rl, daughter and pupil of one of the
spoon-fed idealists who would govern India with the platitudes of
ignorance, and not only to make her sympathetic, but to convince me of her
attractions, which (especially just now) was not easy work. Decidedly a
first-rate yarn.

* * * * *

We may, I think, take it that the love-story in _The Gunroom_ (BLACK) is
fiction pure and naively simple, but that the experiences of _John
Lynwood_, the hero, in the Navy are given as the actual experiences of Mr.
C.L. MORGAN, the author. Let me then at once say that his revelations of
the bullying of junior by senior midshipmen go back to a period before the
War. These "shakings," we are asked to believe, were due partly to custom
and partly to boredom caused by lack of leave. If Mr. MORGAN is correct
both in his facts and surmises it is satisfactory to think that the War
must have obliterated the boredom which provoked such excesses, and one
need not be a fanatical opponent of physical punishment to hope that such
forms of tyranny will never again be tolerated as a matter of custom. I am
obliged to conclude that these incidents in _Lynwood's_ career are
absolutely true, for certainly nothing less than absolute truth could
excuse their appearance in print; but at the same time I must confess that
any attack upon our Navy is apt with me to act as an irritant. The more
reason that I should honestly admit Mr. MORGAN'S merits and say that he
writes with a nice sense of style, and that his book does not derive its
only interest from its revelations.

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR LAUNDRIES: THE COLLAR-FINISHER.]

* * * * *

HUNTING EXTRAORDINARY.

"GOOD SPORT WITH THE HOLDERNESS.

"A stout ox led the field into Bilton village."--_Provincial Paper._

* * * * *

RECHAUFFES FOR CANNIBALS.

"A company, numbering over 80, sat down to dinner, the host and hostess
(Mr. and Mrs. ----) proving, as usual, a first-class menu."--_Local
Paper._

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
158, JANUARY 14, 1920***

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