Fräulein von Schlimm, a niece by marriage of the acting Montenegrin
Envoy, is accused of purposely hoarding five hundred sticks of
"Spanish" so as to aggravate the crisis. The usually reliable
correspondent of _The Salt Lake City Morning Pioneer_ telegraphs
(_viâ_ Tomsk) that she only escaped lynching by distributing her
treasure to the mob.

In a similar way economic issues are determining the attitude
of Thibet. Prices in Lhassa are rising fabulously. The new Food
Controller is endeavouring to grapple with the situation, and the yak
ration has again been reduced. It behoves British diplomacy to see
that the ensuing discontent is not turned into Germanophil currents.
Where is our Foreign Office? What is being done? We are in the third
year of the War and yet, while the German Minister is distributing
free arrowroot to the populace, Whitehall slumbers on. It may be
nothing to our mandarins that a full platoon was added to the Thibetan
field-strength only last week, and that the Government dinghy is
already watertight.

_Later_. Paraguay's attitude is now defined as one of Stark
Neutrality. Patagonia has increased her army by fifty per cent. The
new recruit promises to make an excellent fighting unit.

* * * * *

IN A GOOD CAUSE.

Mr. Punch begs to call attention to a Great Lottery of Paintings,
Drawings, Sculptures, etc., by many of the chief British artists of
the day and of earlier schools, which is being organised, by licence