Excerpt
October 7, 1914.
CHARIVARIA.
General Villa has now declared war on President Carranza. Everybody's doing it.
Is there, we wonder, a single unfair weapon which the Germans have not used? It is now said that not infrequently a German band is made to play when the enemy's infantry advances to attack.
A regrettable mistake is reported from South London. A thoroughly patriotic man was sat upon by a Cockney crowd for declaring that the Kaiser was a Nero.
Servia, The Times announces, will in future be called Serbia in our contemporary's columns. We would suggest that in the same way Bavaria might be called Babaria.
All German soldiers are close-cropped. To show, apparently, that they have the courage of the conviction they deserve.
The German officers in France are said to be extremely careful as to what they eat, betraying a great fear of being poisoned. It is, of course, a fact that one grain of vermin-killer would dispose of any one of them.
It has been suggested that the explanation of the Kaiser may be that he is a "throw-back." His parents were gentlefolk, but his ancestor, Frederick William I., was a well-known undesirable.
It is now stated that the reason why the German troops destroyed the historic edifices of Louvain and Rheims was the Kaiser's order that no stone was to be left unturned to prove that the Germans are the apostles of Culture.
It has been decided, after all, that Shakspeare may be played in Germany; and the proposal that the name of the bard should be changed to Wilhelm Säbelschüttler has been dropped in deference to the wishes of the Kaiser, who thought it might lead to confusion.
It has, we are glad to see, been denied that Carpentier, the famous boxer, has been wounded. This reminds us, by-the-by, of one more miscalculation that the German War Party made. In choosing their date for the outbreak of war they relied on the fact that Carpentier was not yet liable for service.
The Germans have had a bright new idea, and are calling us a nation of shopkeepers. Certainly we have been fairly successful so far in repelling their counter attacks.
"GERMAN PIES SHOT."
Sound policy this. The enemy cannot fight without his commissariat.
A well-known Floor Polish firm has issued a notice declaring that it is entirely a British concern. However, we shall not complain of their dealing with an alien enemy if they care to supply a little of it for the benefit of German manners.
Dr. Karl Vollmöller, who is chiefly notable for his spectacle "The Miracle," has, The Express tells us, been acting for the past month as Germany's head Press agent in Rome, and has now sailed for New York. One would have thought that there was greater need for him in Germany, where only a miracle can save the situation.
Publishers seem to be realising that books, to sell nowadays, must have warlike titles. Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin's new volume is, we note, called A Summer in a Cañon.
By the way, The Price of Love is announced. It is six shillings.
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