While avoiding as a rule the fashionable rÔle of prophet, Mr. Punch is occasionally tempted to indulge in prediction. The year 1918, in which France is greeting in increasing numbers the heirs of the Pilgrim Fathers, is going to be America's year. As for the Kaiser,

A Fatherland Poet was busy of late
In making the Kaiser a new Hymn of Hate;
Perhaps, ere its echoes have time to grow dim,
The Huns may be learning a new Hate of Him.

In this prophetic strain Mr. Punch has been musing on the fortunes of the Hohenzollerns under a German Republic. Will the ex-Kaiser be appointed to the post of official Gatherer of Scraps of Paper, or start in business as a second-hand wardrobe dealer with a large assortment of slightly soiled uniforms? Or will he be ordered to ring a joy-bell on the anniversary of the inauguration of the German Republic?

The ex-Kaiser is appointed to the post of official gatherer of scraps of paper.

These are attractive speculations, but a trifle previous, while hospital ships are still being torpedoed, U-boats are busy at Funchal, and the bonds of German influence and penetration are being forged anew at Brest-Litovsk. The latest news from that quarter seems to indicate that the Kaiser desires peace--at any rate for the duration of the War. And already there is a talk of a German counter-offensive on a colossal scale on the Western front. So that Mr. Punch's message for the New Year is couched in no spirit of premature jubilation, but rather appeals for fortitude and endurance.

TO ALL AT HOME

How needful such an appeal is may be gathered from the proceedings at Westminster, less fit for the Mother than the Mummy of Parliaments, where "doleful questionists" exhume imaginary grievances or display their "nerve" by claiming the increase in pay recently granted to fighting men for conscientious objectors in the Non-Combatant Corps. The interest taken by one of this group in Army Dentistry inspires the wish that "the treatment of jaw-cases" mentioned by the Under-Secretary for War could be applied on the Parliamentary front. Head-hunting is in full swing. This classical sport, as practised in Borneo, involved the discharge of poisoned darts through a blow-pipe, and the House of Commons has not materially altered the method. In the attack of January 23 it is supposed that the Head of the Government was aimed at; but most of the shots went wide and hit the Head of our Army in France. Ministers have not distinguished themselves except by their capacity for "butting-in " and eating their words. Public opinion has been inflamed rather than enlightened by the discussions on unity of command, and the newspaper campaign directed against our War chiefs. Meanwhile, the Suffragists have triumphantly surmounted their last obstacle in the House of Lords, and Votes for Women is now an accomplished fact. But the Irish Andromeda still awaits her Perseus, gazing wanly at her various champions in Convention. The Ulsterman's plea for conscription in Ireland has been rejected after Sir Auckland Geddes had declared that it would be of no use as a solution of the present difficulty. He did not give his reasons, but they are believed to be Conventional. Mr. Barnes has described the Government as "living on the top of a veritable volcano," but, in spite of the context, the phrase must not be taken to refer to the Minister of Munitions, who, as everybody knows, cannot be sat upon.

Military experts tell us that this is a "Q" war, meaning thereby that the Quartermaster-General's department is the one that matters. Naval experts sometimes drop hints attaching another significance to that twisty letter. Harassed house-keepers are beginning to think that this is a "queue-war," and look to Lord Rhondda to end it. For the moment the elusive rabbit has scored a point against the Food Controller, but public confidence in his ability is not shaken. All classes are being drawn together by a communion of inconvenience. The sporting miner's wife can no longer afford dog biscuits: "Our dog's got to eat what we eats now." And the pathetic appeal of the smart fashionable for lump sugar, on the ground that her darling Fido cannot be expected to catch a spoonful of Demerara from the end of his nose, leaves the grocer cold. A dairyman charged with selling unsatisfactory milk has explained to the Bench that his cows were suffering from shell-shock. He himself is now suffering from shell-out-shock. At Ramsgate a shopkeeper has exhibited a notice in his window announcing that "better days are in store." What most people want is butter days.