fellows talk of war as if it were a day’s shooting, and they the cock pheasants with the best of the fun up aloft.  Upon my word, the hen who hatched such birds should be a proud, if anxious, mother.”  The same correspondent sends a pleasant account of the mutual estimates of French and English, prompted by their experiences as brothers in arms.  “Our idea of our Ally as a soldier is that his elan and gay courage are very much more remarkable even than supposed; but for the dull, heavy work of continued warfare there is wanted, if we may say so without offence, the more stolid qualities of the English.  On the other hand, the French opinion of their Ally as a soldier is that his dash and devilment are really astonishing, even to the most expectant critic; but for the sordid, monotonous strain of this trench business it needs (a thousand pardons!) the duller persistence of the French.”

[Illustration:  THE PERSUADING OF TINO]

In Greece the quick change of Premiers proceeds with kaleidoscopic rapidity.  The attitude of the successive Prime Ministers has been described as (1) Tender and affectionate neutrality toward the Entente Powers; (2) Malevolent impartiality toward the Central Powers; (3) Inert cupidity toward all the belligerent Powers; (4) Genial inability; (5) Strict pusillanimity.

Lord Milner has gone so far in the House of Lords as to say that “such war news as is published has from first to last been seriously misleading.”  The Balkan intelligence that is allowed to reach us does not exactly deserve this censure.  To call it misleading would be too high praise; it seldom rises beyond a level of blameless irrelevance.  It is hardly a burlesque of the facts to say that a cable from Amsterdam informs us that the Copenhagen correspondent of the Echo de Paris learns from Salonika, via Lemnos and Nijni Novgorod, that in high official circles in Bukarest it is rumoured that in Constantinople the situation is considered grave; and then we are warned that too much credence must not be given to this report.  The number of Censors at the Press Bureau being exactly forty, and their minute knowledge of English literature having been displayed on several occasions, it is said that Sir John Simon contemplates their incorporation as an Academy of “Immortals—­for the duration of the War.”

[Illustration:  PADDY (who has had his periscope smashed by a bullet):  “Sure there’s seven years’ bad luck for the poor devil that broke that, anyhow.”]

Mr. Punch’s Correspondent “Blanche” sends distressing details of some of the new complaints contracted by smart war workers.  These include munition-wrists, shell-makers’ crouch, neuro-committee-itis, and Zeppelin-eye through looking up into the sky too long with a telescope.

A great deal depends on what you look at and what you look through.  Thus Mr. Walter Long says that when he reads carping criticisms upon the conduct of the War he looks through his window at the people in the street and is always surprised to see the quiet steadfast manner in which they are going about their business.  It is a good plan, but not always successful.  The Kaiser got his view of the Irish people through a Casement, and it was entirely erroneous.