rmy Council Instruction
No_. 824.

* * * * *

"To a school in Battersea to-day the High Commissioner for New
Zealand presented an Australian flag sent by the school-children of
Dunedin."--_Evening News._

The children of Dunedin seem to have accepted in a very excellent spirit
the annexation of New Zealand by Australia, of which this is the first
news to reach us.

* * * * *

"The Germans wore absolutely dismayed at the promptness of
President Wilson's rupture of relations. Then followed an amazing
attempt to brow-beat Mr. Gerard into singing a revised version of
the Prusso-American Treaty of 1799."--_Planters' and Commercial
Gazette_ (_Mauritius_).

Happily Mr. GERARD refused to oblige.

* * * * *

"The annual report of the Kneckenmueller Lunatic Asylum at Stettin
states that a number of lunatics have been called up for military
service at the front, adding: 'The asylums are proud that their
inmates are allowed to serve the Fatherland.' It appears, however,
that the results are not always satisfactory."--_The Times_.

We have heard of no complaints on our side.

* * * * *

"Meat, particularly mutton, is (says 'The Times') likely to remain
dead this week-end."

_Lancashire Daily Post_.

But if the hot weather continues--

* * * * *

LITTLE WILLIE'S OPINION OF FATHER.

["How long the conflict may last lies in God's hand; it is not our
business to ask questions about it.... It is not the Prussian way
to praise oneself.... It is now a matter of holding out, however
long it lasts."--_Extract from Speech by the KAISER, delivered near
Arras._]

I fear that Father's lost his nerve.
As I peruse his last oration
I seem to miss the good old _verve_,
The tone of lofty exaltation,
The swelling note of triumph (_Sieg_)
That often carried half a league.

The drum on whose resounding hide
He brought to bear such weight and gristle
Has now been scrapped and laid aside
In favour of the penny whistle,
On which he plays so very small
You hardly hear the thing at all.

No more we mark the clarion shout--
"Go where the winds of victory whirl you!"
His eagle organ, petering out,
Whines like a sick and muted curlew;
A plaintive dirge