Various

“ George, being a novelist of some skill, has provided a background out of his imagination. The most interesting episode, excellently conceived and worked out, is the only unsuccessful passage in Lord Bulmer's life, the wooing of Janet Willoughby. The awkward thing for Mr. George is that he has so splashed the yellow over Bulmer in the office that there is no use in his pretending that the Bulmer in Mrs. Willoughby's drawing-room is the same man in another mood. He just isn't. ”

“ When it is remembered how large a part has been played in history by revolutionary and political songs it is both lamentable and strange that at the present time only one of the numerous political faiths has a hymn of its own—"The Red Flag." The author of the words owes a good deal, I should say, to the author of "Rule Britannia," though I am inclined to think he has gone one better. The tune is that gentle old tune which we used to know as "Maryland," and by itself it rather suggests a number of tired sheep waiting to go through a gate than a lot of people thinking very redly. ”

“ W. L. George in Caliban (Methuen) , you can begin by mentioning all the well-known figures in the journalistic world by way of easy camouflage, so as to evade the law of libel, call your hero-villain Bulmer, attach to him all the legends about actual newspaper kings, add some malicious distortion to make them more exciting and impossible, and thoroughly let yourself go. Good taste alone will decide which is the cleaner sport, and good taste does not happen to be the fashion in certain literary circles at the moment. ”

“ We have no wish to cast any reflection on the courage of the Prohibitionists, but we can draw our own conclusions from the fact that we haven't noticed them rushing to Ireland.
A Denver newspaper points out that the "Wild West bandit" has died out. Our own impression was that he had got a job as a waiter in London.
Things are settling down in America. A news report states that Willard Mack, the actor, has only been divorced three times.
"We have an innate modesty about advertising ourselves," said Sir Robert Horne at the International Advertising Exhibition. ”

“ The family must be an interesting one and not too ordinary; the sons, Thomas (whose creed was "Give yourself," and whose application of it was such that it usually wrecked the person to whom the gift was made) , Dick the artist, and John the novelist, must be very much alive; if the big adventures were missing the little problems must be faced; the question of sex must not be overlooked ”

“ Mr. Tarver Penna's Ah Fong, the heroine's champion, made some very pleasant faces and gestures and was less incurably Western than some of his colleagues; Mr. Cronin Wilson's Jack Stacey seemed a meritorious performance. The part of Che Fu made no particular demand on Miss Christine Silver's talent, and Miss Evadne Price faithfully earned the laughter she was expected to make as Sua Se, the opium-den attendant. Leave your critical faculty at home and you will be able to derive considerable entertainment from this unambitious show. ”

“ Punch makes bold to plead the cause of the less fortunate among them. The Queen's Hospital for Children, once known as the North-Eastern Hospital for Children, is the only one of its kind in this part of London and serves a poor district with a population of half-a-million. ”

“ David Cyssell, it seems, though he didn't quite catch the Norman Conquest and missed the Crusades, and was a little bit late for the Wars of the Roses, was nicely in time to get a place in the train of Henry VIII., which was quite early enough for a young man who firmly intended to be an ancestor. When he died his last words were, "Rule England, my boys, but never never, never let the people call you 'Cessil,'" and his sons obeyed him dutifully by becoming Earls and Marquises and all that kind of thing, so that the trouble did not arise. ”

“ And you woke up and said, "I do believe there's a dear little fairy dancing."
I (emerging from repose) . Why, I do believe I heard a fairy dancing, or (vindictively) can it have been another ton of coal coming in?
She (disregarding my malice) . And you said, "Alack, alack! I do want somefing to eat."
I. Alack, alack! I am so hungry.
She (fetching a large cushion from the sofa and putting it on the top of me) . Lumpetty, lumpetty, lumpetty.
I. What's that, Priscilla?
She. Bitatoes pouring out of a sack. (Fetches another cushion and puts it on the top of the first.) Lumpetty, lumpetty, lumpetty. ”

“ And why is it that, when you tell a man there are so many million stars in the skies, he will believe you, but the moment he sees a notice on a gate bearing the words "Wet Paint" he puts his finger upon it just to find out for himself? ”

“ Fellows runnin' about in the fog on the beach, for all the world like shadows on a blind, cursin', shoutin', fightin', tumblin' over each other, huntin' high and low, and in the middle of 'em all old Hosea crying out for his bar'l o' beef like a wumman after her first-born. Somebody'd stole it! Mercy me! we mainlanders lay on our oars and laughed till the tears rolled out of us in streams."
"Who did steal it? Do you know?" I asked.
Billy John nodded. "I do, Sir. Why, great Susan, o' course. They'd forgotten she, livin' right upon the beach—wan o' their own breed. ”

“ In only three of the tales is the finish a matter of conventional happiness. Elsewhere you have a deserted husband, who has tracked his betrayer to a nigger saloon in Atlantic City, wrested from his purpose of murder by a revivalist hymn; a young lad, having avenged the destruction of his home, returning to his widowed mother to await, one supposes, the process of the law ”

“ The poor old man resigns himself to his increasingly glutinous fate.
She (fetching a waste-paper basket and returning to the sofa) . Limpetty, limpetty, limpetty.
I (faint but inquisitive) . Whatever are you doing now, Priscilla?
She. Poisoning the dragon's body.
I. Poisoning it?
She. Yes, wiv a can.
I. How?
She. Down its neck.
I (feeling that the immediate peril from the dragon's assault is now practically over and wishing to return the fairy's kindness) . ”

“ As I say, there are a lot of people, and many of them, doubtless, readers of this paper, who understand all about fairies. I want to ask them, as one poor old hard-worked man to another, whether this is the proper way for a fairy to behave. ”

“ Miss F. E. Mills Young, in Imprudence (Hodder and Stoughton) , is not at the top of her form, but a neat and effective finish makes some amends for a performance which is, like the wind in a weather report, mainly moderate or light. The heroine, Prudence Graynor, was the child of her father's second marriage, and she was afflicted with a battalion of elderly half-sisters and one quite detestable half-brother. ”

“ The picture of a tall green wave propelling a very solid rainbow, which adorns the paper wrapper and as an advertisement has cheered travellers on the Tube for some weeks past, has no real connection with the story, but perhaps is meant to be symbolical of the book, which, clever and well written as it is, is almost as little like what happens in real life. ”

“ The right of the family to its annals, notwithstanding that its members are little involved in furious adventures or thrilling romance, is established at once by the very remarkable character of the Reverend Thomas Grey. The duty upon you to read them depends, as the prologue hints, upon whether you are greatly interested in life and not exclusively intent on fiction. ”

“ Beneath its shade we'll live and die;
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the Red Flag flying here."
Well, I have set myself to supply some of the other parties with songs, and I have begun with "The White Spat," which is to be the party-hymn of the High Tories (if any) . I have written it to the same tune as "The Red Flag," because, when the lion finally does lie down with the lamb, it will be much more convenient if they can bleat and roar in the same metre, and I shall hope to hear Mr. ”

“ Mr. McCurdy announced that he had reduced the price of wheat to the millers and hoped that "in a few weeks" the consumer might begin to receive the benefit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer excused the delay in publishing the Economy Committee's reports on the ground that the Minister of Munitions was "at sea," and elicited the inevitable gibe that he was not the only one. Sir Eric Geddes, with a judicious compliment to the motorists for setting "an extraordinary example of voluntary taxation," got a Second Reading for his Roads Bill ”

“ Supposing, not unnaturally, that its valuable recommendations would be adopted in the Government's housing schemes the Committee was disgusted to find that, save for an emasculated summary in "a dismal journal called Housing," no notice was taken of its report. Lord Newton is not a man who can safely be invited to consume his own smoke, and he made indignant protest this afternoon. ”

“ TRIUMPHANT VULGARITY.
[A writer in The Athenæum, discussing modern songs, observes that in the happy days of the eighteenth century "even the vulgar could not achieve vulgarity; to-day vulgarity is in the air, and only the strongest and most fastidious escape its taint." The accompanying lines are submitted as a modest protest against this sadly undemocratic and obscurantist doctrine.] ”

“ Great interest has been excited in the neighbourhood of Tulse Hill by the success of Mr. Enoch Pegler, the winner of the three-manual electric cathedral organ with sixty-four stops, the most sonorous instrument of its type yet constructed by Messrs. Waghorn and Fogg, the famous organ-builders of Penge. A special piquancy is lent to the episode by the fact that Mr. Pegler, who is seventy-nine years of age and has long been a martyr to rheumatoid arthritis in both hands, belongs to the sect of the Silentiary Tolstoyans, who discountenance all music, whether sacred or profane. ”

“ The Peers' natural sentiment in favour of Second Chambers triumphed, and the Government were defeated by a big majority.
The Office of Works has been lending a hand to local authorities in difficulties with their housing schemes. But when Sir Alfred Mond brought up a Supplementary Estimate in respect of these transactions he met with a storm of indignation that surprised him. "The road to bankruptcy," "Nationalisation in the building trade," "Socialistic proposals"—these were some of the phrases that assailed his ears. Fortified, however, by the support of the Labour Party—Mr. ”

“ Helen's gigs' crews had boarded her quietly from starboard and was eatin' through her like a pest o' ants. They'd come staggering on deck—fathers, sons and grandfathers—with bundles twice as big nor themselves, toss 'em into the gigs and go back for more. As for us, we stood like men mazed. I tell you, Sir, a God-fearing man can't make a livin' 'mong that lot; they'll turn a vessel inside out while he's thinkin' how to begin. ”

“ Anythin' in the way o' honest work they do leave to us poor mainland grabbers; they don't unnerstand it; but come a bit o' easy money in the way of wreckage and we might as well stop bed as try to compete with they; we eddn but children to 'em."
"What about this barrel of beef?" I asked.
Billy John chuckled. "Comed to pass years ago, Sir. There was a party of us over 'ere crabbin'. My brother Zackariah 'ad married a Helen's wumman, and a brear great piece she were too. They was livin' on Helen's upon Lower Town beach, and we lodged with 'em. ”

“ Tuesday, November 30th.—The ex-Crown Prince of Prussia will be tremendously bucked when he reads the report of to-day's proceedings, and discovers that there is one person in the world who takes him seriously. Sir Frederick Hall has been much disturbed by the reports of Hohenzollern intrigues for a restoration, and begged the Government to send a protest to the Dutch Government. ”

“ According to an official of the R.S.P.C.A., as Punch informed us last week, dogs do not possess suicidal tendencies. Yet the other day we saw an over-fed poodle deliberately loitering outside a sausage factory.
"The number of curates who seem to be able to find plenty of time for golf is most surprising," writes a correspondent. We suppose the majority of them employ vicars. ”

“ Lush grass is generally long and brightly coloured—"luxuriant and succulent," the dictionary says—and that is exactly what Miss Muriel Hine's book is. She tells the story of Sabine Fane, who, loving Mark Vallance, persuaded him to pass a honeymoon month with her before he went to the Front, though his undesirable wife was still alive. In allowing her heroine to suffer the penalty of this action Miss Hine would appear, as far as plot is concerned, to discourage such adventures. ”

“ When consulted on a burning topic of the hour he may, for instance, be on the point of inventing a new type of ice-bucket, so that the interviewer is forced to go out quickly and fetch his fur overcoat before he can talk in comfort. ”

“ We went a little further, where we observed ten men in a corner very busie about two men's work, taking so much care that everyone should have his due proportion of the labours as so many thieves in making an exact division of their booty. ”

“ This last sally had a subduing effect on the gig's company; they turned [pg 457] their faces away and became absorbed in the view ahead.
Billy John sat down with a grunt of satisfaction. "That settled 'em," he grinned. "They dunno who did steal the bar'l to this day, and each wan do suspect t'other."
"St. Martin's islanders?" I queried.
Billy John shook his head. "Naw, from St. Helen's, o' course; deddn' you see their red 'eads? They 're all red-'eaded over on Helen's—take after their great-grandfather the Devil."
"They're pretty smart, anyhow," said I.
Billy John threw up both hands. "Smart! ”

“ A police magistrate of Louisville, Kentucky, has been called upon to decide whether a man may marry his divorced wife's mother. In our view the real question is whether, with a view to securing the sanctity of the marriage tie, it should not be made compulsory.
"This morning," says a recent issue of a Dublin paper, "police visited Young Ireland office and placed arretssssshrrr rr rr r h bfad mb shs under arrest." ”