INCREASED OUTPUT.
(A comparative study of incentives to labour.)
The miner's rôle is not for me;
These manual jobs I always shun;
In the bright realm of Poesy
My thrilling daily task is done.
My songs are wild with beauty. This is one.
Yet has the miner, not the bard,
A life that runs in pleasant ways;
His labour may be pretty hard,
But, when compared with mine, it pays.
Scant the reward of my exhausting days.
I bear no grudge. I don't object
To watch his wages soaring high,
If, as I'm told, we may expect
To see him resolutely ply
His task with greater vigour. So must I.
Up, Muse, and get your wings unfurled!
My rhymes at double speed must flow;
Now, from this hour, the astonished world
Must see my output daily grow.
And why? I want some coal—a ton or so.
Coal is my greatest need, the crest
And pinnacle of my desires;
And as I toil with feverish zest
'Twill be the dream of blazing fires
That spurs me to my labour and inspires.
I wonder if the miner too
Has visions in his dark abyss
Which urge him on to hack and hew
That he may so achieve the bliss
Of buying great and deathless songs (like this).
Commercial Candour.
Notice in a Canadian book-shop:—
"It often happens that you are unable to obtain just the book you want. We specialise in this branch of book-selling."
"Observing a straw stack on fire opposite her house a woman removed her baby from the bath and poured the bath water on to the flames."—Evening Paper.
What we admire is her presence of mind in first removing the baby.
"Mr. and Mrs. John —— wish to return grateful thanks to all who so kindly contributed to their late great loss by theft."
Local Paper.
Always be polite to burglars. You never know when they may call again.
We understand that Smith minor, who in an examination paper wrote margot, instead of margo, as the Latin for "the limit," has been reprimanded severely by his master.
Mr. Punch's History of the Great War
THE OPTIMIST.
"If this is the right village, then we're all right. The instructions is [a]clear:] Go past the post-office and sharp to the left afore you come to the church."
Self-praise, it used to be held, is no recommendation; but that was before the War. The War has altered so many things that it may have altered this too, and self-praise be the best recommendation of all. Mr. Punch hopes so, because he wants to indulge for the moment in extolling one of his own products; he wishes, in short, to urge upon all his readers the merits of "Mr. Punch's History of the Great War." Everything is here, in very noteworthy synthesis; the tragedy and the comedy inextricably mingled, as they must ever be, but as by more formal historians they are not.
Such is Mr. Punch's opinion on Mr. Punch's own book, which is no formal history of the War in the strict or scientific sense of the phrase; no detailed record of naval and military operations. Rather it is a mirror of varying moods, reflecting in the main how England remained steadfastly true to her best traditions; a reflex of British character during the days of doubt and the hours of hope that marked the strenuous and wearying days of the War.
All ages and classes come into the picture—combatants and non-combatants, young and old, men and women. And Mr. Punch's pencil plays a part at least equal to that of his pen, the record of each month being generously supplied with cartoons and illustrations by famous Punch artists. Into these pages has been compressed just what we need to remember about the War, and we are reminded of things which we had already forgotten. Here is the tragedy and the pathos of the Great War—even the comedy of those great years of undying memory.
No more popular history of the War has been written; it has been eulogised everywhere, for it is a book that every citizen of the Empire should read and be proud to possess. As a Christmas gift it is ideal, and will be gladly welcomed not only by those at home, but also by those in Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, and other parts of our far-flung Empire, whose gallant sons shared the horrors and the victory of those four-and-a-half years.
An Immortal Story
"Mr. Punch's History of the Great War" is a History we can all read, and all should read, for here is the record of the heroes who added to the glories of our blood and State—a roll that is endless—wonderful gunners and sappers, and airmen and despatch riders, devoted surgeons and heroic nurses, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers. "But Mr. Punch's special heroes are the Second-Lieutenants and the Tommy who went on winning the War all the time, and never said that he was winning it until it was won."
To read this book will help us to realise the great debt, unpaid and unpayable, to our immortal dead and to the valiant survivors, to whom we owe freedom and security.
It is "a corrective record," says The Times, "not only of what happened 'over there,' but of what people were saying and feeling at home"; while The Morning Post remarked: "Here Mr. Punch is the nation, deftly wielding the weapon of ridicule that has helped to kill so many enemy tyrants."
OUR MAN.
With Mr. Punch's Grateful Compliments to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
["Punch," November 29th, 1918.
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