  It is rumoured that Professor Porta has sent a message to Mr. Lloyd George, wishing him a Happy New World. Mr. Justice Rowlatt has decided that photography is not a profession. With some actresses, of course, it is just a disease. The gentleman who drew 1920 in a fifty-pound sweepstake as the date of the ex-Kaiser's trial is now prepared to sell his chance for sixpence-halfpenny. "He is not a politician," says Mr. R. Harcourt in The Times, referring to Sir Auckland Geddes. It will be interesting to see how Sir Auckland accepts this compliment. A letter posted at Hull for Odessa in July, 1914, has just been returned to the sender. The postal authorities are thought to take the view that the sender should be given an opportunity of adding a few seasonable observations to his previous remarks. It is all nonsense to say that there can be no change in the present high prices. They can always go higher. Owing to the strike of cabmen in Glasgow a number of people had to walk home on New Year's Eve. It is not said how the others got home, but we have made a guess. On enquiry about the erection of huge new premises in the Strand by the American Bush Terminal Company, we gather that London is not to be removed, but will be allowed to remain next door. Inspector Moss of the Great Eastern Railway Police has just had his pocket picked and thirty pounds stolen. It is only fair to say that he was in plain clothes and the thief did not know he was a police officer. A history of the Ministry of Munitions is to be compiled at a cost of £9,648. To keep the expense down to this modest sum by economy in printing Mr. Winston Churchill will be referred to throughout as "X." A man has been charged with damaging a London omnibus. He pleaded that the vehicle pushed him first. Mrs. Payne, the only woman mouse-trap-maker in London, has retired from the business. It is said that a number of mice hope to arrange a farewell cheese. At a recent meeting of the Peace Conference it was decided that the troubles in Egypt and India should in future be referred to as Honorary Wars. The Indians much appreciate Charlie Chaplin, says The Weekly Dispatch. We felt confident that this film comedian would come into his own some day. Only two minor railway accidents were reported in December, but a South Coast train which started that month is reported to have run into the New Year. It is estimated that The Outline of History by Mr. H. G. Wells will be concluded this year. It would be a pleasing compliment to the author if at The Thames angler who was asked in the Club at night if he had had any luck that day, and replied that he had not had a bite, is thought to be an impostor. An Insurance official states that thin people live longer than stout. This is probably due to the fact that when thin people stand sideways the motor-car doesn't get a real chance. "It is just twenty months since we experienced the last hostile air-raid," states an evening paper. Should this indiscreet statement reach the ears of certain Government Officials it is feared that one or two of our picturesque anti-aircraft stations may be dismantled. According to an American paper, a lawyer has left New York for Mexico, in order to try to explain to the inhabitants the meaning of Peace and the benefits to be derived from joining the League of Nations. We understand he has made full arrangements for leaving a widow and two young children. Our heart goes out to the tenant of an experimental paper-house who discovered, on going up-stairs, that his two-year-old son in a fit of ungovernable passion had torn up his nursery. A man has written to The Daily Mail advocating the alteration of the calendar to thirteen months of twenty-eight days each, with two Christmas Days in Leap Year. The writer—to do him justice—did not sign himself "Paterfamilias." The New Poor Dance Club, which has opened in the West End, is having its vicissitudes. Last week, it is reported, a distinguished stranger mistook a waiter for one of the members, and the waiters have threatened to strike if it occurs again. Los Angeles, California, says a New York cable, is suffering from an unprecedented crime wave. A proposal by President Carranza to draw a cordon sanitaire round the place has not yet reached Washington. "Are dark people cleverer than fair?" asks a contemporary. These clumsy attempts to destroy the Coalition spirit are too transparent to be successful. Intending visitors to the Zoological Gardens in Phoenix Park, Dublin, are now required to get a permit from the military authorities. A daring attempt by a Sinn Feiner to approach the Viceregal Lodge under cover of a cassowary is said to be responsible for the order. The ex-Kaiser, it is stated, has asked the Prussian Government if there would be any objection to his settling in Peru as a cattle-raiser. The probability that the Crown Prince will settle in France for a spell as a watch-lifter is thought to have fired the ex-Imperial imagination. A report from Chicago states that, as a result of the prevailing taste for wood-alcohol, a number of citizens successfully revived the ancient custom of seeing the Aurora Borealis in. 'Hurry up, Johnson--what a time you take!' "Hurry up, Johnson—what a time you take!" "I can't get through these beastly troops."
Il faut souffrir pour Être belle.
Not so much now that the meat-shortage is over.
It is supposed that their worships were under the impression that billiards was a new form of shinty. THE TUBE CURE.
To-day, when I acquire a cold (Rude Boreas having blustered), I do not, as in times of old, Immerse my feet in mustard; I put a penny in a slot At some Tube railway station And draw a ticket for a not Far distant destination. I shun the crowded lifts, although They're right enough in their way, And make my calm, unruffled, slow Descension by the stairway; 'Tis there a man can be alone, Immune from all intrusion; I doubt if there was ever known Its equal for seclusion. Where no invading footsteps fall I quaff the healthy vapours, While glancing at my ease through all The illustrated papers; And since I've found the bottom stair A place they don't upholster, I always take when going there A small pneumatic bolster. Not till an hour or twain have gone, Thus pleasantly expended, Do I proceed to carry on, And, when my journey's ended, I find all dread bacilli slain— No germ shows his (or her) face— And so, my cherry self again, Come blithely to the surface. A BUNCH OF POETS.Mr. Obadiah Geek has broken his long silence to some purpose. Those who remember his pre-war achievements in the field of polychromatic romanticism will hardly be prepared for his present development, which lifts him at a bound from the overcrowded ranks of lyric-writers to the uncongested heights whereon recline the great masters of epic poetry. And yet it was perhaps inevitable. The thunder and the reek of war (the last two years of which, we believe, were spent by Mr. Geek in the Egg Control Department) could scarcely have failed to imprint their mark on the author of Eros in Eruption; and so he has given us a real epic, whose very title, Ad Astra, is symbolic of the high altitudes in which he so triumphantly and so securely navigates. Outwardly it is a story of the War, but there is little difficulty in probing the allegory; and those who follow the hero's vicissitudes as a private in the Gasoliers, right through to his victorious advancement to the rank of Acting Lance-Corporal, unpaid (and there is a symbolism even in the "unpaid"), will readily supply the application to the affairs of everyday life. The ten thousand odd lines of this inspired poem are liberally enlivened with those characteristic flashes which Mr. Geek's previous efforts have led us to expect. Nothing could be happier than the following, descriptive of the hero's early days on the barrack-square:— The Sergeant rolled his eyes toward the azure And called down curses on my bloody head... "You buzz about," his peroration ran, "Like a bluebottle in a sugar-bowl. Thank God we have a Navy!" and my feet, Turned outward, as they had been drilled to turn, At forty-five degrees or thereabouts, Itched to join issue with his swollen paunch; But I refrained. Or again:— Fame, the skyscraper, hath a thousand floors; And some toil slowly upward, stair by stair, And stagger and halt and faint upon the way; Others, more fortunate, achieve the top At one swift elevation, by the lift. Mr. Geek, whatever his method of progression may have been, has certainly "achieved the top"—if indeed he has not gone over it. In Throbs, Miss Gramercy Gingham-Potts reveals a depth of feeling and delicacy of expression that should secure her the right of entry to every art-calendar and birthday-book. Her Muse is, perhaps, a trifle anÆmic, but to many none the less interesting on that account; its very fragility, in fact, constitutes its chief appeal. She has an engaging gift of definition that, combined with a keen appreciation of the obvious, makes her verses particularly susceptible to quotation. For instance:— The maiden asked, "What is a kiss?" The poet wrote: "Kisses are stamps that frank with bliss Love's contract-note." While for effectively studied simplicity it would be difficult to match the lyrical gem to which Miss Gingham-Potts has given the arresting title, "Farewell":— The birds sing sweet in Summer; The daisies hear their song; But Winter's come, and they are dumb So long. I told my love in Summer, So pure and brave and strong; But frosts came on; my love is gone; So long! A new volume by the author of Swings and Roundabouts is something of an event; and in Bottles and Jugs Mr. Ughtred Biggs makes another fascinating raid on the garbage-bins of London's underworld. Mr. Biggs is a stark realist, and his unminced meat may prove too strong for some stomachs; but those who can digest the fare he offers will find it wonderfully sustaining. Here is no condiment of verbiage, no dressing of the picturesque. Life is served up high, and almost raw. By way of illustration we cannot do better than quote from the opening poem, "Bill's Wife," in which the calculated roughness of the rhythm is redolent of the pervading atmosphere:— At the corner of the street Stands the Blue-faced Pig; Outside a barrel-organ is playing And the people are dancing a jig. A woman waits there grimly; Her eyes are set and her lips drawn thin; For Bill, her man, is in the public, Soaking his soul in gin. Students of sociology might do worse than devote careful attention to these gaunt chronicles of Slumland. The following stanzas, taken from a poem entitled "Reconstruction," are a favourable example of Mr. Thor Pinmoney's somewhat unequal genius:— By strife we live, but boredom slays; My mind from out this office strays And takes me back to the spacious days When I counted socks in Ordnance. I hate my pen; I hate my stool; What am I but a nerveless tool? But we did not work by rote or rule When I counted socks in Ordnance.... There are times even now when it really seems I'm back in a suburb of shell-shocked Rheims; But the office echoes my waking screams When I find it was only in my dreams I was counting socks in Ordnance. Unfortunately, all Mr. Pinmoney's efforts do not come up to this standard, and we should be almost inclined to wonder whether the writer has not after all mistaken his vocation, were it not for the really brilliant piece of work which brings the volume (Pegasus Comes Home) to a close. We make no apology for reproducing this masterpiece in full:— Man comes And goes. What then? Who knows? Here we have the whole philosophy of life and the life hereafter summed up. If he never writes another line Mr. Pinmoney is by this assured of a permanent place in the anthology of post-bellum poetry.
Lloyd-Georgeous, in fact. MANNERS AND MODES. MANNERS AND MODES.HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF A LADY WHO DREAMS THAT SHE HAS GONE TO A BALL IN HER NIGHT-GOWN AND FOUND HERSELF SHOCKINGLY OVERDRESSED. THE "FIRST HUNDRED" OF LOEB.
When ways are foul and days are damp, When agitators rage and ramp, And Smillie, with the aid of Cramp, Threatens to rend the globe; When margarine is scarce, or beef, And drinks are dear and few and brief, I find refreshment and relief And comfort in my Loeb. Good print, good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we get in Loeb. Let scientists on various fronts Indulge in their atomic stunts, Or harness to our prams and punts The puissant radiobe; Me rather it delights to roam Across the salt Ægean foam With old Odysseus, far from home, And bless the name of Loeb. To soar with Plato to the heights; To find in Plutarch's kings and knights The human touch that more delights Than crown or regal robe; To taste the fresh Pierian springs, To see Catullus scorch his wings With the fierce flame that sears and stings— For this I thank thee, Loeb. I've made no fortune out of beer; I'm not a plutocrat or peer, Nor yet a bloated profiteer, An OM or e'en an OBE; But if I'd thirty pounds to spare I'd go and blow them then and there Upon the Hundred Books that bear The sign and seal of Loeb. BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND. BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.The Rescuer. "I'm not a very graceful diver, you know. What about employing a professional swimmer for this part of the show?" A NEWSPAPER SCOOP.(With the British Army in France.)"I spotted him by the fountain-pen stains on his vest and the thunderbolts sticking out of his pockets," said Frederick. "So I went up to him and said, 'You are Wuffle of The Daily Hooter, the man who wiped-up Whitehall and is now engaged in freezing-out France?" "What did he say?" asked Percival. "Whipped out a note-book and asked me to tell him all about it. I said I was pining for the white cliffs of Albion and that the call of the counting-house and cash-box was ringing in my ears, but that I couldn't get demobilised because the Colonel's pet Pomeranian had conceived a fancy for me and wouldn't take its underdone chop from anyone else. I also hinted that I and a few friends could tell him things that would make his biggest journalistic scoops look like paragraphs in a parish magazine, so he invited me to bring you round this afternoon to split an infinitive with him." "Wuffle?" said Binnie. "That's the man who wrote about 'gilded subalterns loafing luxuriously in cushioned cars in a giddy round of useless and pampered ease'?" "Well, I won't say he wrote it, but he signed it. No single man living could write all the stuff Wuffle signs. It's turned out as they turn out cheap motor-cars. One man roughs it out, passes it to the adjective department, thence to the punctuation-room, where they sprinkle it with commas and exclamation marks, and then Wuffle touches it up, fits it with headlines and signs it. Oh, I forgot. Before it goes to press the libel expert looks it over to see that it isn't actionable." "Anyway, he's the responsible party," said Binnie, "and I would fain have converse with the Wuffle. That 'gilded subaltern' bit was ringing in my head like a dirge the other night when I was wearily trudging the seven kilometres from St. Denis camp because there was no one to give me a lift." That afternoon Frederick introduced his friends to Wuffle. "Sorry we're late," he said, "but Percival and Binnie here have been engaged with the Pioneer-Sergeant discussing the best method of converting a whippet-tank into a roller for the tennis-courts." At that moment a motor-lorry rumbled by, and Binnie, recollecting a passage in Wuffle's latest article about "motor-lorries rushing madly about with apparently no purpose in view," jumped excitedly to the door. "'Magneto Maggie' leading," he shouted, "and 'The Sparking Spitfire' is just behind. Care to double your bet on 'Maggie' at evens, Percival?" "Not yet," replied Percival cautiously. "It's only the first lap yet, and 'Maggie' sometimes jibs a bit when she passes the Remount DepÔt." Wuffle had his fountain-pen at the alert and looked inquiringly at Frederick. "I suppose it is another example of deliberate waste," said the latter. "But we've got the lorries eating their heads off in the garages and the petrol is simply aching to be evaporated, so we give the drivers exercise and ourselves some excitement over organising these Area Circuit Steeplechases." "Why not trans-ship the lorries?" suggested Wuffle. "That would never do, old prune," said Frederick. "The troops would have nothing to guard." "Send the men home," persisted Wuffle. "Come, my willowy asparagus," replied Frederick in horrified tones, "we must have troops to find us work to do. Of course it's sometimes difficult to keep the men employed, and then we have to make dumps of empty biscuit tins and things for them to guard." "I fixed up a real beauty at Le Glaxo, not ten kilometres from here," chipped in Percival. "If you'd like to see it there's a train going in about twenty minutes." Wuffle jumped up with alacrity. "I'd be awfully glad to get a snapshot of it," said he, disappearing in search of his hat and coat. Frederick took the opportunity to make a few scathing remarks to Percival. "It's just like you, you mouldy old citron," he said. "I start a little experiment in tirage de jambe, and you put your heavy hoof in and spoil the whole business. You know jolly well that Le Glaxo was completely closed down months ago." "Oh, put another penny in your brain-meter and try to realise that you aren't the only one who's grown up," replied Percival impatiently. "Your brain-waves move about as quick as G.P.O. telegraph messages. I'd got the scheme worked out while you were putting over your old musical-comedy gags." Since the departure of the British, Le Glaxo's only excitement is the arrival of its one train per day. Ignoring the sensation caused by the detraining of four persons simultaneously, Percival led his party along a muddy rough lane. "The dump is about four kilometres away and the road gets rather bad towards the end," he said, maliciously edging Wuffle into a bit of swamp. "Sorry; I was going to warn you about that." Wuffle scraped mud from his trousers and followed the leader over a rough wall into a hidden ditch. A breathless climb up a hill and a steady trudge over plough-land found Wuffle still game, but, after he had got his camera ready for action on the cheerful assurance that they were nearing their quarry, a disappointed cry from the leader dashed his hopes. "Hang it!" said Percival, "I forgot. The dump was moved to Pont Antoine last Tuesday. Come along; it's only three kilometres away." Strangely enough, Pont Antoine was also a blank. Binnie suggested trying Monceau, two kilometres further on; but when they arrived there, fatigued and dirty, a thin drizzle was falling and it was almost dark. Percival confessed himself baffled. "I'm awfully sorry," said he to Wuffle; "I can't find it now, and the point is how are we going to get back? There isn't a railway for miles." "Don't any of our lorries or cars pass here?" asked Wuffle. "Oh, yes. But they won't give you "It's the result of the articles in the papers about waste," said Frederick sympathetically. "But I don't suppose there would be any objection to your hanging on and running behind." Wuffle looked round disconsolately. In the gloom the lighted windows of the tiny HÔtel de l'Univers blinked invitingly. "I think I'll stop here for the night," he said, "and telephone for a car to fetch me to-morrow." "Right-o!" said Percival. "And when it's thoroughly light you might—you might be able to find the dump. So long." As they rumbled uncomfortably home on a fortuitous three-ton lorry, Percival looked round for applause. "C'est bien fait, mon vieux," chuckled Binnie. "I'll bet the Wuffle won't go dump-hunting again in a hurry. And he won't be able to do any damage from that little estaminet for a day or two." The well-advertised series of articles in The Daily Hooter commenced a few days later. The conspirators studied them diligently in gleeful anticipation of finding their contribution to journalistic enterprise. It came at the end, in a brief paragraph. "When I had collected my material for this powerful indictment, etc., etc." (ran the article), "I met a party of irresponsible subalterns bent on the old, old army pastime of leg-pulling. For the sake of exercise and amusement I permitted them to conduct me on a wild-goose chase after an imaginary dump, which luckily led me to a sequestered little hotel where I was able to write my articles in peace and quietude. But to return to the main question. I unhesitatingly affirm..." Percival, who was reading aloud, let the paper fall limply from his hand. "Frederick," he said, "put your biggest boots on and kick me. The word-merchant was laughing at us all the time." |
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