Mr. Punch is prompted to comment:
For these our Army does its bit,
While they in turn peruse
Death's honour-roll (should time permit)
After the Betting News.
More agreeable is the sportsmanship of the trenches, where a correspondent
tells of the shooting of a hare and the recovery of the corpse, by a
reckless Tommy, from the turnip-field which separated our trenches from
those of Fritz.
Amongst other signs of the times the emergence of the Spy Play is to be
noted, in which the alien enemy within our gates is gloriously confounded.
Yet, if a certain section of the Press is to be believed, the dark and
sinister operations of the Hidden Hand continue unchecked.
The Germans as unconscious humorists maintain their supremacy _hors
concours_. A correspondent of the _Cologne Gazette_ was with other
journalists recently entertained to dinner in a French villa by the Crown
Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. "The party, while dining," we are told,
"talked of the defects of French taste, and Prince Rupprecht said that
French houses were full of horrors." True, O Prince, but the French are
determined to drive them out. Better still, in the month which witnessed
the sinking of the _Lusitania_ we read this panegyric of the Teuton in
_Die Welt_: "Clad in virtue and in peerless nobility of character,
unassailed by insidious enemies either within or without, girded about by
the benign influences of Kultur, the German, whether soldier or civilian,
pursues his destined way, fearless and serene."
_June, 1915._
The weeks that have passed since the sinking of the _Lusitania_ have
left Germany not merely impenitent but glorying in her crime. "The
destruction of the _Lusitania_," says Herr Baumgarten, Professor of
Theology, "should be greeted with jubilation and enthusiastic cheering, and
everybody who does not cheer is no real or true German." Many harsh things
have been said of the Germans, but nothing quite so bitter as this
suggestion for a test of nationality. But while Germany jubilates, her
Government is painfully anxious to explain everything to the satisfaction
of America. The conversations between the two Powers are continuous but
abortive. President Wilson's dove has returned to him, with the report
"Nothing doing," and the American eagle looks as if he would like to take
on the job.
Germany has had her first taste of real retaliation in the bombardment of
Karlsruhe by Allied airmen, and is furiously indignant at the attack on an
"unfortified and peaceful" town--which happens to be the headquarters of
the 14th German Army Corps and to contain an important arsenal as well as
large chemical, engineering and railway works. Also she is very angry with
Mr. Punch, and has honoured him and other British papers with a solemn
warning. Our performances, it seems, are "diligently noted, so that when
the day of reckoning arrives we shall know with whom we have to deal, and
how to deal with them effectually." It is evident that in spite of Italy's
entry into the war the mass of the Germans are still true to their old hate
of England.
[Illustration: ON THE BLACK LIST