nderfully_ since I married him?"

* * * * *

"From 1910 to 1916 he was Viceroy in India, governing the
Dependency through very critical years and enjoying general
esteem, as was made clear in 1912, when an attempt was made to
assassinate him at Delhi."--"_Daily Mail" on Lord Hardinge_.

It sounds like a _succes d'estime_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE PUBLIC BENEFACTOR.

MR. SMILLIE. "I CAN'T BEAR TO THINK OF YOUR PAYING SO MUCH FOR YOUR COAL.
I MUST PUT THAT RIGHT; I MUST SEE THAT YOU DON'T GET ANY."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _First Tramp_. "IN THIS BIT O' NOOSPAPER IT SAYS:
'THE 'OLE CAUSE OF THE WORLD'S PRESENT DISORDER IS THE UNIVERSAL
SPIRIT OF UNREST. I WONDER IF THAT'S TRUE?"

_Second Tramp_. "I AIN'T NOTICED IT."]

* * * * *

THE COAL CUP.

It seems to me that we all take a great deal of interest in the miners
when they strike, but not nearly enough when they hew. And yet
this business of hacking large lumps of fuel out of a hole, since
civilisation really depends on it, ought to be represented to us from
day to day as the beautiful and thrilling thing that it really is. Yet
if we put aside for a moment Mr. SMILLIE'S present demands, we find
the main topics of discussion in the daily Press as I write are
roughly these:--

(1) The prospects of League Football and the Cup Ties.

(2) Ireland.

(3) The prevalence of deafness amongst blue-eyed cats.

(4) Mesopotamia.

(5) The Fall of Man.

(6) The sale of _The Daily Mail_, whose circulation during
the coming winter is for some reason or other supposed to be almost
as important to the children of England as their own.

Of all these topics the first is, of course, by far the most
absorbing, and almost everyone has remarked how the love of sport, for
which Britons are famous, is growing more passionate than ever. It is
not only cricket and football, of course; only the other day there was
a shilling sweepstake on the St. Leger in our office and, from what
I hear of the form of Westmorland in the County Croquet Championship
during the past season--but I have no time to discuss these things
now.

The point is that, whilst this excitement over games grows greater
and greater, the country is suffering, say the economists, from
under-production and the inflation of the wage-