ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
"Horse Marine."—You say you are intrigued about The Evening News poster, which announced
"Asquith on a moratorium,"
and you are curious to know more about this animal. We have pleasure in informing you that it is distantly related to the megatherium, and, since the extinction of the latter, has been very generally used for hack purposes. The Premier may be seen any morning in the Park taking a canter on one of these superb mammals.
"Winstonian."—The rumour that Colonel the late First Lord of the Admiralty has offered himself the command of a mine-sweeper or, alternatively, of a platoon in the 1/100 battalion of the Chilterns, lacks confirmation.
"Peer of the Realm."—We agree with you in regretting that Lord Fisher was unable to accept Lord Beresford's invitation to come and hear him speak in your House about the Downing Street sandwichmen and other collateral subjects arising out of the Air Service debate. You will be glad however to know that Lord Fisher's absence was not due to indisposition, but to a previous engagement to take tea on the Terrace with Mr. Balfour.
"A Lover of the Antique."—Your idea of making a collection of antebellum fetishes is a happy one. Examples of the Little Navy and Voluntary System fetishes are now rather rare, but you should have no difficulty in securing a well-preserved specimen of the Free Trade fetish at the old emporium of antiquities kept by the firm of John Simon and Co.
"A Single Man."—When you say that you are forty years old, that you have practically built up a business which will be ruined if you leave it, that you are the sole support of a stepmother and a family of young half-brothers and sisters, but that you have felt it your duty to attest without appealing for exemption, we applaud your patriotism. But, when you go on to complain that your neighbour, aged twenty-two, living in idleness on an allowance, and married to a chorus-girl still in her teens and childless, should be free to decline service if he chooses (as he does), we cannot but disapprove of your irreverent and almost immoral attitude towards the holy condition of matrimony. If the tie of wedlock is not to take precedence of every other tie, including that of country, where are we?
"A Cry from Macedonia."—In answer to your question as to when we think it likely that the Kaiser will take advantage of his recently-conferred commission in the Bulgarian Army and lead his regiment against Salonika, we are unable to fix a date for this movement. Our private information is that he is detained elsewhere by a previous engagement which is taking up more time than was anticipated.
"Bulgar."—We sympathise with you in your natural desire to have your Tsar Ferdinand home again, and we share your sanguine belief that the tonic air of Sofia (never more bracing than at the present moment) ought speedily to cure him of his malignant catarrh. His Austrian physicians however advise him to remain away, and he himself holds the view, coloured a little by superstition, that his return should be at least postponed till after the Ides of March, a day that was fatal to the health of an earlier Cæsar.
"Young Turk."—Your anxiety about Enver Pasha is groundless. The news that he has been recently seen at the Prophet's Tomb at Medina conveyed no indication that the object of his visit was to select a neighbouring site for his own burial. Indeed, our information is that since his recent assassination (as reported from Athens) he has been going on quite as well as could be expected.
O. S.