reassembled on
May 10th, and noting the tone and purport of the inquiries addressed to the
First Lord, one might well suppose that nothing remarkable had happened
since Parliament adjourned. The questions were numerous but all practical,
and as unemotional as if they referred to outrages by a newly-discovered
race of fiends in human shape peopling Mars or Saturn. The First Lord,
equally undemonstrative, announced that the Board of Trade have ordered an
inquiry into the circumstances attending the disaster. Pending the result,
it would be premature to discuss the matter. Here we have the sublimation
of officialism and national phlegm. Of the 1,200 victims who went down in
this unarmed passenger ship about 200 were Americans. What will America say
or do?

[Illustration: AN OMEN OF 1908

Reproduced from "Christmas Cards for Celebrities," in _Mr. Punch's
Almanack_ of that year]

[Illustration: HAMLET U.S.A.

SCENE: The Ramparts of the White House.

PRESIDENT WILSON: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!"

VOICE OF ROOSEVELT (_off_): "That's so!"]

In silence you have looked on felon blows,
On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek!
Now in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,
Sister, will you not speak?

Many unofficial voices have been raised in horror, indignation, and even in
loud calls for intervention. The leaven works, but President Wilson, though
not unmoved, gives little sign of abandoning his philosophic neutrality.

In Europe it is otherwise. Italy has declared war on Austria; her people
have driven the Government to take the path of freedom and honour and break
the shackles of Germanism in finance, commerce and politics.

Italy has not declared war on Germany yet, but the fury of the German Press
is unbounded, and for the moment Germany's overworked Professors of Hate
have focused their energies on the new enemy, and its army of "vagabonds,
convicts, ruffians and mandolin-players," conveniently forgetting that the
spirit of Garibaldi is still an animating force, and that the King inherits
the determination of his grandfather and namesake.

On the Western front the enemy has been repulsed at Ypres. Lord Kitchener
has asked for another 300,000 men, and speaks confidently of our soon being
able to make good the shortage of ammunition.

On the Eastern front the Grand Duke Nicholas has been forced to give
ground; in Gallipoli slow progre