My Discovery of England

eakfast, and the Montreal Star at my dinner, I don't really know what is happening. In the same way I have seen a man from the south of Scotland settle down to read the Dumfries Chronicle with a deep

o our own. Some people like the news fed to them gently: others like it thrown at them in a bombshell

is to get the news and shout it at the reader; in England they get the news and then break it to him as gently as possible. Hence the big headings, th

a slow breakfast in a quiet corner of a club, or by a retired banker seated in a leather chair nearly asleep, or by a country vicar sitting in a wicker chair under a pergola. The American paper is for reading by a m

joy-ride" and "death-cell": in England they prefer "person of doubtful character" and "motor travelling at excessive speed" and "corridor No. 6." If a milk-waggon collides in the street with a coal-cart, we write that a "life-waggon" ha

that the reader is so busy that he must first be offered the news in one gulp. After that if he likes it he can go on and eat some more of it. So the opening sentence must

fter writing a letter of farewell to his wife and emptying a bottle of Scotch whisky in which he exonerated her from all culpability in his deat

ommons in England had done the same thing. Here is the way

than the American heading BUGHOUSE CONGRESSMAN BLOWS OUT BRAINS IN HOTEL. After the heading HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE the English paper run

rner of Millbank and Victoria Streets, was th

e dating probably from about 1750, is a quiet establishment, its clientele mainly dra

ned?" think

n famous for the excellen

happ

as the meeting place of the Surbiton H

happ

Llanfydd. Mr. Jones apparently came to his room last night at about ten P.M., and put on his carpet slippers and his blue dressing gown. He then seems

very properly called a "distressing incident": quite right. But the trained English reader would know that there was more to come and that the air of quiet was only assumed, and he woul

all. But the result is that anybody from the United States or Canada reading the English papers gets the impression that

oat had blown up at Bombay, that some one had thrown a couple of bombs at one of the provincial governors, and that four thousand agitators had been sentenced to twenty years hard labour each. But the whole thing was just called "Indian Intelligence." Similarly, there was a little item called, "Our Chi

itor meant me to. It was only when the Montreal Star arrived by post that I felt that the wo

in a suburb of London a housemaid has endeavoured to poison her employer's family by putting a drug in the coffee. Now on our side of the water we should wr

PARLO

DEAT

BMAN'S

y, how do we know that the man is a clubman? Have we ascertained this fact definitely, and if so, of what club or clubs is he a member? Well, we don't know, except in so far as the thing is self-evident. Any man who has romance enough in his life to be poisoned by a pretty housemaid ought to be in a club. That's the place f

ng squad of the emergency police after having, so it is alleged, put four ounces of alleged picrate of potash into the alleged coffee of her employer's family's alleged breakfast at their residence on Hudson Heights in the most fashionable quarter of the metropolis. Dr. Slink, the leading fashionable practitioner of the neighbourhood who was immediately summoned said that but for his own extraordinary dexterity and

row marked with a cross (+) and labelled "The Bung Residence as. it appeared immediately after the alleged outrage." It isn't really. It is just a photograph that we use for this sort of thing and have grown to like.

terwards when it appears that Mary De Forrest merely put ground allspice into the coffee in mistake for p

way in which the same event is w

RBAN

of Mr. S. Bung was taken into custody on a charge of having put a noxious preparation, possib

Mary Forrest

speak of a decent girl who never did any other harm than to poison a club man. And the English magistrate! What a tame part he must have played: his name indeed doesn't occur at all:

American reporter would make certain to supplement what went above with further information of this fashion. "Miss De Forrest when seen later at her own home by a representative of The Eagle said that she regretted very much having been put to the necessity of poisoning Mr. Bung. She had in the

. There are indeed certain journals of a newer type which are doing their best to imitate us. But

that always adds prestige. To be able to call oneself a "contributor" to the Times or to Punch or the Morning Post or the Spectator, is a high honour. I have met these "contributors" all over the British Empire. Some, I admit, look strange. An ancient wreck in the back bar of an Ontario tavern (ancient regime) has

ld render the attempt easier. I tried and I failed. My failure was all the more ignominious in that I had very direct personal encouragement. "By all means," said the editor of the London Times, "do some thing for us while you are here. Best of

ident and write it up in three different ways and get paid for it three, times. All of those who write for the Press will understand the motive at once. I waited therefore and watched the papers to see if anything interesting might

under the convention of 1898 has violated the modus operandi. He is said to have torn of

the fact that we did not know where Kowfat is, nor what was the convention of 1898. They are not. They just take it for granted that Kowfat is

wrote it up. I resisted the temptation to begin after the American fashion, "Shriek sheds suspenders," and suited the writi

ives, the Bantu Hottentots, the Negritos, the Dwarf Men of East Abyssinia, and the Dog Men of Darfur. What will they think of us? If we fail in this crisis their notion of us will fall fifty per cent. In our opinion this country cannot stand a fifty per cent drop in the estimation of the Dog Men. The time is one that demands action. An ultimatum should be sent at once to the Shriek of Kowfat. If he has one already we should send him another. He should be made at once to put on his suspenders. The oil must be scraped off him,

thought for the contributor to the Press waiting for a cheque, I sent anoth

only are our exports of cotton piece goods, bibles, rum, and beads constantly increasing, but they are more than offset by our importation from Kowfat of ivory, rubber, gold, and oil. In short, we have never seen the principles of Free Trade better illustrated. The Shriek, it is now reported, refuses to wear the braces presented to him by our envoy at the time of his coronation five years ago. He is said to have thrown them into the mud. But we have no reason to suppose that this is me

rrison on the Kowfat river. Our proper policy is to knock down the fort, and either remove the garrison or give it to the Shriek. We are convinced that

, the Dwarf Men, and the Dog Men of Darfur. These are not only shrewd observers but substantial customers. The

existing situation we need not the duplicity of a Machiavelli, but the commanding prescience of a Gladstone

commanded a peculiar minuteness of knowledge about all parts of the Empire. It is the proud boast of this great journal that to whatever far away, outlandish part of the Empire you may go, you will always find a corresp

, I happened to mention Saskatchewan. One of the editors at the other end of the table looked up at the mention of the name. "Saskatchewan," he said, "ah, yes; that's not far from Alberta, is it?" and then turned quietly to his fo

eader knows, on the Kowfat River, occupies the hinterland between the back end of south-west Somaliland and the east, that is to say, the west, bank of Lake P'schu. It thus for

inion is to send out a boundary commission to delineate more exactly still j

. I thought it not worth while to bother to revise the articles as I had meantime conceived the idea that the same material might be used in the most delightfully amusing way as the basis of a poem far Punch. Everybody knows the kind of verses that are contributed to Punch by Sir Owen Seaman and Mr. Charles Graves and men of that sort. And everybody has

s," "modus operandi" and "Dog Men of Darfur." I can scarcely imagine anything more excruciatingly funny than the rhymes which can be made with them. And as for

ertain that if I had had about two years I could have done it. The main structure of the poem, however, is

i

.........

se

.........

..... modu

.........

.........

..........

se

..........

... Dog Me

..........

just exactly the ease and the sweep required. And if some one will tell me how Owen S

ly one of thousands and thousands of people who feel that way. Why under the circumstances the Spectator failed to publish my letter I cannot say. I wanted no money for it: I only wanted the honour of seeing it inserted beside the letter written from the Rectory,

he E

Spec

n, En

r S

of last week conta

d to the appearance

mon that I trust

ers to the point of

and I think, sir, a

n. While passing th

he hour of dusk I o

ide the duck-pond a

s no doubt that t

biscus, an order

the vicinity of the

re, the species ha

I may say that on r

I could, keeping

pulex hibiscus whic

face uttered a cry

w

m,

iev

rs,

otherw

jor Burme

peculiar school-boy pedantry which is the reverse side of their literary genius. I speak with a certain bitterness because in puzzle work I met with no success whatever. My solutions were never acknowledg

zz

paper in such a way that with a

, if I knew what

zle

ine. A, walking from corner to corner, may be said to diangulate the hypotenuse of the m

: Frankly,

zle

ogies to t

tal four years. The weight of the monkey is as many pounds as the monkey's mother is years old. The monkey's mother was twice as old as the monkey was when the monkey's mother was half as old as the monkey will be when the monkey is three times as old as the monkey's mot

k it would have to be a ro

of the well-known London periodicals carry on this work. The prizes run all the way from one shilling to half a guinea and the competitions are generally open to all children from three to six years of age. It was here that I saw my open opportunity and seized it. I swept in prize after prize. As "Little Agatha" I got four shillings for the best description of Autumn in two lines, and one shil