Produced by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOLUME 147. DECEMBER 23, 1914. * * * * * CHARIVARIA. An exceptionally well-informed Berlin newspaper has discovered that, owing to the war, Ireland is suffering from a horse famine, and many of the natives are now to be seen driving cattle. * * * An appeal is being made in Germany for cat-skins for the troops. In their Navy, on the other hand, they often get the cat itself. * * * In offering congratulations to the "Green Howards" on the work they have been doing at the Front, Major-General CAPPER said, "I knew it was a regiment I could hang my hat on at any time of the day or night." The expression is perhaps a little unfortunate; it sounds as if they had been pegging out. * * * Private F. NAILOR, of the Royal Berkshires, was at his home at Sandhurst last week when the postman brought a letter from the War Office reporting that he had been killed in action. While his being alive is, of course, in these circumstances an act of gross insubordination, the Army Council will, we understand, content itself with an intimation that it must not happen again. * * * A cigar presented by the KAISER to Lord LONSDALE has been sold at Henley in aid of the local Red Cross Hospital, and has become the property of a butcher at the price of L14 10s. Will it, we wonder, now be inscribed, "From a brother butcher"? * * * According to the _Berliner Tageblatt_ Western Australia is interning her alien enemies on "Rottnest Island." If there is anything in a name, this does seem a rather unhappy choice, in view of the well-known sensitiveness of the German. * * * It is curious how in war time really important occurrences are apt to escape one's notice. For example, it was not until we read an article in a contemporary last week on "The Demise of the Slim Skirt" that we realised that Fat Skirts were now the vogue. * * * Of all forms of cruelty the most hideous is that which is perpetrated on defenceless little children, and we hear with regret that the Register of Births in Liverpool now includes the following names:--Kitchener Ernest Pickles, Jellicoe Jardine, French Donaldson, and Joffre Venmore. * * * With reference to our recent remarks about Mr. J. WARD'S so-called mixed metaphor of a horse bolting with money, a gentlemen writes to us from Epsom to say that he has personally put money on more than one horse which bolted. * * * The War would certainly seem to have led to better feeling in the Labour world between masters and men, and from a recent paragraph in _The Daily Mail_ we learn that there is now a London Association of Master Decorators. The idea is a pretty one. Iron Crosses, perhaps? * * *