Part 2

The italics are ours. Note them well, for they are the measure of English turpitude. When, after our shattering and comprehensive raids had occurred, one by one, always with such devastating fury and precision, our reports announced that these very towns had been "badly hit" (mark the phrase!), the English Press once more accused us of perversion and dissimulation. How right we were is now proved. In fact it seems that we understated the case, for we gather that a very large number of East Coast towns have been badly hit by our irresistible machines of retribution--far more than we knew.

If we wait long enough we shall doubtless find somewhere in an English paper the verification of other of our claims, which at the time were treated with contempt--such, for example, as the glorious destruction of Liverpool and Manchester by bombs from the sky. All that we need is a little patience.

* * * * *

CHERCHEZ LES TABLEAUX;

OR, THE CULPRIT À LA MODE.

During the trial of George Smith for obtaining the sum of five hundred pounds by means of a forged cheque, it was proved that the prisoner spent a portion of the money in the purchase of a ninepenny admission to a local cinema. The learned judge, speaking with considerable warmth, observed that he hoped the Press would make a careful note of that fact. It entirely confirmed a belief he himself had long held, namely, that the existence of such places afforded a temptation to wrongdoing that was nothing short of a public menace. He only wished that he had power to sentence the proprietor. (Applause.)

* * * * *

During the hearing of a petition for breach of promise of marriage, evidence was given that the behaviour of defendant had changed since he witnessed the performance of a certain film entitled, "Mr. Quiverful keeps House."

Mr. Dodge, K.C. (for the plaintiff) put in a scenario of the film, showing that it represented the troubles of a paterfamilias forced to look after a crowd of children, pacify indignant servants, and the like. It was unquestionable that such an exhibition might produce a very serious effect upon a timid and impressionable bachelor.

_His Lordship._ It is perfectly monstrous that such things should be tolerated.

Counsel, continuing, said he believed that there was also introduced a mother-in-law. At this point the jury stopped the case, and awarded the plaintiff three thousand pounds damages.

* * * * *

Arrested on a charge of severely wounding a neighbour with a shotgun, a prisoner at Birmingham pleaded that he had been led astray by a visit paid to a picture-house, where films of cowboy life were being exhibited. It was true that his parents were both doing time, and he had two uncles in an asylum, but he attributed his own downfall entirely to the pernicious influence of the cinema.

_The Judge._ I am glad you appreciate that fact.

Counsel for the defence here stated that the victim was now ascertained to have been a writer of picture-plays.

_The Judge._ Why didn't you say so before? That entirely alters the complexion of the case. I am not sure that the prisoner has not rendered a public service.

By direction of his Lordship the charge was subsequently amended to one of using firearms without a licence, and, a nominal fine having been imposed, the accused left the dock amid general congratulations.

* * * * *

SONNET TO A YOUNG ASS.

(_On hearing it correctly imitate the hoot of a motor-horn._)

"Poor little foal of a despised race"-- Thus in an earlier day a poet broke Into blank verse about thee, and awoke Compassion for thy patient, pleading face. But time thy ancient burden of disgrace Has ta'en away long since, and, though in joke Sometimes we may address thee as "the moke," No more we seek thy service to debase. For thou art changed, O much-enduring ass! No longer scorned but honoured in our day, When an entire and influential class-- Our politicians--emulate thy bray; Whilst thou, in bland reciprocal salute, Hast tuned thy note to mock the motor's hoot.

* * * * *

"The balloon immediately began to drift over the enemy's lines. Although he threw his rifle, field glasses, and everything movable overboard, the balloon went still higher."

_Continental Daily Mail._

Well, what did he expect?

* * * * *

"APPRENTICE.--Smart Lad to learn up-to-date business; must be mechanically bent."

_Liverpool Echo._

The simple plan of putting him across your knee will not suffice.

* * * * *

From a review of Sir CHARLES WALDSTEIN'S _Aristodemocracy_ in an evening paper:--

"That, however, is only a side-issue in a volume which treats the provident questions of politics with perfect humility and with much persecution. It is a book which, as we began by saying, deserves a much better title."

Some people might even say that it deserved a better reviewer.

* * * * *

The Chalmers Invasion.

With Sir ROBERT CHALMERS as the new Irish Under-Secretary and Sir MACKENZIE CHALMERS (no relation) as one of the members of the Commission of Enquiry into the Rebellion, Ireland no doubt will find another grievance, singing:

How happy could I be with either, Were t' other dear Chalmers away!

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

XL.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--The weather has changed and War has resumed a less uncomfortable aspect. The last I heard of our friend Persius Adolphus (now promoted to the giddy heights of Second-Lieutenant, but still referred to, in the privacy of the traverse, as "Perse") he was living _al fresco_ in his little bit of trench, leading the sinful life with a pot of _páté de foie gras_ in the one hand and the latest number of _La Vie Parisienne_ in the other. It takes a lot of H.E. to distract a man's attention from these luxuries, which goes to show that, if at times it is a short life, it is in spring a merry one, and a twenty-franc note will in these parts provide a man with all the most extravagant pleasures of the idle rich for a month.

To the officer in the trench, Battalion Headquarters, a few hundred yards to the rear, is a veritable pleasaunce far removed from the din and worry of battle. To the C.O. and his satellites, putting up with their dangers and discomforts for a noble cause, Brigade Headquarters, a mile down the road, is a palace of safety and ease, where any man but a fool of a Brigadier would remain. To the Brigade Staff, grimly holding on in its rough and perilous fortress, the Divisional villa is the ideal of quiet residences. To the Divisional Staff, suffering silently, the Corps Château is all that a man could ask in the way of handsome furnished apartments. And to the Corps Staff it is ever a matter of surprise that its miserable hovel can be contemplated without a blush by the Army Staff, revelling, as the latter does, in every modern convenience. The Army Staff says nothing but thinks bitterly of those at G.H.Q., and by the time it gets to the War Office I couldn't tell you what the grouse is or whose the envied lot. The real wallower out here is, if we all did but know it, some little known and unobtrusive C.O. of some special company, with a village to himself, half-a-dozen châteaux to choose from, more motors than he knows what to do with, and, wickedest and worst, a real bath to wash in.

Be that as it may, the eyes of all rest upon the same unwarlike pictures torn from the same least bellicose journal. From dug-out to palace, faded walls are decorated with the same three-colour process divinities, whose expressions are as arch as arch and whose clothing is typical of the wonderful economy of the French. Through the clamour of bursting shells or the din of the military typewriter, turning out its thousand "Pass Memos." to the hour, these fair Parisiennes continue to smile unperturbed, until some officer, callous rather than modest, hides their bright blue eyes and bright red cheeks under a pile of official telegrams relating to picks and shovels, gas protectors and other sordid and unromantic matter.

Meanwhile the motor lorries creep demurely along the country lanes, coming nobody knows whence, going nobody knows whither. Now and then they will pause in a convenient ditch, rubbing their wheels briskly in the mud to restore the circulation. A less restful sight is the military car, proceeding at a pace never exceeding twenty kilometres per hour, the occupants of which have also, these days, adopted the three-colour process, a sure sign that we are winning. Fortune favours the brave, and the lightning despatch-rider as often as not will pass through the lot, with the loss of little more than a couple of limbs and half-a-dozen spare parts. Even so, he will not omit to salute you, as you stand off the road, a sight which has a peculiar thrill of its own, since the salute of a motor cyclist consists in his looking fixedly in one direction and proceeding recklessly in another. You cannot help appreciating his courtesy, but in your more nervous moments you can't help wishing he wouldn't do it.

By way of contrast to the business of it all is the light-blue Gendarme, unaffected by the entourage of war, ambling peacefully where he will, greeting all and sundry with an expansive smile and growing momentarily ruddier and more fat in his happy face. It is his work in life to get in nobody's way and do no man any harm; it is his pleasure to wear upon his head a helmet of the truest steel, of a type created to ward off hostile shrapnel, but worn by him for the same good reason for which a miller wears a white hat. I count amongst the best of my newly-found friends a certain _chef_ of this merry and bright _escadron_. An ex-Cavalry Officer, he fought through the earlier stages of the War, undaunted by many misadventures. Since he took to the less hazardous pastime of commanding _gendarmerie_, he has found life not so precarious, may be, but a good deal more intricate.

He will tell you, if you ask him, the story of the sacred civilian automobile which he once ventured to stop in order to satisfy himself as to its contents. He did not recognise any significant halo surrounding it, though this should have been discernible even in the cloud of dust accompanying it. He had his written instructions to see that the credentials of all who drove through his zone should be _en règle_. Simple and ingenuous as he then was, written instructions were enough for him. The car approached him menacingly, but he stood his horse in the middle of the road and signed to it to stop. The car hooted with hoarse and defiant anger, and a sinister bowler hat was seen and angry words were heard at the window. None the less he stopped it at the risk of his life, and in his best manner (always a nice one) demanded credentials.

In wartime, one may interfere with Jupiter and be forgiven, but my Commandant had gone too far. He was lucky to find himself, at the conclusion of the correspondence, severely admonished and in receipt of an order to place himself under arrest for six days (which he did, choosing six wet ones).

The car contained a Deputy, no less.

The Commandant clings to the childlike belief that we manage these things better in England. What would have happened, he asked me, if he had been a British officer and the object of his attention merely a Member of Parliament? "Merely," indeed! I answered that the thing simply couldn't be conceived as happening with us. Our soldiers, I admitted, were amongst the bravest of the brave, but I had never yet met one reckless enough to dream of obstructing the slightest whim of a politician.

Meanwhile, Charles, don't forget to forward to me, day by day, the Official Communiqué from the Irish Front.

Yours ever, HENRY.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Shakspeare on Daylight Saving.

"It shall be what o'clock I say it is."

_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 3.

* * * * *

* * * * *

_Monday, May 15th._--The continued absence of Mr. ASQUITH is causing much speculation in the Lobbies. Will the new Irish Privy Councillor come back from Dublin, like Lord BEACONSFIELD from Berlin, bringing peace with honour in his pack? Or will he, as so many British statesmen have done before, find the inherited hostility of Irishmen to one another an insuperable obstacle? An hon. and learned Nationalist was not encouraging. "When," he was asked, "were the seeds of this trouble sown?" "When STHRONGBOW came to Ireland," was the answer. "And when do you think it will be over?" persisted the questioner. "When the world's at an end."

Last Session Mr. KING was easily the champion of Question-time. But this year, thanks to the Sinn Feiners, Mr. GINNELL is coming up with a rush. Mr. KING has however one consolation. Mr. GINNELL rarely extracts much information from Ministers; often it is nothing more than "There is no foundation for the allegation contained in the question." Whereas his rival, whose queries cover a much wider field, frequently elicits important facts. Like the rest of the world he has been puzzled by the coloured tabs now so commonly seen on officers' tunics. What did they mean? Mr. TENNANT for once was communicative. "I think," he said, "green stands for intelligence." Mr. KING is now more regretful than ever that he is over military age; the green badge would just suit his mental complexion.

Ever since the Military Service Bill came under discussion the public galleries have been full of men in khaki. As it seems difficult to believe that their presence is due to the intrinsic fascination of debates, which have been for the most part insufferably dull, another theory has been started. Should the opponents of the Bill become too obstructive and threaten its passage, will these doughty warriors leap over the barriers, drop down on to the floor of the House (in the manner already made historic this Session) and execute a new "PRIDE'S Purge"?

A rather unkind trick was played upon the Simonites by Mr. BARNES. He has a good deal of influence with the Government nowadays, and when he delivered an eloquent defence of conscientious objectors, describing them as the men who kept the spiritual fires burning, there were high hopes that he was going to secure an enlargement of the loopholes in the Bill. But as he went on to explain that his remarks only applied to genuine cases and had nothing to do with the shoal of frauds who had discovered a conscience within the last month or two, the enthusiasm below the Gangway fell so suddenly that you could almost hear it drop.

_Tuesday, May 16th._--To invite the House of Lords to go in for daylight saving is rather like carrying coals to Newcastle. The Peers habitually set an excellent example in this respect. No matter what the importance of the subject under consideration they almost invariably manage to conclude its discussion before the dinner-hour.

Some of Lord LANSDOWNE'S friends are beginning to fear that association with wicked Radicals like Lord CREWE is having a deteriorating effect upon his political faith. They were shocked to hear him allude almost disparagingly to the innate conservatism of the national temperament, which put Greenwich mean time on the same level as the Thirty-nine Articles. He even spoke disrespectfully of the sun, to the marked disapproval of that other shining light, Lord SALISBURY.

In the Commons the Simonites made a determined effort to get the minimum age raised from 18 to 19. But Mr. LONG was obdurate, though he promised that, subject to exceptional military necessity, no conscript should be sent abroad till he was 19. Eventually the Bill passed its Third Reading by 250 to 35.

A characteristically bitter speech from Mr. SNOWDEN evoked an appropriate retort from Sir ARTHUR MARKHAM. Observing that the Hon. Member had been against the War throughout, he charged him with "making vitriolic speeches and dropping acid drops in every direction." Mr. SNOWDEN (remembering the case of Mr. JOHN BURNS) may think himself lucky if he is not known as "The Acid Drop" for the rest of his political career.

_Wednesday, May 17th._--The Summer Time Bill passed into law to-day, in spite of the gloomy prognostications of Lord BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH. He foresaw the time when the Committee of Privileges might be called upon to pronounce a new judgment of SOLOMON on the question whether a peerage should go to a boy born at 2.50 A.M. on October 1st or to his twin-brother, born actually half-an-hour later, but according to statutory time half-an-hour before.

While the Lords were illuminating the daylight the Commons were engaged in ventilating the air. The present administration of the Flying Services was severely criticised by Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS, who wanted an Air Minister--not Lord CURZON, but "someone with a reputation to lose." Mr. TENNANT promptly announced that the ex-Viceroy of India would be President of the new Air Board.

Colonel CHURCHILL launched into a lengthy history of the Air Services, from which we gathered that but for the exertions of a former First Lord, who used to divert money voted for hospitals and coastguard stations to the building of aeroplanes, the country would have had no aerial defences when the War broke out. He joined in the demand for an Air Ministry. In fact, he had himself proposed it to the PRIME MINISTER a year ago. It is possible that he even indicated a suitable person to fill the post.

Before the War it was sometimes said of Lord HUGH CECIL that his Parliamentary speeches were too much up in the clouds. Since he has taken to exploring those regions as a member of the Royal Flying Corps, that criticism no longer applies. In a severely practical speech he flatly contradicted the accusations that had been made against our Air Service, and boldly claimed that it was the most efficient in the world.

After that, Mr. BONAR LAW had a comparatively easy task in persuading the House to give the new Air Board a fair trial. In reference to the fears that had been expressed as to the powers to be accorded to its President he drily remarked that from his experience in the Cabinet he did not think Lord CURZON would be found lacking in personality.

All through the afternoon Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING had been popping up with questions, interjections and points of order. Now he rose to continue the debate, but Members had apparently had enough of him for one day. After a few minutes he suffered the most inglorious fate that can befall a Parliamentary crusader. One by one his audience melted away, until there was not enough left to make a House. "P. B." was counted out.

_Thursday, May 18th._--Lord LANSDOWNE at least is not afraid of the new Order in Council prohibiting reference to Cabinet proceedings. In answer to complaints of the delay in introducing Compulsory Service he told the old story of the widow who married a widower, and complained to a friend that "_his_ children are always fighting with _my_ children and frightening _our_ children." That, he implied, was what went on in the Coalition.

The Commons enjoyed a pretty little duel between two old friends. Ex-Professor HEWINS delivered a long lecture on elementary economics, leading up to the conclusion that we could not beat the Germans without an immediate dose of Tariff Reform. The House, expecting an equally solemn defence of Free Trade from the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, was at once surprised and delighted when Mr. CHAMBERLAIN rose to reply.

Though tied to the Tariff movement "by my heart-strings as well as by my head," he thought it would be imprudent to embark on it at this moment. After the War it would very likely meet with general consent. Mr. HEWINS must have felt like _Alice_ with "jam yesterday, and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day."

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THEIR SCRIBES AND PHARISEES.

[It is reported that the citizens of Berlin are agitated about the serious difficulty that has arisen with regard to the removal of dust. A Berlin journal has championed their cause.]

I love to catch such bits of local colour As hide awhile the lurid hues of war, And paint the fatuous Hun an even duller Fool than we took him for.

I love to seize on every source of humour That gives black care a very welcome shove-- I like, I mean to say, the sort of rumour Recited up above.

Berlin, you see, has grown of late so gritty That half the pop. is troubled to the quick, Finding the dust of that unwholesome city Is just a bit too thick.

Well, I have read about some other grumblers With curious similarity of soul Who left untouched the gnats that thronged their tumblers, But drank their camels whole.

So here your Hun, denouncing this condition Of his uncleanly city's upper crust, Flatly declines to have his earthly vision Clogged with material dust,

Yet, all unconscious of the draught he's taking, Swallows the stuff in pharisaic wise With which his rulers have for years been making A dustbin of his eyes.

* * * * *

DAYLIGHT SAYING.

A NURSERY VIEW.

Last Sunday morning an hour was lost. The children had been discussing the question beforehand.

"Where will it go?" asked one.

"I suppose the fairies will take it," said Joyce.

"Perhaps it will go behind the clock," said another.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'd like to do," said Joyce deliberately. "I'd like to get up in the middle of the night, when the hour is going to be lost, and put on my dressing-gown without waking Nannie, and go out into the garden and see for myself how they lose it. It's sure to be about somewhere."

"You couldn't," said one of the others. "Nannies always sleep so that they wake up at once if you move. You'd never get up without her knowing."

"Well, why do they want to lose it?" asked Joyce, realising that the last argument was unanswerable and so darting off on to a new train of thought altogether.

"Because they'll save a lot of other hours that way. And then, you see, if we get up earlier we shan't have to pay the pennies for gas and electric light, and all those pennies can go to help Daddy win the War."

"Yes, but where will the hour be gone?"

And so we came back to the beginning again.

There, was a long pause.

"Well," concluded Joyce, on a note of finality, "it's a very good plan anyway."

That settled it.

* * * * *

"MR. BIRRELL'S REBELLION REVELATIONS."

_"Westminster Gazette" Contents Bill._

But in justice to the late CHIEF SECRETARY it should be said that the Sinn Feiners also had a hand in it.

* * * * *