We are inclined to agree as to the "mania" part, and we think the "corruption" must be that of the modern representatives of the ancient Orientals, whose education consisted in riding, shooting—and telling the truth.
The Almanach de Bouverie Street, however, informs us that the ever-frowning War Lord derives from the monarch of the rocky brow, who counted his men by nations at break of day, and when the sun set where were they? If the Hohenxerxes family are still on the look-out for places in the sun, they will find their ancestral homes for the most part unoccupied in the sufficiently arid regions around Ecbatana and Persepolis, now crying aloud for Kultur and Kraut.
We are still waiting to hear that von Hafiz and Omar zu Khayyam, as well as Shakspeare, have been proved to be Germans, and that the Herr Wolff of the Berlin Lie Bureau traces back to the foster-mother of Romulus—and Romance.
Ultimatum.
Mr. Punch begs to remind the 1,793 correspondents who have lately sent him delightful plays upon the word "wet" [De Wet the man and "de wet" the rain (ha-ha)] that the same idea had already occurred to 15,825 correspondents during the Boer War. Time is a great healer, but twelve years is not long enough.
Mr. C. G. Grey writes in The Daily Express on the Freidrichshafen air-raid:—
"The raid itself was one of those simple affairs which might have been done by any aviator possessing skill and pluck, only fortunately for these three officers nobody else did it."
And the disparaging comment was one of those simple affairs which might have been done by any journalist possessing —— and ——, only fortunately nobody else did it.