CHARIVARIA.

Fewer births are recorded in Ireland during the past seven months.  No surprise can be felt, for we cannot imagine anybody being born in Ireland on purpose just now.

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A London firm are now manufacturing what they call the smallest motor-car on the market.  How great a boon this will be to the general public will be gathered from the report that one of these cars has been knocked down by a pedestrian.

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According to a Sunday paper MUSTAPHA kemal wants as soldiers only those who will die for their belief in his cause.  Previous experience is not essential.

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Citizens of Ealing have protested against Sunday concerts unless Sunday bathing is also permitted.  The pre-war custom of merely sponging the ears after attending a recital was never wholly satisfactory.

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According to an inscription on the score card of the North Berwick Club, “golf is a science in which you may exhaust yourself but never your subject.”  Several clubs, however, claim to possess colonels who can say practically all that is worth saying about the game without stopping to get their second wind.

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Girls have broadened out a lot, declared a speaker at the annual conference of the Head-mistresses’ Association.  The home-made jumper, it appears, has been coming in for a good deal of unmerited blame.

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A middle-aged man was charged at the Thames Police Court the other day with having an altercation with a lamp-post.  It appears that the man called the lamp-post “Pussyfoot,” and the latter promptly knocked him down.

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Special courts, it is stated, are to be set up for the trial of Irish criminals.  The need, we gather, is for some machinery by which the trial can be conducted in the absence of the prisoner.

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“I have put in a good three months in the garden,” Mr. Smillie told a reporter, on his return to London, “and have coaxed some nice red roses out.”  Coaxing the nice red miners out is comparatively easy work.

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On a question of equipment Ashford Fire Brigade has resigned.  It is not known yet whether local fires will go out in sympathy with the Brigade.

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Letchworth, the first Garden City, has voted itself dry by a majority of sixty-five.  There seems to be a lack of hospitality in this attempt to discourage American visitors.

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The latest news from Turkey, Russia and Ireland sets us wondering what the War made the world safe for.

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Ants, we are informed, will not come near the hands of a person if well rubbed with a raw onion.  The last time we attempted to rub an ant with a raw onion he broke away and made a dash for the hills.

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The Chicago Tribune points out that two attempts have been made on the life of the ex-Kaiser.  It is hoped that he will realise that it would be a breach of etiquette to get assassinated before the Allies have decided what is to be done with him.