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  PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

  VOLUME 150, MAY 17, 1916.

       *       *       *       *       *

[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
  And in the Great Cause know the joy of battle,
    Gallant and young, by traitor hands
    Leagued with a foe from alien lands,
  Struck down in cold blood fell like butchered cattle;--

    Not for their fate his bosom bleeds,
    But theirs who wrought the rebel deeds,
  For them his soul reserves its chief obsession;
    The murdered he can soon forget,
    But, if the murderers pay their debt,
  He fears it might create a bad impression!

  And in that hell of hidden fire,
  Whose brave conductors so inspire
  With native pride the maw of Mr. DILLON,
  A bloody tragedy he finds
  Of which, to all instructed minds,
  England (as usual) is the leading villain.      O. S.

       *       *       *       *       *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XXXIX.

(_From_ JAMES J. SALTONTALE, _of New York City_.)

_KAISER WILLIAM_,--I guess you'll remember who I am when I tell you that
the Jay-Jay Lecture Agency and the Pushalong Dramatic Show Company were
invented by me and that I'm the sole possessor of these two world-wide
organisations. I wasn't always in with the high-brow crowd of the
lecturing business. To tell you the truth I began quite low down with a
six-legged pig that could spell out the word "pork" by touching the
letters with his snout on a big cardboard alphabet. He didn't last long.
Times were hard during his second winter, and--well, I never knew till
then how much bacon there is to a pig, even when it's a learned one with
six legs to it. It was always some trouble tying on them two extra legs,
and it was nervous work watching them while the show was open to see
they didn't work loose. So on the whole I wasn't altogether put into
mourning when old six-legs joined the dear departed and left me free to
speculate in Mexican dwarfs and a Bolivian giantess with a rich
contralto voice.

After that we rose to lions and tigers and a very massive elephant and a
few comic bears and a gorilla from Africa. It was profitable but tiring,
and after I'd saved a dollar or two I was able to retire from the
Mammoth Antediluvian Menagerie and devote myself to Lectures and the
Pushalong stunt, which is living pictures of an historic and improving
sort. So now you remember me, don't you?

Well, the fact is, Kaiser, that a notion's come into my head, and it's
this. When peace comes with all its horrors, you won't want to go on
every day explaining to the German people how you lost the War by being
too kind or by not having prepared yourself enough. And you won't want
to keep telling them why you spent so much time over Verdun and why the
British Fleet didn't make things as easy and comfortable for you as you
reckoned it ought to have done. The German people won't want to listen
to talk of that kind. They've been there and they'll know all about it
without being told. No, what you'll want to do will be to get into a new
atmosphere, with people all round you listening to you just as if you
were the only man in the world. You'll find all that in the United
States if you'll only put yourself in the hands of the Jay-Jay Lecturing
Agency and the Pushalong Dramatic Show Company. We shall engage the
halls and get together the audiences by our unique system of
advertisements, and all you've got to do is to appear at the time fixed
and address the meeting for an hour to an hour and a-half on such
subjects as "Why Belgium started the War," and "How Serbia used Poison
Gas," and "A Dozen Proofs that the _Lusitania_ was Sunk by the British
out of Spite," and "Turkey, the Saviour of the Armenians." There'll be
plenty of others, but these four will do as a good working basis, and we
can fill out the list later on, not forgetting the Monroe Doctrine and
how Germany is going to knock everyone who attacks it into pie.

Then, there can be living pictures of yourself, in all kinds of
uniforms, deciding reluctantly to issue an ultimatum, or packing your
valise for the Front, or leading two millions of men in a charge and
bringing back four millions of prisoners or setting an example to your
people by eating War-bread by the crumb. And then you can wind up the
evening's entertainment by showing yourself making a speech in which you
bring in that bit about the good old German God who has always been your
ally. And then the audience will stream out very devoutly, and all of
them will shake you by the hand and say they're pleased to meet you. I
tell you, WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN, it will be great, and the dollars will
come pouring in. Leave it all to me, and I'll guarantee a success
that'll make you grateful to me for ever. If we could only get Uncle
FRANCIS JOSEPH to join--but no; that might distract attention from you,
and it's you I'm banking on. All I ask is a miserable twenty per cent.
on the profits. Is it a bargain?

    Yours,      _JAMES J. S._

       *       *       *       *       *

A Vicarious Embrace.

    "Taking the star and ribbon from the hand of an aide-de-camp,
    General Mahon placed the latter round the neck of the French
    General."--_Balkan News_.

    "A lady wishes to recommend her lady-nurse who has lived with her
    for 14 years, to take entire charge of a boy; not under 31."

    _Morning Post._

Will the "Old Boys" Battalion please note?

       *       *       *       *       *

Our unparliamentary correspondent states that the Daylight-Saving Scheme
had a narrow escape. The _Daily Mail_ could not for some time see its
way to sanction a proposal under which on the first day (new style) the
actual number of hours would be twenty-three--the total of the Cabinet.

       *       *       *       *       *

    "Bucks Vllge.--Fur villa to let. 3 mths."--_Daily Mail_.

Personally, when we take a Fur Villa, we object to even three moths
being left on the premises.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: UNDER GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE.

RACING MAN. "THAT DON'T APPLY TO US. AS RUNCIMAN SAYS, WE'RE DOING OUR
BIT FOR THE COUNTRY."]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE VESTY DEEP.

Which is the most valuable--life, comfort or self-respect? A little while
ago I should have said, without a moment's hesitation, life. But now----

To begin at the beginning, let me say that before the _Sussex_ was
torpedoed by the Quixotic Hun I had decided to go to France. Then came
that tragedy, and as a result letters from friends and the relatives
whose affection I still retain, urging first that the French enterprise
should be abandoned altogether, and, second, that, if not, a
life-preserving device should be instantly obtained. Advertisements cut
from newspapers accompanied some of these letters containing
testimonials in favour of this belt and that.

Having no particular reason for losing my life, at any rate without a
struggle--provided always that the operation was not too expensive--I
gave more attention to these advertisements than to any others since at
school, too long ago, the entrancing and persuasive firm of THEOBALD
spread his lures before us; and having done so I obediently obeyed their
instructions and wrote for illustrated pamphlets. [Does anyone, I wonder
by the way, collect illustrated pamphlets? The illustrated pamphlets of
this War alone should make a valuable exhibit some day.] Having studied
them, I found very quickly that, though the belts were of various kinds,
all were alike in two or three points, one being the description of
themselves as vests or waistcoats rather than belts; and another the
claims of each to be the best. Some relied for their buoyancy on the
element upon which Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING has floated to notoriety, if
not fame, and had to be blown up; others trusted to some mysterious
fibre several times more buoyant than cork; a third--but these two will
serve as types of all.

Each, as I say, was the best; and, however different in material, all
were alike too in one effect, for each in saving one's life saved it the
right way up. There are, it seems, buoyant belts, or vest, so lost to
shame as to submerge the wearer's head and shoulders and leave only his
legs exposed. But not so with these; these had no such tricks; these
undertook to maintain me topside up with care. The pictures in the
pamphlets were invariably of gentlemen of vaster proportions even than
myself, all riding buoyantly and securely on the waves, like Dr. BURNEY
in BARRY'S fresco at the Society of Arts--and all dressed more or less
becomingly in the best vest.

Each being of superlative excellence, I had to apply other principles of
selection, and fell back upon the most usual of those, which is
financial. I had to answer the question. At what sum do I value my
life?--the range of price being from seven-and-six to two pounds ten.
Was my life worth two pounds ten? I inquired of myself. It's a lot of
money, I replied. Should it not rather go into Exchequer Bonds? What
would Mr. MCKENNA say? You see how complex the situation suddenly
became.

[Illustration: _Manager._ "THERE'S A RUMOUR THAT THREE ZEPPS ARE COMING
OVER."

_Leading Actor (playing to poor house)._ "WELL, YOU'VE GOT PLENTY OF
ROOM FOR 'EM IN FRONT!"]

After long deliberation and taking into consideration the circumstance
that the vest which was priced at fifty shillings had to be inflated
before it was of any use and that the arrival of a torpedo would
probably deprive me of all breath, or at any rate, of all blowing power,
I decided that two pounds ten was excessive. No life could be worth
that. I was therefore, after further communings, driven back on the
astonishing fibre at fifteen shillings; and one of these vests I ordered
to be sent to the boat. So far, so good.

Now I do not say that the advertisement and the illustrated pamphlet had
exactly called the vest a stylish addition to ordinary attire, but there
was reticence as to any unsightly effect upon the figure. So little
emphasis was laid on this that one quite naturally expected something
rather like a vest. Not of course such an article as that historic
waistcoat which DICKENS borrowed from MACREADY, but a vest not devoid of
vestiness--something that a gentleman could negligently pace the deck
in, without being too ostentatiously engaged in the task or pastime of
saving his life; or sleep in with comfort, all ready for the water when
the Hun arrived.

Imagine then my surprise on finding in my cabin a parcel that might by
its size have contained an assortment of pumpkins, from which I
extracted an article no doubt many times more buoyant than cork, but
adapted far less to walking a deck in or wooing reluctant slumbers in
than for (obviously its real purpose) assisting Sir HERBERT TREE to make
up as _Falstaff_.

Carefully locking the door, I put it on and tied its tapes and fastened
its buckles. The result was more than comic--it was grotesque; and with
an overcoat to cover it I looked like one of the two MACS of blessed
memory. Could life be saved thus? Only by sitting up in my cabin all
night, for as to going on deck in it--not for a ransom! And as for
sleeping in it--that was beyond all question. I therefore took it off,
and sadly I climbed the companion to see how the rest of the passengers
looked in their various vests; but either they had found a trimmer build
than mine, which I doubt, or they too had shirked the ordeal. The result
was that all our lives--even my fifteen-shilling one--were at the
disposal of the Hun. So is it to be English.

Anyhow, the saving of my own life is not, I am convinced, my forte. My
forte is fatalism and trust in a star that hitherto has not been too
capricious. Perhaps that is England's forte too.

       *       *       *       *       *

DACTYLOMANIA.

  'NEATH skies of inveterate azure,
    Where bitterns incessantly boom,
  And, thridding each elfin embrasure,
    Sleek satyrs enamel the gloom,
  The gaunt and impassive gorilla
    Emits a melodious moan
  As he treads a sedate seguidilla
        Aloof and alone.

  The sun, with an amber emotion,
    Darts down his importunate rays,
  Distilling a petulant potion
    Of pale and impalpable haze;
  And scents of ineffable sweetness
    Float up from the misty lagoon,
  Fulfilling in utter completeness
        Life's ultimate boon.

  I know not what demons abysmal
    Will out of the welter emerge;
  What dews of delight cataclysmal
    My desolate brow will asperge;
  I only am sure that this stanza,
    When handled by slingers of slosh,
  Will always remain a bonanza
        For building up bosh.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE APPEAL DEPRECATORY.

IN announcing their production as "One of those musical things," the
authors of the new Comedy revue have given a lead which it is hoped may
end in the establishment of happier relations between the advertiser and
the consumer. For a long time signs have not been absent that the star
of the mere hustler is set, and that the public are no longer to be
cowed into obedience by the Prussianism of Blank, who commands, "Buy my
soap and step lively about it. You'd better!"

The following essays in the less assertive mode of publicity are offered
by way of