PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 159.

September 8th, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

There are rumours of Prohibition in Scotland. We can only say that if Scotland goes dry it will also go South.

By an order of the Food Controller rice has been freed from all restrictions as regards use. This drastic attempt to stem the prevailing craze for matrimony has not come a moment too soon.

We suppose it is due to pressure of business, but the Spanish Cabinet has not resigned this week.

The Daily Mail is offering one hundred pounds for the best new hat for men. The cocked hat into which Mr. Smillie hopes to knock the country is, of course, excluded from the competition.

A horse at Chichester has been run down by a train. Asked how he came to catch up with the horse the driver said he just let her rip.

Despite the repeated reports of his resignation in the London papers, Mr. Davis, the American Ambassador to Britain, states that he does not intend to retire. This contempt for English newspapers will be justifiably resented.

Mrs. Lillian Russell, of Rockland, Mass., is reported to have offered to sell her husband for twenty thousand pounds. It is a great consolation to those of us who are husbands that they are fetching such high prices.

The road-menders in Oxford Street who went on strike have now resumed work. The discovery was made by a spectator who saw one of them move.

A contemporary reports the prospect of fair weather for another three weeks. It looks as if Mr. Smillie is going to have a fine day for it after all.

A New York message states that the congregation of a New Jersey church pelted the Rev. F.S. Kopfmann with eggs. This is disgraceful with eggs at their present price.

We have just heard of a Scotsman who has a pre-Geddes railway time-table for sale, present owner having no further use for it.

It is stated in scientific circles that the present weather is due to the Gulf Stream. This relieves Mr. Churchill of considerable responsibility.

"The length of a bee's sting," says Tit Bits, "is only one thirty-second of an inch." We are grateful for this information because when we are being stung we are always too busy to measure for ourselves.

Those who maintain that nothing good ever comes from Russia have suffered a nasty slap in the face. A news message states that the Bolshevists have invited Mr. Smillie to visit Petrograd.

"Horsehair coats have made their appearance," says The Outfitter. Surely this is nothing very new. We have often seen horses wearing them.

A man who stole the same fowls twice has been charged at Grimsby. He pleads that his bookkeeper omitted to enter them in the day-book the first time.

It is now being hinted in political circles that Mr. William Brace, M.P., has consented to bequeath his moustache to the nation.

Mr. Smillie was much heartened by the news from Lucerne that the Prime Minister had climbed down the Rigi in three hours.

As a result of the new rise in the price of petrol many of the middle-class have been compelled to turn down their automatic cigarette-lighters.

Although we may appear to be a little previous, we have it on good authority that Mr. Bottomley is already making arrangements to predict that the approaching coal-strike will end before Christmas.

The various attempts to swim or cycle across the Channel having proved unsuccessful, we hear that interest is again being revived in the proposed Channel Tunnel.

It is rumoured that Councillor Clark has recently purchased a large consignment of Government flannel, in order to provide adequate underclothing for mixed bathers.

A large quantity of rusty piano wire, says a news item, has been found in a valuable milch cow at Boston, Lines. There is hope that the "Tune the Cow Died of" may now be positively identified.

According to a sporting paper there is a great shortage of referees this season. The offer to receive any member of this profession into the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary without further qualifications is no doubt responsible for fifty per cent. of the loss, whilst fair wear and tear probably account for the remainder.

"It is high time," writes a correspondent in The Daily Mail, "that a clearly defined waist-line should be reintroduced into feminine dress." Others claim that as the neck-line is now worn round the waist the reintroduction of a waist-line elsewhere can only lead to confusion.

Insurance Clerk (taking personal particulars of prospective policy-holder). "And what is your profession, Sir?"

Artist. "Painter."

Clerk. "What sort of painter?"

Artist. "Splendid."

The Coal Strike.

"The part of the public is to keep cool."—The Times.

A strike should make this fairly easy.

From the advertisement of a "Unique Battlefields Tour":—

"Passports and Visors obtained and annoyances reduced to a minimum."—Daily Paper.

Then why this knightly precaution?

A COUP FOR "THE DAILY TRAIL."

We all knew at the office that Micklebrown had gone to Cocklesea for his holiday. If anyone had offered him a free pass to the Italian lakes or any other delectable spot Micklebrown would have declined it and taken his third return to Cocklesea. Like Sir Walter Raleigh when he started for South America to find a gold-mine, Micklebrown had an object in view. He hoped to discover a topaz in Cocklesea. We knew the reason for this optimism. We had been shown the lizard-brooch, a dazzling thing of gold and precious stones, which Micklebrown had picked up last Bank Holiday on the cliff at Cocklesea and presented to his fiancée, Miss Twitter, after inquiry at the police-station had failed to discover its owner.

Most people would have been satisfied to leave well alone, but Micklebrown is a man who hankers after the little more. The lizard's tail was composed of topaz stones, and from its tip one topaz was obviously missing. "My firm impression is that I did the damage when I trod on it," Micklebrown said. "You see I put my foot right slap on the thing. I can't get it out of my head that that topaz stuck in the mud and it's sticking there to this day. Anyway I go to Cocklesea for my holiday to look. I know the very identical spot." He closed his eyes the better to visualize it. "You go up a little path behind the mixed-bathing boxes, turn sharp to the right at the top of the cliff, past two pine-trees and a clump of gorse, go a trifle inland through a lot of thistles until you come on three blackberry bushes; the topaz should be ten