It is not only misfortune that makes strange bedfellows. Both Earl
Beauchamp and Sir Joseph Beecham appear in the recent Honours List.
***
By-the-by, it is denied that Sir Joseph Beecham was in any way
responsible for the Government's "Pills for Earthquakes," by which it
was hoped to avert the Irish crisis.
***
A New York cable announces that the Duke of Manchester is interesting
himself in a cinematograph proposition of a philanthropic nature, and
that the company will be known as the "Church and School Social Service
Corporation for the Advancement of Moral and Religious Education and
Social Uplift Work through the medium of the Higher Art of the Moving
Picture." It will of course be possible for the man in a hurry to call
it, _tout court_, the
"C.&S.S.S.C.F.T.A.O.M.&R.E.&S.U.W.T.T.M.O.T.H.A.O.T.M.P."
***
The penny off the income tax came just in time. It enabled several
Liberal plutocrats to buy a rose on Alexandra Day.
***
The balance-sheet of the German Company which had been running a
Zeppelin airship passenger service has just been issued, and shows a
loss of £10,000 on the year's working. This is not surprising, the
difficulty which all aircraft experience to keep their balance.
***
At the launch of the liner _Bismarck_ last week, the bottle of
wine--which was thrown by the Countess Hannah von Bismarck missed the
vessel, whereupon the Kaiser hauled back the bottle, and with his
proverbial good luck hit the target.
***
Five shots were fired last week at Baron Henri de Rothschild. At first
it was thought that this was done to stop the author of _Croesus_ from
writing more plays, but, when it transpired that the assailant was a man
who objected to the "Rothschild Cheap Milk Supply," public sympathy
veered round in favour of the Baron.
***
Messrs. Selfridge and Co. were last week defrauded by a well-dressed
man, who obtained two dressing-bags with silver fittings by means of a
trick without paying for them. This is really abominable. It is bad
enough when merely commercial firms are victimised: to best a
philanthropic institution in this way is peculiarly base.
***
"Mexican Rebel Split."
_Morning Post._
Now perhaps the other civilised Powers will intervene. We have heard of
many inhumanities marking the war in Mexico, but this treatment of a
rebel is surely the limit.
***
It is not often, we imagine, that the British Navy is used to enforce a
change of diet. H.M.S. _Torch_ has just been ordered on a punitive
expedition to Malekula Island, where certain of the natives have been
eating some of their compatriots.
***
An American woman, according to _The Express_, has a serious complaint
about the London policeman. She declares that she walked all the way
from Queen's Hall to Piccadilly Circus with three buttons of her blouse
undone at the back, and "not a single policeman" offered to do it up for
her. No doubt the Force was reluctant to interfere with what might turn
out to be the latest fashion. A Boy Scout who offered, the other day, to
sew up a split skirt got his ears soundly boxed.
***
Meanwhile the glad tidings reach us that women's skirts and bodices are
to fasten in front instead of at the back. Husbands all over the world
who have on occasions been pressed into their wives' service as maids,
only to learn that they were clumsy boobies, would like to have the name
of the arbiter of fashion who is responsible for this innovation, as
there is some thought of erecting a statue to him.
***
Some distinguished German professors have been discussing the question
of the best place in which to keep a baby in summer. It is
characteristic, however, of these unpractical persons that not one of
them suggests the obvious ice-safe.
***
"One of the first things the rich should learn," says Dean Inge, "is
that money is not put to the best use when it is merely spent on
enjoyment." It is hoped that this pronouncement may lead wealthy people
to patronise our concert-halls more than they do.
***
"£1,600," a newspaper tells us, "were found hidden in the cork leg of
Harry C. Wise while he was undergoing treatment in a hospital at
Denver." And now, we suspect, Harry's friends will always be pulling his
leg.
***
"Have you seen _Pelleas and Mélisande_?"
"No. Is it as funny as _Potash and Perlmutter_?"
* * * * *