Contrary to the usual custom there were no official dinners on the eve of the opening of Parliament. The explanation of this is clear to the German Press. It was due to scarcity of food.
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Upon receipt of the Japanese ultimatum, the Kaiser, it may be remembered, cabled to the commander of his Chinese fortress:—"Bear in mind that it would shame me more to surrender Kinochau to the Japanese than Berlin to the Russians." The kind-hearted Russians will now, we feel sure, have less compunction in taking Berlin, seeing that the blow will have been softened to an anticlimax.
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The Kaiser's hair, it is said, is now bleached; but this attempt to look like a white man will deceive no one.
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Just as we go to press a report reaches us which certainly bears the impress of truth on the face of it. It declares that the Crown Prince has been shot for looting by a short-sighted brother-officer who did not recognise the son of God's Viceregent on Earth.
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"The British Navy is in hiding," says the Kölnische Zeitung. We beg our fragrant contemporary not to worry. In due course the Germans shall have the hiding.
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It is so frequently stated that the leaders of the German Army attach no importance to the lives of their men that it seems only fair to point out that last week Brussels was fined £200,000 for wounding a couple of German police men.
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Neither the French, Russian, Belgian, nor British troops like the idea of fighting against the mere youths whom a paternal Kaiser is now sending in to the firing line, and a humane suggestion has been put forward for correcting this embarrassment. Would it not be possible, it is asked, to arrange Boys' Own Battles, in which the German little ones would be opposed by the young of the Allies?
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"Klopstock, one of our greatest geniuses," says the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, "taught us 'Be not excessively just.' We shall endeavour now to follow that teaching." We should say that there is no great danger of the German nation breaking down under the strain of this effort.
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"How ever do the Teutons manage to produce so many lies about us?" asks "A Lover of Truth." Our correspondent is evidently not much of a gardener or he would have heard of "Intensive Culture."
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The reply published by the Vissische Zeitung to the protest of French clergymen against the destruction of Louvain and the shelling of Rheims Cathedral contained at least one unfortunate expression. It asserted that the German Emperor and the German People are both permeated with a burning love of peace.
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The Rev. Mr. Edwards has resigned his assistant curacy at Tettenhall under somewhat peculiar circumstances, but we are sure the case is not so bad as The Wolverhampton Express would have us believe. According to our contemporary this gentleman exhorted his congregation "not to hate the Germans, but rather to pay for them."
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A wounded Tommy in one of our London hospitals, on being asked, the other day, by a lady visitor what he thought of the French soldiers, replied that he very much admired the French Curaçaos.
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When in Breslau, The Evening News tells us, the Kaiser promised that the Russian Army should be crushed. Fortunately in this case the undertaking was not even written on a scrap of paper.
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"For thirty-two years," says the Vissische Zeitung, "Egypt has had to endure British rule." Curiously enough this bright little sheet does not go on to point out that during the same period the poor Egyptians have also had to put up with a good deal of prosperity.