POLITICAL PICK-ME-UPS.
Recent revelations as to the way in which our leading Statesmen keep themselves fit have been almost entirely concerned with their physical recreations. Further investigations make it clear that they owe their fitness quite as much to diet, to alternating one form of brain-work with another or to the consolations of music.
Thus Mr. BALFOUR, who has little time for golf nowadays, finds his most refreshing recreation in reading the speeches of Lord NORTHCLIFFE, co-ordinating them with those of BURKE and PERICLES, and setting them to music in the style of HANDEL, his favourite composer.
Lord RHONDDA finds his chief solace in gratifying his literary tastes. In philosophy he is at present a convinced Rationalist. He is devoted to the study of BACON, but not averse from the lighter sort of fiction, having a special preference for cheerful stories published in a cereal form.
The PRIME MINISTER, it may not be generally known, recruits his energies by frequent perusal of the plays of SHAKSPEARE. At present he is conducting a correspondence with Sir SIDNEY LEE and Professor GOLLANCZ on the esoteric significance of Labour's Love's Lost.
Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL is a voracious novel-reader of catholic tastes. Just now he is revelling in Called Back and The House on the Marsh, which are being read aloud to him by his private secretary.
Mr. ARTHUR PONSONBY, M.P., the Democratic Controller, is a confirmed fruitarian, and attributes his robust health to a diet of Morella cherries and Carlsbad plums, washed down with Stockholm tar-water.
Mr. JOHN BURNS, who happily describes himself as "a dormant volcano" has of late found an agreeable stimulant in the performance of solos on the muted first violin.
Lastly, Mr. LEO MAXSE keeps himself keyed up to concert pitch by coining new nicknames for Lord HALDANE. The list already extends to four figures.
"Khartum has the reputation of being a very hot place this time of year. But last June must have been fairly damp if the meteorological statistics published by the 'Sudan Times' are correct. The rainfall during this month amounted to no less than 33.6 kilometres. No wonder a man I know there wrote to say the other day that sometimes the rain is too heavy for him to go on sleeping on the roof, and this in spite of a waterproof sheet. A life-belt would probably be more useful."—Egyptian Mail.
Only NOAH'S Ark would really meet the case.
First Tommy. "WHAT ARE YE GOING TO DO WITH IT?"
Second Tommy (with tiny prisoner). "FIX IT ON THE BONNET OF THE GENERAL'S MOTOR-CAR."