s well known that the Chinese pray more than the Dutch, but then nobody
understands what they are saying.

* * *

The Ascot Fire Brigade went on strike last week and several important fires
had to be postponed at the last moment.

* * *

The Bolsheviks, it appears, may not, after all, be as black as they are
painted. It is reported that TROTSKY has caused one of his Chinese guards
to be executed for calling another an Irishman.

* * *

Senator BORAH recently informed the American Press that the Presidential
election campaign was becoming a Saturnalia of public corruption. In one
flagrant case it appears that a man who was given the money to buy ten
dollars' worth of Irish Republic went and bought a box of cigars instead.

* * *

"To keep cats off the seed beds," says _Home Chat_, "bury a small bottle up
to the neck and fill it with liquid ammonia." The old practice of burying
the cat up to the neck in the seed bedding and keeping the ammonia for
subsequent use is considered obsolete.

* * *

During the past year in London 2,886 persons were knocked down by horsed
vehicles, as compared with 8,388 who were knocked down by motor vehicles.
The popularity of the latter, it seems, is still unchallenged.

* * *

A weekly paper has an article on "Bad Manners Among Fish." We have
ourselves noticed a tendency to ignore the old adage that fish, like little
children, should be seen and not heard.

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNLIKELY SCENE AT THE LABOUR EXCHANGE: OUT-OF-WORK POET
PASSING THE INSPIRATION TEST BEFORE A SUPERVISING OFFICIAL OF THE BOARD OF
TRADE.]

* * * * *

"Young lady requires daily work as Cook-general; work not objected
to."

_Provincial Paper._

Very obliging of her.

* * * * *

POSSESSION.

The dear old home has been let to strangers. An interloper occupies the
messuage. A foreign master controls the demesne.

To-day especially, when as I write the air is balmy and the skies are blue,
it is agonising to feel that our own spring rhubarb is growing crimson only
to be toyed with by alien lips, and that the thrush on our pear-tree
bough----But no, I am wrong; the pear-tree bough is in the garden of No. 9;
it is only the trunk that stands in the garden of No. 10. That, by the way,
is an accident that frequently occurs to estate-owners. Consi