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  PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

  VOLUME 150, MAY 17, 1916.

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[Illustration: _Customer._ "HAVE YOU MY PASS BOOK?"

_Overworked Cashier._ "DID YOU LEAVE IT WITH US?"

_Customer._ "I DON'T KNOW, BUT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT AS WELL LOOK FOR IT
BEFORE I DO."]

       *       *       *       *       *

CHARIVARIA.

"We can never talk of the theatre without harking back to the play
itself," says "The Matinee Girl" in _The Evening News_. Funny how these
irrelevant trifles will obtrude themselves into the most facile critic's
train of thought.

    ***

So simple and successful has been the progress of the Daylight-Saving
Scheme, under which the clock is to be put forward an hour during the
summer months, that a movement is on foot to help the War Office
prophets by putting the War back a couple of years.

    ***

It is not generally known that during the week ending May 7th a fourth
Zeppelin was sunk by H.M.S. Feuilleton.

    ***

A tremendous boom in canaries is reported from New York. The colour is
believed to be a favourite one with the hyphenated.

    ***

Breconshire County Council is proposing to abolish Sunday fishing. It is
felt, however, that the demands of the Sabbath will be met if the
fishermen can be prevented from describing their exploits till Monday
morning.

    ***

An evening contemporary has the following heading:--

  "HINDENBURG SEEDY.

  Petrograd tale of a gloomy 'Papa' and
  an angry Below."

Can the Prussian idol have contracted so vulgar an ailment as a pain in
his underneath?

    ***

Sabadilla, it appears, is a plant of the Lily family, from which is
extracted a poison that forms the basis of the German "tear" shells. An
allied form, "Crocodilla," also possessing lachrymatory properties, is
likewise extensively used by the German Government.

    ***
It is observed that the Committee to investigate the administration and
command of the Royal Flying Corps is composed of four lawyers and two
engineers. The large proportion of "doers" to "talkers"--nearly half the
total--is a startling innovation in British public affairs and a
satisfactory sign that the Government is thoroughly awake to the gravity
of the situation.

    ***

"Pawn-tickets are evidences of real poverty--when a man pawns his shirts
and so on," said Judge CLUER recently at Whitechapel. "And so off" would
have been a more logical way of putting it.

    ***

A Camberwell recruit has taken a white mouse in his pocket as a mascot.
It is to be hoped that he will not get into a tight corner and be
compelled to hoist the white mouse in token of surrender.

    ***

A sackful of comatose flies has been taken from the Coronation clock
tower at Surbiton. The authorities are said to be contemplating the
removal of a similar deposit from underneath Big Ben.

    ***

A German scientist has expressed the opinion that the product obtained
by mixing chaff or finely-chopped straw with pig's blood scarcely
deserves to be called bread. It is, however, expected that the German
trader, ever resourceful, will get over this little difficulty by
calling it cake and charging a little more for it.

    ***

A Dublin office boy, returning to his employment after a fortnight's
absence, informed his employer that he had been fighting and a prisoner;
whereas, of course, in similar circumstances an English lad would have
contented himself with explaining that he had merely been taking the
letters to the post.

    ***

The sports programme to be contested at Blackheath on May 20th will
include various events open to attested men. We wish the management
could have seen their way to include a Consolation Sack Race (with water
hazards) for Conscientious Objectors.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE ENEMY WITHIN OUR GATES.

    We know him under many a name
    (His odour's always much the same)--
  The type that gives the warm and woolly mitten
    To every cause in which a free
    Briton may prove his right to be
  Pro-anything-on-earth-excepting-Britain.

    When from the trenches came the call,
    "Make good the gaps in England's wall!"
  He loathed to take our shirkers and enlist 'em;
    Content to pay the deadliest price
    Sooner than have to sacrifice
  His passion for a voluntary system.

    Not on our soldiers facing death
    Under the poison's foetid breath
  His dear solicitude expends its labours;
    He saves his sympathy for those
    Whose conscience, bleating through their nose,
  Elects to leave the fighting to their neighbours.

    And witness Ireland, where our best,
    Eager to serve a higher quest