THE FAR-REACHING EFFECT OF THE RUSSIAN PUSH
A number of professional fortune-tellers have been fined at Southend for having predicted Zeppelins. The fraudulent nature of their pretensions was sufficiently manifest, since even the authorities had been unable to foresee the Zeppelins until some time after they had arrived.
The discussions in Parliament and out of it of the way in which things get into the papers which oughtn't to, are dying down. A daily paper, however, has revived them by the headline, "Cabinet leekage." Now, why, in wonder, do they spell it in that way?
It is quite impossible to keep pace with all the new incarnations of women in war-time--'bus-conductress, ticket-collector, lift-girl, club waitress, post-woman, bank clerk, motor-driver, farm-labourer, guide, munition maker. There is nothing new in the function of ministering angel: the myriad nurses in hospital here or abroad are only carrying out, though in greater numbers than ever before, what has always been woman's mission. But whenever he sees one of these new citizens, or hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. Perhaps in the past, even in the present, he may have been, or even still is, a little given to chaff Englishwomen for some of their foibles, and even their aspirations. But he never doubted how splendid they were at heart; he never for a moment supposed they would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of need struck.
FARMER (who has got a lady-help in the dairy): "'Ullo, Missy, what in the world be ye doin'?"
LADY: "Well, you told me to water the cows, and I'm doing it. They don't seem to like it much."
July, 1916.
On the home front we have long been accustomed to the sound of guns, small and great, but it has come from training camps and inspires confidence rather than anxiety. We have been spared the horrors of invasion, occupation, wholesale devastation. In certain areas the noise of bombs and anti-aircraft guns has grown increasingly familiar, and on our south-east and east coasts war from the air, on the sea, and under the sea has become more and more audible as the months pass by. But July has brought us a new experience--the sound fifty or sixty miles inland in peaceful rural England, amid glorious midsummer weather, of the continual throbbing night and day of the great guns on the Somme, where our first great offensive opened on the 1st, and has continued with solid and substantial gains, some set-backs, heavy losses for the Allies, still heavier for the enemy. Names of villages and towns, which hitherto have been to most of us mere names on the map, have now become luminous through shining deeds of glory and sacrifice--Contalmaison and Mametz, Delville Wood, Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and Pozières.
The victory, for victory it is, has not been celebrated in the German way. England takes her triumphs as she takes defeats, without a sign of having turned a hair:
Yet we are proud because at last, at last
We look upon the dawn of our desire;
Because the weary waiting-time is passed
And we have tried our temper in the fire;
And proving word by deed
Have kept the faith we pledged to France at need.
But most because, from mine and desk and mart,
Springing to face a task undreamed before,
Our men, inspired to play their prentice part
Like soldiers lessoned in the school of war,
True to their breed and name,
Went flawless through the fierce baptismal flame.
And he who brought these armies into life,
And on them set the impress of his will--
Could he be moved by sound of mortal strife,
There where he lies, their Captain, cold and still
Under the shrouding tide,
How would his great heart stir and glow with pride!
"TWO HEADS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT"
FIRST HEAD: "What prospects?"
SECOND HEAD: "Rotten."
FIRST HEAD: "Same here."
The results of the battle of the Somme are shown in a variety of ways: by the reticence and admissions of the German Press, by its efforts to divert attention to the exploits of the commercial submarine cruiser Deutschland; above all, by the Kaiser's fresh explosions of piety. "The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." There is no further sign of his fleet, which remains crippled by its "victory." Nor can he, still less his Ally, draw comfort from the situation on the Russian or Italian fronts.
