The best news of the day is that there will be an ample supply
of currants for Whitsuntide school-treats, and _Smith minor's_
translation of "_Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum_" as "Not
everyone is lucky enough to find a currant in his war-bun" will no
longer be applicable.
Five years ago General SEELY, then Secretary of State for War, asked
timidly for a single million for aircraft. To-day, as Under-Secretary
for Air, he boldly demanded sixty-six millions, and explained that but
for the Armistice the amount would have been two hundred millions.
And the House, after hearing his glowing account of the wonderful
achievements of our airmen, readily voted the money. A good deal of it
is to go, quite rightly, to relieving the hardships of demobilisation,
which fall with peculiar severity on men whose special training is
not much use to them in civil life. The least we can do when they are
forced to descend from their chosen element is to insure them against
a bad landing.
* * * * *
TO A VEGETABLE-MARROW.
O monstrous, O Gargantuan, overgrown!
O huge! O gross! O squat!
Whose one redeeming virtue--one alone--
Is that you weigh a lot;
Who will not thrive upon the common soil,
So that the patient digger e'en must toil
To raise a special mound
Above the level ground
That you may sun yourself upon the sloping earth
And, like the wicked, wax to an uncommon girth.
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