Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916

Excerpt

May 3, 1916.

Sir Roger Casement, it appears, landed in Ireland from a collapsible boat. And by a strange coincidence his arrival synchronised with the outbreak of a collapsible rebellion.

Hard soap can now be obtained in Germany only by those who purchase bread tickets. The soft variety cannot be obtained at all, the whole supply, it seems, having been commandeered by the Imperial Government for export to the United States.

£175 worth of radium was lost last week in Dundee. The ease with which bar radium can be melted down and remoulded in the form of cheap jewellery affords, according to the local police, a clear indication that this was the work of thieves.

A conscientious objector has stated that he had even given up fishing on humanitarian grounds. We fear that his fish stories may have caused some fatal attacks of apoplexy among his audiences.

According to Sir Thomas Barlow "the importation of bananas has had a far-reaching effect on the digestion of our children." Only last Monday week the importation of six bananas had just that kind of effect on the digestion of our own dear little Percy.

Portugal has decided to expel German sympathisers of whatever nationality. Other clubs please copy.

From the Eastern Counties comes news that in last week's Zeppelin raid twenty turnips were "completely destroyed." And so the grim work of starving England into submission goes relentlessly on.

"That boy there," said the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, in addressing some children from an orphanage, "can easily become a Lord Mayor." Cases of this sort are really not hard to diagnose when you are familiar with the symptoms, and the Lord Mayor had, of course, noticed the hearty manner in which the lad was attacking his food.

The latest Shakspearean discovery announced by Sir Sidney Lee is that the Bard was a successful man of business; but the really nice people who have lately taken him up have resolved not to let the fact prejudice them against him after all these years.

"Absence of the Polecat from Ireland" is the title of a vigorous article in the current number of The Field. While agreeing in substance with the writer, we cannot refrain from commenting on this unexpected departure of a peculiarly moderate organ from its customary restraint in dealing with the political questions of the day.

The Editor of The Angler's News makes public the request that fishermen will provide him with the particulars of any exceptionally big fish which they may catch. Strangely enough he does not suggest that the data should be accompanied, for purposes of verification, by the fish themselves. It is refreshing to know that there is a man left here and there who is not trying to make something out of the War.

One of the Zeppelins that recently visited England dropped one hundred bombs without causing a single casualty, and a movement is on foot to present the Commander with a pair of white gloves.

"What I wish to show Mr. Norman," says Mr. G. K. Chesterton in The New Witness, "is that the fantastic pursuit of the idée fixe ......