[Illustration: IF EVERYBODY HELPED.
Every bond you buy goes to tie up the Kaiser.]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, November 26th_.--Rather a jolly day in the House of Commons.
It was pleasant to hear Lord WOLMER, ingenuous youth, explaining, on
behalf of the War Trade Department, that there was no danger of an
unusually large consignment of rubber bathing-caps finding their way
from Switzerland to the heads of German Fraüleins. To Colonel YATE
belongs the credit of pointing out that people do not bathe in
Switzerland in the winter.

[Illustration: "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?" Mr. WILL
THORNE.]

Where Russia is concerned Mr. BALFOUR declines to be included among
the prophets; all he knows is that that unhappy country has not yet
evolved a Government with which he can negotiate. He was more explicit
regarding the German tale of a Privy Council in 1913, presided over
by the KING, at which Mr. ASQUITH and Lord KITCHENER conspired with
Sir EDWARD GREY and Lord MORLEY (whose "Reminiscences" are strangely
silent on the subject) to declare war upon Germany. Who after this
shall dare to say that the Germans have no imagination?

Mr. WILL THORNE considers that compulsory rationing ought to be
postponed until the menus at the hotels and clubs are cut down to two