Francis Joseph of Austria has died on the tottering throne which has been his for nearly seventy years. In early days he had been hated, but he had shown valour. Later on he had shown wisdom, and had been pitied for his misfortunes. It was a crowning irony of fate which condemned him in old age to become the dupe and tool of an Assassin. He should have died before the War--certainly before the tragedy of Sarajevo.

The British Push has extended to the Ancre, and the Crown Prince, reduced to the position of a pawn in Hindenburg's game, maintains a precarious hold on the remote suburbs of Verdun. Well may he be sick, after nine months of futile carnage, of a name which already ranks in renown with ThermopylÆ.

As the credit of the Crown Prince wanes, so the cult of Hindenburg waxes.

HINDENBURGITIS; OR, THE PRUSSIAN HOME MADE BEAUTIFUL

Monastir has been recaptured by the Serbians and French; but Germany has had her victories too, and, continuing her warfare against the Red Cross, has sunk two hospital ships. Germany's U-boat policy is going to win her the War. At least so Marshal Hindenburg says, and the view is shared by that surprising person the neutral journalist. But in the meantime it subjects the affections of the neutral sailorman to a severe trial.

King Constantine, however, remains unshaken in his devotion to German interests. He has also shown marked originality by making up a Cabinet exclusively composed of University Professors. But some critics scent in his action a hint of compulsory Ministerial Service, and predict Labour troubles.At home we have to note the steady set of the tide of public opinion in favour of Food Control. The name of the Dictator is not yet declared, but the announcement cannot be long postponed. Whoever he may be, he is not to be envied. We have also to note the steady growth on every side of Government bungalows--the haunts (if some critics are to be believed) of the Great Uncombed, even of the Hidden Hand. The men of forty-one were not wanted last March. Mr. Lloyd George tells us that they are wanted now, or it would mean the loss of two Army Corps. The Germans, by the way, appear to be arriving at a just conception of their relative value. Lord Newton has informed the Lords that the enemy is prepared to release 600 English civilian prisoners in return for some 4,000 to 7,000 Germans. Parliament has developed a new grievance: Ministers have confided to Pressmen information denied to M.P.'s. And a cruel wrong has been done to Erin, according to Mr. Dillon, by the application of Greenwich time to Ireland, by which that country has been compelled to surrender its precious privilege of being twenty-five minutes behind the times. The injustice is so bitter that it has reconciled Mr. Dillon and Mr. Healy.The Premier has hinted that if the House insisted on having fuller information than it receives at present another Secret Session might be held. When one considers the vital problems on which Parliament now concentrates its energies--the supply of cocaine to dentists, the withholding of pictures of the Tanks, etc.--one feels that there should be a Secret Session at least once a week. Indeed, if the House were to sit permanently with closed doors, unobserved and unreported, the country might be all the better for it.

A STRAIN ON THE AFFECTIONS
NORWEGIAN (to Swede): "What--you here, too. I thought you were a friend of Germany?"
SWEDE: "I was."

It is the fashion in some quarters to make out that fathers do not realise the sacrifice made by their sons, but complacently acquiesce in it while they sit comfortably at home over the fire. Mr. Punch has not met these fathers. The fathers--and still more the mothers--that he knows recognise only too well the unpayable nature of their debt.

They held, against the storms of fate,
In war's tremendous game,
A little land inviolate
Within a world of flame.
They looked on scarred and ruined lands,
On shell-wrecked fields forlorn,
And gave to us, with open hands,
Full fields of yellow corn;
The silence wrought in wood and stone
Whose aisles our fathers trod;
The pines that stand apart, alone,
Like sentinels of God.
With generous hands they paid the price,
Unconscious of the cost,
But we must gauge the sacrifice
By all that they have lost.
The joy of young adventurous ways,
Of keen and undimmed sight,
The eager tramp through sunny days,
The dreamless sleep of night,
The happy hours that come and go,
In youth's untiring quest,
They gave, because they willed it so,
With some light-hearted jest.
No lavish love of future years,
No passionate regret,
No gift of sacrifice or tears
Can ever pay the debt.

Yet if ever you try to express this indebtedness to the wonderful young men who survive, they turn the whole thing into a jest and tell you, for example, that only two things really interest them, "Europe and their stomachs"--nothing in between matters.

PAT (examining fare): "May the divil destroy the Germans!"
SUB: "Well, they don't do you much harm, anyway. You don't get near enough to 'em."
PAT: "Do they not, thin? Have they not kilt all the half-crown officers and left nothing but the shillin' ones?"

Guy Fawkes Day has come and gone without fireworks, pursuant to the Defence of the Realm Act. Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The Daily Mail describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of time," which seems to come perilously near lÈse-majestÉ! But then, as a writer in the Evening News--another Northcliffe paper--safely observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without thinking."