CHARIVARIA.

The Imperial aspirations of King Ferdinand are discussed by a Frankfort paper in an article entitled “What Bulgaria wants.”  Significantly enough the ground covered is almost identical with the subject-matter of an unpublished article of our own, entitled “What Bulgaria won’t get.”

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The cow which walked down sixteen stairs into a cellar at Willesden is said to have been the victim of a false air-raid warning.

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“In Scotland,” says Mr. BARNES’S report on Industrial Unrest, “the subject of liquor restrictions was never mentioned.”  Some thoughts are too poignant for utterance.

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According to the statement of a German paper “A Partial Crisis” threatens Austria.  One of these days we feel sure something really serious will happen to that country.

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The Medical Officer of the L.C.C. estimates that in 1916 the total water which flowed under London Bridge was 875,000,000,000 gallons.  It is not known yet what is to be done about it.

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The Army Council has forbidden the sale of raffia in the United Kingdom.  Personally we never eat the stuff.

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Nature Notes:  A white sparrow has been seen in Huntingdon; a well-defined solar halo has been observed in Hertfordshire, and Mr. Winston Churchill was noticed the other day reading The Morning Post.

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A boy of eighteen told the Stratford magistrate that he had given up his job because he only got twenty-five shillings a week.  He will however continue to give the War his moral support.

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The Austrian Emperor has told the representative of The Cologne Gazette that he “detests war.”  If not true this is certainly a clever invention on KARL’S part.

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We feel that the public need not have been so peevish because the experimental siren air-raid warning was not heard by everybody in London.  They seem to overlook the fact that full particulars of the warning appeared next morning in the papers.

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A man who obtained two hundred-weight of sugar from a firm of ship-brokers has been fined ten pounds at Glasgow.  Some curiosity exists as to the number of ships he had to purchase in order to secure that amount of sugar.

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A London magistrate has held that tea and dinner concerts in restaurants are subject to the entertainment tax.  This decision will come as a great shock to many people who have always regarded the music as an anaesthetic.

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The no-tablecloths order has caused great perturbation among the better-class hotel-keepers in Berlin.  Does the Government, they ask sarcastically, expect their class of patron to wipe their mouths on their shirt-cuffs?

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The chairman of the House of Commons’ Tribunal complains that while cats drink milk as usual they no longer catch mice.  This however may easily be remedied if the food-controller will meet them halfway on the question of dilution.