According to a contemporary, a regiment quartered at Pembroke Dockyard
had lost two thousand blankets "by pilfering." We shudder to think what
a real Pembroke burglar would get away with.
* * *
"I am a looker for things," said a man at Willesden tribunal last
week when asked what his occupation was. The nation, which is paying
£5,000,000 a day for the privilege of pursuing the same occupation,
would be interested to compare notes with him on the question of
whether anything ever turns up.
* * *
"A Saxon pot, quite perfect, has been found at St. Martha's Hill, near
Guildford," says a morning paper. Here is striking evidence in support
of the charge, which has more than once been levelled, that influential
alien enemies are still at large with the connivance of the authorities.
* * *
"The life-blood of England to-day is sulphuric acid," said a Professor
at University College the other day. That is certainly the impression
one gets from reading the more vitriolic section of our Press.
* * *
[Illustration: _First Public School Man._ "GREAT SCOTT, REGGIE! HOW ON
EARTH DID YOU GET THAT JOB?"
_Second ditto (kitchen fatigue)._ "OH, INFLUENCE, DEAR BOY--INFLUENCE."]
The London County Council is teaching Esperanto. The innovation is
intended to meet the needs of the lady tram-conductors, to whom
convention denies the right to "suffer and be strong" in words of
general currency.
* * *
A soldier who lost his speech at the battle of Loos has recovered
it as the result of an operation for appendicitis. He has the added
satisfaction of knowing that greater soldiers than he have been
compelled by the exigencies of the present War to swallow their words.
* * *
At Willesden a conscientious objector has eaten a £1 note in preference
to giving it up in part payment of his fine of forty shillings. It
would probably work out cheaper in the end to swallow the Compulsion
Bill.
* * *
While the Ealing Inspector of Shops is serving in the Army his official
duties are to be carried on by his wife. It is no doubt in anticipation
of other positions of this sort being thrown open to the female sex
that so many women can nowadays be seen familiarising themselves with
this class of war work in Regent Street and its neighbourhood.
* * *
In a recent appeal case a man who had received sentences amounting to
twenty-six years begged to be put under chloroform, as he had heard
that people under the influence of this drug always told the truth
when they were asked questions. As a fact, however, the most that the
medical profession have ever claimed for it in this way is that it
often enables them to get a little inside information.
* * *
A Belfast man who was fined for groaning at Mr. ASQUITH is understood
to have informed a sympathetic friend that if he'd known that
ten shillings was all he would be fined, begorra, he'd have had
thirty-shillings' worth, so he would.
* * *
"To get and keep an upright carriage," says a woman-writer in _The
Daily Mail_, "stand with the feet eighteen inches apart and the hands
clasped above the head. Now, as if chopping wood, swing the hands down
between the parted feet, then bring them up over the head again, and
repeat the movement twenty times or so." Personally, as we consider
it bad form to keep any sort of carriage just now, we shall remain
faithful to the less spectacular custom of whistling for a taxi.
* * *
From the Personal column of _The Times_:--"Airman will bring down
Zeppelins. Ladies, Gentlemen." An excellent idea in the present
condition of our own Air Service. As in the well-known case of the male
and female gondolas, one of each gender to breed from would do for a
beginning.
* * *
As a war economy the London County Council have disposed of the major
part of the waterfowl that used to adorn the London Parks. A few
ornamental geese however are still to be seen in the neighbourhood of
the War Office.
* * *
We feel bound to take exception to the levity of a contemporary, which
recently introduced an account of a suicide with the heading: "A
Riverside Scream."
* * *
A well-known opera-singer is now hauling cabbages on a farm. The ruling
passion strong in War. Bouquets all the time.
* * * * *
Commercial Candour.