vice 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 _fete_ 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 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