Counsels of sheer perfection, you will say,
  In times when ev’ry mad dog has his day,
  Yet none the less inviting as the theme
  Of a millennial visionary’s dream.

  And as for Duchesses turned tweeny-maids
  Or following other unobtrusive trades
  There’s nothing very wonderful or new
  Or difficult to credit in the view;
  For DICKENS—­whom I never fail to bless
  For solace in these days of storm and stress—­
  Found his best slavey in The Marchioness.

* * * * *

WHO INVENTED THE NAME “SAMMIES”?

“They are ‘Sammies’ now, and the name probably will stick along with ‘Tommy,’ ‘poilu’ and ‘Fritz.’ ...  The christening was one of those spontaneous affairs, coming nobody knows how.”—­Kansas City Star.

Mr. Punch, ever reluctant to take credit to himself, feels nevertheless bound to say that the suggestion of the name “Sammies” for our American Allies appeared in his columns as long ago as June 13th.  On page 384 of that issue (after quoting The Daily News as having said, “We shall want a name for the American ‘Tommies’ when they come; but do not call them ‘Yankees’; they none of them like it”) he wrote:  “As a term of distinction and endearment, Mr. Punch suggests ’Sammies’—­after their uncle.”

* * * * *

    “London.—­ ——­ House.  Bed, breakfast 4s., per week 24s. 6d. 
    No other meals at present.”

This should encourage the FOOD-CONTROLLER.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Transport Officer.  “CONFOUND IT, MAN!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  DON’T TEASE THE ANIMALS!”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS.)

HANSI, the Alsatian caricaturist and patriot, who escaped a few months before the War, after being condemned by the German courts to fifteen months’ imprisonment for playing off an innocent little joke on four German officers, and did his share of fighting with the French in the early part of the War, is the darling of the Boulevards.  They adore his supreme skill in thrusting the irritating lancet of his humour into bulging excrescences on the flank of that monstrous pachyderm of Europe, the German. Professor Knatschke (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), aptly translated by Professor R.L.  CREWE, is a joyous rag.  It purports to be the correspondence of a Hun Professor, full of an egregious self-sufficiency and humourlessness and greatly solicitous for the unhappy Alsatian who is ignorant and misguided enough to prefer the Welsch (i.e. foreign) “culture-swindle” to the glorious paternal Kultur of the German occupation.  And HANSI illustrates his witty text with as witty and competent a pencil.  HANSI has, in effect,