AT BEST.

[Baron MORITZ FERDINAND VON BISSING, the German Military Governor- General of Belgium, the murderer of Nurse CAVELL and instigator of the infamous Belgian deportations, after being granted a rest from his labours, is reported to have died “of overwork.”]

  Tired of pillaging and sacking,
  Tired of bludgeoning and whacking,
  Tired of torturing and racking,
    BISSING takes his “rest.”

  For the sport of shooting nurses,
  Gloating o’er his victims’ hearses,
  Answering appeals with curses,
    He had lost his zest.

  All his diabolic striving
  To intensify slave-driving
  Could not slay the soul surviving
    In a Nation’s breast.

  Still the flame burns ever brighter
  Underneath the blouse or mitre;
  Still the smitten greets the smiter
    With undaunted crest;

  While the arch-tormentor, flying
  From the hell about him lying,
  Mid the fire and worm undying
    Takes his endless rest.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE WANING OF FAITH.

GUARDIAN OF STATUE.  “YOU WISH TO HAMMER ANOTHER NAIL INTO THE COLOSSUS OF
OUR HINDENBURG?”

EX-ENTHUSIAST.  “NO; I WANT MY OLD ONE BACK.”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Tuesday, April 17th.—­The re-opening of the House of Commons found Lord FISHER in his accustomed place over the clock.  What is the lure that brings him so often to the Peers’ Gallery?  I think it must be his strong sense of duty.  As Chairman of the Inventions Board he feels he ought to lose no opportunity of adding to his stock.

Quite the most striking feature of the afternoon was the pink shirt worn by a well-known Scottish Member, whose name I refrain from mentioning to spare him any additional blushes.  It was of such an inflammatory hue that his brother-legislators at first took it for a well-developed case of measles (probably German) and sheered off accordingly.  Nobody knows what caused him to indulge in the rash act, but it is hoped in the interests of coherent debate that he will not do it again.

Mr. DILLON was so much disturbed by the apparition that, having started out to demand an immediate General Election unless the Government at once granted Home Rule to the whole of Ireland, he finished by declaring that he would be satisfied if they would promise to reform the franchise on the lines proposed by the SPEAKER’S Conference.  Incidentally he drew a fancy picture of himself and his colleagues striving consistently for thirty-five years to convert their brother-Irishmen to constitutional methods; from which I infer that Mr. DILLON, very wisely, does not make a study of his own old speeches.

[Illustration:  PAPER SHORTAGE AT A GENERAL ELECTION.

[The Political Slate (with Sponge) has its obvious compensations.]]