: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 159 November 10 1920 by Various Seaman Owen Editor - English wit and humor Periodicals Punch

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N LISTENING TO YOUR ARGUMENTS; AND LET ME TELL YOU WE'RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT."

I think the time has come for me to follow the example of so many other people and offer to the world a few pen pictures of prominent statesmen of the day. I shall not call them "Shaving Papers from Downing Street," nor adopt the pseudonym of "The Man with the Hot Water ," nor shall I roundly assert that I have been the private secretary, the doctor, the dentist or the washerwoman of the great men of whom I speak. Nevertheless I have sources of information which I do not mean to disclose, except to say that heavy persons who sit down carelessly on sofas may unknowingly inflict considerable pain, through the sharp ends of broken springs, on those beneath.

I shall begin naturally with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE.

Let us turn then to the younger PITT. I have read somewhere of the younger PITT that he cared more for power than for measures, and was ready to sacrifice great causes with which he had sincerely sympathised rather than raise an opposition that might imperil his ascendency. That is just the kind of nasty and long-winded thing that anybody might say about anybody. It was by disregarding this kind of criticism that the younger PITT kept on being younger. But apart from this, does Mr. LLOYD GEORGE quote HORACE in the House? Never, thank goodness. How many times did WILLIAM PITT cross the English Channel? Only once in his whole life. That settles it.

The predominant note--I may almost say the keynote--of the PRIME MINISTER'S character is rather a personal magnetism such as has never been exercised by any statesman before or after. When he rises to speak in the House all eyes are riveted on him as though with a vice until he has finished speaking. Even when he has finished they sometimes have to be removed by the Serjeant-at-Arms with a chisel. His speeches have the moral fervour and intensity of one of the Minor Prophets--NAHUM or AMOS, in the opinion of some critics, though I personally incline to MALACHI or HABAKKUK. This personal magnetism which Mr. LLOYD GEORGE radiates in the House he radiates no less in 10, Downing Street, where a special radiatorium has been added to the breakfast-room to radiate it. Imagine an April morning, a kingfisher on a woody stream, poplar-leaves in the wind, a shower of sugar shaken suddenly from a sifter, and you have the man.

Talking of THOMAS ? BECKET, rather a curious story has been told to me, which I give for what it is worth. It is stated that some time ago Mr. LLOYD GEORGE was so enraged by attacks in a certain section of the Press that he shouted suddenly, after breakfast one morning in Downing Street, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent scribe?" Whereupon four knights in his secretarial retinue drew their swords and set out immediately for Printing House Square. Fortunately there happened to be a breakdown on the Metropolitan Railway that day, so that nothing untoward occurred.

THE WHALE.

The whale has a beautiful figure, Which he makes every effort to spoil, For he knows if he gets a bit bigger He increases the output of oil.

That is why he insists upon swathing His person with layers of fat. You have seen a financier bathing? Well, the whale is a little like that.

At heart he's as mild as a pigeon And extremely attached to his wife, But getting mixed up with religion Has ruined the animal's life.

For in spite of his tact and discretion There is fixed in the popular mind A wholly mistaken impression That the whale is abrupt and unkind.

And it's simply because of the prophet Who got into a ship for Tarshish But was thrown off it And swallowed alive by "a fish."

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