E-text prepared by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 19350-h.htm or 19350-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/5/19350/19350-h/19350-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/5/19350/19350-h.zip) PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 159. DECEMBER 22ND, 1920. CHARIVARIA. It is pointed out that the display of December meteors is more than usually lavish. Send a postcard to your M.P. about it. * * * Mr. LLOYD GEORGE recently stated that the first prize he ever won was for singing. It is only fair to say that this happened in the pre-NORTHCLIFFE era. * * * An elderly Londoner recalls a Christmas when the cold was so intense that in a Soho restaurant the ices froze. * * * There has arrived at the Zoo a bird akin to the partridge and excellent for the table, but unable to fly. The very thing for the estate of a sporting profiteer. * * * "What is the best fire preventative?" asks a weekly journal. The answer is, the present price of coal. * * * The National Rat Campaign this year, we are told, was a great success. On the other hand we gather that several rats have threatened to issue a minority report. * * * "There is nothing so enjoyable," says a newspaper correspondent, "as a trip across the water to Ireland." Except, of course, a trip back again. * * * A number of Huns are receiving Iron Crosses through the post inscribed "Your Fatherland does not forget you." How like Germany! She won't even allow bygones to be bygones. * * * "Let Christmas come," says a contemporary headline. We have arranged to do so. * * * A Minneapolis judge rules that a man has the right to declare himself head of the household. Opinion in this country agrees that he has the right but rarely the pluck. * * * "My faith in the League of Nations is not shaken," says Lord ROBERT CECIL. This is the dogged spirit which is going to make this country what it used to be. * * * "It may yet be possible," according to the Water Power Resources Committee, "to harness the moon." This of course would depend upon whether Sir ERIC GEDDES would let them have it or not. * * * Cinema stunt actors, says _The Manchester Guardian_, expect to be paid fifty pounds for a motor smash. It seems an injustice that ordinary pedestrians should have to take part in this sort of thing for nothing. * * * The continued disappearance of notepaper from a well-known club has now been traced to a large female cat, and most of the paper has been recovered from her sleeping-basket. It is thought that she was probably preparing to write her memoirs. * * *