FOR THE BEST. Miss CAROWTHERS'S educational hotbed of female innocence was about to undergo desolation by the temporary dispersal of its intellectual buds and blossoms to their native soils, therefrom to fill home-atmospheres with the mental fragrance of "all the branches." Holiday Week drew near, when, as Miss CAROWTHERS Ritually expressed it, "all who were true believers of the... more...

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT. 11.—HOW MR. MUFF CONCLUDES HIS EVENING. Essential as sulphuric acid is to the ignition of the platinum in an hydropneumatic lamp; so is half-and-half to the proper illumination of a Medical Student’s faculties. The Royal College of Surgeons may thunder and the lecturers may threaten, but all to no effect; for, like the slippers in the Eastern story,... more...

December 9, 1914. We are told that "it is confidently believed by the advisers to the Treasury that the new issue of £1 notes cannot be successfully imitated." We think that it is a mistake to put our artists on their mettle in this way. A black eagle, a contemporary tells us, was seen one day last week at Westgate-on-Sea. A Prussian bird, no doubt, in mourning for lost Calais. The German... more...

A STORY WITH A POINT. (With Mr. Punch's apologies for not having sent it on to "The Spectator.") Geoffrey has an Irish terrier that he swears by. I don't mean by this that he invokes it when he becomes portentous, but he is always annoying me with tales, usually untruthful, of the wonderful things this dog has done. Now I have a pointer, Leopold, who really is a marvellous animal, and... more...

MAN AND WIVES. A TRAVESTY. BY MOSE SKINNER. CHAPTER FIRST. CROQUET. croquet party has assembled in Mrs. TIMOTHY LADLE'S front yard, located in one of the most romantic spots in that sylvan retreat, the State of Indiana. "Who's going to play," did you say? Come with me, and I'll introduce you. This austere female, with such inflexible rigidity of form, such harrowing cork-screw... more...

CANCEL, OR RECALL. The World last week sounded a note about the compulsory retirement, by reason of age, from one of the large Revenue Departments, of a gentleman who has the great honour to be the son of "the most distinguished Irishman of this century." If this sentence has really been passed authoritatively, which Mr. Punch takes leave to doubt, then said "Authority" will do well to... more...

The story which I have to tell is more than strange. It is so terrible, so incredible, so entirely contrary to all that any ordinary reader of the London Journal or the "penny dreadfuls" has ever heard of, that even now I have some doubt in telling it. I happen, however, to know it is true, and so does my husband. My husband will come in presently with his narrative. There! that ought to make... more...

CHARIVARIA. "We doubt," says a contemporary, "if the Government has effected much by refusing to let Dr. Mannix land on Irish shores." We agree. What is most wanted at the moment is that the Government should land on Ireland. We feel that the time is now ripe for somebody to pop up with the suggestion that the wet summer has been caused by the shooting in Belfast. Manchester City... more...

December 23, 1914. An exceptionally well-informed Berlin newspaper has discovered that, owing to the war, Ireland is suffering from a horse famine, and many of the natives are now to be seen driving cattle. An appeal is being made in Germany for cat-skins for the troops. In their Navy, on the other hand, they often get the cat itself. In offering congratulations to the "Green Howards" on the... more...

CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS. THE KEEPER. (Continued.) Is there no way, then, you may ask, in which the Head Keeper may be lured from his customary silence for more than a sentence or two? Yes, there is one absolutely certain method, and, so far as I know, only one. The subject to which you must lead your conversation is—no, it isn't poachers, for a good keeper takes the occasional... more...