Various

“ God knows we have striven to keep the peace through months and years of racking anxiety. If war comes it is not we who have sought it. Nobody can lay that reproach upon us. Rather have we striven by all honourable means to avoid it. But we have ideals that we cannot abandon, though they may clash with German ambitions and German methods. ”

“ Germany is in difficulties; the submarine weapon is the only one that will help Germany, therefore Germany must use that weapon ruthlessly and hack through with it, whatever may be urged on behalf of international law or humanity at large. Humanity doesn't count in the German mind because humanity doesn't wear a German uniform or look upon the KAISER as absolutely infallible. ”

“ Judging by the crowded state of all the myriad places of entertainment in this city there are millions who are like them. But I couldn't help thinking that if so much money seems really to be needed, and this Mr. LAW is really a public benefactor, it might not be a bad idea to try to divert some of the thousands of pounds being paid every day in London alone for sheer amusement. ”

“ On my way back to France I seized the opportunity of looking in at Cox's and there took back from the Government for my own sole and absolute use some of those very pounds my son had borrowed from the bank to give it. But I lost in the end, for my wife, whom I had taken with me to witness her and his discomfiture, had all the money off me again, in order, I gather, to put it in my son's money-box, for him to rattle now and spend later. The only result of my efforts therefore was to land me in a financial transaction so complicated that I cannot even follow it myself. ”

“ They imagine they can ruin England with their submarines—they 're probably wrong, but that's their notion—but if they give way to America this illegitimate weapon is blunted and they lose the war. Sooner than suffer that catastrophe they will defy America. And they don't believe as yet that America means what she says and is determined to fight rather than suffer these outrages to continue. The Germans will try to throw dust in your eyes, Mr. President, while continuing the submarine atrocities. ”

“ From an article in the Berliner Tageblatt descriptive of life on the Western Front:—
"Perhaps the sun will soon bring warm wind, and how glad one would be of a thaw in the trenches. But then the accursed time will come again when the whole surface of Northern France sticks to the boot of the German soldier."—The Times. ”

“ So far from being well-lighted, I assure you that our few little streets and market square are a blaze compared with this city. Some streets here are absolutely dark, and even in the great thoroughfares there is so little light that crossing the road is most perilous. ”

“ As between one man and another, he did not attempt to deny the truth of my assertion, gave me to understand, with a jovial smile, that such little incidents must always be expected as long as humanity remains human, and repudiated all personal responsibility in this instance. ”

“ It is just the difference between the soldier telling his own artless and rugged tale and someone else telling it for him with a touch of artifice. But when the author merely uses the War as her background she writes with real power. ”

“ A Carmelite sleuth at a City restaurant reports that one "Food Hog" had for luncheon "half-a-dozen oysters, three slices of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, two vegetables and a roll." The after-luncheon roll is of course the busy City man's substitute for the leisured club-man's after-luncheon nap.
There is plenty of coal in London, the dealers announce, for those who are willing to fetch it themselves. Purchasers of quantities of one ton or over should also bring their own paper and string. ”

“ Nowhere will you find a better bargain for your shilling.
HELEN MACKAY, in A Journal of Small Things (MELROSE) , sets before us with, it might seem, almost too deliberate simplicity of idiom little scenes and remembered reflections of her days in France since the July of the terrible year. An American to whom France has come to be her adopted and most tenderly loved foster-country, she tells of little things, chiefly sad little things, seen in the hospitals she served or by the wayside or in the houses of the simple and the great, shadowed alike by the all-embracing desolation of the War. ”

“ If I'd known I should have kept my waterproof on for luncheon.
Do you realise how dismal a thing it is for us to be separated from our own by a High Sea all these months and years? It ain't fair, Sir, it simply ain't fair. In my case there is not only a wife amongst wives, but also a son amongst sons. Now, Charles, I am the very last person to call a thing good merely because it is my own, nor am I that kind of fool who thinks all his geese are swans. ”

“ But I am a patriot. It seemed to me that £2,500 a year was rather more than I was worth to the nation. Was I better value than six M.P.'s? Of course I might be worth six RAMSAY MACDONALDS. However I resolved to avoid greed and ask for a simple hundred thousand.
So I went to my bank and said to a blue-eyed, Watteau type of beauty, "I want to see the manager, please. Concerning an important investment in War Loan," I added hastily, fearing lest the damsel should conclude that I wanted an ordinary overdraft. ”

“ Then there is coal. I went, as we arranged, first to the Jerusalem Hotel, but it was like ice. When I asked the hotel people why the central heating was not on, they said that there is no coal. At least it seems that there is coal, but no one to deliver it. Just think of our coal-merchant returning such a reply to us when the cellar was getting empty. But in London they seem to be ready to put up with any excuse. Why the men who ought to deliver the coals are not made to, I can't imagine. ”

“ It isn't so much his four and a half teeth I'm thinking of, nor is it the twenty-seven overgrown and badly managed hairs which wander about at the back of his bald head and give him the look of a dissipated monk. It is just his intrinsic worth, clearly evidenced in everything about him. Obviously a man of parts, he has brains, a stout heart and an unfailing humour. ”

“ The British revolution goes on apace. The Game Laws, over which so many Parliamentary battles have been fought, were swept away in a moment this afternoon when Captain BATHURST announced in his usual level tones that British farmers would in future be allowed to destroy pheasants with as little compunction as if they were rabbits, and with no regard to the sacredness of close-time.
After this momentous announcement, which transforms (subject to the opinion of the law-officers) every tenant-farmer into a pheasant-proprietor, Members took a little time to recover their breath. ”

“ The funny thing is that there is plenty of good light, only they don't know how to apply it. Every night, directly it begins to be dark, great streams of light are turned on from all parts of the city ”

“ On the Somme, says The Times, the New Zealand Pioneers, consisting of Maoris, Pakehas and Raratongans, dug 13,163 yards of trenches, mostly under German fire. The really thrilling fact about this is that we have enlisted the sympathy of the Pakehas (or "white men") , who, with the single exception of the Sahibs of India, are probably the fiercest tribe in our vast Imperial possessions.
The announcement that the Scotland Yard examination will not be lowered for women taxicab drivers has elicited a number of inquiries as to whether "language" is a compulsory or an alternative subject. ”

“ An Evening News correspondent states that at one restaurant last week a man consumed "a large portion of beef, baked potatoes, brussels-sprouts, two big platefuls of bread, apple tart, a portion of cheese, a couple of pats of butter and a bottle of wine." ”

“ So he led off the poor fellow to the slaughter, and put him in charge of two hundred N.C.O.s and men proceeding on leave to the U.K. I've no doubt the fellow spent the best part of his days on the other side trying to get rid of his party. I have not been two years in France without discovering that you simply cannot be too careful when you are attempting to get out of it.
When I reached England my feelings with regard to myself changed. I was no longer reticent about my rank. I displayed my uniform in a public restaurant, without any reserve. ”

“ Once they were cold cheerless places. A suspicion of an overdraft always swept through them. Now I love to go to the bank and see the beautiful blonde and brown and auburn heads bent over the ledgers. If I could be quite certain that they were not looking up the details of my account I should be perfectly happy.
Somebody told me that I could buy War Loan at 51⁄4 per cent. by borrowing money from my bank at five per cent. This seemed to be the kind of investment I had been looking for. I found that if I took a million on those terms I should draw a net income of £2,500 a year. ”

“ Nobody knows the misery of bein' lapped in luxury in a billet better than me and Jim. Mrs. Dawkins, as I told you, give us the best of everything in the 'ouse and our lives wasn't worth livin' owin' to Mr. Dawkins and the little Dawkinses and a young man lodger takin' against us in consekence. Seein' that they 'adn't a bed between 'em while we was given one apiece and their end of the table had next to nothin' on when ours was weighed down with sausages and suchlike, it were not surprisin' that Mr. Dawkins and the lodger swore at us and the little Dawkinses put their tongues out. ”

“ Still, nearly all investment is a gamble, and we can only hope for the best. He must have some peculiar position or the papers would not support his venture as they do; and there is even a campaign of public speakers through the country, I am told, taking his prospectus as their text and literally imploring the people to invest. ”

“ There are, of course, exceptions to this rule—strong men who are fully conscious of their strength. Lord MIDLETON, for example, who sought a comprehensive return of all the buildings commandeered and staffs employed by the multifarious new Ministries, and was told that to provide it would put too great a strain on officials fully engaged on work essential to winning the War, promptly replied that if the Government would give him access to their books he would draw up a return in a couple of days. ”

“ This has caused some consternation among those who imagined that the War would end this year.
Lord DEVONPORT'S weekly bread allowance is regarded as extravagant by a lady correspondent, who writes, "In my own household we hardly eat any bread at all. We practically live on toast."
An informative contemporary explains that the Chinese eggs now arriving are nearly all brown and resemble those laid in this country by the Cochin China fowl. This, however, is not the only graceful concession to British prejudice, for the eggs, we notice, are of that oval design which is so popular in these islands. ”

“ She said it made her heart bleed to see us, but we should be grateful to 'er one day for teachin' us 'ow to cook our vittels for ourselves or go without 'em.
One of Jim's buttons come loose on his tunic and he asked Mrs. Larkins if she would be so kind as to sew it on for him. "Nothin' would please me better than to sew 'em all on, they're mostly 'angin' by a thread," she said; "but do you expect to find a woman in the trenches all 'andy to sew on your buttons? You'll 'ave to sew 'em on yourself, and the sooner you learn 'ow to do it the better." ”