n short, who seems to be a blend
Of Balaam's Ass, the bore's godsend,
And _Mrs. Gamp's_ elusive friend?
The Neutral.

In Parliament we have had the biggest Budget ever known introduced in the
shortest Budget speech of the last half-century, at any rate. Mr. Pemberton
Billing is doing his best every Tuesday to bring the atmosphere of the
aerodrome into the House. Mr. Tennant has promised his sympathetic
consideration to Mr. Billing's offer personally to organise raids on the
enemy's aircraft bases, and the House is bearing up as well as can be
expected under the shadow of this impending bereavement. Mr. Swift MacNeill
is busy with his patriotic effort to purge the roll of the Lords of the
peerages now held by enemy dukes. For the rest, up to Easter Week, the
Parliamentary situation has been described as "a cabal every afternoon and
a crisis every second day."

It is one of the strange outcomes of this wonderful time that there is more
gaiety as well as more suffering in hospitals during the War than in peace.
Certainly such a request would never have been heard in normal years as
that recently made by a nurse to a roomful of irrepressible Tommies at a
private hospital:

"A message has just come in to ask if the hospital will make a little less
noise as the lady next door has a touch of headache."

For shouting "The Zepps are coming!" a Grimsby girl has been fined L1. It
was urged in defence that the girl suffered from hallucinations, one being
that she was a daily newspaper proprietor. But the recent Zeppelin raids
have not been without their advantages. In a spirit of emulation an
ambitious hen at Acton has laid an egg weighing 5-1/4 oz.

[Illustration:

VISITOR (at Private Hospital): "Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?"

MATRON: "We do not allow ordinary visiting. May I ask if you are a
relative?"

VISITOR (boldly): "Oh, yes! I'm his sister."

MATRON: "Dear me! I'm very glad to meet you. _I'm his mother_."]

_May, 1916_.

Verdun still holds out: that is the best news of the month. The French with
inexorable logic continue to exact the highest price for the smallest gain
of ground. If the Germans are ready to give 100,000 men for a hill or part
of a hill they may have it. If they will give a million men they may
perhaps have Verdun itself. But so far their Pyrrhic victories have stopped
short of this limit, and Verdun, like Ypres, battered, ruined and evacuated
by civilians, remains a sym