Wherefore I hate thee, butcher, and would pass Untempted of thy viands. But, alas! The spirit that essays in master flights To sip the honey from Parnassus' heights, That daily doth his Pegasus bestride And keeps the War from spoiling on the side, Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out. So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy The tokens of thy heartless usury. Yet oft I dream that in some life to come, Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum, Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough, Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou, My ox, my beast, goest groaning at the tugs, And do I spare thy feelings? No, by jugs! With tireless lash I probe thy leaden feet, And beat and beat and beat and beat and beat. ALGOL. * * * * * [Illustration: IF EVERYBODY HELPED. Every bond you buy goes to tie up the Kaiser.] * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. _Monday, November 26th_.--Rather a jolly day in the House of Commons. It was pleasant to hear Lord WOLMER, ingenuous youth, explaining, on behalf of the War Trade Department, that there was no danger of an unusually large consignment of rubber bathing-caps finding their way from Switzerland to the heads of German Fraüleins. To Colonel YATE belongs the credit of pointing out that people do not bathe in Switzerland in the winter. [Illustration: "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?" Mr. WILL THORNE.] Where Russia is concerned Mr. BALFOUR declines to be included among the prophets; all he knows is that that unhappy country has not yet evolved a Government with which he can negotiate. He was more explicit regarding the German tale of a Privy Council in 1913, presided over by the KING, at which Mr. ASQUITH and Lord KITCHENER conspired with Sir EDWARD GREY and Lord MORLEY (whose "Reminiscences" are strangely silent on the subject) to declare war upon Germany. Who after this shall dare to say that the Germans have no imagination? Mr. WILL THORNE considers that compulsory rationing ought to be postponed until the menus at the hotels and clubs are cut down to two courses. Somebody ought to invite Mr. THORNE, who from his appearance I should judge to have a healthy appetite, to partake of one of these (alleged) Gargantuan feasts and see what he thinks of it. His comment would probably be, "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?" When is a leaflet not a leaflet? "When it is an election address," says Sir GEORGE CAVE. At the same time he warned Mr. KING that if he thought to get round the new regulations by embodying his peculiar views in the form of electioneering literature he might still collide with "Dora." The warning was surely superfluous. The last thing any Pacifist M.P. wishes to do is to submit himself to the judgment of his constituents.