The Spectator

From ‘Catching the Train’, The Spectator, 17 July 1915: ENGLISHMEN have many exasperating habits, but perhaps the most exasperating of all is that of running a train so fine that they only just catch it. What the normal healthy, unnervous Englishman likes to do is to arrive at the railway station one minute before the train starts, walk up the platform a little agitated inside but outwardly very calm and ostentatiously slow in movement, saying to any one he meets that there is not the slightest need to be in a hurry, as there are still twenty-five seconds before she is due to start. "Besides, all the carriage doors are still open and it must take another minute to shut them." That is the scene at the station end.

From 'News of the Week', The Spectator, 17 July 1915: ON the western side trench warfare continues on the familiar lines of attack and counter-attack. On the whole, however, we are not, we think, unduly optimistic when we say that on the balance the Allies once more have had the advantage, not only in the matter of small successes, but still more in the matter of human attrition. We and the French both lose heavily in men, but the Germans lose more and can worse afford it. We ought, however, to add that, according to a Berlin wireless telegram, the Crown Prince's attacks in the Argonne have been very successful, and that he has taken a large number of prisoners and put several guns out of action. Against this, the French declare that the enemy's gains have been of a trivial character..