Jan. 31.
Mr. Louis Raemaekers, the far-' famed cartoonist of the Dutch ""Pelegraaf'', waa recently entertained in London by. members of the "Press. His speech in reply to the toast of the evening was one of those happy deliverances with which we in the Far East are fairly well acquainted. They come from an orator ripe in knowledge, warm in sympathy, snd practised in speech. But what: adds immeasurably to their charm is " piquancy born of quaint bits of beautiful English derived from non-English train of thought, and so_ couched in unwonted form. Mr. Raemaekers owes his world-wide repute to a two-fold cause: first, his exceptional ability, and secondly, the exceptional rage with which he has been pursued by German spite. American cartoonists have shown extraordinary power in some of their work since the war began, but they have missed the persecution. Onur Dutch artist reaps the benefit of it. His name is s household word, and his advice, as given to the London press could not be improved upon. He was inclined at first, he said, to be extremely angry because we did not seem to take the war seriously enough. But when he had been a month in England he changed his mind. He had learned to understand what those perpetual British smiles meant, and he concluded his speech by saying, '"This is my reply. to your toast—keep Practical psychology has for ages known the value of having much wisdom in small compass. Just now we do not think that if] the biggest English dictionary with its hundreds of thousands of words were searched carefully from end to end, there could be found three syllables better fitted as a motto for the British Empire at the present time than those selected by Mr. Raemaekers—"Keep smiling." There are 80 many reasons why the advice should be taken. In the first place we smile quite naturally and easily when we think of the extraordinary manner in which our enemy has revealed himself. Not 30 many years ago we were in danger of becoming his friend. We had not seen through him then as more keen-sighted_observers had. Honest John Hay, for example, as recorded in his
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.