During these visitations there is nothing handier than a comfortable and capacious Cave, but the Home Secretary has his limitations.  When Mr. King asked him to be more careful about interning alien friends without trial, since he (Mr. King) had just heard of the great reception accorded in Petrograd to one Trotsky on his release from internment, Sir George Cave replied that he was sorry he had never heard of Trotsky.

Lord Rhondda reigns in Lord Devonport’s place, and will doubtless profit by his predecessor’s experience.  It is a thankless job, but the great body of the nation is determined that he shall have fair play and will support him through thick and thin in any policy, however drastic, that he may recommend to their reason and their patriotism.  This business of food-controlling is new to us as well as to him, but we are willing to be led, and we are even willing to be driven, and we are grateful to him for having engaged his reputation and skill and firmness in the task of leading or driving us.

The War has its grandes heures, its colossal glories and disasters, but the tragedy of the “little things” affects the mind of the simple soldier with a peculiar force—­the “little gardens rooted up, the same as might be ours”; “the little ’ouses all in ’eaps, the same as might be mine”; and worst of all, “the little kids, as might ’ave been our own.”  Apropos of resentment, England has lost first place in Germany, for America is said to be the most hated country now.  The “morning hate” of the German family with ragtime obbligato must be a terrible thing!  General von Blume, it is true, says that America’s intervention is no more than “a straw.”  But which straw?  The last?

[Illustration: 

GRANDPAPA (to small Teuton struggling with home-lessons):  “Come, Fritz, is your task so difficult?”

FRITZ:  “It is indeed.  I have to learn all the names of all the countries that misunderstand the All-Highest.”]

It is reported that ex-King Constantine is to receive L20,000 a year unemployment benefit, and Mr. Punch, in prophetic vein, pictures him as offering advice to his illustrious brother-in-law: 

  Were it not wise, dear William, ere the day
    When Revolution goes for crowns and things,
  To cut your loss betimes and come this way
    And start a coterie of exiled Kings?

In the words of a valued correspondent (a temporary captain suddenly summoned from the trenches to the Staff), “there is this to be said about being at war—­you never know what is going to happen to you next.”

August, 1917.

With the opening of the fourth year of the War Freedom renews her vow, fortified by the aid of the “Gigantic Daughter of the West,” and undaunted by the collapse of our Eastern Ally, brought about by anarchy, German gold and the fraternisation of Russian and German soldiers.  The Kaiser, making the most of this timely boon, has once more been following in Bellona’s train (her train de luxe) in search of cheap reclame on the Galician front, to witness the triumphs of his new Ally, Revolutionary Russia: