“Take from us any joys you like,” they cry;
    “We’d bear the loss, however much we missed ’em;
  Let truth and justice, fame and honour die,
    But spare, O spare, our Voluntary System!”

Amongst other signs of the times the increase of girl gardeners and the sacrifice of flower beds to vegetables are to be noted.  But War changes are sometimes disconcerting, even when they are most salutary.  For example, there is the cri de coeur of a passenger on a Clydebank tramcar in Glasgow on Saturday night, with a lady conductor:  “I canna jist bottom this, Tam.  It’s Seterday nicht an’ this is the Clydebank caur, an’ there’s naebody singin’ an’ naebody fechtin’ wi’ the conductor.”  Liquor control evidently does mean something.

[Illustration:  A HANDY MAN

MARINE;(somewhat late for parade):  “At six o’clock I was a bloomin’ ‘ousemaid:  at seven o’clock I was a bloomin’ valet; at eight o’clock I was a bloomin’ waiter; an’ now I’m a bloomin’ soldier!”]

The War vocabulary grows and grows.  “Pipsqueaks,” “crumps” and “Jack Johnsons,” picturesque equivalents for unpleasant things, have long been familiar even to arm-chair experts.  The strangely named “Archie,” and “Pacifist,” the dismay of scholars—­a word “mean as what it’s meant to mean”—­now come to be added to the list.  A new and admirable explanation of the R.F.A., “Ready for anyfink,” is attributed to a street Arab.  Our children are mostly lapped in blissful ignorance, but their comments are often illuminating.  As, for instance, the suggestion of a small child asked to give her idea of a suitable future for Germany and the Kaiser:  “After the war I wouldn’t let Heligoland belong to anybody.  I would put the Germans there, and they should dig and dig and dig until it was all dug into the sea.  The Kaiser should be sent to America, and they should be as rude as they liked to him.  If he went in a train no one was to offer him a seat; he was to hang on to a strap, and he is to be called Mr. Smith.”  Cooks are being bribed to stay by the gift of War Bonds.  Smart fashionables are flocking to munition works, and some of them sometimes are not unnaturally growing almost frightened at the organising talents they are developing.  So are other people.

A vigorous campaign against flies has been initiated by the journal which describes itself as “that paper which gets things done.”  Nothing is too small for it.  Meanwhile it is announced that “Lord Northcliffe is travelling and will be beyond the reach of correspondence until the end of next week.”  Even he must have an occasional rest from his daily mail.

We have to apologise for any suggestion to the effect that the Huns are devoid of humour.  The German Society for the Protection and Preservation of Monuments has held a meeting in Brussels and expressed its thanks to the German Military Authorities for the care they had taken of the Monuments in Belgium.  The function ended with an excursion to Louvain, where the delegates, no doubt, enjoyed a happy hour in the Library.