by taken from birth."

* * * * *

[Illustration: "AND LOOK HERE, FRITZ--]

[Illustration: --WHATEVER HAPPENS--]

[Illustration: --SEE YOU KEEP--]

[Illustration: --THEM HANDS OF YOURS--]

[Illustration: --WELL ABOVE--]

[Illustration: --YOUR BLINKIN' HEAD."]

* * * * *

A SONG OF THE WOODLAND ELVES.

We hear the ruthless axes; we watch our rafters fall;
The seawind blows unhindered where stood our banquet-hall;
Our grassy rings are trampled, our leafy tents are torn--
Yet more would we, and gladly, to help the English-born.

For, leafy-crowned or frosted, the English oaks are ours;
The beeches are our playrooms, the elms our outlook towers;
And we were forest rangers before these woods had name,
And we were elves in England before the Romans came.

We watched the Druids worship; we watched the wild bulls feed;
We gave our oaks to ALFRED to build his ships at need;
And often in the moonlight our pricked ears in the wood
Have heard the hail of RUFUS, the horn of ROBIN HOOD.

But if our age-old roof-beams can serve her cause to-day,
The woodland elves of England will sign their rights away;
For none but will be woeful to hear the axes ring,
Yet none but would go homeless to aid an English King.
W.H.O.

* * * * *

GOOD OLD GOTHIC.

[An agitation for the total disuse of the Latin character, we learn
from Press quotations published in _The Daily Chronicle_, is raging
through the German Empire, and the Prussian Minister of the Interior
has forbidden the use of any other character than German Gothic in the
publications of the Statistical Bureau.]

The ways of the Hun comprehension elude,
They're so cleverly crass, so painstakingly crude;
For, in spite of his cunning and forethought immense,
He is often incurably stupid and dense
To the point of allowing his patriot zeal
To put a large spoke in his own driving-wheel.

An excellent instance of zeal of this sort
Is the movement, endorsed by official support,
To ban Latin type in the papers that flow
From the press of the Prussian Statistics Bureau.

Now the pride of the Germans, as dear as their pipe
And their beer, is their wonderful old Gothic type;
It makes ev'ry page look as black as your hat,
For the face of the letters is stodgy and fat;
It adds to the lab