E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 15330-h.htm or 15330-h.zip: (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/5/3/3/15330/15330-h/15330-h.htm) or (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/5/3/3/15330/15330-h.zip) PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI VOL. 152 MAY 9, 1917 CHARIVARIA. According to a Rome paper, HINDENBURG has requested that all the Royal Princes shall be removed from the West Front. The original plan of protecting Their Royal Highnesses by moving the Front further West has been definitely abandoned. *** The _Vossische Zeitung_ informs us that the late BISSING was a "veritable angel of mercy." The KAISER is wondering who started this scandal. *** "We are back in the days," says Mr. PRETYMAN, "when the Mercantile Marine and the Navy were one." If these are the official figures that the Press has been clamouring for, the bread tickets will come none too soon. *** Highland sheep-raisers are said to be feeding their lambs by hand on a mixture of hot milk and whisky. The little patients appear to take kindly to the diet, and one or two have even been understood to suggest that it seems rather a waste of milk. *** The Imperial Government, we are informed, repudiates responsibility for the attack by one of its airmen on the Dutch village of Zierikzee, on the ground that, notwithstanding repeated warnings to abandon the unneutral practice, the village persisted in looking like a portion of the Isle of Wight. *** Saluting is said to have been abolished in the Russian Army. Our own military authorities, on the other hand, declare that it would be unwise to abolish a practice in which the inventive genius of the young soldier has so much scope. *** Many Germans, says Mr. GERARD, have food concealed in their wainscoting. But very few of them have any noticeable quantity behind their dadoes. *** To mark the disapproval of a tax on complimentary theatre tickets several lifelong supporters of the British drama have already requested leading managers to take their names off the free list. *** We learn from the Press, among the things that matter, that for two years a well-known Wye Valley angler has been trying to catch a certain large trout and at last he has succeeded in securing it. We understand that the trout died with a smile on his face. *** We hope it is not due to the distraction of war, but America seems to be losing her dash. At a baseball match in New York the other day only three of the spectators were injured. ***