THE ENTENTE TUBE
Steward (on night Channel boat): "If they bring in this 'ere tunnel, my job's gone."
Mr. Punch: "That's the only sound objection I've heard yet."
MR. PUNCH'S INVASION STORY
(Foreign Artillery Officer, after dropping shell from Dirigible with the idea of destroying London): "Tut! Tut! I've missed it!"
Punch's Prophecies
Punch's forecasts and prophecies are mentioned under various headings, but two may be specially noted here. In 1909 a foreign officer (obviously a German) is depicted by Mr. George Morrow in the car of an airship "after dropping a shell with the idea of destroying London." "Tut! tut!" he observes, "I've missed it." The second picture, in October, 1910, is of "The New Arm and how to use it," and illustrates the conversion of a number of soldiers, by the device of opening umbrellas of a peculiar pattern, into what the approaching air-scout takes to be a field dotted with gigantic flowers. But, as I showed in an earlier volume, Punch described the principle of camouflage in full detail about half a century before it was carried into practice.