_Punch_ exercise his function without outraging the fitness of things?
These doubts have been with us from the beginning, but they are already
being resolved by the discovery--another of the wonders of the time--that
on the very fringes of tragedy there is room for cheerfulness. When our
fighting men refuse to be downhearted in the direst peril, we at home
should follow their high example, note where we can the humours of the
fray, and "bear in silence though our hearts may bleed."

[Illustration:

BRAVO, BELGIUM!]

[Illustration: MEDICAL OFFICER: "Sorry I must reject you on account of your
teeth."

WOULD-BE-RECRUIT: "Man, ye're making a gran' mistake. I'm no wanting to
bite the Germans, I'm wanting to shoot 'em."]

Germany in one brief month has given us a wonderful exhibition of
conscienceless strength, of disciplined ferocity. She has shown an equally
amazing failure to read the character of her foes aright. We now know what
German Kultur means: but of the soul and spirit of England she knows
nothing. Least of all does she understand that formidable and incorrigible
levity which refuses to take hard knocks seriously. It will be our
privilege to assist in educating our enemies on these and other points,
even though, as Lord Kitchener thinks, it takes three years to do it. The
Mad Dog of Europe is loose, but we remember the fate of the dog who "to
serve some private ends went mad and bit the man." "The man recovered from
his bite, the dog it was that died." Meanwhile the Official Press Bureau
has begun its operations, the Prince of Wales's Relief Fund for the relief