lsewhere:

Not here their hour of great emprise;
No mounting cheer towards Mortlake roars;
Lulled to full tide the river lies
Unfretted by the fighting oars;
The long high toil of strenuous play
Serves England elsewhere well to-day.

London changes daily. The sight of the female Jehu is becoming familiar;
the lake in St. James's Park has been drained and the water-fowl driven to
form a concentration camp by the sorry pool that remains beside the
Whitehall Gate.

Spy-hunting is prevalent in East Anglia, but the amateurs have not achieved
any convincing results. Spring poets are suffering from suspended
animation; there is a slump in crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils and lambkins.
Their "musings always turn away to men who're arming for the fray." The
clarion and the fife have ousted the pastoral ode. And our military and
naval experts, harassed by the Censor, take refuge in psychology.

The _Koelnische Zeitung_ has published a whole article on "Mr. Punch."
The writer, a Herr Professor, finds our cartoons lacking in "modest
refinement." Indeed, he goes so far as to say that the treatment of the
Kaiser savours of blasphemy. One is so apt to forget that the Kaiser is a
divinity, so prone to remember that Luther wrote, "We Germans are Germans,
and Germans we will remain--that is to say, pigs and brutish animals." This
was written in 1528: but "the example of the Middle Ages" is held up to-day
by German leaders as the true fount of inspiration.

[Illustration: THE WAR SPIRIT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

ARDENT EGYPTOLOGIST (who has lately joined the Civic Guard): "No, I seem to
have lost my enthusiasm for this group since I noticed Bes-Hathor-Horus was
out of step with the other two."]

_April_, 1915.

A hundred years ago Bismarck was born on April 1, the man who built with
blood and iron, but now only the blood remains. Yet one may doubt whether
even that strong and ruthless pilot would have commended the submarine crew
who sank the liner _Falaba_ and laughed at the cries and struggles of
drowning men and women. Sooner or later these crews are doomed to die the
death of rats:

But you, who sent them out to do this shame;
From whom they take their orders and their pay;
For you--avenging wrath defers its claim,
And Justice bides her day.

The tide of "frightfulness" rolls strong on land as on sea. The second
battle of Ypres has begun and the enemy has resorted to the use of a new
weapo