Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, March 19, 1919   By: Various

VOL. 156

MARCH 19, 1919

CHARIVARIA.

President WILSON is stated to have played several keen games of "shuffle board" on the George Washington . As it is an open secret that Lord ROBERT CECIL has been polishing up his "shove halfpenny" in the billiard room of the Hotel Majestic interesting developments are anticipated.

Primroses, daisies and wallflowers are in full bloom in many parts of the country and young lambs may now be seen frisking in the meadows. Can the POET LAUREATE be waiting for someone to get sun stroke?

The Commission on the Responsibilities and Crimes of the War have not yet decided that the ex Kaiser is guilty. At the same time it is said that they have an idea that he knew something about it.

At a Belfast football match last week the winning team, the police and the referee were mobbed by the partisans of the losing side. Local sportsmen condemn the attack on the winning team as a dangerous innovation.

The L.C.C. is training munition girls to be cooks. We understand that the velocity and range will be clearly stamped on the bottom of all pork pies.

A Stromness fisherman, on opening a halibut, found a large cormorant in its stomach. Cormorants, of course, are not fastidious birds. They don't mind where they nest.

The eclipse of the sun on May 28th should be a great success, if we may judge by the immense time it has taken over rehearsals.

Inspector J.G. OGHAM, chief of the Portsmouth Fire Brigade, who is about to retire, has attended over two thousand fires. Indeed it is said that most of the local fires know him by sight.

"Ghost stories," says a contemporary, "are being spread about vacant houses in Dublin to decrease the demand for them." The old caretaker's trick of training a couple of cockroaches to jump out at the house hunter is quite useless to day.

Hull merchants complain that only one train leaves Hull per day on which wet fish can travel. The idea of bringing the fish to Billingsgate under their own steam has already been ventilated.

Found insensible with a bottle of sherry in his pocket, an East Ham labourer was fined ten shillings for being drunk. It is believed that had he been carrying the sherry anywhere else nothing could have saved him.

An absconding Trade Society treasurer last week hit upon a novel idea. He ran away with his own wife.

"Is nothing going to be done to stop the incursion of the sea at Walton on the Naze?" asks a contemporary. Have they tried the effect of placing notice boards along the front?

For the first time the public have been admitted to a meeting of the Beckenham Council. It is pleasant to find that the importance of good wholesome entertainment is not being lost sight of in some places.

Asked by the Wood Green magistrates for the names of his six children, a defendant said that he did not know them. It is a good plan for a man to get his wife to introduce him to the children.

It appears that a certain gentleman has managed to overcome the domestic servant problem. He has married one.

A Salford man giving evidence in a local court told the magistrates that his wife had repeatedly stuck pins into him. There is no excuse for such conduct, even with pin cushions at their present inflated price.

No one seemed to take the rat plague very seriously in the Isle of Wight until last week, when several rodents were discovered at the Seaplane Station at Bembridge busily engaged in trying on the pilots' flying coats.

It is only fair to remark that, although the Government has recently been found guilty of profiteering, they have never during the War raised the price: of their ten shilling notes.