Not so the miner!  Though his private life
    Is blameless and his soul is pure and brave;
  Although he gives his wages to his wife
    And spanks his children when they don’t behave;
  Though rather than incur industrial strife
    He takes the cash and lets the Bolshy rave,
  He is condemned to toil in mines and galleries,
  Nourished inside with insufficient calories,
    A sordid mineral’s uncomplaining slave,
  Till the rheumatics get him and his pallor is
    So marked he hardly dares to wash and shave. 
  And shall I grudge the man sufficient pelf
  For toil I’d rather die than do myself?

  Ah, there’s the rub!  I fain would see him blest
    With ample quarters and sufficient food,
  A spacious close wherein to take his rest,
    Hats for his wife and bootlets for his brood. 
  But, now the Powers have granted his request,
    Too well I know what course will be pursued
  By certain merchants who “enjoy” my custom: 
  They’ll put the price of coal up, you can trust ’em,
    Till I by want am utterly oppressed
  And my finances, howso I adjust ’em,
    To my complete insolvency attest. 
  Five pounds a ton they’ll charge—­I know their game—­
  Saying, “Of course the miner is to blame.”

  Nay, let me clasp the honest fellow’s hand,
    Saying, “O miner, here is one who shares
  Your just desire to make this lovely land
    A fit abode for heroes and their heirs
  By ousting Plunder’s profiteering band,
    Who take the cash and leave us all the cares. 
  Oh, if we twain together might conspire,
  Would we not grasp them by the scruff and fire
    Coal merchants, barons, dukes and millionaires,
  And run the business to our hearts’ desire,
    Paying no dividends on watered shares;
  Blessing State ownership and State control,
  You for high wages, I for cheaper coal.”

  ALGOL.

* * * * *

THE GREAT GOLF CRISIS.

A great budget of correspondence from all parts of the country has reached Mr. Punch concerning the suggestions put forward by famous golfers with the view of modifying the predominant influence exercised by putting in golf.  A crisis is rapidly being reached and Government intervention may be invoked any day.

Mr. Ludwig Shyster, of the North Boreland Golf Club, suggests that the tin in the hole should be highly magnetized and the ball coated with a metallic substance so that it might be attracted into the hole.  Golf, he contends, is a recreation, and the true aim of golf legislation should be to make the game easier, not more difficult; to attract the largest possible number of players and so to keep up the green-fees and pay a decent salary to secretaries and professionals.

Hanusch Kozelik, the famous Czecho-Slovakian amateur, who has recently done some wonderful rounds at Broadstairs, cordially supports GEORGE DUNCAN’S advocacy of a larger hole.  He sees no reason why it should not be three feet in diameter, provided the greens were reduced to eight feet square and surrounded with a barbed-wire entanglement.