A new and coruscating star has swum into our Parliamentary ken in the shape of the Member for Mid-Herts, and astronomers have labelled it “Pegasus [Greek:  pi beta].”  When the House of Commons passed the Bill prohibiting duels it ought to have made an exception in favour of its own Members.  Nothing would have done more to raise the tone of debate, for offenders against decorum would gradually have eliminated one another.  Yet Parliament has its merits, not the least of them being the scope it still affords for hereditary talent.  Lord Derby, at the moment the most prominent man on the Home Front after the Premier, is the grandson of the “Rupert of Debate,” and the new Minister of Blockade enters on his duties close on fifty years after another Lord Robert Cecil entered the Cabinet of Lord Derby.  So history repeats itself with a difference.  In spite of the Coalition, or perhaps because of it, the old strife of Whigs and Tories has revived, though the lines of cleavage are quite different from what they were.  Thus the new Tories are the men who believe that the War is going to be decided by battles in Flanders and the North Sea, and would sacrifice everything for victory, even the privilege of abusing the Government.  The new Whigs are the men who consider that the House of Commons is the decisive arena, and that even the defeat of the Germans would be dearly purchased at the cost of the individual’s right to say and do what he pleased.

[Illustration:  “He’s kicked the Corporal!”

“He’s kicked the Vet.!!”

“He’s kicked the Transport Officer!!!”

“He’s kicked the Colonel!!!!”

MULE HUMOUR]

[Illustration:  THE VICAR:  “These Salonikans, Mrs. Stubbs, are, of course, the Thessalonians to whom St. Paul wrote his celebrated letters.”

MRS. STUBBS:  “Well, I ’ope ’e’d better luck with ’is than I ’ave.  I sent my boy out there three letters and two parcels, and I ain’t got no answer to ’em yet.”]

After the exhibition of Mr. Augustus John’s portrait of Mr. Lloyd George, the most startling personal event of the month has been the dismissal of Grand Admiral Tirpitz.  According to one account, he resigned because he could not take the German Fleet out.  According to another, it was because he could no longer take the German people in.

At Oxford the Hebdomadal Council have suspended the filling of the Professorship of Modern Greek for six months.  Apparently there is no one about just now who understands the modern Greek.  A French correspondent puts it somewhat differently:  “La Grece Antique:  Hellas. La Grece Moderne:  Helas!”

April, 1916.