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In A good cause.

There is no War-charity known to Mr. Punch that does better work or more quietly than that which is administered by the Children’s Aid Committee, who provide homes in country cottages and farm-houses for children, most of them motherless, of our soldiers and sailors, visit them from time to time and watch over their needs.  Here in these homes their fathers, who are kept informed of their children’s welfare during their absence, come to see them when on leave from the Front, and find them gently cared for.  Since the War began homes have been provided for over two thousand four hundred children.  A certain grant in aid is allowed by the London War Pensions Committee, who have learned to depend upon the Children’s Aid Committee in their difficulties about children, but for the most part this work relies upon voluntary help, and without advertisement.  Of the money that came into the Committee’s hands last year only about two per cent. was paid away for salaries and office expenses.

More than a year ago Mr. Punch appealed on behalf of this labour of love, and now he begs his readers to renew the generous response which they made at that time.  Gifts of money and clothing, and offers of hospitality, will be gratefully acknowledged by Miss Maxwell LYTE, Hon. Treasurer of the Children’s Aid Committee, 50, South Molton Street, London, W.

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[Illustration:  Vive La Chasse!

[With Mr. Punch’s compliments to our gallant Allies on their bag of Zepps.]]

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Stronger than herself.

In an assortment of nieces, totalling nine in all—­but two of them, being still, in Sir WALTER’S phrase, composed of “that species of pink dough which is called a fine infant” do not count—­I think that my favourites are Enid and Hannah.  Enid being the daughter of a brother of mine, and Hannah of a sister, they are cousins.  They are also collaborators in literature and joint editors of a magazine for family consumption entitled The Attic Salt-Cellar.  The word “Attic” refers to the situation of the editorial office, which is up a very perilous ladder, and “salt-cellar” was a suggestion of my own, which, though adopted, is not yet understood.

During the search for pseudonyms for the staff—­the pseudonym is an essential in home journalism, and the easiest way of securing it is to turn one’s name round—­we came upon the astonishing discovery that Hannah is exactly the same whether you spell it backwards or forwards.  Hannah therefore calls herself, again at my suggestion, “Pal,” which is short for “palindrome.”  We also discovered, to her intense delight, that Enid, when reversed, makes “Dine”—­a pleasant word but a poor pseudonym.  She therefore calls herself after her pet flower, “Marigold.”