PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 158.

April 21st, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

It appears that Irish criminals may be divided into three classes (a) The ones you can't catch; (b) The ones you have caught but can't convict; (c) The ones you have convicted but can't keep in prison.

To such an extent has America gone dry that nearly all letters despatched from Scotsmen living over there are posted with the stamps pinned to the envelopes.

"We are certainly going to gain by the sale of the Slough works," said Mr. Bonar Law last week. Whether to an extent that will justify the Government for having kept The Daily Mail waiting like that is another question.

Mr. James Fowler of Deptford has offered to walk from Westminster Bridge to Brighton with a jar on his head. We assume that he has mislaid his hat.

In Hertfordshire the other day a boy was knocked down by a funeral-car. It may have been an accident, but it has all the appearance of greed.

A constable giving evidence at Willesden police-court said a prisoner called him a "sergeant-major." We feel sure the fellow could not have meant it.

Mrs. Alice L. Yocum, of Boone, U.S.A., has just obtained her thirteenth divorce. It is said that she has the finest collection of husbands in America.

The man who last week said he had not read "Another Powerful Article" by Mr. Horatio Bottomley in the Sunday Press is thought to be an impostor.

Parents in New York who are afraid of losing their children may register them at the Bureau of Missing People. As we have no such institution in this country parents must adopt the old method of writing their names and addresses on the top right-hand corner of their offspring.

Any wind blowing at more than seventy miles an hour, says an informing paper, may be called a hurricane. At the same time we doubt if this would have much effect on it.

Our sympathy is with the young Flight Lieutenant of the R.A.F. who has been unable to keep up with the uniforms designed by the Air Ministry. He is now said to be three uniforms behind.

It is claimed that whilst standing on a certain rock near Aberdeen one can obtain a thousand echoes from a single shout. We understand that the local habit of going there in order to pull a cork out of a bottle has now been prohibited owing to the annoyance caused to American visitors.

A large grocery warehouse in Liverpool was practically destroyed by fire last Thursday week. We understand that the orderly manner in which the cheeses fell in and marched out of the danger-zone was alone responsible for preventing a panic.

"Keep smiling and you will never need a doctor," advises a writer in an illustrated daily. A friend of ours who put it to the test now writes to us from a well-known county asylum advising us to choose the doctor.

According to a morning paper, Micky, the oldest ape in the Zoo, now wears a mournful expression and seems to be tired of life. It is thought that he may have recently overhead the remark made by a thoughtless visitor that he was growing more like a Bolshevik every day.

A certain lamp-post in Maida Vale has been knocked down twice by the same bus. If the bus knocks it down once more the lamp becomes its own property.

The amazing report that one of the first six to finish in the London to Brighton walk was once a telegraph-boy is now denied.

There is a man living in the Edgware Road, it is stated, who has never been on an omnibus. He has often seen them whizzing by, he declares, but has always resisted the temptation to take the fatal plunge.

There will be no Naval manœuvres this year, it is announced. How under these conditions Mr. Pollen can continue to teach the Navy its business is a very grave question.

At a St. Dunstan's auction at Thornton Heath autographs of Mr. George Robey and the Premier were sold at ten shillings each. Mr. Robey, it appears, generously insisted on treating the matter as a joke.

A Manchester scientist claims to have discovered a means of making vegetable alcohol undrinkable without impairing its usefulness. It looks as if the secret of Government ale must have leaked out at last.

We are in a position to deny a report which was being spread in connection with a certain Model Village scheme, to the effect that the model bricklayer had refused to perform unless he was provided with a model public-house, while the model public-house could not be provided until the model bricklayer started work.

Bonnet strings, says a fashion paper, will be worn by débutantes this summer. Apron strings, we gather, will continue to be unfashionable with our flappers.

British Museum Official. "No, you can't get into the Mummy Gallery. The Government officials are still there."

Rustic. "What! ain't they sorted 'em out yet?"

ON THE ITALIAN RIVIERA.

England to her France.

THE IDENTIFICATION OF HOBBS.

Old Hobbs, the gardener, has been in our family longer than I have. Although we live within twenty miles of London only once has he made the journey to the great city, for that one memorable day so nearly ended in disaster that he always speaks of it with a shudder. Indeed, but for the arrival of Mrs. Hobbs, belated, flustered and inquiring everywhere for her man, he must assuredly have spent the night in a police-station.

This is how it all happened. Mrs. Hobbs was returning from a visit to relations in