Read Ebook: A popular history of the United States of America Vol. 1 (of 2) by Howitt Mary Mary Botham

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VOL. 158.

March 10th, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

There are one hundred thousand more people living in London than in New York. But they are only just living.

M. GRABSKI, who has just asked for the loan of three thousand million francs, is the Polish Minister of Finance. Yet people say there is nothing in a name.

A Welsh Prohibition Bill is suggested. We think it should be pointed out that the Welsh language is natural and not due to over-indulgence.

DEMPSEY, the American Boxer, is to be charged with "draft-dodging." The other charge of COCHRAN-dodging will not be proceeded with.

Gold in the mouth, says the American Academy of Dental Science, is out of date. Much the same applies to gold in the pocket.

We understand that an American syndicate has been formed for the purpose of acquiring the sole rights in a suit of clothes by a London tailor.

American whisky is said to create in consumers a desire to climb trees. British whisky, on the other hand, seems to create in the Americans a desire to cross the Atlantic.

With reference to the road-mender who fell down last week and injured himself an explanation has now been given. It appears that the colleague next to him must have moved.

No fewer than twenty-seven poems on Spring have been received by one weekly paper editor. Yet there are people who still maintain that the crime wave is on the wane.

We understand that the Foreign Office takes a serious view of the large number of public-houses which have been burgled during the last few weeks. It is feared that it may be the work of a foreign spy who is endeavouring to secure the recipe of British Government ale.

"A large number of army tanks have been sent to Africa," announces an article in a daily paper. However, as the brontosaurus is supposed to devour four of these delicacies at every meal, it is feared that unless a great many more are sent out immediately this dainty animal may be faced with extermination.

A morning paper announces that all airships of "R 34" type are now obsolete. We have decided to stick a pin in each of ours.

From Ireland comes the pleasing news that the wife of a well-known Sinn Feiner has just presented her husband with a little bomberette.

Since the publication of Professor KEITH'S statistics of efficiency, showing the superiority of the physical condition of miners over that of almost every other class of worker, the argument, so popular with the advocates of nationalisation, that a miner's occupation is a most unhealthy one, has been given a rest.

"I doubt if even the youngest child to-day will live to see the real fruits of the War," said the Bishop of Lincoln last week. Another unmerited slight on the O.B.E.

A merciless campaign against rats is to be waged by the inhabitants of a large Yorkshire town. This is supposed to be the outcome of the continued indifference with which these rodents have treated the many propaganda campaigns which the town has organised.

Liverpool City Council is to consider the appointment of women park- keepers. In support it is urged that when it comes to persuading a paper bag to go along quietly the superior tact of a woman is bound to tell.

Arrangements for the continuation of the Food Ministry, it is stated, are still incomplete. It would be a thousand pities if a mere abundance of food should lead to the disappearance of this valuable department.

The chiffchaff has been heard in Hampshire and a couple of road-peckers were observed last week hovering in the neighbourhood of Wellington Street.

ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.

MEN AND THINGS OF THE MOMENT.

THE MALLABY-DEELEY EMPORIUM.

I am all for the cheap supply of "gentlemen's lounge-suits" for the so-called working-classes to lounge in. I know of no surer antidote to the spirit of Bolshevism. But let us not forget the claims of the middle classes, who are the backbone of the Empire. If Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY cannot help us in the direction I have indicated, then let Mr. KENNEDY JONES, on behalf of the Middle Class Union, put a hyphen to his name and open a shop for the sale of evening wear at demi-popular prices.

Yours faithfully, SURBITONIAN.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--It would be a thousand pities if Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY'S beneficent scheme should fail for lack of advertisement. Could you not persuade your colleagues of the Press to publish from day to day the route of his car's progress from his private residence to his place of business, as in the case of the new Member for Paisley? My only fear is that the Coalition Government might be suspected of adopting the Wee Free methods of publicity for political ends; but this would surely be an unworthy suspicion in the case of a movement designed for the benefit not of a party, but of mankind.

Yours faithfully, STAGE MANAGER.

THE DECLINE OF LEARNING.

DEAR SIR,--I look for your sympathy when I say that I regard the abolition of compulsory Greek at Oxford as tantamount to the collapse of the last bulwark of British Culture. It is idle for the advocates of this act of vandalism to protest that the spirit of Ancient Hellas can be adequately conveyed in the form of translations, and to illustrate this futile argument by reference to the authorised version of the Hebrew Scriptures. Admirable as that version may be, is it for a moment to be supposed that it can take the place of the original as a source of spiritual education? or that our appreciation of Holy Writ would not be a hundred-fold increased if it were fortified by a knowledge of the first principles of Hebraic syntax and by an elementary acquaintance with Hebraic composition. It is impossible to estimate the influence of such knowledge in tending to endear the Bible to our youth. To me indeed it has always been incomprehensible that our Prelates, who presumably have the welfare of the Church at heart, have never insisted on making Hebrew a compulsory subject for Responsions.

And now Greek has gone and Oxford is the home of one more lost cause. The gods may be with the winners, but it is the losing side that still appeals to

Yours incorruptibly, CATO.

In any case, by the exceptional opportunities he enjoyed for a careful study of leaking cylinder jackets, insulating tape, red-leaded joints and missing engines the intrepid Doctor must have added largely to his knowledge of mechanical science, to say nothing of the botanical discoveries he made when his machine came within a few inches of contact with a banana-tree.

I, for one, look forward eagerly to his return, when he will be able to narrate his experience with a fulness and freedom of language impossible in cabled despatches.

Yours faithfully, STANLEY LIVINGSTONE JONES.

A "MALADE IMAGINAIRE"?

A CHOICE OF SINECURES.

Yes, but how long would they remain jolly?

The programme merely announced them as "Windsor Castle Singers," but this no doubt was to give the audience a greater surprise.

Supper seems to have been all right, anyhow.

WON ON THE POSTS.

When the Sportif Club received the challenge they doubted whether to accept it, as the Soci?t? Athl?tique was rumoured to include several veterans approaching fifteen years of age and of tremendous physique. On being conceded the choice of ground, however, they took up the gage and trained and practised with such vigour that two days before the date of the match Georges Darr?, right back, punted his toe through a previously suspected weak spot in the ball and irreparably ruined it. The Soci?t? Athl?tique was informed of the disaster and asked to supply a ball, but they answered that no known authority or precedent existed for visiting teams providing the accessories. There was also an insinuation that the story of the burst ball was a fabrication, designed to give the Sportif Club a loophole of escape from a contest that spelt certain defeat.

"And why am I singled out for so much honour?" asked Percival, taking the slacks which Elfred produced from between the mattresses. "Has the Washer-women's Union handed in notices and made a complimentary exception in my case?"

"The light pair," said Percival, "to give tone to the clean collar. But go on."

"Well, I put it to Madame as my orficer was a very partickler gent, an' she'd gotter do our washing even if she 'ad to light 'er fire with the family dresser. She said she was desolated; she 'adn't sufficient coal to take the chill off a mouchoir. I thought of trying to borrer a sack for 'er from the quarter bloke, but our relations 'ave never been the same since the time I took my weekly ration of 'Pink Princesses' back an' arsked 'im to change 'em for cigarettes with a bit o' tobacco in.

"After she'd gone I took a kit inventory 'an found we was down to our last clean collar, an' we looked like bein' a bit grubby in the matter of pyjamas. I went a walk to the canteen to think it over, an' on my way Madame's lad came up an' said 'is team 'ad an important match for two days later an' could I possibly oblige 'em with a football. Being a sportsman--I take a franc chance in the camp football sweep every week--I said I'd try what I could do, knowin' of a ball which me an' the other batmen punt about in our rare hintervals of leisure. But then the thought of that washing that wasn't washed came into my mind.

"'See 'ere, Meredith,' I says. 'Je voo donneray a ball si votre m?re does our washing toot sweet.'"

"'E looked blue at this an' said they couldn't get fuel nohow.

"It seems 'e did. It seems scrounging for fuel 'ad reached such a pitch in the village that people took their backyard fences in at night, 'an they 'ad posted a policeman on the station to prevent 'em sawing away the waiting-room. But our washing 'ad to be done, 'an I thought if I got the whole of this football team scrounging they might find something as everyone else 'ad overlooked. So I pretended to be indifferink.

"That set 'em to work. Next day little boys were scraping the village over like fowls in a farmyard, getting a chip 'ere an' a shaving there, an' making themselves such a nuisance that there was talk of calling the gendarmerie out. They would 'ave done, too, only he'd laid down for a nap an' left strict orders 'e wasn't to be disturbed. Then they slipped into the Camp, trying to lay nefarious 'ands on empty ration boxes, but the Camp police spotted 'em an' chivied them off. I never seen our police so exhausted as they were at the end of that day.

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