Mr. Punch's history of the great war.

  • Charles Larcom Graves
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mr. Punch's history of the great war. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/332 (page 68)
    Hardest of all is the lot of the trooper in the trenches, who “thinks all day and dreams all night of a slap-bang, tally-ho! open fight,” but for the time being “like a blinded mole toils in a furrow and lives in a hole.” The National Thrift campaign is carried on with great earnestness in Parliament. Luxury, waste, unnecessary banquets, high legal salaries have all come under the lash of Tommy (finding a German prisoner who speaks English): “Look what you done to me, you blighters! ’Ere—’ave a cigarette?” the economy hunters. Of the maxim that “Charity begins at home,” they have, however, so far shown no appreciation beyond abstaining from voting any addition to their salary of ,£400 a year. Mr. Asquith’s announcement that he takes his salary, and is going to continue taking it, has naturally lifted a great weight from the minds of these vicarious champions of economy. Evidence of the chastened condition of the enemy is to be found in the statement on the official notepaper of Wolff’s Telegraphic Bureau “that it assumes no responsibility of any kind for the accuracy of the news which it circulates.” But