MR. HALDANE: "In the event of invasion, I shall depend upon my brave Territorial force to manipulate this magnificent and complicated weapon." F.-M. _Punch_: "Going to give them any training?" MR. H.: "Oh, perhaps a fortnight or so a year." F.-M. _Punch_: "Ah! Then they'll need to be pretty brave, won't they?" Further satire is expended in August of the same year on "A Skeleton Army; or, The Charge of the Very Light Brigade":-- HALDANE (at Cavalry Manoeuvres): "You see those three men? Well, they're pretending to be one hundred. Isn't that imaginative?" MR. _Punch_: "Realistic, you mean. That's about what it will come to with us in real warfare." [Illustration: HISTORY DEFEATS ITSELF SHADE OF PAUL KRÜGER: "What! Botha _Premier_? Well, these English _do_ 'stagger humanity'!"] _Punch_ was not happy about our Navy either, and in 1906 he had rallied Lord Tweedmouth, then at the Admiralty, for reassuring Britannia against the German menace. It was no use to say, "We don't take no account of them things"; the monster was there, and could not be belittled. By the end of the year, however, _Punch's_ complacency was restored by the advance in our naval gunnery, and Britannia is seen proudly showing the impressive tabulated results of our big gun practice. The Germans are the only modern people who have a single word to express delight in the misfortunes of others--_Schadenfreude_. It is not a noble sentiment, but a suspicion of it mingles with _Punch's_ comments on Germany's internal troubles. In 1878 he had shown Bismarck squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box, and nearly thirty years later repeats the formula at the expense of Count von Bülow; but the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box was now a much more formidable figure: it was "a bigger task for a smaller man." The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Triple Alliance fell in 1907, and _Punch_ indicated that Italy's allegiance was already wearing thin. In performing the trio "We are a happy Family," Austria's "We are" is marked _piano_, and that of Italy _dubioso_.