CHARIVARIA.

A Newcastle miner who was stated to be earning a pound a day has been fined ten pounds for neglecting his children.  The idea of waiting till September 20th and letting Mr. Smillie neglect them does not seem to have occurred to him.

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“Beyond gardening,” says a gossip writer, “Mr. Smillie has few hobbies.”  At the same time there is no doubt he is busy getting together a fine collection of strikes.

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It is said that Amundsen will not return to civilisation this year.  If he was thinking of Ireland he isn’t missing any civilisation worth mentioning.

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“The Poet laureate,” says a weekly paper, “has not written an ode to British weather.”  So that can’t be the cause of it.

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A Wolverhampton man weighing seventeen stone, in charging another with assault, said he heard somebody laughing at him, so he looked round.  A man of that weight naturally would.

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“There is work for everybody who likes to work,” says Mr. N. Grattan Doyle, M.P.  It is this tactless way of rubbing it in which annoys so many people.

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A contemporary has a letter from a correspondent who signs himself “Tube Traveller of Twenty Years’ Standing.”  Somebody ought to offer the poor fellow a seat.

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In connection with the case of a missing railway-porter one railway line has decided to issue notices warning travellers against touching porters while they are in motion.

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“The United States,” declares the proprietor of a leading New York hotel, “is on the eve of going wet again.”  A subtle move of this kind, with the object of depriving drink of its present popularity, is said to be making a strong appeal to the Prohibitionists.

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One London firm is advertising thirty thousand alarum-clocks for sale at reduced prices.  There is now no excuse for any workman being late at a strike.

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A centenarian in the Shetlands, says a news agency, has never heard of Mr. Lloyd George.  We have no wish to brag, but we have often seen his name mentioned.

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Professor PETRIE’S statement that the world will only last another two hundred thousand years is a sorry blow to those who thought that Chu Chin Chow was in for a long run.  Otherwise the news has been received quietly.

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“Nothing useful is ever done in the House of Commons,” says a Labour speaker.  He forgets that the cleaners are at work in the building just now.

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We are informed that at the Bricklaying contest at the Olympic Games a British bricklayer lost easily.

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“A dress designer,” says a Camomile Street dressmaker in The Evening News, “must be born.”  We always think this is an advantage.