It is strange that so many people believe that the finances of the country are still controlled by Mr. Lloyd George. Nominally of course he is still Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he never goes near the Treasury, never reads a State Paper or troubles his head with facts or figures. When he is not inspiring our Foreign Policy—for which Sir Edward Grey so unfairly gains the credit—he is generally to be found playing piquet with Mr. T. P. O'Connor, or four-ball foursomes with Mr. Masterman, Mr. Devlin and the Baron de Forest.
Some misguided people have formed the odd habit of thinking of Sir Treebohm Herr as an actor. But how far from the truth this is will be ascertained in a moment when we say that he devotes himself almost wholly to studying his brother's facetious drawings and attempting to improve on them. Any histrionic reputation that he may have made has been the work of understudies while the principal was busy with his quasi-comic pencil.
Mr. Seldom Gorfridge, the great American shopkeeper whose advertisements are so highly esteemed by the London Press, is popularly believed to be interested in his business. This is, of course, a foolish misconception. Mr. Gorfridge has but one consuming passion and that is pigeon flying. Week in and week out he is absorbed by this pursuit at his magnificent home in Cornwall, and all that he knows of Oxford Street and millinery he learns from the evening papers.
FOOD--NOT MERELY FOR THOUGHT.
["Brick tea in Mongolia not only acts as food, but is used as currency and generally as a means of exchange. It is a very ancient custom, and house rent in Urga is often computed on so many bricks of tea.">[
From "With the Russians in Mongolia."
The introduction of a food currency on more extensive lines into this country might produce such results as the following:—