The Kaiser has been presented with another grandson, but it has not been
broken to the poor little fellow who he is. It is also reported that the
Kaiser has bestowed an Iron Cross on a learned pig--one of a very numerous
class.
_May, 1915_.
We often think that we must have got to the end of German "frightfulness,"
only to have our illusions promptly shattered by some fresh and amazing
explosion of calculated ferocity. Last month it was poison gas; now it is
the sinking of the _Lusitania_. Yet Mr. Punch had read the omens some
seven and a half years ago, when the records established by that liner had
created a jealousy in Germany which the Kaiser and his agents have now
appeased, but at what a cost! The House of Commons is an odd place, unique
in its characteristics. Looking round the benches when it reassembled on
May 10th, and noting the tone and purport of the inquiries addressed to the
First Lord, one might well suppose that nothing remarkable had happened
since Parliament adjourned. The questions were numerous but all practical,
and as unemotional as if they referred to outrages by a newly-discovered
race of fiends in human shape peopling Mars or Saturn. The First Lord,
equally undemonstrative, announced that the Board of Trade have ordered an
inquiry into the circumstances attending the disaster. Pending the result,
it would be premature to discuss the matter. Here we have the sublimation
of officialism and national phlegm. Of the 1,200 victims who went down in
this unarmed passenger ship about 200 were Americans. What will America say
or do?
[Illustration: AN OMEN OF 1908
Reproduced from "Christmas Cards for Celebrities," in _Mr. Punch's
Almanack_ of that year]
[Illustration: HAMLET U.S.A.
SCENE: The Ramparts of the White House.
PRESIDENT WILSON: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!"