rely satisfactory to all parties concerned that one wonders why
the Commission couldn't have thought of that itself.

[Illustration: THE INFECTIOUS HORNPIPE]

Mr. Bernard Shaw, returned from his "joy-ride" at the Front, has declared
that "there is no monument more enduring than brass"; the general feeling,
however, is that there is a kind of brass that is beyond enduring.
Armageddon is justified since it has given him a perfectly glorious time.
He is obliged, in honesty, to state that the style of some of the buildings
wrecked by the Germans was quite second rate. He entered and emerged from
the battle zone without any vulgar emotion; remaining immune from pity,
sorrow, or tears. In short:

He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed
From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist.

According to the latest news from Sofia, 35,000 Bulgarian geese are to be
allowed to go to Germany. As in the case of the Bulgarian Fox who went to
Vienna, there appears to be little likelihood that they will ever return.

[Illustration: FOOD RESTRICTION

SCENE: HOTEL.

LITTLE GIRL: "Oh, Mummy! They've given me a dirty plate."

MOTHER: "Hush, darling. That's the soup."]

Apropos of food supplies, Lord Devonport has developed a sense of judicial
humour, having approved a new dietary for prisoners, under which the bread
ration will be cut down to 63 ounces per week, or just one ounce less than
the allowance of the free and independent Englishman. The latest morning
greeting is now: "_Comment vous Devonportez-vous?_"

_April_, 1917.

Once more the rulers of Germany have failed to read the soul of another
nation. They thought there was no limit to America's forbearance, and they
thought wrong. America is now "all in" on the side of the Allies. The Stars
and Stripes and the Union Jack are flying side by side over the Houses of
Parliament. On the motion introduced in both Houses to welcome our new
Ally, Mr. Bonar Law, paraphrasing Canning, declared that the New World had
stepped in to redress the balance of the old; Mr. Asquith, with a
fellow-feeling, no doubt, lauded the patience which had enabled President
Wilson to carry with him a united nation; and Lord Curzon quoted Bret
Harte. The memory of some unfortunate phrases is obliterated by the
President's historic message to Congress, and his stirring appeal to his
countrymen to throw their entire weight into the Allied scale. The War,
physically as