“Miss Adela Pankhurst attempted to-day at the Midland Junction, a
    strong Labour centre, to deliver a lecture directed against Mr. Lloyd
    George and Mr. Hughes.

    The audience sang her down with ‘Rule Britannia’ and ’Australia 5s. a
    box.”—­Pall Mall Gazette.

The latter song, no doubt, alluding to the entrance-fee charged by the famous Boxing Kangaroo.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  CENTRAL ISOLATION.

GERMAN KAISER.  “YOU’RE ABOUT THE ONLY ONE LEFT FOR ME TO TALK TO.”

KING OF SPAIN.  “AND I’M NOT FEELING VERY CHATTY.”

[It is reported that communication between Berlin and America has been interrupted.]]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Tommy.  “HAVE YER GOT NOTHIN’ TO DO ONLY WATCH US WORKING?”

Loafer.  “NO.”

Tommy.  “THEN YER LOOK LIKE HAVIN’ A THUNDERIN’ IDLE TIME WHEN WE MOVE FROM HERE, DON’T YER?”]

* * * * *

THE FIRST WHIP.

        As I wandered home
        By Hedworth Combe
  I heard a lone horse whinny,
        And saw on the hill
        Stand statue-still
  At the top of the old oak spinney
        A rough-haired hack
        With a girl on his back,
  And “Hounds!” I said, “for a guinea.”

        The wind blew chill
        Over Larchley Hill,
  And it couldn’t have blown much colder;
        Her nose was blue
        And her pigtails two
  Hung damply over her shoulder;
        She might have been ten,
        Or, guessing again,
  She might have been twelve months older.

        To a tight pink lip
        She pressed her whip,
  By way of imposing quiet;
        I bowed my head
        To the word unsaid,
  Accepting the lady’s fiat,
        And noted the while
        Her Belvoir style
  As she rated a hound for riot.

        A lean form leapt
        O’er the fence and crept
  Through the ditch, with his thief’s heart quaking;
        But the face of the maid
        No hint betrayed
  That she noticed the brambles shaking,
        Till she saw him clear
        Of her one wild fear—­
  The chance of his backward breaking.

        Then dainty and neat
        She rose in her seat
  That the better her eyes might follow
        Where a shadow of brown
        Over Larchley Down
  Launched out like a driving swallow;
        And she quickened his speed
        Through bunch-grass and weed,
  With a regular Pytchley holloa!

        Raging they came
        Like a torrent of flame—­
  There were nineteen couple and over,
        And a huntsman grey
        Who blew them away
  With the note of a true hound-lover,
        While his Whip sat back
        On her rough old hack
  And called to the last in covert.