WE envy the freshness of America's experience as a member of the Alliance.
New York will hold its first flag day on June 2nd.
***
America is anxious to see a settlement of the Irish Question, but there is
no truth in the rumour that we have cabled to say that we will take on
Mexico if America will take on Ireland.
***
VON IHNE, the KAISER'S Court architect, is dead. It is thought that future
alterations to the House of Hohenzollern will not reflect, as heretofore,
the ALL-HIGHEST'S personal taste.
***
"Stern measures for King Tino," says a contemporary. We have always felt
that that is where the castigation should take place.
***
_The Daily Chronicle_ reminds us that Downing Street owes its origin to an
American. There are some people who never will let bygones be bygones.
***
Whole haystacks are said to have been eaten in a night by mice in Victoria,
Australia. The failure of Mr. HUGHES to provide a state cat in each rural
area may, it is thought, prove to be the deciding factor in the present
election campaign.
***
The _Tageblatt_ points out that in view of the extreme goodwill of Germany
towards Spain that country cannot possibly find any grievance in the
torpedoing of her ships. This assurance of uninterrupted friendliness has
confirmed the worst fears of the pessimists in Madrid.
***
Mr. BALFOUR, it is stated, has invited President WILSON to play a game of
golf. In the event of a match being arranged there is a growing desire that
the occasion should be made a half-holiday throughout the war-area.
***
The Ministry of Shipping, it is stated, employs only 830 persons. This
violent departure from the recognised Parliamentary rule, that a Minister
who cannot find use for a couple of thousand employees should resign, has
gone far to undermine the popularity of this Department.
***
Owing to the shortage of corn on which race-horses must be fed, ordinary
handicaps will soon have to be abandoned. The idea of putting the
horseradish to the use for which it was originally intended does not seem
to have struck the imagination of trainers.
***
The Director of Women's Service has issued an appeal for several thousand
milkmaids. These must not be confused with milksops who are being taken
care of by other Departments.
***
"I have heard more bad music at temperance meetings," says Dr. SALEEBY,
"than I knew the world could contain." The temperance people are certainly
having persistent bad luck.
***
The keenest minds in Germany, says a Berlin correspondent, are now seeking
to discover the secret of the Fatherland's world-wide unpopularity. It is
this absurd sensitiveness on the part of our cultured opponent that is
causing some of her best friends in this country to lose hope.
***
A swallow has been seen over the Hollow Ponds at Epping Forest, but _The
Daily Mail_ is still silent as to whether Spring has arrived or not.
***
"New Laid Eggs," Sir JOHN MILLAIS' masterpiece, has recently been sold for
£1,155. It is reported that last December, when it looked as if the egg
might become extinct, a much higher price was offered for the picture.
***
In the absence of other grain, hens are to be fed upon frostbitten wheat
imported from Canada. Poultry-keepers anticipate that it will result in a
greatly increased number of china eggs being laid by their stock.
***
A correspondent of a morning paper complains that while the entire nation
is on rations our Germans, naturalised and unnaturalised, "continue to eat
in the usual way." This is not true of the ones we have heard.
***
In view of the excessive rains of late, we are glad to note that one
organisation is not to be caught napping. The National Lifeboat Institution
is fitting out its boats with a new life-belt.
***
The KAISER, it is reported, has written a play. It only needed this to
convince us that he is quite himself again.
***
We also learn that he is once more on speaking terms with Count REVENTLOW.
He told the COUNT, the other day, "to mind his own business."
***
There were 1,084,289 visitors to the London Zoological Gardens last year.
It is worthy of note that not one of them was accepted.
***
A wood-pigeon shot at Heytesbury was found to have in its crop sixty-five
grains of corn--enough to produce half a sack of wheat. In fairness to the
bird it is only right to say that it was not aware of this.
***
Mr. BRACE has lately introduced a Bill in the House to reduce the number of
jurors at inquests. A further improvement would be to repeal the old
technicality which makes it illegal for a man to give evidence at his own
inquest.
***
"I met the prisoner twenty years ago," said a witness in a Northern police
court last week, "and I well remember his face." It is better to have that
sort of memory than that sort of face.
***
At a rally of five hundred boy scouts of London, Wolf Cubs greeted Cardinal
BOURNE with the "Great Howl." It is not known in what way the CARDINAL had
offended the young Cubs.
***
Under the new order the police will not have power to enter the premises of
persons suspected of food hoarding. Cooks who in the past have been in the
habit of hoarding cold rabbit pie will have to be dealt with in other ways.
***
According to a Billingsgate fish merchant kippers are daily increasing in
price. It is, of course, too much to hope that they will ever become so
dear as to prohibit their use among comedians on the music-hall stage.
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[Illustration: "WHAT MAKES YOUR HUSBAND SO CROSS THESE TIMES?"
"HE KEEPS FRETTING DREADFUL BECAUSE HE'S OVER THE AGE AND SO HE CAN'T BE A
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR."]
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