Then says he’s quite a Sunny Jim,
  That buoyant health and youthful vim
  Are sticking out all over him? 
      The Neutral.

  Who tells us tales of Krupp’s new guns,
  Much larger than the other ones,
  And endless trains chock-full of Huns? 
      The Neutral.

  And then, when our last hope has fled,
  Declares the Huns are either dead
  Or hopelessly dispirited? 
      The Neutral.

  In short, who seems to be a blend
  Of Balaam’s Ass, the bore’s godsend,
  And Mrs. Gamp’s elusive friend? 
      The Neutral.

In Parliament we have had the biggest Budget ever known introduced in the shortest Budget speech of the last half-century, at any rate.  Mr. Pemberton Billing is doing his best every Tuesday to bring the atmosphere of the aerodrome into the House.  Mr. Tennant has promised his sympathetic consideration to Mr. Billing’s offer personally to organise raids on the enemy’s aircraft bases, and the House is bearing up as well as can be expected under the shadow of this impending bereavement.  Mr. Swift MacNeill is busy with his patriotic effort to purge the roll of the Lords of the peerages now held by enemy dukes.  For the rest, up to Easter Week, the Parliamentary situation has been described as “a cabal every afternoon and a crisis every second day.”

It is one of the strange outcomes of this wonderful time that there is more gaiety as well as more suffering in hospitals during the War than in peace.  Certainly such a request would never have been heard in normal years as that recently made by a nurse to a roomful of irrepressible Tommies at a private hospital: 

“A message has just come in to ask if the hospital will make a little less noise as the lady next door has a touch of headache.”

For shouting “The Zepps are coming!” a Grimsby girl has been fined L1.  It was urged in defence that the girl suffered from hallucinations, one being that she was a daily newspaper proprietor.  But the recent Zeppelin raids have not been without their advantages.  In a spirit of emulation an ambitious hen at Acton has laid an egg weighing 5-1/4 oz.

[Illustration: 

VISITOR (at Private Hospital):  “Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?”

MATRON:  “We do not allow ordinary visiting.  May I ask if you are a relative?”

VISITOR (boldly):  “Oh, yes!  I’m his sister.”

MATRON:  “Dear me!  I’m very glad to meet you. I’m his mother.”]

May, 1916.

Verdun still holds out:  that is the best news of the month.  The French with inexorable logic continue to exact the highest price for the smallest gain of ground.  If the Germans are ready to give 100,000 men for a hill or part of a hill they may have it.  If they will give a million men they may perhaps have Verdun itself.  But so far their Pyrrhic victories have stopped short of this limit, and Verdun, like Ypres, battered, ruined and evacuated by civilians, remains a symbol of Allied tenacity and the will to resist.