E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, David King,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Sir Roger Casement, it appears,landed in Ireland from a collapsibleboat. And by a strange coincidencehis arrival synchronised with the outbreakof a collapsible rebellion.
Hard soap can now be obtained inGermany only by those who purchasebread tickets. The soft variety cannotbe obtained at all, the whole supply, itseems, having been commandeered bythe Imperial Government for export tothe United States.
£175 worth of radium was lost lastweek in Dundee. The ease withwhich bar radium can be melteddown and remoulded in the form ofcheap jewellery affords, according tothe local police, a clear indicationthat this was the work of thieves.
A conscientious objector has statedthat he had even given up fishingon humanitarian grounds. We fearthat his fish stories may have causedsome fatal attacks of apoplexy amonghis audiences.
According to Sir Thomas Barlow"the importation of bananas hashad a far-reaching effect on thedigestion of our children." Onlylast Monday week the importationof six bananas had just that kind ofeffect on the digestion of our owndear little Percy.
Portugal has decided to expelGerman sympathisers of whatevernationality. Other clubs please copy.
From the Eastern Counties comesnews that in last week's Zeppelinraid twenty turnips were "completelydestroyed." And so the grimwork of starving England into submissiongoes relentlessly on.
"That boy there," said the LordMayor at the Mansion House, in addressingsome children from an orphanage,"can easily become a Lord Mayor."Cases of this sort are really not hardto diagnose when you are familiar withthe symptoms, and the Lord Mayorhad, of course, noticed the heartymanner in which the lad was attackinghis food.
The latest Shakspearean discoveryannounced by Sir Sidney Lee is thatthe Bard was a successful man ofbusiness; but the really nice peoplewho have lately taken him up haveresolved not to let the fact prejudicethem against him after all these years.
"Absence of the Polecat from Ireland"is the title of a vigorous articlein the current number of The Field.While agreeing in substance with thewriter, we cannot refrain from commentingon this unexpected departureof a peculiarly moderate organ fromits customary restraint in dealing withthe political questions of the day.
The Editor of The Angler's Newsmakes public the request that fishermenwill provide him with the particularsof any exceptionally big fishwhich they may catch. Strangelyenough he does not suggest that thedata should be accompanied, for purposesof verification, by the fish themselves.It is refreshing to know thatthere is a man left here and there whois not trying to make something outof the War.
One of the Zeppelins that recentlyvisited England dropped one hundredbombs without causing a single casualty,and a movement is on foot to presentthe Commander with a pair of whitegloves.
"What I wish to show Mr. Norman,"says Mr. G. K. Chesterton in TheNew Witness, "is that the fantastic