him something"—and they did.

Bosch (downed after long Homeric combat). "KAMERAD!"

Pat. "BE JABERS, 'TIS THE WORD I'VE BEEN THRYING TO REMEMBER FOR THE LAST THREE MINUTS."

"Would the Lady who took the Wrong Patent Leather Shoe (right) from —— on 7th instant return same?"—Provincial Press.

And then she can recover the right shoe which was left.

"Bethnal Green Military Hospital, formerly an infirmary, names its wards after British virtues, thus:—Courage, Truth, Fortitude, Loyalty, Justice, Honour, Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Mercy, Grace, Candour, Innocence, and Patience."—Evening Standard.

We note with regret the omission of that eminently British virtue, Humility.

THE CATCH OF THE SEASON.

CONDUCTORETTE (to Mr. ASQUITH). "COME ALONG, SIR. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER."

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, March 26th.—Major PRETYMAN NEWMAN has a bright sense of humour much appreciated by his fellow-countrymen from Ireland. His latest notion is that journals "of a comic and serio-comic nature" should be deprived of their stocks of paper in order that catalogues and circulars should continue to appear. Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS expressed his regret at being unable to discriminate between different classes of publications; but I understand that several Members have offered to satisfy Major NEWMAN's taste for light literature by lending him their old Stores catalogues.

Housewives who have been economising in their meagre supply of sugar in order to have a stock for jam-making have been alarmed by a rumour that they would be charged with food-hoarding and made to disgorge their savings. There is not a word of truth in it, and they may rest assured, on Capt. BATHURST'S authority, that our non-party Government entirely approves this form of Conservatism.

MR. BRACE.

Misled by Mr. BRACE's appearance—I have before now noted his likeness to an amiable cat—Mr. SNOWDEN pressed his advocacy of a certain conscientious objector called PETT to such lengths as to discover that even this kind of cat has claws. "These conscientious objectors," said Mr. BRACE at last, "are not the angels he thinks they are, and it is only with the utmost difficulty that a large number of them will do anything like reasonable work." Thus a PETT illusion has been shattered. Mr. SNOWDEN, however, has plenty more.

Tuesday, March 27th.—If British artisans, as at Barrow-in-Furness, prefer to strike for Germany, it seems hardly reasonable to expect German prisoners to work for England. The nature of the "disciplinary measures" which caused the Germans promptly to return to work on normal conditions was not disclosed, but it seems a pity that they are not tried in the other case.

"We are getting on," as Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN said on a famous occasion. Formerly it was considered the height of Parliamentary impropriety to say in so many words that an Hon. Member was not telling the truth; and all sorts of more or less transparent subterfuges, of which Mr. CHURCHILL's "terminological inexactitude" is the best remembered, were employed to evade this breach of good manners. But the present House is thicker-skinned than its predecessors, and heard without a tremor the following conversation between the MINISTER OF PENSIONS and Mr. HOGGE:—Mr. Barnes: "I never said there was a scale." Mr. Hogge: "Yes, you did." Mr. Barnes: "No, I didn't."

A little later on, Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL always a stickler for constitutional precedent, attacked the Government for introducing important Bills—including one for extending once more the life of this immortal Parliament—without vouchsafing any explanation of them. He appealed to the SPEAKER to condemn this procedure as being contrary to the spirit of the standing order. Mr. LOWTHER explained that it was his business to carry out the rules of the House, not to express opinions about the use that was made of them. But he ventured to remind the Hon. Member that under this rule a Home Rule Bill, a Welsh Disestablishment Bill and a Plural Voting Bill had all been introduced on a single day. And it is not on record that on that occasion Mr. MACNEILL entered any protest.

Wednesday, March 28th—Rumours that Mr. ASQUITH was about to make a public recantation of his hostility to Women's Suffrage caused a large attendance of Members, Peers and the general public. The interval of waiting was beguiled by, among others, Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING, who, having been told by Mr. MACPHERSON that the number of accidents during the training of pilots during the last half-year of 1916 was 1.53 per cent., proceeded to inquire, "What is the percentage based on? Is it percentage per hundred?" Mr. BILLING may be comforted by the recollection that a greater than he, Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, confessed that he "never could understand what those d—d dots meant."

The Editor of The Glasgow High School Magazine must be a proud man this day, for he has been mentioned in Parliament. It seems that he has been refused permission to post his periodical to subscribers in neutral countries, and Mr. MACPHERSON explained that this was in pursuance of a general rule, since "school magazines contain much information useful to the enemy." It is pleasant to picture the German General Staff laboriously ploughing through reports of football-matches, juvenile poems