Thou who on earth was named 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 role 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