  "After all," asks a writer, "why shouldn't Ireland have a Parliament, like England?" Quite frankly we do not like this idea of retaliation while more humane methods are still unexplored. "The miners' strike," says a music-hall journal, "has given one song-writer the idea for a ragtime song." It is only fair to say that Mr. Smillie had no idea that his innocent little manoeuvre would lead to this. The Admiralty does not propose to publish an official account of the Battle of Jutland. Indeed the impression is gaining ground that this battle will have to be cancelled. We are asked to deny that, following upon the publication of Mirrors of Downing Street, by "A Gentleman with a Duster," Lord Kenyon is about to dedicate to Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny a book entitled A Peer with a Knuckle-Duster. "Mr. Lloyd George seems to have had his hair 'bobbed' recently," says a gossip-writer in a Sunday paper. Mr. Hodges still sticks to the impression that it was really two-bobbed. "Cigars discovered in the possession of Edward Fischer, in New York," says a news item, "were found to contain only tobacco." Very rarely do we come across a case like that in England. "Water," says a member of the L.C.C., "is being sold at a loss." But not in our whisky, we regret to say. What is claimed to be the largest shell ever made has been turned out by the Hecla Works, Sheffield. It may shortly be measured for a war to fit it. A taxi-driver who knocked a man down in Gracechurch Street has summoned him for using abusive language. It seems a pity that pedestrians cannot be knocked down without showing their temper like this. After months of experiment at Thames Ditton the question of an artificial limb of light metal has been solved. It is said to be just the thing for Tube-travellers to carry as a spare. In connection with Mr. Pringle's recent visit to Ireland we are asked to say that he was not sent there as a reprisal. Mr. George Lansbury recently told a Poplar audience why he went to Australia many years ago. No explanation was offered of his return. A coal-porter summoned for income-tax at West Ham Police Court said that his wages averaged eight hundred pounds a year. We think it only fair to say that there must be labouring men here and there who earn even less than that. "The thief," says a weekly paper report, "entered the house by way of the front-door." We can only suppose that the burglars' entrance was locked at the time. A small boy, born in a Turkish harem, is said to have forty-eight step-mothers living. Our office-boy, however, is still undefeated in the matter of recently defunct grandmothers. The number of accidental deaths in France is attaining alarming proportions. It is certainly time that a stop was put to the quaint custom of duelling. A rat that looks like a kangaroo and barks like a prairie dog is reported in Texas, says The Columbia Record. We can only say that, when we last heard that one, it was an elephant with white trunk and pink eyes. "Why do leaders of the Bar wear such ill-fitting clothes?" asks a contemporary. A sly dig, we presume, at their brief bags. A reduction in prices is what every housewife in the land is looking for, says The Daily Express. It is not known how our contemporary got hold of this idea. There is no truth in the report that The Daily Mail has offered a prize of a hundred pounds to the first person who can prove that it has been talking through its prize hat. "What should The Daily Mail hat be worn with?" asks an enthusiast. "Characteristic modesty" is the right answer. Emigrants to Canada, it is stated, now include an increasingly large proportion of skilled workers. Fortunately, thanks to the high wages they earn at home, we are not losing the services of our skilled loafers. A burglar who was recently sentenced in the Glasgow Police Court was captured while in the act of lowering a chest of drawers out of a window with a rope. The old method of taking the house home and extracting the furniture at leisure is still considered the safest by conservative house-breakers. Found under a bed in a strange house at Grimsby, a man told the police who arrested him that he was looking for work. It was pointed out to him that the usual place for men looking for work is in bed, not under it. In a recent case a Hull bargee gave his name as Alfaina Swash. Nevertheless the Court did not decide to hear the rest of his evidence in camera. A cyclist who stopped to watch a stag-hunt near Tivington Cross, in Somerset, was tossed into the hedge by the stag. On behalf of the beast it is claimed that the cyclist was off-side. She don't 'arf swank since 'er farver was knocked over by a Rolls-Royce. "She don't 'arf swank since 'er farver was knocked over by a Rolls-Royce."
Good news for the local pussies.
Surely a little extravagant in these times. THE POET LAUREATE AND HIS GERMAN FRIENDS.
Such people as lacked the leisure to peruse My scripture, one-and-a-quarter columns long In The Times, may like me, as having the gift of song, To prosodise succinctly my private views. Did I cry Shame! in November, 1918, On those who never cried Shame! on the lords of hell? Rather the shame is mine who delayed to clean My soul of a wrong that grew intolerable. What if our German colleagues, our brothers-in-lore, Preached and approved for years the vilest of deeds? Yet is there every excuse when the hot blood speeds; We too were vexed and wanted our fellows' gore, Saying rude things in a moment of extreme tension Which in our calmer hours we should never mention. Dons in their academic ignorance blind, With passions like to our own as pea to pea, Shall we await in them a change of mind? Shall we require a repentant apology? Or in a generous spasm anticipate The regrets unspoken that, under the heavy stress Of labour involved in planning new frightfulness, They have been too busy, poor dears, to formulate? Once I remarked that on German crimes would follow "Perdition eternal"; Heaven would make this its care, Nor need to be hustled, with plenty of time to spare. Those words of mine I have a desire to swallow, Finding, on further thought, which admits my offence, That a few brief years of Coventry, of denied Communion with Culture—used in the Oxford sense— Are ample for getting our difference rectified. What is a Laureate paid for, I ask The Times, If not to recant in prose his patriot rhymes? I stamp my foot on my wrath's last smouldering ember, And for my motto I take "Lest we remember." O. S. THE SUPERFECTION LAUNDRY.I let myself into my flat to find a young woman sitting on one of those comfortless chairs designed by upholsterers for persons of second quality who are bidden to wait in the hall. "You want to see me?" I inquired. "Yes; what is it?" "I have called, Madam, to ask if you are satisfied with your laundry." "Far from it," I said. "It is kind of you to ask, but why?" "Because I wish to solicit your custom for the laundry I represent." "What faults do you specialise in?" I inquired. "I beg your pardon, Madam?" "Will you send home my husband's collars with an edge like a dissipated saw?" The young woman's face brightened with comprehension. "Oh, no, Madam," she replied. "We exercise the greatest care with gentlemen's stand-up collars." "Will you shrink my combinations to the size of a doll's?" An expression of horror invaded her countenance. "The utmost precaution," she asserted, "is taken to prevent the shrinkage of woollens." "Is it your custom to send back towels reduced to two hems connected by a few stray rags in the middle?" The young woman was aghast. "All towels are handled as gently as possible to avoid tearing," she replied. "How about handkerchiefs?" I asked. "I dislike to find myself grasping my bare nose through a hole in the centre." The suggestion made my visitor laugh. "Are you in the habit of sewing nasty bits of red thread, impossible to extricate, into conspicuous parts of one's clothing?" "Oh, no, Madam," she asseverated; "no linen is allowed to leave our establishment with any disfiguring marks." "You never, I suppose, return clothing dirtier than when it reached you?" I proceeded. Suppressed scorn that I could believe in such a possibility flashed momentarily from her eyes before she uttered an emphatic denial. "Nor do you ever perhaps send home garments belonging to other people while one's own are missing?" "Never, I can assure you, Madam." "Does the man who delivers the washing habitually turn the basket upside down so that the heavy things below crush all the delicate frilly things that ought to be on top?" She seemed incapable of conceiving that such perverted creatures could exist. "Do they never whistle in an objectionable manner while waiting for the soiled clothes?" "Whistling on duty is strictly forbidden, Madam." "Well, all these things I have mentioned my laundry does to me, and even more, and when I write to complain they disregard my letters." "We rarely have complaints, Madam, and all such receive prompt attention. I can give references in this street—in this block of flats even." "Well," said I, "if you like to give me a card I am willing to let you have a trial." The young woman opened her bag with alacrity and handed me a card. "The Superfection Laundry," I read with amazement. "Surely there must be some mistake?" "Are you not Mrs. Fulton?" asked the young woman. "No, you have come a floor too high. Mrs. Fulton lives in the flat below me." "I must apologise for my call, then; I was sent to see Mrs. Fulton. But all the same may we not add you to the list of our customers?" "Impossible," I said. "May I ask your reasons, Madam?" "Because the laundry I employ at present is the Superfection." The Church Militant in the Near East.
OUR VILLAGE SIGN. OUR VILLAGE SIGN. Hit him where you like, dear—it's my husband. The Guest (exasperated with waiting). "I've a good mind to drive off, but I'm afraid of hitting that idiot in front." The Hostess. "Hit him where you like, dear—it's my husband." PROOF POSITIVE.This kind of thing had been going on morning after morning until I was quite tired. They. You ought to get hold of a good dog. It is extraordinary how many things one ought to get hold of in the country. Sometimes it is a wood-chopper and sometimes a couple of hundred cabbages, and sometimes a cartload of manure, and sometimes a few good hens. I find this very exhausting to the grip. I. What for? They. To watch your house. I. I do not wish to inflict pain on a good dog. What kind of a dog ought it to be? They. Well, a mastiff. I. Isn't that rather a smooth kind of dog? If I have to get hold of a dog, I should like one with rather a rougher surface. They. Try an Irish terrier. I. I have. They fight. They. Not unless they're provoked. I. Nobody fights unless he is provoked. But more things provoke an Irish terrier than one might imagine. The postman provoked my old one so much that it bit the letters out of his hand and ate them. They. Well, you didn't get any bills, then. I. Yes, I did. Bills always came when the dog was away for the week-end. He was a great week-ender, and he always came back from week-ends with more and more pieces out of his ears until at last they were all gone, and he couldn't hear us when we called him. They. Well, there are plenty of other sorts. You might have a Chow or an Airedale or a boar-hound. I. Thank you, I do not hunt boars. Besides, all the dogs you mention are very expensive nowadays. In the War it was quite different. You could collect dogs for practically nothing then. My company used to have more than a dozen dogs parading with it every day. They had never seen so many men so willing to go for so many long walks before. They thought the Millennium had come. A proposal was made that they should be taught to form fours and march in the rear. But, like all great strategical plans, it was stifled by red tape. After that— They. You are getting away from the point. If you really want a good cheap dog— I. Ah, I thought you were coming to that. You know of a good cheap dog? They. The gardener of my sister-in-law's aunt has an extremely good cheap dog. I. And would it watch my house? They. Most intently. That is how Trotsky came to us. Nobody but a reckless propagandist would say that he is either a mastiff or a boar-hound, though he once stopped when we came to a pig. I do not mind that. What I do mind is their saying, now that they have palmed him off on me, "I saw you out with your what-ever-it-is yesterday," or "I did not know you had taken to sheep-breeding," or "What is that thing you have tied up to the kennel at the back?" There seems to be something about the animal's tail that does not go with its back, or about its legs that does not go with its nose, or about its eyes that does not go with its fur. If it is fur, that is to say. And the eyes are a different colour and seem to squint a little. They say that one of them is a wall-eye. I think that is the one he watches the The village policeman came round to the house the other day. I think he really came to talk to the cook, but I fell into conversation with him. "You ought to be getting a licence for that dog of yours," he said. "What dog?" I asked. "Why, you've got a dog tied up at the back there, haven't you?" he said. "Have I?" said I. And we went out and looked at it together. Trotsky looked at me with one eye and at the policeman with the other, and he wagged his tail. At least I am not sure that he wagged it; "shook" would be a better word. "Where did you get it?" he inquired. "Oh, I just got hold of it," I said airily. "It's rather good, don't you think?" He stood for some time in doubt. "It's a dog," he said at last. I shook him warmly by the hand. "You have taken a great load off my mind," I told him. "I will get a licence at once." This will score off them pretty badly. After all you can't go behind a Government certificate, can you? She's just bin givin' me notice. Caller. "Is Mrs. Jones at home?" Cook-General. "She is, but she ain't 'ardly in a fit state to see anybody. She's just bin givin' me notice."
THE CRY OF THE ADULT AUTHOR.[The "Diarist" of The Westminster Gazette, in the issue of October 25th, utters a poignant cri de coeur over what he regards as one of the great tragedies of the time—the crowding-out of the "genuine craftsmen" of journalism and letters by Cabinet Ministers, notoriety-mongers and, above all, by sloppy infant prodigies.] Oh, bitter are the insults And bitter is the shame Heaped on deserving authors Of high and strenuous aim, When all the best booksellers Their shelves and windows cram With novels from the nursery And poems from the pram. In recent Autumn seasons Writers of age mature (From eighteen up to thirty) Of sympathy were sure; Now publishers their portals On everybody slam Save novelists from the nursery And poets from the pram. Unfairly Winston Churchill Invades the Sunday sheets; Unfairly Mrs. Asquith With serious scribes competes; But these are minor evils— What makes me cuss and damn Are novels from the nursery And poems from the pram. When on the concert platform The prodigy appears I do not grudge his welcome, The clappings and the cheers; But I can't forgive the people Who down our throats would cram The novelists from the nursery, The poets from the pram. I met a (once) best seller, And I took him by the hand, And asked, "How's Opal Whiteley And how does Daisy stand?" He answered, "I can only See sloppiness and sham In novels from the nursery And poems from the pram." If I were only despot, To end this painful feud I'd banish straight to Mespot The scribbling infant brood, And bar the importation, By that hustler, Uncle Sam, Of novels from the nursery And poems from the pram. From an account of Sir J. Forbes-Robertson's dÉbut:—
The archangel was a great catch.
Shoving, we suppose, for all they are worth. |
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