Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914

Excerpt

APRIL 15, 1914.

Reuter telegraphs from Melbourne that the Commonwealth building in London is to be called "Australia House." This should dispose effectively of the rumour that it was to be called "Canada House."

"The Song of the Breakers," which is being advertised, is not, we are told, a war song for the Suffragettes.

Some of the Press reported a recent happy event under the following heading:—

"Wedding of Mrs. Patrick Campbell."

Mr. George Cornwallis West would like it to be known that it was also his wedding.

It was rumoured one day last week that a certain officer famous for his picturesque language was about to receive a new appointment as Director-General of Expletives.

"Gold-Plated Typewriter,"

announces The Mail. We are sorry for the poor girl. Mr. Granville Barker, of course, started the idea with his gilded fairies.

Miss Mabel Rogers, we read, is bringing a suit against certain other girl students of Pardue University, Indiana, for "ragging" her by tearing off her clothes. It seems to us that it is the defendants who ought to bring the suit.

"Twelve small farmers," we are told, "were on Saturday sent for trial at Ballygar, County Galway, on a charge of cattle-driving." Their size should not excuse them.

One evening last week, The Daily Mail tells us, the electric light failed in several districts of Tooting and Mitcham. "A resident in Garden Avenue," says our contemporary, "had invited about a dozen friends to a card party. The host secured a supply of candles, in the dim light of which the party played." It is good to know that in this prosaic age and in this prosaic London of ours it is still possible to have stirring adventures worth recording in the country's annals.

The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says The Westminster Gazette, "M. Poincare will leave on his visit to Russia, after the national fêtes on July 14."

A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as £2,625 and £1,837 at Christie's last week, and we hear that some of our less notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.

"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You Out-of-Doors—and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that Gets You Home Again.

The Premier, who was said to have "run away" to Fife, after all had a "walk over."

"The Elizabethan spirit," says a laudator temporis acti, "is dead among us." We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was sighted Drake went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would refuse to leave their game of golf.

CAPTIVE GOLF.

Defaulting golf-club official trying to impart a little interest to the daily round.

PROFESSIONAL ANACHRONISM.

Mrs. Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the world of her age—for she is put down in black and white as forty-four in more than one book of reference....