Part 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 150

JUNE 21, 1916

* * * * *

CHARIVARIA.

An "Iron Scheer" is to be erected at Cuxhaven in honour of the "victor" of the Battle of Horn Reef. It is thought, however, that lead would be more appropriate than iron for the occasion. It runs more easily under fire.

* * *

"I want," said Mr. ROOSEVELT, at Oyster Bay, "to tell you newspaper men that it is useless to come to see me. I have nothing to say." As however some of them had come quite a long way to see him, he might at least have made a noise like a Bull Moose.

* * *

Asked as to the nature of his disability, an appellant informed one of the London Tribunals that he was a member of the V.T.C. This studied insult to a fine body of men was, we are happy to say, repudiated by the Tribunal, which advised the applicant to try to join a "crack" regiment.

* * *

No civilians being available for the work, fifty men of the Royal Scots regiment laid half-a-mile of water main at Coggeshall Abbey in record time. This incident should finally dispose of a popular superstition that among the Scotch water is only a secondary consideration.

* * *

The Water Board has spent £70 in renovating some Chippendale chairs belonging to the New River Company. The poor shareholders are quite helpless in the matter.

* * *

On an acre of ground, a man told the Farnham Tribunal, he kept 9 sows, 34 pigs and 1 horse, and grew a quarter-of-an-acre of mangolds and a quarter-of-an-acre of potatoes. Asked where he kept himself the man is understood to have reluctantly named an exclusive hotel in the West End.

* * *

"The extra hour of daylight is turning every City man into a gardener," says _The Daily Mail_. This must be a source of great concern to our contemporary, according to which, if we read aright, the majority of our public men do their work like gardeners.

* * *

"A wave of temperance might come by sending drunkards to prison for a second offence," said Mr. MEAD at the West London Court. This remark will cause consternation in those select circles in which a second offence is usually an indication of a discriminating dilettantism.

* * *

"Mr. Hughes," says _The Daily Mail_, "goes to the Paris Conference with the British ideals in his pocket." Personally, we have an idea that things of this sort ought to be left in the Cabinet.

* * *

"This war," says _The Fishing Gazette_, "is going to provide protection to fish from the trawlers in all places where ships sink on trawling-grounds." That, however, is not the real issue, and we cannot too strongly deprecate such an unscrupulous attempt on the part of our contemporary to draw a red herring across the trail.

* * *

According to a New York cable, President WILSON last week headed a procession in favour of military preparedness as an ordinary citizen in a straw hat, blue coat, cream pants, and carrying an American flag on his shoulders. The intensely militant note struck by the cream pants is regarded as a body blow to the hope of the pacificists in the party and astonished even the most chauvinistic of PRESIDENT'S admirers.

* * *

"For anyone to keep a cow for their private supply of milk is a luxury, and there is no necessity for it," said the Chairman of the Chobham Tribunal, and, as a result of this ruling, a maiden lady in the district who has long cherished the ambition of keeping a bee for her private supply of honey has reluctantly decided to abandon the idea.

* * *

Berlin's newest attraction is said to be a young woman named ANNA VON BERGDORFF, who has revealed extraordinary powers of memory, and whose chief accomplishment is to "remember and repeat without error from twenty-five to fifty disconnected words after hearing them once." In these circumstances it would seem to be a thousand pities that the lady was not present when the KAISER received the news of the famous "victory" of his Fleet in the Battle of Jutland.

* * *

In St. Louis, U.S.A., the Democratic National Convention is claiming on behalf of President WILSON that he has "successfully steered the ship of State throughout troublous times without involving the United States in war." Or, as the hyphenateds put it more tersely, "Woodrow has delivered the goods."

* * *

In a bird's-nest in a water-pipe at Sheffield a workman has discovered a £20 Bank of England note, which, we understand, has since been claimed by various people in the neighbourhood who have lately been troubled by mysterious thefts of £1 and 10s. Treasury notes, as well as by a man who alleges that he was recently robbed of that exact sum in silver and copper coins.

* * *

A traveller who has arrived in Amsterdam from Berlin states that in that city placards have been pasted on all the walls explaining that the KAISER is not responsible for the War. We hope however that now it has been brought to his notice it is not unreasonable on our part to express the hope that he will promptly decide to go a step further and declare his neutrality.

* * *

At an Exhibition of Substitutes now being held in Berlin a special department displayed stage decorations, scenery and costumes made mostly out of paper instead of wool. As a counterblast to the alleged German superiority in matters of this sort, it is pleasant to be able to record the fact that in our English theatres it is no uncommon thing to see an audience made mostly out of the same material.

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(_Marshal VON HINDENBERG and Admiral VON SCHEER._)

_The Admiral._ The beer, at any rate, is good.

_The Marshal._ Yes, the beer is good enough, Heaven be thanked! I only wish everything else was as good as the beer.

_The Admiral._ So then there is grumbling here too. It was in my mind that I should find everything here in first-rate order and everybody delighted with the condition of things.

_The Marshal._ So? Then all I can say is that you expected too much. You do not seem to realise how things are going with us. I suppose you had thought the Russians were absolutely done for after what happened to them last year. So thought the All-highest, who has a mania for imagining complete victories and talking about them in language that makes one ashamed of being a German. As if----

_The Admiral._ Yes, that's quite true. I'll tell you a little story about that later on.

_The Marshal._ Well, he saw complete victory over the Russians, and what does he do? He withdraws some of my best divisions to the Western Front and throws them into that boiling cauldron at Verdun, where they have all perished to the last man, and leaves me with my thinned line to hold out as best I can; and, not content with this, he permits those accursed Austrians to rush their troops, if indeed they are worthy to be called by that name, headlong into Italy on a mad adventure of their own and to get stuck there far beyond the possibility of help. And then what happens? The moment arrives when the new and immense Russian armies are trained, and when they have rifles and cannons and ammunition in plenty, and one fine day they wake up and hurl themselves against the Austrians, and helter-skelter away go the whole set of Archdukes and Generals and Colonels and men, each trying to see who has the longest legs and can use them quickest for escaping. And I'm expected to bring up my fellows, who have quite enough to do where they are, and to sacrifice them in helping this rabble. "HINDENBURG," said the All-highest to me, "be up and doing. Show yourself worthy of your ancient glory and earn more golden nails for your wooden statue." "Majesty," I replied, "if you will leave me my fighting men, you can keep all the golden nails that were ever made." But at this he frowned, suspecting a joke: I have often noticed that he does not like jokes.

_The Admiral._ Yes, I have noticed that myself, and I always do my best to take him quite seriously. But I was going to tell you a little story about our speechmaking hero. Here it is. As you know, he ordered us out to fight the naval battle off Jutland.

_The Marshal._ Yes, I know--the great victory.

_The Admiral._ Hum-hum.

_The Marshal._ Well, wasn't it?

_The Admiral._ Ye-e-s, that is to say, not exactly what one understands by great and not precisely what is meant by victory. However, we can discuss that another time. What I wanted to tell you was this. The speech our friend and KAISER made----

_The Marshal._ It was a highly coloured piece of fireworks.

_The Admiral._ Well, it was all prepared and written down days before the fight was fought. I heard this from a sure source, from someone, in fact, who had seen the manuscript and had afterwards caught sight of the Imperial one rehearsing it before a looking-glass. Whatever might have happened, the speech would have been the same, even if we had returned into harbour with only one ship--and there was a time when I thought we should hardly be able to do even that.

_The Marshal._ I wonder what would have happened to him if he had not been able to deliver the speech at all.

_The Admiral._ He would have burst himself.

_The Marshal._ Yes, that is what would have happened to him.

_The Admiral._ Well, anyhow, the beer is good here.

_The Marshal._ Oh, yes, the beer is all right.

* * * * *

THE ONLY WAY.

Judkins was the last man in the world one would have expected to meet in the fashionable costume of the day. To begin with, he was well over age. And then he was on the quiet side, usually looking for some odd, old thought which had gone astray, and possessed of one of those travelling mentalities which take note of all sides of a subject. Yet there he stood in khaki.

"The very last man in the world I expected to see like this," I said. It was quite true. Judkins was the sort who would have attempted dreamy analyses with the drill-instructor.

"Don't blame me, old thing," he said with a shade of melancholy. "I know I am stiff and over age and all that, but the recruiting fellow said he would willingly overlook a decade. There was nothing else for it. It was the only way."

"How do you mean, 'the only way'?" I asked.

Judkins sighed.

"It was like this," he explained sadly. "I should have joined up before, but I have always tried to keep to the truth ever since I was seven and told a lie, and felt that I was lost. But I gave in at last. If Lord DERBY looks at my papers he will think I am forty. So I am, and a bit more. I meant to deceive his lordship, though it went against the grain. I am sure I don't know what Mr. WALTER LONG will say if he ever finds out what I have done. I can picture him exclaiming, 'Here's this man, Private Judkins, declaring he is only forty, when to my certain knowledge he was born in '66.'

"I am risking all that because life became insupportable. There was hardly anybody left I cared about. The one waiter at my favourite restaurant who didn't breathe down one's neck when he was holding the vegetables--he had joined; and the person who understood cigars at the corner shop, he is in it too. The new man doesn't know the difference between a Murias and a Manilla. It was the same all round. There was nobody to cut my hair. My barber was forming fours. It is a wonder to me why the War people have had to hunt the slippers, the chaps who have held back, for there is very little to tempt one to keep out of the crowd now. I've joined so as to be with the fellows I know. Don't go and put it all down to patriotism; it was just sheer loneliness. The man who sold me my evening paper--you remember him? he had a squint and used to invest in Spanish lotteries and get me to translate the letters he received--he is a soldier now; and so is the bootblack who asked for tips for the races, and the door-keeper at the offices. They're all wearing khaki, all in; and it wasn't the same world without them, only a dreary make-believe, and so I decided to deceive the War Office and join my friends. Every day I am finding the folk I'd lost. The Corporal with whom I do most business was checktaker at a theatre I used to frequent--always told me whether the show was worth the money before I parted. And the life is suiting me fairly well. Last week's route-march in the rain was a far, far wetter thing than I had ever done, but----"

He turned and gravely saluted an officer who was coming up on the wind....

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

XLII.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--No "Tourists' Guide to Northern France" would be complete without some mention of the picturesque town of A., a point at which even the most progressive traveller is likely to say that he's had a very pleasant journey so far, but now thinks of turning back. It boasts a small but exceedingly well-ventilated cathedral, many an eligible residence to let, and the relics of what was once a busy factory, on the few remaining bricks of which you are particularly requested to "afficher" no "affiches." It is approached by a railway, prettily overgrown with tall grasses and wild-flowers, and never made hideous these days by the presence of hustling, smoky trains. Entering daintily from the back, the tourist will soon find himself in its main street, devoid of ladies out shopping, but not without its curious collection of exuberant drain-pipes and recumbent lamp-posts. It lies, pleasantly dishevelled, in the sun, having the appearance of the bed of a restless sleeper who has shifted about somewhat in the night and made many abortive efforts to get up in the morning. Its streets are decorated with a series of dew ponds, dotted about with no apparent regard to the convenience of the traffic, and you may while away many an idle hour trying to discover where the street ends and the houses begin. You will not be interrupted if you detach, for your collection of curios, a yard or so of the dislodged statue of the leading municipal genius, and even the old man at the barrier of the eastern gate will only attempt to deter you by friendly advice if you persist in ignoring the notice, "This Road is Unfit for Vehicular Traffic." I am told that discipline is automatic at this point; it requires no browbeating military policemen to control the traffic here.

The town of A. has given up work. It has also given up trying to look smart. It still spreads itself over many acres and it has a population of twenty-five, not including the Town Major.

Town Majors, of the more permanent sort, are a race apart. Being older men, who have done their turn in the trenches and are now marked down for the less actively quarrelsome life, they nevertheless prefer to live in this sort of place. When a man gets to their age he has apparently grown too fond of his old friends, the shells, to be parted from them altogether till he absolutely must; also he likes a row of houses to himself to live in. A street cannot be so quickly demolished as to give him no time to select another one, and business can always be carried on at the one end while structural alterations are taking place at the other. This fluctuation of town property is a thing to be reckoned with in his life; and so on his office wall you will find a list of billets occupied by units, and where you see a blue mark you'll know the unit has gone, and where you see a red mark, you'll know the billet has.

The Town Major of A. is a great friend of mine; fortunately we are able to reserve our differences of opinion for the telephone, and even so neither can ever be sure whether the other lost his temper or the "cutting off" was done elsewhere. When we meet I find him the victim of so many other troubles that I always spare him more. He is one of those little old Majors, more like walnuts than anything else--the hardest, most wrinkled but best filled walnuts. He acts as the medium between the relentless routine of a high administrative office and the complex wants of the local warrior. I don't think he has ever yet decided whether his true sympathies lie with the machine or with the men. Once I was in his office when a weather-beaten young Subaltern arrived, requiring fuel for his R.E. Company. He knew of the whereabouts of just the very thing. True, it was a standing door at the moment, but no doubt that condition was only temporary. It led from a room, which was half demolished, into a passage which had ceased to exist. But the Town Major did not concern himself with this. An order was an order, and a door was a door, and the order decreeing that doors should remain, the Subaltern had better get quick. He tried arguing, but you don't crack a walnut that way. He tried pleading, and the walnut creaked a little, yet remained whole. "Understand," said he, very authoritatively, "not only do I forbid you to enter that house for the purpose you propose, but I have stationed at the front entrance a picket to prevent you. If you so much as set foot on the front doorstep he will arrest you and bring you here. I shall know how to deal with you, Sir." The Subaltern, who had no doubt suffered much, turned away with a weary sigh; the Town Major ignored his salute, but, before his complete withdrawal, did happen to mention (so to speak) that he'd been told there was a _back_ entrance to the house in question and he had some idea of putting another picket there to-morrow.

The Subaltern heard all right, and, from the further and additional salute he now gave, it appeared that he knew how to deal with that. The Town Major looked at me, faintly representing for the moment the machine, and, blushing dismally, bribed me into silence with a cigarette. Yet here I am telling you all about it! Never mind; the house and all its entrances and exits have long since disappeared, and as to the Subaltern himself--who knows?

On Saturday, June 3rd (that black Saturday which was not quite so black as it was painted) he received an urgent call, as if he was a doctor, to attend the oldest and least movable inhabitant in the acuteness of her distress. Town Majors are good for anything; though I suppose I oughtn't to mention it, I knew of one who assisted single-handed at a birth, mother and son both doing well notwithstanding interim bombardment. They are at anybody's disposal for any purpose; it is merely a question of first come first served. He went to the old lady's house; he found her in a paroxysm of tears over the news of the Naval disaster. For an hour he tried to comfort her, being limited to the methods of personal magnetism, in the absence of his interpreter and the scarcity of his French. She refused to take comfort; it was not sorrow for the gallant dead, but terror of the atrocious living which moved her. She was mortally afraid, she to whom salvoes of big guns were now matters of passing inconvenience. The English Navy had taken a knock; the War was therefore over and we had lost. There was no hope for any of us, and any moment the Bosch might be expected on her threshold, arriving presumably from the rear. The magnificence of the Army of France had been in vain; it was no use going on at Verdun. She was still weeping spasmodically when the better news arrived.

Now, Charles, if that is how a French peasant took the first news, how do you suppose the German peasants are digesting the second and better version?

Yours ever, HENRY.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Athens, Monday.--I learn in a well-informed quarter that the Allies are expected to communicate to the Greek Government almost immediately a further Note relative to the restrictions imposed on Greek sipping."

_Provincial Paper._

At present, we understand, Greek sippers are strictly confined to Port.

* * * * *

THE NEWEST HOPE.

Dear Betty, in the good old days, Before this Armageddon stunt, We floated down still water-ways Ensconced within a cushioned punt; With mingled terror and delight I felt the toils around me closing, Until one starry moonlit night, Discreetly veiled from vulgar sight, I found myself proposing.

You heard my ravings with a smile, And then confessed you liked my cheek, But thought my nose denoted guile And feared my chin was rather weak; My character with fiendish glee You treated to a grim dissection, Then as a final _jeu d'esprit_ You cynically offered me A sisterly affection.

But now within my faithful heart New hope has sprung to sudden life; In fancy (somewhat _à la carte_) I see you more or less my wife; The way is found, the path is clear, The resolution moved and carried-- If you have pluck enough, my dear, To risk a rather new career ... We might be _slightly_ married.[A]

[Footnote A: In his book, _What is Coming_, Mr. H. G. WELLS sees "a vision of the slightly-married woman."]

* * * * *

In a Good Cause.

The Veterans' Club, for which the LORD MAYOR is to hold a meeting at the Mansion House on Thursday, June 22nd, at 3.30, is the nucleus of a movement to offer the chance of rest and convalescence to those who have fought and suffered in defence of their country; to secure suitable employment for those whose service is finished, and friendly help in the hour of need. The Club at Hand Court, Holborn, has already welcomed seven thousand men of the Navy and Army to its membership. A great effort is needed to enlarge this scheme for providing a centre of reunion and succour for our fighting men from all parts of the United Kingdom and its Dominions--a scheme which, if generously supported, should serve as an Imperial Memorial of the nation's sacrifice.

Gifts and inquiries should be addressed to the Organising Secretary, Veterans' Club Association, 1, Adelphi Terrace House, Adelphi, W.C.

* * * * *

"Mr. Balfour ... revealed that a number of the guns on monitors came from America and stated that certain of Churchill's speeches are so faulty that they are unuseable."

_Montreal Gazette._

Mr. BALFOUR may have thought this, but we don't remember his saying it.

* * * * *

LYRA DOMESTICA.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--I cordially welcome your efforts to extend the horizon of Nursery Rhymes. At the same time it has always seemed to me rather unfair that one room in the house, though I readily acknowledge its importance, should practically monopolise the attention of our domestic poets. If Nursery Rhymes, why not Dining-room, Drawing-room and Kitchen Rhymes? I am convinced that they could be made just as instructive, didactic and helpful. Hence, to make a beginning, I venture to submit the following specimens of prudential and cautionary Dining-room Rhymes. Should they meet with approval I propose to deal with other apartments in the same spirit, excepting perhaps the Box-room, which does not seem to me to offer facilities for lyrical treatment.

PRELIMINARY.

If desirous of succeeding In the noble art of feeding With dignity and breeding of a Jove, You will find all information For your proper education In the admirable works of Lady GROVE.

OF PORRIDGE.

Eat your porridge standing If you are a Scot; To be frank it's only rank Swank if you are not.

OF THE USE OF THE KNIFE.