Some very pleasant badinage between Lord HUGH CECIL and the HOME SECRETARY as to the relative merits of the words “dwell” and “reside” for the purpose of defining a voter’s qualification was followed by an exhaustive and exhausting lecture by Major CHAPPLE on how to tabulate the alternative votes in a three-cornered election.  His object was to demonstrate that under the Government scheme the man whom the majority of the voters might desire would infallibly be rejected, while by a plan of his own, which he had tried successfully on a couple of wounded soldiers, the best man invariably won.

Thursday, October 18th.—­The most obliging of men, Sir ALFRED MOND nevertheless draws the line when he is asked to look a gift horse in the mouth.  His predecessor at the Office of Works having offered a site for a statue of President LINCOLN, it is not for him to challenge the artistic merit of the sculpture, which has been picturesquely described as “a tramp with the colic.”  It is thought that the American donors, after an exhaustive study of our outdoor monuments, have been anxious to conform to British standards of taste.

The “Nationals” are beginning to move.  Their General elicited from the Government a promise to introduce a Vote of Thanks to His Majesty’s Forces; though it is possible that this would have been done without his intervention.  His lieutenants were less successful.  Sir RICHARD COOPER could not persuade Mr. BONAR LAW to publish the official report on the loss of the Hampshire, and is now more than ever convinced that K. OF K. is languishing in a German prison-camp; while the HOME SECRETARY intimated that he required no instruction from Major ROWLAND HUNT in the business of suppressing seditious literature.

After all, Ireland is to be redistributed.  Unless the success of the Convention renders the task superfluous, the Government will appoint a Boundary Commission as an act of simple justice.  Needless to say the announcement was received with frenzied abuse by all the Nationalist factions.  Abstract justice, it seems, is the very last thing that Ireland wants.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE RE-OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN ON OCTOBER 16TH A CERTAIN LIVELINESS WAS OBSERVED ON THE HIBERNIAN FRONT.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “TURN AGAIN.”

Instructor (to recruit, who on the command, “Left turn,” has made a mess of it). “NOW THEN, WHITTINGTON, ’AVE ANOTHER SHOT.”]

* * * * *

GADGETS AND STUNTS.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­Aware as you must be of a deplorable confusion now prevailing in the public mind as to the true inwardness of the expressions “gadget” and “stunt,” you will agree, I am sure, that the moment has come for a clear and authoritative ruling on this vexed point.  At a time when the pundits of the Oxford Dictionary are coldly aloof, like GALLIO, and the Army Council, though often approached, studiously reserve their decision, it rests with you Mr. Punch, as Arbiter of National Opinion, to give judgment.