E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram
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PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 150.

March 1, 1916.

CHARIVARIA.

The Volunteers have at last been recognised. There has been nothing like it since the great recognition-scene in Electra.

The case has been reported of a Stepney child which has developed a disease of the brain, as the result of an air raid. Similar cases are said to have been observed in the neighbourhood of Fleet Street.

It now transpires that the music of St. Paul's Cathedral emanates from an organ of German construction. There seems to be some doubt as to whether an explanation is due from The Westminster Gazette or The Times.

The mysterious shortage of butter in Germany, which has resulted in measures being drafted limiting the consumption to 4 ozs. per week per adult, is now explained. Count von Bernstorff has used up all the available supplies on Congress.

The General Omnibus Company has made the announcement that it will not employ any women drivers for its omnibuses. The company's officers fear that if women were so employed there would be an absence of that racy repartee which alone prevents traffic from reaching a condition of indescribable congestion.

The demand for second-hand pianos now for the first time in the history of the trade far exceeds the supply. It is not only in Germany that War and frightfulness go hand-in-hand.

The capture of Mush by the Russian army of the Caucasus is an event the importance of which has not been fully recognized. It is undoubtedly the place from which the Turkish official reports of victory have been issued.

The Marconi Company have announced that "deferred plain language telegrams" will again be received. More truckling to the Tory Press!

A traveller returning from East Africa reports that, notwithstanding the military operations that are taking place in various parts of the country, rhinoceroses appear to be increasing in numbers. It is explained that the falling-off in the European demand for potted reed birds is responsible for the phenomenon.

It is announced that the Cabinet are to take a portion of their salaries in Exchequer Bonds. Not to be outdone the members of the Reichstag are said to have agreed to soil their fingers with dirty British gold rather than hinder the German Government's operations for correcting the depreciation of the mark.

The suggestion has been put forward that, as a timely War economy, well-to-do people should give up their hot-houses. There seems to be a division of opinion, however, as to whether the hot-house plants should be given their liberty, or (as economy would seem to dictate) be killed for the table.

Australia has suspended the trade-marks of 450 German articles. It would be interesting to know if the most historic German trade-mark, "Made in the United States," is among these.

"Mr. Julian Kimball (of Covent Garden and the London Opera House)," says the Musical critic of The Daily Mail, "is a singer you can watch as well as listen to." The desirability of concealing the faces of some of our principal singers in the past is undoubtedly one of the reasons why England has lagged behind in the musical art.

A well-known candidate for the East Herts Division is said to be urgently in need of motor cars. His opponents however point out that the need to economise in petrol was never more urgent than at present.

Speaking on the question of the shortage of freights Mr. Runciman stated, a few days ago, that he did not know that ostrich feathers took up much room. Has he never been to a matinée?

In the same connection a member of the Ladies' Kennel Club writes: "I let them take my husband for their horrid old War without grumbling, but when they tell me that poor little Nanki-Poo can't have his ostrich-feather pillow to lie on I think it is too much!"

Midget (as he comes to). "I expect the War's been a bit bad for your regular business, Mister?"

Second. "Not it. The boot-makin' trade's as good as ever."

Midget. "Oh, you're a boot-maker, are you? Funny—I made certain you was a cab-washer."

"The profits of the Bradford Dyers' Association exceed the most sanguinary expectations."

Morning Paper.

The influence of the War, again.

S.P.C.A., please note.

"Dogs are generally from 9 to 18 inches long and the teeth from 3 to 8 inches long; the service pattern are from 12 to 15 inches long with 6 inch teeth. For straight dogs the ends of the teeth should be slightly further apart than at their root. Dogs when heated red-hot can be twisted till their teeth make any required angle with each other, generally a right angle; they are then known as skew dogs."

Military Engineering.

"The offensive eggs were first placed in a mangle, and the slow, crude, and obnoxious process was gone through of crushing them. The pugnacity of the smell arising from this progress became appalling."—Grocers' Journal.

Fit to knock one down, in fact.

"Lady, 45, domesticated, Protestant, furniture, wishes Correspondence with Respectable Widower and Bachelor; view matrimony."—Southport Visitor.

One of the two gentlemen will have to be content with the furniture.

A CURE FOR DEPRESSION.

Moments there are of transient gloom

When life for me appears to lose

Its rosy aspect and assume

The turnip's pessimistic hues;

As when o' mornings, gazing out

Across my patch of fog-grey river,

I feel a twinge of poor man's gout

Or else a touch of liver;

Or when, forgetting Watts's rhymes

On puppy-dogs that bark and bite,

The Westminster attacks The Times,

Starting a most unseemly fight;

Or when I find some Labour sheet

Still left at large to boom rebellion,

Or hear the thin pacific bleat

Of "my hon. friend" Trevelyan;

When enemy craft career above,

Unchallenged (till they've had their fling);

Or Little Willie's vernal shove

Anticipates the dawn of Spring;

When Neutrals want an open door

Kept wide for their commercial dealings,

And we must risk to lose the War

Rather than hurt their feelings.

Such moments, making Hope look bleak,

And Courage turn a little blue,

Even with hearts as tough as teak

May well occur; but, when they do,

This thought will readjust your bile

And prove the best of appetisers:—?

Would I exchange (here's where you smile)

Our chances with the Kaiser's?

O.S.

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XXXV.

(From Enver Pasha.)

Sire,—Surely the course of human affairs is often strange and perplexing. When we formed the Committee of Union and Progress and deposed the wretched Abdul from the Sultanate no sane man can have thought that you and I should ever be friends. Abdul was your friend; you and yours had lavished upon him and his creatures all your arts for the purpose of obtaining influence and promoting the interest—forgive me for saying it—not so much of Turkey as of the German Empire. When therefore we emerged, and Abdul with his system retired, all your beautiful schemes seemed to be shattered into pieces so small that no human ingenuity could avail to pick them up and fit them together again. Yet lo and behold, the impossible has happened. Abdul remains in darkness, I and my colleagues are in power, and you and I are even more closely knit together than is altogether desirable for me and those whom (indirectly, perhaps, but not the less effectively) I help to govern. I am entitled therefore to have a heart-to-heart talk with my bosom-friend, and, anyhow, whether I am entitled or not, that is what I propose to have. You may tell me in your genial way that I am only an upstart, but I answer that I occupy my position not because my father and my grandfather were big men, but because I myself, through my own plans and by my own strength, did certain things which in my judgment had to be done.

What I now feel, O my friend, is this: I am beginning to doubt whether in all this tremendous confusion of fighting I have made the right choice. It wasn't necessary for us Turks to fight at all; it wasn't even desirable. We had suffered a severe set-back in the first Balkan War, and in the second we were only just able, owing to the consummate folly of that silly knave, your friend, Tsar Ferdinand, to snatch a brand or two from the burning. What we wanted was rest, and had it not been for you we might have had it—yes, and our wounds might have been healed and our finances restored, while others endured privation and loss.

All that, as I say, we might have had; but from the day when the Goeben arrived off Constantinople we were doomed. That, indeed, was a master-stroke on your part, but for us it has meant misery on an ever-increasing scale. What were your promises? We were to have Egypt, but you were to be there too, and you were to hold the Bagdad railway and the regions through which it ran. We were to help you in conquering India, but you were to keep it for yourself when once it was conquered. We were to have a free hand with the Armenians. Well, we have had it, and the Armenians are fewer by half-a-million than they were. Pleasant as it is to contemplate the destruction of those restless and disloyal infidels, it cannot be said that we have gained any advantage from it, for the Russians have taken Erzerum and are sweeping through Armenia in a mighty and irresistible torrent, while our Turkish armies are scattered to the winds of heaven. Strong as you are and prodigal of promises, here you have failed to make good your pledges of help, and nowhere else do you seem able to achieve anything, except the crushing of little nations.

I look back with loathing upon the day when I was mad enough to listen to you and to become a partner in your schemes. You flattered us, nay, you even fawned upon us in order to secure your ends, and, now that our forces have been joined with yours, ruin menaces my country and my race. You, forsooth, allow yourself to be held up as a great prophet of Islam and a Heaven-sent protector of its faith; but we who see our nation crumbling into dust owing to your selfish ambition may be pardoned if at last we look to ourselves and attempt to save what still remains to us. To work, as they say, for the King of Prussia has never been a profitable undertaking.

Yours, Enver.

"Fireworks were thrown from the gallery and the audience rushed on the platform, pelting the Pacifists with red ochre. The meeting ended with the sinking of Rule Britannia."—Egyptian Gazette.

The Pacifists appear to have had the last word, after all.

"Mill Manager Honoured.—Mr. —— has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of fits."—Times of India.

We do not recognise the Society, but imagine it may be the Taylorian Institute.

"It will take about 12 days for goods traffic to become normal again, although of course passenger traffic is not interfered with in the slightest. In the meantime the booking of elephants and other perishables has been stopped."—Rangoon Times.

Unless, of course, they leave their trunks behind them.

We observe that Mr. Waters Butler has been appointed a member of the Liquor Control Board, with the hearty approval of the Birmingham Beer, Spirit and Wine Trade Association. If there is anything in a name no one should be better able to hold the balance between them and the teetotalers.

THE MILITARY REASON.

"FOR MILITARY REASONS OUR ARMY HAS WITHDRAWN FROM ERZERUM."

Turkish official communiqué (nearly a week after the event).

Coster (to parish visitor, who has been commiserating with him on the loss of his father). "Yes, Mum, 'e were a splendid father to us and no mistake. Yer see, Mum, there was eleven of us, and I never knowed 'im raise 'is 'and to one of us—'cept as it might be in self-defence."

AT THE FRONT.

Some officers like putting up barbed wire, not so much, I think, from any real deep-seated affection for the stuff itself, or from any confidence in the protection it affords—its disintegration being one of the assumed preliminaries of an attack—as for the satisfaction of writing in the Weekly Work Report, "In front of X276 we put up 97 rolls of barbed wire; in front of S279, 342 rolls; in front of X276a, 3,692 rolls ..." and so on.

An officer who overdoes this sport of kings gets a trench a bad name; it becomes a trench with a great wiring tradition to be maintained. One of us took over a legacy from one of these barbarians last trip. H.Q. had got wind of his zeal and was determined that we for our part should not be idle. It was murmured in billets, it was whispered upon the pavé, that for the officer taking over B116 there was a great wiring toward. The officer taking over B116 hated wiring worse than bully beef. He said you either die of pneumonia through standing still pretending to supervise, or tire yourself to bits and earn the undying contempt of your party by pretending to take an active share in the game.

Howbeit he took over B116 and was told by the Next Man Up to wire to his heart's content. He asked the Next Man Up just where he wanted the wiring to be performed. The Next Man Up waved an airy arm in the direction of the Hun, and observed, "Out there, of course. Think we wanted you to wire Hampstead Heath?" Then the B116 officer took the N.M.U. to the parapet and showed him waving acres of high wire, low wire, loose wire, tight wire, thick wire, thin wire, two ply, three ply, and four ply, plain and barbed, running out and out into the dusk.

The N.M.U. gave it all a dispassionate sort of look, and merely said, "Oh, go out in front of all that. The Bosch is miles off just here."

Now B116 is a front line trench in a re-entrant. The Hun trench facing it is also in a re-entrant, the original front lines on both sides having been crumpled and flooded out of existence. So when night fell the officer of B116 took his party and set out, and he went on and on, and then on, and there was still wire. And he went on and on and on. And there were bits of old trenches and saps and listening posts, but still wire. And he went on and on and there were more bits of trench and more wire. And he went on and on—and I know this is true because he told me—and on and on until (no, he did not come back to our own trench, he had a compass) an exceptionally good lot of fireworks went up, and he was fired at and bombed by Germans behind and Germans in front and Germans on either side, and, mind you, he was still in the wire. So he waited until all the Germans appeared to have killed each other or gone to sleep, and brought his party laboriously back to B116, from which he sent to the Next Man Up a message which ran: "If you want me to wire Bosch third line, kindly arrange for artillery preparation."

It is some days now since they put up any wire in front of B116.

It is a fact well known to all our most widely-circulated photographic dailies that these German gunners waste a power of ammunition. The only criticism I have to make is that I wish they would waste it more carefully. The way they go strewing the stuff about round us is such that they're bound to hit someone or something before long. Still we have only two more days in, and they seldom give us more than ten thousand shells a day.

We are in billets now, and frankly, I am beginning to be very exercised about my boots. When I say "my boots" I mean rather the boots concerning me than "the boots that are mine." I wanted, some couple of months ago, a new pair of boots. I told the Quartermaster, and he looked at my then boots superciliously and said he could quite believe it.

I rashly left it at that, imagining something would happen. A man like a quartermaster, who rolls in boots, would, I felt, think nothing of sending along a dozen pairs before breakfast, with a chit telling me to give away what I couldn't use. But no. It seems every boot in his store was numbered.

I approached him again, and demanded boots, soberly, seriously and strenuously, I even offered to pay for them. This appeared to cheer him a little, and he murmured something about Army Form 247 x2b, not at present in stock, but indispensable to the issue of the most negligible boot on payment. My further efforts were, owing to exigencies of my military situation, conducted through emissaries. My servant would demand of his company agent nightly, what about them boots? And the company agent would reply—also nightly—that, if the officer would send his size down, the matter would be put through at once. For five nights running my size in boots went down with the empty water tins. On the last night I added a sketch of my feet and of my present boots, with scale of kilometres subjoined, a brief history of footgear in Flanders from pre-Cæsarian times to the present day, one piece of broken lace from the old boots, and anything else that struck me as likely to put the matter a little further through.

The lace appeared to put quite a new idea into their heads. The advance booting agent now seemed to think that if I had some boots already I might get the new pair by a process known as exchange, which takes less time and has the additional advantage of not costing anything. This struck them as an excellent new game for several days while they were deciding which was the right army form for an officer desirous of exchanging boots. At last all appeared fixed up. I came back into billets with every confidence of finding a couple of boots waiting for me on the mat. Of course I didn't really believe they would be there; I only had every confidence. Anyhow they were not.

This morning the Quartermaster called in person. He wanted to know what size I took in boots.

I expect now that the matter will be put through almost at once.

OUR BOYS.

Outraged Elder Brother (who has been asked for a light). "You're a nice example for young 'Erb. 'Ow dare you 'ave Cigarettes?"

Brother Bill. "They ain't mine—they're 'Erb's."

An Impending Apology.

"Chaplain would appreciate portable Gramophone for clearing station."—The Times.

HARD CASES.

Among other applications which were recently heard for exemption from the new Compulsory Service Act for unmarried men we extract the following:—

Mr. Isaac Goldstein claimed exemption for his clerk, a stalwart youth of twenty-two, on the ground that he was indispensable to him in his business.

Asked what his business was the applicant said he was a bookmaker.

The Chairman. I thought there was no racing now.

Mr. Goldstein. Oh, yes. Steeple-chasing every week.

The Chairman. Do people still go to races and bet?

Mr. Goldstein. Of course they do. Why not?

The Chairman. I fancied they might have found other things to do. Also I fancied that money might be short.

The applicant said that there was plenty of money about if you knew where to look for it.

The Chairman. And who ride the horses?

Mr. Goldstein. The jockeys, of course.

The Chairman. They prefer that to doing anything more serious for their country?

Mr. Goldstein. They are doing something very serious for their country. They're preserving the breed of horses. Where would old England's horseflesh be without races and steeplechases?

The Chairman. You say this young man is indispensable to you. How?

Mr. Goldstein. He is my clerk. He writes down the bets. I haven't got time to write down bets myself; I'm too busy taking them. He's one of the quickest clerks in England. I should go broke if I hadn't got him.

Application refused.

Mr. Joe Tummilee applied for the exemption of a comedian playing in his revue, "Never mind the War." This young man, he said, who was twenty-nine, was the life and soul of the piece, and if he joined the Army the applicant would be put both to inconvenience and loss.

The Chairman. Are there not older or married actors that you could employ for this great work?

Mr. Tummilee. They're not so good. The comedian in question was a very agile dancer and was also good-looking. Other men might not attract the public.

The Chairman. Is the attraction of the public essential?

Mr. Tummilee (surprised). Naturally. How should we managers live otherwise? Besides, when a great war is going on it's a national duty to try and make people forget. My theatre, you perhaps are not aware, is a favourite resort for wounded soldiers, who are never so happy as when they are there.

The Chairman. Surely all that happiness will not disappear because this one performer is missing?

Mr. Tummilee. Most of it. He's the great draw.

The Chairman. Has it not occurred to you that the country ought to come first?

Mr. Tummilee. I consider I'm doing a great deal for the country, and he too, by making it laugh.

The Chairman. You must find an older funny man or soon we may all be weeping.

Application refused.

Mr. Samuel Bland claimed exemption on the ground that he disapproved of war and physical force.

The Chairman. What would you do if you caught a burglar in your house?

Applicant. I should lock him in and call for the police.

The Chairman. Then you don't mind relying on the physical force of others for your own protection?

Applicant. That is part of the machinery of civilisation.

The Chairman. So, I fear, is an army. Do you pay your taxes?

Applicant. Yes.

The Chairman. Why?

The Applicant. Because there is Scriptural warrant for it.

The Chairman. But you know that a large part of them goes to maintain our fighting men. Without money we should have to give in.

Applicant. I obey the law. I don't necessarily know where the money is going.

The Chairman. Your position is very illogical. Either you should take your part in defending your country or obey your conscience and either go to prison for refusing to pay taxes for the carrying-on of the War, or emigrate to some place more like Utopia than this is. As it is you take advantage of other men's readiness to fight and even to die for you, and actually pay them to do so, but raise conscientious objections to doing either for yourself. A conscience that is so adaptable is not worth considering.

Application refused.

Harry Cadgsmith, who said he was a picture-palace proprietor, applied for exemption for the commissionaire who stood outside the building and invited people in.

The Chairman. How old is he?

Mr. Cadgsmith. Thirty-four.

The Chairman. Is he strong?

Mr. Cadgsmith. Very. He is also highly trained; he wears uniform and calls out the attractions. The cinema is one of the principal alleviations of modern life and but for this man's powerful voice many people might pass by and never enter.

The Chairman. What kind of pictures do you show?

Mr. Cadgsmith. The best.

The Chairman. Are they English?

Mr. Cadgsmith. Some are. But the public prefer American ones. I always pride myself on giving the public what it has the sense to want.

The Chairman. Might it not be better employed elsewhere? Making munitions, for example?

Mr. Cadgsmith. That is nothing to do with me. My business is to supply a demand.

The Chairman. What is your chief film this week?

Mr. Cadgsmith. It is a very fine story entitled "The Prince of Crooks."

The Chairman. Could not a woman take this man's place?

Mr. Cadgsmith. Not to do it justice.

Application refused.

SUAVE MARI MAGNO.

(New Style).

'Tis sweet, so sage Lucretius wrote of yore,

To watch a storm-tossed vessel from the shore,

Or safely placed, when hosts in conflict close,

To view the battle as it ebbs and flows;

But he, poor ancient, never knew the rare

Delight afforded by an easy-chair,

Wherein the slippered critic, at his ease,

His ample writing-pad upon his knees,

Primed with historic and romantic lore,

Indites his weekly comment on the War;

Revises or expands official news

With graphic touches and resplendent hues;

Teaches the doubtful battle where to rage

And sprinkles diagrams on ev'ry page;

Creates new posts or, at his own sweet will,

Proceeds expected vacancies to fill;

Deposes Kings, Prime Ministers, Grand Dukes,

And rival pundits suitably rebukes.

A hundred thousand readers every week

For solace in his commentaries seek,

Swear by his arguments, and swear at those

Which rival quidnuncs artfully oppose.

Matched with an occupation such as this

Philosophy is destitute of bliss;

He only breathes content's untroubled air

Who wages warfare from a snug armchair.

R.N. Cadet (during his first term at Osborne—where he has been told always to salute his superior officers of both services—meeting some "temporary" subalterns who disregard his salute). "Really, mother, if these temporary subs of the junior service cannot behave as gentlemen and return my salute, I shall certainly give up taking any notice of them."

GOOD OPENINGS FOR M.P.'s.

The Manchester Guardian complains that there is a remarkable monotony about the opening of speeches in the House of Commons.

"On Wednesday forty-five speeches (not counting brief efforts in the way of interjections) were delivered, and in thirty cases the speeches began with the first person singular. Only fifteen members could think of anything more original." It appears that four speeches began with "I beg," four with "I should like," three with "I wish," and three with "I am sure."

It may be a little daring, perhaps, to suggest that some originality should be introduced into the methods of Parliamentary orators (writes a correspondent); but as one whose courage has never failed him in telling other people how to go about their business I venture to suggest a few openings which possibly have never yet been utilised.

As it is half the battle, to the speaker, to grip interest at the very outset, the following might be tried: "Drip, drip, drip—the blood fell from the ceiling." This would cause departing Members to drop sharply back into their seats. Only a little ingenuity would be required to make these words the opening of a speech on any timely topic. Our aristocratic legislators could make certain of arresting attention by beginning, "In the words of a friend of mine, a well-known Peckham butcher"—another gambit that could be made to suit any subject, from the shipping problem to the Zeppelin nuisance.

Or again, "The missis woke me up in the middle of last Tuesday night, and said"—This is the kind of homely touch that would ensure a sympathetic hearing.

Members might also make a good start with "'Twas" and "Methinks," even at the risk of being accused of the use of unparliamentary expressions.

If they would only study the poets I they would find plenty of bright and original openings. What better could be desired than Browning's

"So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess

Was left with the infant in her clutches,"

if occasion should arise in the House for criticism of the heartless action of a Local Tribunal in disallowing a Duke's claim for exemption?

Many a man possesses an undiscovered knack of extempore rhyming, a gift which has seldom or never been exercised in the House of Commons. That will be a bright day for legislators when a Member rises in his place and begins something like this: "Sir, if the House will bear with me one moment, I should like to say that I, for one, cannot agree that we have found the perfect way of dealing with a gross neglect to which all honest men object." Any Member who could keep up that sort of thing for half-an-hour (and some, no doubt, could, if they would only practise) would achieve lasting fame, not only for his originality, but because of the remarkable scenes amid which his concluding lines would almost certainly be uttered.

"The Germans planned to expel the British from South Africa, aided by disinfected Boers."

Englishman (Calcutta),

But, in the end, it was General Botha who cleared out the Germs.

Mabel (after Sunday tea, on departure of officers quartered in the neighbourhood). "I'm glad Captain Devereux didn't come, as I'm not looking my oldest to-day."

MY DUG-OUT.

(A Memory of Gallipoli)

It was my home, not ringed with roses blowing,

Nor set in meadows where cool waters croon;

Parched wastes were round it, and no shade was going,

Nor breath of violets nor song-birds' tune;

Only at times from the adjacent dwelling

Came down with Boreas the quaint, compelling

Scent of the Tenth Platoon.

And there not hermit-like alone I brooded,

But ant and lizard and all things that crawl

With great grasshoppers by brigades intruded;

Therein the tortoise had his homely stall;

Green flies and blue slept nightly in their notches,

Save when a serpent, in the middle watches,

Came and disturbed us all.

There, where the sun, the senseless sun, kept pouring,

And dust-clouds smothered one about the chest,

While secret waters filtered through the flooring

(In case the heat should leave one too oppressed),

Always I lay in those sad fevered seasons

Which Red-Hat humourists, for mystic reasons,

Regarded as our "rest."

For it was home; and when I was not in it,

But in the trenches, it was home indeed;

When mad foes fired at twenty rounds a minute

(Not, I may say, the regulation speed),

For me far more it harboured my Penates;

I missed my animals; I missed my gay teas

With Alf, the centipede.

And I am shocked to think that that same ceiling

Shields now some Mussulman of lowly strain;

Yet, though he knows me not, I can't help feeling

That something of my spirit must remain,

And if, in that rich air the man should mellow

In mind, in soul, and be a better fellow,

I have not lived in vain.

And it may be, when worlds have ceased to wrestle,

I shall go back across the Midland foam

At special rates in some large tourist vessel

To my late hollow in the Sultan's loam,