I feel very strongly that nothing in the portrait indicates the sitter's nationality, his profession, his love of home, his favourite recreation or his religious convictions. These, I venture to say, are grave omissions. The picture is sadly wanting in suitable accessories. If I had been painting it I should have put a simple yellow daffodil in the MINISTER'S buttonhole, and pictured through an open window a sunlit bed of leeks, with perhaps a goat gambolling among them. I should have represented the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS in his study practising putting with a small bomb. And on the wall should have been a life-size portrait of the Rev. Dr. CLIFFORD. * * * * * [Illustration: _Officer at Front_ (_reading letter from home_). "The other day we went to see the ruins of a house which had been bombed by a Zeppelin. You can't imagine what it was like!"] * * * * * "The elements so mixed" again. "The air is the new element, and all the evidence suggests that we are at sea in it." _Star._ * * * * * Le Mouton Enrage. "Sheep, and also other wild animals, have a trying time in procuring their necessary food." That's what makes them so wild. * * * * * A Hero at Zero. "Fish for the Canadian troops. The supply has been organised by Major Hughie Green, who is known as the 'Canadians' Fishmonger-General,' and has travelled in a frozen condition 2,000 miles across the Dominion."--_Daily Mirror._ * * * * * "A young farm hand who appealed to the Coalville Tribunal for exemption yesterday, when asked whether an older brother could not take his place on the farm, replied that his brother's feet were too small for work on the land."--_Morning Paper._ We hope that his own are not too cold for work in the trenches. * * * * * "Mr. Mark Blow will be known henceforth as 'Mr. Mark.'"--_Theatrical Paper._ The Blow may have fallen, but this British Mark shows no decline. * * * * * THE NEW PATRIOTISM. Epoch-Making Assembly. A public meeting, summoned under the auspices of the Candid Friends of England, has just been held at the Hall of the Grousers' Company, in Little Britain. The chair was taken by Mr. OUTHWAITE.