Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920

Excerpt

CHARIVARIA.

Some idea of the heat experienced in this country last week can be deduced from the fact that several bricklayers were distinctly seen to wipe their brows in their own time.

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It is all very well for LENIN to talk about Great Britain recognising Russia, while his followers are doing their best to render the place almost unrecognisable.

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Normally, says Dr. GEOFFREY KEYNES, a person has fifteen thousand millions of blood corpuscles circulating in his body. People suffering with insomnia might try counting them in bed.

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According to a scientific journal, tests recently made show that microbes cannot live long on coins. "Middle Class" writes to say this is nothing new to him, as no germ could live on his salary.

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The promoters of the Milk and Dairies Bill hope to ensure clean milk for the public. They seem to have thought out an improvement on the present system by which certain dairymen are in the habit of washing their milk.

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It took nature several million years, says The New York World, to make a ton of coal. It looks as if she has arranged to charge us retrospectively by the hour for the stuff.

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A gold wedding-ring has been found inside a large doe rabbit which was shot recently in a wheat-field near Wilbury. The question arises, "Do modern rabbits go through the marriage ceremony?"

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The latest fad of the American golfer is to have a small painting made of himself in the act of driving. We feel, however, that it will be some time before English golfers will place orders for plaster casts of their language.

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Nearly all the extra firemen required for the London Fire Brigade have been engaged. Clients are assured that arrears of fires will now be worked off with all speed.

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According to a daily paper a severe thunderstorm which recently
visited Luton was not heard by the audience in a local concert hall.
It is rumoured that a performer was at the time reciting a chapter of
Lord FISHER'S autobiography.

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A strike of incubator-makers is threatened and many grocers who stock breakfast-eggs fear that a lot of chicks may come out in sympathy.

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According to an evening paper a young lady who was chased by a bull in a provincial meadow ran a quarter of a mile and jumped a stream sixteen feet wide before gaining safety. Not much of a jump, surely, considering the long run she took.

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"Whilst motoring between Baldock and Grantham one is struck by the greenness of the growing wheat and barley," states a writer in a motor journal. The regularity with which these cereal grasses adopt this colour is certainly worthy of attention.

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Our heart goes out to the American travellers who set foot on our shores at Southampton one day last week just five minutes after closing-time.

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In their recent match against Sussex the first four Middlesex batsmen each scored a century. We understand that in order to obviate a recurrence of this sort of thing a movement is on foot to increase the number of runs in a century to a hundred and fifty....