re ye takin' any precautions against these submarines, Jock?"

SECOND SKIPPER: "Ay! Although I've been in the habit o' carryin' my bits of
bawbees wi' me, I went an' bankit them this mornin', an' I'm no taking ma
best oilskins or ma new seaboots."

FIRST SKIPPER; "Oh, _you're_ a'richt then. Ye'll hae practically
nothin' tae lose but yer life."]

Oh, there ain't no band to cheer us up, there ain't no Highland pipers
To keep our warlike ardure warm round New Chapelle and Wipers,
So--since there's nothing like a tune to glad the 'eart o' man,
Why Billy with his mouth-organ 'e does the best 'e can.

Wet, 'ungry, thirsty, 'ot or cold, whatever may betide 'im,
'E'll play upon the 'ob of 'ell while the breath is left inside 'im;
And when we march up Potsdam Street, and goose-step through Berlin,
Why Billy with 'is mouth-organ 'e'll play the Army in!

[Illustration: THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

SINBAD THE KAISER: "This submarine business is going to get me into trouble
with America; but what can an All-Powerful do with a thing like this on his
back?"]

When officers come home on leave and find England standing where she did,
their views support the weather-beaten major who said that it was "worth
going to a little trouble and expense to keep _that_ intact." But you
can hardly expect people who live in trenches which have had to be rebuilt
twice daily for the last few months and are shelled at all hours of the day
or night, to compassionate the occasional trials of the home-keeping
bomb-dodger. The war, as it goes on, seems to bring out the best and the
worst that is in us. South Wales responded loyally to the call for
recruits, yet 200,000 miners are affected by the strike fever.

The House, where party strife for a brief space was hushed by mutual
consent, is now devastated by the energies of indiscreet, importunate,
egotistic or frankly disloyal question-mongers. We want a censorship of
Parliamentary Reports. The Press Bureau withholds records of shining
courage at the front lest they should enlighten the enemy, but gives full
publicity to those

Who give us words in lieu of deeds,
Content to blather while their country bleeds.

There is, however, some excuse for those importunates who wish to know on
what authority the Premier declared at Newcastle that neither our Allies
nor ourselves have been hampered by an insufficient supply of munitions. In
two months' fighting in Gallipoli our casualties have