
+"Not a bit of it, old sportsman," replied Frederick cheerfully. "The
+patent rights are held by 'Enery. I merely mentioned to him that
+Elfred possessed a desirable bath-plug that it might be useful to
+acquire."
+
+Percival left his seat to confer with the shrinking Elfred.
+
+"'E can 'ave the old bath-plug an' welcome, Sir, as far as I'm
+concerned," said the latter.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said Percival. "You must make a fight for it. The honour
+of the Army is at stake."
+
+"I ain't all that set on the honour of the Army," said Elfred. "But
+'im being the challenger, shouldn't I be justified in putting the plug
+in one of my gloves?"
+
+"The rules don't provide for such a contingency. Hurry up now and get
+stripped, and I'll give you twenty francs if you win."
+
+Both combatants were warmly received. 'Enery's decorative tattooing
+was much admired, and Elfred was urgently requested not to spoil
+the pictures. By desire of the referee the stakes were handed to
+him--Frederick producing the five francs for 'Enery--and the battle
+commenced.
+
+It was early evident that the Navy intended shock tactics, while the
+Army favoured a system of elastic defence. A salvo of short-arm jabs
+by 'Enery was answered by long-range sniping on the part of Elfred,
+no direct hits being recorded. Towards the end of the round 'Enery
+attempted to approach under cover of a smoke screen, but action was
+broken off at the sound of the gong.
+
+The second round opened sensationally. Elfred, on the advice of his
+seconds, was "making use of the ring" when he accidentally collided
+with his opponent coming in the reverse direction and gave him a
+violent thump without return. There seemed every prospect of trouble,
+but clever footwork prevented the incident developing into a _fracas_.
+Round two concluded with Elfred leading handsomely by one point to
+nothing.
+
+"Two to one on Elfred," said Percival excitedly.
+
+"Take you--in bath plugs," answered Frederick, carefully entering the
+bet.
+
+'Enery equalised in the third round, Elfred having incautiously
+wandered into the track of a stray upper-cut and bounced off. More
+footwork followed, Elfred winning by about two yards. Both were
+breathing heavily when time was called, and 'Enery was complaining
+about his bronchitis.
+
+Skirmishing tactics in the fourth round resulted in Elfred having
+a narrow escape from being torpedoed beneath the belt, and during
+several subsequent clinches he was requested to stop studying the
+pictures and get on with the business.
+
+The fifth and sixth rounds were marked by the departure of most of the
+spectators, and in the end a draw was the only possible verdict.
+
+"But what about the plug, old scout?" asked Percival, as they wandered
+back to their quarters.
+
+"As referee," answered Binnie, "I gave a draw; as Battalion Boxing
+Board of Control I order the match to be re-fought in six months'
+time, to give the men a chance to get into condition; and meanwhile as
+stakeholder I continue to hold the five francs and the bath-plug."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Profiteer_ (_to M.F.H._). "LOOK 'ERE!--THIS IS THE
+THIRD TIME I'VE BEEN OUT WITH YOUR CROWD, AN' Y' 'AVEN'T CAUGHT A
+FOX. BEST THING _YOU_ CAN DO IS TO GIMME BACK ME 'SUB' AN' SELL YER
+BLOOMIN' DOGS!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: _BLUSTEROUS PERSON_ (_WHO HAS FORCED A CIGAR ON
+UNWILLING CLUB ACQUAINTANCE_), "THERE MY BOY--YOU DON'T OFTEN SMOKE A
+THING LIKE THAT! THAT'S SOMETHING LIKE A CIGAR, EH?"
+
+_The Victim_. "YES--SOMETHING. WHAT IS IT?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TRUE SONG-STUFF.
+
+    [A writer in an evening paper describes a certain song as
+    being sung, "sometimes with a lump in the throat and a tear in
+    the eye," all over England.]
+
+  If you wish to succeed as a writer
+    Of songs that undoubtedly count,
+  By making the atmosphere brighter,
+    The moral barometer mount,
+  Then be it your aim and endeavour to try
+  For the lump in the throat and the tear in the eye.
+
+  SCRIABINE and STRAVINSKY may flatter
+    The ears of the brainy _elite_,
+  But the musical numbers that matter
+    Express what is simple and sweet;
+  You may easily miss, by aspiring too high,
+  Both the lump in the throat and the tear in the eye.
+
+  Though cynics conspire to repress it,
+    To sentiment, "heavenly link"
+  (As the Bard of Savoy would address it),
+    With joy "I eternally drink;"
+  For it gives us the key, which no science can buy,
+  To the lump in the throat and the tear in the eye.
+
+  But, if you are anti-Victorian
+    And, scorning the coo of the dove,
+  Hold the roar of the primitive Saurian
+    The final expression of love,
+  You may have, if you choose, an alternative shy
+  At a tear in the throat and a lump in the eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "For 70 years Regent Street has basked in sunshine, and now
+    it is to be cast into shadow again. It will be like a gloomy
+    canon between dour stone walls."--_Daily Chronicle_.
+
+We have heard of a gloomy Dean, whose habitat answers to the
+description given. Can this be his understudy?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The 'brasses' worn by the modern cart-horse are a direct
+    survival of the amulets which bedecked the horses of the time
+    of Julius Caesar. They are worn on the farthingale as charms
+    against the Evil Eye."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+You should see our Clydesdale in her crinoline.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN UNPOPULAR REVIVAL.
+
+FRITZ. "THIS IS NO GOOD TO ME NOW. YOU WANT A SWELLED HEAD FOR THIS
+SORT OF THING."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, March 15th_. The great Food-prices debate hardly justified
+its preliminary advertisement. Mr. MCCURDY took sure ground when he
+argued that high prices were mainly due to world-shortage; and,
+though he entered more disputable territory when he declared that the
+Profiteering Act was not primarily intended to punish profiteers,
+Mr. ASQUITH did not seriously attempt to dislodge him. Indeed, the
+EX-PREMIER'S speech was mainly composed of truisms, his only excursion
+into the speculative being an assertion--with which not all economists
+will agree--that inflation of currency is a consequence and not a
+cause of high prices.
+
+An ex-Food Controller, Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS, defended the Government
+against charges of extravagance, and ventured to remind Labour--as
+THOMAS DRUMMOND reminded Irish landlords--that it had duties as well
+as rights.
+
+Early in the evening the PRIME MINISTER, who had sat through many
+speeches in readiness for the threatened attack, folded his notes and
+silently stole away.
+
+On the adjournment General PAGE CROFT accused the Ministry of
+Munitions of unfair treatment to one of its employees. The peroration
+to Mr. KELLAWAY'S spirited defence deserves quotation: "The decision
+taken by the Ministry is a decision that will stand." That's the stuff
+to give 'em.
+
+_Tuesday, March 16th_.--"The LORD CHANCELLOR was so unusually
+apologetic in his exposition of the War Emergency Laws (Continuance)
+Bill that none of the Peers had the heart seriously to oppose him.
+Lord SALISBURY took note of the Government's admission that they
+were anxious to say Good-bye to D.O.R.A. and only complained that the
+farewell ceremony was so long-drawn-out. Lord BUCKMASTER failed to
+understand why D.O.R.A. should have a longer life in Ireland than in
+England, and was so carried away by his own eloquence as to declare
+that all the crimes attributed to the Sinn Feiners had been due
+"to misguided attempts to enforce special legislation against a
+misunderstood and a gallant people." Lord BIRKENHEAD replied that
+there was at least a plausible case for the contention that the boot
+was on the other leg.
+
+[Illustration: "CONTROLLERS" CONTROLLED.
+
+MR CLYNES. MR. MCCURDY. MR. G. ROBERTS.]
+
+It is unusual to find Members of the House of Commons objecting to
+their speeches being reported, but apparently some of them do--when
+the reporters are police constables. The HOME SECRETARY thought it
+quite possible that if Members attended certain meetings the official
+stenographers might think it worth while to take down their utterances
+but I gathered that he was not prepared to give any guarantee on the
+subject, and that Colonel WEDGWOOD and Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY must
+not count too confidently on having a further road to fame opened to
+them.
+
+[Illustration: THE CORNUCOPIA, OR HORNE OF PLENTY. SIR ROBERT HORNE.]
+
+Mr. BONAR LAW read a telegram from Lord KILMARNOCK regarding the
+situation in Berlin. As it was already a day old, was admittedly based
+on a _communique_ from _Wolff's Bureau_, "censored" by Mr. TREBITSCH
+LINCOLN (late Liberal Member for Darlington), and had in the meantime
+been officially contradicted by the old Government, it did not add
+much to our knowledge.
+
+Time was when it was usual to move to reduce a Vote by a hundred
+pounds if you wanted to defeat the Government. But such paltry figures
+are no good in these spacious days. Sir DONALD MACLEANS'S proposed
+reduction in the Vote on Account for the Civil Services was the
+much more mouth-filling morsel of one hundred million pounds. Mr.
+CHAMBERLAIN considered it very handsome of the Opposition, on the
+eve, he understood, of coming into office, thus to cut off its own
+supplies. Nevertheless he declined to accept the generous offer. Our
+finances would be all right if the House would back the Government by
+practising economy as well as preaching it. As it was, he thought the
+worst was over, for--strange and agreeable phenomenon--the floating
+debt was sinking.
+
+After this it was, perhaps, not very complimentary'of Mr. J.W. WILSON
+to urge the Government to put forth their best speakers. The PRIME
+MINISTER was still coy, but Sir ROBERT HORNE, in virtue of his new
+office as President of the Board of Trade, stepped nimbly into the
+breach, and made a speech so cheerful both in substance and delivery
+as to justify the hope that in him the Government have found the HORNE
+of Plenty.
+
+_Wednesday, March 17th_.--Seventeen years ago Lord BALFOUR OF
+BURLEIGH, as a hard-shell Free Trader, sacrificed office sooner than
+bow the knee to the new gods of Birmingham. This afternoon he brought
+in a Bill (to safeguard "key industries" and counteract "dumping")
+which would have gladdened the heart of Mr. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. Some
+of the other Free Trade Peers were still unrepentant. Lord BEAUCHAMP,
+for example, declaring that shipping was our real "quay-industry" and
+needed no protection, announced his intention of moving the rejection
+of the Bill; and Lord CREWE, although one of the authors of the Paris
+resolutions, on which the measure was ostensibly based, thought that
+it went far beyond present necessities. The only dumps with which
+Germany was likely to be associated for some time to come were
+doleful, not aggressive.
+
+The Report of the Supplementary Estimates furnished the Commons with
+abundant points for criticism. In protesting against an increase in
+the remuneration of the Law Officers, Mr. HOGGE revealed a hitherto
+unsuspected admiration for the PRIME MINISTER, whose services, he
+considered, were most inadequately rewarded with five thousand pounds
+a year and no pension. If anyone deserved an increase of salary it was
+he.
+
+Mr. TYSON-WILSON had the temerity to complain that the Government were
+not finding work for all the disabled ex-Service men whom they trained
+in the technical schools, and laid himself open to a damaging "_tu
+quoque_" from Sir ROBERT HORNE, who pointed out that this lack of
+employment was largely due to the trade unions, which refused to admit
+these men as "improvers."
+
+In introducing the Naval Estimates for eighty odd millions Mr. LONG
+was almost apologetic for not having made them larger. The _personnel_
+has been drastically reduced, and parents are actually being offered a
+premium of three hundred pounds to remove their sons from Osborne. On
+the other hand promotion from the lower deck was to be encouraged, and
+in future every youngster entering the Navy would metaphorically carry
+a broad-pennant in his ditty-box.
+
+_Thursday, March 18th_.--A proposal to erect a military monument on
+a hill near Jerusalem was adversely criticised by Lord TREOWEN. Lord
+SOUTHBOROUGH, as a recent visitor to the Holy City, thought that the
+Government would be better advised to demolish some of the recent
+buildings, including the ex-Kaiser's ridiculous clock-tower, which had
+not even the negative merit of telling the time.
+
+In consequence of his rather exhausting seance with the Liberal
+Party the PRIME MINISTER was looking a little jaded. But he perked
+up wonderfully when Mr. WILL THORNE, _a propos_ of a story that
+the Russian Soviet Government had introduced martial law into the
+workshops, asked whether he did not think that all able-bodied people
+ought to be compelled to work. There was the old twinkle in his eyes
+as he replied that it would be very interesting to know if that was
+the view of the trade unions. From recent information I gather that
+the bricklayers, at any rate, would not subscribe to it.
+
+Upon the further consideration of the Navy Estimates General SEELY
+urged the re-establishment of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Mr.
+LONG said the Admiralty were most anxious for it. Mr. ASQUITH also
+approved, but from his ten years' experience as its President entered
+a _caveat_ against expecting the Committee to take upon itself
+executive functions. "Had it done so," he observed, "there would have
+been collisions, cross-purposes, waste of application, and in many
+cases something approaching to administrative confusion." Which
+things of course never occurred under his _regime_ of--shall I
+say?--expectant watchfulness.
+
+The rest of the debate was chiefly remarkable for Lady ASTOR'S bold
+declaration, "The sea belongs to England, and it could not be in
+better hands." Coming from a country-woman of Mr. DANIELS it was
+doubly exhilarating.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Captain_. "'ERE LET'S PACK UP NOW; IT'S GETTING LATE.
+BESIDES, THE KID WANTS HIS SHIRT BACK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "DIRECT ACTION" AT PUTNEY.
+
+    "When the Light Blues went out a second time R.C. Barrett, of
+    the winning trial eight crew, was at strike,--_Daily Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NEMESIS.
+
+  Kindly the dentist was, for he
+    Had obviously sought
+  To keep his waiting victims free
+    From apprehensive thought,
+  Providing for those souls in fear
+  The Comic Press of yesteryear.
+
+  I read those jests of days agone,
+    Those jibes at folly flown,
+  And wondered should I light upon
+    Some trifle of my own,
+  A par well pointed in its time
+  Or fragment of reputed rhyme.
+
+  Could I retrieve some sparkling fytte
+    Bedecked with _jeux de mots_,
+  I fancied that the sight of it
+    Might soothe my present woe,
+  Reminding me how once I had
+  Been quite a jocund kind of lad.
+
+  Lo, what a foolish hope was this!
+    I realised too soon
+  The special form of Nemesis
+    That waits on the buffoon:
+  _The joke I found concerned the gloom
+  Inside a dentist's waiting-room_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HE HADN'T BEEN DEAD A WEEK WHEN THEY STARTED
+QUARRELLING OVER HIS ESTATE."
+
+"DID HE LEAVE MUCH?" "NO--ONLY THREE GALLONS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LATEST PARTY.
+
+(_Being the Diary of a well-intentioned Voter_.)
+
+_Monday_. Important article in my morning paper on the serious
+political outlook. Recommends the formation of a new party to carry
+out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and
+Anarchy. Sounds excellent. The new party is to be called the People's
+Party. I decide to join it.
+
+_Tuesday_.--By a fortunate mistake my newsagent placed wrong paper on
+my step to-day. Find I was being misled by the sheet I usually take.
+A new party to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces
+of Revolution and Anarchy has already been formed. It is called the
+National Party. I decide to join it.
+
+_Wednesday_.--Attended public meeting advertised as being in support
+of the new party. Expected to hear all about the programme of the
+National Party. Instead was urged to join the Modern Party, to carry
+out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and
+Anarchy. Signed card before leaving the hall pledging my support.
+
+_Thursday_.--Dined with Brooks, who takes very grave view of the state
+of the country. Said what we really want is a new party. Went on
+to outline some urgent progressive reforms and mentioned one or two
+necessary steps for combating the forces of Revolution and Anarchy.
+Suggested that he and I should try to start a local branch of the
+Britannic Party. Seemed so enthusiastic that I hadn't the heart to
+refuse him.
+
+_Friday_.--Johnson called at the office during my busiest hour. Wanted
+to enrol me as a member of a new party, to be known as the Efficiency
+Party. No time to go into it properly, so agreed, to get rid of him.
+Anyhow, the object's a good one. It was something about progressive
+reforms and combating the forces of Revolution and Anarchy.
+
+_Saturday_.--Heard at the Club that if the Coalition is not better
+supported in their attempts to carry out progressive reforms and
+combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy, they will form themselves
+into a new party and go to the country. Locally we are to have, in
+addition to the retiring Coalitionist, a Free Liberal candidate, a
+Labour Party candidate, a couple of Independent candidates, a People's
+Party candidate, a National Party candidate, a Modern Party candidate,
+a Britannic Party candidate, and an Efficiency Party candidate. Afraid
+this would make my position extremely complicated. Decide to give
+undivided support to the Coalition in the hope of averting a General
+Election.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RUSSIAN DANCERS."
+
+With that uncanny tuition of his Sir JAMES BARRIE has, of course, hit
+on the precise truth. Russian dancers are not born but made--by the
+_Maestro_, which I take it is (broadly speaking) Italian for Producer
+and Presenter.
+
+When _Karissima_ goes on a visit to the stately home of the _Veres_
+the peace of that ancient haunt of the conventionally correct is
+queerly broken. Young _Lord Vere_ loses his heart. However, that might
+just as easily or more easily have happened if the Gaiety had been
+invited. But a dreadful change comes to _Uncle Bill_--he buys his
+clothes ready-made (at _La boutique fantasque_, for a guess, or
+possibly Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY'S), grows dundrearies and goes hopelessly
+off his game at golf.
+
+_Karissima_, poor dear, can't walk or talk or putt, for that matter,
+except with her toes. _Bill_ calls this last cheating, but young
+_Vere_ thinks it simply adorable--as do we all. _Lady Vere_, his
+mother, can't get used to being kissed by _Karissima_, who _will_
+stand upon her lightly with one foot, oddly waving the other
+meanwhile in the air. Besides it takes too long and _is_ rather too
+demonstrative. And couldn't _Karissima_ dear just try to walk with
+her soles really flat on the ground in the solid English county way?
+Certainly. _Karissima_ will try, to please Madame, and with painful
+effort achieves a half-dozen clumsy steps till unconquerable habit and
+Mr. ARNOLD BAX'S allusively witty music lift her on tiptoe again. And
+really she is such a darling that the once reluctant dowager finally
+consents to the marriage; wedding bells forthwith (within); a
+white-haired clergyman, surprised at nothing, as becomes the very
+best type of padre, appears; follow _corps de ballet_ bridesmaids; and
+_Bill_ gives her away.
+
+_Karissima_, says _Vere_ to _Maestro_ later in the evening, is
+depressed. Because she hasn't a child. They both tremendously want a
+child. _Maestro_, silently showing his watch-dial, would seem to wish
+to suggest that they were unreasonably impatient. _Karissima_ also
+pleads. Well, he will see what he can do. But there's an awful
+penalty. For a new Russian dancer cannot be made unless another
+surrenders life. Anyway he fetches his black bag. And _Karissima_
+dances down the main staircase with her babe, who grows apace and is
+shortly seen prancing in the garden (on his toes--"Thank Heaven!" says
+the _Maestro_).
+
+And _Karissima_ dies and is brought in on her bier, and dances (she
+_would_!) her own funeral service. _Maestro's_ heart is touched; he
+lies down in her stead, and she, dancing on a carpet of thistle-down
+shot with stars (I think), and her lord (I am sure), perpetually
+exclaiming, "How perfectly topping!"--both achieve an enviable
+immortality.
+
+Madame KARSAVINA is exquisite; she is well supported by Mr. C.M.
+LOWNE (_Hon. Bill_), Mr. HERMAN DE LANGE (_Maestro_), Miss G.
+STERROLL(_Dowager_), and Mr. BASIL FOSTER (_Lord Vere_). And I
+thought I detected Mr. DU MAURIER'S appreciation of the bizarre in his
+production. But the triumph is the triumph of the whimsical author. I
+don't think he has ever done anything better; more ambitious things,
+yes, but nothing so free from flaw.
+
+Isn't it more than possible that just three-score years ago, on a May
+day (see _Who's Who_), some Maestro of Fantasy slipped into a little
+house in Kirriemuir, N.B., with a black bag? Wouldn't that explain the
+otherwise inexplicable, the unwearying resourcefulness, the unabashed
+playfulness of this impenitent youth?
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DRAM.BAC.
+
+A suggestion has been put forward, with the support of the British
+Drama League and others, for the establishment at our universities of
+a "Faculty of the Theatre and Dramatic Degree." Heartily applauding
+the proposal, we append a typical examination paper for the final
+school:--
+
+(1) Sketch briefly the progress of amateur acting in this country,
+from the impersonation of a Danish minstrel by ALFRED THE GREAT, to
+the Victory Varieties Matinee arranged by Lady Eve Tatlery.
+
+(2) Arrange, in order of probability, the first fifty authors of
+SHAKSPEARE.
+
+(3) "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton."
+Estimate the rival claims of the Windsor Strollers.
+
+(4) Indicate your make-up for ROMULUS, HENRY THE EIGHTH, ABRAHAM
+LINCOLN.
+
+(5) What is a point, and how made? A "straight" line lies evenly
+between any good points; give instances.
+
+(6) Under what dramatic conditions can a part be greater than the
+whole? Cite the authority of any two actor-managers for this theory.
+
+(7) Explain, with diagrams, (a) The Eternal Triangle; (b) Squaring the
+Upper Circle.
+
+(8) Illustrate the axiom that the length of a run varies with the
+breadth of the dialogue.
+
+(9) What proportion of the music-hall comedians of Great Britain is
+supplied by (a) Lancashire; (b) Scotland?
+
+(10) Which European drama requires most doors for its honeymoon
+farces?
+
+(11) "What Manchester thinks to-day England will think next
+Sunday evening." Analyse this statement in its bearing upon the
+play-producing societies.
+
+(12) "Let who will make a nation's laws so that I make its songs."
+Discuss the ethical and sociological significance of this with regard
+to (a) "Where do flies go in the winter-time?" (b) "I _do_ like-an egg
+with my tea."
+
+In the _viva-voce_ portion of the examination, candidates for Honours
+will be required to satisfy the examiners (to the point of actual
+tears) by their recital of selected passages from prepared books.
+They may offer any two of the following: "Buckingham's Farewell;" "The
+Signalman's Daughter;" "The Death of Little Nell" (_with voices_).
+
+For candidates not seeking Honours a passable imitation of Mr. GEORGE
+ROBEY will entitle to one group.
+
+A.E.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TWO VIEWS.
+
+  There was a high priest of illusion
+  Who rose by his leader's extrusion;
+        By way of amends
+        He invites his old friends
+  To extinguish their prospects by Fusion.
+
+  There was a great foe of delusion,
+  Who came to the honest conclusion
+        That Socialist Labour
+        Plays beggar-my-neighbour
+  And sought to defeat it by Fusion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A LEAP-YEAR RECORD.
+
+    "CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY SPORTS.--H.M. Abrahams winning the
+    long jump with a distance of 22yds. to his credit."--_Picture
+    Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "THE PREMIER AND HIS FUTURE.
+
+    WHITHER GOETH THOU?"--_Headings in Daily Paper_.
+
+Answer adjudged correct: "I knowest not."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Wanted, a Horse for its keep. Excellent cuisine."--_The Times
+    of Ceylon_.
+
+_A la_ cart, we presume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A roof garden for cats is included in the scheme for
+    the extension of the premises of Our Dumb Friends'
+    League."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+We have heard the nocturnal cat on the tiles called many names, but
+never a "dumb friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The Police announce that dogs without dollars found wandering
+    after 10 p.m. are liable to be destroyed."--_Hong Kong Paper_.
+
+We understand, however, that in China dogs are almost invariably
+provided with taels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TRIALS OF THE FISH-TRADE.
+
+"CLOTHES, MY DEAR! DON'T MENTION CLOTHES. YOU OUGHT TO BE IN THE FISH
+LINE, WHY, I RUNS THROUGH A SET O' FURS IN ABOUT A MONTH!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A NOTE TO NATURE,
+
+_accounting for my previous silence in an unusually temperate March
+and also presenting an ultimatum._
+
+  Ye great brown hares, grown madder through the Spring!
+    Ye birds that utilise your tiny throttles
+  To make the archways of the forest ring
+  Or go about your easy house-hunting!
+    Ye toads! ye axolotls!
+
+  Ye happy blighters all, that squeal and squat
+    And fly and browse where'er the mood entices,
+  Noting in every hedge or woodland grot
+  The swelling surge of sap, but noting not
+    The rise in current prices!
+
+  But chiefly you, ye birds, whose jocund note
+    (Linnets and larks and jays and red-billed ousels)
+  Oft in those happier springtides now remote
+  Caused me to catch the lyre and clear my throat
+    After some coy refusals!
+
+  Ay, and would cause me now--I have such bliss
+    Seeing the star-set vale, the pearls, the agates
+  Sown on the wintry boughs by Flora's kiss--
+  Only the trouble in my case is this,
+    I do not feed on maggots.
+
+  Could I but share your diet cheap and rude,
+    Your simple ways in trees and copses lurking;
+  But no, I need a pipe and lots of food,
+  A comfortable chair on which to brood--
+    Silence! the bard is working.
+
+  Could I but know that freedom from all care
+    That comes, I say, from gratis sets of suitings
+  And homes that need not premium nor repair
+  Except with sticks and mud and moss and hair,
+    My! there would be some flutings.
+
+  So and so only would the ivory rod
+    Stir the wild strings once more to exaltation;
+  So and so only the impetuous god
+  Pound in my bosom and produce that odd
+    Tum-tiddly-um sensation.
+
+  And often as I heard the throstles vamp,
+    Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,
+  Out would I go and round the garden tramp,
+  Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,
+    And imitate their chirrup.
+
+  Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,
+    Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,
+  Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,
+  And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,
+    The curlew and the bustard.
+
+  But now--ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?--
+    Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;
+  The dear old days will not come back again
+  Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
+    Does with the nation's taxes.
+
+  Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;
+    Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;
+  And save (I do not note it in _The Times_)
+  They make exemptions for evolving rhymes,
+    Dashed if I mean to tootle!
+
+EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sportsman_ (_just emerged from the brook_). "FOUR IN,
+DID YOU SAY? DASH IT ALL--JUST MY LUCK. GOT MY GLASSES ALL MUD AND
+CAN'T SEE THER FUN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE METHODS OF GENIUS.
+
+(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)
+
+The public already know something of the painful difficulties under
+which novelists labour at the present moment owing to the paper
+shortage and the enhanced cost of book production. But "the economic
+consequences of the Peace" by no means exhaust the handicaps of the
+conscientious and sensitive novelist. We are glad therefore to note
+the efforts of _The Daily Graphic_ to enlist the sympathy of the
+public on behalf of this sorely tried and meritorious class. Our
+contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was
+reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of
+first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then
+there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged
+to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on
+arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister
+an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the
+article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis not easily put off, for we
+learn that he finds he works best in big hotels and not, as we might
+have guessed, in the sequestered tranquillity of a minaret.
+
+To some writers solitude is the true school of genius. Yet Sir
+LEWIS MORRIS found some of his happiest thoughts come to him while
+travelling in the underground, while Mr. W.B. YEATS records a similar
+experience as the result of a journey on the top of a tram-car. Your
+advanced modernists, with MARINETTI at their head, find their best
+stimulus to creative effort in the clang and clatter of machinery.
+_per contra_, to return to _The Daily Graphic_, Mrs. C.N. WILLIAMSON
+must have pretty things to look at "in business hours." But the
+happiest of all our authors is Madame ALBANESI, who "finds her
+brain-spur in a blank sheet of paper, and not the ghost of an idea
+what she is going to write about." Less fortunate writers labour
+assiduously only to leave the minds of their readers a blank, without
+the ghost of an idea of what the author has been writing about.
+
+It is a pity that Mr. W.L. GEORGE, in his interesting survey of modern
+writers of fiction in the _English Review_, has told us nothing
+about the methods of the "Neo-Victorians" and "Semi-Victorians,"
+the "Edwardians" and "belated Edwardians," and the "Georgians" and
+"Neo-Georgians." With all these classes he deals faithfully. But his
+criticism is purely literary. He fails to tell us the things that
+every reader wants to know. It is all very well to say that the
+neo-Georgians "paint in ink," but he ought to have mentioned whether
+it is green or red. Does Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON dictate to the sound
+of trumpets, garbed in crimson trouserloons? Does Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT
+cantillate his "copy" into the horn of a graphophone or use a
+motor-stylus? Does Mr. SIEGRIED SASSOON beat his breast with one hand
+while he plays the loud bassoon with the other? Does Mr. ALEC WAUGH
+use sermon-paper or foolscap? Does Mr. ALDOUS HUXLEY keep a tame
+gorilla? These are the really illuminating details that we hunger for.
+Without them it is impossible to appreciate the artistry of our young
+Masters. Mr. W.L. GEORGE has given us a glimpse of the working of
+their brains; let him now reveal to us the secrets of their workshops.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THERE'S THAT DASHED BULL OF YOURS IN MY FIELD AGAIN!
+ONE OF THSES DAYS I'LL--I'LL--WRING ITS CONFOUNDED NECK!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+_After the Day: Germany Unconquered and Unrepentant_ (JENKINS) is
+the kind of thesis-book which it is wise to read in a deliberately
+incredulous mood. Mr. HAYDEN TALBOT is an American newspaper man of
+immense resourcefulness but, I should judge, of a not conspicuously
+judicial habit of mind. That, perhaps, is hardly a newspaper man's
+business. He is after copy, and certainly there's good enough copy in
+his interviews with Count BERNSTORFF and Dr. RATHENAU, and one
+must admire his feat of getting out of these and seven other German
+publicists, including MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, the draft of a manifesto to
+the people of America, composed in the hope, vain as it happened,
+that the KAISER would break his long silence and sign it. It is the
+author's theory that it is the inner camarilla, working for a speedy
+restoration of the monarchy, that is responsible for the certainly
+uncharacteristic reticence of Amerongen. Mr. TALBOT also interviewed
+HINDENBERG, whom he found a "broken-down, inconsequential, garrulous
+example of senility" LUDENDORFF, who was very stiff and proud and
+rude; and the _fiancee_ of the man who sank the _Lusitania_. His
+general idea of Germany is summed up in the remark of Mr. MANDELBAUM,
+of New York: "All this talk about Fritz being down and out is all
+bunk!" Germany is full of energy and hate; she will soon be a monarchy
+again; will undersell the world; is assiduously preparing for air
+supremacy as the way to _revanche_. I take it that this is not so
+much a book as a _rechauffe_ of newspaper articles, which alone
+will account for its formlessness and frequent changes of plane. Mr.
+TALBOT, confessing to a total ignorance of the German tongue, seems
+quite unconscious that this imposes certain limitations on his
+capacity to make an adequate survey of a difficult problem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I may confess at once that I finished the first chapter of _The Woman
+of the Picture_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) in a mood of slight derision,
+induced by Mr. G.F. TURNER'S allowing one hero to say of the other
+that he had "the interminable limbs" of an aristocrat. To the end of
+the book indeed I was uncertain whether such occasional lapses were
+meant to illumine the character of the supposed speaker or were
+unintentional. But again to quote, this time a phrase in which Mr.
+TURNER clearly shares my own delight, "before we were through with
+the affair" such details had ceased to be of moment. The plain fact is
+that _The Woman of the Picture_ is the most breathless, irresistible
+piece of convincing impossibility you have read for ages. I decline to
+struggle with any transcription of the plot. On the wrapper you
+will observe the woman stepping bodily out of the picture, like the
+ancestors in the whisky advertisement; this, however, is a symbolic
+rather than an actual presentment. But there is plenty without it:
+a rightful heir, mountain castles amid the eternal snows, a villain
+(with sorceries), half-a-dozen attempted murders and the most
+hair-lifting duel imaginable. Soberly considered the whole business is
+a riot of delirium, belonging flagrantly to that realm where all the
+world's a screen, and all the men and women merely movies. But the
+unexpected charm of the book is that with the possible exceptions
+noticed above) it is told with a touch of distinction, even of
+subtlety, that invests its wildest audacities with an atmosphere of
+fantastic truth. In short, if Mr. G.F. TURNER has done nothing else he
+has at least enabled the fastidious to enjoy the thrills of a shocker
+while retaining their self-respect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the first of the three stories, each about a hundred pages in
+length, which make up _Gold and Iron_ (HEINEMANN), it is hard to
+escape the conviction that Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER between the lines,
+"So you thought that CONRAD was the only JOSEPH who could throw a
+man and woman together on a mysterious coast in the most strangely
+romantic circumstances, and provide a thoroughly groolly scrap into
+the bargain. Well, here's another little _Victory_ for you." He
+seems definitely to challenge that air of the extraordinary and the
+inevitable combined which Mr. CONRAD so subtly conveys. It is a big
+effort, and I don't feel that the author quite brings it off, yet I
+cannot think of anyone but Mr. CONRAD who would have come nearer to
+doing so, and the fight in the dark in this story is one that even
+after the War will make a reader catch his breath for half-a-dozen
+pages at least. In the second and third stories, which actually deal
+with gold and iron (the first of the three is called "Wild Oranges,"
+though perhaps "Blood Oranges" would have been a better title),
+the writer returns to a happier _metier_, and deals with an America
+remarkably interesting and wholly novel to me, an America where
+foundries and railways are in their infancy and crinolines are worn.
+Saloons, bowie knives and bags of gold-dust are all too familiar to
+us, but who, on this side of the Atlantic at any rate, ever remembers
+the quiet towns with Victorian manners to which the diggers belonged
+and returned? Both "Tubal Cain" and "The Dark Fleece" are excellent
+yarns and wonderful pieces of pictorial reconstruction as well.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After reading _The Searchers_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), I seriously
+think of myself joining His Britannic Majesty's Secret Service.
+All the fun and firearms, and ever, at the conclusion, a startling
+surprise for your friends and admirers, among whom you stand cool,
+calm and collected. _Anthony Keene-Leslie_ did not deceive me
+when, upon his first introduction as a secret servant, he modestly
+disclaimed the thrills and excitements commonly attributed to his
+trade. I knew that many pages would not be turned before he would
+land us in the middle of some crimson intrigue; mysterious strangers,
+disguises, cryptic and invaluable manuscripts, urgent telegrams,
+codes, Italian hidden hands, Scotland Yard, pseudo-taxicabs, clues
+and things. But let others beware of Mr. JOHN FOSTER, a most ingenious
+manipulator of the old stock-in-trade and possessing a rare sense of
+humour. For the reader to pit his wits against the author's is,
+in this instance, to be completely "had" and to become under the
+necessity (about page 265) of taking off his hat, not only to the
+secret servant but to a mere minion of the "Yard" also. Two minor
+points emerge from a close study of the book. The first is that the
+author is undoubtedly a barrister himself; if I am wrong on this point
+I finally withdraw my threat to join the Service. The second point is
+that he knows his Scotland even as well as he loves it. In the result
+you have two merits, which together amply discount the element of
+cheap sensationalism: one merit is the logical development of the
+story, and the other is its beautiful setting. I don't know whether
+it is due to the Scottish climate or to the legal atmosphere that
+the author omits all reference to the feminine sex or affairs of the
+heart; but anyhow it seemed right and meet that women should be
+left at home when men were engaged upon such violent and dastardly
+business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From certain internal evidences, mainly orthographical, I am led to
+suppose _The Branding Iron_ (CONSTABLE) to be of Transatlantic origin.
+This, no doubt, explains my unfamiliarity with the name of Miss
+KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT, also certain minor points, notably the fact
+that the story, though by no means badly told, suffers from what I can
+only call a plethora of plot. As I followed the developments of its
+intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the
+wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as
+private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol
+of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a
+tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of
+melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent
+that I went further and began to wonder whether I was not in fact
+reading a "story-form" of some already triumphant film. Certainly
+the resemblance is almost too pronounced to be fortuitous; from the
+sensational branding scene, through cowboy stunts, to the up-town
+playhouse, where a repentant and wife-seeking hero recognises his mark
+upon the shoulder of the leading lady--and so to reconciliation, slow
+fade-out, and the announcement of Next Week's Pictures. But though it
+is impossible not to suspect Miss BURT of having an eye to what poetic
+journalism calls the Shadow Stage, this is by no means to belittle
+her mastery of the colder medium of print; and I hasten to acknowledge
+that, upon me at least, _The Branding Iron_ has left a distinct though
+possibly fleeting impression of good entertainment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE RELUCTANT PEGASUS.
+
+A YOUNG SPRING POET HAS TROUBLE WITH HIS MOUNT.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    CANE OR BIRCH?
+
+    "House Porter wanted, to live in or out, able to manage
+    beating apparatus.--Apply, Stating wages required, to
+    Headmaster, ----- school."--_Local Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The total cost of the British delegation to the Peace
+    Conference at Paris from December, 1918, to 31st September was
+    L503,368."--_Liverpool Paper_.
+
+But it is only fair to say that in the last month they seem to have
+put in a bit of overtime.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Vol.
+158, March 24, 1920., by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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