PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 159.

September 1st, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

A Newcastle miner who was stated to be earning a pound a day has been fined ten pounds for neglecting his children. The idea of waiting till September 20th and letting Mr. Smillie neglect them does not seem to have occurred to him.

"Beyond gardening," says a gossip writer, "Mr. Smillie has few hobbies." At the same time there is no doubt he is busy getting together a fine collection of strikes.

It is said that Amundsen will not return to civilisation this year. If he was thinking of Ireland he isn't missing any civilisation worth mentioning.

"The Poet Laureate," says a weekly paper, "has not written an ode to British weather." So that can't be the cause of it.

A Wolverhampton man weighing seventeen stone, in charging another with assault, said he heard somebody laughing at him, so he looked round. A man of that weight naturally would.

"There is work for everybody who likes to work," says Mr. N. Grattan Doyle, M.P. It is this tactless way of rubbing it in which annoys so many people.

A contemporary has a letter from a correspondent who signs himself "Tube Traveller of Twenty Years' Standing." Somebody ought to offer the poor fellow a seat.

In connection with the case of a missing railway-porter one railway line has decided to issue notices warning travellers against touching porters while they are in motion.

"The United States," declares the proprietor of a leading New York hotel, "is on the eve of going wet again." A subtle move of this kind, with the object of depriving drink of its present popularity, is said to be making a strong appeal to the Prohibitionists.

One London firm is advertising thirty thousand alarum-clocks for sale at reduced prices. There is now no excuse for any workman being late at a strike.

A centenarian in the Shetlands, says a news agency, has never heard of Mr. Lloyd George. We have no wish to brag, but we have often seen his name mentioned.

Professor Petrie's statement that the world will only last another two hundred thousand years is a sorry blow to those who thought that Chu Chin Chow was in for a long run. Otherwise the news has been received quietly.

"Nothing useful is ever done in the House of Commons," says a Labour speaker. He forgets that the cleaners are at work in the building just now.

We are informed that at the Bricklaying contest at the Olympic Games a British bricklayer lost easily.

"A dress designer," says a Camomile Street dressmaker in The Evening News, "must be born." We always think this is an advantage.

A gossip-writer points out that Mr. Winston Churchill's earliest ambition was to be an actor. Our contemporary is wise not to disclose the name of the man who talked him out of it.

"Whatever price is fixed it is impossible to get stone in any quantity," says a building trade journal. They have evidently not heard of our coal-dealer.

"Nothing of any value has been gained by the War," complains a daily paper. This slur on the O.B.E. is in shocking taste.

A Sunday newspaper deplores that there seems to be no means of checking the crime-wave which is still spreading throughout the country. If only the Government would publish the amount of American bacon recently purchased by the Prisons' Department things might tend to improve.

"There is still a great shortage of gold in the country," announces a weekly paper. It certainly seems as if our profiteers will soon have to be content with having their teeth stopped with bank-notes.

We regret to learn that the amateur gardener whose marrows were awarded the second prize for cooking-apples at a horticultural show is still confined to his bed.

A neck-ruffle originally worn by Queen Elizabeth has been stolen from a house in Manchester and has not yet been recovered. Any reader noticing a suspicious-looking person wearing such an article over her décolleté should immediately communicate with the nearest police-station.

Hair tonic, declares the Washington Chief of Police, is growing in popularity as a beverage. The danger of this habit has been widely advertised by the sad case of a Chicago man who drank three shampoo cocktails and afterwards swallowed a hair in his soup.

The mystery of the City gentleman who has been noticed lately going up to public telephones and getting immediate answers is now solved. It appears that he is a well-known ventriloquist with a weakness for practical jokes.

"I never ordered it—and I won't pay for it."

"According to the latest census returns, the population of New York City is now £5,621,000."—Indian Paper.

In dollars, of course, it would be considerably more.

"The Royal Dutch Mail steamer Stuyvesant will leave on Monday at 5 a.m. for Havre and Amsterdam. The tender leaves the Lighthouse Jetty at 8 a.m. punctually with passengers."—West Indian Paper.

Rather a mean trick to play on them.

"The Chairman said the Council had never paid one penny for the oiling and washing of the fire brigade."—Local Paper.

It is understood that while the noble fellows do not object to washing at reasonable intervals, they strongly deprecate oiling as unnecessarily adding to the risks of their dangerous calling.

MR. SMILLIE'S LITTLE ARMAGEDDON.