***

A postman going his rounds at Kingston found a deserted baby on the lawn of a front garden.  It speaks well for the honesty of postal servants that the child was at once given up.

***

We are pleased to announce with regard to the German waiter who, in 1913, gave a Scotsman a bad sixpence for change, that reassuring news has just reached Scotland that the fellow, is still alive.

***

A morning paper states that a gentleman who had been at the War Office since August 1914 was given a big reception on his return home.  The name of the Departmental Chief whom he had been waiting to see has not yet been disclosed.

***

A morning paper tells us that Frisco of New York, who is alleged to have invented the Jazz, has declined an invitation to visit London.  Coward!

***

By the way, they might have told us whether the offer to Frisco came from London or New York.  Meanwhile we draw our own conclusions.

***

With reference to the horse that recently refused at the third jump and ran back to the starting-post, we are asked to say that this only proves the value of backing horses both ways.

***

“No man,” says a writer in a daily paper, “can sit down and see a girl standing in a crowded Tube train.”  This no doubt accounts for so many men closing their eyes whilst travelling.

***

Mr. Devlin, M.P., has communicated to the Press a scheme for solving the Irish problem.  This is regarded by Irish politicians generally as a dangerous precedent.

***

A defendant in a County Court case heard in London last week stated in his evidence that two of his daughters were working and the other was a typist at the Peace Conference.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “How pleasant it is, my dear Horace, to play with one’s toys without incurring the Risk of having one’s enjoyment marred by the tragic discovery of their Teutonic origin!”]

* * * * *

Commercial candour.

From a placard in a shop-window:—­

    “Do you buy Tea, or do you buy our Tea?”

* * * * *

    “Should a customer cut his hair and shave at the same time,
    the price will be one shilling.”—­Advt. in “Daily Gleaner”
    (Jamaica).

Not a bit too much for such ambidexterity.

* * * * *

The price of Freedom.

  I thought the cruel wound was whole
    Which left my inside so dyspeptic;
  That Time had salved this tortured soul,
    Time and Oblivion’s antiseptic;
  That thirty years (the period since
    You showed a preference for Another)
  Had fairly schooled me not to wince
    At being treated like a brother.