Punch/Volume 148/Issue 3844
CHARIVARIA.
The Kölnische Zeitung has paid Mr. Punch the compliment of devoting to him an entire article—written by no less a personage than a Herr Professor. To our unspeakable regret he finds some of our cartoons lacking in reverence for the Kaiser; he even uses the word "blasphemous" in one passage. Mr. Punch will, of course, be more careful in the future; one is so dreadfully apt to forget that the Kaiser is a Divinity.
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"Germany," says a Berlin contemnporary, "has no intention of fighting with kid gloves." Quite so. Captaiu Kidd didn't wear any.
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The fact that the War is costing us over a million a day makes one wonder whether there may not be an opening for cheaper wars. Estimates are being invited from a few of the South American republics.
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There are many signs that the Sale Season is now on us. For instance, we read the other day in our Near Eastern news, "Four Forts Reduced"—and the Turks themselves, we understand, are now feeling very cheap, and may wake up any day to find that they have been sold at under cost price.
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"ALLIED FLEET IN DESPERATE STRAITS"
is no doubt how the Germans, exercising their natural gift for garbling facts, described our visit to the Dardanelles.
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"God is only with the armies of believers," declared the Kaiser in one of his latest speeches. And as the Germans seem capable of believing anything that is told them by their newspapers it is evident that we are badly handicapped.
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The new spirit in France! The Moulin Rouge has been burnt down.
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Dr. Sven Hedin has again been invited to be the Kaiser's guest at the Front, and we should say that he runs some danger of becoming Sveld Hedin.
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"DRAMATIC OUTBURST AGAINST WIDOW.
DEFENDANT IN BANK-NOTE SUIT CALLS HER A 'MONSTER.'"
Daily Mirror.
Check suits we have heard of, but a bank-note suit is something new, and we are surprised that our contemporary did not publish a picture of this costume in its Monster Fashion Number.
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It is not uninteresting to note that Italy's desire to be of service to the Allies is of no mushroom growth. We are told that some of the Belgian canals which permitted such a stubborn defence against the German invaders were constructed during the Roman occupation by Nero Claudius Drusus.
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A correspondent writes to inform us that a well-known Dairy Company supplied him, on February 28th, with some eggs dated March 1st. It certainly speaks well for the patriotism of our British hens that, in their anxiety that there should be no shortage of food here, they should actually be laying eggs a day in advance.
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Mr. Frank Curzon is producing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre a new a farce entitled "He didn't want to do tit." It sounds like a play about the Kaiser.
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Mr. Edwin Evans writes to The Observer:—"Allow me to correct the 'Saying of the Week' in yours of the 21st inst., that Mr. Edwin Evans considers German ascendency in music to belong to the remote past. Readers of my translation of Wagner's 'Opera and Drama,' or of my 'Brahms,' are sure to wonder at this view, which, however, is really that of Mr. Edwin Evans, junr." Now what we want to know is this: Has Mr. Edwin Evans, junr., been spanked by Mr. Edwin Evans, senr., for placing his poor father in such an awkward position?
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We are not surprised to hear that Corporal Jenkin of the 1st Battalion London Rifle Brigade succeeded in capturing a German flag at the Front. Corporal Jenkin is an artist, and it was only natural that he should make for the colours.
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Life's little tragedies! Extract from the current number of The Author:—"We regret that the work 'Vidyapati,' translated by Ananda Coomaraswamy and Arun Sen, was wrongly classified in our February issue under 'Miscellaneous.' The correct classification is 'Poetry.'"
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"RADIUM FOR SPRING CATARRH."
Globe.
We are always willing to make the exchange.
"All right, Pasha—we've got 'alf the Dardanelles ter wash in!"
A Great Enfilading Feat.
"Mr. R. J. H. writes—I am extremely pleased with the .22-Bore High Power Savage Rifle. It is a marvellous rifle for the size of the bore. You will be pleased to hear I have shot one Blue Bull, one Cheetah, two Black Buck, two Leopards, and a Mugger all with a single shot.'"—Advt. in "Allahabad Pioneer."
The attention of the War Office ought to be drawn to the killing powers of this wonderful weapon. But "R. J. H." deserves some credit, too, for manoeuvring so as to get all his victims, including the Mugger, into line before he fired.
The Eternal Masculine.
"By some gratuitous malice of nature these bachelor survivals seem to be generally cock birds."—Field.
The Turkey-Trot—New Version.
From The Daily Mail's account of the attack on the Suez Canal:—
"The enemy remaining entrenched dashed forward to the attack in the Plain of the Hyenas."
How the natives must have laughed!
"Ernest was at home assisting his father in his dying and finishing business and was an enthusiastic member of the U.V.F., being half company commander in his father's company. He followed Sir Edward Carson's advice, and joined the New Army."
Mid-Ulster Mail.
So now Ernest will assist the Kaiser in his "dying and finishing business."
THE EPSOM-AND-ASCOT BRIGADE.
UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.
No. XVI.
(From the Rev. Henry Molesworth, Fairwell Vicarage, Bucks.)
Will your Majesty pardon me if I venture for a few moments to address myself to a person so sublime as yourself? I am encouraged to do so by the belief that, when all is said and done, you, with your store of gorgeous uniforms, with your immense armies moving obediently at your word, with your millions of subjects and the serried ranks of your flatterers commending your wisdom as though it were divine and chanting your power as though it were infinite and immutable―you, I think, are only a man like myself, an unfeathered two-legged thing, tossed by circumstance and blown about by the gusty winds of merely human passion. Your work, such as it is, is done in the glare of publicity and to the sound of big guns dooming thousands to death. I have my duty laid out for me in this quiet village; but some day the tremendous hour will begin to strike for each of us; our dear familiar things will fade and we shall be summoned to that dread tribunal where each shall give an account of his deeds. When that comes about it will profit you as little to have been great and worn a crown as it will avail me to plead my own obscurity and the humble nature of my tasks. Howitzers on that day will be as useless as hymns, and a military cloak will be no better defence for you than a cassock for me. I conclude, therefore, that we may talk together on equal terms.
This, as I say, is a quiet village, and we are said to be a slow folk. We discuss the weather, the price of wheat, the heavy amount of the rates, the poor supply of cottages and their high rent, and the more obvious aspects of political affairs. Before last August the thought of war had not been in our minds, and even when war came and we realised that we must take our share of it there was no sudden flame of excitement, but rather a steady glow of earnest resolution, deepening as the days went by. Since then we have come to know what war is. Fifty of the men of this district, splendid fellows from all ranks of life, have joined the colours. Six of these will never see their home and their village again. Four others have come back maimed and drag their slow steps about the roads, but the only thought of these is to get well quickly and return to the fighting-line. We speak now of Belgium and the unforgettable sufferings and outrages you have put upon her, and our prayers go forth for the success of our arms and those of our allies. Yes, the thoughts of men and the values of things have been deeply changed by six months of war.
For me, too, there has been much searching of heart. When Belgium was laid waste and her people massacred; when Scarborough and Whitby were bombarded and women and children were wantonly done to death; when your Admirals threatened to sink inoffensive merchantmen with their crews―then, I confess it, a flame leapt up within me and I asked myself of what use my manhood and my strength, and my thews and sinews hardened by the sports of youth, could be to me unless I employed them in fighting actively with my brothers for the country that gave me birth and sheltered me. Even a clergyman of thirty-three might learn his drill and in a short time help to fill a trench. So I thought and all but decided to present myself at the recruiting station and take my chance with the rest. But I paused and, as I think, I rightly paused. Here was my duty; to this my vows had bound me and I had no right to shirk doing it in order to follow the easier path. After all it was no small thing to be allowed to pray, to sustain, to comfort, and in carrying out my profession with all my heart and soul I might yet be helping to strike a blow at the accursed system which you represent and glorify. Thus reasoning I have stayed at home with my people. We help one another in the daily round and bear with such resignation as we can command the many shocks and fevers of the War, not faltering in our determination and rejoicing that we have so dear a country to serve.
Henry Molesworth
"We are informed that many British officers have arrived in Cairo from the Canal on short furlongs."―Times of Egypt.
The way seems shorter when the end is joy.
THE SULTAN "OVER THE WATER."
Mehmed V. (to Constantinople). "I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE YOU, BUT I THINK I OUGHT TO GO."
A PATRIOTIC SACRIFICE.
Very British Guest. "What! Brahms? You're surely not going to sing German?"
Hostess (apologetically). "Well, of course I shall take care to sing it flat."
A SINGING REFUGEE.
Gabrielle couldn't make it out. In the first place she had a conversational turn of mind, but, excepting her father and mother, three sisters and three brothers, there was nobody in this dull Sussex village to whom her remarks conveyed anything whatsoever. Men patted her on the head, women kissed her, and because her father had fought and bled for the brave King Albert little English gamins loudly cheered him and his family when he limped down the street. All these people had kind faces, but what was the use of that? In essentials they were precisely alike―she couldn't understand one of them, and it was very, very dull. And here was Gabrielle sitting on a hedgebank, playing with the fallen berries in her black pinafore, while overhead sang the chaffinch―a song she had heard before.
It was some silly rhyme about the big black tree-buds, perhaps, or the first celandine, with now and again a little "chink, chink, chinking" call to his mate, but the queer part was that he sang in Flemish. Only last Spring she had heard the very same song; he had sung it from the red-tiled roof at home, he had sung it from the stiff garden hedgerow, till Gabrielle, clattering over the stone-paved paths with her brothers and sisters, all in wooden sabots, frightened him away.
There could be no mistaking him; clearly they wouldn't have the chaffinch in Flanders this year. This was the reason he had followed Gabrielle all the way to England. But when she asked him questions about home at the rate of twenty a minute he didn't know the answers. Had he by any chance come across her big conscript brother, François; and how was Gustave getting on?―Gustave, who was to have married her sister Victorine next Easter, but instead was lying in a French hospital with a bullet through his leg. The chaffinch didn't know, didn't care, and merely hopped to the longest budding twig in sight, singing his heartless song, with the refrain over and over again: "Pink, pink, chinkety chink"―or sounds to that effect.
Perhaps he had called to pay his respects on Gabrielle at home and found her out; perhaps, looking into the white-walled cottage with his blue-capped head on one side, he had seen the old black cat playing with the bobbins of Victorine's lace pillow; that would have scared him off the windowsill, but not out of Flanders. What did it all mean? And why couldn't he tell her things that she wanted to know?
But the chaffinch couldn't, and Gabrielle, after calling him rude names, suddenly fell a-laughing and skipped about the road just because it was Springtime, and she was nine years old and had heard the first chaffinch of the year singing his careless chinking song―a song she had heard before.
At dinner, over the ragout and leeks, Gabrielle told her three sisters and three brothers how that another little Fleming, whom she knew very well indeed at home, had come to live in that village; he wore a red waistcoat and a chestnut-coloured coat with white-slashed sleeves, and sang sweet foolish songs about the Spring―and he didn't even know there was a War.
A CAT OF WAR.
Dear Mr. Punch,―I'm sure I don't want to be spiteful, and I'm as ready to sink class and party differences as anyone, if only some people who think they're gentlemen just because they belong to officers would do the same, and if I have a private quarrel I'm not one who can't keep it to herself instead of writing to the papers and rousing public feeling: but if others like to start that game, why, I can play it too; and I'm better British any day than that mongrel that writes to you and calls himself "A Very Glad Dog," and boasts of his Airedale father and Irish Terrier mother―and, if you ask me, between ourselves there wasn't much gladness about him when I'd finished with him on our T.B.D. And I've heard his grandfather was a Dachshund, and, though I don't hold with repeating scandal, there's a story I wouldn't say isn't true, that his mother used to go to Sinn Fein meetings and wag her tail at the dynamite speeches, and I'm sure I hope he's proud of her―though he did say that I was a dirty Persian and much the same thing as a Turk, just out of spite because I have a coat that he might well envy with his ugly, tously yellowy thing; it's a beautiful steel-grey, and only the other day the Admiral complimented me on it when he came aboard after the North Sea business―but I'll tell you about that later―and said he liked to see a Service animal the Service colour. What's more, if one of my ancestors was a Persian he came from the British sphere of influence, and, anyway, we've been naturalised for generations, and the only time I ever tasted sherbet it made me sick.
If you'll believe me, too, there was a rat on that boat of his for a whole month, and the only time one came near mine since the War I had him before he reached the deck from the dock wall; and I'll have Mr. Glad Dog know that when he comes aboard us he'll salute the quarter-deck like the rest of us, or get his face scratched like last time, or my name's not Susy.
That's what started it all, you know, Mr. Punch. I won't say I'm fond of dogs, but I give you my word as a perfect lady―and if you don't believe me ask Jim, that's our cook―that I'd never even have spat in his face, it being war time, if he'd observed the traditions of the Service. You might think from his saying that he "came back feeling pleasantly tired" that he had it all his own way, but I may tell you he hadn't, in spite of his superior gun power, and if he's afraid to go up the rigging a ship's no place for him, anyway. All he could do was to sit below and talk big about the 13-5 guns on his boat, and that a destroyer, which shows how much he knows about our Service.
I'm sure you're tired of hearing about him now, Mr. Punch, and I don't wonder; but I must just tell you one thing more to show you the kind of dog he is. He hobnobbed with all the German prisoners that they picked up. They didn't get as many as we, of course, and I scratched three, and would have done the lot, only Jim shut me up in the galley. If you can't scratch your enemies, all I can say is patriotism will go to the dogs, and a precious mess they'll make of it.
They might have given me a free claw with the prisoners too, because, though I don't say that the men and the guns and the ships didn't all do their work as well as it could be done, and I was never one to boast, I was really responsible for that victory. You see we were the first boat to sight the German cruisers, and I knew there was big business going, because Jim had forgotten my milk, and the light was bad, so I was up on the look-out to help Bill. I saw them a long time before I could make him notice, and he nearly threw me down because I scratched his hand, but he told everyone afterwards about my having discovered them, and I'm not the sort to bear malice. "Couldn't make out what was wrong with Susy, mate," he went about saying to one after another. "She kept clawing and yowling like mad, and she'd been purring quite quiet a minute before; and then I sees she was staring all the time to starboard, and, 'Bogob, old lady,' says I, 'you're right.' And then she makes for the wireless room, and the chap he tells me she was purring louder than the engines while he sends off the message." Do you wonder that they all say they wouldn't go into action without me?!
I told you we had the Admiral aboard just afterwards, and he was introduced to me, but I must say that, though I'm no snob and don't want to be prejudiced against him just because he's an Admiral and has a bigger yellow band on his fur than I'd call good taste, I didn't care for him as much as Jim or Bill for all his politeness. He never picked me up, though I stood up against his legs without ever putting a claw out and purred my hardest. Still, I'm a ship's cat, and I leave toadying to them that like it.
Well, good-bye now, Mr. Punch. We don't see you as regularly as we'd like on active service, but I'll be watching out for this, and trust you'll let your readers know the rights of the matter.
I have, Sir the honour to be,
Your obedient Servant,
A respectable H.M. Cat.
P.S. Perhaps you'd like to know that I always purr when I hear any of the four national anthems. Of course, if people haven't any ear for music and can only make a raspy noise when they try to sing, I don't blame them if they don't pay proper respect, but I thought I'd just mention it.
Irish Sergeant (drilling recruits). Stiddy there―stiddy! Shure, one needs as many eyes as a centipede to be afther watchin' ye."
Intelligent Anticipation.
"Miss ———, of Lower-street, Stroud, will be engaged to Mr. ———, son of Mr. and Mrs. ———, Througham, near Stroud, on the 28th February."―Gloucestershire Echo, Feb. 27th.
We rather deprecate this premature publicity. Suppose there had been a hitch.
ARS IMMORTALIS.
How to get your Literature for nothing.
"Read 'Poultry' and Make your Fowls Pay."―Poster.
"Oh! what are these?"
"Boots, Madam―for dogs in wet weather."
"What a sweet idea! And tell me―have you the puttees?"
THE ISLE OF WAS.
It is said that the inhabitants of the lonely island of Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic, have not yet heard of the War. In view of a possible rush to the peaceful shores of this resort it may be well to print a few facts about the island from the pen of one who has never been there and, all being well, will never go.
This quaint little island is the only place in the world that does not possess a brass band or a bagpipe, and the simple folk living there believe khaki to be a vegetable popular in Bessarabia.
One of the present advantages of life in the island is that it enjoys complete immunity from blockade. If a German submarine were to approach its shores the residents of Tristan da Cunha would sally forth in their boats and proceed to cut it open to extract its blubber.
Local opinion of the Kaiser, based on the latest information to hand concerning him, is that he is a potentate of considerable energy, whose worldwide notoriety rests upon his activities in the studio and the pulpit.
Anyone visiting Tristan da Cunha should take his music with him. It is almost certain that "Sister Susie" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" will be all the rage there next Christmas.
The sportsmen of the island are eagerly awaiting the result of the great fight between Carpentier and Bombardier Wells, and bets on the result of last year's Derby are still being made.
The inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha are great gossips. "Have you heard the latest?" one native will ask another; "I got it from a man on the Caroline when she called here for water a year ago last August."
Visitors should not fail to see the Post Office. It is open on every ninety-third day, from 10 to 2.
ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
Among certain much-needed journalistic reforms I should put almost first the necessity of printing photographs of the ladies and gentlemen who write letters to the Press. It is of the highest importance that we should know what they are like, should be able, so to speak, to feel their bumps. It would also be a means of eliminating the anonymous correspondent.
The principal runners in the Correspondence Stakes to-day is no longer Algernon Ashton. What has happened to Algernon? It is true that he retired formally from the lists some few years ago, leaving a book of his letters behind; but he returned in full force, with a baby. The baby did wonderful things in his father's missives―expressed his opinion of the Kaiser in no lethargic manner; but even with this domestic incentive Algernon is not what he was. He seems to have lost his nerve. That bold pen no longer rushes in as once it did. It is now quite safe for a journalist to mention 1828 as the year of Beethoven's death. No one would mind. But once Algernon, more in sorrow than in anger, yet enormously surprised, would have set right a misled world by stating that the year was really 1827. And mortar can now drop like rain from interstices in the brickwork of Martin Tupper's grave and no editor be asked to find room for Algernon's grief and horror. Not that he is wholly mute. Not at all. But he is not what he was; le roi est mort.
Yet he has successors.
Le roi est mort! Vivent les rois! For the successors to the throne are twain. It is like that of Brentford―it has two occupants, and their names are J. Landfear Lucas and A. Kipling Common. Both these gentlemen are a notch above Algernon. They deal with larger events; are more or less publicists, while Algernon was content to necrologise and quote Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. They deal also with ideas, which Algernon scorned to do. You find them everywhere; and J. Landfear Lucas never omits to add to his name the fact that he belongs to the Spectacle Makers' Company. A. Kipling Common may or not make spectacles: he withholds all information about it; it is the only point on which he is reticent. Perhaps he makes lorgnettes or pince-nez. Perhaps the only pair of spectacles he ever made was at cricket. Whatever he makes, he keeps the fact to himself. What kind of spectacles J. Landfear Lucas makes I do not know; but the next time I have need of any I shall insist upon trying his. "Give me a pair of J. Landfear Lucas's," I shall say to the optician, and insist upon having those and no others. The signature of the maker will, I am sure, be on the case. The only fear I have is that wearing them will force me into writing letters to the Press. Perhaps A. Kipling Common wears a pair, and hence his downfall.
J. Landfear Lucas's letters would make an enormous volume of very mixed reading, and would need a good index, which might be prepared by Sir Sidney Lee or the Editor of Notes and Queries. The only subject on which he's has never written is his middle name. Why, I always want to know, does he so dread the soil? What has it done to him? His terror cannot be complete, because I find a letter from him in an recent issue of Land and Water. One must suppose that the presence of water just saved the situation.
A. Kipling Common is a more inspiring name to me. There is something breezy in it―a suggestion of gorse bushes and heather. It cheers up any paper in which it occurs, irrespective of the subject of the letter above it. "And did you once see Shelley Plain?" was the old question. The next generation will be asked, "And did you once see Kipling Common?" All will be able to reply, "Yes―in all the papers."
I imagine these two gentlemen's day to be one long excitement. They rise early after a sleepless night and straightway fall on the morning papers. J. Landfear Lucas has his spectacles on in a jiffy, and, blue pencil in hand, searches for slips, misapprehensions, incomplete references, and defective information. Meanwhile A. Kipling Common is similarly at work elsewhere. Terrible fellows, they miss nothing. And the joy of settling down to the delight of composing their epistles! "There is a pleasure in poetic pains," wrote Cowper, but how much greater the pleasure in writing letters that shall instruct and correct! One wonders how the Lucasian spectacles are made at all―that he has time for anything but single eye-glasses.
Among students of cryptograms and such entertaining mysteries it has been suggested that J. Landfear Lucas and A. Kipling Common are the same. Knowing that a point comes when editors kick, one of these indomitable correspondents invented the other in order to be able to write just twice as many letters as he would otherwise be permitted. The late Ignatius Donnelly firmly believed this; just as Francis Bacon (who in Mr. Snaith's new romance passes a bad half-crown on the Master of Balliol) and William Shakspeare were the same, or, at any rate, wrote each other's works.
A comparison of the signatures reveals extraordinary, nay, uncanny, resemblances. Look at them: J. Landfear Lucas, A. Kipling Common. Each, you will see, begins with an initial, and these initials rhyme: A. and J. We then pass on to a middle name printed in full, each having two syllables; and then to the final surnames again, each of two syllables. And the two signatures exactly balance: J. Landfear Lucas and A. Kipling Common. The student will observe that each has the same number of letters―fourteen―only one more than the fatal thirteen: a very significant point to newspaper readers. Note too the remarkable association between Land and Common. It is only after the signature that any marked difference begins, for it is then that J. Landfear Lucas always adds "Spectacle Makers' Company." This is, however, probably merely a blind.
I do not press the double theory. To me it is fantastic; but in occult circles it is much canvassed and many extremely interesting discussions have been held. It is even rumoured that, one midnight recently, an investigator was shown, by a man in an iron mask, in the faint light of a dark lantern, beneath one of the Adelphi arches, a letter signed K. Lipfear Commas; but of this I have no proof.
I must add that no such mystery attaches to the name of Algernon Ashton. He, at any rate, is real, and has been seen playing dominoes in the Café Royal.
"THE CAT I' TH' ADAGE."
["There is... much exhortation of the Administration to 'stand pat' upon American rights, to avoid being made the cat's paw of anybody's diplomacy."―"Times" Washington Correspondent.]
"His eyes light up as he recalls the song which the Alpins sang that day: 'Nous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine!'"
Daily News.
Those Chasseurs Alpins got off lightly. We remember an incident at school when we made no worse a mistake in our French lesson and there was a great deal of trouble about it.
OUR LONG-SUFFERING SPECIALS.
Fritz Goldenstein (who, though of Teutonic extraction, has joined the force for home defence, addressing his steed for the first time). "Now―commence!"
A BARD OF THE BASEMENT.
[A contemporary informs us that the Secretary of the Poetry Society considers that much more interest is taken in poetry now than in peace time, and instances the case of a cook who was found in her kitchen busily writing a poem on the War.]
WHAT WE HAVE LOST.
Dear Mr. Punch,―I don't know if you have noticed what Professor Schroer, of Cologne, has been saying about you, but even at the risk of causing you pain I feel I ought to draw your attention to the unfortunate impression you have created out there. The nastiest knock is when he says that your cartoons "lack modest refinement." I am only raking up this unpleasant story because the Professor fortunately explains the reason why have we have got so far astray. It seems that we "have lost the good old Low German sense of humour which Englishmen inherited from their German ancestors."
Now, Sir, this is a time to examine ourselves, and, if that be true, should we not enquire whether we have not also lost other of our national characteristics which have reached us from the same source? At least let us see to it that we do not lose our love of sportsmanship, our custom of speaking the truth, our humane conception of warfare, or any of those other excellent qualities which we have as obviously inherited from our "German ancestors."
I am,
Yours faithfully,
Patriot.
Contempt of Court?
"Mr. W. P. Hodgson (Vallazzi the Juggler) leaving the Law Courts, where it was said he threw eggs while flying in an aeroplane."
Daily Mirror.
The Patriotic Spirit.
Host (looking through wine list) to guest: "Well, what will you drink―red, white or blue?"
SOLDIERS ALL.
"Tommy" (home from the Front, to disaffected Workman.) "WHAT'LD YOU THINK O' ME, MATE, IF I STRUCK FOR EXTRA PAY IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTION? WELL, THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING."
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
(Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.)
House of Commons, Monday, 1st March.―Another crisis in the War. Again a crowded House. Once more a great speech from Prime Minister. A special Providence ordains that at such a crisis we have at head of affairs a strong man endowed with gift of lucid speech, which from its very qualities of simplicity and honesty of purpose frequently, without visible effort, rises to height of eloquence. Rarely in its history, perhaps never, has House found its sympathies, convictions and aspirations so faithfully, so fully, so forcefully expressed as on several occasions during last seven months when Asquith has stood at Table and talked about the War, its purpose, its prospects, and its inevitable accomplishment.
True, few Prime Ministers have been sustained and inspired in equal degree by assurance of the confidence and sympathy of a unanimous nation represented by a united Parliament. That is a position difficult to win, hard daily to live up to. With increasing success the Premier has achieved both successes. His personality is worth to the Empire an army in the field, a squadron of Queen Elizabeths at sea.
There was notable in the speech―as usual brief, since it was not attenuated by a superfluous word―increased confidence in the triumphant ending of the War. From the day when, standing in the same place, on the part of Great Britain he practically declared war against Germany, Premier has always spoken with quiet assurance of certain victory. Without boastfulness he has reiterated that conviction. This afternoon he was more definite.
"I assure the Committee," he said, "that with all the knowledge and experience we have gained His Majesty's Government have never been more confident than they are to-day in the power of the Allies to achieve ultimate and durable victory."
Coming in the course of his speech to the submarine "campaign of piracy and pillage" undertaken by Germany under the name of blockade, he spread out a scrap of paper on the brass-bound box, and amid repeated volleys of cheering from both sides read the terms of British reply. It was terse and effective. Germany, having systematically violated the restraining rules and humane usages of civilised warfare, will, to quote an historic phrase peculiarly appropriate to the situation, be left to stew in her own juice. The Allied Fleets of Great Britain and France―not sneaking under water with intent to destroy peaceful merchant ships, but openly sailing the seas in defiance of the German fleet cooped up, as the Premier said, in "the safe seclusion of their mine-fields and their closely guarded forts"―will prevent commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving German ports.
Business done.―Supplementary Vote of Credit of 37 millions to meet War expenditure to end of financial year and a fresh Vote of Credit of 250 millions agreed to by acclamation.
REPRISALS.
Tuesday.―Oxford University and her sister at Cambridge have between them many proud records. None more stirring than that recited by Prime Minister in moving Second Reading of awkwardly named Universities and Colleges (Emergency Powers) Bill. The attendance was scanty, but there was strong muster of University men, who listened with profound interest to words falling from lips of one in whom, as Walter Long felicitously said, "Oxford men claim a common possession, in regard to whom they feel they have abundant reason to be proud, not only for his record at the University but for the great part he is at the present moment playing in the history of the country."
Premier had moving story to tell of transformation wrought at the Universities. Their halls are deserted. Their examination schools and playing fields are occupied by hospitals. The pick of their scholars and the flower of their athletes have alike gone off to the War. No fewer than 4,000 University men, two-thirds of the full muster, are under arms. Of those that remain all the physically fit have joined the Officers Training Corps.
Amongst innumerable evidences of patriotism forthcoming since the Kaiser wantonly dragged unwilling Europe into the war pit this example of the Universities surely shines with unmatched splendour.
Financial consequences embarrassing. No undergraduates, no fees. At Cambridge revenue from this source, amounting in normal times to over £60,000 a year, is reduced by one-half. "As an old Oxford man, with great, undiminished, undying devotion to my own University," the Premier pleaded for new power to be conferred upon the heads of the Universities to meet the special claims and responsibilities that have sprung up. Walter Long, formerly of Christ Church, speaking on behalf of the Opposition, warmly welcomed the Bill, which was forthwith read a second time.
Business done.―Defence of the Realm Bill passed through Committee.
Thursday.―The case of Mr. Meyer, his timber purchases, and his modest commission, up again for discussion. Beck, on behalf of his Chief at Board of Works, gives frank and full explanation. Bonar Law chivalrously declares that method adopted by Government was "best possible in circumstances."
In interesting study of proclivities of contractors in war time, Mr. Barlow, who represents Salford in present Parliament, leaving for a while the company of his young friends, Sandford and Merton, told in his best form one of his many stories. A battalion of recruits being raised in provinces, a purchase of boots was arranged. It was found that the soles were liable to contract an inconvenient habit of parting from the uppers before first mile of march was completed.
Boots returned to contractor. A few months later further supplies required for increasing number of recruits. Application made to another firm. Goods delivered. There were found among them 1,500 pairs of the old lot.
"The only difference," Mr. Barlow added in his persuasive voice, "was that the price had been increased by 1s. 9d. a pair."
Business done.—Consolidated Fund Bill read a second time. Army Annual Bill passed.
WHAT THE WAR OFFICE HAS TO PUT UP WITH FROM INVENTORS.
1. The bomb-catcher.
A Study in Pronunciation.
A correspondent kindly sends us a page from the "English-Flemish Military Guide for the present campaign." Under the heading "How to Prounonce (sic) some vowels" is the following direction:—
"UI as giving to the first e in eye the sound of a in pluck."
This seems sufficient to explain why our Army swore so terribly in Flanders.
A Miltonian Lay.
"Mrs. Milton Henn can supply twice weekly in Limerick; new laid buttered eggs—1/6 a dozen."—Limerick Chronicle.
From a Variety programme:—
{{blockquote| "Mammoth Beauty Chorus of over 70."
Still they must be quite young for mammoths.
The Decline of a German Verb.
| I hate, | We hate |
| Thou hatest, | US, |
| He hates, | They hate. |
GOD'S AFFLICTED.
[A Tribute to the Kaiser's Agents in British India, who have added to the gaiety of Nations.]
| British Officer as seen by the Military Tailor. | As he actually appears on leaving for the front. | After three weeks in the trenches. |
DACHSHUND CORRESPONDENCE.
Dear Mr. Punch,―As an Anglo-Italian dachshund, with a Russian grandmother, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart for publishing Fritz's letter,[1] and so doing your best (and your best is very good, my Missus says, because you voice "the real England") to right the almost Hunnish injustice done to my race.
If a Dachs is to be considered an alien, and, as you know, dear Mr. Punch, we were originally of good old English stock, and never "made in Germany" at all, what about Poms and Pekies?
For my own part I feel doubly hurt by caricatures, for I have done my little bit for the Allies. I claim to be the very first British dog who took a piece out of the leg of an Austrian enemy―it belonged to the son of the luggage-porter―in the early days of August, and my Missus, engaged in escaping from the country, was not as pleased as she should have been.
My little friend Franzl, another Briton born in Italy like myself, disputes my claim to the first bite. I must add with sorrow that my poor friend is now among the British subjects interned in Austria.
I am one of the very few dogs who travelled across Europe, in the early days of the War, by mobilization trains. I barked at the "great new siege-guns," as our fellow-travellers (and enemies) called them, as they passed me on their way to Germany; and when my Missus got arrested at Bozen station I made a point of telling the Polizei-Chef what I thought of him, hinting plainly that I had no objection to trying a second Austrian leg.
Meanwhile I cannot sufficiently thank you for the stand you have taken against this grave and almost Hunnish injustice (forgive me for repeating this expression, but I feel it strongly) to a true British race.
I am personally, as I have mentioned, part Russian by descent, but my silly Missus mixed up Poland with Russia proper, so I must sign myself,
Your very faithful (and always ready to bite your enemies) black-and-tan friend,
Clementina Sobieski.
P.S.―How soon do you think the War will end? Because it seems that till it does I must not grumble about (nor roll upon) a huge tickly red-white-and-blue bow, but wear it with pride and circumstance. Do I not suffer for my country?
Dear Mr. Punch,―With much interest and sympathy I read the pathetic letters of my kinsman Fritz in a recent issue of Punch. Having myself suffered from the same sudden coldness―not to say hostility―on the part of former friends, and knowing that I possess an undoubtedly authentic pedigree of at least eight generations of British-born Dachshunds, the time has I think arrived when I may justly claim to be a British dog. I therefore venture to suggest that in future we should be given an English name.
Dachs is the German for badger, and badgers are just as indigenous to the British Isles as to Germany. In Scotland and the North of England the country name for a badger is "brock." Why not then in future call us Brockhounds? The word has a true British ring.
Entrusting our cause to your all-powerful influence, believe me, dear Mr. Punch, with profound respect and fidelity. Your most obedient Servitor,
Charles Brock
(sometime Karl Dachs).
- ↑ "The Plaint of a British Dachshund,", Punch, Feb. 10, 1915.
A Bold Stroke.
"An officer of the Lion says the Indomitable steamed at a rate undreamt of by her builders. The strokers off duty swarmed to the hold to help their comrades. Sir David Beatty at the end of the action signalled 'Well done strokers of the Indomitable."
Statesman (India).
We always had somebody to stroke our boats at Cambridge, but never at such a pace.
From Le Journal de Petrograd:―
}Lorsque le Kaiser est à Berlin, le repas est plus simple encore: l'Empereur mange un potage et la viande qui a servi à faire oc potage avec du pain K K."
KK bread is, of course, Kartoffelbrod, and not provender supplied by Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.
THE FLAT-HUNTER.
When I met Gladwyn―an elderly and pessimistic bachelor―at the club the other night I was agreeably surprised to find him looking so cheerful. Since the War began I have sedulously avoided him, but, encouraged by his comparatively radiant appearance, returned his nod and asked him if he had been out of town. "No," he replied, "I've been flat-hunting for the last three weeks―got to turn out of my present quarters―nuisance, of course; but, good Lord! what right has a non-combatant to talk of nuisances?" This astonishing sentiment, coming from the most self-centred man I know, prompted me to make some sympathetic remark; and Gladwyn, who loves talking about himself, at once started off on a long recital of his experiences. Gladwyn, I should explain, is a hopeless conversationalist, but excels in monologue.
"I've been to about twenty house-agents," he went on, "and nothing could exceed their attention. The urbanity, graciousness and splendid appearance of their young men fills me with admiration. Stout fellows, I believe, from what I know of one or two of them, who drill hard in their leisure hours and all that sort of thing, but in the office miracles of gentleness and persuasion. Beautifully dressed, too, in a style of quiet elegance which makes me painfully conscious of my own shortcomings. But they never presume upon it, and I marvel at their condescension in writing out endless orders to view small flats, 'upper parts' and 'maisonettes' suited to my humble requirements. It seems to me that half London is being converted into 'maisonettes,' at least the unfashionable half. Mine always begin on the third floor and generally consist of bedrooms turned into sitting-rooms, and box-rooms into kitchens. Lots of rooms, endless stairs and no lifts. 'Maisonettes' are generally near railway stations, about a stone's-throw off, and they look out at the back on the Underground or garages or the yards of breweries. To appreciate them fully you want to be strong in the heart and legs and hard of hearing―in short, to combine the activity of the goat with the deafness of the adder. 'Upper parts' are always over shops on main arteries of traffic.
With regard to flats my experience has been that more often than not there was nobody in when I called, or it was inconvenient for the tenant to let me see it at that moment, or the flat was already let through another agent. Still, when I have been admitted, the behaviour of the tenants has filled me with admiration. They never give away the agents. They never want to leave. They always give the flat a good character for quietness and commodiousness. In one that was slap over the Underground the lady admitted that sometimes a 'slight humming' was audible―that was all. There are those who volunteer the reasons of their moving, but for the most part they are reticent, and that I can understand, since in a good many cases it is the same as my own―a rise in the rent on renewal.
"I have seen some charming flats, with plenty of room, bright and airy, and at a moderate rent, but they were never lower than the fourth floor and there was no lift. Why does no man of science invent wings for ascending stairs?
"I admire the house agents, and the tenants―when they are at home―but my feelings towards estate agents who have offices on the same premises as the flats they want to let are mixed. They are extraordinarily affable, but they are inclined to overdo it. The flat that they want to let is always 'our show flat'―the brightest and airiest and most attractive in the whole block. They wax lyrical over the view if the flat is on the fifth floor, or the beauties of its geyser if it is in the basement. After all, they are professional eulogists, and praise is the hardest thing to swallow when it isn't about yourself. The porters are fine fellows, and when you see them in their uniforms they are worthy of a Blue Hungarian Band. One I saw the other day in Bloomsbury had a moustache that reminded me of old Victor Emmanuel. But the people I admire most of all are the photographers who are responsible for the views of the immediate surroundings of Cortina Mansions or whatever it may be. I've got an illustrated booklet with pictures of a stately pile embosomed in verdure, with spreading lawns and apparently no other building for hundreds of miles. The stately pile is all right, but the verdure is all my eye. And yet people talk of the truthful camera."
Here Gladwyn paused for breath, and I asked, "Have you found anything to suit you?"
"No," he answered, "nothing yet, but I'm going to look at a fascinating 'maisonette' in Brondesbury to-morrow."
"Well, good luck," I said, getting up to go; "you seen to have had a pretty rotten time."
"Not a bit of it," replied Gladwyn with unaffected cheerfulness. "I haven't had time to think of the War for three weeks."
The fusion of Cross and Crescent.
HOW NEWS IS "MADE IN GERMANY."
A Marksman Indeed.
"At last she said, hesitatingly: 'I'm not quite sure; but I think I could manage on 400 francs.' He went a trifle pale, having reserved exactly that sum for the purchase of a sporting rifle for shooting swallows in summer."―Globe.
"Sing it aht, Sonny―Let's 'ear wot it sahns like."
"HELP! HELP!"
Alan! Alan! is the name of a novel recently announced. If this is to set a new fashion in titles the question must arise, how should one ask for the latest story at the bookshop or the library?
"What may I get you, Sir?" the female assistant will say. "Vivien! Vivien!" the curate will murmur in reply. And then the young lady, with blushes, will explain, "My name is Susie, Sir."
Should the title be spoken in the level tones used for A Faded Flower, for instance? Or should the exclamation marks be noted and given their proper emphasis?
Would it be correct to enter the shop and shout, "Clarence! Clarence!" as if the end of all things had come? or would it be better to adopt a more peremptory tone, as of a strong father calling upstairs to his son, to whom he is about to administer that which, believe him, hurts the father's heart far more than it hurts the errant boy? Or should the cry be uttered as a last appeal? or on a note of hopeless resignation? or imperatively like the calling of a dog to heel? The problem bristles with difficulties.
And even when you have decided how this double vocative should be conveyed you will find that what is a simple thing to the elocutionist may be a grave trouble to the amateur.
DONATIONS INVITED.
An announcement of considerable interest is made by the Kreuz-Zeitung to the effect that associations have been formed in Hanover and Hamburg and will shortly be formed in one hundred and fifty places to collect money which will be expended in gifts for German soldiers "as soon as it is officially announced that either German troops have occupied English soil or have achieved the overthrow of England."
We do not know if Lord Kitchener and Sir John French have fully considered the advisability of introducing some such system into our own conduct of the campaign. Perhaps the mercenary English might he induced by the offer of a tip of some sort———? But that is only a suggestion. Our present concern is with an alien publication which has fallen into our hands and which contains some interesting answers to correspondents upon the question. The following is a translation:―
J. B. (Erfurt).―No, you must have been misinformed by your local press. The overthrow of England has not been already achieved, technically―although it is well known that that perfidious Empire is tottering. The intrepid aviator to whom you refer cannot be said to have technically occupied English soil, as he was picked up in the Thames. No, we cannot accept bread-cards in lieu of cash.
Max Schneider (Ansbach).―Many thanks for your letter. We have some sympathy with your attitude when you say that "to have the thing merely officially announced is not good enough for you." No payment will be made, however, till it has been confirmed in the Paris communiqué. Meanwhile do not hesitate to contribute.
Cautious (Kiel).―We are bound to protest against the pessimistic and unpatriotic tone of your letter. We do not understand how you can possibly hold such views, living as you do in a neighbourhood where you have daily opportunity of contemplating the accumulated naval strength of Germany. No, money will not be returned under any circumstances.
A.K.(Frankfort).―Certainly not. No one has ever suggested that the gifts should take the form of iron crosses. Our never-to-be-even-for-a-moment-daunted troops are not to be fobbed off in this manner.
Financier (Berlin).―We think your suggestion an excellent one. As you say, if the money were to be invested at compound interest it might well amount to a considerable sum before it becomes payable. It is understood however that it will all be compulsorily taken over for investment in the next War Loan.
"Young gentleman wants Job; something exciting: been abroad good deal."
Liverpool Echo.
Why not go abroad again and try Flanders, in khaki?
MAKING AN EXHIBITION OF THEMSELVES.
We seem to recall that in the dim ages of last June something was being said about an Anglo-German Exhibition, and that the idea was subsequently abandoned. We should welcome its revival, though of course with modifications in accordance with our increased knowledge of the subject. As thus:―
Germany at the Black-and-White City.
A true picture of the most amazing people on earth. Open 10 till 10.
Native Arts and Crafts (especially Crafts) as practised in Blackest Berlin.
Native German Village.
With continuous Performances by real Germans (never before brought into contact with civilisation). An illustration of Savage Life that must be seen to be believed.
Quaint Ceromonials and War Dances.
Sacrificing to Kultur.
Departure of Chiefs on Head-hunting Expedition. Chanting the Hymn of Hate (by a choir of genuine Professors).
Also Exact Reproduction of a
British Seaside Watering Place as the Germans see it.
Armour-plated Bathing Machines.
Penny-in-the-Slot Machine Guns.
Gigantic Super-Switchback, capable of hurling twenty-five tons of trippers at a hostile fleet.
Side Shows.
Herr Hohenzollern, the Potsdam Equilibrist, "Walking the Wireless."
The Great Wheel (as done on the Marne).
Cave of Illusion, The Parisian Mirage, "The Calaisdoscope," etc., etc.
Admission One Mark.
LOOKING FORWARD.
One of the most inspiring and interesting of the ceremonies in connection with the Peace Celebrations occurred yesterday at Chelsen, when medals were awarded to a number of stalwart men and youths for their fine record of athleticism and self-denial during the War. They walked in, many hundred strong, to the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," the crowd, which was enormous, boing kept in order by a regiment just back from the Front, who were given this task to keep them out of mischief. The procession evoked tremendous cheers, and no wonder, for it consisted of men in the pink of condition, who contrasted noticeably with many of the poor fellows from the War, some of whom had a battered and not too spruce appearance. A little company of wounded soldiers left during the proceedings.
The heroes being all assembled, a gentleman prominent in the Football world, supported by dignitaries, officials, and pressmen, welcomed them, in a few well-chosen words, in the name of himself and follow-sportsmen. England, he said―and by England he meant the cream of the country, that is, the football enthusiasts―was proud of them. (Cheers.) They had stuck―well, he would not say to their guns, for that was perhaps an unfortunate phrase under the circumstances―but to their own calling―to their footballs―with a steady persistence that did them credit. In spite of all temptation, in spite of all the artful patriotic lures, their self-respect as footballers had conquered (Cheers and excitement.) Again and again it had been put before them by selfish and impulsive partisans that their services as fit and powerful men might be of use to England at the Front, or even for home military service, but nothing had shaken them. (Cheers.) They were adamant. They had been trained to play football, and play football they would. (Immense cheers.) They had manfully remained in the path they had chosen, and had refused to give up their great and noble and truly national pastime. (Hear, hear.) Nothing could shake them―not even the raid on Scarborough. They were gloriously firm―boys of the bulldog breed par excellence. (Cries of "Hurrah.") Football, they recognised, came first, country second, and they behaved accordingly; and the great-hearted public, always ready to acclaim doggedness and pluck, stood by them and rallied week after week to their gallant displays in the field. (Renewed cheers.)
To each man the Chairman then presented an iron cross amid the wildest excitement, and the proceedings terminated by the band playing "After the ball," in which everyone present joined.
Offence and Defence.
"In the Assembly General Hertzog has tried, with no success, to help the cause of friends of his who are in prison with charges of treason hanging over their heads. On Monday Mr. Burton, Minister of Railings, countered these efforts with a stingingly critical speech."―Manchester Guardian.
Judging by the reports of recent proceedings in the South African Parliament Mr. Burton's new post (or perhaps one should say post-and-rails) will be no sinecure.
THE LOWLAND SEA.
Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi.
"The authors tramped 17,000 miles from one side of Africa to the other―a journey which took nearly a year to accomplish."
Observer.
As the continent is only about 5,000 miles across at its widest part, we reckon that these great pedestrians must have crossed it at least three times, and walked over 45 miles a day the whole time.
N.S.P.C.C. Please Note.
"Unfurnished Room wanted by respectable woman (oven preferred), where baby could be minded while mother goes to work."
Evening News.
The Wallaby Again.
"In answer to the query, 'What is wrong with golf?' opinions of writers appear to have differed very much. G. Duncan, A. C. Croome, and Wallaby Deeley expressed the opinion that the greens might be made smaller and the holes enlarged."
West Australian.
"Wallaby" Deeley is doubtless a local flier. Judging by the following extract his idea appears to have been adopted:―
"Since the beginning of the year some clearing has been effected, and a new green laid down, which will permit of the course being considerably lengthened, and provide a spare green should the 4-in. green become unplayable as happened last winter."
"Southern Times," Bunbury, W. A.
Mistress. "Well, cook, if you and the other maids are at all nervous of the Zeppelins, you can have your beds removed into the basement."
Cook. "No, thank you, Ma'am. We have every confidence in the policeman at the gate."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
I have seldom met a volume of more pronounced "heart interest" than Paris Waits (Smith, Elder). Partly, of course, this is due to the skill with which Mrs. M. E. Clarke has written it; partly to outside causes. For in reading these thrilling pages one finds oneself oddly affected by an old idea, deep-rooted in all our minds, that when once a thing is in print it is over and done with, put away and no longer personal, like bones in a museum. And then, with the queerest shock, one realises suddenly that this story of Paris in her suspense goes no further back than a time whose distance can be measured by days. Perhaps Mrs. Clarke's method of telling helps this effect a little. As special correspondent of The Times and as herself long an intimate friend of Paris and the Parisians, she was well able to appreciate every phase of the critical weeks when the invaders threatened to storm its very walls. Not only are her pen-pictures remarkably vivid and realistic, but the camera has also helped, and included in the book are many most interesting photographs of Paris in war—a snapshot of the Avenue de l'Opéra, for example, empty of traffic but for a solitary cyclist, or a group of R.A.M.C. men lounging in the doorway of an hotel whose name suggests the coupons of economy and peace. It is all breathlessly interesting, and, as I say, there is that added stranger thrill. Of the close of a certain historic day you may read that it was tilled with wonderful autumn sunshine, and suddenly you will say, "Of course it was!" and recall everything that you yourself were doing that afternoon. That I suppose is one of the minor compensations of living in history. It certainly adds profoundly to the effect of such a record of tragedy nobly faced as we may find here in Paris Waits, a record that even our descendants, without these advantages, will never read unmoved.
In the bald précis which Messrs. Methuen supply with The Family, by Elinor Mordaunt, they do her, it and themselves much less than justice. I had been prepared for boredom; I was in fact consistently entertained, and it is certainly no inconsiderable feat on the part of the author to make that truculent Spartan, Squire Hebberton, his faint wife, his seven sons and four daughters, separately and plausibly alive. We first see them on their own acres of Cranbourne very much of the county in blood but a little out of it in the matter of money, haunted by impending financial catastrophe, all the more inevitable because no Hebberton can really bring himself to face the possibility of such a paltry destiny. The blow falls and tosses them into situations which would have profoundly shocked their minor acquaintances and their tenantry. And I suspect some sort of indictment of their order is intended by the suggestion that they did not make much of their new life. It was rotten of the rather inhuman vicar to fall so desperately in love with Pauline, the nice, horsey, romantic tomboy, and spiritually mesmerise her into matrimony. Any perceptive person could have foretold disaster, but there was none such at Cranbourne. Pauline, a dear, finds her salvation in the service of her hypersensitive brother, Sebastian, whose happiness has been wrecked by his parents' crass stupidity. The story opens in the eighties of last century; one did not perhaps quite appreciate that really heavy fatherhood survived to that date. Now it is our sons and daughters that tend to put on weight. Dare one, by the way, beg Miss Mordaunt to engage a really nice proof-reader with powers of attorney to deal with such exuberant malapropisms as our dear old friend "immured to," and "anchorite" for "acolyte"; and to collect stragglers in the way of unfinished sentences? Her work is too good for these little flaws.
Arabia Infelix, or the Turks in Yamen (Macmillan), is book the number of whose readers will probably be largely increased by the time and circumstance of its publication. Even to-day, when we read and talk and think so much about the Unspeakable One, I doubt if many persons could tell off-hand whether Yamen was a country or a costume. For their benefit let me hasten to pass on my own superior (if lately acquired) erudition. Yamen, then, is, roughly speaking, the left-hand strip of the Arabian peninsula, fringing the Red Sea; and this book about it has been written by Mr. G. Wyman Bury, who evidently enjoys unique knowledge of his subject. Arabia is so far removed from most of us in language and history and customs that tales of it have always the fantastic and unreal atmosphere of another world. To me it remains a land that I am well content to explore at second-hand―but this is prejudice. It is certainly picturesque; Mr. Bury's illustrative photographs (some of the best I have ever seen) are evidence of this. One of the most attractive of them is called "Return of Zaptieh to the Hukoomah at Menakah," a title (or I am much mistaken) that will mean less than nothing to the majority. For its interpretation I must refer you to the author himself. I should, by the way, explain that, though seasoned here and there with an agreeable humour, this is in no sense a volume of frivolous entertainment. Mr. BURY writes as an expert for those who want expert and practical information; the chatter and small talk of travel is not in his scheme. But at a time when we are all speculating as to the future of the Turk this record of a what he has done and left undone in a little known land has a peculiar interest and value.
The Dark Tower (Secker) is an unusual and, in many ways, a remarkable work. Mr. F. Brett Young has already given evidence of being a writer a long way removed From the ordinary ruck of novelists; this book will confirm his reputation. At first, perhaps, the skill of his attack is not altogether apparent. The opening chapters of the tale seem to hesitate uncertainly, playing as it were for position. Then, just when you may be asking yourself, "Is anything definite ever going to happen?" pounce! the thing has you by the throat, not to struggle free before the last line is read. It is a sombre story enough, this of the two brothers living in their lonely farm high up on the mountains of the Welsh border―a place that itself becomes like a character in the tragedy, so well is the brooding spirit of it realised. Charlie, the older brother, had been a pleasant wastrel till he married Judith, a slip of a Celt with red hair and green eyes; and the little money there was to begin with dwindle beneath the extortions of her poaching relatives. Then Charlie started to drink himself to death; and Alaric, who had failed as a musical journalist, returned to make his home in the tower of the farm. Thenceforward the tale is of a Welsh Pelléas and Mélisande, rushing swiftly to it inevitable doom. The vigour of it, told with an uncommon blend of realism and beauty is what I found impossible to resist. The author has wonderfully conveyed an atmosphere of rarefied passion without a hint of sentimentality. There is a distinction and austerity in his treatment of which I can only record my appreciation and leave you to enjoy them for yourself. His style you will find a dry clear wine, sparkling, with never a taste of sugar―an unpicturesque metaphor, but one that fairly expresses the appeal of this quite uncommon book to the critical taste.
Not often has it been my good fortune to find amusement in publishers' announcements, but I confess to grinning broadly when I read Messrs. Hutchinson's remarks upon The Great Age. "To attempt," they say, "to introduce Shakespeare into a novel would seem to be daring, if not courting disaster," and then go on to assure us that Mr. J. C. Snaith has succeeded where others would have failed, because he has written a romance that teems with exciting incident. I trust that my sense of humour is not perverted, but I cannot help finding something extraordinarily laughable in the commandeering of Shakespeare by Mr. Snaith, and in the publishers' apologetic justification of his audacious act. Granted, however, that the rash deed demanded some apology, I say unhesitatingly that the post could not have fallen into more reverent hands than those of Mr. Snaith. The Bard is brought in as a sort of fairy godfather to a boy and a maid who wander through the land in a frantic attempt to escape from the clutches of the law. If I had to propose a vote of sympathy with any of the characters my choice would fall not on Shakespeare but on Queen Elizabeth, for she has but few friends among modern writers, and in this small company Mr. Snaith is certainly not enrolled. The author has put to his credit a tale full of perils and hair-breadth escapes, and he has made an honest and, on the whole, successful attempt to reproduce the phraseology of the Elizabethan age; though I doubt if the word "sinister," which he works so hard, was really popular in those spacious days.
How a torn label aroused the suspicions of an alert railway porter.