imals."]

* * * * *

What our V.T.C.'s have to put up with:--

"Horsham was reached by tea time, the Company having marched
upwards of sixteen miles, apart from its droll work."

_Sussex Daily News._

* * * * *

"The Forestry Department of the township of Berlin reports that
in the Grunewald, the public park between Berlin and Potsdam,
1,600 trees had been planted, thus changing about 400 acres of
barren land into a forest."

_The Times._

The statement, like the forest, seems a little thin.

* * * * *

NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

XVII.--Blackfriars.

Seven Black Friars sitting back to back
Fished from the bridge for a pike or a jack.
The first caught a tiddler, the second caught a crab,
The third caught a winkle, the fourth caught a dab,
The fifth caught a tadpole, the sixth caught an eel,
And the seventh one caught an old cart-wheel.

XVIII.--The Stock Exchange.

There's a Bull and a Bear, and what do you think?
They live in a Garden of white Stocks and pink.
"I'll give you a pink Stock for one of your white,"
Says the Bear to the Bull; and the Bull says, "All right!"
They never make answer if anyone knocks,
They are always so busy exchanging their Stocks.

* * * * *

A PARTIAL PAT ON THE BACK.

(_Another Little Lecture on the War, after the style of "The
Spectator" (abbreviated)._)

It is no time to waste words in praise of anybody. We want to give and
mean to give--we may perhaps even say that we hope to give--the Cabinet
our countenance and some measure of our approval, but neither adulation
nor encomium. The Editor of this journal is quite ready to allot the
laurels when they have been earned; he will be found at his post handing
them out when the time arrives. But not now.

It will be said, no doubt ... (Deletion of what will no doubt be said).

You may ask a man to put his whole strength into drawing a cork, but
unless you are a fool you do not, while the operation is going forward,
keep nagging at him because the cork is too firmly jammed, nor do you
jeer at him for his lack of prescience in not having selected a bottle
with a wider neck. You do not ask him strings of useless questions as to
why he doesn't grip the bottle between his feet or get a purchase on it
with his teeth. Above all you do