"The English comedians are great," Mr. DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS is reported to
have told an interviewer. He has already accepted an invitation, we
understand, to visit the Law Courts and hear Mr. Justice DARLING ask, "Who
is MARY PICKFORD?"
* * *
A turkey with four legs has been born in Purley. This attempt to divert
attention from the visit of Miss MARY PICKFORD seems to have failed
miserably.
* * *
"The increased wages in the catering trade," says an employer, "will be
borne by the public." How he came to think out this novel plan is what
mystifies the man in the street.
* * *
There is one reason, we read, why tea cannot be sold cheaper. If "The
Profiteer" is not the right answer, it's quite a good guess.
* * *
No burglar seems to visit the houses of the profiteers, says a Labour
speaker. Perhaps they have a delicacy about dealing with people in the same
line of business.
* * *
For the seventh successive time, says a news item, there are no prisoners
for trial at Stamford Quarter Sessions. We can only remind the Court that
bulldog perseverance is bound to tell in the end.
* * *
It is fairly evident that the Americans fully realised the physical
impossibility of having American bacon and Prohibition in their own country
at the same time.
* * *
Western Texas, says a cable message, is being eaten bare by a plague of
grasshoppers. Before Prohibition set in a little thing like that would
never have been noticed in Texas.
* * *
Some of the new rich, says a gossip, only wear a suit once. There are
others like that, only it is a much longer once.
* * *
"A healthy boy's skin should be well tanned after a holiday," says a
health-culture writer. Surely not, unless he has done something to deserve
it.
* * *
"But why a Ministry of Mines?" asks a contemporary. The object, of course,
is to put the deep-level pocket-searching operations of the CHANCELLOR OF
THE EXCHEQUER on a national basis.
* * *
Special arrangements have been made for expediting fish traffic on all
railways. Meanwhile it is to be regretted that, owing to the nation's
persistent neglect of scientific research, the self-delivering haddock is
still in the experimental stage.
* * *
New Jersey has a clock with a dial thirty-eight feet across. In any other
country this would be the largest clock in the world. In America it is just
a full-size wrist-watch.
* * *
According to a medical writer, hearing can often be restored by a series of
low explosions. The patient is advised to stand quite close to a man who
has just received his tailor's bill.
* * *
Baby tortoises are being sold for two-pence-halfpenny each in Kentish Town,
says a news item. One bricklayer declared that he wouldn't know what to do
for exercise without his to lead about.
* * *
An extraordinary report reaches us from a village in Essex. It appears that
in spite of the proximity of several letter-boxes, a water-pump and a
German machine-gun, a robin has deliberately built its nest in a local
hedgerow.
* * * * *
[Illustration: I.O.U.
GERMAN DELEGATE (_at Spa Conference_). "WE HAVE NO MONEY; BUT, TO PROVE
THAT WE ARE ANXIOUS TO PAY YOU BACK, LET ME PRESENT YOU WITH OUR
BERNHARDI'S NEW BOOK ON THE NEXT WAR."]
* * * * *