“TANKS” ON TOUR.

PROVINCIAL FIXTURES.

The Trafalgar-square Tank has “caught on”. He is the “star” turn in London to-day. Go to the square at any hour of the day and you will find thousands of people studying him with affectionate admiration. Soldiers, politicians, clergyman pour out oblation of oratory before him; an unending queue of adorers hands him bouquets of “Bonds” and little green “Certificate” posies. But he stands impassive. He is doing his job, and the orators and adorers theirs.

Now he has impressed the provinces. What London said last week they are to say next. “We want Tanks”, cried the provinces, and they are going to have them. The Tanks are going on tour. They open at Sheffield, Liverpool, and Cardiff next Monday. There’s a square in Glasgow where they would do great business, and no doubt they will be “booked” for it, and for half a dozen other cities and towns besides. To be sure, the creatures want an expensive fee. Their terms are a million. But the provinces never stick at terms when they really want an “attraction”, and in this case they will “pay, pay, pay!”

To-morrow a new feature will be introduced into the London programme. The Tank in the square will be joined by a mate. Bills of later date should describe the “turn” as “Mr. and Mrs. Tank”. “Mr. Tank” will remain at the “old stand”, but “Mrs. Tank” will “run on little errands for a Minister of State”. Little, that is, compared with a million, but she declines in the meantime to fetch and carry for less than £100,000. But for this she will leave her mate and seek you out wherever you may be. Doors, windows, and staircases are nothing to her; she simply goes through them and up. To prevent misunderstanding you should be on the doorstep when she is signalled. It will be funnier than a Turkish communiqué. And then after it’s all over, think of the delightful titillation of being able to say quite nonchalantly, “I had the old Tank up at my place this afternoon.” All you’ve got to do is to ring up “Gerrard 200’.’ The Tank is now on the phone, and mention the address. Do it now. By the way, the first phone message to the No. 130 was sent by the Officer in Command of Tanks, Major-general Sir J. E. Capper. “Hope the Tank in Trafalgar-square will meet with the same glorious success as his brothers on the Western front,” it ran.

Father Bernard Vaughan and Sir Charles Wakefield were the speakers in the square yesterday. Whether the war cost much or little, said Father Vaughan in his stirring address, we were pledged to find what was wanted by our fighting men, and that was the end of the matter. The ex-lord Mayor of London made an interesting suggestion, which, if adopted, would give us a Tanks Chorus. Each borough, he said, should subscribe for one. Then when Stepney and St. Pancras, say, came trundling up together, the man in the trenches would have the home feeling he had when the old motor-bus turned up in the war. After his speech Sir Charles became benevolently practical. To each of 250 wounded soldiers (from the crowd where they heard the invitation from his lips – a business man’s peroration – and the hospitals where they read it in the newspaper, or were told) he handed a war certificate.

The Tank in the square took £70,100 yesterday. It has now accumulated £389,740. Spofforth, the once-famous bowler, subscribed £20,000 on behalf of his firm. The first call of the “Messenger Tank” will be on the Prudential Insurance Company, where she will receive the £628,000 due as interest on the £25,000,000 the company has already invested in War Loans.