We are threatened with national insolvency, and here is an infallible remedy ready to hand. Lord FISHER'S panacea for our discontents was to "sack the lot"--to dismiss all our rulers and administrators. But he had only a glimmering of the truth. Our cry should rather be, "Lock up the lot." Experience has taught us that if complete latitude is given to eccentrics and incompetents, if, in the words of Professor SODDY, F.R.S., the destinies of the country are entrusted to people of archaic mental outlook, the result is bound to be disastrous and chaotic. But if you treat them as lunatics, there is a strong presumption of their mending their ways and proving valuable factors in the economic reconstruction of the Empire and the world. Grave evils call for drastic treatment, and in view of the hectic condition of the Stock Exchange and the "vicious circle" round which industrialism is now unhappily revolving I cannot but think that the temporary seclusion of the Ministry in a psychopathic ward might be fraught with economic consequences of the utmost importance. Even if they were only able to reduce our indebtedness at the same rate as that attained by the American millionaire, their combined efforts would represent a magnificent total. Perhaps it would be wiser to proceed tentatively and not commit ourselves for more than six weeks to start with. It is just conceivable that the treatment might stimulate extravagance instead of economy. Financial thrombosis is not unknown as one of the obscurer forms of megalomania. Still, as I have said, the experiment is worth making. In other spheres of activity the results achieved are most encouraging. For example, an extremely _outre_ Cubist who was recently consigned to a psychopathic ward at the instigation of his grandmother, developed a remarkable talent for painting in the manner of MARCUS STONE; while a neo-Georgian composer under similar treatment has produced a series of _etudes_ indistinguishable from the pianoforte music of STERNDALE BENNETT, though he had previously far outstripped the most unbridled and exacerbated aberrations of SCRIABINE in his latest phase. * * * * * Commercial Candour. "YE OLDE TEA HOUSE (Opposite the Church). HOME-MADE CAKES. ANTIQUES." _Local Paper._ * * * * * "TO BE SURE. 'Why do you call that performing poodle Sidius?' 'He's a dog star, ain't he now?'" _Canadian Paper._ Still we don't see it. * * * * * [Illustration: THE PROVISION MERCHANT. "CAN WE SUPPLY YOU WITH A CAR, SIR? CERTAINLY. THIS IS OUR 1920 TOURING MODEL--PROVISIONAL, OF COURSE. BY THE WAY, THE BODY, YOU SEE, IS ONLY A PROVISIONAL ONE. THE ENGINE DESIGN IS PURELY PROVISIONAL, YOU'LL UNDERSTAND-- AND THE HORSEPOWER IS PROVISIONALLY FIXED AT 12-78. DELIVERY IS IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS--QUITE PROVISIONAL, THAT IS-- AND THE PRICE WE PUT PROVISIONALLY AT L1,200.