[In a Munich paper Herr Ganghofer recites the following remark of the Kaiser's, whose special journalistic confidant he is said to be:—"To possess Kultur means to have the deepest conscientiousness and the highest morality. My Germans possess that.">[
'Tis enough that we know you have said it;
We feel that the facts correspond
With your speech as a Person of credit,
Whose word is as good as his bond;
Who are we that our critics should quarrel
With the flattering doctrine you preach—
That the German, in all that is moral,
Is an absolute peach?
But the puzzle grows odder and odder:
If your people are spotless of blame,
Being perfectly sound cannon-fodder,
Then whose is the fault and the shame?
If it's just from a deep sense of duty
That they prey upon woman and priest,
And their minds are a model of Beauty,
Then who is the Beast?
For a Beast is at work in this matter;
We have seen—and the traces endure—
The red blood of the innocent spatter
The print of his horrible spoor;
On their snouts, like the lovers of Circe—
Your men that are changed into swine—
The Mark of the Beast-without-mercy
Is set for a sign.
You have posed (next to God) as the pillar
That steadies the fabric of State,
Whence issues the brave baby-killer
Supplied with his hymnal of hate;
Once known for a chivalrous knight, he
Now hogs with the Gadarene herd;
Since it can't be the other Almighty,
How has it occurred?
When at last they begin to be weary
Of sluicing their virtues in slime,
And they put the embarrassing query:—
"Who turned us to brutes of the prime?
Full of culture and most conscientious,
Who made us a bestial crew?
Who pounded the poisons that drench us?"—
I wouldn't be you.
O. S.
THE PLAINT OF A BRITISH DACHSHUND.
Dear Mr. Punch,—I desire to address you on a painful subject. Let me state that I am (1) a dachshund of unblemished character; (2) a British-born subject; (3) a member of a family which, though originally of foreign extraction, has for several generations been honourably domiciled in one of the most exclusive and aristocratic of our English country seats. Imagine then the surprise and indignation experienced by myself, my wife and our only daughter when, shortly after the opening of the present unfortunate hostilities between our country and a certain continental Power, we found the atmosphere of friendly, nay, affectionate respect with which we had so long been surrounded becoming gradually superseded by one of suspicion and animosity.
The ball was started by Macalister, an Aberdeen terrier of unprincipled character, who has never forgiven me for summarily crushing the unwelcome advances which he had the bad taste to make last spring to my daughter. He had had the impertinence to approach me with a large (and, I confess, a distinctly succulent-looking) object, which he laid with an oily smile on the ground before my nose. But I had heard from Gertrude (my wife) of his attentions to our offspring, and I saw through the ruse.