Page:Mr. Punch's history of the Great War, Graves, 1919.djvu/126

 Mr. Punch finds the usual difficulty in getting any details from his correspondents when they have been or are in the thick of the righting. Practically all that they have to say is that there was a "damned noise," that breakfast was delayed by the "morning hate," or that an angry sub besought a weary O.C. "to ask our gunners not to serve faults into our front line wire." One of them, however, a very wise young man, ventures on the prediction that the War will last well into 1918. As the result of a brief leave he has learned an important truth. "In England they assume that you, having just arrived from France, know. When you return to France, it is assumed that you, having just arrived from England, know."

In Parliament Ireland is beginning to suffer from a rival in unenviable notoriety. Mesopotamia does not smell particularly sweet just now, but that may add to its usefulness as a red herring. Geographers are said to have some difficulty in defining its exact boundaries, but the Government are probably quite convinced that it is situate between the Devil and the Deep Sea. Two Special Commissions are to be set up to inquire into the Mesopotamian and Dardanelles Expeditions. Public opinion has been painfully stirred by the harrowing details which have come to light of the preventible sufferings endured by British troops. From their point of view the supply of their medical needs, now guaranteed, is worth a wilderness of Special Commissions. But Ireland still holds the floor, though Mr. Asquith is frugal of information as to the prospective Irish Bill and has deprecated discussion of the Hardinge Report, the most scarifying public document of our times. The Lords, unembarrassed by any embargo, have discussed the Report in a spirit which must make Mr. Birrell thank his stars that he got in his confession first. But why, he may ask, should he be judged by Lord Hardinge, himself a prospective defendant at the bar of public opinion?

Following the lead of a certain section of the Press, certain Members have begun to wax vocal on the subject of reprisals, uninterned Aliens, and the Hidden Hand. Their appeals to the Home Office to go on the spy-trail have not met with much sympathy so far. An alleged Austrian taxi-driver has turned out to be a harmless Scotsman with an impediment in his