David G. Pinkney, the well-known chip-owner."—Evening News.

A chip of the old blockade.

"Businesses suitable for ex-soldiers: generals and others; taking £40 wkly, price £35. Call or stamp."—The Daily Chronicle.

We can almost hear our Generals stamping.

"It was an extremely difficult thing to effect a hit with anti-aircraft guns. A 'ricohetting' pheasant was nothing to it."—The Globe.

We take this remarkable bird to be a sort of bouncing "rocketer."

Extract from a testimonial sent to a patent-medicine vendor:—

"If you remember I came to you three days after I was bitten by my cat on the recommendation of a lady friend."—Straits Times.

We think it was cowardly of the lady to employ an agent.

THE BUSINESS OF THE MOMENT.

JOHN BULL. "I'VE LEARNED HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR ZEPP BROTHER, AND NOW I'M GOING TO ATTEND TO YOU."

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, July 9th.—With the sound of Saturday's bombs still in their ears Members came down to the House prepared to make things very uncomfortable for Ministers. Woe betide them if they could not explain satisfactorily, first, why the raiders had been able to get to London at all, and, secondly, why they had been allowed to depart almost unscathed. In this atmosphere the usual badinage of Question-time passed almost unnoticed. Mr. BALFOUR gave a neat summary of Germany's propagandist methods. "In Russia, where autocracy has been abolished, it declares that we are secretly fostering reaction; in Spain, where there is a constitutional monarchy, it proclaims that we are aiming at revolution. Both statements are untrue; both are absurd."

Not until Mr. BONAR LAW announced that the PRIME MINISTER would move the adjournment of the House and make in Secret Session a statement regarding the air-raid was the House really roused. At once a storm of "supplementaries" broke forth. Mr. P. BILLING, baulked of his prey—for private sittings are no use to orators of the flatulent variety—bounced up and down like a Jack-in-the-Box until the SPEAKER finally suppressed him with the words, "There must be a limit to this." The Member for East Herts is presumably "the limit" referred to.

Fortunately, perhaps, for the Government the Home Office Vote was the subject for discussion. This gave Members an opportunity for blowing off a lot of preliminary steam. At one moment an even more dangerous explosion was feared. Sir HENRY DALZIEL suddenly produced from his capacious coat-tails a shell which had fallen into his office during the raid. His neighbours crowded round to examine it, until his remark that it was "still unexploded" caused a slump in their curiosity. There was once a statesman who, to emphasize his argument, flung a dagger upon the floor of the House. For once the House was thankful that Sir HENRY DALZIEL bears no resemblance to BURKE.

To warn or not to warn: that was the question mainly agitating Members. The majority appeared to think that some system of sound-signals was desirable; others pointed out that many threatened raids proved abortive, and that sirens would interfere with business, as in the leading case of Ulysses. Thanks to the HOME SECRETARY'S conciliatory methods there was considerably less tension in the atmosphere when the time came for the PRIME MINISTER to make his statement. When air-raids are about there is nothing he finds handier than a comfortable and capacious CAVE.

WORK OF "GREATER NATIONAL IMPORTANCE."

MR. SPEAKER MISSES A GREAT CHANCE.

Tuesday, July 10th.—The echoes of the air-raid had almost died away by this afternoon. When Mr. BILLING again tried to move the adjournment, the SPEAKER put him back in his box with so firm a hand that his spring may have been irretrievably injured. It is hoped that the National Service Department, which recently sent Mr. LOWTHER a notice informing him that he was about to be transferred to Wolverhampton as a labourer at 4s. 10d. a day, "on the ground that such employment is deemed to be of greater national importance than that on which he is at present engaged," will now consent to hold its hand.

When the House was about to go into Committee on the Corn Production Bill a strange thing happened. Before leaving the Chair the SPEAKER was proceeding to lop off a few excrescences in the way of Instructions that appeared on the Order-paper. Meanwhile the SERGEANT-AT-ARMS had advanced to the Table to remove the Mace. "Order, order!" exclaimed the SPEAKER, upon which Sir COLIN KEPPEL, much abashed to think that he, the guardian of order, should have been regarded as even potentially insubordinate, beat, for the first time in a gallant career, a hasty retreat.

The Government had to withstand a massed attack by the Free Traders, who even in war-time have not entirely shed their prejudices against subsidizing the farmer at the expense of the rest of the community, although the object of the subsidies is to ensure the rest of the community having enough to eat. Mr. RUNCIMAN and his colleagues had the temerity to take a division which ran very much upon the old party-lines; but on this occasion the Nationalists, in the interest of Irish farmers, were not "agin' the Government," but helped it to secure the comfortable majority of 84.

Wednesday, July 11th.—In the matter of the Mesopotamia Report a large section of the public and the Press is in the mood of Sam Weller, "Ain't nobody to be whopped?" Anxious to satisfy this demand and at the same time to do justice to the individuals arraigned, the Government proposes to set up a special tribunal under the Army (Courts of Inquiry) Act. That measure, passed to deal with the strange case of the Bashful Lieutenant and the Lively Lady, and now to be utilized for this considerably larger issue, appears to resemble the elephant's trunk in its singular adaptability. But there was a tendency in both Houses to regard the procedure as more ingenious than statesmanlike.

Thursday, July 12th.—The HOME SECRETARY announced that it had been decided to warn the public in future when an air-raid was actually imminent, and added that the exact method would be stated shortly. I am glad that he did not accept Sir FRANCIS LOWE'S proposal to set the telephone-bells ringing all over London. Think of the language which would proceed from a hundred thousand agitated subscribers, deceived into answering supposed "calls," when they ought to be making for their dug-outs.

The gist of a very long speech by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL was that the Press had mistaken the Mesopotamia Commission for a Hanging Committee, whereas it much more resembled a Fishing Expedition. But his new tribunal found little favour with the House, especially when it was discovered that it would have no power to try the civilians affected. One of them, Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, announced his resignation—much to the regret of Mr. BALFOUR, who has no intention of following his example or of allowing Lord HARDINGE to do so. In the end it was decided that there must be an entirely new tribunal, which can deal fairly—and, one hopes, finally—with both soldiers and