[Illustration:  PERFECT INNOCENCE

CONSTABLE WOODROW WILSON:  “That’s a very mischievous thing to do.”

SWEDEN:  “Please, sir, I didn’t know it was loaded.”]

In Russia the Provisional Government has been dissolved and a Republic proclaimed.  If eloquence can save the situation, Mr. Kerensky is the man to do it; but so far the men of few words have gone farthest in the war.  A “History of the Russian Revolution” has already been published.  The pen may not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages to keep ahead of it.

With fresh enemy battalions, as well as batteries, constantly arriving from Russia, the Italians have been hard pressed; but their great assault on San Gabriele has saved the Bainsizza plateau.  The Italian success has been remarkable, but the Russian collapse has prevented it from being pushed home.  On the Western front no great events are recorded, but the mills of death grind on with ever-increasing assistance from the resources of applied science and the new art of camouflage.  Yet the dominion of din and death and discomfort is still unable to impair our soldiers’ capacity of extracting amusement from trivialities.

[Illustration:  TRIALS OF A CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER

SERGEANT-MAJOR:  “Beg pardon, sir, I was to ask if you’d step up to the battery, sir.”

CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER:  “What’s the matter?”

SERGEANT-MAJOR:  “It’s those painted grass screens, sir.  The mules have eaten them.”]

[Illustration:  THE INSEPARABLE

THE KAISER (to his people):  “Do not listen to those who would sow dissension between us. I will never desert you.”]

The weather has been so persistently wet that it looks as if this year the Channel had decided to swim Great Britain.  A correspondent, in a list of improbable events on an “extraordinary day” at the front, gives as the culminating entry, “It did not rain on the day of the offensive.”

[Illustration: 

C.O. (to sentry):  “Do you know the Defence Scheme for this sector of the line, my man?”

TOMMY:  “Yes, sir.”

C.O.:  “Well, what is it, then?”

TOMMY.  “To stay ‘ere an’ fight like ’ell.”]

When Parliament is not sitting and trying to make us “sit up,” and when war news is scant, old people at home sometimes fall into a mood of wistful reverie, and contrast the Germany they once knew with the Germany of to-day.

A LOST LAND

  A childhood land of mountain ways,
  Where earthy gnomes and forest fays,
  Kind, foolish giants, gentle bears,
  Sport with the peasant as he fares
  Affrighted through the forest glades,
  And lead sweet, wistful little maids
  Lost in the woods, forlorn, alone,
  To princely lovers and a throne.

  Dear haunted land of gorge and glen,
  Ah me! the dreams, the dreams of men!