_Oh, for grapes a-growing
In Ludgate and the Fleet!
Cauliflowers blowing
Down Regent's Street!
Oranges and Lemons
Clustered by St. Clemen's,
And Sea Kale careering past the kerb on London Wall!
And oh, for private Mushroom beds rolling down the Mall!_
Motor engines, motor engines, do not wear a bonnet!
You have artificial heat--grow something on it!
Precious artificial heat, costly to instal;
Turn it into a hot-bed, growing food for all!
_Must_ you have a superstructure? Let it be a hot-house
Forcing (say) some early peas--the only decent pot-house;
Oh, if I could only see in walking down the street
No unpatriotic waste of all that lovely heat!
_Motor lorries for Marrows!
Taxis for Nectarines!
No more coster-barrows,
But lemon-house Limousines!
Oh, to see Tomaties
Skidding by Frascati's!
Grand heads of Celery passing the Carlton Grill,
And fine forced Strawberries--forced up Denmark Hill!_
Hard's the fight with Nature in our uncongenial climate,
Cuddling plants and coaxing 'em, and oh, the weary time it
Takes to get a slender crop--we toil the Summer through;
England, needing quick returns, is looking now to you!
Food that comes from tropic lands, needing heat upon it,
You could grow without a thought, if you'd doff your bonnet;
Thousands of you, growing food on your daily trips,
Helping to economise the tonnage of our ships.
_Oh, to count the numbers
Of Cabbages on the march,
Jostling with Cucumbers
Just at the Marble Arch!
Oh, for Piccadilly's
Capsicums and Chilies!
Oh, for Peckham's Peaches (not the sort that's canned),
And oh, for ripe Bananas roaring down the Strand!_
* * * * *
"A reaper and binder was destroyed, also a foster mother incubator
with 43 young children."--_Chester Chronicle_.
The paragraph is headed "Fire at a Farm"--a baby-farm, we fear.
* * * * *
=IN A GOOD CAUSE.=
On Sunday, June 10th, Mr. GEORGE ROBEY is to give a Concert, at 7
P.M., at the Palladium, in aid of the Metropolitan and City Police
Orphanage, which is in special need of funds on account of the losses
sustained at the Front among members of the Police Force.
Mr. GEORGE ROBEY will be assisted by Miss IRENE VANBRUGH, Miss HELEN
MAR, Mr. JOHN HASSALL, Mr. HARRY DEARTH and others, as well as by
the Royal Artillery String Band, the Canadian Military Choir and the
Metropolitan Police Minstrels.
Tickets are on sale at the National Sunday League Offices, 34, Red
Lion Square, W.C., and applications for boxes will be received
personally by Mr. ROBEY at the Hippodrome.
* * * * *
=The Domestic Problem--Two Extremes.=
"WANTED, Housemaid and Kitchenmaid; Paying Guests."
"SCULLERY or Between Maid required immediately for Derbyshire;
wages £218."
_Morning Post_.
* * * * *
"On Wednesday evening a fire broke out in Mr. J. Elkin's scutch
mill at Kilmore, near Omagh, which resulted in the complete
destruction of the premises. It is surmised in the absence of
anything which would indicate the origin of the outbreak that it
resulted from a heated journal."--_Belfast News Letter_.
An unusual quantity of inflammatory matter has been observed recently
in the Irish Press.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Past_. THE ARTIST AND THE VILLAGE MAID.
_Present_. THE VILLAGE MAID AND THE ARTIST.]
* * * * *
=HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.=
(_Marshal VON HINDENBURG; a Telephone_.)
_The Telephone_. RR-RR-RR-RR.
_The Marshal_. Curse the infernal telephone! A man doesn't get a
moment's peace. Tush, what am I talking about? Who wants peace? If we
were all to be quite candid there might be--
_The Telephone_. Rr-rr.
_The Marshal_. All right, all right, I'm coming. Yes, I'm Marshal VON
HINDENBURG. Who are you? What? I can't hear a single word. You really
must speak up. Louder--louder still, you fool. What? Oh, I really
beg your Majesty's pardon. I assure you it was impossible to hear
distinctly, but it's all right now. I thank your Majesty, I am in my
usual good health. Yes. No, not at all. Yes, I have good hope that we
shall now maintain ourselves for at least two days. Yes, if we are
forced to retire we must say it is according to plan. No, I don't like
it either, but what is to be done? Their guns are more numerous and
heavier than ours, and weight of metal must tell. Will I hold the
line? Yes, certainly, till your Majesty returns and graciously resumes
the conversation. Oh, you didn't mean that line? You meant the
Siegfried line, or the Wotan line, or the Hindenburg line? Yes, I see,
it was a _Witz_, a play of words. Yes, I am sorry I could not at once
see what your Majesty was driving at, but now I see it is good. I must
practise my joking. Ha-ha-ha! Are you there? No, he's gone (_rings
off_). (_To himself_) He is a queer Emperor who is able to make jokes
while his soldiers are dying by thousands and thousands. It can't last
like this--and as for the Hindenburg line, I'm perfectly tired to
death of the words; and the thing itself doesn't exist.
_The Telephone_. Rr-rr-rr-rr.
_The Marshal_. What, again? This is too much--who are you? Who? WHO?
General VON KLUCK? Impossible. General VON KLUCK's dead. What--not
dead? Anyhow, nobody's heard of him for months. If you're really
General VON KLUCK I'm afraid we must consider you to be dead. The
EMPEROR won't regard it as very good taste on your part to come to
life again like this. He's very unforgiving, you know. You don't care?
But, my dear dead General VON KLUCK, you must care. What is it you say
you wanted to do? Congratulate me? What on? My splendid defence of the
Hindenburg line? Now, look here. As one German General to another do
you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line? No, of course
you don't. You thought I believed in it? Was that what you said? Come,
don't wriggle, though you are a dead man. Yes, that was what you said.
Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line
and there never was anything of the sort. Why am I retreating then?
Because I must. That's the whole secret. Why did _you_ retreat after
your famous oblique march during the Battle of the Marne? Because you
had to, of course. There--that's enough. I can't waste any more time.
What? Oh, yes, you can congratulate me on anything you like except
that. And now you had better return to the grave of your reputation
and remain there (_rings off_).
_The Telephone_. Rr-rr-rr-rr.
_The Marshal_. To h-ll with the telephone! Who is it now? What--an
editor of a newspaper? That's a little bit too thick. What is it
you want? To thank God for that masterpiece of bold cunning, the
Hindenburg line? Is that what you want? Well, make haste, for the
masterpiece doesn't exist. No, I'm not joking. I can't joke. Enough
(_rings off_).
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Nervous Recruit_ (_on guard for the first time_).
"HALT, FRIEND! WHO GOES THERE?"]
* * * * *
=THE HOUSE-MASTER.=
Four years I spent beneath his rule,
For three of which askance I scanned him,
And only after leaving school
Came thoroughly to understand him;
For he was brusque in various ways
That jarred upon the modern mother,
And scouted as a silly craze
The theory of the "elder brother."
Renowned at Cambridge as an oar
And quite distinguished as a wrangler,
He felt incomparably more
Pride in his exploits as an angler;
He held his fishing on the Test
Above the riches of the Speyers,
And there he lured me, as his guest,
Into the ranks of the "dry-flyers."
He made no fetish of the cane
As owning any special virtue,
But held the discipline of pain,
When rightly earned, would never hurt you;
With lapses of the normal brand
I think he dealt most mercifully,
But chastened with a heavy hand
The sneak, the liar and the bully.
We used to criticise his boots,
His simple tastes in food and fiction,
His everlasting homespun suits,
His leisurely old-fashioned diction;
And yet we had the saving _nous_
To recognise no worse disaster
Could possibly befall the House
Than the removal of its Master.
For though his voice was deep and gruff,
And rumbled like a motor-lorry,
He showed the true angelic stuff
If any one was sick or sorry;
So when pneumonia, doubly dread,
Of breath had nearly quite bereft me,
He watched three nights beside my bed
Until the burning fever left me.
He served three Heads with equal zeal
And equal absence of ambition;
He knew his power, and did not feel
The least desire for recognition;
But shrewd observers, who could trace
Back to their source results far-reaching,
Saw the true Genius of the Place
Embodied in his life and teaching.
The War's deep waters o'er him rolled
As he beheld Young England giving
Life prodigally, while the old
Lived on without the cause for living;
And yet he never heaved a sigh
Although his heart was inly riven;
He only craved one boon--to die
In harness, and the boon was given.
* * * * *
=Vicarious Parenthood.=
"DABRERA.--Yesterday, at 6.55 a.m. 'Shernery,' Bambalapitiya,
to Mr. and Mrs. Ossy Dabrera a daughter. Grand parents doing
well."--_Ceylon Independent_.
* * * * *
"Mr. J.H. Minns (Carlisle) charged the brewers of his city with
allowing their tenants to be placed under the heel of the Control
Board.... It was the cloven hoof of the unseen hand that the trade
had to face in Carlisle."--_Derby Daily Express_.