: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 156 February 5 1919 by Various - English wit and humor Periodicals Contemporary Reviews; Punch

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A PLEA FOR PROPORTION.

If so--or indeed if it's not so-- One cannot but gently deplore That the custom of chronicling rot so Has not been expunged by the War. When the world with its horrors still stunned is And waits for vast hopes to come true, What boots it if delegates' undies Are scarlet or blue?

All facts of those delegates' labours I'm ready to read with a zest, And they must, like myself and my neighbours, I know, have their moments of rest; I do not begrudge them their pleasures, But frankly I don't care a rap If the sport that engages their leisure's "Up, Jenkins" or "Snap."

Since the founts of its wisdom present us Each morning with gems of this kind, Such matters must strike as momentous The news-editorial mind; 'Tis time this delusion was done with, High time that some voice made it clear We don't want those fountains to run with Such very small beer.

We rather like this telescopic style of reporting. It leaves something to the reader's imagination.

A distressful country, indeed, where the children do not own their own feet.

WINCHESTER'S OPPORTUNITY.

Winchester Cathedral, as we need hardly remind our readers, has only been rescued from subsidence and collapse at an immense cost by a lavish use of the resources of modern engineering. The building itself is not without merits, but its site is inconspicuous and the swampy nature of the soil is a constant menace to its durability. The scheme which we venture with all humility to suggest is that it should be removed and re-erected, in the same spirit though in the architectural language of our own day, on the summit of St. Catherine's Hill, where it would look better than ever, and be connected by a scenic neo-Gothic railway with Meads. This would not only add to the amenities of the landscape, but enable the present cathedral site to be utilized for a purpose more in consonance with the needs of the age. We do not presume to dictate, but may point out that if the deanery and the canons' houses were pulled down and re-erected on the golf-links, where they would look better than ever, space would be available for a majestic aerodrome, or, better still, an experimental water-stadium for submarines, in memory of KING ALFRED, the founder of our Fleet.

CIVIL EDUCATION FOR SOLDIERS.

When the armistice was signed and the close season for Germans set in, it occurred to the authorities that it would be a waste of labour to continue to train some few million good men for a shooting season that might never re-open, and the weekly programme became rather a sketchy affair till some brain more brilliant than the rest conceived the idea of giving a good sound education in the arts of peace to this promising and waiting multitude. The idea was joyfully accepted, and gradually filtered through its authorised channels, suffering some office change or other at each stage till it finally reached one of our ancient seats of learning. It arrived rather like the peremptory order of a newly-gazetted and bewildered subaltern, who, having got his platoon hopelessly tied up, falls back on the time-honoured and usually infallible "Carry on, Sergeant."

There were some six-hundred white-hatted cadets stationed at this spot, all thirsting for information on gas, and Mills bombs, and studs on the cocking-piece, and forming fours, and vertical intervals and District Courts-martial; and when the order came to "carry on" with education it caused something like a panic. A council of war nearly caused Head-quarters to cancel a battalion parade, but they pulled themselves together and held the drill, and the appointed Jack as "Battalion Education Officer," and empowered him to draft a scheme of work.

When produced it consisted of fourteen paragraphs, each of which finished up with the sentence, "This is obviously a problem for the Company Commander." Jack had nothing to learn as to the duties of a battalion specialist and realised that his responsibility lay simply in providing Company Commanders, and then finding problems for them to solve. As the Company Commanders were already in being his work was simplified.

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