THE NEW CONDUCTOR.
Reading edition
"YOU HAVE BEEN ELECTED BY A MAJORITY OF THE HOUSE. YOU ARE THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE."
Report of the Right Hon. Arthur Balfour's speech on the election of Mr. Gully as Speaker.
A BUSINESS ANNOUNCEMENT.
TRADE BETRAYED.
Returned Anglo-Indian Colonel (to friend of his boyhood). Either your climate is colder than it used to be, or your coals throw out less heat. Which is it?
His Friend. Oh, it's the coals. Rubbishy things, rather. Come from Tomsk in Siberia.
R. A.-I. C. Siberia! They ought to be sent there! But aren't English coals good enough?
His Friend. Oh, yes, they're good enough. But then, you see, they're dear. That's the result of the last coal strike.
R. A.-I. C. Oh, I heard about that at Bangalore. Then how about your razors? I bought one yesterday in the Strand. If you believe me, I've only used it once and it's blunt already.
His Friend. "Made in Germany," no doubt. The trade's gone over there, they say.
R. A.-I. C. And boots, now. Why has the pair I got in the City a month ago split open in two places?
His Friend. That's the late boot strike. Cheap American goods have ousted the genuine British article.
R. A.-I. C. (meditatively). Ah—heard of the boot strike too at Bangalore. But I didn't find my bootmaker charged me any less than in the old days for 'em. Tell you what, there's only one thing that will save England.
His Friend. What's that?
R. A.-I. C. Why, a new kind of strike altogether. Why shouldn't the strikers strike striking? Eh?
His Friend. That never struck me.
[They part pensively.
MY PIPE.
I do not now attempt to sing, With laudatory phrases, That now, in verse, quite hackneyed thing, Which poet, painter praises: Beloved by Turner, Claude, or Cuyp, The excellent tobacco-pipe. Nor yet of bagpipes do I write, Pan's pipes with Punch and Judy, Or organ ones, because you might Read books on them, from Mudie, In varied tongues, in varied type— On any sort of music pipe. Nor, plagued of late however much By bronchial affections, Do I propose just now to touch, With medical reflections, On what Jack Frost delights to gripe, My choking, wheezing, sore wind-pipe, Nor am I speaking now of wine, Nor yet, from Marryat learning, Of what the Cockney would define— Poor A as ever spurning— "The sime in nime, but not in shipe," The pipe of port; the boatswain's pipe. No! Now I sing—but not with praise, To praise it would be rummer Than any other sort of craze, Excepting in a plumber; I am not such a fool, a "snipe," As says the Bard—my water-pipe. For weeks I could not get a drop Of water, it was frozen; When thus congealed the thing would stop, I spoke as would a boatswain. For seamen's oaths the time was ripe, I here translate them—Hang that pipe! Then suddenly, of course at night, There came a sudden splashing, And I, in most unequal fight, About my bedroom dashing, With sheets and towels tried to wipe, Or check, the flood from that vile pipe. You would not say that frost is fine, So exquisitely bracing, If you had had a pipe like mine, Your ruined home defacing; On carpet, stain; on paper, stripe;— Oh, blow that beastly water-pipe!
Song of the Peace Terms (Sung To China).—"Oh, Let us be Jappy together!"
