PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 146

JUNE 3rd 1914

CHARIVARIA.

"When the King and Queen visit Nottinghamshire as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Portland at Welbeck, three representative colliery owners and four working miners will," we read, "be presented to their Majesties at Forest Town." A most embarrassing gift, we should say, and one which cannot, without hurting susceptibilities, be passed on to the Zoological Society.

Are the French, we wonder, losing that valuable quality of tact for which they have so long enjoyed a reputation? Amongst the Ministers introduced at Paris to King Christian of Denmark, who enjoys his designation of "The tall King," was M. Maginol, who is an inch taller than His Majesty. He should surely have been told to stay at home.

In the Bow County Court, last week, a woman litigant carried with her, for luck, an ornamental horse-shoe, measuring at least a foot in length, and won her case. Magistrates trust that this idea, pretty as it is, may not spread to Suffragettes of acknowledged markmanship.

Extract from an account in The Daily Chronicle of the Silver King disturbance:—"The officers held her down, and, with the ready aid of members of the audience, managed to keep her fairly quiet, though she bit those who tried to hold their hands over her mouth. A stage hand was sent for ..." If we are left to assume that she did not like the taste of that, we regard it as an insult to a deserving profession.

"Do people read as much as they used to?" is a question which is often asked nowadays. There are signs that they are, anyhow, getting more particular as to what they read. Even the House of Commons is becoming fastidious. It refused, the other day, to read the Weekly Rest Day Bill a second time, and the Third Reading of the Home Rule Bill was regarded as a waste of time and intelligence.

The superstitions of great men are always interesting, and we hear that, after his experience at Ipswich and on the Stock Exchange, Mr. Lloyd George is now firmly convinced that it is unlucky for him to have anything to do with anyone whose name ends in "oni."

Professor Metchnikoff, the great authority on the prevention of senile decay, will shortly celebrate his seventieth birthday, and a project is on foot to congratulate him on his good fortune in living so long.

The Central Telephone Exchange is now prepared to wake up subscribers at any hour for threepence a call, and it is forming an "Early Risers' List." So many persons are anxious to take a rise out of the Telephone Service that the success of the innovation is assured.

By crossing the Channel in a biplane, the Princess Loewenstein-Wertheim has earned the right to be addressed as "Your Altitude."

We see from an advertisement that we now have in our midst an "Institute of Hand Development." This should prove most useful to parents who own troublesome children. No doubt after a short course of instruction the spanking power of the hand may be doubled.

Reading that two houses in King Street, Cheapside, were sold last week "for a price equal to nearly £13 10s. per foot super," a correspondent asks, "What is a super foot?" If it is not a City policeman's we give it up.

There are now 168 house-boats on the Thames, states the annual report of the Conservators, and it has been suggested that a race between these craft might form an attractive item at Henley.

Shoals of mackerel entered Dover Bay last week, and many of the fish were caught by what is described as a novel form of bait, namely a cigarette paper on a hook drawn through the water in the same way as a "spinner." As a matter of fact we believe that smoked salmon are usually caught this way.

We learn from an announcement in The Medical Officer that Dr. T. S. McSwiney has sold his practice to Dr. Hogg—and it only remains for us to hope that Dr. Hogg has not bought a pig in a poke.

It looks as if even in America the respect for Titles is on the wane. We venture to extract the following item from the catalogue of an American dealer in autographs:—"Bryce, James, Viscount. Historian. Original MS. 33 pp. 4to of his article 'Equality.' In this he says:—'The evils of hereditary titles exceed their advantage. In Great Britain they produce snobbishness both among those who possess them and those who do not, without (as a rule) any corresponding sense of duty to sustain the credit of the family or the caste. Their abolition would be clear gain....' And now he is a Viscount. Price 30 dollars."

Pugilistic Veteran. "Come erlong, young un—come erlong; put some beef into it. That ain't the stuff I did at your age."

More African Unrest.

From a letter in The East African Standard:—

No man of spirit could resist so stirring an appeal.

Embarrassing Situations.

From the latest Official Report on anti-aircraft guns:—

If the spot alluded to is immediately under the Falls we can well understand their lack of confidence.

THE HOLIDAY MOOD.