[Illustration:  DISTRACTIONS OF CAMP LIFE.

Tommy (by roadside).  “OUT ON THE SPREE AGAIN?  GOING TO THE PICTURES?”

Highlander.  “NO.  WE’RE AWA’ TO SEE YOUR LOT CHANGE GUARD.”]

* * * * *

    “The Motor Cycle says over 165,000 magnates have been made in Britain
    for war purposes.”—­Provincial Paper.

And the New Year Honours List (political services) has yet to appear.

* * * * *

    “We owed all this more to our splendid navy and its silent virgil than
    to anything else.”—­Provincial Paper.

We suppose the CENSOR won’t let him narrate the epic exploits of the Fleet, but he might have allowed him a capital initial.

* * * * *

    “Surbiton residents have supplied for British prisoners in Germany 800
    waistcoats made from 2,100 old kid gloves.” Manchester Evening
    News.

A notable instance of large-handed generosity.

* * * * *

SIX VILE VERBS.

(To the makers of journalese, and others, from a fastidious reader.)

  When I see on a poster
    A programme which “features”
  CHARLIE CHAPLIN and other
    Delectable creatures,
  I feel just as if
    Someone hit me a slam
  Or a strenuous biff
    On the mid diaphragm.

  When I read in a story,
    Though void of offences,
  That somebody “glimpses”
    Or somebody “senses,”
  The chord that is struck
    Fills my bosom with ire,
  And I’m ready to chuck
    The whole book in the fire.

  When against any writer
    It’s urged that he “stresses”
  His points, or that something
    His fancy “obsesses,”
  In awarding his blame
    Though the critic be right,
  Yet I feel all the same
    I could shoot him at sight.

  But (worst of these horrors)
    Whenever I read
  That somebody “voices”
    A national need,
  As the Bulgars and Greeks
    Are abhorred by the Serb,
  So I feel toward the freaks
    Who employ this vile verb.

* * * * *

“Some of the public men of Rawmarsh have high ambitions for their township, and at the Council meeting on Wednesday there was considerable industrial developments immediately after the war.” Botherham Advertiser.

Happy Rawmarsh!  In our part of the country it is not over yet.

* * * * *

    “NAVY Pram. for Sale, good condition.” Provincial Paper.

Just the thing to prepare baby for being “rocked in the cradle of the deep.”

* * * * *

THE SUPER-CHAR.

SCENE.—­A square in Kensington.  At every other door is seen the lady
of the house at work with pail, broom, scrubbing-brush, rags,
metal-polish, etc.