.

***

No one has yet found anything that will conquer the wire-worm,
says Professor J.R. DUNSTAN. We feel that the Professor is unduly
pessimistic. Has he tried the effect of writing a letter to _The Daily
Mail_ about it?

***

Things appear to be settling down in Mexico. Last week only one
hundred of General CARRANZA'S men were annihilated by bandits.

***

The Berlin authorities have ordered a "Shaveless day." As a measure of
frightfulness this is doomed to failure against an Army like ours with
tanks which will eat their way through all sorts of entanglements.

***

Because an officer omitted to salute him, Field-Marshal VON HINDENBURG
stopped his car and said, "I am HINDENBURG." We understand that the
officer accepted the explanation.

***

"There is a scarcity of violins," says _The Evening News_. Some papers
never know how to keep a secret.

***

Lundy Island has just been purchased by Mr. AUGUSTUS CHRISTIE, of
North Devon. We are relieved to know it is still on the side of the
Allies.

***

A grocer at Coalville, Leicestershire, riding a motor-bicycle without
lights, is said to have offered two and a half pounds of sugar to a
policeman to say nothing about it. Fortunately the constable, when he
came out of his faint, remembered the number of the bicycle, and the
man was summoned.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "YOU ON GUARD TO-NIGHT, NOBBY?" "NAW." "WOT YER BIN AN'
WASHED YER FACE FOR, THEN?"]

* * * * *

OFFICIAL RECTITUDE.

SWEDEN ON THE LUXBURG INCIDENT.

We cannot think that we're to blame.
We took the very natural view
That one who bore a German name
Would be as open as the blue;
Would bathe in sunlight, like a lark,
So different from the worm or weevil,
Those crawling things that love the dark
Because their deeds are evil.

We thought his cables just referred
To harmless matters such as crops,
The timber-market's latest word,
The local fashions in the shops,
To German trade and German bands,
And how in Argentine and Sweden
And all that's left of neutral lands
To build a German Eden.

True he employed a secret code,
But who would guess at guile in that?
Unless he used the cryptic mode
He couldn't be a diplomat;
He wished (we thought) to be discreet,
Telling his friends how frail and fair is
T