A NEW DANGER.
"I don't know if you realise," said Ernest, "that since Army signalling became fashionable a new danger confronts us."
"If you mean that an enthusiast might start semaphoring unexpectedly in a confined space and get his neighbour in the eye, I may say that I have thought of it," I answered. "But it isn't worth worrying very much about. He wouldn't do it more than once."
"It isn't that," said Ernest. "It's something much more subtle and insidious. It is the growing tendency in ordinary conversation to use 'Ack' for A, 'Beer' for B, 'Emma' for M, 'Esses' for S, 'Toe' for T, etc. When you told me you were going to see your Aunt at 3 P.M., for instance, you said '3 Pip Emma.' And it isn't as if you were at all good at Semaphore or Morse either.
"Imagine," he continued, "the effect upon a congregation of the announcement from the pulpit that the Reverend John Smith, Beer Ack, will preach next Sunday. Or upon a meeting when told that Mr. Carrington Ponk, J. Pip, will now speak. Think of Aunt Jane and all her Societies," he went on gloomily. "Imagine her saying that she's going to an Esses Pip G. meeting to-morrow. It's a dreadful thought. It will extend to people's initials, too. The great T.P. will be Toe Pip O'Connor. Something will have to be done about it."
"There's only one thing to be done," I said. "You must get into Parliament and bring in a Bill about it. All might yet be well if you were an Emma Pip."
The Hungry Huns.
"The Berliner Tageblatt's correspondent states that the ground at St. Pierre Vaast has been converted into a marsh in which half-frozen soldiers, wet to the skin and knee-deep in mud, absorb the shells." —New Zealand Paper.
"The dispute, he claimed, was not started by the employees, but by the employer making sweeping reductions in the ages of the men." —Daily Paper.
If he wants to do this sort of thing with impunity he should employ women.
A Food Problem.
Dear Mr. Punch,—Please do tell me. Must I count sausages under the meat or the bread allowance? I do so want to help my country faithfully. —Yours, Worried Housewife.
"Reward 2s. 6d. Lost, a small Silver Toothpick, value sentimental." —Nottingham Evening Post.
The latest thing in love-tokens.
"After a debate lasting three days, the Senate rejected the motion approving Mr. Wilson's Nose."—The Bulletin (Lahore).
The Senate has since shown its impartiality by registering its profound disapproval of the Kaiser's Cheek.
"A special constable has received the Silver Medal of the Society for Protection of Life from fire for his gallantry in mounting a ladder at a local fire last May and rescuing a cook."—Daily Paper.
It is understood that members of the regular "force" consider that he showed some presumption in not leaving this particular task to them.
