***

A terrible tragedy was only just averted last week, when a husband, who had travelled from the City by tube, and his wife, who had been to the Spring bargain sales, failed to recognise each other on their return home.

***

The War Office, the Board of Trade and the Zoo have formed a Triple Alliance for a campaign against rats.  As a result of this it is said that quite a number of the more timid rodents are afraid to go out alone after dark.

***

The Society of Public Analysts has been asked by the Food Ministry to define a sausage.  A number of pedigree sausages are to be submitted for classification.

***

The Minister of Foreign Affairs in the late Bavarian Soviet Government has been placed in a lunatic asylum.  The reason for this invidious distinction is not assigned.

* * * * *

Mr. Churchill on the Hull election: 

“Nothing in these reactions should be taken by the Government as in any way deflecting them from their clear and definite course of reviving the posterity of this country.”—­Daily Telegraph.

All very well, but they must get it born first.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Old-fashioned humorous Cow (suddenly).  “Moo!”

Lady (who all last year was a land-worker).  “Pooh!”]

* * * * *

“MUTABILE Semper.”

    To such as have a humorous bent
      Pleasant indeed it was to cull
    From rival organs what was meant
      By the enlightened vote of Hull;
  What process of the mind (if any) drove her
  To execute that ludicrous turn-over.

    Some held the Peace was too severe,
      And others not severe enough;
    The latter cried, “The cause is clear—­
      Lloyd George is made of flabby stuff;”
  The former took the line that he had blundered
  In letting Fritz (their friend) be grossly “plundered.”

    Then came a still small voice which said,
      “The thing that sent the coupon West
    Was Woman; something in her head
      Told her that second thoughts were best;
  To Party laws she hasn’t learnt to knuckle
  (This was the view advanced by Mr. Buckle).

    “Men know a ‘pledge’s’ worth by now;
      They take it with a touch of salt;
    To Woman ’tis a sacred vow,
      And for the least alleged default
  She gives her Chosen One no minute’s grace,
  But treats it like a breach-of-promise case.”

    O “Ministering Angels,” ye
      Who yet are mobile as the breeze,
    Have you alone the right to be
      “Uncertain, coy and hard to please?”
  Our Ministerial Angels (George and kind)—­
  Aren’t they allowed, poor males, to change their mind?