the seizure of sixteen islands, conquest of five native races, absorption of fifty thousand square miles of--useless--new territory, seven small wars, two large ones, four massacres, and an Income-tax of five shillings in the pound. The Scuttle Party is installed in power in 1895 with a big majority and bigger promises:-- Finishes off all wars by caving in all round, retiring everywhere and relinquishing everything. Cuts down Army, and resolves to sell half the Ironclad Fleet as old metal. Power which buys it immediately utilizes it against us. Another Fleet has to be ordered at once at fancy prices in response to Press clamour. Scuttle Party, in cleft stick, halts between two opinions; in pursuit of peace is found fighting all over the world, and after frantic efforts at economy, runs up Income-tax to six shillings in the pound. John Bull turns out Scuttle Party. Then we jump to A.D. 2000, but even then the wildest stretch of _Punch's_ imagination does not exceed the establishment of conscription and the raising of the Army to a million men. Finally in his last forecast _Punch_ is reduced to solving the problem by an insurrection under a popular soap-boiler, the seizure of the leaders of the two parties, and the banishing of both "Scuttle" and "Grab" from the political dictionary. [Sidenote: _Snubbing the Volunteers_] With the return of the Conservatives to power, we find that _Punch_, so far from rebuking the Government for their expenditure on bloated armaments, develops into something like an alarmist on the subject of national preparedness and the folly of "cheap defences." The inefficiency of the Army and Navy is a constant theme from 1887 onwards. The bursting of big naval guns, the badness of munitions and designs for battleships are dealt with in bitter satirical verses: while the damaging report of the Parliamentary Committee on Army equipment and stores prompts a series of advertisements of the "Benevolent Bayonet," the "Blazing Breech-loader," the "Comic Cartridge," and so on. Dishonest contractors and incompetent officials are attacked as "the Vultures of Trade" and "the Vermin of Office and Mart." The persistent discouragement of volunteers by the military authorities was an old grievance of _Punch's_, and it crops up in this year in connexion with the removal of the camp from Wimbledon by order of "George Ranger." Indeed, the bitterness of _Punch's_ attack on the Duke of Cambridge revives the memories of the 'forties, when a duke, royal or otherwise, was his favourite cockshy:-- Some prate of patriotism, and some of cheap defence, But to the high official mind that's all absurd pretence; For of all the joys of snubbing, there's none to it so dear, As to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!