This Giddy Globe — 07 - Part 2, Chapters 22-26

CANADA

Canada, with the exception of Mexico, is the only part of North America not ruled by the Irish.

[Illustration: "The apparel oft proclaims the man."

--HAMLET.

] In former days it was a popular Health Resort for frenzied financiers who wished to retire from private life.

It is now a still more popular resort for Americans suffering from thirst.

Though next door neighbours and rivals in business and, what is still more trying, near relatives, Canada and the United States are the best of friends.

For over a hundred years there has not been so much as a picket-fence or a policeman, much less a patrol or a fortification, on the border line between the two countries.

Canada has not, like her sister Columbia, "severed home ties"; she is perfectly happy under the parental roof, earns her own living, has a latch key and stays out as late as she pleases and has never been able to understand "why girls leave home."

Though differing in many respects, the United States and Canada have so much in common and are so nearly of the same age and size that, in any musical comedy of Nations, the two might easily pass for a "sister turn."

* * * The inhabitants of Canada are the most Moral and Patriotic people in the World, and their army is second to none in bravery and won the World War.

[Illustration] CHAPTER XXIII GREAT BRITAIN

If you look carefully under the upper left hand corner of the map of Europe, you will find a small pink island no bigger than the state of Idaho.

[Illustration: THE PLANET JUPITER (from a photograph)] But a Country must not be judged by its size.

The Planet Jupiter is twelve times as large as this Giddy Globe of ours, and has eight private moons of its own, but for all that Jupiter is not a desirable spot for Lovers, being for the most part molten, and somewhat spotty.

This little Pink Island is Great Britain, the little mother of one-fourth of all the countries of the Globe, including the United States.

[Illustration: THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION _From poster by James Montgomery Flagg.

_] The English People, or (if one _must_ be accurate) the British, are the most to and fro-ward people in the world; like the bear in the fable when they are tired of going _to and fro_ they reverse the process and go _fro and to_.

_With Bibles and Bathtubs_ _And Ballots and Beer_ _And Hope and Hygienics_ _They girdle the Sphere.

_ [Illustration: THE PRUDENTIAL HAS THE STRENGTH OF GIBRALTAR] In every quarter of the globe they have planted seeds of self-government which today are blossoming into an English-Speaking Union under the British and American Flags that embrace one-fourth of the surface of the earth.

The climate of England is temperate.

Its air is not, like that of the United States, compared to champagne.

London, the capital, is famous for its fogs; this is due to the absence of Sky-Scrapers.

London is also the centre of that vicious heritage of the Victorian Era, Respectability.

For any enjoyable degree of latitude, the Londoner must go to Paris, Vienna or Buda Pesth and other capitals, which in return take their degrees of longitude from London (or Greenwich).

This picture shows the famous Rock of Gibraltar, inscribed with the French motto of British respectability (_Honi soit qui mal y pense_) done into English.

The principal products of Great Britain are Beef, Bishops, Banks, and Barometers.

* * * The inhabitants of England are the most Moral and Patriotic people in the World, and their army is second to none in bravery and won the World War.

[Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV SCOTLAND

A mountainous, peaty region in the northern part of Great Britain.

[Illustration: "The apparel oft proclaims the man."

--HAMLET.

] The Dew distilled from the Scotch mountains, flavoured with the peat of the valleys is highly prized by the natives, not only of Scotland but of all the English speaking countries of this Giddy Globe.

The inhabitants are a tall, barb-wiry, music-loving, pious and joke-fearing race, fond of loud plaids and still Lauder songs.

Their tall spare frames have given rise to the term Bony (or Bonny) Scotland, supposed by some to be derived from "Bonnet," the national headgear.

The principal products of Scotland are Porridge, Parsons and Pilbrochs.

* * * The inhabitants of Scotland are the most Moral and Patriotic people in the World, and their army is second to none in bravery and won the World War.

[Illustration] CHAPTER XXV IRELAND

[Illustration: "The apparel oft proclaims the man."

--HAMLET.

] [Illustration] Ireland is the land of the Irish Bull, a paradoxical Bovine whose cross-eyed horns can toss a British commonplace in two directions at once.

The population of Ireland consists chiefly of Absentee landlords and Emigrants to the United States.

They are ruled by two Absentee governments, a Parliament at Westminster and an Itinerant President.

[Illustration: SCENE IN IRISH HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT] The country is infested with Absentee Snakes.

It is believed that the Serpent who tempted Eve (from the "way he had with the women") was one of these Absentee snakes.

Strabo, the Greek Geographer who visited Ireland long before St. Patrick, describes the inhabitants as, "_more savage than the Britons, feeding on human flesh and enormous eaters, deeming it commendable to devour their deceased fathers_."

Strabo evidently attended a wake and miscalculated the strength of the national beverage.

The principal products of Ireland are Potatoes, Pugilists, Patriots,[A] Poteen and Bernard Shaw.

[A] The term _Patriot_ is derived from two Greek words, Pat, a patronymic, and Riot, a national pastime.

* * * The inhabitants of Ireland are the most Moral and Patriotic people in the World, and their army is second to none in bravery and won the World War.

[Illustration: THE GIDDY GLOBE CONSOLING IRELAND] CHAPTER XXVI WALES

[Illustration] _See the Welsh Rabbit--he is bred on cheese;_ _(Or cheese on bread, whichever way you please).

_ _Although he's tough, he looks so mild, who'd think_ _That a strong man from this small beast would shrink?

_ _Carolyn Wells.

_ Wales is the home of the Welsh bards so called because the language in which they are written, which resembles a mixture of Chech, Chinese, Celtic and Chocktaw, is _barred_ from the concert and operatic stage.

The most famous products of Wales are the Welsh Rabbit, the Prince of Wales and Lloyd George.

The Welsh Rabbit, born in a chafing dish and prolific as his namesake of Australia, has spread all over the Giddy Globe and been a potent factor in keeping the world awake.

Lloyd George too (strange parallel!

) was born in a political chafing dish and has been an even more powerful factor in keeping the world awake.

Let us hope that the Prince of Wales (Bless him) will follow in the footsteps of this illustrious pair and live to keep the world awake long after this Geography has gone into its hundred thousandth edition!

The Prince has been immortalized in the following lines: _"Hurray!"

cried the Kitten,_ _"Hurray!"

_ _As he merrily set the sails,_ _"I sail o'er the ocean_ _today, today,_ _To look at the Prince of Wales!"

_ _"Oh, Kitten, pause at the brink!

_ _And think of the angry gales!"

_ _"Ah, yes," cried the Kitten, "but think!

_ _Oh, think of the Prince of Wales!"

_ _"But, Kitten," I cried, dismayed,_ _"If you live through the angry gales_ _You know you will be afraid_ _To look at the Prince of Wales!"

_ _Said the Kitten, "No such thing!

_ _Why should he make me wince?

_ _If a Cat may look at a King,_ _A Kitten may look at a Prince!"

_ * * * * * PART III FOREIGN COUNTRIES