* *

"Sir George Newman and Mr. Philip Snowden have resigned their
membership of the Central Control Board" (Liquor Traffic).

"Caruso has sung at 550 performances."--_Evening Paper_.

All the same, there seems to have been a lack of harmony.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady (who has called on two successive Wednesdays, the
fourth and fifth of the month, and has been told each time that Lady
Smith-Robinson is not at home)._ "BUT I THOUGHT HER LADYSHIP WAS AT
HOME ON ALTERNATE WEDNESDAYS?"

_Parlourmaid (with dignity)._ "NO, MADAM. HER LADYSHIP IS AT HOME ON
THE FIRST AND THIRD WEDNESDAYS IN THE MONTH; BUT WHEN THERE IS A FIFTH
WEDNESDAY THAT IS TO _OUR_ ADVANTAGE."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_

_My War Experiences in Two Continents_ (MURRAY) is made up of the
diary and letters of Miss MACNAUGHTAN, written during her search for
work that might help in the great Task. The book, it is sad to say,
must serve as her memorial to those many whom she has amused by her
bright and wholesome stories. Worn out by labours and quests beyond
her strength she fell sick at Teheran in 1916 and returned to England
to die. In 1914 she had done fine service with her soup-kitchen in
Flanders, where her energy and almost too tender sympathy had full
scope and the reward of good work accomplished. She seemed also to be
happy in her lecture tour on her return to England, trying to arouse
the sluggish-minded to a sense of the gravity of the business. But
in her Russian and Persian adventure it is clear that she was deeply
disappointed at feeling herself unwanted and useless in a region
of waste and muddle. It is probable that for all her courage and
unselfish devotion she was too sensitive to the suffering she
encountered ever to attain the routine indifference which makes work
among such horrors possible. Her deep religious convictions aggravated
rather than eased that suffering. She was honestly old-fashioned and
never took quite kindly to the khaki-breeched free-spoken young women
of the subsidiary war services, had a hatred of muddle and was a
little severe on men, though acknowledging that "young men are the
kindest members of the human race." True this, I should say, who am no
longer young. "The war is fine, _fine_, FINE, though I don't get near
the fineness except in the pages of _Punch_." Charming