[Illustration: THE VICAR: "These Salonikans, Mrs. Stubbs, are, of course,
the Thessalonians to whom St. Paul wrote his celebrated letters."
MRS. STUBBS: "Well, I 'ope 'e'd better luck with 'is than I 'ave. I sent my
boy out there three letters and two parcels, and I ain't got no answer to
'em yet."]
After the exhibition of Mr. Augustus John's portrait of Mr. Lloyd George,
the most startling personal event of the month has been the dismissal of
Grand Admiral Tirpitz. According to one account, he resigned because he
could not take the German Fleet out. According to another, it was because
he could no longer take the German people in.
At Oxford the Hebdomadal Council have suspended the filling of the
Professorship of Modern Greek for six months. Apparently there is no one
about just now who understands the modern Greek. A French correspondent
puts it somewhat differently: "_La Grèce Antique_: Hellas. _La Grèce
Moderne_: Hélas!"
_April, 1916_.
Who would have thought when the month opened that at its close a new front
within the Four Seas would be added to our far-flung line, Dublin's finest
street half ruined, Ireland placed under martial law? Certainly not Mr.
Birrell or Mr. Redmond or the Irish Nationalist Members. The staunchest
Unionist would acquit Mr. William O'Brien of any menace when in the Budget
Debate, three weeks before the Rebellion of Easter Week, he gave it as his
opinion that Ireland ought to be omitted from the Budget altogether. So,
too, with Mr. Tim Healy, whose principal complaint was that the tax on
railway tickets would put a premium on foreign travel; that people would go
to Paris instead of Dublin, and Switzerland instead of Killarney. No, so
far as the Government and Ireland's Parliamentary representatives went, it
was a bolt from the blue--or the green. Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for
Ireland for nine years, a longer period than any of his predecessors, has
shown himself conspicuous at once by his absence and his innocence, and
England in her hour of need, with the submarine peril daily growing and all
but starved out after a heroic defence, stands to pay dearly for the
privilege of entrusting the administration of Ireland to an absentee
humorist.
On the Western front Verdun still rivets all eyes. The German hordes are
closing in on the fortress, but at a heavier cost for each mile gained than
they have ever paid before.
Germany's colossal effort would inspire admiration as well as respect if
she would only fight clean. The ugly stories of her treatment of prisoners
have now culminated in the terrible record of the typhus-stricken camp at
Wittenberg, where the German doctors deserted their post.
[Illustration: THE REPUDIATION
Martin Luther (to Shakespeare): "I see my countrymen claim you as one of
them. You may thank God that you're not that. They have made my
Wittenberg--ay, and all Germany--to stink in my nostrils."]
[Illustration: THE GRAPES OF VERDUN