y Mail_.

[Illustration:

STOUT LADY (discussing the best thing to do in an air-raid): "Well, I
always runs about meself. You see, as my 'usband sez, an' very reasonable
too, a movin' targit is more difficult to 'it."]

_November, 1917_.

The best and the worst news comes from the outlying fronts. Allenby's
triumphant advance is unchecked in Palestine. Gaza has fallen. The British
are in Jaffa. Jerusalem is threatened. The German-Austrian drive which
began at Caporetto has been stemmed, and the Italians, stiffened by a
British army under General Plumer, are standing firm on the Piave. In
Mesopotamia we deplore the death of the gallant Maude, a great general and
a great gentleman, beloved by all ranks, whose career is an abiding answer
to those who maintain that no good can come out of our public schools or
the Staff training of regular officers. In Russia the Bolshevist _coup
d'etat_ has overthrown the Kerensky _regime_ and installed as
dictator Lenin, a _declasse_ aristocrat, always the most dangerous of
revolutionaries. On the Western front the tide has flowed and ebbed. The
Germans have yielded ground on the _Chemin des Dames_, the British
have stormed Passchendaele Ridge, but at terrible cost, and General Byng's
brilliant surprise attack and victory at Cambrai has been followed by the
fierce reaction of ten days later. But perhaps the greatest sensation of
the month has been Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech, with its disquieting
references to the situation on the Western front, and its announcement of
the formation of the new Allied Council. The Premier's defence of, and, we
may perhaps say, recomposition of his Paris oration before the House of
Commons has appeased criticism without entirely convincing those who have
been anxious to know how the Allied Council would work, and what would be
the relations between the Council's military advisers and the existing
General Staff of the countries concerned. But as Mr. Lloyd George confessed
that he had deliberately made a "disagreeable speech" in Paris in order to
get it talked about, the Press critics whom he rebuked will probably
consider themselves absolved.

[ILLUSTRATION: A GREAT INCENTIVE

MEHMED (reading dispatch from the All-Highest): "Defend Jerusalem at all
costs for my sake. I was once there myself."]

[ILLUSTRATION: ONE UP!]

Parliament has for once repelled the gibe that it has ceased to represent
the people in the tribute of praise paid by Lo