versal conscriptionists who would force everyone to
serve, but are opposed to piecemeal compulsion. The Government carried
their point easily enough by 128 votes to 67, but evidently have to
reckon with a new concentration of forces which may be more dangerous in
the future.

When the House of Commons passed the Bill prohibiting duelling it ought
to have made an exception in favour of its own members. Nothing would
have done more to raise the tone of debate, for offenders against
decorum would gradually have eliminated one another. This afternoon, for
example, Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD twitted Mr. HOGGE with sheltering himself
under the patriotism of a soldier stepson, and Mr. HOGGE retaliated with
the suggestion that Sir HAMAR ought to be with his regiment. A hundred
years ago this would have meant a meeting in Hyde Park and a possible
vacancy at Sunderland or East Edinburgh. To-day it merely brought a
rebuke from the CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.

Again, in the days of our rude fore-fathers Sir JOHN SIMON would have
felt constrained to send a challenge to Mr. WALTER LONG. The late HOME
SECRETARY had delivered an attack upon the Government which Mr. LONG
declared would be heartily welcomed in Berlin. For a much less serious
accusation than that the Duke of WELLINGTON called out Lord WINCHELSEA.
Sir JOHN SIMON has no such resource, and must continue to suffer under
the imputation--a little consoled, no doubt, by the companionship of Mr.
HOGGE.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Officer (handing despatches_). "Now, mind. If you're
captured with this you must eat it."]

* * * * *

"Young Lady, competent, wishes drive taxi, commercial or private
car; preferably a doctor; advertiser has had three years'
surgical training."--_Provincial Paper._

She should be useful, whatever happens.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"Kultur at Home."

Each of the authors--Mr. RUDOLF BESIER and Mrs. JOHN SPOTTISWOODE--has
personal knowledge of the home-life of the Bosch; and their excellent
sketch of Prussian manners might have served usefully as a warning to us
if we could have seen it a few years ago. But at this time of day, after
nineteen months' experience of the enemy, I doubt its utility as a
source of illumination.

It would be futile to represent the Prussian officer as an angel in the
house, for we have long since learned to know him as a