CHARIVARIA.
It is rumoured that Professor Porta has sent a message to Mr. Lloyd George, wishing him a Happy New World.
Mr. Justice Rowlatt has decided that photography is not a profession. With some actresses, of course, it is just a disease.
The gentleman who drew 1920 in a fifty-pound sweepstake as the date of the ex-Kaiser's trial is now prepared to sell his chance for sixpence-halfpenny.
"He is not a politician," says Mr. R. Harcourt in The Times, referring to Sir Auckland Geddes. It will be interesting to see how Sir Auckland accepts this compliment.
A letter posted at Hull for Odessa in July, 1914, has just been returned to the sender. The postal authorities are thought to take the view that the sender should be given an opportunity of adding a few seasonable observations to his previous remarks.
It is all nonsense to say that there can be no change in the present high prices. They can always go higher.
Owing to the strike of cabmen in Glasgow a number of people had to walk home on New Year's Eve. It is not said how the others got home, but we have made a guess.
On enquiry about the erection of huge new premises in the Strand by the American Bush Terminal Company, we gather that London is not to be removed, but will be allowed to remain next door.
Inspector Moss of the Great Eastern Railway Police has just had his pocket picked and thirty pounds stolen. It is only fair to say that he was in plain clothes and the thief did not know he was a police officer.
A history of the Ministry of Munitions is to be compiled at a cost of £9,648. To keep the expense down to this modest sum by economy in printing Mr. Winston Churchill will be referred to throughout as "X."
A man has been charged with damaging a London omnibus. He pleaded that the vehicle pushed him first.
Mrs. Payne, the only woman mouse-trap-maker in London, has retired from the business. It is said that a number of mice hope to arrange a farewell cheese.
At a recent meeting of the Peace Conference it was decided that the troubles in Egypt and India should in future be referred to as Honorary Wars.
The Indians much appreciate Charlie Chaplin, says The Weekly Dispatch. We felt confident that this film comedian would come into his own some day.
Only two minor railway accidents were reported in December, but a South Coast train which started that month is reported to have run into the New Year.
It is estimated that The Outline of History by Mr. H. G. Wells will be concluded this year. It would be a pleasing compliment to the author if at the end of that time Parliament made it illegal for any more history to happen.
The Thames angler who was asked in the Club at night if he had had any luck that day, and replied that he had not had a bite, is thought to be an impostor.
An Insurance official states that thin people live longer than stout. This is probably due to the fact that when thin people stand sideways the motor-car doesn't get a real chance.
"It is just twenty months since we experienced the last hostile air-raid," states an evening paper. Should this indiscreet statement reach the ears of certain Government Officials it is feared that one or two of our picturesque anti-aircraft stations may be dismantled.
According to an American paper, a lawyer has left New York for Mexico, in order to try to explain to the inhabitants the meaning of Peace and the benefits to be derived from joining the League of Nations. We understand he has made full arrangements for leaving a widow and two young children.
Our heart goes out to the tenant of an experimental paper-house who discovered, on going up-stairs, that his two-year-old son in a fit of ungovernable passion had torn up his nursery.
A man has written to The Daily Mail advocating the alteration of the calendar to thirteen months of twenty-eight days each, with two Christmas Days in Leap Year. The writer—to do him justice—did not sign himself "Paterfamilias."
The New Poor Dance Club, which has opened in the West End, is having its vicissitudes. Last week, it is reported, a distinguished stranger mistook a waiter for one of the members, and the waiters have threatened to strike if it occurs again.
Los Angeles, California, says a New York cable, is suffering from an unprecedented crime wave. A proposal by President Carranza to draw a cordon sanitaire round the place has not yet reached Washington.
"Are dark people cleverer than fair?" asks a contemporary. These clumsy attempts to destroy the Coalition spirit are too transparent to be successful.
Intending visitors to the Zoological Gardens in Phœnix Park, Dublin, are now required to get a permit from the military authorities. A daring attempt by a Sinn Feiner to approach the Viceregal Lodge under cover of a cassowary is said to be responsible for the order.
The ex-Kaiser, it is stated, has asked the Prussian Government if there would be any objection to his settling in Peru as a cattle-raiser. The probability that the Crown Prince will settle in France for a spell as a watch-lifter is thought to have fired the ex-Imperial imagination.
A report from Chicago states that, as a result of the prevailing taste for wood-alcohol, a number of citizens successfully revived the ancient custom of seeing the Aurora Borealis in.
"Hurry up, Johnson—what a time you take!"
"I can't get through these beastly troops."
"The charm of a pleasing figure depends upon an uneasy fitting corset."
Advt. in Canadian Paper.
Il faut souffrir pour être belle.
"There would also be great competition for carniferous timber from other countries."
Scotch Paper.
Not so much now that the meat-shortage is over.
"Dundee leads the way in Scotland in a new phase of sport for ladies.
The innovation was created by the City Magistrates to-day, when an application for a billiard-room license in the new City Hall was granted.
Under the license ladies will be permitted to cross cues with gentlemen partners in a public billiard-room."—Local Paper.
It is supposed that their worships were under the impression that billiards was a new form of shinty.