It is one of the strange outcomes of this wonderful time that there is more gaiety as well as more suffering in hospitals during the War than in peace. Certainly such a request would never have been heard in normal years as that recently made by a nurse to a roomful of irrepressible Tommies at a private hospital: "A message has just come in to ask if the hospital will make a little less noise as the lady next door has a touch of headache." For shouting "The Zepps are coming!" a Grimsby girl has been fined £1. It was urged in defence that the girl suffered from hallucinations, one being that she was a daily newspaper proprietor. But the recent Zeppelin raids have not been without their advantages. In a spirit of emulation an ambitious hen at Acton has laid an egg weighing 5-1/4 oz. [Illustration: VISITOR (at Private Hospital): "Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?" MATRON: "We do not allow ordinary visiting. May I ask if you are a relative?" VISITOR (boldly): "Oh, yes! I'm his sister." MATRON: "Dear me! I'm very glad to meet you. _I'm his mother_."] _May, 1916_. Verdun still holds out: that is the best news of the month. The French with inexorable logic continue to exact the highest price for the smallest gain of ground. If the Germans are ready to give 100,000 men for a hill or part of a hill they may have it. If they will give a million men they may perhaps have Verdun itself. But so far their Pyrrhic victories have stopped short of this limit, and Verdun, like Ypres, battered, ruined and evacuated by civilians, remains a symbol of Allied tenacity and the will to resist. The months in war-time sometimes belie their traditions, but it is fitting that in May we should have enlisted a new Ally--the Sun. The Daylight Saving Bill became Law on May 17. Here is a true economy, and our only regret is that Mr. Willett, the chief promoter of a scheme complacently discussed during his lifetime as ingenious but impracticable, should not have lived to witness its swift and unmurmuring acceptance under stress of war.