Only twenty Members agreed with Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD in believing, or affecting to believe, that the recent resolution of the German Reichstag was the solemn pronouncement of a sovereign people, and that it only requires the endorsement of the British Government to produce an immediate and equitable peace.  Not much was left of this pleasant theory after Mr. ASQUITH had dealt it a few of his sledge-hammer blows.  “So far as we know,” he said, “the influence of the Reichstag, not only upon the composition but upon the policy of the German Government, remains what it has always been, a practically negligible quantity.”

Any faint hopes that the pacificists may have cherished of a favourable division were destroyed by Mr. SNOWDEN in a speech whose character may be judged by the comment passed on it by Mr. O’GRADY, just back from Russia, that “LENIN had preached the same doctrine in Petrograd.”

* * * * *

THE REST CURE.

TRIBUNALS PLEASE COPY.

    “It is understood that the French Consul at Lourenco Marques,
    M. Savoye, has, owing to ill-health, asked his Government to
    allow him to return to Army duties.”—­Cape Times.

* * * * *

“Lady ——­ set the fashion of arriving at the altar with empty hands.  She is the first bride to have had such an important wedding without the etceteras of bouquet or prayerbook, bridesmaids, pages, or wedding-cake.”—­News of the World.

Far too big a handful.

* * * * *

    “150 YEARS AGO—­JULY 20, 1767.

    Reports of the borough treasurer of West Ham show a loss of
    L41,000 on the municipal tramways and a loss of L35,000 on
    the electricity undertaking.”—­Northampton Daily Echo.

So the eighteenth century was not so much behind the present time as we had been led to believe.

* * * * *

    “Piano wanted by a lady to teach little girl to
    learn.”—­Provincial Paper.

One of those player-pianos with the new knuckle-rapping attachment, we suppose.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Tommy ("mopping up” captured trench).  “IS THERE ANYONE DOWN THERE?”

Voice from dug out.  “JA!  JA!  KAMERAD!”

Tommy.  “THEN COME OUT HERE AND FRATERNISE.”]

* * * * *

MILITARY AIDES.

Last year, owing to the pressure of other engagements, we did not mark out the tennis-lawn at “Sunnyside.”  This year the matter has been taken out of our hands by the military powers.

Nevin was the first to think of it.

“What about a game of tennis?” he suggested one bright morning in May.  “Keep us from going to seed.”

It was his second day of leave after three months in the Ypres salient, so the change may have been too sudden for him.