BELLAIRS has not satisfied everybody so completely as himself that his
recent work reveals the truth. But now the official history is on the eve
of publication and Mr. LONG no longer feels it necessary to keep the
secret. Here it is in his own words: "The _moral_ of the German fleet was
very seriously shaken." What a relief!

It seems that the Turks were informed in advance of the intention of the
Peace Conference to let them stay at Constantinople in the hope that they
would forthwith abandon their sanguinary habits. Instead of which they
appear to have said to themselves, "What a jolly day! Let us go out and
kill something--Armenians for choice." So now a further message has been
sent to them to the effect that the new title to the old tenement is not
absolute but conditional, and that one of the covenants forbids its use as
a slaughterhouse.

[Illustration: TAKING THE OFFERTORY.

_MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN_ (_as Sidesman_). "THE THREEPENNY-BIT IS
ECONOMICAL, PERHAPS; BUT A DESIRABLE COIN, FROM MY POINT OF VIEW, IT IS
NOT."]

A modest little Bill empowering the Mint to manufacture coins worth
something less than their weight in silver aroused the wrath of Professor
OMAN. The last time, according to his account, that the coinage was thus
debased was in the days of HENRY VIII., whose views both on money and
matrimony were notoriously lax. Other Members were friendly to the project,
and Mr. DENNIS HERBERT, in the avowed interest of churchwardens, urged the
Government to seize the opportunity to abolish the threepeeny-bit, the
irreducible minimum of "respectable" almsgiving. The CHANCELLOR OF THE
EXCHEQUER, however, stoutly championed the elusive little coin, for which