***

Two out of ten houses being built at Guildford are now complete.  Builders in other parts of the country are asking who gave the word “Go.”

***

“Marvellous to relate,” says a Sunday paper, “a horse has just died at Ingatestone at the age of thirty-six.”  Surely it is more marvellous that it did not die before.

***

It is said that the Paris Peace Conference cost two million pounds.  The latest suggestion is that, before the next war starts, tenders for a Peace Conference shall be asked for and the lowest estimate accepted.

***

A Walsall carter has summoned a fellow-worker because during a quarrel he stepped on his face.  It was not so much that he had stepped on his face, we understand, as the fact that he had loitered about on it.

***

A painful mistake is reported from North London.  It appears that a young lady who went to a fancy-dress ball as “The Silent Wife” was awarded the first prize for her clever impersonation of a telephone girl.

***

We are glad to learn that the thoughtless tradesman who, in spite of the notice, “Please ring the bell,” deliberately knocked at the front-door of a wooden house, has now had to pay the full cost of rebuilding.

***

After reading in her morning paper that bumping races were held recently at Cambridge, a dear old lady expressed sorrow that the disgraceful scenes witnessed in many dance-rooms in London had spread to one of our older universities.

***

Tyrolese hats have reappeared in London after an interval of nearly five years.  We understand that the yodel waistcoat will also be heard this spring.

***

A Welshman was fined fifteen pounds last week for fishing for salmon with a lamp.  Defendant’s plea, that he was merely investigating the scientific question of whether salmon yawn in their sleep, was not accepted.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “Well, anyhow, no one could tell that this was once A British warm.”]

* * * * *

More boat-race “Intelligence.”

    “The Oxford crew had a hard training for an hour and a-half
    under the direction of Mr. Harcourt Gold, who is to catch them
    at Putney.”—­Evening Paper.

But will they catch Cambridge at Barnes?

    “The Cambridge people have elected to use a scull with a
    tubular shank or ‘loom.’

    “Oxford are using these sculls, too.”—­Evening Paper.

We have a silly old-fashioned preference for the use of oars in this competition.

* * * * *

    “On St. David’s Day, Welshmen wear a leak in their
    hats.”—­Provincial Paper.