FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57  
58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   >>   >|  
shed after their holiday. But they sometimes contribute to our amusement, as when one relentless and complacent critic declared that, on the matter of conscription, he should himself "prefer to be guided--very largely--by Lord Kitchener." The concession is something. Most of the importunate questionists are on the other side: "Take from us any joys you like," they cry; "We'd bear the loss, however much we missed 'em; Let truth and justice, fame and honour die, But spare, O spare, our Voluntary System!" Amongst other signs of the times the increase of girl gardeners and the sacrifice of flower beds to vegetables are to be noted. But War changes are sometimes disconcerting, even when they are most salutary. For example, there is the _cri de coeur_ of a passenger on a Clydebank tramcar in Glasgow on Saturday night, with a lady conductor: "I canna jist bottom this, Tam. It's Seterday nicht an' this is the Clydebank caur, an' there's naebody singin' an' naebody fechtin' wi' the conductor." Liquor control evidently does mean something. [Illustration: A HANDY MAN MARINE;(somewhat late for parade): "At six o'clock I was a bloomin' 'ousemaid: at seven o'clock I was a bloomin' valet; at eight o'clock I was a bloomin' waiter; an' _now_ I'm a bloomin' soldier!"] The War vocabulary grows and grows. "Pipsqueaks," "crumps" and "Jack Johnsons," picturesque equivalents for unpleasant things, have long been familiar even to arm-chair experts. The strangely named "Archie," and "Pacifist," the dismay of scholars--a word "mean as what it's meant to mean"--now come to be added to the list. A new and admirable explanation of the R.F.A., "Ready for anyfink," is attributed to a street Arab. Our children are mostly lapped in blissful ignorance, but their comments are often illuminating. As, for instance, the suggestion of a small child asked to give her idea of a suitable future for Germany and the Kaiser: "After the war I wouldn't let Heligoland belong to anybody. I would put the Germans there, and they should dig and dig and dig until it was all dug into the sea. The Kaiser should be sent to America, and they should be as rude as they liked to him. If he went in a train no one was to offer him a seat; he was to hang on to a strap, and he is to be called Mr. Smith." Cooks are being bribed to stay by the gift of War Bonds. Smart fashionables are flocking to munition works, and some of them sometimes are not unnaturally gr
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57  
58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

bloomin

 

Kaiser

 
naebody
 

conductor

 

Clydebank

 

blissful

 

admirable

 

explanation

 

anyfink

 
attributed

street

 

lapped

 
children
 

Archie

 

crumps

 
familiar
 

things

 

picturesque

 

Johnsons

 

equivalents


unpleasant

 
experts
 

scholars

 

dismay

 

strangely

 
ignorance
 

Pacifist

 
suitable
 

called

 
America

unnaturally
 

munition

 

flocking

 
bribed
 

fashionables

 

future

 
Pipsqueaks
 

comments

 

illuminating

 
suggestion

instance

 

Germany

 
Germans
 

wouldn

 

belong

 

Heligoland

 
missed
 
System
 

Voluntary

 
Amongst