Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3825/Studies in Discipleship
(In humble imitation of the exploits of the German Wireless Service.)
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Keir Hardie have joined Mr. Blatchford in a recruiting campaign, with most gratifying results. In the course of one of his speeches Mr. Ramsay MacDonald announced that the experience he had gained while tiger-shooting in India had enabled him to organise an elephant-gun battery, with which he was shortly about to proceed to the front.
It is reported that, at the instigation of the Chevalier William le Queux, the Republic of San Marino has declared war on Germany, and appointed the Chevalier as generalissimo of its forces, which are estimated at 250 men.
Great consternation has been caused in Vienna on receipt of the news that, in view of Beethoven's full name being van Beethoven, and his origin Dutch, he has been removed from the list of belligerent composers and regarded as a neutral by concert-givers in London and Paris. A counter-movement has in consequence been started with time object of treating Beethoven as a hostile alien during the progress of the war.
The transports of enthusiasm caused in Berlin by the announcement that Mr. G. B. Shaw had decided to be known in future as Mr. Berhardi Shaw have given place to bitter disappointment on the peremptory denial of the rumour by the famous comedian himself. As a matter of fact he is hesitating between Benckendorff, Balakirev and Bomboudiac.