PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 159.

September 15th, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

Prohibition meetings in Scotland, says an official, have been attended by fifty thousand people. We should not have thought there were so many aliens in Scotland.

At an Oldbury wedding the other day a brick was thrown at the bridegroom. There is no excuse for this sort of thing with confetti so cheap.

One of the Pacific Islands, we read, is so small that the House of Commons could not be planted on it. A great pity.

"Do hotel chefs use cookery-books?" asks a home journal. Our own opinion is that quite a large proportion of them cook by ear.

Fourteen thousand artificial teeth recently stolen from premises in East London have not been recovered. While not attempting to indicate the guilty party, we cannot refrain from pointing out that several Labour leaders have recently been showing a good many more teeth than they were thought entitled to possess.

At the Trades Union Congress a protest was made against the Unemployment Insurance Act. This must not be confused with the miners' threat to strike. That is merely a method of ensuring unemployment.

The arrangement by which a hundred-and-fifty amateur brass bands are to play at the Crystal Palace on September 25th looks like an attempt to distract us from the miners' strike fixed for that day.

A Ramsgate man charged with shooting a cat denied that he fired at it. The animal is said to have dashed at the bullet and impaled himself upon it.

It has been agreed, says a news item, that milk shall be tenpence a quart this winter. Not by us.

The War Office announces that Arabs in Southern Mesopotamia have captured a British armoured train. It should be pointed out to these Arab rebels that it is such behaviour as this that discourages the tourist spirit.

Upon reading that another lady had failed in her attempt to swim the Channel a Scotsman inquires whether the Cross-Channel steamer rates have been increased, like everything else.

We are informed that at a football match recently played in the Rhondda Valley the referee won.

General Obregon, says an unofficial message, has been elected President of Mexico. The startling report that he has decided to reverse the safe policy of his predecessors and recognise the United States requires corroboration.

Everybody should economise after a great war, says an American film producer. We always do our best after every great war.

According to an official report only fifty policemen were bitten by dogs in London last week. The falling off is said to be due to the fact that it has been rather a good year for young and tender postmen.

Some highly-strung persons, says a medical writer, are even afraid of inanimate objects. This accounts for many nervous people being afraid of venturing too near a plumber.

"I only want the potatoes in the allotment and not the earth," said a complainant at Deptford. It is evident that, if this man is a trade unionist, he is a raw amateur.

Doctors at Vicenza have threatened to strike. This means that people in that neighbourhood will have to die without medical assistance.

"Chief Hailstorm," of the Texas Rangers, has arrived in London. His brother, Chief Rainstorm, has, of course, been with us most of the summer.

Girls, declares a well-known City caterer, are acquiring bigger appetites. We somehow suspected that the demand for a return of the wasp waist had influential interests behind it.

The wife of a miner in Warwickshire has recently presented her husband with three baby boys. We understand that Mr. Smillie is sorry to have missed three extra strike-votes which he would have obtained had the boys been born a little earlier.

An extraordinary story reaches us from North London. It appears that during the building of a house a brick slipped unnoticed from a hod and fell into its correct position, with the result that the accountant employed by the bricklayers could not balance his books at the end of the day.

"As science measures time," declares an eminent geologist, "the Garden of Eden was a thing of yesterday." All we can say is, "Where was Councillor Clark yesterday?"

Special Correspondent. "When they released me they said that if I showed my face in Ireland again I should be shot."

Editor. "I'll let these Sinn Feiners see that I'm not to be intimidated. You'll go back by the next train."

"POLES OVER THE LINE."

Evening Paper.

So that accounts for the weather.

"Whatever other defects may be alleged against the scarlet uniform, it certainly makes for two things—discipline and smartness—and these two are very important factors in discipline."

"Civil and Military Gazette," Lahore.

Especially the former.

"During the night, she [Mrs. Hamilton, the Channel swimmer] said, 'I occasionally took hot drinks and ate cold roast chicken, the small bones of which I kept chewing, as it seemed to assist me....'

A strict vegetarian, Mrs. Hamilton will sometimes swim five miles before dinner, and skips for a few minutes every day."

Scotch Paper.

She should skip the chicken if she wants us to be excited about her strict vegetarianism.

DOGGEREL.

To the Prime Minister's St. Bernard Pup.