Various

“ However, I discovered one remaining trooper lying in the shade of a loquat-tree. He was sick—dying, he assured me; but I persuaded him to postpone his demise for at least half-an-hour, requisitioned his physician (the local witch doctor) and two camp followers, and, leaving my cook-boy to valet them, dashed to my hut to make my own toilet. A glimpse through the cane mats five minutes later showed me that our visitors had arrived.
A fruity German officer in full gala rig (white gloves and all) was cruising about on mule-back before our camp, trying to discover whether it was inhabited or not. ”

“ Boys of all ages should delight in this record of the fights and wanderings and stout diplomacy of the chieftain Thorgills, who was destined from his cradle to be a notable leader of men. His marriage with Thorey was a romance of as exquisite a flavour as any that our sophisticated age can show, and its tragic end wrings the heart with its infinite pathos. ”

“ Then, at a given signal, Frobisher, caparisoned in every fal-lal he could collect, issued from his hut, and I turned out the improvised guard. A stirring spectacle; and it had the desired effect, for the German afterwards admitted to being deeply impressed, especially by the local wizard, who paraded in his professional regalia, and, coming to cross-purposes with his rifle, bayoneted himself and wept bitterly. The ceremonies over and the casualty removed we adjourned to Frobisher's kya, broached the whisky and sat about in solemn state, stiff with accoutrements, sodden with perspiration. ”

“ Much as they enjoy their holidays, they show no undue reluctance to take up again the burden of their studies at a place which they will afterwards consider as having given them some of the happiest days of their lives. Many of them indeed are already or are in process of becoming the trusted coadjutors of the headmaster and his colleagues in the work of maintaining good order and discipline in the school. ”

“ Of such awful beings one must not speak lightly lest some terrific fate reserved for scoffers overtake one. No, my concern at present is rather with the little boys who have gone up for the first time to their preparatory school, those forlorn scraps of humanity who are beginning a life entirely new to them in all its details. ”

“ SIR,—The real trouble with the food economy campaign is that ordinary people, who perhaps, not unnaturally, have got into the habit of not believing the daily papers, do not realise what their enemy and the chief enemy of the country at this moment is—I mean the German submarine. ”

“ Here we are back again in the world of small things; but if "M.E. FRANCIS'S" theme is trivial there is no denying the art with which she handles it. Just a quartette of characters occupies her rural stage—an old grandmother, wise with the wisdom of years, her granddaughter, a middle-aged farmer and a young gipsy "dairy-chap." To the horror of her relations the Maid o' Dorset conceives an infatuation for the gipsy, a clever rogue but no match for the grandmother. I have met a good many farmers in my time, but never one so simple-minded as Solomon Blanchard. ”

“ There is no bullying nowadays and little roughness of any kind. Masters are not looked upon as the natural enemies of boys. Corporal punishment, except for the gravest offences, is abolished. Whereas, formerly, little boys were at once sucked into the vortex of a Public School, there are now Preparatory Schools, where Tommie and Dickie and Harry, aged from nine to ten, learn the business of Public Schooling in a manner suited to their age and capacity. ”

“ A neutral diplomatist of considerable importance has never taken a holiday since the War began, and has always told his friends that he will never leave his post till peace comes. On an afternoon this week he was seen with beaming face buying a travelling rug and two portable trunks at one of London's largest emporia. ”

“ The path of the little boy is thus made easier for him."
"But," I said, "is a little boy, then, never brought to a sense of his unimportance by being physically, if not morally, kicked? Is he to pass his life in a condition of Sybaritic softness?"
"You need not," he said, "worry about that. Softness makes no appeal to the average English boy."
When therefore, on a day in last week, it happened to me to take a little boy I happen to know to his Preparatory School on his first day of his first term there, I did so with no undue depression. "Be a good boy," I said to him ”

“ All eyes are fixed on the two great African Powers which still stand aside from the maelström of war. The position in Ethiopia is, to say the least of it, tendentious, and at any moment the natives may change their skin. ”

“ Of the big boys and the middle-sized boys I have little to say. They are already imbued, if one may say so, with the influence of their school, and can hold their own with the masters and their fellow-boys. ”

“ In his hands the rapier has become a ploughshare. At first the few Members who stayed to listen found him Le Mond qui nous ennuie, but he woke them up later with the startling announcement that he can, if he likes, with a stroke of the pen remove the ladies' grille, and admit the fair visitors to a full view of the House, and, what is more important, admit the House to a full view of the fair visitors. ”

“ Punch, though yielding in patriotism to no one, has already decided to present the whole ticket.
From a letter by "Retired Diplomat" on "Maize Bread":—
"To obtain this result the hard yellow husk must be separated from the soft white core, as does the parrot, and the latter alone retained for baking purposes."—Evening Paper.
As in these days no means of increasing the supply of food-stuffs should be neglected, we have much pleasure in passing on "Retired Diplomat's" suggestion to the authorities of the Zoo. Personally we prefer Cockatoo en casserole. ”

“ From their homes, out on to the roads and railways, has been pouring a flood of big boys, middle-sized boys, small boys, old boys, new boys, all tending towards the various schools where they are supposed to make all the best parts of human knowledge their own and to live a life of dignified abstraction from the troubles of the world, in the midst of their own argot and their own special traditions. ”

“ Highland sheep-raisers are said to be feeding their lambs by hand on a mixture of hot milk and whisky. The little patients appear to take kindly to the diet, and one or two have even been understood to suggest that it seems rather a waste of milk. ”

“ The usually reliable correspondent of The Salt Lake City Morning Pioneer telegraphs (viâ Tomsk) that she only escaped lynching by distributing her treasure to the mob.
In a similar way economic issues are determining the attitude of Thibet. Prices in Lhassa are rising fabulously. The new Food Controller is endeavouring to grapple with the situation, and the yak ration has again been reduced. It behoves British diplomacy to see that the ensuing discontent is not turned into Germanophil currents. Where is our Foreign Office? What is being done? ”

“ In this little book the too familiar story is given with a restraint and absence of striving after effect that leave me, as I say, uncertain whether its appeal is due to art or actuality. But in either case Mrs. PENNELL has told it very well.
"Father, what is the difference between Tories and Radicals?" "Radicals, my dear, are the infamous crew who wish to destroy all the noble institutions for which the Tories would give their life-blood." ”

“ In order to assist the many fine specimens of moth in the Insect House, it is reported that several actor-managers owning fur coats have offered them a good home.
The birds of paradise are no longer fed on beetroot. Since the all-red root has been denied them they protest against being called birds of paradise, and wish to be known simply as "birds." ”

“ MUSICAL PLAYS AND REVUES.—Patriotic or Hortatory Songs may be accompanied by four beams, with supplementary allowance for encore verses. (N.B. In these cases application should be supported by a recommendation from the particular Government Department, War Office. Admiralty, or Ministry of Munitions, extolled in the proposed ballad.)
Ethiopian Serenades, hitherto given by the light of (apparently) two full-moons, must be restricted to one beam, of reduced candle-power, thus combining realism with economy. ”

“ The President, in a moving address to the Panaguan Senate, declared, "The world is watching Panagua; it does not watch in vain." Señora Hysterica, the first woman senator, cast the only vote against war. ”

“ At the Shoreditch Tribunal a firm appealing for a man stated that he was "a director, traveller, buyer, manager, acted as cashier and costs clerk, loaded the vans, kept the place clean and made himself generally useful." ”

“ More than two-thirds of the population are spies. Relatives are only allowed to speak to each other if granted a special licence or talking-ticket by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, though there is a special dispensation for mothers-in-law. The reported mobilization of eighty goats on Mount Tabor shows pretty clearly which way the wind is blowing; whilst it is persistently rumoured in Joppa that five camels were seen passing through Jerusalem yesterday. Suspicious dredging operations in the Dead Sea are also reported by a Berne correspondent. The future is big with presage. ”

“ No performer to take more than thirty-five seconds in quitting the stage. Backward looks and doorway pauses forbidden (provided always that nothing in this section shall apply to the case of an actor-manager when surrendering heroine to youthful rival) . ”

“ Punch also commends to his kind readers the claims of "Lamp Day," which is to be celebrated in London on Friday, May 11th, and in the suburbs on May 12th, the birthday of FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. The proceeds are to be divided between the Women's Service Bureau, which registers and trains women for national employment, and the Scottish Women's Hospitals, whose London units are doing gallant work with the Serbian division of the Russian Army in Roumania. ”

“ A tree can be kept bearing practically regular crops. Of course, it is impossible to keep any tree bearing practically regular crops, but, of course, it is impossible to keep any tree bearing a full crop regularly. ”

“ His mother in Munich had sent him a case of Lion Brew, Otto explained, so he had brought it along.
We wassailed deep into that night and out the other side, and we liked our Otto more than ever. We had plenty in common, the same loneliness, fevers, climate, and niggers to wrestle with ”

“ Monday, April 30th.—After this week Newmarket will be "a blasted heath," for all horse-racing is to be stopped. Irish Members could hardly believe the dreadful news. What are the hundred thousand young men who refuse to for their country to do with their spare time? ”

“ Punch begs to call attention to a Great Lottery of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, etc., by many of the chief British artists of the day and of earlier schools, which is being organised, by licence of the Board of Trade, in aid of the St. ”