CHARIVARIA.
“Motorists,” says a London magistrate, “cannot go about knocking people down and killing them every day.” We agree. Once should be enough for the most grasping pedestrian.
* * *
“A Kensington lady,” we read, “has just engaged a parlourmaid who is only three feet seven inches in height.” The shortage of servants is becoming most marked.
* * *
A play called The Man Who Went to Work is shortly to be produced in the West End. It sounds like a farce.
* * *
A police-sergeant of Ealing is reported to have summoned six hundred motorists since March. There is some talk of his being presented with the illuminated addresses of another three hundred.
* * *
All the recent photographs of Sir Eric Geddes show him with a very broad smile. “And I know who he’s laughing at,” writes a railway traveller.
* * *
With reference to the Press controversy between Mr. H.G. Wells and Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, we understand that they have decided to shake hands and be enemies.
* * *
“In New Zealand,” says a weekly paper, “there is a daisy which is often mistaken for a sheep by the shepherds.” This is the sort of statement that the Prohibitionist likes to make a note of.
* * *
A statistician informs us that a man’s body contains enough lime to whitewash a small room. It should be pointed out however that it is illegal for a wife to break up her husband for decorative purposes.
* * *
The Manchester Communist Party have decided to have nothing whatever to do with Parliament. We understand that the Premier has now decided to sell his St. Bernard dog.
* * *
“There are no very rich people in England,” says a gossip-writer. We can only say we know a club porter who recently stated that he had a cousin who knew a miner who ... but we fear it was only gossip.
* * *
“It is possible for people to do quite well without a stomach,” says a Parisian doctor. Judged by the high prices, we know a grocer who seems to think along the same lines.
* * *
Special aeroplanes to carry fish from Holland to this country are to run in the winter. The idea of keeping the fish long enough to enable them to cross under their own power has been abandoned.
* * *
An Ashford gardener has grown a cabbage which measures twelve feet across. It is said to be uninhabited.
* * *
The Rules of Golf Committee now suggest a standard ball for England and America. The question of a standard long-distance expletive for foozlers is held over.
* * *
A youth charged at a police-court in the South of London with stealing five hundred cigars, valued at threepence each, admitted that he had smoked twenty-six of them. We are glad to learn that no further punishment was ordered.