E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram,
Punch, or the London Charivari,
William Flis,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 153.
September 19, 1917.
CHARIVARIA.
There is no truth in the report that one of the most tellinglines in the National Anthem is to be revised so as to read"Confound their Scandiknavish tricks."
Grave fears are expressed in certain quarters that the StockholmConference has been "spurlos versenkt."
Someone has stolen the clock from St. Winefride's Church,Wimbledon. We hope that the culprit has responded to the universalappeals in the newspapers which urged him to put the clock back onSunday last.
An Englishwoman living in the East has a servant-girl who, whentold about the War, remarked, "What war?" Another snub for theKAISER.
"A Vegetarian" writes to accuse Lord RHONDDA of reducing theprice of meat on purpose.
Tube fares are to be raised. An alternative project of issuingspecial tickets, entitling the holder to standing room, wasreluctantly abandoned.
The Thames, says a contemporary, has come into its own again asa holiday resort. Many riparian owners, on the other hand, arecomplaining that it has come into theirs.
A trades union of undertakers' mutes has been formed. Theirfirst act, it is believed, will be to strike for a fifty-yearlife.
We have been asked to explain that the Second Division in whichMr. E.D. MOREL is now serving is not the one that fought at thebattle of Mons.
Two escaped German prisoners have been arrested at Wokingham bya local grocer. The report that he charged twopence each fordelivery is without foundation.
At Leith Hill, in Surrey, trees are being felled by a number ofunescaped German prisoners.
"Beans running to seed," says an informative daily paper,"should be picked and the small beans extracted." But the oldcustom of lying in wait for them on the return journey and stunningthem with a flail still retains many adherents in the slow-movingcountryside.
"I am the father of sweeps," declared an elderly employer to theWest Kent Tribunal. He afterwards admitted, however, that thesecret correspondence of Count LUXBURG had not been brought to hisnotice.
Acting, explained an applicant to the House of Commons'Tribunal, is regarded by many as a work of national importance. TheTribunal have generously arranged for him to storm a few barns inFlanders.
Sixty-eight thousand persons, it is stated, have visited themaze at Hampton Court this season. Others have been content to stayat home and study the sugar regulations.
The admission fee to a concert recently held for the benefit ofthe Southwark Military Hospital was one egg. None of the gatemoney, it seems, reached the performers.
According to the Town Crier of Dover, who has just retired afterfifty years' service, town crying isn't what it was before the War.People will listen to the bombs instead of attending to theproperly constituted official.
A "History of the Russian Revolution" has been published. Thepen may not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages tokeep ahead of it.
A private in one