Mr. John Burns's political evolution, since the days when Punch savagely attacked him at the time of the Trafalgar Square riots in 1884, had long removed him from the range of attack on the score of his revolutionary views. His former associates regarded him as a renegade; independent observers found in him an energetic and arbitrary bureaucrat. Punch appreciated his manliness, but could not resist having an occasional dig at his complacent egotism, and when the Cabinet was reconstructed early in 1914, there is a picture of him praising the four new appointments as "excellent choices—with perhaps the exception of Samuel, Hobhouse and Masterman"—in other words, all but his own.
Towards Labour members of the House of Commons, Punch, as we have seen, had of recent years been none too friendly: least of all to Mr. Keir Hardie. But on the occasion of the debate in the House over the resignations at the Curragh in March, 1914, Punch's Parliamentary representative credits them with intervening effectually as representatives of the vast social and political weight behind them. In particular he praises Mr. John Ward and Mr. J. H. Thomas for their warning against militarism. "General Gough may feel keenly the Ulster situation. Tommy Atkins will feel not less keenly the industrial situation." For Mr. Thomas went on to point out that in the following November four hundred thousand railwaymen would come to grips with their employers, and if they did not attain satisfactory terms they might simultaneously strike. And if the Opposition doctrine in regard to Ulster were sound, added Mr. Thomas, "it will be my duty to tell the railwaymen to prepare for the worst by organizing their forces, the half-million capital possessed by the Union to be used to provide arms and ammunition for them." Mr. Thomas still occasionally utters blood-curdling warnings, but is now the special bête noire, to put it mildly, of the Labour extremists. General Gough's views on Ulster and Ireland have undergone considerable modifications, and Mr. John Ward, who denounced military juntas, is Colonel John Ward, D.S.O., the gallant soldier, fearlessly candid friend of Labour and uncompromising foe of Bolshevism.
The Rector: "Now, Molly, would you rather be beautiful or good?"
Molly: "I'd rather be beautiful and repent."
Uncle George: "What! Hate all your lessons? Come, now, you don't mean to say you hate history?"
Niece: "Yes, I do. To tell you the truth, Uncle, I don't care a bit what anybody ever did."