Various

“ It was not until twenty years later that, as Madame Norman-Neruda, she revisited London, proved that consummate skill could be combined with admirable grace in a woman-violinist, took her place as a leader of the quartet at the Monday "Pops," upset the tyranny of the pianoforte and harp as the only instruments suitable for the young person, and virtually created the professional woman-violinist. Indeed, she may be said to have at once made the fiddle fashionable and profitable for girls. ”

“ Under the malign influence of Peace, sausages have become tasteless and pork-pies nothing but pies with pork in them; the crust chiefly plaster-of-Paris, and the meat not an essential element, soft and seductive and fused with the pastry, but an alien assortment of half-cooked cubes. I can understand that after a great war a certain deterioration must set in, but I fail to see why sausages and pork-pies, if made at all, should not be made as well as ever, especially as you get such a long price for them. ”

“ Huge bowls of hot food are constantly being mixed and carried to them, without any apparent consciousness on their part of their reciprocal responsibilities. What I mean to say is that there are no eggs. The food which they eat resembles Christmas-pudding at the time when it is stirred, and I have suggested that a sixpence should be concealed in it every now and then—sixpence being apparently the current price of an egg—in order to indicate the nature of our hopes. ”

“ The New Year is upon us and with it comes the determination to mend our bad habits and make serious efforts to turn over a new leaf. Perhaps you have already thought of this and have made some good resolutions; perhaps, on the other hand, you cannot think of anything amiss that needs correcting. In this case will you let me help you? In every other respect you may be perfection, but as an exchange operator, which is the only capacity in which (alas!) I know you, you are often lacking. I have no doubt that you are charming in private life and that we should get on famously if we met at dinner ”

“ One may put down bread-crumbs to attract the pheasant to one's garden when he is alive, or to one's plate when he is dead.
But I can see no justification whatever for keeping maybirds, for they are neither useful nor beautiful. Perhaps you do not know what a maybird is. I have five maybirds. I have them because people here would keep saying to me, "Look at the price of fresh eggs, and how much nicer it is to have your own." It is a curious thing about the country that people are always giving one disinterested advice in the matter of domestic economy. ”

“ I suggest that you should include among your good resolutions for the New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet—which of course they must, as betting is now the principal national industry—let them at least have the fun of selecting the "also-ran" themselves. ”

“ When the eminent conductor goes on, in his catalogue of their excellences, to say, "They do not drink, and they do not smoke as much as men," he reminds Mr. Punch of two historic sayings of a famous foreign conductor. The first was uttered at a rehearsal of the Venusberg music from Tannhäuser: "Gentlemen, you play it as if you were teetotalers—which you are not." ”

“ Punch has no desire to plunge into the controversy which has arisen over the employment of women in professional orchestras, especially as the cause has already been practically won, and here, at any rate, the saying, "What Lancashire thinks to-day England will think to-morrow," has failed to justify itself. ”

“ MAYBIRDS.
I can see some justification for keeping peacocks, especially if you have shaven lawns and terraces and sundials, though sundials, I imagine, are rather a nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is going to be bad.
The pheasant is also a useful and beautiful fowl. ”

“ It seems to us that your German, even after passing through the Melting Pot, remains a German; that your Irishman, however much he Americanises himself for [pg 518] purposes of political power and graft, remains an Irishman. You never seem to get together as a nation, except when you go to war, and even then you don't keep it up, for you're not together now, although you're still at war with Germany. The rest of the time you seem to spend in having Elections and 'placating' (I think that's what you call it) the German interest, or the negro interest, or the Sinn Fein interest. ”

“ You read on, expecting every moment that clever Miss Webling will give things a little push in the right direction and make them seem true, and, while you are reading and hoping, you come to the happy ending. ”

“ Punch, already in the last year which completes his fourth score, may be allowed to indulge in an old man's privilege of retrospect and incidentally to congratulate the ladies on the wonderful and triumphant progress they have made in instrumental art since the roaring 'forties. For in the 'forties women, though still supreme on the lyric stage, had hardly begun to assert themselves as executants, save on the pianoforte. ”

“ It is hoped to persuade Sir Eric Geddes to disguise himself as an Eton boy during the holidays to see how it feels.
It is now admitted that the plum-pudding which was badly mauled by a small boy in the Hoxton district on Christmas Day began it by inviting his assailant to "come on."
D'Annunzio is reported to be coming to a more reasonable frame of mind. Apparently he is disposed to allow Italy a certain measure of independence.
People step out into the road and never look to right or left, says a London coroner. This makes things far too easy for motorists. ”

“ But every now and then one or other of them makes the loud cry which is usually associated with successful egg-production; the whole household troops beaming with anticipation along the gravel-path; and it is then discovered that the Buff has knocked one of the Whites off her perch, or that one of the Whites has scratched a cinder on which the Buff had set her eye, or that the Independent member has made a bitter speech which is deeply resented by the Coalition. ”

“ Your Monroe Doctrine, which insists that nobody from outside shall interfere with your affairs, escapes you whenever you want to interfere with other people's. You even forget, at convenient times, your own Civil War. ”

“ About a week ago the corn which apparently forms a part of the necessary nourishment of maybirds, and is kept in an outhouse, was attacked by rats. I was told that I must do something about this. I buttered some slices of bread with arsenic and laid them down on the outhouse floor. The rats ate the bread and arsenic and went on with the corn. Unless a great improvement is manifested in the New Year I have decided to butter the maybirds with arsenic and place them in the outhouse too. ”

“ In London it is different. In London people let you take a twopenny bus ticket to Westminster instead of walking across the Park, and go to ruin in your own sweet way. They rather admire your dash. But in the country they tell you about these things.
So I went to a man and confessed to him my trouble about fresh eggs.
"I see," he said; "you want maybirds." ”

“ There is, as everyone (except possibly Mr. Austen Chamberlain and the cynic who professes to hate letters so much that he wishes that they cost a shilling a-piece to send) will agree, one good resolution which above all others you should concentrate upon for 1921, and that is to get back our penny postage. With so many comparatively unnecessary things still untaxed, it never should have been sacrificed.
To A Pork Butcher.
Among the problems of this latter day of discontents few are more pressing than speculating as to why sausages and pork-pies have so degenerated. ”

“ Sometimes, as I think I have mentioned, the one with speckles escapes into the garden, and I have several times been asked to chase it home. Nothing makes one look more ridiculous than chasing an independent maybird of no particular views across an onion bed. The rest of the animals appear to spend most of their time in walking about the run with their hands in their pockets looking for things on the ground. ”

“ A woman informed a London magistrate last Tuesday that her husband thrashed her at Easter, Whitsuntide and on August Bank Holiday. Our thoughts were constantly with her during the recent Yuletide festivities.
Readers should not be alarmed if a curious rustling noise is heard next Saturday morning. It will be simply the sound of new leaves being turned over.
In view of the possible increase of their salaries it is not the intention of Members of Parliament to solicit Christmas-boxes. Householders, therefore, should be on their guard against men passing themselves off as M.P.s. ”

“ I asked.
"They want something to scratch in when they run about," he explained. "Exercise is what they need."
"They seem to be scratching already, but they don't seem to be running," I said. "Wouldn't it have been better to put a cinder-track all round the edge and train them to run races round it?"
He said that he hadn't thought of that, but I could try it if I liked. Then he gave me a bag of food, which he said was particularly efficacious for maybirds, and produced his bill. ”

“ When once the exchanges of the world have righted themselves—and that is bound to come about sooner or later—then will follow such a reaction in the trade of the country that will exceed the expectations of the most sanguinary optimist. ”

“ In the first place, what you call 'America' is only a small fraction of the American continent, not even as large as British North America. And in the second place what you call your 'nation'—well, some rude person once said of it that it isn't really a nation at all, but just a picnic. ”

“ Monday, December 20th.—As the result of being tossed backwards and forwards between the two Houses the Government of Ireland Bill had already lost most of its awkward corners. The last two were rounded off to-day, when the Government secured that Southern Ireland should have three years, instead of two, in which to make up her mind whether to accept or refuse the proffered Parliament, and that in the meantime only a joint resolution of both Houses should prevent the Act from coming into operation. ”

“ I have often said that, if anyone could earn a hundred pounds a week on the stage by barking like a dog, I could. Children like to come to my house to tea merely for the thrill of listening to my imitation. ”

“ Yes, it is nearly twelve now. In ten minutes we shall hear the bells—I mean the hooters. I wonder if there were hooters when Tennyson wrote those popular lines about ringing in the New Year. Very likely he didn't hear them if there were, as there's nothing to show that he ever really stayed up late enough to see the New Year in. It's a pity, because the hooters would have fitted in to that poem most beautifully. The hooting idea is just what is wanted to give a dramatic contrast to the sugary ringing business.
"Ring out the false, ring in the true"
doesn't convince somehow ”

“ I notice that cabbages are suspended by a string across the top of the parade-ground in order that the birds may obtain exercise by springing at them. The cabbages are eaten, but I do not believe that the birds jump. I believe that they clamber up the wire with their claws, walk along the tight-rope and bite the cabbage off with their teeth. ”

“ Psychologists are inclined to attribute the recent night stampede of sheep in the Midlands, when thousands of them jumped their hurdles, to the influence of a large number of people concentrating on a well-known remedy for sleeplessness. ”

“ Are you still as obstinate as ever about that hot-water bottle? Very well, then, I shall now have the first smoke of the New Year. Oh, no; we 've got to do Auld Lang Syne first. I never can smoke while I'm singing. ”

“ I thought five would be an unostentatious number and make it clear that I was not trying to compete with the wholesale egg-dealers.
He segregated five maybirds and explained their points to me.
It appeared that one of them was a Buff Orpington and three were white Wyandottes and one had no particular politics. I should say now that it was an Independent. It has speckles and is the one that keeps getting into the garden. ”

“ There will be singing, in character, by the Stock Exchange Choir. The profits will go in aid of the Settlement in Bermondsey, which has been carried on for twenty-one years among the factory girls by members of "Time and Talents," and to-day includes a Hostel, Clubs, a Country Holiday Fund and a cottage in the country. ”