LITTLE WILLIE (of Prussia): "As one Crown Prince to another, isn't your
Hindenburg line getting a bit shaky?"
RUPPRECHT (of Bavaria): "Well, as one Crown Prince to another, what about
your Hohenzollern line?"]
Although the streets may have been sweetened by the absence of posters,
days will come, it must be remembered, when we shall badly miss them. It
goes painfully to one's heart to think that the embargo, if it is ever
lifted, will not be lifted in time for most of the events which we all most
desire--events that clamour to be recorded in the largest black type, such
as "Strasbourg French Again," "Flight of the Crown Prince," "Revolution in
Germany," "The Kaiser a Captive," and last and best of all, "Peace." But
Mr. Punch, with many others, has no sympathy to spare for the sorrows of
the headline artist deprived for the time being of his chief opportunity of
scaremongering.
In the competition of heroism and self-sacrifice the prize must fall to the
young--to the Tommy and the Second Lieutenant before all. Yet a very good
mark is due to the retired Admirals who have accepted commissions in the
R.N.R., and are mine-sweeping or submarine-hunting in command of trawlers.
Yes, "Captain Dug-out, R.N.R.," is a fine disproof of _si vieillesse
pouvait_.
[Illustration: TORPEDOED MINE-SWEEPER (to his pal): "As I was a-saying,
Bob, when we was interrupted, it's my belief as 'ow the submarine blokes
ain't on 'arf as risky a job as the boys in the airy-o-planes."]
According to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, Mr. Lloyd George's double was
seen at Cardiff the other day. The suggestion that there are two Lloyd
Georges has caused consternation among the German Headquarters Staff. But
we are not exempt from troubles and anxieties in England. The bones of a
woolly rhinoceros have been dug up twenty-three feet below the surface at
High Wycombe, and very strong language has been used in the locality
concerning this gross example of food-hoarding. The weather, too, has been
behaving oddly. On one day of Eastertide there was an inch of snow in
Liverpool, followed by hailstones, lightning, thunder, and a gale of wind.
Summer has certainly arrived very early. But at least we are to be spared a
General Election this year--for fear that it might clash with the other
War.
_May_, 1917.
In England, once but no longer merry though not downhearted, in this once
merry month of May, the question of Food and Food Production now dominates
all others. It is the one subject that the House of Commons seems to care
about. John Bull, who has invested a mint of money in other lands, realises
that it is high time that he put something into his own--in the shape of
Corn Bounties. Mr. Prothero, in moving the second reading of the Corn
Production Bill, while admitting that he had originally been opposed to
State interference with agriculture, showed all the zeal of the convert--to
the dismay of the hard-shell Free Traders.
The Food Controller asks us to curtail our consumption of bread by
one-fourth. Here, at least, non-combatants have an opportunity of showing
themselves to be as good patriots as the Germans and of earning the
epitaph: "Much as he loved the staff of life, he loved his country even
more."
[Illustration: "No, dear, I'm afraid we shan't be at the dance to-night.
Poor Herbert has got a touch of allotment feet."]
On the Western Front the German soldiers' opinion of "retirement according
to plan" may be expressed as "each for himself and the Devil take the
Hindenburg." One of them, recently taken prisoner, actually wrote, "When we
go to the Front we become the worst criminals." This generous attempt to
shield his superiors deserves to be appreciated, but it does not dispel the
belief that the worst criminals are still a good way behind the German
lines. The inspired German Press has now got to the point of asserting that
"there is no Hindenburg line." Well, that implies prophetic sense:
And if a British prophet may
Adopt their graphic present tense,
I would remark--and so forestall
A truth they'll never dare to trench on--
_There is no Hindenburg at all,
Or none worth mention_.
According to our Watch Dog correspondent, recent movements show that the
lawless German "has attained little by his destructiveness save the
discomfort of H.Q. Otherwise the War progresses as merrily as ever; more
merrily, perhaps, owing to the difficulties to be overcome. Soldiers love
difficulties to overcome. That is their business in life." This is the way
that young officers write "in the brief interludes snatched from hard
fighting and hard fatigues." Their letters "never pretend to be more than
the gay and cynical banter of those who bring to the perils of life at the
Front an incurable habit of humour, and they are typical of that brave
spirit, essentially English, that makes light of the worst that fate can
send." That is how one brave officer wrote of the letters of a dead comrade
to _Punch_ only a few weeks before his own death.
[Illustration: A BAD DREAM