E-text prepared by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 29072-h.htm or 29072-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29072/pg29072-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29072/29072-h.zip) PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI VOLUME 147. November 18, 1914. CHARIVARIA. Contrary to the usual custom there were no official dinners on the eve of the opening of Parliament. The explanation of this is clear to the German Press. It was due to scarcity of food. * * * Upon receipt of the Japanese ultimatum, the KAISER, it may be remembered, cabled to the commander of his Chinese fortress:--"Bear in mind that it would shame me more to surrender Kiaochau to the Japanese than Berlin to the Russians." The kind-hearted Russians will now, we feel sure, have less compunction in taking Berlin, seeing that the blow will have been softened to an anticlimax. * * * The KAISER'S hair, it is said, is now bleached: but this attempt to look like a white man will deceive no one. * * * Just as we go to press a report reaches us which certainly bears the impress of truth on the face of it. It declares that the CROWN PRINCE has been shot for looting by a short-sighted brother-officer who did not recognise the son of God's Vice-regent on Earth. * * * "The British Navy is in hiding," says the _Koelnische Zeitung_. We beg our fragrant contemporary not to worry. In due course the Germans shall have the hiding. * * * It is so frequently stated that the leaders of the German Army attach no importance to the lives of their men that it seems only fair to point out that last week Brussels was fined L200,000 for wounding a couple of German policemen. * * * Neither the French, Russian, Belgian, nor British troops like the idea of fighting against the mere youths whom a paternal KAISER is now sending into the firing line, and a humane suggestion has been put forward for correcting this embarrassment. Would it not be possible, it is asked, to arrange Boys' Own Battles, in which the German little ones would be opposed by the young of the Allies? * * * "Klopstock, one of our greatest geniuses," says the _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_, "taught us, 'Be not excessively just.' We shall endeavour now to follow that teaching." We should say that there is no great danger of the German nation breaking down under the strain of this effort. * * * "How ever do the Teutons manage to produce so many lies about us?" asks "A Lover of Truth." Our correspondent is evidently not much of a gardener or he would have heard of "Intensive Culture." * * *