* * *

A scientist has succeeded in putting a pea to sleep with
electro-magnetism. The clumsy old method of drowning it in a plate of
soup should now be a thing of the past.

* * *

General TOWNSHEND says that with seventy thousand men he could
have conquered half Asia. But then he might have lost Mr. HORATIO
BOTTOMLEY.

* * *

What we want now is something to make the world safe for those who
made the world safe for democracy.

* * *

There is now on the market a new patent contrivance which gives
warning when the contents of an oven are on the point of burning. We
have secured a sample, but unfortunately our cook still relies on her
sense of smell.

* * *

"Leather is now much cheaper," we read. Yet we have noticed no drop in
the price of restaurant steak.

* * *

On January 1st the Ministry of Munitions will enter upon its second
year of winding up.

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR GOGGLERS.

_First Girl in grandmotherly spectacles (to second ditto)._ "HOW
FRIGHTFULLY OUT OF DATE THAT WOMAN IS. FANCY--LORGNETTES!"]

* * * * *

THE HAPPY HOOTS.

Yes, it is nearly twelve now. In ten minutes we shall hear the
bells--I mean the hooters. I wonder if there were hooters when
TENNYSON wrote those popular lines about ringing in the New Year. Very
likely he didn't hear them if there were, as there's nothing to show
that he ever really stayed up late enough to see the New Year in. It's
a pity, because the hooters would have fitted in to that poem most
beautifully. The hooting idea is just what is wanted to give a
dramatic contrast to the sugary ringing business.

"Ring out the false, ring in the true"

doesn't _convince_ somehow; it's too impartial. One doesn't say to the
footman, "Show the Rector up, please, and show this blackmailer out,"
even at the Lyceum. One says, "_Kick_ this black-hearted hound out,"
and the footman realises then that you have something against the
fellow. Just so one doesn't gather from the above line that the poet
has any strong preference as between the false and the true, except
that there is no good rhyme to "the false," unless you can count
"waltz"; but what about--

_Hoot_ out the old, ring in the new;
_Hoot_ out the false, ring in the true?

Magnificent! There's some sting in that; it "gets over," and it brings
the whole poem into harmony with modern practice.