  Owing to heavy storms the other day one thousand London telephones were thrown out of order. Very few subscribers noticed the difference. A camera capable of photographing the most rapid moving objects in the world is the latest invention of an American. There is some talk of his trying to photograph a bricklayer whizzing along at his work. "Perjury is now rampant in all our Courts and there seems to be no way of preventing it," declares a well-known judge. Surely if they did away with the oath this grievance would soon disappear. "With goodwill on both sides," said Lord Rothschild recently, "the Jews will make a success of colonising their own country." There will have to be assets as well as goodwill, it is thought, if they are to be made to feel thoroughly at home. Mr. George Beer, the man who built the first glass houses in this country, has died at Worthing. The man who threw the first stone from inside has not yet been identified, but suspicion points to Sir Frederick Banbury. When the police order you to move on, said the Thames magistrate, it is better to go in the long run. Others declare that it is quite sufficient to melt from view at a businesslike waddle. "The only way to get houses," says the Marylebone magistrate, "is to build them." The idea of knitting a few seems to have been overlooked. We understand that the Scotsman who was injured in the rush outside the post-office on the last night of the three-halfpenny postage, is now able to get about with the help of a stick. New motor vehicles to take the place of the "Black Marias" are now being used between Brixton Gaol and Bow Street. Customers who contemplate arrest should book early to avoid the congestion. Signor Marconi has failed to get into touch with Mars. At the same time we are asked to deny the rumour that communication has been established between Lord Northcliffe and the Premier. "Comedians," says a stage paper, "are born, not made." This disposes of the impression that too many of them do it on purpose. Flapper. 'Oh--and I want some peroxide. Er--it's for' Flapper. "Oh—and I want some peroxide. Er—it's for cleaning hairbrushes, isn't it?" It has been established in the Court of Appeal that the farther north you go the larger are people's feet. Surprise has been expressed at the comparatively small number of Metropolitan policemen who hail from Spitzbergen. Sydney Richardson, the London messenger-boy who went to America for Mr. Darewski, has just returned. It is said that one American wanted to keep him as a souvenir and offered him a job as a paper-weight for his desk. The Trafalgar Hotel, Greenwich, famous of old for its whitebait dinners, has been turned into a Trades Union Club. The report that the Parliamentary Labour Party has decided to preserve the traditions of the place by holding an annual red herring supper there is not confirmed. A certain brass band in Hertfordshire now practises in the evening on the flat roof of a large factory. We understand that the Union of Cat Musicians are taking a serious view of the matter. A vagrant was before the magistrate last week, charged with tearing his clothes and destroying all the buttons on them whilst in a workhouse ward. It is not known at what laundry he served his apprenticeship. After announcing that the fox which had been causing severe losses to poultry had at last been killed a local paper admits that the wanton destruction of fowls is still going on. It is thought that another fox of the same name was killed in error. "The Irish will take nothing that we can offer them," says a Government official. Outside of that they seem to take pretty much what they want. We think that the attention of the N.S.P.C.C. should be drawn to the fact that several stall-holders on the beach of a popular seaside town are offering ices at twopence each, or twelve for one-and-six. A man was charged at the South Western Police Court with throwing a sandwich at a waiter. Very thoughtless. He might have broken it. A new instrument for measuring whiskey is announced. The last whiskey we ordered seemed to have been squirted into the glass with a hypodermic syringe. The Bull-dog Breed."H. Prew, b Staples, c L. Mitchell, c Ryland, b Rajendrasinhji, 17."—Daily Paper. The gallant fellow doesn't seem to have known when he was beaten.
A "wet" canteen, presumably. "UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE."
Doubtless, my Masters, you are right As to the lore which they delight To teach at Cambridge College; Contented with a classic tone, Those useful arts we left alone By which we might have held our own Against the Newer Knowledge. Even if I could still retain The ethics which my early brain Imbibed from Aristotle, It would not serve me much to speak His views on virtue (in the Greek) When buying table claret (weak) At ten-and-six the bottle. Or when my tailor claims his loot Of twenty guineas for a suit Of rude continuations, I must remain his hopeless thrall, Nor would it move his heart at all Could I from Juvenal recall Some apposite quotations. If I engaged a working-man To mend a leaky pot or pan Or else a pipe that's porous, He would not modify his fees For hours and hours of vacant ease Though out of Aristophanes I said a funny chorus. I am a failure, it appears; I cannot cope with profiteers Nor with enlightened Labour; Too late I see, on looking back, Where lies the blame for what I lack; Why was I never taught the knack Of beggaring my neighbour? O. S. A CONNOISSEUR'S APPRECIATION.Sharp Rise of Great Britain in the Estimation of U.S.A. The first-class carriage was empty. I threw my coat into a corner and settled myself in the seat opposite. Just as the train started to move, the door was flung open and a tall lean body hurled itself into the compartment and dropped on my coat. He was followed instantaneously by a leather bag which crashed on to the floor. "Say, these cars pull out pretty slick." My intelligence at once conjectured that this was an American, one of the thousands who have lately taken advantage of the exchange to spy out the nakedness of our land. I must admit that I understand American only with great difficulty. I try to guess the meaning of each sentence from the unimportant words which I can interpret. I surmised somehow that his speech referred to the bag on the floor. So I answered, civilly enough, "I hope your bag is undamaged. Excuse me, I will relieve you of my coat." So saying, I pulled it from beneath him and with a single movement flung it on the rack over my own head. The stranger spoke again after some moments. He appeared to have spent the interval in repeating my words to himself, as though to grasp their meaning. Yet, heaven knows, I speak plainly enough. This time he said, "Guess my grip's O.K. But I ain't plunkin' my bucks on the guy that says the old country's in the sweet and peaceful." After this most extraordinary and unintelligible communication he began to feel his pockets and his person all over, as though searching for something. I felt myself at liberty to resume my study of The Spectator. However, I was not to be left alone. Again he addressed me. "Guess I gotta hand it to you." "I beg your pardon," I observed, lowering my paper. "You've got 'em all whipped blocks," he went on, his absurd smile still persisting. "You're a cracker jack, you're a smart aleck. You've done to me what the fire did to the furnishing shack. You've dealt me one in the spaghetti joint. Oh, I gotta hand it to you." I could understand little of the words, but I gathered from his manner that he was congratulating me on something in the extravagant but interesting fashion of the North-American tribes. "You sure put the monkey-wrench on me," he continued. "You make me feel like I couldn't operate a pea-nut stand. I'm the rube from the back-blocks, sure thing. I ain't going to holler any—not me. I'm real pleased to get acquainted. Shake." I took his hand with as little self-consciousness as possible, not yet having been able to understand what praiseworthy act I had accomplished. I must admit none the less that I felt vaguely pleased at his encomiums. "There was a guy way back in Nevada used to have a style like yours. They called him Happy Cloud Sim, and he had a hand like a ham. See that grip? Well, Sir, Sim 'ud come right in here, lay his hand somewheres about, and that grip 'ud vanish into the sweet eternal. You could search the hull of the cars from caboose to fire-box and nary a grip. He was an artist. Poor Sim, he overreached himself in Albany, trying to attach a cash-register. The blame thing started ringing a bell and shedding tickets all along the sidewalk. The sleuths just paper-chased him through the burg. He was easy meat for the calaboose that Fall." I was at a loss to understand the relevance of this extremely improbable narrative. It did not appear, on the face of it, complimentary to connect me with a declared thief and gaol-bird. Still it was my duty to be courteous to one who was for the time a national guest. "A most interesting story," I remarked, "and one which has the further advantage of conveying a moral lesson." "But you got Sim beat ten blocks," he resumed. "The way you threw your top-coat up made Sim look like a last year's made-over. I never set eyes on a dry-goods clerk as could fix a package slicker. I'll have a lil something to tell the home town." He looked out of the window. "Guess this is Harrow," he remarked, "and we're pulling into the deepo. I may as well have my wad back." So saying he put his hand into the folds of the coat over my head and withdrew a roll of notes fastened with a rubber band. This roll he then stuffed into his hip-pocket. I began to see the meaning of his insinuations. "If you think," said I indignantly, "that I saw you drop your notes and deliberately rolled them up in the coat——" "Nix on that stuff," he retorted jovially. "I know them dollar-bills; they kinder skin theirselves off the wad and when you come to pay the bartender they've hit the trail and you stand lonesome with a bitter taste in your mouth, like Lot's wife." The train stopped; the man stepped out with the unnecessary haste of his kind. "Well, I'm pleased to have met you," he concluded, still smiling amiably through the window; "if ever you strike Rapid City, Wis., you'll find me rustling wood somewheres near the saloon. I'd like to have got better acquainted, but I promised the folks I'd stop off here and get wise as to how boys is raised in your country. They sure grow up fine men. I reckon we 're way behind the times in Rapid City——" The train passed out leaving me speechless with indignation. It took me some moments to recover my normal balance. Then I confess I was delighted to notice that the fellow, in his enthusiasm over the alleged lightness of my fingers, had left his precious "grip" behind him. It travelled with me to my destination. I hope it is still travelling. |
|
