Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/581

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

June 23, 1915

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

487

A NEW WAR-TIME CADDIE.

Player (two down at the turn). "I'm very much annoyed with you, caddie, for not watching my ball at the last hole. The loss of that ball means a very serious thing in a match of this kind."

New Caddie. "Don't you go worrying yourself about a little thing like that, Sir. Quite likely, in the course of our wandering over this ground, we shall come on another, and, mark you, a better, ball."

THE REST CURE.

If I were the sole dictator and protector of the State
And untrammelled arbitrator of all causes small or great,
With no shade of hesitation I would cheerfully proceed
To the prompt elimination of the Folk We Do Not Need.

Though the proverb is emphatic on the merits of "Stone Dead,"
I should not be so fanatic as to knock them on the head;
But, as quite the very best cure of the ills that we abhor,
I'd condemn them to a rest cure till the finish of the War.

First, it goes without the saying, all the scribbling men of straw
Who are always busy slaying England's foemen with their jaw
Should no more be tolerated when they rave and rage and ramp,
But be speedily located in our Soporific Camp.

Next I'd take the politicians who can only growl and grouse,
With the rancorous rhetoricians who exasperate the House,
And the candid friends of Britain who, whenever we have won,
Are invariably smitten with compassion for the Hun.

Then I'd add the precious rollers of each other's petty logs;
Foreign policy "controllers," pettifogging demagogues;
All the "copperheads" whose mission is to cavil and embroil,
And to crab the Coalition, since it halves the Party's spoil.

Finally, without compunction all the novelists I'd seize
Who've usurped the critic's function; and, to cure their fell disease,
And to purge their souls' disquiet of the tyranny of tracts
I'd confine their mental diet to MacDonald's stream of facts.

This is only a selection of the folk I'd like to see
Placed, to better our protection, safely under lock and key:
Alien enemies give trouble, yet it has to be confessed
We are menaced with a double danger in the native pest.

"It has been ascertained that the Kaiser visited Hartmannsweilerkopf in order to encourage the Guardsmen, and that after the stubborn resistance of the Germans by the Cameroons he retired to a high plateau in the centre of the colony and sat down."

Hong Kong Daily Press.

Further details of the Kaiser's movements from the same veracious authority are awaited with interest. Meanwhile we understand that his favourite song for the moment is "The March of the Cameroons Men."

"I met Mr. John Redmond in the outer lobby on Thursday and he looked terribly cross. What had upset him? By the way. I missed the familiar flower from his button-hole. He was wearing the small bow-tie which Mr. Balfour has made so familiar."

Weekly Dispatch.

But do not draw the hasty inference that Mr. Balfour had previously pinched Mr. Redmond's button-hole.