Chapter 2

-------------- -------------- -------------- | | | | | | | | | | | BRITISH | | | | | | RUSSIANS | | AND | | REVOLUTION | | FALL | | NEARING | | FRENCH | | IN | | OF | | BERLIN. | | NEARING | | GERMANY. | | BERLIN. | | | | BERLIN. | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------- -------------- -------------- --------------

-------------- | | | | | THE | | | | KAISER | | | | A | | VICTORY! | | CAPTIVE. | | | | | | | | | | | -------------- --------------

And Finally-- -------------- -------------- | | | | | | | | | AMERICA | | | | DECLARES | | PEACE! | | WAR. | | | | | | | | | | | -------------- --------------

It will be hard to lose these.

* * * * *

FRITZ'S APOLOGIA.

Yes, war is horrible and hideous-- It jars upon my sense fastidious, My "noble instincts," to decline To actions that are not divine. So, when I mutilate your pictures, So far from meriting your strictures, Compassion rather is my due For doing what I hate to do. It grieves my super-saintly soul Even to smash a china bowl; To carry off expensive clocks My tender conscience sears and shocks; I really don't enjoy at all Hacking to bits a panelled hall, Rare books with priceless bindings burning, Or boudoirs into cesspools turning. My heart invariably bleeds When I'm engaged upon these deeds, And teardrops of the largest size Fall from my heav'n-aspiring eyes. But, though my sorrow is unfeigned, Still discipline must be maintained; And, when the High Command says, "Smash, Bedaub with filth, loot, hack and slash," I do it (much against the grain) Because, though gentle and humane, When dirty work is to be done I always am a docile Hun.

* * * * *

"It is proposed to collect from Nottinghamshire householders bones and fat for the extraction of glycerine."--_Christian World_.

Poor "lambs"!

* * * * *

"Lady Companion Wanted, immediately, by young married woman; servant kept, and there are no children: applicant must be well educated, well read, well-bred, and of impeachable character."--_Provincial Paper_.

So as to give her employer something to talk about?

* * * * *

"'Baghdad' written large on the wall of the terminus in English and Arabic reminded them that they had arrived. In the booking office, now deserted, there had been a rush for tickets to Constantinople. The last train had gone out at 2 a.m. A supper officer discovered the way-bill."--_Daily Paper_.

A poor substitute if he was looking for the bill-of-fare.

* * * * *

From an Egyptian picture-palace programme:--

"Sensationing. Dramatic. MARINKA'S HEART. Great drama, in 3 parts, of a poignancy interest, assisting with anguish at the terrible peripeties of a Young Girl, falling in hand, of Bohemian bandits. Pictures of this film are celicious, being taken at fir trees and mountan's of the Alpes.-- Great success. Comic. Silly laughter."

The translator of the French original was probably justified in his rendering of "_fou rire_."

* * * * *

PROTESTS OF AN AMMUNITION MULE.

* * * * *

* * * * *

ADMIRAL DUGOUT.

He had done with fleets and squadrons, with the restless roaming seas, He had found the quiet haven he desired, And he lay there to his moorings with the dignity and ease Most becoming to Rear-Admirals (retired); He was bred on "Spit and Polish"--he was reared to "Stick and String"-- All the things the ultra-moderns never name; But a storm blew up to seaward, and it meant the Real Thing, And he had to slip his cable when it came.

So he hied him up to London for to hang about Whitehall, And he sat upon the steps there soon and late, He importuned night and morning, he bombarded great and small, From messengers to Ministers of State; He was like a guilty conscience, he was like a ghost unlaid, He was like a debt of which you can't get rid, Till the Powers that Be, despairing, in a fit of temper said, "For the Lord's sake give him something"--and they did.

They commissioned him a trawler with a high and raking bow, Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft, With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row, And a brace of little barkers fore and aft; And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays And exceedingly extolled his lucky star That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days (With the rank of Captain Dugout, R.N.R.).

He is jolly as a sandboy, he is happier than a king, And his trawler is the darling of his heart (With her cuddy like a cupboard where a kitten couldn't swing, And a smell of fish that simply won't depart); He has found upon occasion sundry targets for his guns; He could tell you tales of mine and submarine; Oh, the holes he's in and out of and the glorious risks he runs Turn his son--who's in a Super-Dreadnought--green.

He is fit as any fiddle; he is hearty, hale and tanned; He is proof against the coldest gales that blow; He has never felt so lively since he got his first command (Which is rather more than forty years ago); And of all the joyful picnics of his wild and wandering youth-- Little dust-ups from Taku to Zanzibar-- There was none to match the picnic, he declares in sober sooth, That he has as Captain Dugout, R.N.R.

C.F.S.

* * * * *

"Would the Lady who took the Wrong Patent Leather Shoe (right) from ---- on 7th instant return same?"--_Provincial Press_.

And then she can recover the right shoe which was left.

* * * * *

"Bethnal Green Military Hospital, formerly an infirmary, names its wards after British virtues, thus:--Courage, Truth, Fortitude, Loyalty, Justice, Honour, Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Mercy, Grace, Candour, Innocence, and Patience."--_Evening Standard_.

We note with regret the omission of that eminently British virtue, Humility.

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, March 26th._--Major PRETYMAN NEWMAN has a bright sense of humour much appreciated by his fellow-countrymen from Ireland. His latest notion is that journals "of a comic and serio-comic nature" should be deprived of their stocks of paper in order that catalogues and circulars should continue to appear. Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS expressed his regret at being unable to discriminate between different classes of publications; but I understand that several Members have offered to satisfy Major NEWMAN's taste for light literature by lending him their old Stores catalogues.

Housewives who have been economising in their meagre supply of sugar in order to have a stock for jam-making have been alarmed by a rumour that they would be charged with food-hoarding and made to disgorge their savings. There is not a word of truth in it, and they may rest assured, on Capt. BATHURST'S authority, that our non-party Government entirely approves this form of Conservatism.

Misled by Mr. BRACE's appearance--I have before now noted his likeness to an amiable cat--Mr. SNOWDEN pressed his advocacy of a certain conscientious objector called PETT to such lengths as to discover that even this kind of cat has claws. "These conscientious objectors," said Mr. BRACE at last, "are not the angels he thinks they are, and it is only with the utmost difficulty that a large number of them will do anything like reasonable work." Thus a PETT illusion has been shattered. Mr. SNOWDEN, however, has plenty more.

_Tuesday, March 27th._--If British artisans, as at Barrow-in-Furness, prefer to strike for Germany, it seems hardly reasonable to expect German prisoners to work for England. The nature of the "disciplinary measures" which caused the Germans promptly to return to work on normal conditions was not disclosed, but it seems a pity that they are not tried in the other case.

"We are getting on," as Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN said on a famous occasion. Formerly it was considered the height of Parliamentary impropriety to say in so many words that an Hon. Member was not telling the truth; and all sorts of more or less transparent subterfuges, of which Mr. CHURCHILL's "terminological inexactitude" is the best remembered, were employed to evade this breach of good manners. But the present House is thicker-skinned than its predecessors, and heard without a tremor the following conversation between the MINISTER OF PENSIONS and Mr. HOGGE:-- _Mr. Barnes:_ "I never said there was a scale." _Mr. Hogge:_ "Yes, you did." _Mr. Barnes:_ "No, I didn't."

A little later on, Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL always a stickler for constitutional precedent, attacked the Government for introducing important Bills--including one for extending once more the life of this immortal Parliament--without vouchsafing any explanation of them. He appealed to the SPEAKER to condemn this procedure as being contrary to the spirit of the standing order. Mr. LOWTHER explained that it was his business to carry out the rules of the House, not to express opinions about the use that was made of them. But he ventured to remind the Hon. Member that under this rule a Home Rule Bill, a Welsh Disestablishment Bill and a Plural Voting Bill had all been introduced on a single day. And it is not on record that on that occasion Mr. MACNEILL entered any protest.

_Wednesday, March 28th_--Rumours that Mr. ASQUITH was about to make a public recantation of his hostility to Women's Suffrage caused a large attendance of Members, Peers and the general public. The interval of waiting was beguiled by, among others, Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING, who, having been told by Mr. MACPHERSON that the number of accidents during the training of pilots during the last half-year of 1916 was 1.53 per cent., proceeded to inquire, "What is the percentage based on? Is it percentage per hundred?" Mr. BILLING may be comforted by the recollection that a greater than he, Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, confessed that he "never could understand what those d--d dots meant."

The Editor of _The Glasgow High School Magazine_ must be a proud man this day, for he has been mentioned in Parliament. It seems that he has been refused permission to post his periodical to subscribers in neutral countries, and Mr. MACPHERSON explained that this was in pursuance of a general rule, since "school magazines contain much information useful to the enemy." It is pleasant to picture the German General Staff laboriously ploughing through reports of football-matches, juvenile poems and letters to the Editor complaining of the rise in prices at the tuck-shop, in order to discover that Second-Lieutenant Blank, of the Umptieth Battery, R.F.A., is stationed in Mesopotamia, and therefrom to deduce the present distribution of the British Army.

The SPEAKER occupied the Chair during the discussion of the recommendations of his Conference on Electoral Reform, and heard nothing but good of himself. It was, indeed, a notable achievement to have induced so heterogeneous a collection of Members to present a practically unanimous report on a bundle of problems acutely controversial.

Only on one point did the Conference fail to agree, and that was in regard to Women's Suffrage. But, after Mr. ASQUITH'S handsome admission that, by their splendid services in the War, women had worked out their own electoral salvation, even that topic seemed to have lost most of its provocative quality; and there is a general desire to forget what the late PRIME MINISTER described as a detestable campaign and bury the hatchet and all the other weapons employed in it.

Do you recall the distraught lady in _Ruddigore_, who was always charmed into silence by the mystic word "Basingstoke"? More than once during Mr. CLAVELL SALTER'S over-elaborated speech I hoped that he would remember his constituency and take the hint. But he went on and on, occasionally dropping into a vein of sentiment and working it so hard that I quite expected to hear him say, "Gentlemen of the Jury" instead of "Mr. Speaker." When it came to the division, however, he only carried some three-score stalwarts into the Lobby, and the House decided by a majority of 279 to support the Government's intention to give immediate effect to the recommendations of the Conference.

_Thursday, March 29th._--Employers in want of agricultural labourers should apply to Lord NEWTON, who has a large selection of interned Austrians, Hungarians and Turks, and undertakes to supply an alien "almost by return of post." The Turk is specially recommended, as, even if he fails to give complete satisfaction, the farmer can relieve the monotony of an arduous existence by "sitting on the Ottoman."

Brave man as he is, the FOOD CONTROLLER is not prepared to prohibit entirely the manufacture of cakes and confectionery. But he is preparing to do something hardly less daring, namely, to standardize the types that may be sold.

An old spelling-book used to tell us that "It is agreeable to watch the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar when gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear." Lord DEVONPORT, occupied in deciding on the exact architecture and decoration of the Bath bun (official sealed pattern), would make a companion picture.

The unwillingness of some young Scottish Members to volunteer for National Service is now explained. It seems that by an unpardonable oversight the appeals of the DIRECTOR-GENERAL, as published in the Scottish newspapers, were addressed "to the men of England." The wording has now been altered-- not too late, I trust, for the country to obtain the valuable assistance of Messrs. PRINGLE and HOGGE.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE FOOD-SHORTAGE.

"Wanted, Second-hand Cavity Pan, with agitators complete, for edible purposes."--_Manchester Guardian_.

* * * * *

"No potatoes are to be served in future at any meal at the Portland Club, St. James's Square."--_Westminster Gazette_.

Hence the new name for this club--the Devonportland.

* * * * *

"We shall have to work more harder."--_Daily Paper_.

And some of us will have to write more better English.

* * * * *

HERBS OF GRACE.

v.

LAVENDER.

Grey walls that lichen stains, That take the sun and the rains, Old, stately and wise; Clipt yews, old lawns flag-bordered, In ancient ways yet ordered; South walks where the loud bee plies Daylong till Summer flies;-- _Here grows Lavender, here breathes England_.

Gay cottage gardens, glad, Comely, unkempt and mad, Jumbled, jolly and quaint; Nooks where some old man dozes; Currants and beans and roses Mingling without restraint; A wicket that long lacks paint;-- _Here grows Lavender, here breathes England_.

Sprawling for elbow-room, Spearing straight spikes of bloom, Clean, wayward and tough; Sweet and tall and slender, True, enduring and tender, Buoyant and bold and bluff, Simplest, sanest of stuff;-- _Thus grows Lavender, thence breathes England_.

* * * * *

* * * * *

CO-OPERATIVE ADVERTISEMENTS.

In view of the restriction of the paper supply it has been suggested that advertisers should unite in cultivating the available space on a co-operative intensive system.

For example, the various proprietors of three popular brands of cigarettes, instead of having a page advertisement each, might combine in one single page, like this:--

THREE OF THE BEST.

_You cannot consider yourself a connoisseur of cigarettes unless you are able to distinguish at one and the same time the individually exquisite flavours of_ "THE BRASS HAT" "THE OFFENSIVE." "THE GAS ATTACK."

_THERE IS NO OTHER PERFECT BLEND._

These cigarettes are smoked in our patent "Trident" cigarette-holders.

Of all Tobacconists.

You see? Not only does each manufacturer still obtain the same sale for his cigarettes, but he actually gains a third share in the profits of a new accessory--the triple cigarette-holder.

Of course ingenuity of this sort is not required when the advertisers are not in any sense rivals. All that is then necessary is what we may call the _economic common factor of appeal_. For instance:--

ARE YOU ON OUR WAITING LIST?

The War Office | The Cricklewood Car. | Crematorium.

_As soon as we are through with our urgent contracts we shall be happy to serve you._

Finally, we note that there are innumerable classifications of _complementary trades_ which are, of course, eminently suited to co-operative advertising. We append two samples of what may be done in this direction.

I.

_If you want to GET an Engagement as Mistress_-- Solicit an interview at the HOUSEWIVES' HOSTEL.

_If you want to KEEP an Engagement as Mistress_-- Have the whole of your Servants' Suite CREATED BY THE CLASSY FURNISHING CO.

* * * * *

II.

As Omar Khayyam said:--

"_A Loaf of Bread_--" "MONKEY-NUTTO-BRAN" Contains the whole of the husk.

"_A Flask of Wine_--" A Wise Host _PLUMES HIMSELF_ on his CHÂTEAU VINAIGRETTE.

"_A Book of Verse_--" "_PURPLE PIFFLE._" By PERCIVAL DRIVEL.

* * * * *

"No submarines were sighted, but the vessel's commander steered a tortoise course through the danger zone."--_Newfoundland Paper._

Far, far better than turning turtle.

* * * * *

"Metra laughed and deposited herself bewitchingly among the cushions on the davenport."--_London Magazine_.

Personally, we prefer a roll on the top of an American desk.

* * * * *

"By Regulation 35B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, it is an offence for any person having found any bomb, or projectile, or any fragment thereof, or any document, map, &c., which may have been discharged, dropped, &c., from any hostile aircraft, to forthwith communicate the fact to a Military Post or to a Police Constable in the neighbourhood."--_Scotsman_.

Why this mistrust of Scottish policemen?

* * * * *

EARLIER FOOD PROBLEMS.

Peace, I remember, had her alimentary perplexities not much less renowned than war. At any rate I can think of two.

The first was some years ago, in Yorkshire, on one of those sultry and stifling days of August which in winter, or even in such a March as we have been suffering, one can view as something more desirable than rubies, but which in actual fact are depressing, enervating, and the mother of moodiness and fatigue. We had left Chop Yat early in the morning after a night of excessive heat in beds of excessive featheriness and were walking towards Helmsley by way of Rievaulx, all unconcerned as to lunch by the way, because the ordnance map marked with such cordial legibility an inn on the road at a reasonable distance. Moreover, was not Yorkshire made up of hospitable ridings, and had we not, on the previous day, found lunch in this cottage and tea in that, with no trouble at all, to say nothing of the terrific spread confronting us at Chop Yat? Why then carry anything?

But we soon began to regret the absence of sustenance, for this kind of weather makes for extreme lassitude shot through with rattiness, and under its influence nourishment dies in one with painful celerity.

The blessed word "inn" was however on the ordnance map, and since it was the one-inch scale that cannot lie we braced ourselves, mended and remended our tempers, and plodded on. The dales no doubt are gorgeous places, but under this grey humid sky anyone who wanted it could have had my share of Billsdale (as I believe it was). Scenery had become an outrage. There was no joy, no beauty; nothing was worth living for but that inn. As we laboured forward we cheered each other by word-pictures of its parlour, its larder and its cellar. A pork-pie ("porch-peen" I fancy the Yorkshiremen call it) would probably be there. Eggs, of course. A ham, surely. Bacon, no doubt. Yellow butter, crusty new bread, and beer. Indeed, let the rest go, so long as there was beer. But beer, of course, was beyond any question; an inn without beer was unthinkable.

Thus the miles wore away until, footsore, sticky and faint, we came upon the hostelry itself--only to find, instead of any grateful sign and the promise of delight, the frigid words, "Friends' Meeting House," painted on the board....

That was one experience, over which a veil may well be drawn. The other was not so long ago, in Sussex, a little before the War. This time we had not walked, but had done that much more hungrifying thing--we had been for hours in a motor-car, exceedingly engaged on the task of looking at houses to let. At last, utterly worn out, in the way that motoring can wear out body, soul and nerves, and filled with a ravening desire to tear meat limb from limb, we came to an inn of which our host had the highest opinion--so high, indeed, that, empty though we were, he had forced the car at full-speed past at least half-a-dozen admirable but less pretentious houses, where I, in my small way, had more than once been nourished and sustained.