A WAR-HORSE OF THE KING.

Oh, mummy, you must speak to baby:Youthful Patriot."Oh, mummy, youmustspeak to baby: he's most awfully naughty. He won't let nurse take his vest off, and(in an awe-struck voice)he keeps on screaming and yelling thathe likes the Germans!Anybodymight hear him."

Youthful Patriot."Oh, mummy, youmustspeak to baby: he's most awfully naughty. He won't let nurse take his vest off, and(in an awe-struck voice)he keeps on screaming and yelling thathe likes the Germans!Anybodymight hear him."

I knew you in the first flight of the Quorn,One who never turned his gallant head asideFrom bank or ditch, from double rail or thorn,Or from any brook however deep and wide;I know the love your owner on you spent;I know the price he put upon your speed;And I know he gave you freely, well content,When his country called upon him in her need.I have seen you in the bondage of the campWith a heel-rope on a pastern raw and red,Up and fighting at the stable-picket's trampWith the courage of the way that you were bred;I have seen you standing, broken, in the rain,Lone and fretting for a yesterday's caress;I have seen your valour spur you up againFrom the sorrow that your patient eyes express.Now in dreams I see your squadron at the Front,You a war-horse with a hero on your back,Taking bugles for the horn-blast of the hunt,Taking musketry for music of the pack;Made and mannered to the pattern of the rest,Gathered foam—and maybe blood—upon your rein,You'll be up among the foremost and the best,Or we'll never trust in Leicestershire again!

I knew you in the first flight of the Quorn,

One who never turned his gallant head aside

From bank or ditch, from double rail or thorn,

Or from any brook however deep and wide;

I know the love your owner on you spent;

I know the price he put upon your speed;

And I know he gave you freely, well content,

When his country called upon him in her need.

I have seen you in the bondage of the campWith a heel-rope on a pastern raw and red,Up and fighting at the stable-picket's trampWith the courage of the way that you were bred;I have seen you standing, broken, in the rain,Lone and fretting for a yesterday's caress;I have seen your valour spur you up againFrom the sorrow that your patient eyes express.

I have seen you in the bondage of the camp

With a heel-rope on a pastern raw and red,

Up and fighting at the stable-picket's tramp

With the courage of the way that you were bred;

I have seen you standing, broken, in the rain,

Lone and fretting for a yesterday's caress;

I have seen your valour spur you up again

From the sorrow that your patient eyes express.

Now in dreams I see your squadron at the Front,You a war-horse with a hero on your back,Taking bugles for the horn-blast of the hunt,Taking musketry for music of the pack;Made and mannered to the pattern of the rest,Gathered foam—and maybe blood—upon your rein,You'll be up among the foremost and the best,Or we'll never trust in Leicestershire again!

Now in dreams I see your squadron at the Front,

You a war-horse with a hero on your back,

Taking bugles for the horn-blast of the hunt,

Taking musketry for music of the pack;

Made and mannered to the pattern of the rest,

Gathered foam—and maybe blood—upon your rein,

You'll be up among the foremost and the best,

Or we'll never trust in Leicestershire again!

War or no war, the children must have their Christmas presents, and they wouldn't look at the usual toys made in Germany, even if they could be had this year. The Women's Emergency Corps has the matter in hand. Some fascinating models have been designed and registered, and many women who were in need of work are engaged in copying them under skilled direction. Funds are needed badly at the start, though the scheme will eventually support itself. For the children's sake, and even more for the sake of the women-breadwinners to whom the war has brought distress,Mr. Punchbegs his generous friends to help this work. Gifts should be sent to The Duchess of Marlborough, Old Bedford College, 8, York Place, Baker Street, W.

To those who Died in the Early Days of the War.

Not theirs to triumph yet; but, where they stood,Falling, to dye the earth with brave men's bloodFor England's sake and duty. Be their nameSacred among us. Wouldst thou seek to frameTheir fitting epitaph? Then let it beSimple, as that which marked Thermopylæ:—"Tell it in England, thou that passest by,Here faithful to their charge her soldiers lie."

Not theirs to triumph yet; but, where they stood,

Falling, to dye the earth with brave men's blood

For England's sake and duty. Be their name

Sacred among us. Wouldst thou seek to frame

Their fitting epitaph? Then let it be

Simple, as that which marked Thermopylæ:—

"Tell it in England, thou that passest by,

Here faithful to their charge her soldiers lie."

THE GREAT GOTH.THE GREAT GOTH.DESIGN FOR A STAINED-GLASS WINDOW IN A NEO-GOTHIC CATHEDRAL AT POTSDAM.

DESIGN FOR A STAINED-GLASS WINDOW IN A NEO-GOTHIC CATHEDRAL AT POTSDAM.

Newly-gazetted Subaltern.Newly-gazetted Subaltern."Girls! girls! you really mustn't crowd round me like this. I've missed two salutes already."

Newly-gazetted Subaltern."Girls! girls! you really mustn't crowd round me like this. I've missed two salutes already."

Although the German army already owes much of its efficiency to useful hints garnered from the animal kingdom—such as the goose-step, which has been employed with such conspicuous success in the streets of Brussels—we were hardly prepared for the far-reaching mobilisation of the more familiar mammals which is now foreshadowed. It is true that we had already been much impressed by theKaiser'sthreat to continue the war to the last breath of man and horse, but it is none the less startling to learn, on American authority, that the German Government would, at a pinch, be prepared to arm every cat and dog in the Empire. It will thus be open to the future historian to speak of "the cats of war."

There is another branch of the community which should not be overlooked—if theKaiseris willing to take a suggestion—in the form of the domestic cattle of the Fatherland. These, we believe, are admirably adapted to attack in close formation upon entrenched positions. And much might be done with the rats from the cellars of Munich—than which no finer natural warriors exist.

But the new menace must be met. Fortunately, if zoological warfare is to become an accomplished fact, the British Empire has great untapped resources. It is rumoured that a Camel Corps has been despatched from India already, and a squadron of elephants should be a match for a whole Army Corps of dachshunds.

On the whole we welcome the new departure. It may lead—who knows?—to the establishment of a higher standard in German civilized warfare.

An interesting light has been thrown on this new mobilisation by a letter concealed in the whiskers of the captured mascot (a Tortoiseshell) of a Bavarian regiment. It runs as follows:—

Potsdam.

(Can't divulge address.)

Dear Gretchen,—Awful bad luck for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if there's any weakness in the victualling department, I shall be the first to leave the colours.

They're making one huge mistake. The dogs are called out too. You know what German dogs are—sausage-food, we call them. Of course they'll be cut up and give the show away. But, if they're in the first line with us behind them, they'll have to fight somebody.

Albrecht is in the Royal Blacks (Empress's own). Max has joined the 3rd Tabbies, and I've got a command in the 10th Tortoiseshells.

Your one and only

Puss in Prussians.

P.S.—It's a joke with the Tabby regiments that they've got their stripes already.

"Ste. Menehould is 32 miles due west of Verdun. Montfaucon is 18 miles north-east of Ste. Menehould and a dozen miles north-west of Verdun."—Manchester Guardian.

The War has changed many things; among them the triangle's old habit of having two of its sides together greater than the third. But there; "necessity," as theImperial Chancellorsays, "knows no law."

Humorist to Cinema Commissionaire.Humorist (to Cinema Commissionaire)."Now ven, Wilhelm, give us one or two goose-steps!"

Humorist (to Cinema Commissionaire)."Now ven, Wilhelm, give us one or two goose-steps!"

IV.

Dear Charles,—Half-a-dozen officers ofthebattalion, including your own pet terrier, have got cut off from the main body, but are all alive and well, as you shall hear. We have come down from our war to our peace station in order to gather together the few hundred recruits who have been enrolled to bring up the brigade to its proper establishment, and fill the places of those luckless fellows whose flesh was too weak for Imperial service, however willing their spirit might have been. I must say I was more sorry for the "medically unfit" than I have ever been for anyone in this hard world, when we took affectionate leave of them.

The recruit is an excellent fellow, whose only fault is that he didn't start before. Now and then he is a plutocrat, as I have found to my cost. It was my first job to prearrange the lodging of two hundred of them in their temporary billet, an unoccupied mansion originally designed to house twenty persons at the outside. There was an overflow, as you may imagine, which had to be lodged in the outhouses. The garage I marked out for twenty-five, leaving it to themselves to decide whether or not the inspection-pit was the place of honour reserved for the N.C.O. in charge. Other business prevented my receiving them at the front gate and conducting them to their several rooms. When I did arrive on the scene it was my heartrending duty to explain to Privates Anstruther and Vernon that the reason why they couldn't find their bedroom was because they had filled it with their motor-cars. But it is wonderful how people can settle down to anything; an hour later I found the twenty-five of them comfortably tucked in for the night, crooning unanimously, "There's no place like home!" To-day they have chalked up on the wall, "The Ritz Private Boarding Establishment; well-aired beds; bring your own straw. Excellent cuisine.Nogarage."

This is the sort of remark which, as you go the rounds of the mess tables, you have to pretend you have not heard: "The officer wants to know if you have all got plenty of potatoes. Every man stand up and say 'I have';" and, to demonstrate thecamaraderiewhich exists in the hard circumstances of military life, "George, lend me your slice of bacon to clean my knife with." The most moving reply I have personally received came from one of the less-educated section. I asked to what company he was attached, and he didn't know. "Who is your captain?" I said. "'Im with the scuppered 'at," was the descriptive reply. Captain Herne has since lectured his gang on the rudiments of military discipline, first, however, replenishing his neglected equipment.

And now let us turn from the domestic aspect to the infantry training, and let me tell you all about outposts, their duty and their manner of performing it. Outpost companies, it must be remembered, do their work at night. I don't know, Charles, whether you have ever sat under a hedge for hours on end in the dark, waiting the approach of the enemy. It must be bad enough in real warfare, where there is a chance of his turning up; but in practice it is worse, for there is the certainty that hemustturn up. He left the camp an hour before you did yourself, and, if he does succeed in getting through your lines, he'll never let you hear the last of it.

Now you must remember that my fellows had spent many weary days "sloping arms," only to unslope them again almost immediately, and in other sufficiently bloodless pursuits. They are naturally of a pugilistic breed, and the attacking party comprised old-time opponents. Constant efforts to keep a watch in the dark are trying to the nerves, and when something substantial does emerge which one may get a grip on ... what use is it for an officer to say that no violence is required and enough is done for present purposes if the enemy is successfully observed and quietly apprehended? The first enemy to approach turned out, on arrest, to be just an innocuous cow; but this disappointment served only to make the aspect of my men even more menacing. The next arrival was a hapless scout of the attacking party: he had come to surprise, but was himself violently surprised. What advice and exhortations I had to give were lost in the hubbub. "Put up your fists, chaps, and let him have it!" was the order, which was obeyed. The necessity for silence was forgotten; here was something upon which to wreak all the pent-up feelings consequent upon a month's perusal of German atrocities. It was excusable, if unsporting, for the scout to bite the thumb of his nearest assailant—and a good thorough bite it was. It fell to my lot later to dress the wound; as I did so the casualty explained to me fully and often the exact circumstances of the case. But he was not angry about it; far from it. With an expression of feature combining interested enquiry with perfect readiness to accept whatever might be in the proper order of infantry training, he said, "And then 'e bit me thumb, Sir. Was that right?"

D'Arcy and I had an awkward moment the other day. We turned into a wayside golf club in an emergency, and begged to be allowed to buy our tea there. Even as we did so the Secretary himself arrived in a motor car, which, as we were not aware, had but a little while ago overtaken Major Danks and the half battalion under his charge. Even the Secretary himself, accustomed to ignore foot-passengers, did not appreciate that he had roused the Major's wrath by the haste of his overtaking. The Secretary was, to us, politeness itself—nay more, he insisted upon our being the guests of the club not only on that occasion but on every available opportunity. Other members gathered round and endorsed his view. We returned thanks in brief and soldierly speeches. There were, by way of reply, votes of confidence, and, in rejoinder, expressions of reciprocated esteem. The invitation was extended to every officer in the battalion, andthen we withdrew to the wash-house to prepare to receive hospitality. Hardly had we departed when the Major arrived, and we returned from our ablutions, if not into the open, at least sufficiently near to hear him reprimanding the Secretary in the most violent terms, threatening arrest to the miscreant chauffeur, and, indeed, the annihilation of the whole clubhouse and links, and every man, woman and child in or about them. Old man, I have never less enjoyed a meal at others' expense than I did the tea which followed.

Acting temporarily as Quarter-Master I went to the butcher's to-day. "A nice morning, Sir," said he. What could he do for me? "What about some beef?" said I. "About ten pounds?" he suggested. "Nearer two hundred," I replied.... "Good day," he concluded, as he bowed me out of the shop. "Averynice morning, Sir."

I'll tell you my opinion of these soldiers, Charles, amateur or professional. Feed them like princes and pamper them like babies, and they'll complain all the time. But stand them up to be shot at and they'll take it as a joke, and rather a good joke, too.

Yours ever,

Henry.

Playground of sand in a London park.Scene: Playground of sand in a London park.Kind-hearted Old Lady."That little boy looks very lonely. Why don't you ask him to play with you?"Little Girl."Ow, don't take no notice of 'im, lidy. 'E's swankin' 'cos 'e's bin to the seaside."

Scene: Playground of sand in a London park.

Kind-hearted Old Lady."That little boy looks very lonely. Why don't you ask him to play with you?"

Little Girl."Ow, don't take no notice of 'im, lidy. 'E's swankin' 'cos 'e's bin to the seaside."

(By our Military Expert.)

The brief statement from Headquarters at Petrograd that on the South-West front Wszlmysl has fallen and that the pursuit of the Austrians has reached Mlprknik has a significance that may easily be overlooked by those who are unfamiliar with the topography of the district and its pronunciation. Wszlmysl (pronounce Wozzle-mizzle) is a large fortified town in the district of Mprzt (pronounce Ha-djisha), at the junction of the rivers Ug (pronounce Oogh) and Odzwl (pronounce Odol), about ten miles to the N.E. of Ploschkin (pronounce as written), with which it is connected by an electric tramway. The information available shows that the garrison of Wszlmysl (pronounce Woolloomoolloo) deserted their guns and retreated in haste with the Russians in hot pursuit. Now, inasmuch as this fortress has been pronounced by the Russian expert, Colonel Shumsky (pronounce Sch-tchoomsky), to be stronger than either Namur or Liége, the precipitate retirement of the Austrians can only be accounted for by a complete breakdown ofmoral.

The cause of this breakdown may escape most observers, but it is in reality simple enough. It has long been known that the Austrians have found themselves terribly handicapped by their inability to deal faithfully with the consonantal difficulties presented by the names of towns and districts in which the ethnic basis is Slav and not Teutonic. Quite recently, on the capture of the town of Prtnkévichsvtntchiskow (unpronounceable, and only to be approximately rendered with the assistance of a powerful Claxon horn), the garrison were found to be in a deplorable condition of aphasia and suffering from chronic laryngitis. We have therefore the best grounds for believing that a similar cause operated in the case of the Austrian defenders of Wszlmysl. They fled because they were unable to cope with the vocal exigencies of the situation.

To sum up, we have in our Eastern ally a nation not only great in numbers, in warlike prowess, and in enthusiasm for their cause, but also fortified by the possession of a language so rich in phonetic variety and so formidable in consonantal concentration as to strike terror into opponents of lesser linguistic capacity.

Those who Sit in Judgment."

In days of great national tension the public needs some coaxing to be got into the theatre at all. Our managers should either, at the risk of appearing callous, offer us a pure distraction from the strain of things or else provide something in harmony with the emotions of the time. But frankly I cannot find in the programme at the St. James's any apparent sign of consideration for present conditions. It is true that it supplies excellent entertainment for Mr.George Alexander, who has plenty of occupation in a part that suits him well. But I was thinking, selfishly enough, of my own needs and those of other non-combatants.

I admit that the scene in West Africa was a diverting novelty. I had never before, to my recollection, met a native monarch from the Gold Coast, and I have pleasure in accepting the assurance of Mr.Crowther, Secretary for Native Affairs in this district, that they are like that. But it was impossible to feel any very deep concern as to what might happen to the damaged hero (Michael Trent) on his return to England after the failure of his rubber schemes. The best he could hope for, by way of consolation for being misunderstood, was to become a co-respondent in a suit brought by the chief sitter-in-judgment. Even so we might have contrived a little sympathy if the woman's fifth-rate environment had not made any community of tastes hopelessly improbable. For her, too, it seemed to us a poor business that the only encouragement she could offer him in the undeserved ruin of his career was to get it blasted all over again—and this time on a true charge—by running away with him.

But the rubber-man in the play was never a hero. There in his Gold Coast shanty we see his lover's young brother dying of fever under his eyes. Yet from the moment when he himself gets a touch of the same complaint he takes to brandy, and practically loses all further interest—at any rate of a coherent kind—in the fate of hisprotégé. And at the end—though he seems to take a good deal of personal pride in the prospect—the only heroism that lies before him is the living-down of a sordid scandal in the divorce-court.

AsMichael Trent, Mr.George Alexanderplayed excellently, and I have nothing to say against either the quality or the quantity of his work, except that in the First Act the tale of his experience in the Beresu forest, which began with a very natural air, developed into something like a recitation. He might almost have been Mr.Roosevelt, in a mood of exaltation, describing his river to the Geographical Society. That clever actress, MissHenrietta Watson, had to play a difficult part asTrent'slover, in a vein that, I think, is new to her. She did it well, though she seemed to start on a note of intensity which left her too little margin for the time when she really needed it; her appeal, too, was rather to our intelligence than our hearts. Mr.Nigel Playfair, waiving his gift of deliberate humour, showed himself a master of the petty meannesses of a certain phase of suburban banality. Mr.Volpépresided, with the right rotundity of a rubber company's chairman, over a very spirited meeting of indignant share-holders. And, finally, nothing became Mr.Reginald Owenso well as the manner of his dying.

O. S.

"Young Wisdom."

Victoriawas very young and very, very wise. She knew all about the slavery of the marriage-tie, the liberty of the female subject, and high-sounding things of that sort, and kept books of advanced thinking secretly under her mattress—where her little brother found them and thought them dull, and her mother found them and thought them rather funny.Victoria'stheory was that all marriages ought to be preceded by a trial trip, but it was her sisterGailwho had the pluck to put this theory into practice. She insisted on her young man,Peter, eloping with her on the night before their wedding.Peter, a simple gentleman with a mouth permanently open, was reluctantly persuaded. WhereuponChristopher, the best man, engaged toVictoria, insisted uponVictoriaalso living up to her theory and eloping without clerical assistance—which she did almost as unwillingly asPeter. The two couples meet at midnight in an old moorland cottage rented by an artist calledMax(no, not the one you think), whereupon two important things happen:—

(1)Gaildecides in about twenty minutes that she lovesMax, notPeter. (2)Victoriadecides that she hates trial trips. So they all five go back together, and, after a lot of "Tut-tut-what-the-blank-upon-my-souls" from the military stage-father, they sort themselves out again and get married properly—Peterbeing left over with a cold in the head.

The author, MissRachel Crothers, has not strained herself severely in writingYoung Wisdom, and the result is a pleasantly innocent little play, which, thanks to the MissesMargery MaudeandMadge Titheradgeas the two sisters, and Mr.John DeverellasPeter, gave us all a good deal of pleasure. MissMaudehad a part with a little comedy in it for once, and she played it delightfully.

We were playing the ancient and honourable game of acrostics and we had to think of and describe a word bounded on the West by the initial E, and on the East by the final H.

"That which you can never have of mushrooms," was one of the descriptions. It was, of course, guessed at once—"Enough;" and could there be a truer compliment to this strange exotic delicacy, which costs nothing but a walk in an early autumnal morning and is more choice than the rarest flavours ever designed by the most inspired ofchefs? For certainly there has never been enough of them. I, at any rate, have never had enough. The thought of mushrooms missed must add pathos to many a death-bed.

It is a terrible moment when the dish comes in and one rapidly notes the disparity between the paucity of its contents and the vast and eager anticipation of the company. For it is useless to attempt to conceal greed when mushrooms arrive. A certain amount of dissimulation has mercifully been given by a wise Providence to all of us for the lubrication of the cogs of daily life; but it does not extend so far as this. And particularly so if the mushrooms have been fried in butter. Stewed they are not of course to be undervalued, especially if one dares to soak one's bread in the juice; nor even reposing in tragic isolation on Juan Fernandezes of toast; but the real way is to fry them in butter. As I say, it is a terrible moment when the dish arrives and the faces of the guests are studied; but should there be one present, or—more ecstatic moment still—two, who confess to a dislike of this perilous fungus, then what an access of rapture by way of compensation! Truly wise hostesses have been known to murmur something about toadstools and risk, as an encouragement to the doubters; or if they don't their husbands do. It is however no real good! Even with two defaulters the dish does no more than stimulate desire; whilst such is its power of fascination that consummategourmetshave been known to express no dismay at the possibility of poison being there, a death so won being worth dying.

Mushrooms, to win such homage as this, must be picked in the fields and cooked at home. The forced mushrooms which grow under the shelf inthe greenhouse or in a corner of the cellar lack something of divinity; while there is not a restaurantchefin the world who has not a long record of ruined mushrooms to his name. No sooner does a public cook get at a mushroom than it begins to deteriorate. When thechefcomes in at the door the savour flies out of the window. It is a point of honour with him. When therefore I said that one can never have enough mushrooms I meant at home.

It is an injustice to the mushroom to eat it as an adjunct to other food; while there is one meat which in alliance it renders unwholesome. The odd thing is that every one differs as to what this meat is; but my own hazy recollection says mutton. Still that prohibition is not for us, who know the only way in which mushrooms should be eaten: fried, with bread and butter, and the butter spread too thick.

It is rumoured that the freedom of Hunstanton is to be conferred on theKaiser.

THE BULL-DOG BREED.THE BULL-DOG BREED.Officer."Now, my lad, do you know what you are placed here for?"Recruit."To prevent the henemy from landin', Sir."Officer."And do you think that you could prevent him landing all by yourself?"Recruit."Don't know, Sir, I'm sure. But I'd have a dam good try!"

Officer."Now, my lad, do you know what you are placed here for?"

Recruit."To prevent the henemy from landin', Sir."

Officer."And do you think that you could prevent him landing all by yourself?"

Recruit."Don't know, Sir, I'm sure. But I'd have a dam good try!"

Corkey is the School Attendance Officer and a terror to every boy in the neighbourhood. He looks at the truant and says fiercely, "Where was you?" Then he wags a savage finger at him. "Yes, you was," he says, "you was, you know you was. I caught you in the hact." No boy has ever been known to withstand him.

Yet Corkey has a heart.

William Frederick Wright is our chief boy scout. In the first great days of the war, William was on duty at a railway bridge up the line. Local fame placed him somewhere betweenFrenchandKitchener. Sent to round up the truant, Corkey reported in glowing words, "Guarding his country."

A second week's absence produced the same report. Then business instinct began to war with patriotism in the breast of Corkey. During the third week he once more looked the culprit up.

His report was grim and terse. "Warned him," he wrote.

On the following Monday William sadly returned.

Ere our lesson to theKaiser,Self-anointed Lord of Earth,Left that furious monarch wiserReour troops' intrinsic worth,Frankly, I had thought you flighty,Callous to the very core;Lovely?—yes, like Aphrodite;Nothing more.Later, when you slaked your thirstingFor an apron, cuffs and cap,Long before the war-cloud, bursting,Made a mess of Europe's map,Though your mind showed some improvement,Lady, I conceived you hadJoined a purely social movementFor a fad.Now the scales at length upliftedFrom my eyes in you reveal,Verily, a woman giftedWith the power to help and heal.So I send, for shame, these versesWhere you brave the battle's brunt,One of England's noble NursesAt the front.

Ere our lesson to theKaiser,

Self-anointed Lord of Earth,

Left that furious monarch wiser

Reour troops' intrinsic worth,

Frankly, I had thought you flighty,

Callous to the very core;

Lovely?—yes, like Aphrodite;

Nothing more.

Later, when you slaked your thirstingFor an apron, cuffs and cap,Long before the war-cloud, bursting,Made a mess of Europe's map,Though your mind showed some improvement,Lady, I conceived you hadJoined a purely social movementFor a fad.

Later, when you slaked your thirsting

For an apron, cuffs and cap,

Long before the war-cloud, bursting,

Made a mess of Europe's map,

Though your mind showed some improvement,

Lady, I conceived you had

Joined a purely social movement

For a fad.

Now the scales at length upliftedFrom my eyes in you reveal,Verily, a woman giftedWith the power to help and heal.So I send, for shame, these versesWhere you brave the battle's brunt,One of England's noble NursesAt the front.

Now the scales at length uplifted

From my eyes in you reveal,

Verily, a woman gifted

With the power to help and heal.

So I send, for shame, these verses

Where you brave the battle's brunt,

One of England's noble Nurses

At the front.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

I always open a new book byGertrude Athertonwith a pleasant grace-before-meat sensation of being already truly thankful for what I am about to receive. And it is hardly ever that I am disappointed. I do not mean to tell you that her latest story, which bears the attractive titlePerch of the Devil(Murray), will eclipse the record of all that has gone before; but it need not do that to be well worth reading. It is a tale of mining life, set against a background of claims and veins and drifts and ores—things that I for one delight to read about because of their infinite possibilities, the romance of the gamble that is in them. There is plenty of this gamble inPerch of the Devil(the mountain township where the miners lived).Gregory Compton, the hero, makes his pile all right, and has some rare moments in doing it. He would have been happier if he could have enjoyed prosperity, when it came, for its own sake and for that of his pretty wife. But, though he bestowed upon her all the luxuries that successful mining commands—frocks and cars and European travel—it was another woman,Ora, who had his heart. And unfortunately she was the wife of his partner. It is with this quartette of characters that Mrs.Athertonworks out her tale, an unusually small cast for a story of 373 pages; but you will hardly need to be told with what sympathetic and subtle skill she depicts them. Her art is, as always, extraordinarily minute and close. The two women especially are made to live before us with a great effect of actuality. She has wit, too, of a dry, rather grim, kind. I liked her comparison ofGregory'semotion on finding himself in love withOrato that of a small boy despising himself for a second attack of measles before he discovers the later complaint to be scarlet fever. You must read this book.

In no industrial survey of the present situation have I seen any reliable estimate of the probable output of patriotic romance. Yet the figures seem likely to be impressive. One of the earliest samples is before me now. It is calledThe Gate of England(Hodder and Stoughton), with the sub-title,A Romance of the Days of Drake, and is in every way true to its admirable type. What I mean by this is that it contains everything that you expect and are glad to find—a Virgin Queen, imperious and quick of retort, with a generous eye for the claims of gallantry; a hero who simply could not be more heroic; villains (of Spanish name, priests, murderers, all a regular bad lot), and the right proportion of female interest and humorous relief. Need I give you the details? How the hero, Captain of the Queen's body-guard, saves Her Majesty's life (a scene with a genuine thrill in it) and is rewarded by her. How he goes in command of an expedition against Channel freebooters, and finally ends up as an agent of the British Intelligence Department, finding out things about the army of His Grace of Parma, then at Dunkirk awaiting conveyance by the Spanish fleet. He seems, however, to have been something of a failure in the way of intelligence, as by lack of this the hero managed to get himself and his companion imprisoned for spies (which indeed they were), and was only rescued by the intervention ofDrakeas the god from the machine. A pleasant, if undistinguished, tale that will be enjoyed by the young of all ages. It is a minor point, but when one finds the hero calledChristopher Stone, and another character rejoicing in the name ofGabriel Ray, it is hard to acquit the author of some poverty of invention. His own name (I had almost forgotten to mention) isMorice Gerard; and he has done better work.

Pan-Germanism(Constable) is a seasonable cheap reprint of a study of that egregious creed byRoland G. Usher, an American Professor of History. With an almost cynical candour and detachment the author analyses the origins, assumptions, justifications and pretensions, and foreshadows with some insight the miscalculations, of those who have essayed to direct the destinies of modern Germany. It is as well that this essay comes from a neutral pen; it would else be discredited as a freak of prejudice. Pan-Germanism, as here seen, is thereductio ad absurdumof the doctrine that all is fair in war—and peace. It is no less than blank anarchy, philosophic and practical, and indefinitely less workable as a theory of international life than that of the so long discredited Sermon on the Mount. The honest Briton can find here solid justification of his cause. Perhaps it is not altogether unwholesome that our national withers don't entirely escape wringing. We are a little guilty, but much less guilty than our arch-opponent; so thinks this sober and wide-eyed critic.... Certainly, and the more significantly since it is without direction or intention of the writer, one sees behind all the tragedy of these dark weeks and of the long months and years to come the sinister picture of a man of no more than common earthly wisdom saddled with responsibilities that might well break the nerve of a council of the gods. Is it well, if the matches must be kept in the powder-magazine, to let the children in to play with them?

the London public would feel more securePerhaps the London public would feel more secure if our guardian airship were made in this pattern.

Perhaps the London public would feel more secure if our guardian airship were made in this pattern.

That he will arm the German cat and dogTheKaiserswears in language hot and heady;He leaves the swine out of his catalogueBecause the swine, it seems, are armed already.

That he will arm the German cat and dog

TheKaiserswears in language hot and heady;

He leaves the swine out of his catalogue

Because the swine, it seems, are armed already.

"Another German officer prays for a decisive engagement which will put an end to bloody encounters. One evening he and his fellow-officers had to share between themselves a meal prepared for their men."—Times.

The records of the war have furnished many instances of physical hardship, but none more terrible than this.

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