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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. 147, December 16, 1914 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 9, 2009 [EBook #29652] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + + + + +Produced by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span></p> + +<h1>PUNCH,<br /> + +OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1> + +<h2>VOLUME 147</h2> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2><span class="smcap">December</span> 16, 1914</h2> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2> + +<p><i>T. P.'s Weekly</i>, in some sprightly lines, suggests that <i>Punch</i> should +appear daily. This would certainly not be a whit more strange than to +issue a <i>T. P.'s Weekly Christmas Number</i> as is done by our +contemporary.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Answer to a Correspondent.—Yes, khaki is the fashionable colour for +plum-puddings for the Front.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Post hoc propter hoc?</i> Extract from the Eye-Witness's description of +the KING'S visit to France:—"Another sight which excited the King's +keen interest was the large bathing establishment at one of the +divisional headquarters.... From here the procession returned to General +Headquarters, where his Majesty received General Foch and presented him +with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">John French's</span> praise of the Berkshire Regiment will surprise no one, +least of all <i>Mr. Punch's</i> Toby.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reuter</span> tells us that when <span class="smcap">De Wet</span> arrived at Johannesburg he was looking +haggard and somewhat depressed. This lends colour to the rumour that he +was annoyed at being captured.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>In a letter published by a German newspaper a Landwehr officer +writes:—"On the German front officers and men do not salute in the +usual way, but by saying, 'God punish England,' while the reply is, 'May +He punish England.'" This admission that the Germans themselves cannot +do it is significant.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Die Post</i>, in a reference to our million recruits, says, "Mere figures +will not frighten us." Frankly, some of the figures of the stout +Landwehr men frighten <i>us</i>.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>At last in Constantinople there are signs that it is being realised that +the Germans are driving the Turkish Army to Suez-side.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>When the Germans and the Russians both claim to have won the same +battle, what can one do? asks a correspondent. We can only suggest that +the matter should be referred to the Hague Tribunal.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>An item of war news which the President of the Society for the Promotion +of Propriety thinks the Censor might very well have censored:—"To the +south of Lask the Russian troops took Shertzoff."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"The Grenadier Guard, 6 ft. 7 in. high, whom the Prince of Wales noticed +in hospital, is not the tallest man in the British Army, that +distinction being claimed for Corporal Frank Millin, 2nd Coldstream +Guards, who is 6 ft. 8½ in." This, again, is the sort of paragraph +which might have been censored with advantage, for we are quite sure +that, if the <span class="smcap">Prince of Wales's</span> giant sees it, it will cause a relapse.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>For the first time for many years there were no charges of murder at the +December Sessions at the Old Bailey. It looks as if yet another of our +industries has been filched by the Germans.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Secretary of the Admiralty</span> announces that candidates for +assistant-clerkships, Royal Navy, who have completed a period of not +less than three months' actual military service with His Majesty's +Forces since mobilisation, will be granted fifty marks in the +examination. It seems a most unpatriotic proceeding to pay them in +German money.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>The Nursing Times</i> must really be more careful or we shall have the +German newspapers drawing attention to atrocities by the French. In its +issue of the 5th inst. our contemporary says:—"The 'Train unit' whose +names we gave some weeks ago have waited all this time for their call +for duty.... And now the French authorities have cut the train—and the +staff—in two!"</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Reply to those who think it absurd to take precautions against +invasion:—It's the Hun-expected that always happens.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A great fall of cliff occurred last week between Beachy Head and +Seaford, and the Germans are pointing out that the break-up of England +has now begun in earnest.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%"> +<a href="images/489.png"> +<img src="images/489.png" width="100%" alt="I'm afraid it'll have to go to the same place as my +German pipe went" /></a><br /><br /> +<p>"<span class="smcap">I'm afraid it'll have to go to the same place as my +German pipe went—the dustbin. It suited me, too</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h4>Mr. Wells on Men's Wear.</h4> + +<blockquote><p>"Her thoughts came back to the dancing little figure in +purple-striped pyjamas. She had a scared sense of irrevocable +breaches."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman.</i></p> + +<p>An obvious misprint in the last word.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h4>The Quickest Route.</h4> + +<center>"THE KING'S JOURNEY.<br /> + +<span class="smcap">Crosses Channel in Torpedo.</span>"</center> + +<p class="author"><i>Cumberland Evening Mail.</i></p> + +<p>This is the method which the <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span> means to try for his coming invasion +of England.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"Professor G. Sims Woodhead, the Board's consultative +bacteriological adviser, to whom the report had been submitted, +said: 'I consider Dr. Mair's work contains a germ of great +promise.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>Birmingham Daily Mail.</i></p> + +<p>We hope the Professor will not lose sight of the promising young +microbe.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"For any enemy ship to try to get into Dover at the present time +would be like entering the mouth of hell.</p></blockquote> + +<p>[We understand that the Admiralty have received no condemnation of +this.]"</p> + +<p class="author"><i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>We hope that none of our contemporaries will blame the Admiralty for its +lack of information.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"Rev. Owen S. Watkins, one of the Wesleyan Methodist Chaplains with +the Expeditionary Force (already mentioned in the dispatches), tells +some most extraordinary stories of his experiences at the Front."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>Public Opinion.</i></p> + +<p>We remember now some mention of this "Expeditionary Force" being made in +despatches, and we wondered at the time why the Censor allowed such a +public reference to it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The Russians quietly evacuated Lodz without the loss of a single man. +The Germans allege that they captured it after strenuous fighting.</p> + +<center> +"And how can man lie better<br /> +Than facing fearful Lodz?"<br /> +</center><br /> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> + +<h2>BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND MORNING.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>[Lines for <i>King Albert's Book</i>, published to-day for the benefit of +<i>The Daily Telegraph's</i> Belgian Relief Fund.]</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">You that have faith to look with fearless eyes</p> +<p class="i2">Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,</p> +<p class="i0">And trust that out of night and death shall rise</p> +<p class="i8">The dawn of ampler life;</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Rejoice, whatever anguish rend your heart,</p> +<p class="i2">That God has given you, for a priceless dower,</p> +<p class="i0">To live in these great times and have your part</p> +<p class="i8">In Freedom's crowning hour.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">That you may tell your sons who see the light</p> +<p class="i2">High in the heaven, their heritage to take:—</p> +<p class="i0">"I saw the powers of darkness put to flight.</p> +<p class="i8">I saw the morning break!"</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="author">O. S.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>FINANCIAL STRATEGY.</h2> + +<p>In some respects one is no doubt compelled to admire the foresight of +those gentlemen who are writing the History of the War while it is in +progress, but as Mabel (my wife and very able colleague) justly +observes, no History of the War, however copious or however fully +illustrated, can be considered complete without a few salient details of +the campaign by which The Snookeries (our domestic stronghold in +Tooting) was saved from the fate of Belgium.</p> + +<p>That omission I propose to remedy. Peace hath her strategy no less than +War.</p> + +<p>For some time prior to the Declaration of War it was evident that the +butcher, the baker, and other foes of our domestic happiness were +gathering for an onslaught. The attitude of the butcher was particularly +uncompromising: I do not hesitate to describe it as distinctly Hun-ish. +Diplomacy gave little hope of preserving peace, so that I was not +altogether surprised when the war opened with a heavy bombardment. A +brigade of small accounts advanced in skirmishing order, but were +disposed of without trouble.</p> + +<p>Mabel suggested a temporary withdrawal to the sand-dunes of +Mudville-on-Sea, but I pointed out that this meant sacrificing part of +our scanty store of ammunition and had the further disadvantage of +cutting us off from our base of supplies in the City, to say nothing of +losing touch with Uncle Robert, who has so often proved a staunch ally +in a crisis.</p> + +<p>We therefore resolved to entrench ourselves behind the Moratorium and +prepared for a stubborn resistance. From this strong position we were +able to sustain without loss a brisk fire of explosive missives which +continued unchecked for some weeks. Speaking quite candidly, and +dropping the language of the Press Bureau for the moment, there has +never been a time when the postman's rat-tat has occasioned me less +emotion.</p> + +<p>The defences of the Moratorium did not save us from sundry annoying +raids upon our supplies, the butcher being peculiarly active in this +kind of warfare. I repeat, the butcher is a true Hun and must be sternly +dealt with after the Peace. I was forced to silence him temporarily with +a few shots from my new one-pounders.</p> + +<p>I would like to say what a valuable weapon the one-pounder has proved in +this campaign. It is wonderfully mobile and saves the waste of heavier +ammunition. My only regret is that we were not armed with more of them.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of August the rate-man and the gas-man mounted heavy +ordnance upon official heights. They got our range to a nicety and +threatened us in flank. I despatched Mabel at once to Uncle Robert, and +with his assistance we were enabled to silence the enemy's howitzers, +not, however, before the rate-man—a remorseless and persistent foe—had +landed a "sheriff's officer" (as we jocularly term his missiles) into +our dining-room. Little material damage was done, but for some days the +effect upon the <i>moral</i> of our forces was apparent.</p> + +<p>I must not forget to speak of Mabel's brilliant victory over the +milkman, whose attack she frustrated by a threat to open negotiations +for obtaining supplies from his hated rival. When these troubles are +happily over I must certainly see that Mabel receives a decoration.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of October our entrenchments behind the Moratorium +became untenable, but by that time we had received substantial +reinforcements and were easily able to hold our own against the enemy's +reckless frontal attacks. The landlord suddenly unmasked a very strong +battery which created some consternation. He himself appeared in force, +but, thanks to the vigilance of my outposts, I was enabled to make a +strategic retirement by the back-garden gate, leaving Mabel to foil the +enemy by a <i>ruse-de-guerre</i>. (Dear Mabel is wonderfully clever at these +things.) I succeeded in regaining my position under cover of darkness.</p> + +<p>The attacks of the landlord were renewed with such vigour that I called +a council of war to discuss the situation. Retreat being out of the +question, Mabel suggested a levy of our last reserves, and the charwoman +(who is a discreet person of considerable experience in such matters) +was mobilised. In this way we secured a sufficient force to rout the +landlord on his next appearance.</p> + +<p>The last few days have been comparatively quiet. Mabel's dressmaker and +my tailor have reaffirmed their neutrality, and we have promise of +further support, if needed, from Uncle Robert. Thus, although the enemy +appear to contemplate a new attack in the future, we are full of +confidence.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, I must not forget to refer to the very able way in which +Mabel out-manœuvred the coal-man. Before he could unlimber, she had +deftly poured in a rapid fire of sympathy for the slackness of trade +from which she <i>knew</i> he must be suffering, and followed this up by an +order for two tons of the best Wallsend.</p> + +<p>I think I am justified in advancing the theory that there are no flies +on dear Mabel.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>OFF THE FALKLANDS, DECEMBER 8TH.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>[<i>To an old nautical air, with Mr. Punch's loud congratulations to +Vice-Admiral Sir <span class="smcap">Doveton Sturdee</span> and his brave sailors</i>.]</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Hardened steel are our ships;</p> +<p class="i4">Gallant tars are our men;</p> +<p class="i6">We never are wordy</p> +<p class="i6">(<span class="smcap">Sturdee</span>, boys, <span class="smcap">Sturdee</span>!),</p> +<p class="i0">But quietly conquer again and again.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>FOR THE CHILDREN.</h2> + +<p>The Hon. Treasurer of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond +Street (where many Belgian children are being cared for) desires to +express his sincere thanks to <i>Mr. Punch's</i> readers for their generous +response to the appeal for help which was recently made in these pages.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%"> +<a href="images/491.png"> +<img src="images/491.png" width="100%" alt="THE SINEWS OF WAR." /></a> +<h4>THE SINEWS OF WAR.</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Private Atkins</span>. "FOR WHAT WE HAVE RECEIVED—AND ARE GOING TO +RECEIVE—HERE'S TO THE A.S.C."</p> +</div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/493.png"> +<img src="images/493.png" width="100%" alt="Child" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><i>Child</i> (<i>much impressed by martial emblems opposite</i>). "<span class="smcap">Mother, is that +a soldier</span>?"</p> +<p><i>Mother.</i> "<span class="smcap">No, darling</span>."</p> +<p><i>Child</i>. "<span class="smcap">Why not</span>?"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.</h2> + +<center>No. X.</center> + +<p>(<i>From Mrs. <span class="smcap">James Prosser</span>, 25, Paradise Road, Brixton</i>.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kaiser</span>,—Jim's gone. I don't know if you'll like to hear it, him being a +good fighter. I'd warrant him to take the shine out of any two Germans I +ever met. They're big men, the Germans, but they mostly run to fat after +their <i>premmer jewness</i>, as the Belgian lady over the way said last week +when we was a-talking about 'em. I don't know what she meant, but she +didn't look as if it was anything in the way of a compliment. That's why +I've wrote it down here.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, Jim's gone. I saw him off with a lot of others, and they was all +singing and shouting as loud as their lungs would let 'em—not drink, +mind you, so don't you run away with that notion, but just high spirits +and health and happiness. First it was "Tipperary," and that made me +feel so mournful I had to give Jim a good old hug, and the little un +pulling at my dress all the time and calling out, "Let me have a go at +him, Mother," and "Don't give 'em all to Mother, Dad; keep half-a-dozen +for me," just as sensible as a Christian, which is more than you can say +of some. His name's Henery, the full name, not Henry, and we had him +christened so, to make sure. He's going on for five years now, and he's +got a leg and a chest on him to suit twice his years. I'm not saying +that because I'm his mother, but because it's the truth. After they'd +sung "Tipperary" they sang a lot of other songs. There was one in +particklar that I liked, it had such a go with it. Jim told me it was +made up by one of their own men, music and all. I misremember most of +it, but there was two lines stuck in my head:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">General <span class="smcap">French</span> is a regular blazer,</p> +<p class="i0">He's going to dust the German <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span>.</p> +</div></div> + +<p>There was a lot more about theirselves and their officers and their +colonel, who was second to none and was making tracks for the German +Hun, all as funny and clever as you could make it. I couldn't help +laughing to see 'em all so jolly. Then the engine give a whistle and the +guard said, "Stand back," and waved his green flag, and the train moved +out, and the men cheered and we cheered back, and at last they was gone, +and the little un was saying, "Don't mind me, mother. Have a good cry +and get it over;" and then we went home, and he kept talking all the way +of what he's going to do when he grows up to be a soldier himself.</p> + +<p>Well, Jim's gone, but I wouldn't have had him stay at home not for ever +so much. He was earning good money, too, in his job, but that's going to +be kept open for him so as he can drop into it again when he comes back. +And I'm going to keep his home open for him so as he can drop into that +when he comes back; there's enough money coming in to make certain of +that, what with allowances and my work. Mind you, I <i>like</i> to work; it +keeps you from thinking too much, and me and the little un manage +splendid together. He helps about the house better nor half-a-dozen +housemaids, and he's so managing it would make you die of laughing to +see him. The only trouble is he can't bear going to bed; but I tell him +if he don't the <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span>'ll catch him, and then he's off with his clothes +and into his cot like a flash of lightning.</p> + +<p>There, I've talked about myself and the little un and all the time I +meant to tell you about Jim. However, you'll know him right enough if +ever you come up against him. He's a handsome man with black hair and no +moustache, and he's got a scar over his right eye where he tumbled +against the fender when he was four years old.</p> + +<p class="regards"> +Yours without love,</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Sarah Prosser</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 40%"> +<a href="images/494.png"> +<img src="images/494.png" width="100%" alt="Genial Pedestrian" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><i>Genial Pedestrian.</i> "<span class="smcap">A bright moon to-night, constable</span>."<br /> +<i>Morbid P.C.</i> "<span class="smcap">Yes, Sir. Let's 'ope it don't draw the fire of 'ostile +air-craft</span>!"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE WATCH DOGS.</h2> + +<center>IX.</center> + +<p>Dear Charles,—As the men, for reasons best known to themselves, will +suddenly chant on the march—"We're here because we're here, because +we're here, because we're here," goodness knows when (if ever) we shall +get to the Front; so this is yet another letter for you from the Back, +where we are, much against our will, kept to deal kindly but firmly with +the German invader as, home-sick and sea-sick, he alights gloomily on +our shores. If, by the way, I have given hints in this correspondence as +to the disposition of any part of our troops, it is a comfort to think +that the artful spy who gets hold of them will have the utmost +difficulty in making up his mind as to the real or fictitious existence +of (1) my Division; (2) my Brigade; (3) my Battalion; (4) my Company; or +even (5) me.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile we are in a very difficult position, such as I believe few +soldiers have ever been called upon to face. You will remember how, four +months ago, we collected ourselves together in accordance with our +long-standing engagement to protect these islands against the foreign +trespasser, the condition of our contract being that our service should +begin (as charity should) and end (as charity often does) at home. In +the bad old days when I was at the Bar I should of course have known +that contracts are apt to turn round on those who make them; but now I +am only a plain soldier and I am unable to understand why I should be +made to stay at home when I desire to go and make a nuisance of myself +abroad. But the real trouble comes from this, that some six weeks ago I +received written and explicit orders to the effect that I was to sail +forthwith.</p> + +<p>Suppose this had happened to you and you had been given special leave of +forty-eight hours to make all necessary preparations, would not you have +gone where your more impressionable acquaintances and friends were +gathered together in the greatest numbers, informing them of the +position and doing, on the strength of it, a quiet but irretrievable +swank? No ostentation, mark you, and nothing approaching a boast, but +just a suspicion of a brave careless laugh, a voice just slightly choked +with emotion and but a formal reluctance to accept the numerous and +costly gifts proffered by relatives who at less emotional times would +have grudged you a Christmas card?</p> + +<p>We did. We went home and were made a fuss of; we took our leave and nice +things were said to us, tears welled, and hands, peculiarly firm or +peculiarly tender as the case might be, held ours for rather longer than +the customary period. With a brave "Pooh! Pooh! It doesn't matter in the +least," we went off at last, off amid deafening cheers to the unknown +future....</p> + +<p>The following week-end we were home again as before, but, since the joy +of a temporary reprieve may outweigh even the annoyance of an +anticlimax, they were pleased to see us and gave us another farewell +only slightly less emotional than the last. But on the third of this +series of week-ends a note of insincerity crept into the "Goodbye, old +man," and the hand-pressure was slightly curtailed.</p> + +<p>Alas! there have been even more week-ends since that. I trust it is only +our self-consciousness makes us think that we are looked upon as frauds, +who have obtained by false pretences the field-glasses, electric +torches, knitted wares, tears, hand-clasps and choicest superlatives of +our friends. It becomes worse as time passes; we do not go home now, and +we would even refrain from writing if we could hope by that means to +have our whereabouts unknown and our existence doubtful. If the +authorities won't part with us, they might at least give us an address +which would make it look as if they had—something like "Capt. Blank, +Blankth Blank Regt., Blankth Fighting Force, c/o G.P.O." What will +happen is that we shall go suddenly and without time to explain, and, +when our friends are told, their faces will cloud over, not with sorrow +at our departure but with annoyance at being pestered with the news of +it again. It is a hard life, is a soldier's!</p> + +<p>One bold bad private informed our most youthful orderly officer, upon +being asked if he had had a sufficient breakfast: "Yes, thank you, Sir: +a glass of water and a woodbine;" otherwise personal idiosyncracies +become less marked, since individualities become merged in the corporate +machine. The battalion is cross as a whole, nervy as a whole, laughs as +a whole, almost sneezes or has indigestion as a whole. Recalling the +good old days of annual camps, when energy used to be rewarded with free +beer rather than demanded as a matter of course, the battalion as often +as not sings as a whole while route-marching at ease past the C.O.:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">"Nobody knows how dry we are,</p> +<p class="i0">Nobody knows how dry we are,</p> +<p class="i0">Nobody knows how dry we are,</p> +<p class="i2"><span class="smcap">And nobody seems to care</span>."</p> +</div></div> + +<p>While the conduct of all of us becomes every day more disciplined, our +speech, I have to report with regret, becomes more loose. Emphasis is an +essential of military life, and it must be such emphasis as the least +intelligent may readily appreciate. Sometimes I tremble to think in what +terms I may inadvertently ask some gentle soul later on in life to pass +the marmalade, or with what expletives I may comment upon some little +defect in domestic life. My literary friend, John, has shamelessly +compiled a short phrase-book for our use abroad, reproducing our present +regrettable idioms. One inquiry, to be addressed to the local peasant by +the leading officer, runs thus:—"Can you tell me, Sir, where the enemy +is at present to be found?"—"<i>Où sont les Boches sanguinaires?</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other point of view as to going to the Front was put last Sunday +with unconscious aptness. At breakfast we had read aloud to us a letter +written with inspiring realism by a Watch Dog who is actually there and +seeing life in all its detail in the trenches. Having listened to it +with rapt attention, we then marched to church and (actually) sang with +unanimous fervour:-</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">"The trivial round, the common task</p> +<p class="i0">Will furnish all we need to ask...."</p> +</div></div> + +<p>Nevertheless more to be feared than the enraged German is the sceptical +scornful Aunt of</p> + +<p class="regards">Yours ever,</p> +<p class="author">Henry.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/495.png"> +<img src="images/495.png" width="100%" alt="AT A MILITARY WEDDING" /></a> +<h4>AT A MILITARY WEDDING.</h4> +<p><i>Usher</i> (<i>to Uninvited Guest</i>). <span class="smcap">"Bride's friends to the right; +Bridegroom's to the left."</span></p> +<p><i>Uninvited Guest.</i> <span class="smcap">"I'm afraid I'm a neutral."</span></p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"Washington, Saturday.—The American Ambassador at Constantinople +reports that Turkey has acquiesced in the departure of several +Canadian missionaries, whose safe conduct was requested by Sir Cecil +Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador here."</p></blockquote> +<p class="author"><i>People.</i></p> + +<p>This is headed "Millionaires Released," and shows how well the clergy +are paid in Canada.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>LITTLE BROTHER.</h2> + +<center>(<i>The Indian Jackal.</i>)</center> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Panther, tiger, wolf and bear,</p> +<p class="i2">They live where the hills are high,</p> +<p class="i0">Where the eagle swings in the upper air</p> +<p class="i2">And the gay dacoit is nigh;</p> +<p class="i0">But we live down in the delta lands,</p> +<p class="i2">A decenter place to be—</p> +<p class="i0">The frogs and the bats and Little Brother,</p> +<p class="i2">The pariah dogs and me.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">He was a Rajah once on a time</p> +<p class="i2">Who is Little Brother now;</p> +<p class="i0">And I know it is all for monstrous crime</p> +<p class="i2">Or shamefully broken vow</p> +<p class="i0">That he slinks in the dust and eats alone</p> +<p class="i2">With a pious tongue and free;</p> +<p class="i0">For a holy man is Little Brother,</p> +<p class="i2">As beggars ought to be.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But whether he lurks in the morning light</p> +<p class="i2">Where the tall plantations grow,</p> +<p class="i0">Or wanders the village fields by nights</p> +<p class="i2">Telling of ancient woe;</p> +<p class="i0">Or whether he's making a sporting run</p> +<p class="i2">For me and a dog or two,</p> +<p class="i0">An uncanny beast is Little Brother</p> +<p class="i2">For Christian eyes to view.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">For there comes an hour at the full o' the moon</p> +<p class="i2">When the Boh-tree blossoms fall,</p> +<p class="i0">And a devil comes out of the afternoon</p> +<p class="i2">And has him a night in thrall;</p> +<p class="i0">And he hunts till dawn like a questing hound</p> +<p class="i2">For souls that have lost their way;</p> +<p class="i0">And it's well to be clear of Little Brother</p> +<p class="i2">Till the good gods bring the day.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Wherefore I think I will end my song</p> +<p class="i2">Wishing him fair good night,</p> +<p class="i0">For Little Brother's got something wrong</p> +<p class="i2">That'll never on earth come right;</p> +<p class="i0">And this perhaps is the honest truth,</p> +<p class="i2">And the wisest folk agree,</p> +<p class="i0">The less I know about Little Brother</p> +<p class="i2">The better by far for me.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> + +<h2>HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE TRENCHES.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Old mother mine, at times I find</p> +<p class="i4">Pauses when fighting's done</p> +<p class="i0">That make me lonesome and inclined</p> +<p class="i0">To think of those I left behind—</p> +<p class="i4">And most of all of one.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">At home you're knitting woolly things—</p> +<p class="i4">They're meant for me for choice;</p> +<p class="i0">There's rain outside, the kettle sings</p> +<p class="i0">In sobs and frolics till it brings</p> +<p class="i4">Whispers that seem a voice.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Cheer up! I'm calling, far away;</p> +<p class="i4">And, wireless, you can hear.</p> +<p class="i0">Cheer up! you know you'd have me stay</p> +<p class="i0">And keep on trying day by day;</p> +<p class="i4">We're winning, never fear.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Although to have me back's your prayer—</p> +<p class="i4">I'm willing it should be—</p> +<p class="i0">You'd never breathe a word to spare</p> +<p class="i0">Yourself, and stop me playing fair;</p> +<p class="i4">You're braver far than me.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">So let your dear face twist a smile</p> +<p class="i4">The way it used to do;</p> +<p class="i0">And keep on cheery all the while,</p> +<p class="i0">Rememb'ring hating's not your style—</p> +<p class="i4">Germans have mothers too.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And when the work is through, and when</p> +<p class="i4">I'm coming home to find</p> +<p class="i0">The one who sent me out, ah! then</p> +<p class="i0">I'll make you (bless you) laugh again,</p> +<p class="i4">Old sweetheart left behind.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>HIGH JINKS AT HAPPY-THOUGHT HALL.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>[<i>An inevitable article in any decent magazine at this time of the +year. Read it carefully, and then have an uproarious time in your +own little house.</i>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was a merry party assembled at Happy-Thought Hall for Christmas. The +Squire liked company, and the friends whom he had asked down for the +festive season had all stayed at Happy-Thought Hall before, and were +therefore well acquainted with each other. No wonder, then, that the wit +flowed fast and furious, and that the guests all agreed afterwards that +they had never spent such a jolly Christmas, and that the best of all +possible hosts was Squire Tregarthen!</p> + +<p>But first we must introduce some of the Squire's guests to our readers. +The Reverend Arthur Manley, a clever young clergyman with a taste for +gardening, was talking in one corner to Miss Phipps, a pretty girl of +some twenty summers. Captain Bolsover, a smart cavalry officer, together +with Professor and Mrs. Smith-Smythe from Oxford, formed a small party +in another corner. Handsome Jack Ellison was, as usual, in deep +conversation with the beautiful Miss Holden, who, it was agreed among +the ladies of the party, was not altogether indifferent to his fine +figure and remarkable prospects. There were other guests, but as they +chiefly played the part of audience in the events which followed their +names will not be of any special interest to our readers. Suffice it to +say that they were all intelligent, well-dressed and ready for any sort +of fun.</p> + +<p>(Now, thank heaven, we can begin.)</p> + +<p>A burst of laughter from Captain Bolsover attracted general attention, +and everybody turned in his direction.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, Professor, that's good," he said, as he slapped his knee; "you +must tell the others that."</p> + +<p>"It was just a little incident that happened to me to-day as I was +coming down here," said the Professor, as he beamed round on the +company. "I happened to be rather late for my train, and as I bought my +ticket I asked the clerk what time it was. He replied, 'If it takes six +seconds for a clock to strike six, how long will it take to strike +twelve?' I said twelve seconds, but it seems I was wrong."</p> + +<p>The others all said twelve seconds too, but they were all wrong. Can +<i>you</i> guess the right answer?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%"> +<a href="images/496a.png"> +<img src="images/496a.png" width="100%" alt="To illustrate the Professor's" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 1.—<span class="smcap">To illustrate the Professor's delightful story +of the booking-clerk's answer.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>When the laughter had died down, the Reverend Arthur Manley said:</p> + +<p>"That reminds me of an amusing experience which occurred to my +housekeeper last Friday. She was ordering a little fish for my lunch, +and the fishmonger, when asked the price of herrings, replied, 'Three +ha'pence for one and a-half,' to which my housekeeper said, 'Then I will +have twelve.' How much did she pay?" He smiled happily at the company.</p> + +<p>"One-and-sixpence, of course," said Miss Phipps.</p> + +<p>"No, no; ninepence," cried the Squire with a hearty laugh.</p> + +<p>Captain Bolsover made it come to £1 3<i>s.</i> 2½<i>d.</i>, and the Professor +thought fourpence. But once again they were all wrong. What do <i>you</i> +make it come to?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%"> +<a href="images/496b.png"> +<img src="images/496b.png" width="100%" alt="It was now Captain Bolsover's turn" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 2.—<span class="smcap">To illustrate the Curate's ingenious problem of +the Fishmonger.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It was now Captain Bolsover's turn for an amusing puzzle, and the others +turned eagerly towards him.</p> + +<p>"What was that one about a door?" said the Squire. "You were telling me +when we were out shooting yesterday, Bolsover."</p> + +<p>Captain Bolsover looked surprised.</p> + +<p>"Ah, no, it was young Reggie Worlock," said the Squire with a hearty +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do tell us, Squire," said everybody.</p> + +<p>"It was just a little riddle, my dear," said the Squire to Miss Phipps, +always a favourite of his. "When is a door not a door?"</p> + +<p>Miss Phipps said when it was a cucumber; but she was wrong. So were the +others. See if <i>you</i> can be more successful.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's very good," said Captain Bolsover; "it reminds me of +something which occurred during the Boer War."</p> + +<p>Everybody listened eagerly.</p> + +<p>"We were just going into action, and I happened to turn round to my men, +and say, 'Now, then, boys, give 'em beans!' To my amusement one of them +replied smartly, 'How many blue beans make five?' We were all so +interested working it out that we never got into action at all."</p> + +<p>"But that's easy," said the Professor. "Five."</p> + +<p>"Four," said Miss Phipps. (She would. Silly kid.)</p> + +<p>"Six," said the Squire.</p> + +<p>Which was right?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%"> +<a href="images/496c.png"> +<img src="images/496c.png" width="100%" alt="To illustrate the Captain's thrilling story" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><span class="smcap">Fig. 3.—To illustrate the Captain's thrilling story of +the Boer War.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Jack Ellison had been silent during the laughter and jollity, always +such a feature of Happy-Thought Hall at Christmas time, but now he +contributed an ingenious puzzle to the amusement of the company.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I met a man in a motor-'bus," he said in a quiet voice, "who told me +that he had four sons. The eldest son, Abraham, had a dog who used to go +and visit the three brothers occasionally. The dog, my informant told +me, was very unwilling to go over the same ground twice, and yet being +in a hurry wished to take the shortest journey possible. How did he +manage it?"</p> + +<p>For a little while the company was puzzled. Then, after deep thought, +the Professor said:</p> + +<p>"It depends on where they lived."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Ellison. "I forgot to say that my acquaintance drew me a +map." He produced a paper from his pocket. "Here it is."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%"> +<a href="images/497a.png"> +<img src="images/497a.png" width="100%" alt="To illustrate the journey of the sagacious +hound" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><span class="smcap">Fig</span>. 4.—<span class="smcap">To illustrate the journey of the sagacious +hound</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>The others immediately began to puzzle over the answer, Miss Phipps +being unusually foolish, even for her. It was some time before they +discovered the correct route. What do <i>you</i> think it is?</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Squire, with a hearty laugh, "it's time for bed."</p> + +<p>One by one they filed off, saying what a delightful evening they had +had. Jack Ellison was particularly emphatic, for the beautiful Miss +Holden had promised to be his wife. He, for one, will never forget +Christmas at Happy-Thought Hall.</p> + +<blockquote><p>[<span class="smcap">Note</span>.—The originals of the drawings are on sale from the Author at +five guineas apiece.]</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author">A. A. M.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/497.png"> +<img src="images/497.png" width="100%" alt="Little Tomkins" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><i>Little Tomkins</i> (<i>to Herculean Coalheaver</i>). "<span class="smcap">Why don't +you come up the green a couple o' nights a week an' do a bit o' shootin' +an' drillin'? You'd get as fit as a fiddle</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>STABLE INFORMATION.</h2> + +<div class="poem1"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Last winter I wasn't familiar with Brown,</p> +<p class="i2">Our intercourse didn't extend</p> +<p class="i0">Past a grunt if we met on the journey to town</p> +<p class="i2">And a nod when I chose to unbend;</p> +<p class="i0">But times are <i>mutata</i>, and now I've begun</p> +<p class="i2">To cultivate Brown more and more,</p> +<p class="i0">For Brown has a son who is friends with the son</p> +<p class="i2">Of a man at the Office of War.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">When a fog is concealing how matters progress</p> +<p class="i2">And editors wearily use</p> +<p class="i0">(Upholding the goodly repute of the Press)</p> +<p class="i2">A headline from yesterday's news,</p> +<p class="i0">Brown's knowledge enables his friends to decide</p> +<p class="i2">What the future is holding in store,</p> +<p class="i0">For we gather that <span class="smcap">Kitchener</span> <i>loves</i> to confide</p> +<p class="i2">In that man at the Office of War.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And I in my turn spread the tidings about;</p> +<p class="i2">To the heart that is apt to be glum</p> +<p class="i0">And the spirit that suffers severely from doubt</p> +<p class="i2">Like a sunbeam in winter I come;</p> +<p class="i0">"The Teuton," I whisper, "will suffer eclipse</p> +<p class="i2">In the course of a fortnight—no more;</p> +<p class="i0">I have had it—well, almost direct from the lips</p> +<p class="i2">Of the Chief of the Office of War."</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/498.png"> +<img src="images/498.png" width="100%" alt="UNRECORDED EVENTS" /></a> +<h4>UNRECORDED EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WAR.</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">German soldiers being roused to enthusiasm by the "Hymn of Hate."</span></p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>MAILS FOR A MAILED FIST.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>[The rumours of an invasion of this country, which have been +prevalent during the last few days, are presumably responsible for +these letters addressed to the Kaiser, which have been intercepted.]</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>Northsea Cove, Suffolk.</i></p> + +<p>Kind Sir,—Should your troops land in this neighbourhood, would you +please ask them not to fire off guns between 3 and 4 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, as during +that hour I have my afternoon rest, and I do not sleep very well.</p> + +<p class="regards">Yours truly,</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Wilhelmina Timmins.</span></p> + +<p>Sir,—Hearing that you are thinking of sending over an army, we have +formed a small Reception Committee to provide for its comfort, and +knowing how concerned you are for the welfare of your troops we think +you will be glad to learn that complete arrangements have been made for +conveying them to, and accommodating them at, a salubrious spot called +Tipperary, immediately on their arrival.</p> + +<p class="regards">(Signed)</p> +<p class="author">J. PUSHER, <i>Secretary</i>,<br /> +Eastern and Home Counties Resorts Association.</p> + +<p>Professor Burgess-Brown, the well-known swimming expert, presents his +compliments. He would be pleased to call at Kiel Harbour (or other +appointed place) in order to teach the art of natation to German +soldiers who may, after arrival in England, suddenly find themselves +deprived of their troopships when wishing to return.</p> + +<p>Dear Sir,—We hear that a number of your friends are coming to England, +and shall accordingly welcome an enquiry for our advice, which is always +at the disposal of the travelling public. We do not know whether you +propose personally to come over, but we should certainly recommend this +course, as by travelling <i>viá</i> an English port you could get a boat +<i>direct</i> to St. Helena and thus save the wearisome changing to which you +might be exposed in sailing from the Continent.</p> + +<p class="regards">Yours obediently,</p> +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">The World's Tours, Limited.</span></p><br /> + +<p class="author"><i>Headquarters, Poppy Patrol Boy Scouts, Cliffe, Norfolk.</i></p> + +<p>Dear Sir,—I don't think there is much use in your troops landing. In +this county alone there are two hundred and ninety-five more scouts than +there were in August, and they are still coming in. Of course come if +you like, but don't say I didn't warn you.</p> + +<p class="regards">Yours,</p> +<p class="author">T. Smith,<br /> +Patrol Leader.</p> + +<p class="author"><i>Imperial Studios, Yarmouth.</i></p> + +<p>Sir,—Hearing that your troops are thinking of visiting the above town, +we should be glad to take you, in small or large groups. We understand +that your excursion will be only a half-day one, but we have facilities +for the immediate development of negatives.</p> + +<p class="regards">Yours obediently,</p> +<p class="author">George Gelatine Jones.</p> + +<center><span class="smcap">Warning! To the Kaiser.</span></center><br /> + +<center><i>From the Huntsman of the Bungay Foxhounds.</i></center> + +<p>Send your men over if you like. Let them turn their guns on all our +ancient buildings, destroy crops, blow up bridges; but <span class="smcap">MIND</span>, if one of +your Huns raises a rifle to any Norfolk or Suffolk fox, there will be +trouble of a serious kind.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%"> +<a href="images/499.png"> +<img src="images/499.png" width="100%" alt="KILLED" /></a> +<h4>KILLED!</h4> +<p>[With <i>Mr. Punch's</i> compliments to General <span class="smcap">Botha</span>.]</p> +</div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/501.png"> +<img src="images/501.png" width="100%" alt="Old Lady" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<p><i>Old Lady</i> (<i>to District Visitor</i>). "<span class="smcap">Did you hear a +strange noise this morning, Miss, at about four o'clock? I thought it +was one of them aireoplanes; and my neighbour was so sure it was one he +went down and let his dog loose</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>MINOR WAR GAINS.</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The year that is stormily ending</p> +<p class="i2">Has brought us full measure of grief,</p> +<p class="i0">And yet we must thank it for sending</p> +<p class="i2">At times unexpected relief;</p> +<p class="i0">These boons are not felt in the trenches</p> +<p class="i2">Or make our home burdens less hard;</p> +<p class="i0">They're not a bonanza, but merit a stanza</p> +<p class="i2">Or two from the doggerel bard.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The names of musicians and mummers</p> +<p class="i2">No longer are loud on our lips;</p> +<p class="i0">By the side of our buglers and drummers</p> +<p class="i2"><span class="smcap">Caruso</span> endures an eclipse;</p> +<p class="i0">And the legions of freaks and of faddists</p> +<p class="i2">Who hailed him with rapturous awe,</p> +<p class="i0">O wonder of wonders, are finding out blunders,</p> +<p class="i2">And worse, in the writings of SHAW!</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Good <span class="smcap">Begbie</span>, no longer upraising</p> +<p class="i2">His plea for the "uplift" of Hodge,</p> +<p class="i0">Has ceased for a season from praising</p> +<p class="i2"><span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span> and Sir <span class="smcap">Oliver Lodge</span>;</p> +<p class="i0">And there hasn't been much in the papers</p> +<p class="i2">About the next novel from <span class="smcap">Caine</span></p> +<p class="i0">(No doubt he's in Flanders, the guest of commanders</p> +<p class="i2">Who reverence infinite brain).</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0"><span class="smcap">John Ward</span> has forgiven the Curragh</p> +<p class="i2">(The Curragh's forgotten <span class="smcap">John Ward</span>);</p> +<p class="i0">No longer he cries "Wurra Wurra!"</p> +<p class="i2">At sight of an officer's sword;</p> +<p class="i0"><span class="smcap">MacDonald</span>, the terror of tigers,</p> +<p class="i2">Sits silent and meek as a mouse,</p> +<p class="i0">And the great <span class="smcap">von Keirhardi</span> is curiously tardy</p> +<p class="i2">In "voicing" his spleen in the House.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The screeds of professors and jurists</p> +<p class="i2">Have quite disappeared from the Press;</p> +<p class="i0">'Tis little we hear of Futurists,</p> +<p class="i2">And frankly we care even less;</p> +<p class="i0">Why, <span class="smcap">Trevelyan</span>, the martyr to candour,</p> +<p class="i2">Who lately his office resigned,</p> +<p class="i0">Though waters were heaving has sunk without leaving</p> +<p class="i2">The tiniest ripple behind.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">In fine, though there fall to our fighters</p> +<p class="i2">Too many hard buffets and humps,</p> +<p class="i0">'Tis a comfort to think that our blighters</p> +<p class="i2">Are down in the deadliest dumps;</p> +<p class="i0">And whatever the future may bring us</p> +<p class="i2">In profits or pleasures or pains</p> +<p class="i0">The ill wind that's blowing to-day is bestowing</p> +<p class="i2">A number of negative gains.</p> +</div></div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE IDEAL CHRISTMAS CARD.</h2> + +<p>"Are we sending Christmas cards this year? Yes," said Blathers, "but not +next year, or the year after that, as we shall be retrenching. They are +quite modest trifles, yet at the mere sight of the envelope each +recipient will, cheerfully, I hope, pay twopence towards the sinews of +war. One hundred of these contributions will amount, I am told, to +sixteen shillings and eightpence; not much, but it is my little offering +to the country in her hour of need. This is the card I propose to send +out in a sealed and unstamped cover":—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Mr. and Mrs. Blathers wish you A Happy Christmas 1914, 1915 and +1916, and A Bright New Year 1915, 1916 and 1917. </span></p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>The Ferns, Tooting.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"The Russian mining engineers who have been sent to Galicia since +the occupation report that the oil districts will suffice to supply +the whole of South-Western Russia. The working of the fields will +start in the spring; moreover salt and iron abound, also +sporadicalli, silver, copper, lead and the rarer metals."</p></blockquote> +<p class="author"><i>Cork Examiner.</i> +</p> + +<p>For vermicelli, however, it will still be necessary to go to Italy.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> + +<h2>OUR NATIONAL GUESTS.</h2> + +<center>III.</center> + +<p>To the list of things that the Belgians in Crashie Howe do not +understand, along with oatmeal, honey in the comb, and tapioca, must now +be added the Scottish climate. They do not complain, but they are +puzzled, and after sixty-five consecutive hours of rain they wonder +wistfully if it is always like this. We simply dare not tell them the +truth.</p> + +<p>By every post we are busy hunting for lost relatives who are scattered +before the shattering fist of the <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span> over Great Britain, Belgium, +Holland and France. We have not been very successful so far, but one or +two we have found, at points as far apart as York and Milford Haven, +and, best of all, we have unearthed a great-grandmother, last seen in an +open coal boat off Ostend, who is now in comfortable quarters in a +village in Ayrshire.</p> + +<p>Our language difficulties have not been assisted by the arrival of a +family from Antwerp who talk nothing but Walloon, but, on the other +hand, the progress of the children is now beginning to afford certain +frail lines of communication. The least of them, Élise, can already +count up to twenty in English (with a strong Scoto-Flemish accent), and +so it came about that when I took my little nieces round to pay calls, +relations were at once established on a numerical basis.</p> + +<p>"One, two, three," said Sheila, holding out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Four," retorted Juliette, gurgling with delight.</p> + +<p>"Five, six, seven," shouted Betty.</p> + +<p>"Eight, nine?" enquired Juliette....</p> + +<p>At the next cottage, where we were all rather shy, we began tentatively +with "One?" But we finally gained so much confidence that by the time we +reached our last visit we ran it up to ten at a single burst, and were +consequently received with open arms.</p> + +<p>One of our main concerns has been the Santa Claus question, and that is +a matter which touches us closely, as we have among our number eleven +children of Santa Claus age. There are a good many pitfalls here, and it +is now unfortunately too late to warn other people of the chief of them. +For the fact is—as we found to our amazement—that Santa Claus (you +must, by the way, call him St. Nicholas; after all, it is his proper +name) comes to Belgium and Russia, not on December 25th, but on December +6th. All our attempts to explain this phenomenon by the difference in +the Russian calendar, though ingenious, have failed; it doesn't work out +at all. Still, for some reason, that is how it is, and we cannot but be +grateful to St. Nicholas for this delicate attention to our allies, by +which no doubt they get the pick of the toys, even though we were nearly +let in by him. Indeed Pierre had practically given up hope. He had told +his mother that he was afraid St. Nicholas would never find his way to +Scotland, it was too far.</p> + +<p>Then there is another thing which might easily have been overlooked. +It's no use putting out stockings, as we prefer to do in our insular +way; one must put out <i>shoes</i>. At first sight it looks as if we in this +country have the pull over our allies here, for one pair of little shoes +does not hold much stuff. But fortunately it is the happy custom in all +lands to allow of overflow to any extent. And finally St. Nicholas never +comes down the chimney; he pops in through the window (which should be +left slightly open at the bottom so that he can get in his thumb and +prize it up). Also he never drove a reindeer in his life. He rides a +horse. And this is of the first importance, for the one condition +attaching to his benevolence is that you must put out a good wisp of hay +for the horse, along with your shoes, or else he will simply pass on and +you will get nothing at all.</p> + +<p>Having collected and considered all these facts we were fully prepared +to meet the situation—even down to the small gingerbread animals which +always grace the day—on December 6th, and to deal faithfully with the +little rows of clogs, bulging with hay, which awaited us on St. Nicholas +Eve.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%"> +<a href="images/502.png"> +<img src="images/502.png" width="100%" alt="Weary Variety Agent" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><i>Weary Variety Agent.</i> <span class="smcap">"And what's <i>your</i> particular +claim to originality?"</span></p> +<p><i>Artiste.</i> <span class="smcap">"I'm the only Comedian who has so far refrained from +addressing the orchestra as 'you in the trench.'"</span></p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, 1914.</h2> + +<p>"It's perfectly simple," said the Reverend Henry, adopting his lofty +style. "We must cut the whole lot. There is no other course."</p> + +<p>"I don't consider that your opinion is of any value whatever," said +Eileen. "In fact you ought not to be allowed to take part in this +discussion. Every one knows that you have always tried to get out of +Christmas presents, and now you are merely using a grave national +emergency to further your private ends."</p> + +<p>The Reverend Henry was squashed; but Mrs. Sidney had a perfect right to +speak, for she has been without doubt the most persistent and +painstaking Christmas provider in the family, and has never been known +to miss a single relation even at the longest range.</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with Henry," said she. "This is no time for Christmas +presents—except to hospitals and Belgians and men at the Front."</p> + +<p>"You mean that you would scratch the whole lot," said I, "even the +pocket diary for 1915 that I send to Uncle William?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, even that. You can send the diary to Sidney" (who is in Flanders). +"I have always wanted him to keep a diary."</p> + +<p>"What about the children?" said I.</p> + +<p>"The children must realise," said the Reverend Henry solemnly, "what it +means for the nation to be at war."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," Laura broke in impetuously. "How can they realise? How can you +expect Kathleen to realise?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said the Reverend Henry, "that only last Sunday my niece +Kathleen was marching all over the house singing at the top of her +voice, 'It's a long, long way to Tipperary: the Bible tells me so'? +Obviously she realises."</p> + +<p>"But what about——" Eileen was beginning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let's have a scrap of paper," said I, "a contract that we can all sign, +and then we can put down the exceptions to the rule."</p> + +<p>Henry was already hard at work with a sheet of foolscap.</p> + +<p>" ... not to exchange, give, receive or swap in celebration of +Christmas, 1914, any gift, donation, subscription, contribution, grant, +token or emblem within the family and its connections: and further not +to permit any gift, donation, subscription, contribution, grant, token +or emblem to emanate from any member of the family to such as are +outside."</p> + +<p>"Good so far," said I.</p> + +<p>"The following recipients to be excepted," Henry went on,</p> + +<p>"(1) All Hospitals; (2) Belgians; (3) His Majesty's Forces——"</p> + +<p>"(4) The Poor and Needy," suggested Eileen.</p> + +<p>"(5) The Aged and Infirm," said I. "I only want to get in Great-aunt +Amelia. She mustn't be allowed to draw a blank."</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Henry; "we'll fix the age limit at ninety-one. +That'll bring her in."</p> + +<p>"(6) Children of such tender age that they are unable to realise the +national emergency," said Mrs. Sidney.</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Henry. "What would you suggest as the age limit? +Three?"</p> + +<p>"Four," said Laura simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"I should like to suggest five," said I, "to bring in Kathleen."</p> + +<p>"Let's make it seven," said Mrs. Henry. "I can hardly believe that Peter +realises, you know."</p> + +<p>"Stop a bit," said I. "If you take in Peter you can't possibly leave out +Tom. Make it eight-and-a-half."</p> + +<p>"That seems a little hard on Alice, doesn't it?" said Eileen.</p> + +<p>"Any advance on eight-and-a-half?" called Henry from the writing-desk. +And from that moment the discussion assumed the character of an auction, +Laura finally running it up to thirteen (which brings in the twins) to +the general satisfaction.</p> + +<p>When the contract was signed, witnessed and posted on its way to the +other signatories there was a general sense of relief that Christmas +would not be very different from usual after all. Henry growled a good +deal. But we know our Reverend Henry: he will do his duty when the time +comes.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"The Prince of Wales noticed a private in his own regiment, the +Grenadier Guards, who is six feet inches in height. He is six feet +inches in height."—<i>Scotsman.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>It sounds silly, but the writer evidently means it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 40%"> +<a href="images/503.png"> +<img src="images/503.png" width="100%" alt="THE RULING PASSION" /></a> +<h4>THE RULING PASSION.</h4> +<p><i>Voice from below.</i> <span class="smcap">"For 'eaven's sake, mum, get back. The fire-escape +will be 'ere in five minutes."</span></p> +<p><i>Endangered Female.</i> "Five minutes? Then throw me back my knitting."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE WILLOW-PATTERN PLATE.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">A Philistine? Then you will smile</p> +<p class="i2">At this old willow-pattern plate</p> +<p class="i2">And junks of long-forgotten date</p> +<p class="i0">That anchor off Pagoda Isle;</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">At little pig-tailed simpering rakes</p> +<p class="i2">Who kiss their hands (three miles away)</p> +<p class="i2">To dainty beauties of Cathay</p> +<p class="i0">Beside those un-foreshortened lakes.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">With hand on heart they smile and sue.</p> +<p class="i2">Their topsy-turvy world, you say,</p> +<p class="i2">Is out of all perspective? Nay,</p> +<p class="i0">'Tis we who look at life askew.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Dreams lose their spell; hard facts we prize</p> +<p class="i2">In our humdrum philosophy;</p> +<p class="i2">But, could we change, who would not be</p> +<p class="i0">A suitor for those azure eyes?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Who would not sail with fairy freight</p> +<p class="i2">Piloting some flat-bottomed barge—</p> +<p class="i2">A size too small, or else too large—</p> +<p class="i0">On this old willow-pattern plate?</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"The 'Figaro' publishes a telegram from Petrograd which contradicts +the German announcement that Lodz is occupied by the +Kermans."—<i>Lancashire Evening Post.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>And quite right too.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> + +<h2>A MARNE FOOTNOTE.</h2> + +<p>There was a battlefield, I was told, with a ruined village near it, +about as far from Paris as Sevenoaks is from London, and I decided to +see it. The preliminaries, they said, would be difficult, but only +patience was needed—patience and one's papers all in order. It would be +necessary to go to the War Bureau, opposite the Invalides.</p> + +<p>I went to the War Bureau opposite the Invalides one afternoon. I rang +the bell and a smiling French soldier opened the door. Within were long +passages and other smiling French soldiers in little knots guarding the +approaches, all very bureaucratic. The head of the first knot referred +me to the second knot; the head of the second referred me to a third. +The head of this knot, which guarded the approach to the particular +military mandarin whom I needed or thought I needed, smiled more than +any of them, and, having heard my story, said that that was certainly +the place to obtain leave. But it was unwise and even impossible to go +by any other way than road, as the railway was needed for soldiers and +munitions of war, and therefore I must bring my chauffeur with me, with +his papers, which must be examined and passed.</p> + +<p>My chauffeur? I possessed no such thing. Necessary then to provide +myself with a chauffeur at once. Out I went in a fusillade of courtesies +and sought a chauffeur. I visited a taxi rank and stopped this man and +that, but all shied at the distance. At last one said that his garage +would provide me with a car. So off to the garage we went, and there I +had an interview with a manager, who declined to believe that permission +for the expedition would be made at all, except possibly to oblige a +person of great importance. Was I a person of great importance? he asked +me. Was I? I wondered. No, I thought not. Very well then, he considered +it best to drop the project.</p> + +<p>I came away and hailed another taxi, driven by a shaggy grey hearthrug. +I told him my difficulties, and he at once offered to drive me anywhere +and made no bones about the distance whatever. So it was arranged that +he should come for me on the morrow—say Tuesday, at a quarter to +eleven, and we would then get through the preliminaries and my lunch +comfortably by noon and be off and away. So do hearthrugs talk with +foreigners—light-heartedly and confident. But Heaven disposes. For when +we reached the Bureau at a minute after eleven the next morning the +smiling janitor told us we were too late. Too late at eleven? Yes, the +office in question was closed between eleven and two; we must return at +two.</p> + +<p>"But the day will be over," I said; "the light will have gone. Another +day lost!" Nothing on earth can crystallize and solidify so swiftly and +implacably as the French official face. At these words his smile +vanished. He was not angry or threatening—merely granite. Those were +the rules, and how could anyone question them? At two, he repeated: and +again I left the building, this time not bowing quite so effusively, but +suppressing a thousand criticisms which might have been spoken were not +the French our allies.</p> + +<p>Three hours to kill in a city where everything is shut. No Louvre, no +Carnavalet! However, the time went, chiefly over lunch, and at two we +were there again, the hearthrug and I, and were shown into a +waiting-room where far too many other persons had already assembled. To +me this congestion seemed deplorable; but the hearthrug merely grinned. +It was all a new experience to him, and his meter was registering the +time. We waited, I suppose, forty minutes and then came our turn, and we +were led to a little room where sat a typical elderly French officer at +a table. He had white moustaches and was in uniform with blue and red +about it. I bowed, he bowed, the hearthrug grovelled. I explained my +need, and he replied instantly that I had come to the wrong place; the +right place was the Conciergerie.</p> + +<p>Another rebuff! In England I might have told him that it was one of his +own idiotic men who had told me otherwise, but of what use would that be +in France? In France a thing is or is not, and there is no getting round +it if it is not. French officials are portcullises, and they drop as +suddenly and as effectively. Knowing this, so far from showing +resentment or irritation, I bowed and made my thanks as though I had +come for no other purpose than a dose of frustration; and again we left +this cursed Bureau.</p> + +<p>I re-entered the taxi, which, judging by the meter, I should very soon +have completely paid for, and we hurtled away (for the hearthrug was a +demon driver) to Paris's Scotland Yard. Here were more passages, more +little rooms, more inflexible officials. I had bowed to half-a-dozen and +explained my errand before at last the right one was reached, and him +the hearthrug grovelled to again and called "Mon Colonel." He sat at a +table in a little room, and beside him, all on the same side of the +table, sat three civilians. On the wall behind was a map of France. What +they did all day, I wondered, and how much they were paid for it; for we +were the only clients, and the suggestion of the place was one of +anecdotage and persiflage rather than toil. They acted with the utmost +unanimity. First "Mon Colonel" scrutinised my passport, and then the +others, in turn, scrutinised it. What did I want to go to —— for? (The +name is suppressed because it is two or three months since the battle +was fought there.) I replied that my motive was pure curiosity. Did I +know it was a very dull town? I wanted to see the battlefield. That +would be <i>triste</i> too. Yes, I knew, but I was interested. "Mon Colonel" +shrugged and wrote on a piece of paper and passed the paper to the first +civilian, who wrote something else and passed it on, and finally the +last one got it and discovered a mistake in the second civilian's +writing, and the mistake had to be initialled by all the lot, each +making great play with a blotter; and at last the precious document was +handed to me and I was really free to start. But it was now dark.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The road from —— leaves the town by a hill, crosses a canal, and then +mounts and winds, and mounts again, and dips and mounts, between fields +of stubble, with circular straw-stacks as their only occupants. The +first intimation of anything untoward, besides the want of life, was the +spire of the little white village of —— on the distant hill, which +surely had been damaged. As one drew nearer it was clear that not only +had the spire been damaged, but that the houses had been damaged too. +The place seemed empty and under a ban.</p> + +<p>I stopped the car outside, at the remains of a burned shed, and walked +along the desolate main street. All the windows were broken; the walls +were indented with little holes or perforated with big ones. The roofs +were in ruins. Here was the post-office; it is now half demolished and +boarded up. There was the inn; it is now empty and forlorn. Half the +great clock face leant against a wall. Everyone had fled—it is a +"deserted village" with a vengeance: nothing left but a few fowls. +Everything was damaged; but the church had suffered most. Half of the +shingled spire was destroyed, most of the roof, and the great bronze +bell lay among the <i>débris</i> on the ground. It is as though the enemy's +policy was to intimidate the simple folk through the failure of their +super-natural stronghold. "If the church is so pregnable, then what +chance have we?"—that is the question which it was hoped would be +asked; or so I imagined as I stood before this ruined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> sanctuary. +Where, I wondered, are those villagers now, and what chances are there +of the rebuilding of these old peaceful homes, so secure and placid only +four months ago?</p> + +<p>And then I walked to the battlefield a few hundred yards away, and only +too distinguishable as such by the little cheap tricolors on the +hastily-dug graves among the stubble and the ricks. Hitherto I had +always associated these ricks with the art of Claude Monet, and seeing +the one had recalled the other; but henceforward I shall think of those +poor pathetic graves sprinkled among them, at all kinds of odd angles to +each other—for evidently the holes were dug parallel with the bodies +beside them—each with a little wooden cross hastily tacked together, +and on some the remnants of the soldier's coat or cap, or even boots, +and on some the blue, white and red. As far as one can distinguish, +these little crosses break the view: some against the sky-line, for it +is hilly about here, others against the dark soil.</p> + +<p>It was a day of lucid November sunshine. The sky was blue and the air +mild. A heavy dew lay on the earth. Not a sound could be heard; not a +leaf fluttered. No sign of life. We were alone, save for the stubble and +the ricks and the wooden crosses and the little flags. How near the dead +seemed: nearer than in any cemetery.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a distant booming sounded; then another and another. It was the +guns at either Soissons or Rheims—the first thunder of man's hatred of +man I had ever heard.</p> + +<p>So I, too, non-combatant, as <i>Anno-Domini</i> forces me to be, know +something of war—a very little, it is true, but enough to make a +difference when I read the letters from the trenches or meet a Belgian +village refugee.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/505.png"> +<img src="images/505.png" width="100%" alt="Pompous Lady" /></a><br /><br /> +<p><i>Pompous Lady.</i> "<span class="smcap">I shall descend at Knightsbridge</span>."<br /> +<i>Tommy</i> (<i>aside</i>). "<span class="smcap">Takes 'erself for a bloomin' Zeppelin</span>!"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"General Joffre then engaged in a short conversation with several +journalists, and when they referred to the military medal which M. +Poincaré pinned on his chest, he said: '3/8 All this counts for +nothing.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>Manchester Guardian.</i></p> + +<p>But on the other 5/8 we offer our respectful congratulations.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE PROPHETS.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I have a friend, a gloomy soul,</p> +<p class="i2">Who daily wails about the war,</p> +<p class="i0">Taking the line that, on the whole,</p> +<p class="i2">Our luck is rotten at the core,</p> +<p class="i6">And into each success</p> +<p class="i0">Reads some disaster, rather more than less.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Another friend I have, whose heart</p> +<p class="i2">Beats with "abashless" confidence,</p> +<p class="i0">Who sees the <span class="smcap">Kaiser</span> in the cart</p> +<p class="i2">And hung in chains "a fortnight hence";</p> +<p class="i6">He saw this months ago,</p> +<p class="i0">And some day hopes to say, "I told you so."</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">When Heraclitus brings a cloud,</p> +<p class="i2">Democritus provides the sun;</p> +<p class="i0">Or should the Hopeful crow too loud,</p> +<p class="i2">I listen to the Mournful One;</p> +<p class="i6">And thus, between the two,</p> +<p class="i0">I find a fairly rational point of view.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h4>Faces We have no Use For.</h4> + +<blockquote><p>"Once or twice he sighed a little, although he had an uninterrupted +view of a profile as regular as a canoe."—<i>New Magazine.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> + +<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2> + +<center>"<span class="smcap">The Man Who Stayed at Home</span>."</center> + +<p>No, he was not a shirker, as you thought. Nor was he engaged in making +munitions of war, or khaki, or woollens, or military boots, or in +exporting cocoa to the enemy <i>viâ</i> neutral Holland—that roaring +monopoly of the Pacificist. His business was to spy at spies—a task +that called for as much coolness and courage as any job at the Front. +And so when the officious flapper presented him with a white feather he +had no use for it except as a pipe-cleaner.</p> + +<p>For his purpose <i>Christopher Brent</i> had taken up his residence at a +"select boarding establishment" on the East Coast, which contained the +following members of the German Secret Service: <i>Mrs. Sanderson</i>, +proprietress; <i>Carl</i>, her son, clerk in the British Admiralty; <i>Fräulein +Schroeder</i>, boarder, and <i>Fritz</i>, waiter. Their design, if I rightly +penetrated its darkness, was to give information of the whereabouts of a +certain section of the Expeditionary Force which was "coming through +from the North"; to supply Berlin with plans of the coast defences; and +finally to give a signal to a German submarine by the firing of the +house, which would incidentally mean the roasting alive of its innocent +contents. All this (for the sake of <span class="smcap">Aristotle</span> and the Unities) was to +take place in a single day, though I for one could not believe that +either the pigeon post or the ordinary mail would be equal to the +strain.</p> + +<p>Their utensils included a Marconi instrument concealed in the chimney; a +bomb; a revolver; maps of the minefield and harbour; a carrier-pigeon, +and a knife for disposing of the cliff-sentry.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 40%"> +<a href="images/506.png"> +<img src="images/506.png" width="100%" alt="Hands up" /></a> +<p> "<span class="smcap">Hands up</span>!"<br /> + "<span class="smcap">Hands up yourself</span>!"</p> +<p> +<i>Carl Sanderson.</i> .. Mr. <span class="smcap">Malcolm Cherry</span>.<br /> + <i>Christopher Brent.</i> .. Mr. <span class="smcap">Dennis Eadie</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>To frustrate their schemes something more was needed than the wit of +<i>Brent</i> and his ally, the widow <i>Leigh</i>; something more, even, than his +skill in shooting pigeons in flight with an air-rifle. The vacuum was +supplied by the crass stupidity of the <span class="smcap">Emperor's</span> minions. Even when full +credit is given to <i>Brent</i> for letting his bath overflow so as to flood +the public salon and render it untenable, it was surely unwise of <i>Mrs. +Sanderson</i> to offer her private parlour for the use of the boarders on +the very day set apart for the execution of her plans which were centred +in this room. It was also gross carelessness on the part of her son, +when he had <i>Brent</i>, with hands up, at his mercy, to place his own +revolver on the table and to use, in exchange, the unloaded weapon which +he had taken from his opponent's pocket. It was puerile, too, to accept +without proof the verbal assurances of the widow <i>Leigh</i> that she was +one of themselves, a loyal German spy. And <i>Fritz</i> committed an +unpardonable error in giving away the site of the Marconi apparatus by +his undisguised suspicion of anybody who took any interest in the +fireplace.</p> + +<p>And so their schemes all went agley; the whole pack was arrested; and +when the curtain fell on a happy group of boarders in midnight +<i>déshabille</i> there was every promise that the misdemeanants would +receive a month's imprisonment or at least a caution to be of good +behaviour for the future.</p> + +<p>I understand, on good authority, that the tendency of the public at this +juncture of the War is to demand light refreshment. Well, they have it +here. For, though the subject deals with a serious problem of the hour, +it can be treated, and is treated, with a very permissible humour that +just stops short of farce. Some of the stage-devices, as I am assured by +my betters, may have a touch of antiquity, but their application is as +modern as can well be, and I should indeed be ungrateful if after an +entertainment so smoothly and dexterously administered I were to be +captious about origins or other matters of pedantry.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Dennis Eadie</span>, as <i>Brent</i>, both in his real character of detective +and in the assumed futility of his disguise as a genial idiot, was +equally excellent, and again proved his gift for quick-change artistry. +Miss <span class="smcap">Mary Jerrold's</span> <i>Fräulein Schroeder</i> was extraordinarily Teutonic in +all but her quiet humour, which she seemed to have caught from the +country of her adoption. The <i>Fritz</i> of Mr. <span class="smcap">Henry Edwards</span> was another +delightful sketch, though his actual German birth and his allegation of +Dutch nationality were both belied by the red Italian corpuscles with +which the authors had inoculated him. Miss <span class="smcap">Jean Cadell</span>, as usual, played +a pale and fatuous spinster, but this time, in the part of <i>Miss +Myrtle</i>, she had her chance, and seized it bravely. When that typical +British boarder, Mr. <i>John Preston, M.P.</i>. (interpreted with great relish +and vigour by Mr. <span class="smcap">Hubert Harben</span>), remarked, "I call a spade a spade," +she replied, "And I suppose you would call a dinner-napkin a +<i>serviette</i>"—one of the pleasantest remarks in a play where the good +things said were many and unforced.</p> + +<p>I have not mentioned the admirable performance—its merits might easily +be missed—of Mr. <span class="smcap">Stanley Logan</span> as a Territorial Tommy; or the very +natural manners of Mrs. <span class="smcap">Robert Brough</span> as <i>Mrs. Sanderson</i>; or the quiet +art of Miss <span class="smcap">Ruth Mackay</span> in a part (<i>Miriam Leigh</i>) that offered a +too-limited scope to her exceptional talents. Miss <span class="smcap">Isobel Elsom</span> +contributed her share of the rather perfunctory love-interest with a +very pretty sincerity; and Mr. <span class="smcap">Malcolm Cherry</span>, in the ungrateful part of +the spy <i>Carl</i>, did his work soundly, with a lofty sacrifice of his own +obvious good-nature. Indeed, it was a very excellent cast.</p> + +<p>I should like to congratulate the authors, Messrs. <span class="smcap">Lechmere Worrall</span>, and +<span class="smcap">Harold Terry</span>, on having given the public what they want, without lapsing +into banality. The attraction of the first two Acts was not, perhaps, +fully sustained in the third, but they gave us quite a cheerful evening; +and at the fall of the curtain the audience was so importunate in their +applause that Mr. <span class="smcap">Dennis Eadie</span> had to break it to them that, though the +loss of their company would give him pain, he thought the time had come +for them to go away.</p> + +<p>I did not notice Mr. <span class="smcap">Reginald McKenna</span> in the stalls, but it was a great +night for him and the Home Office.</p> + +<p class="author">O. S.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h4>Raison de Plus.</h4> + +<div class="poem1"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Says the sleek humanitarian: "Any sacrifice I'd make</p> +<p class="i0">For the voluntary system—up to going to the stake,"</p> +<p class="i0">Which inspires the obvious comment that contingencies like this</p> +<p class="i0">Turn the coming of conscription to unmitigated bliss.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p>"The remaining characters were taken by Mr. <span class="smcap">Herbert Lomas</span> as Ever, a +splendid actor...."—<i>Manchester City News.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>You should see Sir <span class="smcap">Herbert Tree</span> as Always.</p> + +<hr /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%"> +<a href="images/507.png"> +<img src="images/507.png" width="100%" alt="LANGUAGE-KULTUR." /></a> +<h4>LANGUAGE-KULTUR.</h4> +<p><i>Voice from the darkness.</i> "<span class="smcap">Doand shood! Doand shood! Ve vos de +Viltshires</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2> + +<center>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</center> + +<p>If <i>The Prussian Officer</i>, a study of morbidly vicious cruelty practised +by a captain of Cavalry on his helpless orderly (and the first of a +sheaf of collected stories, short or shortish, by Mr. <span class="smcap">D. H. Lawrence</span>, +issued by Messrs. <span class="smcap">Duckworth</span>), had been written since the declaration of +war it would certainly be discounted as a product of the prevailing +<i>odium bellicosum</i>. But it appeared well in the piping times of peace, +and I remember it (as I remember others of the collection) with a +freshness which only attaches to work that lifts itself out of the +common ruck. An almost too poignant intensity of realism, expressed in a +distinguished and fastidious idiom, characterises Mr. <span class="smcap">Lawrence's</span> method. +It is a realism not of minutely recorded outward happenings, trivial or +exciting, but of fiercely contested agonies of the spirit. None of those +stories is a story in the accepted mode. They are studies in (dare one +use the overworked word?) psychological portraiture. I don't know any +other writer who realises passion and suffering with such objective +<i>force</i>. The word "suffering" drops from his pen in curiously unexpected +contexts. The fact of it seems to obsess him. Yet it is no morbid +obsession. He seems to be dominated by sympathy in its literal meaning, +and it gives his work a surprising richness of texture.... I dare press +this book upon all such as need something more than mere yarns, who have +an eye for admirably sincere workmanship and are interested in their +fellows—fellows of all sorts, soldiers, keepers, travellers, clergymen, +colliers, with womenfolk to match.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>On a map of the North you may be able to find an island named after one +<i>Margaret</i>. It should lie, though I have sought it in vain, just about +where the florid details of the Norwegian coast-line run up to those +blank spaces that are dotted over, it would seem, only by the occasional +footprints of polar bears. Anyhow it was so christened by two bold +mariners who lived in the <i>Spacious Days</i> (<span class="smcap">Murray</span>) of <span class="smcap">Queen Elizabeth</span>. +That they both loved the lady (<span class="smcap">Elizabeth</span>, of course, too—but I mean +<i>Margaret</i>) may be assumed; but that they should eventually, with one +accord, desire to resign their claims upon her affection must be read to +be understood. I for one did not quarrel with them on this score. For +had not their mistress in the meantime found companionship more suitable +than theirs? Besides, if even the author is so little courteous to his +heroine as to invite her to appear only in two chapters between the +third and the twenty-seventh, why should two rough sea-dogs—or you and +I—be more attentive? And indeed it is a correct picture of his period +that Mr. <span class="smcap">Ralph Durand</span> is concerned to present rather than a love story. +In the writing of the love scenes considered necessary to the mechanism +of the plot he seems very little at his ease; and so marked at times is +his discomfort that I must confess to having felt some irritation when +my willingness to be convinced was not met halfway. In the handling of +his sheets and oars I like the author better, though even here I miss +what might have brought me into a companionship with his people as close +as I could wish on a most adventurous journey of nearly four hundred +pages. But perhaps that is my fault; and, at the least, here is a +straightforward sea story—as honest as the sea and as clean.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> + +<p><i>Llanyglo</i> was a child with fair hair and blue eyes, and how she grew +and what she learnt, and all the changes of her dresses and her soul, +are set forth by Mr. <span class="smcap">Oliver Onions</span> in <i>Mushroom Town</i> (<span class="smcap">Hodder and +Stoughton</span>). She differed from the children of other novelists who grow +up to be men and women, because she was made of bricks and mortar and +iron girders and romantic scenery and ozone (especially ozone), and the +people who lived with her or took trips to see her are treated as a mere +emblematical garnish of her character and growth. <i>Llanyglo</i> is a +daughter of Wales, but she is not any town that you may happen to have +seen, although possibly Blackpool and Douglas and Llandudno have met +her, and turned up their noses at her, as she turned up her nose at +them. Lancashire built and conquered her, to be conquered and annually +recuperated in turn. <i>Cymria capta ferum</i> ... might have been the motto +of her municipal arms. Exactly how Mr. <span class="smcap">Onions</span> exhibits the romantic +spectacle of her development, with the strange knowledge she picked up, +as from virgin wildness she became first select and then popular, I +cannot hope to explain. Suffice it to say that the process is epitomised +in sketches of the various people who helped in the moulding of her—the +drunken <i>Kerr</i> brothers, who built a house in a single night; <i>Howell +Gruffydd</i>, the wily grocer; <i>Dafydd Dafis</i>, the harper; and <i>John Willie +Garden</i>, son of the shrewd cotton-spinner who first saw the +possibilities of the place, and won the heart of the untamed gipsy girl, +<i>Ynys</i>. This is surely Mr. <span class="smcap">Onions</span>' best novel since <i>Good Boy Seldom</i>; +and as <i>Llanyglo</i> is safely ensconced on the West coast you should go +there at once for the winter season.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Spragge's Canyon</i> (<span class="smcap">Smith, Elder</span>), takes its title, as you might guess, +from the canyon where the <i>Spragges</i> lived. It was a delightful spot, a +kind of earthly paradise (snakes included), and the <i>Spragge</i> family had +made it all themselves out of unclaimed land on the Californian coast. +Wherefore the <i>Spragges</i> loved it with a love only equalled perhaps by +the same emotion in the breast of Mr. <span class="smcap">H. A. Vachell</span>, who has written a +book about it. The <i>Spragges</i> of the tale are <i>Mrs. Spragge</i>, widow of +the pioneer, and her son <i>George</i>. With them on the ranch lived also a +cousin, <i>Samantha</i>, a big-built capable young woman, destined by +Providence and <i>Mrs. Spragge</i> to be the helpmate of <i>George</i>. But +<i>George</i>, though he was strong and handsome and a perfect marvel with +rattlesnakes (which he collected as a subsidiary source of income), was +also a bit of a fool; and when, on one of his rare townward excursions, +he got talking to <i>Hazel Goodrich</i> in a street car, her pale +attractiveness and general lure proved too much for him. Accordingly +<i>Hazel</i> was asked down to the ranch on a visit (I am taking it on trust +that Mr. <span class="smcap">Vachell</span> knows the Californian etiquette in these matters) and +has the time of her life, flirting with the love-lorn <i>George</i>, +impressing his mother, and generally scoring off poor <i>Samantha</i>. At +least so she thought. Really, however, <i>Mrs. Spragge</i> had taken +<i>Hazel's</i> measure in one, and was all the time quietly fighting her +visitor for her son's future. This fight, and the character of the +mother who makes it, are the best things in the book. I shall not tell +you who wins. Personally I had expected a comedy climax, and was +unprepared for creeps. But <i>George</i>, I may remind you, collected snakes. +A good and virile tale.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Melville Macnaghten</span> hopes, in his Introduction to <i>Days of my Years</i> +(Arnold), that his reminiscences "may be found of some interest to a +patient reader"; and, when one considers that <i>Sir Melville</i> spent +twenty-four years at Scotland Yard, many of them as chief of the +Criminal Investigation Department, he can hardly be accused of undue +optimism. Speaking as one of his readers, I found no difficulty at all +in being patient. I have always had a weakness for official detectives, +and have resented the term "Scotland Yard bungler" almost as if it were +a personal affront; and now I feel that my resentment is justified. +Scotland Yard does not bungle; and the advice I shall give for the +future to any eager-eyed, enthusiastic young murderer burning to embark +on his professional career is, don't practise in London. I would not +lightly steal a penny toy in the Metropolitan area. There are two +hundred and seventy-nine pages in this story of crime, as seen by the +man at the very centre of things, and nearly every one of them is packed +with matter of absorbing interest. Consider the titles of the chapters: +"Bombs and their Makers"; "Motiveless Murders"; "Half-a-day with the +Blood-hounds." This, I submit, is the stuff; this, I contend, is the +sort of thing you were looking for. There is something so human and +simple in Sir <span class="smcap">Melville's</span> method of narration that it is with an effort +that one realises what an important person he really was, and what +extraordinary ability he must have had to win and hold his high +position. Even when he disparages blood-hounds I reluctantly submit to +his superior knowledge and abandon one of my most cherished illusions. I +hate to do it, but if he says that a blood-hound is no more use in +tracking criminals than a Shetland pony would be, I must try to believe +him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 40%"> +<a href="images/508.png"> +<img src="images/508.png" width="100%" alt="THE COMPLETE SALESMAN" /></a> +<h4>THE COMPLETE SALESMAN.</h4> +<p><i>Lady</i> (<i>rather difficult to please</i>). "<span class="smcap">I like this one, but—I see it's +printed in Germany</span>."</p> +<p><i>Salesman.</i> "<span class="smcap">Well, if you like it, Madam, I wouldn't take too much +notice of that statement. It's probably only another German lie</span>!"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h4>Revenge.</h4> + +<blockquote><p>"After Herr Von Holman Bethwig's wild speech in the German Reichstag +the Government might change their minds."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="author"><i>Cork Constitution.</i></p> + +<p>It isn't much one can do to the <span class="smcap">German Chancellor</span> just now, but these +misprints of his name always annoy him, and every little helps.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. +147, December 16, 1914, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH *** + +***** This file should be named 29652-h.htm or 29652-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/5/29652/ + +Produced by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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