What is the News?

From The Fool-Killer, May 1, 1915. By James Larkin Pearson.

“What is the news in the paper today—
    The news from over the sea?”
The reader he flicked his fat cigar,
    And a billowy puff puffed he.
“Oh, nothing—it speaks of a little fight,
    But it reads like childish play;
A trifle of fifty thousand dead—
    There’s nothing important today.

“The city of Skippit was burned last night,
    And half of the people killed;
The living have fled, and the bloody streets
    With charred black bones are filled.
The British dreadnaught, Mindyerbiz
    Torpedoed in Dareyou Bay;
The blood in Flanders is only knee deep—
    There’s nothing important today.

“Not more than twenty-five million men
    Are facing the shot and shell,
And a trifle of ten times that, perhaps,
    At home ‘mid terrors dwell.
Oh my! It’s an awfully dull affair!
    Why don’t they fight some? Say!—
Here—take the old paper—I’m done with it all—
    There’s nothing important today.”