Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/515

"Prince von Bülow," an Exchange telegram informs us, "is keenly distressed and humiliated at the failure of his diplomatic mission." Somehow or other we had a sort of presentiment that it would not please him.

"The Italian Admiralty has refused the application of Signor d'Annunzio, the poet, to enlist in the Navy, but the War Office has offered him a commission in the light horse." The light horse, we imagine, includes our old friend Pegasus.

It is not, we believe, generally known that, as a result of the German official instructions to the Press to show Italy goodwill to the very last second, quite a number of German editors broke out in spots all over.

The practical nature of the Teuton has once inore been asserting itself. Busy men in Germany, we hear, are now allowed, in order to save time, to greet their friends with the abbreviations "G. S. E." and "G. S. I.," instead of saying at length, "Gott strafe England" and "Gott strafe Italien."

We hear that the only persons in Germany who are thoroughly pleased at Italy's entry into the War are the schoolboys there. They have resolved never to let a word of Latin pass their lips again.

A writer in the Münchener Post refers to the "hang-dog look" of the British officers in France. It evidently is not realised that this hang-dog look means a determination to suspend the mad dog of Potsdam.

The King of Saxony prohibited all public celebrations of his fiftieth birthday last week. This is taken to signify that His Majesty wishes he had not been born.

Referring to Lord Kitchener and Mr. Lloyd George and their respective spheres The Pall Mall Gazette remarks, "Each part of the work in this war is big enough for a giant." Physically, of course, Mr. Lloyd George is one of the smallest giants in the world.

It is possible, we hear, that, with a view to the nation's devoting its entire energies and attention to the war against Germany, the anti-fly campaign may be dropped.

"Not a hair on the head of a single foreigner who has thrown in his lot with Germany, and lives in our midst as a German citizen," says the Deutsche Tageszeitung, "has been touched since the war began." This certainly shows wonderful self-restraint on the part of the German barbers.

A German Professor of Theology, Herr D. Baumgarten, has been delivering a remarkable sermon on the righteousness of the German cause. The destruction of the Lusitania," says this holy man, "should be greeted with jubilation and enthusiastic cheering, and everybody who does not cheer is no real or true German." Many harsh things have been said of the Germans, but nothing quite so bitter as this suggestion for a test of nationality.

"Is the world," asks the Berlin Lokalanzeiger, "so helplessly shackled under the English hypnotism that it cannot see the hideous monster of despotism which, at England's beck, is crouching on their very shoulders, and under which they are surely doomed to be crushed." The answer is in the affirmative. Isn't it awful?

The Paris Matin states that a consignment of preserved food in tins, which was seized during transit to Germany, was found to contain 4,000 revolvers. This—which points to gross carelessness on the part of somebody—is by no means the first occasion on which foreign matter has been found in canned foods, as witness the Chicago revelations of some years back.

Leather is now becoming scarce in Germany, and an appeal is being made to parents to allow their children to go to school in wooden shoes. In return, we take it, the children would not be leathered by the schoolmaster.

The latest, suggestion from Germany, the home of Culture, is, we hear, that captured flying men should be placed in cages.

It seems very strange, after all that we have heard of the thoroughness of the enemy's methods, that not a single case of scalping has hitherto been brought to our notice.

"New York, Wednesday.—I learn from a Washing source which is usually of the best authority that the German Government has ordered the suspension of its submarine activities against neutral commerce."—Manchester Evening News.

These things always come out in the wash.

From a review:—

"The book is revolting. It is an insult to every patriotic and fine feeling. It ridicules all that is noble and good. It is fit meat for the common hangman."—Globe.

This appears under the headline, "Books Worth Reading." Well, Disgustibus non est disputandum.

New theory of the origin of the War. From Dublin University:—

"Changes in French Honor Courses necessitated by the War made with the authority of the Council during Michaelmas Term, 1914, and approved as permanent changes by the Committee of the School of Modern Languages and Literature."

"Aigues Mortes, the historic little port on the Mediterranean from which St. Louis sailed on his two crusades in 1848 and 1870."

The Graphic.

These episodes in the after-life of St. Louis had not been previously recorded. One cannot wonder, however, that he preferred to be out of his native land in those particularly strenuous years.