Imitation being ths—sincerest form of fiattery,.we may take it that a great compliment has been paid to that highly resourceful gentleman, the old-time British regular soldier, who did more really good and hard work in proportion to his pay than any man on earth. Years ago, he found a solution to the well nigh impossible problem of spelling over the telephone in a way that could be understood beyond question, by doing it with words instead of letters and it was just like Tommy Atkins—or his brother of the sea—to com-Vine humour with the practical. His word alphabet was simple, effective and not a little comical. We do not remember having heard of an official telephone alphabet before—and certainly have had no experience of it—but a Home contemporary declares that the girls in England have compiled one, the words in_ order being:—Apple, Brother, Charlie, Dover, Eastern, Father, George, Harry, India, Jack, King, London, Mother, November. October. Peter, Queen. Robert, Sugar, Thomas, Uncle, Victoria, Wednesday, Xmas, Yellow, Zebra. "Eastern" certain-not as good as "Emma" nor "Thomas" og "Too,"—whilst: "Wednesday" and "November" take a lot of saying. The Army words were all short. Neither with this new alphabet could one tell such a. story as that of the young subaltern whose name over the telephone was not clear to " peppery field officer and who, when told to spell it, replied, "Stokoe—Esses-toc-o-kick-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.