PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 150.

April 5, 1916.

CHARIVARIA.

A severe blizzard hit London last week, and Mr. Pemberton-Billing has since been heard to admit, however reluctantly, that there are other powers of the air.

After more than five weeks the bubble blown by Sir James Dewar at the Royal Institution on February 17th has burst. A still larger bubble, blown by some eminent German scientists as long ago as August, 1914, is said to be on the point of dissolution.

At one of the North London Tribunals a maker of meat pies applied for exemption on the ground that he had a conscientious objection to taking life. His application was refused, the tribunal apparently being of the opinion that a man who knew all about meat pies could decimate the German forces without striking a blow.

Colonel Roosevelt says he has found a bird that lives in a cave, eats nuts, barks like a dog and has whiskers; and the political wiseacres in Washington are asking who it can be.

An exciting hockey match was played on Saturday between a team of policemen and another composed of special constables. The policemen won—by a few feet.

For gallantry at the ovens a German master-baker has just been awarded the Iron Cross. This is probably intended as a sop to the Army bakers, who are understood to have regarded it as a slight upon their calling that hitherto this distinction has been largely reserved for people who have shown themselves to be efficient butchers.

At a meeting of barbers held in the City a few days ago it was unanimously decided to raise the price of a shave to 3d. The reason, it was explained, was the high cost of living, which tempted the customers to eat far more soap than formerly.

In the Lambeth Police Court a man was convicted of stealing three galvanized iron roofs. His explanation that he had had the good fortune to win them at an auction bridge party was rejected by the Court.

A Mr. R. H. Pearce, writing to The Times, says: "I once lived in a house where my neighbour (a lady) kept twelve cats." Mr. Pearce is probably unique in his experience. Our own neighbours only go so far as to arrange for the entertainment of their cats in our garden.

FIRST CASUALTY OF THE NON-COMBATANT CORPS.

Red Cross Man. "What is it?"

Stretcher-bearer. "Shock. He was digging and he cut a worm in half."

An Appropriate Locale.

"Bohemian Picture Theatre, Phibsboro' To-day for Three Days Only, Justus Miles Forman's Exciting Story, The Garden of Lies."

Irish Paper.

VARIETIES.

"A word that is always spelled swrong.—W-r-o-n-g."—Wellington Journal.

We don't believe this is true.

"WOMEN ARE ASKED TO WEAR NO MORE CLOTHES than are absolutely necessary."

Dundee Courier.

Several cases of shock are reported among ladies who got no further than the large type lines.

ART IN WAR-TIME.

[A fragmentary essay in up-to-date criticism of any modern Exhibition—the R. A. excluded.]

In the Central Hall the Reduplicated Præteritists, the Tangentialists and the Paraphrasts are all well represented. Mr. Orguly Bolp's large painting, entitled "Embrocation," is an interesting experiment in the handling of aplanatic surfaces, in which the toxic determinants are harmonized by a sort of plastic meiosis with syncopated rhythms. His other large picture, "Interior of a Dumbbell by Night," has the same basic idea without the appearance of it, and gives a very vital sense of the elimination of noumenal perceptivity. M. Paparrigopoulo, the Greek Paraphrast, calls one of his pictures "The Antecedent," another "The Relative," and a third "The Correlative," but though they are thus united syntactically each follows its own reticulation to a logical conclusion, and carries with it a spiritual sanction, not always coherent perhaps, but none the less satisfying. Miss Felicity Quackenboss's portrait of Saint Vitus is perhaps the most arresting contribution to the exhibition, and portrays the Saint intoxicated with the exuberance of his own agility. It is a very carnival of contortion. Mr. Widgery Pimble transcribes very searchingly the post-prandial lethargy of a boa-constrictor, the process of deglutition being indicated with great dignity and delicacy, as might be expected from so austere a realist. From one angle the figure might be taken for a Bengal tiger, and from another for a zebra—a good proof of the suggestiveness of the artist's method. But, whether it be reptile or quadruped, the spirit of repletion broods over the canvas with irresistible force. Mr. Thaddeus Tumulty sends some admirable drawings in pisé de terre, one of which, called "The Pragmatist at Play," is a masterpiece of osteological bravura....

"Dr. Solff, the German Minister for the Conolies, has left for Constantinople."

Egyptian Mail.

Another injustice to Ireland.

TRUTHFUL JAMES

ON DOCTORS.

"You're not looking well," said the staff of The Muddleton Weekly Gazette sympathetically.

"No, Sir. Can't sleep, Sir. Haven't done for days till last night. I went off beautiful quite early, and then the new nurse come and woke me to give me my sleeping draught. That finished it for the night. Strange thing, sleep. There's no sense about it. Take Bill Hawkins now, a pal of mine in B Company. He was hit and took to hospital. Not serious at all. 'Me for a rest cure,' he says. But he was in that hospital for weeks and weeks, getting worse and worse; he couldn't sleep a wink. The more they drugged him, and the more sheep he counted, the more wide-awake he was. The doctors got angry and called him an obstinate case. He said it wasn't poisons but noise he needed, so they fetched an orderly and set him banging one of them frying-pan baths with a ram-rod. In five minutes Bill falls asleep as peaceful as a lamb, and the orderly, being tired, stops. Up leaps Bill, wide awake as ever, asking what's wrong. Naturally they couldn't bang a bath for him all night every night, and the house surgeon was just thinking about getting ready a slab in the mortuary, when Bill's brother, an engine-driver, comes along. He took Bill to his box just outside Charing Cross station and made up a bed for him there. Bill slept for three days solid and was about again in a week."

"Very fortunate," murmured the Gazette.

"So that time, you see, the doctors was done. But that don't often happen. There was a doctor I knew out there, name of Gordon. Young fellow he was, too, and very keen; seemed to think the War was started specially to give him surgical practice, and he loved his lancets more than his mother. He used to welcome cases with open arms, so to speak, do his very best to heal 'em quick,