ster casts
of their language.

***

Nearly all the extra firemen required for the London Fire Brigade have
been engaged. Clients are assured that arrears of fires will now be
worked off with all speed.

***

According to a daily paper a severe thunderstorm which recently
visited Luton was not heard by the audience in a local concert hall.
It is rumoured that a performer was at the time reciting a chapter of
Lord FISHER'S autobiography.

***

A strike of incubator-makers is threatened and many grocers who stock
breakfast-eggs fear that a lot of chicks may come out in sympathy.

***

According to an evening paper a young lady who was chased by a bull
in a provincial meadow ran a quarter of a mile and jumped a stream
sixteen feet wide before gaining safety. Not much of a jump, surely,
considering the long run she took.

***

"Whilst motoring between Baldock and Grantham one is struck by the
greenness of the growing wheat and barley," states a writer in a motor
journal. The regularity with which these cereal grasses adopt this
colour is certainly worthy of attention.

***

Our heart goes out to the American travellers who set foot on our
shores at Southampton one day last week just five minutes after
closing-time.

***

In their recent match against Sussex the first four Middlesex batsmen
each scored a century. We understand that in order to obviate a
recurrence of this sort of thing a movement is on foot to increase the
number of runs in a century to a hundred and fifty.

***

We are informed that "a man arrested by Dutch fishermen in the belief
that it was the CROWN PRINCE making his escape turned out to be a
notorious jewel thief." The error seems to have been excusable.

***

The case of the dock labourer who appeared at a County Court in a
tail coat and white waistcoat is now explained. The man's valet, who
usually looks after these things for him, had gone on strike for more
wages.

***

Charged with taking one hundred and forty-five pounds of his
employers' money a Newcastle office-boy was stated to have been
reading trashy novels. It was thought to be only fair to the financial
papers that the public should know where he got the idea from.

***

"I reckon I can drink fifty pints a day, easy," a witness told the
Portsmouth magistrates. He may do it for a while, but sooner or later
his arm is bound to go back on him.

***

"Under British guidance," says a contemporary, "Persia's