PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. Volume 148, January 20th, 1915 _edited by Owen Seamen_ [Illustration: WILLIAM THE GALLANT. THE KAISER, BY GIFTS OF ROSES, HAS BEEN TRYING TO INGRATIATE HIMSELF WITH THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBOURG, WHOSE COUNTRY HE HAS INVADED IN DEFIANCE OF TREATY OBLIGATIONS.] * * * * * CHARIVARIA. "At every point," we read, "the Allies have made sensible progress." So different from the stupid progress made very occasionally by the enemy! * * * We have been asked to recommend suitable Fiction for reading during the War. We have no hesitation in calling attention to the claims of the war news from Amsterdam and Rome. * * * The Prussian Government has ordered that there shall be no public festivities on the occasion of the birthday of the KAISER. This confirms the rumour that HIS MAJESTY now wishes that he had not been born. * * * By the way, to show how far-reaching is the influence of a Prussian command even to-day, no public festivities will take place on the occasion referred to either in Belgium, France, Russia, Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, or Great Britain. * * * Dr. DERNBURG--and the expression is really not a bit too strong for him--has been telling an American audience that his countrymen really "love the French and the Belgians." At the risk of appearing ungrateful, however, our allies are saying that the Germans have such a subtle way of showing their love that they would rather be hated, please. * * * "Germany," says the _Cologne Gazette_ in an article on the food question, "has still at hand a very large supply of pigs." Even after the enormous number they have exported to Belgium. * * * Meanwhile we are constantly assured that the food question causes no anxiety whatever in Germany. It certainly does seem, judging by the lies with which the Germans are fed, that these wonderful people will be able to swallow anything. * * * Lord ROSEBERY'S appointment as Captain-General of the Royal Company of Scottish Archers has not escaped the notice of the alert German Press, and it is being pointed out in Berlin that we are so hard up in the matter of equipment for our army that bows and arrows are now being served out. * * * The new corps which has just been formed with the title of the "Ju-Jitsu Corps" has, we are informed, no connection with the artistes who went to the Front to give entertainments for the troops. * * * Both officers and men in certain towns are beginning to complain of the irksomeness of the constant salutes that have to be given when they walk abroad. Surely it should be possible to invent some simple little contrivance whereby a button is pressed and a mechanical hand does the rest? * * * Suggested name for a regiment of Bantams--The Miniature Rifles. * * *