various contributors

“ Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Frobenius and a hundred others, from whose writings it can be most easily shown that Germany alone among nations has the power and the will to expand and to rule; that expansion and rule must be accomplished by war, which, far from being a misfortune, is a noble object to be aimed at and not avoided by statesmen; that all other nations are degenerate and must for their own good be crushed by Germany; and that any nation which resists Germany is through that very act an enemy of the human race. ”

“ For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's. Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and very slippery to hold in one's mouth. I carry the penny to the pastry-cook's. The girl takes it and gives me a currant biscuit in exchange. Sometimes there are people in the shop, and then I gaze upon them meltingly. If they are the right sort, they melt—according to their means; usually it's pastry. The rest of the day I spend loafing about the station and the pastry-cook's. ”

“ Soon words floated up to me from the mouth of the leading rescuer. "I'll learn him!" he was saying with fervour. "I'll learn him to come German-spying round my orchard!"
Balaam or no Balaam, I drew the line at being assegaied to death as a Teuton spy, so I dropped the cage with a bang and, clinging to the end of my branch, I at last succeeded in gaining the ground in moderate safety. ”

“ Hardly a soul is now to be seen in the streets of London. Everyone is below the earth, in the Tubes and subways, which are packed by white and trembling crowds. Every cellar is congested, and top floors having been wholly abandoned. ”

“ I have heard of more than one case of a well-known herculean player, accustomed not only to big money but applause and hero-worship, seriously wondering if fighting were not his real duty and if he ought not to make a bolt for the Front, but being compelled to acquiesce in the Government's plans and go on drawing his salary for the public pursuit of an air-bladder. ”

“ Somewhere in his rush from theatre to theatre of the war a message will reach the Kaiser. The hatred of a world may flatter him, but the cold, chilling contempt of Little Pilswick will pierce to his very heart. ”

“ Well, if it does not last till peace is signed, it will be a peace that I shall not believe in. For a stable peace, as all our eminent novelists keep pointing out in all the papers, many things are necessary, and one of them is that I should smoke my cigar happily on the first night of it. Torpedo Jimmy must do himself justice. No premature explosions; no moths flying our from the middle of it; no unauthorised ventilation. The exact moment must be chosen by the Allies. My cigar must be ripe... and yet not too ripe.
Celia says she is sure it will be just lovely. ”

“ He's so unique—so utterly unlike anyone else's umbrella. I know you'll love him."
I did as soon as ever I saw him coming out of the cloak-room hanging on her arm. There was a gentle coyness in the turn of Herbert's handle, a nutty daintiness about his little gold tie which made me look involuntarily for his socks.
"Now, you wait and see if someone doesn't try to run off with him before we get home," said Stella-my-niece. "I'll hold him on a long lead so that people will think he's out by himself, and we'll await developments." ”

“ A private letter is probably the only means of communicating the real situation to you, for the English papers of course do not tell the truth. In fact you must believe nothing they say, for there is a great conspiracy here to maintain the fiction that we are high-spirited, eager and confident. Everything is done to foster the illusion. ”

“ Now I know that the English and the French have much to say for themselves, and, in any case, that it is plain nonsense—I beg Your Majesty's pardon for using this word, but it is there and I will not strike it out—it is plain nonsense to believe that the good God who has made us all has had any interest in making our Germans out of better clay than that which He has used for other men. ”

“ The Forty-five Liars content themselves with a methodical misstatement of every fact, disregarding all the evidence, and, indeed, their own diplomatists' admissions, to the contrary. There is no ingenious perversion of the truth, no subtle invention of argument and no appeal whatever to the intelligence of the reader ”

“ The clerk's a man with a very well-regulated mind. He gives me chocolate. Just then, however, he was out, but his three-year-old boy-puppy was there sitting on a table all covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. ”

“ My Dear Friend,—I am sure you will like to hear from me, especially as I am in a position to enlighten you as to the deplorable condition of things in England under the fear of the Mailed Fist and forebodings of the worst. For it is only too true that all the best and most knowledgable people here have thrown up the sponge and are prepared for the inevitable. ”

“ When, a dishevelled wreck, I reached my own gateway, I was met in the drive by Eileen.
"IT's all right after all," she remarked cheerfully. "The stupid bird was on the curtain pole all the time. So lucky, because, if he had got out, it would have meant an awful bother. And, I say, is it true that they've caught a German spy down in the village?" ”

“ His facts and quotations are apt and useful, but his indignant denials and sarcastic epithets run to excess; every time one reads the emphatic assertion that black is white one does not want to have also to read that this is an amazing lie. ”

“ THE REPORT FALLACIOUS.
I have a son, William. But there are compensations; he is at school.
It was at the crisis of parting at the station that it seemed to me necessary to give William a word of parental advice. I hate seeing small boys at such moments stuffing themselves in refreshment-rooms.
"William," I said, "life is not all cricket and football."
"No, father" replied William, looking hard at the refreshment-room, "there's golf." ”

“ There are also hundreds of young actors in Londone alone who are being forcibly kept in the country to go on entertaining and playing the fool for the same sedative purpose. These youths are all healthy and fit, but it is held that their true function is to work in the theatres and halls to beguile the audiences and divert their thoughts from the terrible reality of German invasion. ”

“ Newbolt knows how to reproduce the spirit of the sea and of adventure thereon, and whether he is writing of Edward Pellew, John Franklin, David Farragut, or of Trafalgar, it is only possible to escape from his grip when he endeavours to be a little edifying. Boys may conceivably resent this tendency to point out what they can see extraordinarily well for themselves, but all the same they will admit their heavy debt to him. ”

“ As a sign of the times I may tell you that a Company, called the Aerated Dread Co., has been formed to provide iron suits for those who can afford them, and on the Board of Directors are both the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey. So awful is the agitation from which everyone here is suffering under the Zeppelin menace that the noise of a tyre bursting in the street often prostrates as many as forty passers-by. ”

“ She sighed. "My birthday's a long way off," she said wistfully, thinking of the band and the lights and the pretty people in the distance—and not necessarily in the distance either.
"Well, p'raps we'll think of another excuse. Anyhow it will be a very great day, and if I survive we shall often look back upon it."
Celia stroked it again.
"It's just like a torpedo, isn't it?" she said. And so we called it Torpedo Jimmy. A torpedo is actually a little bit bigger. Not much, however. ”

“ Miss Annistay, an old family friend, alone remarked upon my condition, stating that colds were very prevalent, and adding somewhat irrelevantly that it must be terrible in the trenches this weather. For dinner I had nothing more sustaining than our customary fare, and when I asked for hot milk at bedtime my sisters inquired, "Whatever for, Septimus?" I sought my chamber, only to find, on enquiry, that my dressing-gown, my extra blankets and my hot-water bottle had disappeared—gone, I understand, to a local hospital. ”

“ It subsequently transpired that a copy of The Orangery, which had been found in the knapsack of a British prisoner, had come into the General's possession and so absolutely enthralled him that he abandoned all thought of strategy or tactics until he had finished its perusal. Owing to the extraordinary power of Mrs. Markley's genius the German advance was paralysed, and the Allies, resuming the offensive, drove the enemy back in confusion, with results which have vitally affected the progress of the campaign. ”

“ When a young person fails to "find herself" (as the phrase used to go) there should surely be provided some foil to her instability, either implicit in the behaviour of other characters or expressed in the meditations of the author. Even if the author only means to tell us that human life is all like this, she ought at least to let us know that sho means it. ”

“ You may have gathered from the papers that football goes on as usual. This is so, outwardly, but as a matter of fact the games are played with no spirit and are kept going wholly by force applied by the Government, whose aim is thus to suggest a security in the country. A few misguided people, who completely misunderstand the situation, hold that footballers should go to the Front and fight ”

“ The main theme, sensitively felt and developed, is a delicate one—the love of a middle-aged woman for a man who is rapt in worship at a distance of a younger woman, the other's friend. The manoeuvring of the elder, which might easily have been vulgarised on the one hand or devitalised on the other, just remains refreshingly and believably human. ”

“ The Fremdenblatt of Hamburg congratulates itself that "the British campaign of pin-pricks is fast coming to a miserable end." If the reference is to bayonets, our contemporary is in error.
⁂
A Berlin news agency states that General Leman, of Liége, is actually a German. It is characteristic of the Germans to bring an accusation like that against a brave and innocent man in adversity.
⁂
The Kölnische Volkszeitung records the foundation of a "German Truth Society." We are glad that it is realised over there at last that there is a difference between Truth and German Truth. ”

“ I suggested. "He's most awfully good at catching things. I—er think he's somewhere on the tennis-court."
"He's not, because he was splashing about in the bathroom just now when I wanted to fill Balaam's water-bottle."
"All right," I said resignedly, "I'll come. Was Balaam the man or the ass? I forget. And while we're at it why should you call the bird Balaam at all?"
Eileen was in no mood for foolish questionings.
"Get up!" she ordered. "I call him Balaam because he's not a proper canary—he's a mule." ”

“ An unsigned letter from the Isle of Man states that the writer, who rightly wishes to remain anonymous, possesses a copy of a novel of astonishing genius, in which a German bullet is embedded. This book, it seems, was the inseparable companion of a soldier in the 3rd Manx Highlanders, who carried it always next his heart, and in its position in that intimate and honoured spot it saved his life. ”

“ Learning to sing "It's a long, long way to Tipperary" for the purpose of deceiving the Allies.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
If, as is just conceivable, the Teuton braggart fails to convert the universe into a German empire, his downfall will be partly due to his lack of humour. Among the things that go to make this saving grace are an agile imagination and a nice sense of proportion, and it is when a man starts lying about himself that he shows most clearly whether or not he has it. ”

“ Punch, while remarking that he is not surprised that the shells screamed in the circumstances, begs to assure his readers that, if the following information corresponds with the facts, Mr. Jacobs is not the only author who has been solacing our troops in the trenches.
Miss Carrie Morelli writes: "There has so far been no public mention of any books of mine being read in the trenches and affording solace to our gallant troops. This, however, is because all the reports from the Front come from men, and men are notoriously jealous of feminine activity in literature as elsewhere. ”

“ A correspondent writes to The Times to object to the nickname "Tommies" applied to our soldiers. "Thomases" would undoubtedly be more respectful and dignified.
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An original production of Everyman is to be given at the Cathedral Hall, Westminster, on the 12th, 13th and 14th instant, in aid of the Actors' Benevolent Fund. We trust that Everyman will do his duty and bring in a large sum for this admirable object.
⁂
The French authorities have seized ten race-horses stabled at St. Symphorien, near Tours, which belonged to M. Mumm, of the famous champagne firm, who is a German subject. ”

“ The ingenious German device of writing private letters to English friends filled with German justifications of the War and news of the gaiety and normal prosperity of Berlin is now being carried farther, and extracts from private letters purporting to be addressed by English people to German friends have begun to be printed in the Berlin papers. ”

“ We understand that a protest has been lodged at the War Office by the British Propriety League.
⁂
A motor wireless section in Scotland is searching for a mascot and regimental pet, and a Glasgow newspaper invites its readers to supply a suitable animal. What would be wrong with a wireless terrier?
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Shortly before the outbreak of the war, it is said, the Kaiser ordered a Gloucester spotted pig in this country. Later on the shipment of the pig was countermanded. Presumably sufficient pigs had already been spotted in the German army. ”