* * *

A gossip-writer points out that Mr. Winston CHURCHILL’S earliest ambition was to be an actor.  Our contemporary is wise not to disclose the name of the man who talked him out of it.

* * *

“Whatever price is fixed it is impossible to get stone in any quantity,” says a building trade journal.  They have evidently not heard of our coal-dealer.

* * *

“Nothing of any value has been gained by the War,” complains a daily paper.  This slur on the O.B.E. is in shocking taste.

* * *

A Sunday newspaper deplores that there seems to be no means of checking the crime-wave which is still spreading throughout the country.  If only the Government would publish the amount of American bacon recently purchased by the Prisons’ Department things might tend to improve.

* * *

“There is still a great shortage of gold in the country,” announces a weekly paper.  It certainly seems as if our profiteers will soon have to be content with having their teeth stopped with bank-notes.

* * *

We regret to learn that the amateur gardener whose marrows were awarded the second prize for cooking-apples at a horticultural show is still confined to his bed.

* * *

A neck-ruffle originally worn by Queen Elizabeth has been stolen from a house in Manchester and has not yet been recovered.  Any reader noticing a suspicious-looking person wearing such an article over her decollete should immediately communicate with the nearest police-station.

* * *

Hair tonic, declares the Washington Chief of Police, is growing in popularity as a beverage.  The danger of this habit has been widely advertised by the sad case of a Chicago man who drank three shampoo cocktails and afterwards swallowed a hair in his soup.

* * *

The mystery of the City gentleman who has been noticed lately going up to public telephones and getting immediate answers is now solved.  It appears that he is a well-known ventriloquist with a weakness for practical jokes.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “I never ordered it—­and I won’t pay for it.”]

* * * * *

    “According to the latest census returns, the population of New York
    City is now L5,621,000.”—­Indian Paper.

In dollars, of course, it would be considerably more.

* * * * *

    “The Royal Dutch Mail steamer Stuyvesant will leave on Monday at 5 a.m.
    for Havre and Amsterdam.  The tender leaves the Lighthouse Jetty at 8
    a.m. punctually with passengers.”—­West Indian Paper.

Rather a mean trick to play on them.

* * * * *

    “The Chairman said the Council had never paid one penny for the oiling
    and washing of the fire brigade.”—­Local Paper.