An exceptionally well-informed Berlin newspaper has discovered that, owing to the war, Ireland is suffering from a horse famine, and many of the natives are now to be seen driving cattle.
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An appeal is being made in Germany for cat-skins for the tropps. In their Navy, on the other hand, they often get the cat itself.
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In offering congratulations to the "Green Howards" on the work they have been doing at the Front, Major-General Capper said, "I knew it was a regiment I could hang my hat on at any time of the day or night." The expression is perhaps a little unfortunate; it sounds as if they had been pegging out.
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Private F. Nailor, of the Royal Berkshires, was at his home at Sandhurst last week when the postman brought a letter from the War Office reporting that he had been killed in action. While his being alive is, of course, in these circumstances an act of gross insubordination, the Army Council will, we we understand, content itself with an intimation that it must not happen again.
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A cigar presented by the Kaiser to Lord Lonsdale has been sold at Henley in aid of the local Red Cross Hospital, and has become the property of a butcher at the price of £14 10s. Will it, we wonder, now be inscribed, "From a brother butcher?"
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According to the Berliner Tageblatt Western Australia is interning her alien enemies on "Rottnest Island." If there is anything in a name, this does seem a rather unhappy choice, in view of the well-known sensitiveness of the German.
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It is curious how in war time really important occurrences are apt to escape one's notice. For example, it was not until we read an article in a contemporary last week on "The Demise of the Slim Skirt" that we realised that Fat Skirts were not the vogue.
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Of all forms of cruelty the most hideous is that which is perpetrated on defenceless little children, and we hear with regret that the Register of Births in Liverpool now includes the following names:—Kitchener Ernest Pickles, Jellicoe Jardine, French Donaldson, and Joffre Venmore.
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With reference to our recent remarks about Mr. J. Ward's so-called mixed metaphor of a horse bolting with money, a gentleman writed to us from Epsom to say that he has personally put money on more than one horse which bolted.
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The War would certainly seem to have led to better feeling in the Labour world between masters and men, and from the recent paragraph in The Daily Mail we learn that there is now a London Association of Master Decorators. The idea is a pretty one. Iron Crosses, perhaps?
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The War has worked other wonders. Not the least of these, a Stock Exchange friend points out, is that lots of Bulls and Bears are now comrades in arms.
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"New Phase in Russia.
Germans changing their dispositions."Daily Mail.
We are glad to hear this, for they used to have simply beastly ones.
Orderly. "Your Majesty, I have been sent to ask for detailed instructions about the Christmas dinner to be held at Buckingham Pal———"
Wilhelm. ———! ———!!
Another secret revealed by Mr. Hamilton Fyfe:—
"As usual when they take the initiative, the Russian troops swept the enemy before them. They first cleared out the trenches and then pursued the Germans."—Daily Mail.
In the West we still cling to the old-fashioned method of first clearing out the Germans and then pursuing the trenches.
Messrs. Harrap have just brought out William the Silent. This is not a biography of the Kaiser.
Nor is The Hound of Heaven, a new edition of which is announced by Messrs. Chatto and Windus.
Mr. Edward Cressy's Discoveries and Inventions of the Twentieth Century makes no mention, curiously enough, of the Wolff Bureau. We look in vain, too, among the Yuletide publications for a book of Fairy Tales by William Hohenzollern. This does not speak well for the alertness of our publishers.
Messrs. Jack, we see, have produced a Life of Nelson. It is now, we consider, up to Messrs. Nelson to produce a volume with some such title as We All Love Jack.
At last the Germans are reported to have scored a little success in the United States. An American coon is said to have been so much impressed by the achievements of the Germans that he has sent a song to the Kaiser, the opening words of which are "My Hunny!"
The War is responsible for a splendid boom in the study of geography. An English lady who visited some fo the Belgian wounded at a certain London hospital the other day asked one of them where he was hit, and on receiving the reply, "Au pied," is said to have spent hours trying to find the place on the map.
Which reminds us that, owing to the new names which the various belligerents are giving to towns which they have conquered (like Lemberg) or temporarily occupied (like Ostend), several map-makers are reported to be suffering from nervous breakdown.
The Kaiser's Thanks.
"The Archbishop of York and Germany."
Heading in "Edinburgh Evening Despatch."
Other pluralists, like the Bishop of Sodor and Man, are not at all jealous, nor are we at all surprised.
"They drank the full-flavoured soup with scarcely a sound."—The Story-Teller.
Another example of true British refinement.
