"If there be two queues outside two different butchers' shops, and the length and the breadth of one queue be equal to the length and breadth of the other queue, each to each, but the supplies in one shop are greater than the supplies in the other shop, then the persons in the one queue will get more meat than those in the other queue, which is absurd, and Rhondda ought to see about it." All the same, Lord Rhondda is a stout fellow who goes on his way with an imperviousness to criticism--criticism that is often selfish and contemptible--which augurs well for his ultimate success in the most thankless of all jobs. [Illustration: INDIGNANT WAR-WORKER: "And she actually asked me if I didn't think I might be doing something! Me? And I haven't missed a charity matinée for the last three months."] Food at the front is another matter, and Mr. Punch is glad to print the tribute of one of his war-poets to the "Cookers": The Company Cook is no great fighter, And there's never a medal for _him_ to wear, Though he camps in the shell-swept waste, poor blighter, And many a cook has "copped it" there; But the boys go over on beans and bacon, And Tommy is best when Tommy has dined, So here's to the Cookers, the plucky old Cookers, And the sooty old Cooks that waddle behind. "It is Germany," says a German paper, "who will speak the last word in this War." Yes, and the last word will be "Kamerad!" But that word will be spoken in spite of many pseudo-war-workers on the Home Front. Among the many wonders of the War one of the most wonderful is the sailor-man, three times, four times, five times torpedoed, who yet wants to sail once more. But there is one thing that he never wants to do again--to "pal" with Fritz the square-head: "When peace is signed and treaties made an' trade begins again, There's some'll shake a German's 'and an' never see the stain; But _not me_," says Dan the sailor-man, "not me, as God's on high-- Lord knows it's bitter in an open boat to see your shipmates die." Among the ignoble curiosities of the time we note the following advertisements in a Manchester newspaper of "wants" in our "indispensable" industries: "Tennis ball inflators, cutters and makers" and "Caramel wrappers"; while a Brighton paper has "Wanted, two dozen living flies weekly during the remainder of winter for two Italian frogs." The situation in Ireland remains unchanged, and suggests the following historical division of eras. (1) Pagan era; (2) Christian era; (3) De Valera. _March, 1918_. Once again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March, opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the West, and the war of movement has begun.