If from your bonds you know quite well
    You might, this moment, find release,
  Changing, at will, your present hell
    For Liberty’s heaven of lasting peace;
  If yet, for habit’s sake, you choose
    This reign of steel, this rule of terror,
  It’s not for us to push our views
    And point you out your silly error.

  Herein I speak as I am taught—­
    That your affairs are yours alone,
  Though, for myself, I should have thought
    They had a bearing on my own;
  Have I no right to interpose,
    Urging on you a free autonomy,
  Just as your U-boats shove their nose
    In my interior economy?

  I’m told we have no quarrel, none,
    With you as Germans.  That’s absurd. 
  Myself, I hate all sorts of Hun,
    Yet will I say one kindly word: 
  If, still refusing Freedom’s part,
    You keep the old Potsdam connection,
  With all my sympathetic heart
    I wish you joy of that selection.

  O.S.

* * * * *

An order of the day.

In my opinion the value of the stock letter has distinct limitations.  What I mean to say is that if there is in a Government office a series of half a dozen standard epistles, one or other of which can be used as a reply to the majority of the conundrums that daily serve to bulge the post-bag of the “controller” or “director,” the selection of the appropriate missive should not be left purely to chance.

Last month I wrote to the Methylated Spirit Controller:—­

“Dear sir,—­Referring to the recent Methylated Spirit (Motor Fuel) Restriction Order, No. 2, 1917, I wish to know whether I am at liberty to use my car as a means of conveyance to a farm about ten miles away where the rabbits are eating the young blades of wheat.  A friend has invited me to help him shoot them—­the rabbits, I mean.”

Well, that was lucid enough, wasn’t it?  But the reply was not so helpful as I could have wished.  It opened intelligibly with the words “Dear Sir,” but continued:—­

“I am directed by the Methylated Spirit Controller to inform you that the employment of a hackney motor vehicle, not licensed to ply for hire, as a conveyance to divine service constitutes a breach of Regulation 8 ZZ of the Defence of the Realm Regulations.”

Not a word about the rabbits, you see.

I was so fascinated by the unexpected results of my first effort that I tried again, this time breaking new ground.

“Dear sir,” I wrote,—­“Referring to Methylated Spirit (Motor Fuel) Restriction Order, No. 2, 1917, am I at liberty to use my car daily to take my children to their school, which is five miles from my residence?  The only alternative form of conveyance available is a donkey and cart, the employment of which means that my offspring would have to start overnight.”

I received a quite polite but rather chilly answer:—­