We observe that Mr. WATERS BUTLER has been appointed a member of the Liquor Control Board, with the hearty approval of the Birmingham Beer, Spirit and Wine Trade Association. If there is anything in a name no one should be better able to hold the balance between them and the teetotalers. * * * * * [Illustration: THE MILITARY REASON. "FOR MILITARY REASONS OUR ARMY HAS WITHDRAWN FROM ERZERUM." _Turkish official communique (nearly a week after the event)_.] * * * * * [Illustration: _Coster_ (_to parish visitor, who has been commiserating with him on the loss of his father_). "Yes, Mum, 'e were a splendid father to us and no mistake. Yer see, Mum, there was eleven of us, and I never knowed 'im raise 'is 'and to one of us--'cept as it might be in self-defence."] * * * * * AT THE FRONT. Some officers like putting up barbed wire, not so much, I think, from any real deep-seated affection for the stuff itself, or from any confidence in the protection it affords--its disintegration being one of the assumed preliminaries of an attack--as for the satisfaction of writing in the Weekly Work Report, "In front of X276 we put up 97 rolls of barbed wire; in front of S279, 342 rolls; in front of X276a, 3,692 rolls ..." and so on. An officer who overdoes this sport of kings gets a trench a bad name; it becomes a trench with a great wiring tradition to be maintained. One of us took over a legacy from one of these barbarians last trip. H.Q. had got wind of his zeal and was determined that we for our part should not be idle. It was murmured in billets, it was whispered upon the _pave_, that for the officer taking over B116 there was a great wiring toward. The officer taking over B116 hated wiring worse than bully beef. He said you either die of pneumonia through standing still pretending to supervise, or tire yourself to bits and earn the undying contempt of your party by pretending to take an active share in the game. Howbeit he took over B116 and was told by the Next Man Up to wire to his heart's content. He asked the Next Man Up just where he wanted the wiring to be performed. The Next Man Up waved an airy arm in the direction of the Hun, and observed, "Out there, of course. Think we wanted you to wire Hampstead Heath?" Then the B116 officer took the N.M.U. to the parapet and showed him waving acres of high wire, low wire, loose wire, tight wire, thick wire, thin wire, two ply, three ply, and four ply, plain and barbed, running out and out into the dusk. The N.M.U. gave it all a dispassionate sort of look, and merely said, "Oh, go out in front of all that. The Bosch is miles off just here."