Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920

Excerpt

June 9, 1920.

Owing to heavy storms the other day one thousand London telephones were thrown out of order. Very few subscribers noticed the difference.

A camera capable of photographing the most rapid moving objects in the world is the latest invention of an American. There is some talk of his trying to photograph a bricklayer whizzing along at his work.

"Perjury is now rampant in all our Courts and there seems to be no way of preventing it," declares a well-known judge. Surely if they did away with the oath this grievance would soon disappear.

"With goodwill on both sides," said Lord Rothschild recently, "the Jews will make a success of colonising their own country." There will have to be assets as well as goodwill, it is thought, if they are to be made to feel thoroughly at home.

Mr. George Beer, the man who built the first glass houses in this country, has died at Worthing. The man who threw the first stone from inside has not yet been identified, but suspicion points to Sir Frederick Banbury.

When the police order you to move on, said the Thames magistrate, it is better to go in the long run. Others declare that it is quite sufficient to melt from view at a businesslike waddle.

"The only way to get houses," says the Marylebone magistrate, "is to build them." The idea of knitting a few seems to have been overlooked.

We understand that the Scotsman who was injured in the rush outside the post-office on the last night of the three-halfpenny postage, is now able to get about with the help of a stick.

New motor vehicles to take the place of the "Black Marias" are now being used between Brixton Gaol and Bow Street. Customers who contemplate arrest should book early to avoid the congestion.

Signor Marconi has failed to get into touch with Mars. At the same time we are asked to deny the rumour that communication has been established between Lord Northcliffe and the Premier.

"Comedians," says a stage paper, "are born, not made." This disposes of the impression that too many of them do it on purpose.

Flapper. "Oh—and I want some peroxide. Er—it's for cleaning hairbrushes, isn't it?"

It has been established in the Court of Appeal that the farther north you go the larger are people's feet. Surprise has been expressed at the comparatively small number of Metropolitan policemen who hail from Spitzbergen.

Sydney Richardson, the London messenger-boy who went to America for Mr. Darewski, has just returned. It is said that one American wanted to keep him as a souvenir and offered him a job as a paper-weight for his desk.

The Trafalgar Hotel, Greenwich, famous of old for its whitebait dinners, has been turned into a Trades Union Club. The report that the Parliamentary Labour Party has decided to preserve the traditions of the place by holding an annual red herring supper there is not confirmed.

A certain brass band in Hertfordshire now practises in the evening on the flat roof of a large factory. We understand that the Union of Cat Musicians are taking a serious view of the matter.