Various

“ The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another. There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for self-expression.
Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so. There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of red grinning faces above the coping. ”

“ There is the village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty cottages with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a little school where the children are still taught to curtsey and pull their forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green, at the end of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton Common, you come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red Riding-Hood on the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs, that is only because you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. ”

“ Admirals of the High Fleet are displaced; in politics leaders come and go and reputations pass; in ordinary life a thousand mutations are visible. But amid all this flux there remains mercifully one resolute piece of routine that nothing can alter. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the world—mutinies in the German Navy, revolutions in Russia, advances in France, advances in Flanders—Leicester Square keeps its head. ”

“ DEAR MR. PETHERTON,—No doubt you have seen the recent letters in the local paper anent the remains of the old Cross, which are at once an ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a standing menace to the peace of mind of the local antiquarians.
I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that the views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of archæology to the long list of his accomplishments, would be both interesting and instructive to myself and (if you would allow your views to be published) to our little community in general. ”

“ SIR,—I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.
Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries (1272-1307) , not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not earlier than the fifteenth century. ”

“ A hint is as good as a wink to them, a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most trivial incident burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. ”

“ Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded munitioneers. ”

“ He shows an obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at St. Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France pleasantly shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat in a fine sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win the battles, don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for us," says the Squire. ”

“ For the rest there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the exit of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is thoroughly sound farce. ”

“ It is natural enough to suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed, when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. ”

“ Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the English in the early twentieth century?
Mary. Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.
Mrs. M. The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels and singers. ”

“ One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals, but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets, polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without much effort. ”

“ Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning, we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. ”

“ From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves, leopards, &c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair to our own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to be on the eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that country. ”

“ I am a native of Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a week-end, and adding, "You can do a little professional job for me too. You really will be interested to see what splendid work is being done here in your line of fire. ”

“ It is enough to say that some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been eliminated. ”

“ Young sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must either be broken to bones or killed for the table.
An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination of flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last revealed.
The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have always said they would be reduced to it in time. ”

“ One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect sufficient débris to boil his dixies. Next day the Bosch Funny Cuts flared forth scareheads:—
"SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.
"The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed scouting in the open." ”

“ The heroine tells her story in the first person—a difficult method of handling fiction at the best—and in the result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill. ”

“ I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It says if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your Local Food Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special constable."
"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a policeman in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one. Have you?"
"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."
"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's no good to us."
"No, but we might find a special constable."
"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special constable. ”

“ But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been knocked out by this direct hit.
Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front) . "You could have buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!" Sugar Control
.
Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head per-haps.
"HOGS STILL SOARING."
Headline in Canadian Paper.
The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads. ”

“ In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has avenged the long-dead lady.
[pg 265]
ENIGMA.
POLICEMAN (on duty at St. Stephen's) . "STAND ASIDE, PLEASE."
MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."
MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"
[pg 266]
Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless zone) . "'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN—FAIR IN THE 'IGHTH OF THE SEASON." THE MUD LARKS.
All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old Atkins. ”

“ Their economics are sounder than their sociology, which is of the crudest. They specialize in jewellery—useless, barbaric and generally vulgar survivals—which they extract from shop and safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing the proceeds to various deserving charitable agencies. ”