painfully high
pitch which irreverent critics have been known to describe as "Sister
Mary Jane's top-note."

Mr. ASQUITH in reply was sympathetic but firm. The Government were not
deaf to the plea for leniency which had been addressed to them by all
Irish representatives, by Sir EDWARD CARSON as well as by Mr. REDMOND.
But they could not give an undertaking that there should be an end of
the courts-martial. As for the persons deported from Ireland, for whom
Mr. DILLON had specially appealed, it would be more humane in their own
interests not to bring them to trial at once, for that would mean a crop
of convictions and sentences which would increase instead of allaying
the alleged irritation in Ireland.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Doctor_ (_examining recruit_). "And do you always
stutter like that?"

_Recruit_. "N-n-no, Sir. Only w-w-w-when I t-t-talk."]

* * * * *

Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR developed a really ingenious argument. To show that
martial law ought now to be dropped he mentioned that if he attempted to
hold a recruiting meeting in his constituency his life would not be
worth half-an-hour's purchase. Members who were thinking of spending the
recess in Ireland were greatly impressed.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"Fishpingle."

_Sir Geoffrey Pomfret_, "that almighty man, the county god," claimed to
exercise the same divine right over the souls of his village that he
exercised, in the matter of breeding, over the bodies of his cattle and
pigs. Nothing, I think, has brought the present War more closely home to
my bosom than the humours of this feudal relic--taken in all seriousness
by everyone, including the author. It seems almost inconceivable that
Mr. VACHELL's play deals with conditions that still survived only a few
years ago. Yet the Squire's devotion to the science of eugenics
establishes its date as quite recent. It was his sole taint of
modernity; and indeed where his own son's marriage was concerned he
omitted to apply his scientific principles, and made a choice for him in
which no regard was paid to eugenics, but only to established social
traditions.

At first the play opened up prospects of a pleasant gaiety. A love
scene, conducted in a rich Western brogue, between the _Squire_'s
footman and his still-room maid, and the embarrassment caused by her
eagerness to learn the philosophy of "eujanics," were ful