There is no truth in the report that one of the most telling lines in
the _National Anthem_ is to be revised so as to read "Confound their
Scandiknavish tricks."
***
Grave fears are expressed in certain quarters that the Stockholm
Conference has been "_spurlos versenkt_."
***
Someone has stolen the clock from St. Winefride's Church, Wimbledon.
We hope that the culprit has responded to the universal appeals in the
newspapers which urged him to put the clock back on Sunday last.
***
An Englishwoman living in the East has a servant-girl who, when told
about the War, remarked, "What war?" Another snub for the KAISER.
***
"A Vegetarian" writes to accuse Lord RHONDDA of reducing the price of
meat on purpose.
***
Tube fares are to be raised. An alternative project of issuing special
tickets, entitling the holder to standing room, was reluctantly
abandoned.
***
The Thames, says a contemporary, has come into its own again as
a holiday resort. Many riparian owners, on the other hand, are
complaining that it has come into theirs.
***
A trades union of undertakers' mutes has been formed. Their first act,
it is believed, will be to strike for a fifty-year life.
***
We have been asked to explain that the Second Division in which Mr.
E.D. MOREL is now serving is not the one that fought at the battle
of Mons.
***
Two escaped German prisoners have been arrested at Wokingham by a
local grocer. The report that he charged twopence each for delivery is
without foundation.
***
At Leith Hill, in Surrey, trees are being felled by a number of
unescaped German prisoners.
***
"Beans running to seed," says an informative daily paper, "should be
picked and the small beans extracted." But the old custom of lying in
wait for them on the return journey and stunning them with a flail
still retains many adherents in the slow-moving countryside.
***
"I am the father of sweeps," declared an elderly employer to the
West Kent Tribunal. He afterwards admitted, however, that the secret
correspondence of Count LUXBURG had not been brought to his notice.
***
Acting, explained an applicant to the House of Commons' Tribunal, is
regarded by many as a work of national importance. The Tribunal have
generously arranged for him to storm a few barns in Flanders.
***
Sixty-eight thousand persons, it is stated, have visited the maze at
Hampton Court this season. Others have been content to stay at home
and study the sugar regulations.
***
The admission fee to a concert recently held for the benefit of the
Southwark Military Hospital was one egg. None of the gate money, it
seems, reached the performers.
***
According to the Town Crier of Dover, who has just retired after fifty
years' service, town crying isn't what it was before the War. People
_will_ listen to the bombs instead of attending to the properly
constituted official.
***
A "History of the Russian Revolution" has been published. The pen may
not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages to keep ahead
of it.
***
A private in one of the London regiments has translated two
hundred and fifty lines of _Paradise Lost_ into Latin verse during
a sixteen-day spell in the trenches. The introduction of some
counter-irritant into our public school curriculum is now thought
to be inevitable.
***
The crew of the U-boat interned at Cadiz, says a Madrid correspondent,
have been allowed to land on giving their word of honour not to leave
Spain during the continuance of the War. The mystery of how the word
of honour came into their possession is not explained.
***
Further evidence of the success of the U-boat starvation campaign has
been thoughtlessly afforded the German Press by a London newspaper
which has announced that burglars are now using practically nothing
but skeleton keys.
***
No one has yet found anything that will conquer the wire-worm,
says Professor J.R. DUNSTAN. We feel that the Professor is unduly
pessimistic. Has he tried the effect of writing a letter to _The Daily
Mail_ about it?
***
Things appear to be settling down in Mexico. Last week only one
hundred of General CARRANZA'S men were annihilated by bandits.
***
The Berlin authorities have ordered a "Shaveless day." As a measure of
frightfulness this is doomed to failure against an Army like ours with
tanks which will eat their way through all sorts of entanglements.
***
Because an officer omitted to salute him, Field-Marshal VON HINDENBURG
stopped his car and said, "I am HINDENBURG." We understand that the
officer accepted the explanation.
***
"There is a scarcity of violins," says _The Evening News_. Some papers
never know how to keep a secret.
***
Lundy Island has just been purchased by Mr. AUGUSTUS CHRISTIE, of
North Devon. We are relieved to know it is still on the side of the
Allies.
***
A grocer at Coalville, Leicestershire, riding a motor-bicycle without
lights, is said to have offered two and a half pounds of sugar to a
policeman to say nothing about it. Fortunately the constable, when he
came out of his faint, remembered the number of the bicycle, and the
man was summoned.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "YOU ON GUARD TO-NIGHT, NOBBY?" "NAW." "WOT YER BIN AN'
WASHED YER FACE FOR, THEN?"]
* * * * *