* * * * *

FRITZ’S APOLOGIA.

  Yes, war is horrible and hideous—­
  It jars upon my sense fastidious,
  My “noble instincts,” to decline
  To actions that are not divine. 
  So, when I mutilate your pictures,
  So far from meriting your strictures,
  Compassion rather is my due
  For doing what I hate to do. 
  It grieves my super-saintly soul
  Even to smash a china bowl;
  To carry off expensive clocks
  My tender conscience sears and shocks;
  I really don’t enjoy at all
  Hacking to bits a panelled hall,
  Rare books with priceless bindings burning,
  Or boudoirs into cesspools turning. 
  My heart invariably bleeds
  When I’m engaged upon these deeds,
  And teardrops of the largest size
  Fall from my heav’n-aspiring eyes. 
  But, though my sorrow is unfeigned,
  Still discipline must be maintained;
  And, when the High Command says, “Smash,
  Bedaub with filth, loot, hack and slash,”
  I do it (much against the grain)
  Because, though gentle and humane,
  When dirty work is to be done
  I always am a docile Hun.

* * * * *

    “It is proposed to collect from Nottinghamshire householders bones and
    fat for the extraction of glycerine.”—­Christian World.

Poor “lambs”!

* * * * *

    “Lady Companion Wanted, immediately, by young married woman; servant
    kept, and there are no children:  applicant must be well educated, well
    read, well-bred, and of impeachable character.”—­Provincial Paper.

So as to give her employer something to talk about?

* * * * *

“‘Baghdad’ written large on the wall of the terminus in English and Arabic reminded them that they had arrived.  In the booking office, now deserted, there had been a rush for tickets to Constantinople.  The last train had gone out at 2 a.m.  A supper officer discovered the way-bill.”—­Daily Paper.

A poor substitute if he was looking for the bill-of-fare.

* * * * *

From an Egyptian picture-palace programme:—­

 “Sensationing.  Dramatic. 
               MARINKA’S HEART. 
  Great drama, in 3 parts, of a poignancy interest,
  assisting with anguish at the terrible
  peripeties of a Young Girl, falling in hand, of
               Bohemian bandits. 
  Pictures of this film are celicious, being taken
  at fir trees and mountan’s of the Alpes.—­
                Great success. 
  Comic.  Silly laughter.”

The translator of the French original was probably justified in his rendering of “fou rire.”

* * * * *

PROTESTS OF AN AMMUNITION MULE.