LEGAL INTELLIGENCE.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, described as Prime Minister, was charged, on the information of HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH, with exceeding the speech limit while on tour.  Mr. BONAR LAW, who appeared for the defendant, asked for an adjournment and invited the Court to “wait and see.”  Upon hearing those words prosecutor broke down and had to be assisted out of the court.

* * * * *

HORATIO BOTTOMLEY pleaded “Not guilty” to a charge of fortune-telling.  It appears that the defendant had stated that the War would be over by Christmas.  For the defence it was stated that the defendant had not specified which Christmas, and even so if he had said so it was so.  Defendant asked for a remand to enable him to dispense with legal assistance.

* * * * *

    RESULT OF THE FOOD SHORTAGE?

    “Exchange new gold full plate, seven teeth, for good brown skin
    hearthrug.”—­The Lady.

* * * * *

From the police-notice re air-raid warnings:—­

    “When the car has two occupants one might concentrate on whistling
    and calling out ‘Take Cover.’”

As his own won’t be enough he should borrow the other occupant’s mouth.

* * * * *

THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.

v.

CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LXXIII.

Mary.  There were two things in your last chapter that I did not quite understand—­the National Debt and the Flappers.

Mrs. M.  About the National Debt, my dear child, I think you must wait until your papa comes home to tea, but perhaps I can satisfy your curiosity about the Flappers, who were indeed amongst the most singular and formidable products of the age we have been discussing.  The origin of the term is obscure, some authorities connecting it with the term “flap-doodle,” others with the motion of a bird’s wings, and I remember a verse in an old song which ran as follows:—­

  “Place me somewhere east of Suez
  On a lone and rocky shore,
  Where the Britons cease from Britling
  And the flappers flap no more.”

This, however, does not throw much light on the subject.  Perhaps the term Flapper may best be defined as meaning a twentieth-century hoyden, and was applied to a type of girl from the age of thirteen to seventeen, whose extravagances in speech, manner and dress caused deep dismay among the more serious members of the community.  In particular the learned Dr. SHADWELL denounced them with great severity in a leading review, but with little result.  They bedizened themselves with frippery, shrieked like parrots on all occasions and interpreted the motto of the time, “Carry On,” in a sense deplorably remote from its higher significance.

George.  I think it seems, Mamma, as if the young girls of those times must have tried to make themselves as unpleasant as possible.  How thankful I am that Mary is not a Flapper!