CHARIVARIA.

“Germany will sign,” says an evening contemporary, “because the Allies hold all the trumps.”  They also hold all the Manchurian beef, and are prepared, should the occasion arise, to export it mercilessly.

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A Carmarthen man has been fined 12s. 6d. for shooting an owl in mistake for a pigeon.  Defendant pleaded that in omitting to sound its hooter the owl was guilty of contributory negligence.

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M. LANDRU, the Parisian Bluebeard (alleged), is said to be very morose and ill.  It is felt that something or other must be worrying him.

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Latest information points to the fact that Jazz has spread to the Hebrides, where two suspected cases are under observation.

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“Jumpers are to be very fashionable at the seaside this year,” says a fashion paper; and yet lodging-house keepers will keep on assuring us that their bed-linen is scrupulously clean.

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There are still twenty-three wars in progress, declares a Sunday contemporary.  The belief is rapidly gaining ground that several of them are being allowed to continue merely to spite Colonel Wedgwood.

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Cricket, we are constantly told, must be brightened.  Why not allow spectators to assault the umpires, just as if they were football referees?

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So many people have expressed their intention to swim the Channel this year that there is talk of abandoning the tunnel scheme as likely to prove unprofitable.

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After knocking a man down with an iron bar at Shoreditch, and being asked by the victim why he did it, the assailant again knocked him down.  Really this is carrying things too far.  After all, politeness costs nothing.

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It appears that the Burglars’ Trade Union, not to be outdone, are about to put in a demand for shorter sentences.

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“Single women,” says a scientific journal, “live on an average ten years longer than married women.”  After reading this statement, an Irishman has issued a warning against the habit of marrying single women.

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Grimsby is to have a flag day for the local hospitals.  It is not known who first gave them the idea of a flag day.

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“The only cure for the caterpillar now destroying young oaks in Devon,” says a morning paper, “is to remove the pest at once.”  The idea of removing the trees does not seem to have occurred to our contemporary.

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Coins said to have been deposited on the Dinas Mountain, South Wales, over seven hundred years ago have just been found.  This speaks well for the honesty of local residents.

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The ex-Kaiser has intimated to a newspaper man that he is prepared to abide by the decisions of the Peace Conference.  This confirms recent indications that Wilhelm is developing a sense of humour.