A HANDY MAN
MARINE;(somewhat late for parade: "At six o'clock I was a bloomin' 'ousemaid: at seven o'clock I was a bloomin' valet; at eight o'clock I was a bloomin' waiter; an' now I'm a bloomin' soldier!"
The War vocabulary grows and grows. "Pipsqueaks," "crumps" and "Jack Johnsons," picturesque equivalents for unpleasant things, have long been familiar even to arm-chair experts. The strangely named "Archie," and "Pacifist," the dismay of scholars--a word "mean as what it's meant to mean"--now come to be added to the list. A new and admirable explanation of the R.F.A., "Ready for anyfink," is attributed to a street Arab. Our children are mostly lapped in blissful ignorance, but their comments are often illuminating. As, for instance, the suggestion of a small child asked to give her idea of a suitable future for Germany and the Kaiser: "After the war I wouldn't let Heligoland belong to anybody. I would put the Germans there, and they should dig and dig and dig until it was all dug into the sea. The Kaiser should be sent to America, and they should be as rude as they liked to him. If he went in a train no one was to offer him a seat; he was to hang on to a strap, and he is to be called Mr. Smith." Cooks are being bribed to stay by the gift of War Bonds. Smart fashionables are flocking to munition works, and some of them sometimes are not unnaturally growing almost frightened at the organising talents they are developing. So are other people.
A vigorous campaign against flies has been initiated by the journal which describes itself as "that paper which gets things done." Nothing is too small for it. Meanwhile it is announced that "Lord Northcliffe is travelling and will be beyond the reach of correspondence until the end of next week." Even he must have an occasional rest from his daily mail.
We have to apologise for any suggestion to the effect that the Huns are devoid of humour. The German Society for the Protection and Preservation of Monuments has held a meeting in Brussels and expressed its thanks to the German Military Authorities for the care they had taken of the Monuments in Belgium. The function ended with an excursion to Louvain, where the delegates, no doubt, enjoyed a happy hour in the Library.
October, 1915.
September ended with the Western front once more ablaze, with bitter fighting at Loos and a great French offensive in Champagne. With October the focus of interest and anxiety shifts to the Balkans.Austrian armies, stiffened with Germans, have again invaded Serbia and again occupied Belgrade. The Allies have landed at Salonika, and Ferdinand of Bulgaria has declared war on Serbia. Thus a new theatre of war has been opened, and though it is well to be rid of a treacherous neutral, the conflict enters on a fresh and formidable phase. When Ferdinand went to Bulgaria he is said to have resolved that if ever there were to be any assassinations he would be on the side of the assassins. He has been true to his word ever since the removal of Stamboloff:
Here stands the Moslem with his brutal sword
Still red and reeking with Armenia's slaughter;
Here, fresh from Belgium's wastes, the Christian Lord,
His heart unsated by the wrong he wrought her;
And you between them, on your brother's track,
Sworn, for a bribe, to stick him in the back.
France and England have declared their intention of rendering all possible help to Serbia in her new ordeal, but Greece, false to her treaty with Serbia, and dominated by a pro-German Court and Government, hampers us at every turn. "'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more." So Byron sang, and a Byron de nos jours adds a new stanza to his appeal: