Now
that inconstant orb has become our enemy, and the only German opera that we
look forward to seeing is _Die Gothadaemmerung_. A circular has been
issued by the Feline Defence League appealing to owners of cats to bring
them inside the house during air-raids. When they are left on the roof it
would seem that their agility causes them to be mistaken for aerial
torpedoes. We note that the practice of giving air-raid warnings by notice
published in the following morning's papers has been abandoned only after
the most exhaustive tests. The advocates of "darkness and composure" have
not been very happy in their arguments, but they are at least preferable to
the members of Parliament deservedly trounced by Mr. Bonar Law, who
declared that if their craven squealings were typical he should despair of
victory. Meanwhile, we have to congratulate our gallant French allies on
their splendid bag of Zepps. But the space which our Press allots to air
raids moves Mr. Punch to wonder and scorn. Our casualties from that source
are never one-tenth so heavy as those in France on days when G.H.Q. reports
"everything quiet on the Western front." Still worse is the temper of some
of our society weeklies, which have set their faces like flint against any
serious reference to the War, and go imperturbably along the old
ante-bellum lines, "snapping" smart people at the races or in the Row, or
reproducing the devastating beauty of a revue chorus, and this at a time
when every day brings the tidings of irreparable loss to hundreds of
families.
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