TOMMY (to inquisitive French children): "Nah, then, alley toot sweet, an
the tooter the sweeter!"]
Lord Rhondda, who listened from the Peers' gallery to the recent debate in
the Commons on Food Control, has received a quantity of advice intended to
help him in minding his p's and q's, particularly the latter. In China, we
read in the _Daily Express_, a chicken can still be purchased for
sixpence; intending purchasers should note, however, that at present the
return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost to a figure a trifle in
excess of the present London prices. More bread is being eaten than ever,
according to the Food Controller: but it appears that the stuff is now
eaten by itself instead of being spread thinly on butter, as in pre-war
days. Bloaters have reached the unprecedented price of sixpence each. This
is no more, as we have seen, than a chicken fetches in China, but it is
enough to dispel the hope that bloaters, at any rate over the Christmas
season, would remain within the reach of the upper classes. At a Guildford
charity _fête_ the winner of a hurdle race has been awarded a new-laid
egg. If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to become
his own property.
Christmas has come round again, and peace still seems a far-off thing.
"What shall he have that killed the deer?" someone asks somebody else in
_As You Like It_. But there is a better question than that, and it is
this: "What shall they have that preserve the little dears?" And the answer
is--honour and support. For there can be no doubt that in these critical
times, when the life of the best and bravest and strongest is so cheap, no
duty is more important than the cherishing of infancy, and the provision of
seasonable joys to the youngest generation, gentle and simple. More than
ever Mr. Punch welcomes the coming of Santa Klaus:
Thou who on earth was namèd Nicholas--
There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.
Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
Because the simple faith that bards inherit
Of happiness is still the master key,
Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
To the dim beauty of imagined things.
_January, 1918_.
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?
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: