A correspondent writes to tell us of a painful experience which he has
had in consequence of his efforts to practise war-time economy in the
matter of dress. The other evening, after going to bed at dusk in order
to save artificial light, he was rung up by the police at 1 A.M. and
charged with showing a light. It appears that he had gone to bed with
his blind up, after throwing his well-worn trousers over the back of a
chair, and that the rays of a street lamp had caught the glossy sheen of
this garment and been reflected into the eagle eye of the constable.
***
According to a Reuter's message the Greeks are "much preoccupied" at the
seizure of strategic positions on Greek territory by Bulgarian troops.
The preoccupation, it is thought, should have been done by the Allies.
***
While he was on his way to make a Memorial Day speech at Kansas City,
Mo., an open knife was thrown at Ex-President ROOSEVELT. Some of his
bitterest friends in the journalistic world allege that it was just a
paper knife.
***
Last week a number of professional fortune-tellers were fined at
Southend for having predicted Zeppelins. The fraudulent nature of their
pretensions was sufficiently manifest, since even the authorities had
been unable to foresee the coming of the Zeppelins until some time after
they had arrived.
***
The export of sardines in oil from Sweden is prohibited. Some resentment
is felt at the order by the Germans, who with their customary ingenuity
have for some time been importing india-rubber sardines in petrol
without detection.
***
A soldier at Salonika has sent a live tortoise home to his relatives at
Streatham. The tortoise, it is understood, was too fidgety to bear up
against its surroundings and was sent home for a little excitement.
***
If, on the other hand, the tortoise was just sent as a souvenir we
should discourage the practice. The tendency on the part of our soldiers
in India and Egypt to send home elephants and camels as mementos of the
localities in which they are serving is already putting something of a
strain upon the postal authorities.
***
From "The World of Letters" in _The Observer_: "Some day there will be a
cheap edition of Captain Ian Hay's war book, _The First Four Hundred_,
and the sale will be immense.... The Blackwoods are old-fashioned modest
people, who do not parade figures...." In the present case, however, we
do not think they would have objected to the reviewer parading a further
99,600 in the title of IAN HAY'S book.
***
"The question of alien waiters in London hotels rests with those who
patronise the hotels," says a contemporary. In other words, the
pernicious practice which had grown up before the War of ordering German
waiters with one's dinner must be abandoned before the hotel managers
will remove them permanently from their menus.
***
Sir FREDERICK BRIDGE has come out with a strong denunciation of
"devilry" in German music. How little we suspected, before the War
opened our deluded eyes, that it was no mere lack of skill but the
fierce promptings of a demoniac hate that marred our evenings on the
esplanade.
***
From The _Northern Whig's_ account of a visit to the Cruiser Fleet:--"It
was a proud moment when from the deck of a fast-moving destroyer the
long lines of the mighty Armada, with here and there the neat little
pinnacles darting in and out, were surveyed." Obviously a misprint for
binnacles.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Vivian Vavasour, the melodrama actor, delights in the
comparative peace of the trenches.]
* * * * *