PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 156.

March 19, 1919.

CHARIVARIA.

President WILSON is stated to have played several keen games of "shuffle-board" on the George Washington. As it is an open secret that Lord ROBERT CECIL has been polishing up his "shove-halfpenny" in the billiard-room of the Hotel Majestic interesting developments are anticipated.

Primroses, daisies and wallflowers are in full bloom in many parts of the country and young lambs may now be seen frisking in the meadows. Can the POET LAUREATE be waiting for someone to get sun-stroke?

The Commission on the Responsibilities and Crimes of the War have not yet decided that the ex-Kaiser is guilty. At the same time it is said that they have an idea that he knew something about it.

At a Belfast football match last week the winning team, the police and the referee were mobbed by the partisans of the losing side. Local sportsmen condemn the attack on the winning team as a dangerous innovation.

The L.C.C. is training munition girls to be cooks. We understand that the velocity and range will be clearly stamped on the bottom of all pork-pies.

A Stromness fisherman, on opening a halibut, found a large cormorant in its stomach. Cormorants, of course, are not fastidious birds. They don't mind where they nest.

The eclipse of the sun on May 28th should be a great success, if we may judge by the immense time it has taken over rehearsals.

Inspector J.G. OGHAM, chief of the Portsmouth Fire Brigade, who is about to retire, has attended over two thousand fires. Indeed it is said that most of the local fires know him by sight.

"Ghost stories," says a contemporary, "are being spread about vacant houses in Dublin to decrease the demand for them." The old caretaker's trick of training a couple of cockroaches to jump out at the house-hunter is quite useless to-day.

Hull merchants complain that only one train leaves Hull per day on which wet fish can travel. The idea of bringing the fish to Billingsgate under their own steam has already been ventilated.

Found insensible with a bottle of sherry in his pocket, an East Ham labourer was fined ten shillings for being drunk. It is believed that had he been carrying the sherry anywhere else nothing could have saved him.

An absconding Trade Society treasurer last week hit upon a novel idea. He ran away with his own wife.

"Is nothing going to be done to stop the incursion of the sea at Walton-on-the-Naze?" asks a contemporary. Have they tried the effect of placing notice-boards along the front?

For the first time the public have been admitted to a meeting of the Beckenham Council. It is pleasant to find that the importance of good wholesome entertainment is not being lost sight of in some places.

Asked by the Wood Green magistrates for the names of his six children, a defendant said that he did not know them. It is a good plan for a man to get his wife to introduce him to the children.

It appears that a certain gentleman has managed to overcome the domestic servant problem. He has married one.

A Salford man giving evidence in a local court told the magistrates that his wife had repeatedly stuck pins into him. There is no excuse for such conduct, even with pin-cushions at their present inflated price.

No one seemed to take the rat-plague very seriously in the Isle of Wight until last week, when several rodents were discovered at the Seaplane Station at Bembridge busily engaged in trying on the pilots' flying coats.

It is only fair to remark that, although the Government has recently been found guilty of profiteering, they have never during the War raised the price: of their ten-shilling notes.

Much difficulty is being experienced by the Allies in deciding what. to do with the German Fleet. Curiously enough this is the very dilemma that the Germans were faced with during most of the War.

We hear that the officials at Lincoln prison are much impressed by the cleverness of DE VALERA'S escape and are anxious to present him with an illuminated address, but unfortunately they do not know it at present.

A scientific organ points out that in deciding the fate of Heligoland it should not be forgotten that it was once a valuable ornithological observation station. The almost extinct Pavo Potsdamicus, if we remember correctly, was an occasional visitor to the island.

Congress, says a Washington message, is anxious to get back to domestic business. It does not say whose.

STRANGE CASE IN PUGILISTIC CIRCLES.

A REPORTER LEARNS FROM BILL SLOGGS THAT HE IS NOTHING LIKE AS HARD AS NAILS AND NOT THE LEAST CONFIDENT.

"'Easter and Peace will coincide,' declared a member of the Council of Ten to the Central News correspondent in Paris."

"Easter Day this year is on April 20—less than six hours hence."—Evening Paper, March 12th.

How some of our journalists do jump to conclusions!

THE MUD LARKS.

Yesterday morning, a freckled child, dripping oil and perspiration and clad in a sort of canvas dressing-gown, stumbled into "Remounts" (or "Demounts," as we should more properly call ourselves nowadays) and presented me with a slip of paper which entitled him, the bearer, to immediate demobilisation on pivotal grounds. I handed it back to him, explaining that he had come to the wrong shop—unless he were a horse, of course. If he were and could provide his own nosebag, head-stall and Army Form 1640, testifying that he was guiltless of mange, ophthalmia or epizootic lymphangitis, I would do what I could for him.

He stared at me for a moment, then at the slip, then, murmuring something about the mistake being his, began to feel in the numerous pouches of his dressing-gown, bringing to light the following items:—

(1) A. spanner.

(2) Some attenuated cigarettes.

(3) A picture-postcard fashioned in silk, with tropical birds and flowers, clasped hands, crossed Union Jacks and the legend "TRUE LOVE" embroidered thereon.

(4) A handful of cotton waste.

(5) Some brandy-balls.

(6) An oil-can.

(7) The ace of spades.

(8) The portrait (tin-type) of a lady, inscribed "With kind regards from Lizzie."

(9) A stick of chewing gum.

(10) A mouse (defunct).

(11) A second slip of paper.

He grunted with satisfaction, replaced his treasures carefully in the pouches and handed the last-named item to me. It read to the effect that both he and his car were at my disposal for the day. I wriggled into a coat and followed him out to where his chariot awaited us.

I never pretended to be a judge of motor vehicles, but it does not need an expert to detect a Drift when he sees one; they have a leggy, herring-gutted appearance all their own. Where it was not dented in it bulged out; most of those little knick-knacks that really nice cars have were missing, and its complexion had peeled off in erratic designs such as