ister and shocking rumour
Touching the native tendency to chaff.
If you should meet with specimens of humour
See that our soldiers get the final laugh;
Fling the facetious corpses in the fountains
So as the red blood overflows the brink;
Keep on until the blue Alsatian mountains
Turn a reflective pink.

Should any female whom your shadow touches
Grudge you the glad, but deferential, eye;
Should any cripple fail to hold his crutches
At the salute as you go marching by;
Draw, in the KAISER's name--'tis rank high treason;
Stun them with sabre-strokes upon the poll;
Then dump them (giving no pedantic reason)
Down cellars with the coal.

Be on your guard against all people strolling
In ones or twos about the public square
Hard by your quarters; set your men patrolling;
Ask every knave what he is doing there;
And, if in your good wisdom you determine
To view their conduct in a dangerous light,
Bring the machine-guns out and blow the vermin
Into the _Ewigkeit_.

Enough! I leave our honour in your keeping.
What are your bright swords for except to slay?
Preserve their lustre; let me see them leaping
Out of their scabbards twenty times a day;
Unless we smash these craven churls like crockery
To prove our right of place within the sun,
Our martial prestige has become a mockery
And Deutschland's day is done!

O.S.

* * * * *

"The dancing, in the conventional bullet style, of Miss Sybil
Roe, was quite good."--_Wiltshire Times_.

We confess that the bullet style is too fast for us.

* * * * *

"In all the best dress ateliers classic evening gowns are now
being exhibited, and in many of these the lines of the corsage
closely resemble the draperies to be seen on the Venus de
Milo."--_Daily Mail_.

We must go and look at the Venus de Milo's corsage again.

* * * * *

THE NEW JOURNAL-INSURANCE.

[Several newspapers have been roused to a sense of their
duties to their readers by the insurance competition between
_The Chronicle_ and _The Mail_. We make a few preliminary
announcements of other insurance schemes which are not yet
contemplated.]

_VOTES FOR WOMEN_.--A copy of the current issue nailed to your front
door insures you absolutely against arson.

_THE STAR_.--All