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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44267 ***
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
+been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
+underscores: _italics_.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE RECONCILIATION:
+
+OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE
+
+Reproduced from the cartoon in _Punch_, 15th March, 1845.]
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+By
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES
+
+IN FOUR VOLUMES
+
+VOL. I.--1841-1857
+
+  CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
+  London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
+  1921
+
+_Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
+limitations. The files of _Punch_ have been generally admitted to be a
+valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
+the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
+use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that _Punch_ has always
+been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
+his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
+especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
+second. For pictures of provincial society--such, for example, as that
+given in _Cranford_ or in the novels of Trollope--or of life in
+Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
+outside _Punch_. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
+part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
+his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
+is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
+subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
+_Punch_, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
+to Victorian writers in general by a writer in _Blackwood_ holds good:
+"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
+voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
+was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
+They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
+self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
+at all costs." In the 'forties _Punch_ doubled the rôles of jester and
+political pamphleteer, and in the latter capacity indulged in a great
+deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
+moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
+Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
+somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
+volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
+with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
+any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
+views expressed in _Punch_.
+
+My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
+altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
+after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
+honourable phase of _Punch's_ history, his championship of the poor and
+oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
+Nations"--the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
+of Disraeli's _Sybil_, and which I have chosen as the title for the
+first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
+at any time without reference to the political background would be
+difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on _Punch_
+in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
+redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of _Punch's_
+London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
+contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
+slums on the other.
+
+No attempt has been made to represent _Punch_ as infallible whether as a
+recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
+cruel--notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
+the "No Popery" crusade--though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
+the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
+majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous tributes. As
+for the gradual cooling of _Punch's_ democratic ardour, that may be
+attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
+and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
+follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
+grow older. The great value of _Punch_ resides in the fact that it
+provides us with a history of the Victorians _written by themselves_.
+This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
+painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
+hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
+mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
+mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
+has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
+or correct the statements or judgments recorded in _Punch_.
+Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
+the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
+the _Dictionary of National Biography_; to the _New English Dictionary_;
+to _The Political History of England_, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
+Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_;
+and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
+Mr. M. H. Spielmann's _History of Punch_.
+
+The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
+encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
+director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
+Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
+research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
+assistant librarian of the Athenæum Club.
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES.
+
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+CHARTISM
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+EDUCATION
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+THE COURT
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+SOCIETY-EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+    O! fair and fresh the early spring
+      Her budding wreath displays,
+    To all the wide earth promising
+      The joy of harvest days;
+    Yet many a waste of wavy gold
+      Hath bent above the dead;
+    Then let the living share it too--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+    Of old a nation's cry shook down
+      The sword-defying wall,
+    And ours may reach the mercy-seat,
+      Though not the lordly hall.
+    God of the Corn! shall man restrain
+      Thy blessings freely shed?
+    O! look upon the isles at last--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Founders of "Punch"_]
+
+It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the
+Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of _Punch_, should
+begin with the People. For _Punch_ began as a radical and democratic
+paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,
+and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry
+'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of
+jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts us on every page
+was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and
+wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be
+said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry
+Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was
+"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which
+takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the
+_Morning Chronicle_ and his elaborate work on _London Labour and the
+London Poor_, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of
+twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His
+versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the
+_Athenæum_ observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a
+scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an
+outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the
+original staff was Gilbert à Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary
+amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on _The Times_,
+comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan
+Magistrate. It was à Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the
+Andover Union--pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of
+the best ever presented to Parliament--that led to important alterations
+in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,
+his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's
+references to "à Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on
+his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the
+journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert
+à Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a
+daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the
+highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness
+of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who
+died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and
+impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is
+chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and
+ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist
+and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long
+champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry
+Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.
+Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education
+was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the
+Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of
+the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh
+discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either
+Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,
+and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to
+militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King
+business" generally--always excepting Constitutional Monarchy--was so
+pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him
+into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from
+the temper of _Punch_ in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness
+as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter
+criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden
+and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties
+Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of
+enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade
+movement, and they had been supported by _Punch_ in the campaign against
+the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of _Punch's_ attacks
+on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,
+the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He
+might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of
+the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed
+"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,
+the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are
+as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs
+should not have the best of it.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND
+
+(The Hungry 'Forties)]
+
+Biographies of the _Punch_ staff do not fall within the scope of this
+chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the
+men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential
+to a proper understanding of its influence on public opinion. They were
+humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had
+abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke
+of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the
+only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was
+quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a
+heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the
+ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up
+their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered
+by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later
+Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the
+present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the
+manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make
+instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise
+means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until
+such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory
+morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last
+few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of
+every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this
+vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday
+night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful
+imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the
+well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the
+instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a
+full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a
+year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly
+ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which
+prompted _Punch_ to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,
+and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer
+in the _Examiner_ so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the
+sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,
+according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and
+make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is an old story; as
+old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate
+clothed with sackcloth." _Punch_ never wearied of bringing home to his
+readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were
+crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the
+Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The
+amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than
+three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the
+poor. _The Times_ of December 2, 1841, quoted from the _Sporting
+Magazine_ an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince
+Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs--sleeping beds, compartments
+paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;
+and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the
+building--and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron
+and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was
+small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one
+time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut
+out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six
+young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the
+same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they
+complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they
+would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the
+latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic
+journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month
+after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same
+issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the
+Lord Mayor's dinner:--
+
+    Oh, men of Paisley--good folks of Bolton--what promise for ye is
+    here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,
+    Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,
+    brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches
+    at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in
+    the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that
+    Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord
+    Mayor's table!
+
+[Sidenote: _Fleshpots and Famine_]
+
+When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, _Punch_
+boldly suggested Lazarus:--
+
+    Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit
+    upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall
+    heal the wounds of wretchedness--shall gather bloodless laurels in
+    the hospital and workhouse--his ermine and purple shall make
+    fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey--he shall be a king enthroned
+    and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!
+
+    LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the
+    wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very
+    syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,
+    there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the
+    beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed--tatters are
+    invested with regality--man in his most abject and hopeless
+    condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the
+    earth--royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the
+    embrace of fraternity.
+
+    O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and
+    cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you
+    can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"
+
+In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in _Punch_, in which the cry
+of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from
+"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short
+poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the
+lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:--
+
+    Disease and want are sitting by my hearth--
+      The world hath left me nothing of its good!
+    The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,
+      And yet I am alone and wanting food.
+    The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth
+      Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE
+    Who gave the mighty universe its birth
+      Would never love the wild bird more than me.
+
+_Punch_ had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,
+as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great
+Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who
+offered evil counsel, but the Chartists themselves had a degree of
+intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of
+public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of
+dissentients:--
+
+    There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians--men keenly
+    alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to
+    the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to
+    Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances--that it
+    prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary
+    measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a
+    little it is necessary to ask a great deal?
+
+    We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its
+    army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the
+    Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and
+    spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has
+    been added--and well added--that property has also its duties. To
+    these let us subjoin--property has also its cowardice.
+
+Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural
+labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many
+disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of
+the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence
+of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:--
+
+    I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and
+    keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost
+    destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for
+    a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with
+    the wife hungry--almost crying with hunger--and in rags, _yet the
+    floor was perfectly clean_. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on
+    the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,
+    but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his
+    wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the
+    room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William
+    Benton--"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't
+    know justly--mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;
+    can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is
+    of the Baptist school religion, _whatever that is_. Never heard of
+    Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who
+    Jesus Christ was--he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to
+    school if he could...."
+
+    You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen
+    a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a
+    violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea
+    of a green field was derived from _having been stung by a nettle_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Song of the Shirt_]
+
+The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions
+of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England
+suggested to _Punch_ an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of
+the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,
+etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined
+being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the
+cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and
+_Punch_ was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor
+widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up
+for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a
+week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which
+paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest
+poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of
+Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all
+the other contributions to insignificance:--
+
+THE SONG OF THE SHIRT
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
+      She sang the "Song of the Shirt."
+
+    "Work! work! work!
+      While the cock is crowing aloof!
+    And work--work--work,
+      Till the stars shine through the roof!
+    It's O! to be a slave
+      Along with the barbarous Turk,
+    Where woman has never a soul to save,
+      If this is Christian work!
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      Till the brain begins to swim;
+    Work--work--work
+      Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
+    Seam and gusset and band,
+      Band and gusset and seam,
+    Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
+      And sew them on in a dream!
+
+    "O men, with sisters dear!
+      O men, with mothers and wives!
+    It is not linen you're wearing out,
+      But human creatures' lives!
+    Stitch--stitch--stitch,
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    Sewing at once, with a double thread,
+      A shroud as well as a shirt.
+
+    "But why do I talk of Death,
+      That phantom of grisly bone?
+    I hardly fear his terrible shape,
+      It seems so like my own--
+      It seems so like my own,
+      Because of the fasts I keep;
+    Oh God, that bread should be so dear,
+      And flesh and blood so cheap!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      My labour never flags;
+    And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
+      A crust of bread--and rags.
+    That shatter'd roof--and this naked floor--
+      A table--a broken chair--
+    And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
+    For sometimes falling there!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      From weary chime to chime,
+    Work--work--work--
+      As prisoners work for crime!
+    Band and gusset and seam,
+      Seam and gusset and band,
+    Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,
+      As well as the weary hand.
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      In the dull December light,
+    And work--work--work
+      When the weather is warm and bright;
+    While underneath the eaves
+      The brooding swallows cling
+    As if to show me their sunny backs
+      And twit me with the spring.
+
+    "Oh! but to breathe the breath
+      Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--
+    With the sky above my head,
+      And the grass beneath my feet;
+    For only one short hour
+      To feel as I used to feel,
+    Before I knew the woes of want
+      And the walk that costs a meal!
+
+    "Oh, but for one short hour!
+      A respite however brief;
+    No blessed leisure for love or hope,
+      But only time for grief!
+    A little weeping would ease my heart,
+      But in their briny bed
+    My tears must stop, for every drop
+     Hinders needle and thread!"
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
+      Would that its tone could reach the rich!
+    She sang this "Song of the Shirt."
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir Robert Peel and Hood_]
+
+[Illustration: PIN MONEY]
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLE MONEY]
+
+The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann
+in his _History of "Punch"._ Mark Lemon proved himself a great editor
+by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his
+colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by
+his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the
+poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's
+correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,
+received scant justice from _Punch_. Though the impact of Hood's burning
+verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year
+later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel
+wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him
+a pension. "I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am
+fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the
+disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in
+recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked
+in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his
+personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's
+health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt
+assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel
+sent the £100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with
+all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.
+He could write no more, though he had wished to write one more paper.
+Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were
+seventy-five years ago:--
+
+    Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far
+    asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer
+    by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and
+    place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one
+    side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the
+    last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not
+    a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for
+    the benefit of my beloved country.
+
+Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than
+seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and _Punch_ was
+moved to ask:--
+
+    If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,
+      If monuments adorn his place of sleep
+    Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,
+      And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,
+
+    Did _he_ not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?
+      Was not _his_ voice loud for the worker's right?
+    Was _he_ not potent to arrest the slaughters
+      Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?
+
+Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song
+of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her
+death a year later. A sum of £800, collected by public subscription, was
+all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then
+Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their
+benefit, at a time when, as _Punch_ reminded him, the Duchess of
+Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of £1,000
+a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not
+end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year _Punch_ was
+moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for
+embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning
+the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap Shirt
+Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid
+2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 2½d. apiece, and on these
+earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As
+late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.
+a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage
+gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers
+here were "out of place," _Punch_ retorted with the bitter jibe: "What
+has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"
+
+[Sidenote: _The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea_]
+
+No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant
+feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate
+who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge
+brought against a man earning 7s. a week--the common rate at the time
+for agricultural labourers--stated from the Bench that he knew of good
+hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.
+Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and
+salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of
+Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre
+fare by the use of curry powder,[1] a suggestion that recalls the
+historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on
+hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"
+_Punch_ dealt faithfully with this ducal _gaffe_ under the heading, "A
+Real Blessing to Landlords":--
+
+    The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by
+    the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for
+    bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the
+    empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to
+    relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from
+    living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede
+    potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of
+    gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal
+    to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their
+    rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile
+    labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost
+    entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.
+    Agricultural societies supplied.
+
+    N.B.--A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.
+
+[Footnote 1: For the actual speech of the Duke see the _Examiner_ for
+1845, p. 786.]
+
+In these years the Dukes were constantly in _Mr. Punch's_ pillory; the
+Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in
+connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham
+for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for
+killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for
+prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;
+the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules
+enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into
+sheep-walks, which suggested to _Punch_ that he should be dignified with
+the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that
+agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking
+the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen
+Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and
+censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch
+with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words
+reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845
+_Punch_ made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had
+arrived:--
+
+    _The Times_ says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go
+    and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for
+    governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great
+    thoroughfare of civilisation--he should be quietly and respectfully
+    eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him--in
+    history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Harsh Sentences on Children_]
+
+Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the
+Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the
+treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to _Punch's_
+reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from _The Times_ and many
+provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing
+a leveret; the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a
+faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and
+twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field
+through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol
+for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;
+a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.
+6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,
+had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday--which
+reminds _Punch_ of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in
+Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man
+"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,
+because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the
+case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not
+solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,
+sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing ½lb. of
+butter. Small wonder is it that _Punch_ was a fervent and convinced
+anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble
+itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools
+for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine
+or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went
+to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were
+punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;
+fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by
+a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the
+penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find _Punch_
+tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping
+wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick
+Burner." _Facit indignatio versum_: here is the picture of "The Fine Old
+English Gentleman of the Present Time"--in the middle of the Hungry
+'Forties:--
+
+    I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,
+    Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,
+    But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.
+    Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,
+      Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,
+    And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,
+    He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;
+    For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,
+      Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+Here is the portrait of the pauper:--
+
+    Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,
+      A ragged wretch am I!
+    And how, and when, and where I can,
+      I feed, and lodge, and lie.
+    And I must to the workhouse go,
+      _If_ better may not be;
+    Ay, _if_, indeed! The workhouse! No!
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There shall I get the larger crust,
+      The warmer house-room there;
+    And choose a prison since I must,
+      I'll choose it for its fare.
+    The dog will snatch the biggest bone,
+      So much the wiser he:
+    Call me a dog--the name I'll own--
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in
+Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well
+justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the
+Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,
+and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were
+returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the
+humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich
+workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved _Punch_ to
+indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough
+to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the
+management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates were fed
+at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were
+not allowed to see the pantomime _Jack and the Beanstalk_. Owing to the
+intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were
+actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a
+Bath-brick" _Punch_ dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best
+style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of
+the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the
+workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the
+ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":--
+
+    A fig for honest occupation,
+      Beggary's an easier trade;
+    Industry is mere starvation,
+      Mendicancy's better paid.
+
+[Sidenote: _Bigamy or Divorce?_]
+
+In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws _Punch_ never
+ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better
+remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice
+Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, _Punch_ hardly rendered
+justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:--
+
+WAGGERY OF THE BENCH
+
+    One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a
+    bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one
+    of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for
+    such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice
+    Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his
+    pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a
+    gravity of face worthy of the original _Billy Lackaday_, "that the
+    law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was _equally
+    open for him_, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way
+    that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if
+    Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have
+    both the same papillary organs--a dignifying truth for the outcast
+    wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his
+    pleasantry:
+
+    "He (Rollins) _should have brought an action_ against the man who
+    was living in the way stated with his wife, and _he should have
+    obtained damages_, and then _should have gone to the Ecclesiastical
+    Court_ and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to
+    have been done already, _and then he should have gone to the House
+    of Lords_, and, proving all his case and the preliminary
+    proceedings, _have obtained a full and complete divorce_; after
+    which he might, if he liked it, have married again."
+
+There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,
+earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the
+pauper from court to court--tarry with him awhile in the House of
+Lords--and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a
+sustained spirit of drollery, observes:
+
+    "The prisoner _might perhaps object to this_, that he had not the
+    money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about £500 or
+    £600--_perhaps he had not so many pence_--but this did not exempt
+    him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he
+    had been convicted."
+
+Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for
+marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about £500 or
+£600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.
+In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.
+Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom
+God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these
+words, "_Unless paid about £500 or £600 to separate them_."
+
+_Punch_, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to
+resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by
+those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted
+to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.
+But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that _Punch_
+recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a
+sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."
+
+Against the Game Laws and their administration _Punch_ waged a
+continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by
+game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the
+expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and
+amongst his idols were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold
+peasantry" as their constant victims.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Labourer_]
+
+The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet
+in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly
+handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps
+the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to
+be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer
+of 1848:--
+
+    He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from
+    twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he
+    calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has
+    only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church
+    regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits
+    outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,
+    or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer
+    and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas
+    or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,
+    by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work
+    by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him
+    discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He
+    believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest
+    Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them
+    the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad
+    seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn
+    Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for
+    rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his
+    cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by
+    some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows
+    absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not
+    trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his
+    landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"
+    wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any
+    farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial
+    Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy
+    tenants, shouts, sings, dances--any mockery or absurdity, to please
+    his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his
+    greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.
+    His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his
+    wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual
+    Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his
+    master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles
+    on, existing rather than living, infinitely worse fed than the
+    beasts he gets up for the exhibitions--much less cared about than
+    the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,
+    autumn and winter, his wages never higher--frequently less--and
+    perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all
+    that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of
+    six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on
+    his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up
+    ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is
+    the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he
+    is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin
+    for himself to be buried in!
+
+This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are
+heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be
+found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in
+1843, quoted by _Punch_ on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire
+village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with
+political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the
+exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and
+industrious poor, _Punch_ was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this
+parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented
+a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned
+for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of
+£1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the
+shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show
+where the prize pig is awarded £3 3s. and the prize peasant £2 2s. When
+baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn
+with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with
+the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve
+his condition." _Punch's_ democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies
+Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young
+England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that
+Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the
+fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell
+an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the _Daily
+Telegraph_ called _Punch_ in later years), when in "England's Trust and
+other Poems" was penned the memorable _cri de coeur_:--
+
+    Though I could bear to view our crowded towns
+    Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;
+    Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
+    But leave us still our old nobility.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Shaftesbury_]
+
+But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof
+one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts
+which _Punch_ unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to
+the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the
+industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some
+of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,
+afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if
+there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had
+opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic
+Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that
+the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an
+aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced
+Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by _Punch_. Yet as
+early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the
+passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the
+hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.
+In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,
+shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a
+Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this
+humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to
+regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group
+supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to
+concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and
+most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of
+the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most
+of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18
+years of age, and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a
+day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and
+children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation
+placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its
+provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a
+10½ hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But
+Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this
+compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as
+a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of
+Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The
+Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects
+of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's
+speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of _Sybil_"--his
+finest and best constructed novel. _Sybil_ was published in 1845, and
+though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the
+aims of _Punch_, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a
+Jew. Now _Punch_ consistently supported the removal of Jewish
+disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall
+philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for
+neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,
+Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert
+the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own
+poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity
+make converts of the Hebrews." But _Punch_ was no lover of Jews, and
+least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great
+Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the
+main, however, _Punch_ regarded him at this stage of his career as a
+brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an
+untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet
+_Sybil_ in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social
+and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed
+largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was
+never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue
+between Egremont and the stranger. The stranger, after observing that
+while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
+modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in
+its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Two Nations_]
+
+    "Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our
+    Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which
+    nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The
+    stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.
+    "Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two
+    nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who
+    are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if
+    they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
+    planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a
+    different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not
+    governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont
+    hesitatingly,--"THE RICH AND THE POOR."
+
+Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of
+burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in _Sybil_, though one must not
+forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it
+bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and
+industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the
+evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly
+painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in _Sybil_. The details
+are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.
+R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green
+and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of
+artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a
+systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his
+campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but
+here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it
+that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all
+on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the
+humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference
+by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the
+existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving
+hand-loom weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de
+Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in
+smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a
+real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's
+phrase. But for reasons already given _Punch_ was not prepared to accept
+Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and
+ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to _Punch's_
+eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to _Punch_ it must be
+admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal
+of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and
+damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the
+"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the
+distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his
+view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the
+leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their
+responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and
+privileges. _Punch_ was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law
+Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of
+Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to
+hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; _Punch_
+refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group
+were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were
+not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than
+specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate
+action did not appeal to _Punch_. Though often a petulant and intolerant
+critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,
+legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the
+decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be
+demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there _are_ sermons in stones, and if
+Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and
+wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more
+suggestive text than is written--written in tears--on every stone of the
+Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the
+poor he was an impassioned advocate from the very first. When a police
+magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate
+to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,
+magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later _Punch_
+vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a
+"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and
+welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder
+at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of
+twelve to prison for stealing £4 12s. from his master "because if he
+went to prison he might become an expert thief."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Plot Against Prisons_]
+
+In the year 1853 _Punch_ discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot
+against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him
+to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy
+organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and
+initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:--
+
+    The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an
+    establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,
+    and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,
+    who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a
+    place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and
+    seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this
+    end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,
+    by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular
+    branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,
+    their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says
+    in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:
+
+    "I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I
+    used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,
+    their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves
+    generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in
+    harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed
+    them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society
+    together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that
+    my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great
+    effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them
+    clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I
+    possibly could."
+
+    The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also
+    succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to
+    establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will
+    most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent
+    edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such
+    vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,
+    Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which
+    will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which
+    all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of
+    his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by
+    substituting prevention for cure--superseding prison discipline by
+    reformation.
+
+[Sidenote: _High Life Below Stairs_]
+
+[Illustration: SERVANTGALISM
+
+COOK: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked
+at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"]
+
+[Illustration: COACHMAN: "Why--what's the matter, John Thomas?"
+
+FOOTMAN: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice
+because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat
+down in a week!"]
+
+The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending
+theme in the pages of _Punch_. His attitude was governed by the broad
+principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who
+offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.
+But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the
+flunkey, holding that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its
+prevalence amongst highly paid servants. _Punch_ was the champion of the
+"slavey"--immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"--even of the
+much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and
+powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of
+the old régime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and
+furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when
+advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages £3 a year," appeared in a
+fashionable paper and earned _Punch's_ satire. Contrariwise, he never
+spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the
+housemaid." In this spirit _Punch_ makes game of a school for servants
+at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant
+girls and nurses were neglectful of their duties and their infant
+charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and
+disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in
+_Punch's_ quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns
+of _The Times_ the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with
+broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the
+North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type
+insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable
+neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting
+from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of
+_Punch_, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his
+collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These
+gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected
+to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be
+seen nor heard," as _Punch_ put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not
+allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was
+made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real
+aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a
+mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the
+real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which _Punch_
+impersonated in "Jenkins" of the _Morning Post_ (or _Morning Plush_, as
+he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to
+ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may
+suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera
+which appeared in the _Morning Post_:
+
+    It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor
+    should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of
+    titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the
+    State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those
+    luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the
+    industrious.
+
+And again--the italics and capitals are _Punch's_:--
+
+    Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites
+    of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has
+    become a ruling passion--it is the quintessence of all civilized
+    pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their
+    standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the
+    most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society
+    assemble.
+
+    These _ornaments of society_ are in general absent at the too early
+    opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed
+    the house previous to the overture, most of those who _constitute
+    society_ in England--those whom we _respect, esteem or
+    love_--rapidly filled the house.
+
+    Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if _those
+    objectionable spectators were there_--those gentlemen of ambiguous
+    gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, _tailors_ and
+    _shoemakers_, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of
+    knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot--_they and
+    their frowsy dames_ were so nailed _to their benches as not to
+    offend the eye_.
+
+These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the
+divinity of kings and coronets, prompted _Punch_ to adorn "Jenkins" with
+the _alias_ of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but _Punch_ might
+have retorted _tâchez de ne pas le mériter_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Underpaid Governess_]
+
+From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too
+easy. _Punch's_ study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave
+market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write
+the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still
+open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement
+in _The Times_, in which "S. S." offered a salary of £2 a month to "a
+morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young
+female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with
+French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"
+_Punch_ observes:--
+
+    How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of
+    offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,
+    "It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the
+    saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen
+    indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,
+    and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to
+    other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such
+    offers as those of S.S.?
+
+[Illustration: Thomas gives warning because his master has given up
+reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a
+governess."]
+
+The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those
+offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was
+expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not
+at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an
+excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the
+problem of these "Sisters of Misery," _Punch_ waxes ironical on the
+results of their improvidence:--
+
+    If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty
+    pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep
+    company with the children, the governess has not saved a
+    sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know
+    that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And
+    yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such
+    indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature
+    who, as I have heard, in her prime--that is, for the ten
+    years--lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.
+    Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank
+    lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely
+    taught French, Italian, and the harp to the daughters of small
+    tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got
+    too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though
+    sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of
+    the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she
+    continues to eke out a miserable existence--a sad example, if they
+    would only be warned, to improvident governesses.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Real Dotheboys Hall_]
+
+_Punch's_ attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
+advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
+of them extracted from _The Times_ appears in the issue of August 14,
+1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
+governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
+houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
+Already, some three weeks earlier, _Punch_ had quoted from _The Times_
+the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
+Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
+instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
+and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
+"Dotheboys Hall" in real life _Punch_ observes that while such a price
+for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
+of miracles has passed, and especially--after the publication of
+_Nicholas Nickleby_--of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
+a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
+least forty years after _Punch's_ protest, as the present writer can
+testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
+"Penny Post Medal" _Punch_ endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
+Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
+treatment:--
+
+    Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
+    _Punch_, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
+    missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
+    Postman is the soldier of peace--the humanizing, benevolent
+    distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
+    associations. He is the philanthropic go-between--the cheap and
+    constant communicant betwixt man and man.
+
+[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ST.
+MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rowland Hill's Reward_]
+
+    In the Penny Post Medal _Punch_ has endeavoured to show the triumph
+    of Rowland Hill--no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great--carried
+    in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
+    If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
+    shouts--he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
+    for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
+    knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.
+
+    Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
+    ingratitude of man--old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
+    Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
+    services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
+    or as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
+    with--the sack.
+
+    After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
+    Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
+    owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!
+
+[Illustration: BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK]
+
+But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long
+and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it
+is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or
+thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For
+this his salary is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post
+Office robberies were frequent, _Punch_, without excusing theft,
+regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.
+Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in
+1848 we have _Punch's_ assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of
+all Government employees.
+
+The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for
+reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in _Punch_ from
+his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy
+with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4
+instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop
+assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'
+establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy
+took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at
+Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite
+spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an
+association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight
+a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,
+provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund
+to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been
+realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like
+counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But
+_Punch's_ irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and
+Business _versus_ Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"
+not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature
+has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. _Punch_ was
+moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared
+to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly
+advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who
+kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other
+hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at
+eight--for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.
+But _Punch_ was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a
+revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch
+an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _Syndicalism in the 'Forties_]
+
+    Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any
+    reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,
+    according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'
+    Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the
+    public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a
+    model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own
+    masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize
+    "every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and
+    reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that
+    the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If
+    a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and
+    happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but
+    it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.
+
+Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"
+_Punch_, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free
+and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in
+putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers
+formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.
+
+[Illustration: A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the
+Exhibition of Industry.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO
+BE IMPROVED IN 1851)]
+
+In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only
+holiday of the working classes. _Punch's_ views on their recreations,
+therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,
+Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the
+outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for
+keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other
+restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and
+recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have
+seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or
+children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of
+museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,
+in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments
+on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National
+Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are
+left for the people--the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."
+_Punch_ vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working
+men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the
+Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a
+"Fellow's order," _plus_ a shilling. But of all the movements which
+inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects
+than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the
+name of the "Crystal Palace." _Punch_ had some misgivings as to the
+encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly
+espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held
+possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was
+alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall
+was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,
+but, largely owing to _Punch's_ intervention, was assisted to emigrate
+to Australia. And _Punch_ was indignant at the suggested exclusion of
+the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the
+Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening
+of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of
+criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes
+justified, but often malicious, which _Punch_ had conducted against
+the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the
+_amende_ handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great
+Exhibition":--
+
+    At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,
+    announce the arrival of the Queen--and the Prince, who, by the idea
+    of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,
+    rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a
+    position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the
+    insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,
+    and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness
+    of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it
+    recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident
+    of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by
+    the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower
+    range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for
+    foreigners--and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot
+    stir abroad without an armed escort--to see how securely and
+    confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in
+    the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost
+    everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no
+    class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a
+    qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a
+    splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect
+    security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional
+    monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the
+    world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,
+    executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's
+    throats in the name of liberty.
+
+    The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the
+    unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,
+    the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord
+    Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,
+    but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the
+    progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant
+    when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a
+    wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to
+    perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward
+    evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can
+    redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the
+    mountebank.
+
+_Punch_ could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but
+he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and
+especially for their practice of visiting the Exhibition on the
+"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:--
+
+    Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,
+      And with it blends a sunshine brighter still--
+    The loyal love of a great people, knowing
+    That building up is better than o'erthrowing;
+      That freedom lies in taming of self-will.
+
+_Punch's_ loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget
+the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given
+to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,
+_Punch_ agreed with the _Examiner_ that a knighthood was not a
+sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be
+given a share of the profits. But _Punch_ was from the first concerned
+with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming
+it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to
+become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying
+"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare
+flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, _Punch_ voted the suggestion
+of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,
+on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in
+anything he undertook." Nay, _Punch_ went so far as to depict, in a
+cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The
+scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 _Punch_ was indignant at the
+imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs
+and snobs" who despised the masses:--
+
+THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE
+
+    The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:
+    The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;
+    Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,
+    They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.
+
+    They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,
+    A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;
+    The slams is the place faw a popula show;
+    Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.
+
+    It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue
+    So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,
+    As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,
+    Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.
+
+The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with
+the desire to keep up the Palace; _Punch_ threw all his weight on the
+side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in
+June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a
+great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in
+August, and furnished _Punch_ with an opportunity for answering the
+reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":--
+
+    The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on
+    Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the
+    greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who
+    had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts
+    and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their
+    blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not
+    more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and
+    promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new
+    principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships
+    to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but
+    too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state
+    to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,
+    gave the cause their best wishes--and these were deposited with the
+    coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new
+    building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation
+    before!
+
+    If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its
+    christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace
+    ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have
+    built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they
+    built one for themselves.
+
+    And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if
+    Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so
+    few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at
+    present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new
+    playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in
+    the world.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sabbatarian Solicitude_]
+
+    _Punch's_ generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled
+    with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous for the
+    souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the
+    Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and
+    the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in
+    order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting
+    measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being
+    opened to the public on Sundays." _Punch_ is bitterly sarcastic
+    against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and
+    prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,
+    snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not
+    only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but
+    also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel
+    flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior
+    classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown
+    otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment--in
+    great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small
+    consideration for their perishable lungs.
+
+But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The _Morning
+Herald_ scented revolution in the proposal, and _Punch_ was moved to
+address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:--
+
+    A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed
+    treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be
+    droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.
+    Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.
+
+    Do you ever see the _Morning Herald_? We thought so. Somehow, you
+    look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A
+    leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous
+    projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read
+    you--when we can get a good mouthful of breath--a few of the lines:
+    the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays
+    after one o'clock. In that fact the _Herald_ sees revolution,
+    anarchy, and perhaps--a future republic with John Cromwell Bright
+    in Buckingham Palace! Listen:
+
+    "'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's
+    command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is
+    the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to
+    say, of Berlin also. And, as _one natural result_, a single month,
+    in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of
+    Berlin _fugitives before their rebellious subjects_. The people of
+    England remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal
+    to their Queen, _because_ they feared their God!"
+
+    You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace
+    existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone
+    to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to
+    reign _because_ there has been no People's Palace!
+
+    We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.
+
+    "The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the
+    Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will
+    be said, and _then_ they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk
+    in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can _that_ do? Just all the
+    harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most
+    persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin
+    myriads!"
+
+_Punch_, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of
+Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting
+provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday
+School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him
+printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the
+Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning
+service.
+
+_Punch's_ views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that
+in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin
+Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of
+Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of
+Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.
+Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of
+his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be
+found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those
+ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the
+new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful
+refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable
+hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals
+against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if
+gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with
+affluence, and, therefore, belonging to the better classes, continue to
+legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the
+rest of the worse--that is the worse off."
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch at the Palace_]
+
+Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,
+June 10, 1854. _Punch_ describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few
+days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the
+Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the
+opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph
+Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the
+inaugural ceremony:--
+
+    He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and
+    conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should
+    leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the
+    day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly
+    undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the
+    Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the
+    Palace on Sundays.
+
+Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his
+optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it
+characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal
+Palace, which appeared in the pages of _Punch_ in the following months.
+But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the
+chairman, a very good summary of his own views:--
+
+    On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the
+    crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves--all mutually
+    sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the
+    decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace--than
+    that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in
+    the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.
+
+The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled _Punch's_
+sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and
+school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational
+institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than
+those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported
+by the patronage of the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on
+the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered
+seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's
+Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember
+visits in his school days in the early 'seventies--recurrent Handel
+festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her
+golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the
+rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above
+all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some
+forty years--such a one, and there must be many like him, will always
+look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in
+reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August
+Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize
+_Punch's_ ideal.
+
+
+
+
+CHARTISM
+
+
+[Sidenote: _The Fight for Cheap Bread_]
+
+[Illustration: NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?
+
+JOHN: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her
+creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be
+properly attended to."]
+
+We have seen that _Punch_ did not belittle the Chartist movement, but
+admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it
+sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see
+_Sybil_), but _Punch_ ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch
+alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who
+denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers
+and superiors.
+
+_Punch_, too, did a good deal in this line. But
+while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he
+distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely
+justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the
+advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very
+beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the
+leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,
+or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the
+People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded--No Property
+Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members--and we have come
+very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal
+Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains
+unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in
+1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged
+from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in
+his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,
+and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the
+years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the
+rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,
+with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to
+control. Feargus O'Connor was one of the exceptions, but his success in
+inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and
+the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many
+of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew
+from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote
+all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily
+lived long enough to see it abolished. _Punch_, who had pronounced its
+dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged
+34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn
+Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry
+to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer
+of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait
+awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";
+and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge
+any virtue in it. When _Punch_ was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of
+the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: _he_ at least
+had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must
+have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman
+"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience
+in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in
+1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:--
+
+    The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to
+    themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man
+    whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,
+    Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
+    though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only
+    worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with
+    hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject--as the blacksmith
+    strikes from the red iron--sparkles[2] of burning light; and where
+    they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the
+    intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made
+    resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man
+    had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple
+    and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the
+    mean.
+
+    The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest
+    utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate
+    suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning
+    to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine
+    mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.
+
+    Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by
+    the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott
+    was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek
+    to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of
+    modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.
+
+[Footnote 2: Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until
+they have become _cold_--short, and are apt to snap and fly off in
+sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).]
+
+Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,
+and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which
+antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at
+every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching
+steadily to disintegration. _Punch's_ distrust of the professional
+agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of
+1848:--
+
+THE MODEL AGITATOR
+
+[Sidenote: _The Professional Agitator_]
+
+    The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for
+    them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,
+    feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,
+    for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered
+    in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not
+    pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a
+    mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,
+    and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is
+    suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for
+    the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a
+    testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the
+    Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as
+    a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,
+    and sends agents--patriotic bagmen--round the country to sell his
+    praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for
+    everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is
+    publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the
+    hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance
+    is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the
+    Agitator leading off and shouting the loudest. The grievance is
+    run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there
+    is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,
+    and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last
+    person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves
+    for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is
+    incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no
+    explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a
+    chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and
+    yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to
+    burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on
+    the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.
+
+    A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain
+    [the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly
+    unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a
+    prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out
+    to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets
+    quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.
+    He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment
+    he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.
+
+    The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he
+    bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich
+    legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must
+    buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the
+    dearest."
+
+[Illustration: PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL]
+
+The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer[3] puts it, "was
+the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of
+Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the
+revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The _annus mirabilis_
+which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of
+Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus
+O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,
+largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as
+Commander-in-Chief--the swearing in of 170,000 special constables
+(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as
+far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that
+_Punch_ was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"
+position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,
+1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most
+Excellent Majesty":--
+
+MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY--
+
+    WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free
+    from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,
+    foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and
+    blunderbuss--
+
+    _Punch_ humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of
+    political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give
+    orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better
+    instructed for the future--and thereupon pardon and set free
+    William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such
+    offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty
+    of the English people.
+
+    And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray--
+
+  PUNCH.
+
+[Footnote 3: C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 166.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIAL'S WIFE: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!
+Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot
+brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for
+anything."]
+
+[Sidenote: "_Little Cuffey_"]
+
+Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,
+and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom _Punch_ always had a
+soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had
+been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the
+declaration of peace after the Crimean War, _Punch_ expressed his
+satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal
+frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater
+importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of
+June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of
+_Punch's_ political and social creed in a time of transition. The
+occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to
+entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may
+be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the
+Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take part in further
+measures of electoral reform. _Punch_ held that the collapse of the
+physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence
+in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further
+efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:--
+
+THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
+
+    My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;
+    I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;
+    Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,
+    Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.
+
+    At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,
+    But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?
+    I _am_ all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;
+    All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.
+
+    I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,
+    Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.
+    'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot--
+    Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.
+
+    I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,
+    The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;
+    Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;
+    That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.
+
+    "Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,
+    Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:
+    Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;
+    Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!
+
+    But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,
+    As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,
+    A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,
+    And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.
+
+    Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague
+      and sin;
+    Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;
+    Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;
+    The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.
+
+    Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,
+    That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,
+    Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,
+    And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.
+
+    Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,
+    The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;
+    Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,
+    That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.
+
+    Nations or men, we may not rest--look round on Europe's thrones
+    Shattered or shaken--hearken to her convulsive groans--
+    Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,
+    Think 'tis _the Tenth_ of April you invoke, and not _the First_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reform or Revolution?_]
+
+This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political
+philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and
+nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,
+and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South
+Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present
+generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment
+against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the
+proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in
+_Genesis_ (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that
+her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there
+were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and _Punch_ declared that
+Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their
+passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At
+all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three
+miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or
+three times."
+
+Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including _Punch_, as a
+remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here
+and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos
+Bound?" _Punch_ gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in
+mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers
+to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little time later the
+Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical
+philanthropists, furnished _Punch_ with a text for his oft-repeated
+sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the
+departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station
+for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,
+their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of
+self-reproach:--
+
+    What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to
+    make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the
+    _Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, and reports upon the state of our
+    poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all
+    kinds--and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,
+    so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that
+    readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and
+    that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed
+    anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and
+    terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a
+    door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for
+    ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they
+    not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have
+    our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity
+    very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such
+    wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no
+    idea. No. How should you? You and I--we are of the upper classes;
+    we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a
+    word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend
+    to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance--mind, of
+    course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they
+    dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them
+    counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know
+    nothing--how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and
+    die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet
+    like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful _Song of the Shirt_; some
+    prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted
+    energetic man like the writer of the _Chronicle_ travels into the
+    poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror
+    and wonder.
+
+    Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then
+    eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few
+    more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in
+    their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed--for those who (with
+    the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country
+    and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for
+    those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in
+    their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,
+    and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new
+    country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good
+    mercy speed them.
+
+Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end
+the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far
+more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of
+Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision
+from _Punch_, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he
+was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any
+recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous
+report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the
+doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were
+repugnant to _Punch_. There is really not much to choose between his
+criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or
+"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of
+harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the
+Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was
+followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis
+of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was
+not the sole cause of this improvement.[4] The demand for labour in the
+rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was
+an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries
+equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense
+the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London
+owing to extortionate tolls caused _Punch_ to denounce him as "Cruel
+King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.
+
+[Footnote 4: See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 204.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Beginning of Better Times_]
+
+The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought
+with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The
+year 1853 was so notable for strikes that _Punch_, who had already
+applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to
+poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:--
+
+    Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid
+    intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania--a very
+    dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not
+    attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking
+    mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now
+    it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and
+    thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become
+    machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all
+    striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking
+    become what might be called the order, but that it will be the
+    disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except
+    the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking
+    though, we had better take care that we are not floored.
+
+As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, _Punch's_ view is
+summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's
+wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"
+
+
+
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+
+In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and
+invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching
+influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The
+views on the new order expressed in _Punch_ reflect, with certain
+variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the
+spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or
+accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as
+a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions
+he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in
+January, 1842, _à propos_ of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that
+increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:--
+
+    Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of
+    terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.
+    But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and
+    philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the
+    morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied--as it will be--a
+    thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made
+    idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively
+    speaking, there shall be _no_ labour for man? Will the multitude
+    lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not--we are sure not. Then
+    will rise--and already we hear the murmur--a cry, a shout for an
+    adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike
+    upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.
+
+    We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man
+    were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the
+    possession of some thousand individuals--what would be the cry of
+    the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?
+
+    The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry
+    statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend
+    to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.
+
+[Illustration: Proposed lines....
+
+RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Impudence of Steam_]
+
+On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last
+sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day
+of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and
+foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put
+into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated
+good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality
+and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part _Punch_ is
+concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of
+locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway
+directors were to him anathema. In his first volume _Punch_ sturdily
+declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would
+be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons
+perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting
+on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The
+"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet
+of which is still often quoted:--
+
+    "Ease her, stop her!"
+    "Any gentleman for Joppa?"
+    "'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."
+    "Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"
+    "Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"
+    "Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"
+    "Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"
+    "Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"
+    "Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"
+    "What gent or lady's for the Nile,"
+    "Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"
+    "Now, where's that party for Engedi?"
+
+    Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,
+      Had ye e'er the least idea,
+    Even in your wildest flights,
+      Of a steam trip to Judea?
+    What next marvel Time will show
+      It is difficult to say,
+    "'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,
+      "Only sixpence all the way."
+    Cabs in Solyma may fly;
+      'Tis a not unlikely tale:
+    And from Dan the tourist hie
+      Unto Beersheba by "rail."
+
+But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far
+more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was
+endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with
+overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.
+Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither
+punctuality nor civility was to be expected.
+
+In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute--a "universal epidemic." George
+Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and _Punch_
+expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation
+which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.
+Burlesques of various railway projects--centrifugal and
+atmospheric--abound. _Punch_ ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle
+of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."
+The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves
+him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway
+Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the
+Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering
+witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the
+infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The
+Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and _Punch_ asserts that the
+largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the
+casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of
+railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is
+submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.
+The protests of fox-hunters, noted by _Punch_, recall the verses of the
+Cheshire poet:--
+
+    Let the steam pot
+    Hiss till it's hot,
+    But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.
+
+[Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845]
+
+The mania was not confined to men: _Punch_ satirizes the ladies who were
+"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a
+Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all
+these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel
+Court," a parody which begins:--
+
+    All the world are stags!
+    Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers--
+
+and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:--
+
+    Last scene of all,
+    That ends this sad but common history,
+    Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:
+    Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.
+
+Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with
+King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace
+at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull--on whom "the sweet
+simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall--with humbugging
+promoters is hit off in the stanza:--
+
+    Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,
+    I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;
+    And don't get enough by my paltry rents"--
+    So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."
+
+[Illustration: KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rules for Railways_]
+
+In his anti-Puseyite zeal _Punch_ mendaciously declares that a railway
+from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In
+fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley
+Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the
+Board of Trade, when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,
+is described in humorous detail in a _Punch_ ballad. Padded suits are
+suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the
+best summary--with all its exaggerations--of the discomforts of railway
+travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and
+Regulations for Railways":--
+
+    The French Government has published a royal _ordonnance_, fixing
+    the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway
+    companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things
+    should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations
+    for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he
+    likes.
+
+    Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to
+    carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the
+    train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark
+    quite long enough.
+
+    No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be
+    ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
+
+    Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,
+    as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not
+    mix sociably together.
+
+    No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.
+
+    No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be
+    divided oftener than once a month.
+
+    No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.
+
+    No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of
+    water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming
+    belts should always be kept in open carriages.
+
+    The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.
+
+    Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.
+
+    Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or
+    refreshment.[5]
+
+    One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be
+    allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or
+    third class--whichever of the two he prefers.
+
+    Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in
+    attendance at every station.
+
+    There must be some communication between every carriage and the
+    stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a
+    portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some
+    means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or
+    falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken
+    loose.
+
+There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are
+noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,
+but in the same year to _Punch_ belongs the credit of suggesting
+refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground
+railways.
+
+[Footnote 5: _Punch_ was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for
+scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.]
+
+[Illustration: A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS]
+
+The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as
+a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on
+the L. & N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the
+temper of the speculating public had changed, and _Punch_ is a faithful
+index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the
+over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New
+World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The
+papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The
+Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in
+_Punch_ as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at
+Madame Tussaud's. For a while _Punch_ was inclined to extend to him a
+certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he
+draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's
+high priest by his greedy and discontented worshippers. But the mood of
+compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of
+Cowper's poem, _The Loss of the Royal George_:--
+
+    Toll for a knave!
+      A knave whose day is o'er!
+    All sunk--with those who gave
+      Their cash, till they'd no more!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The _Royal George_ is gone,
+      His iron rule is o'er--
+    And he and his directors
+      Shall break the lines no more!
+
+[Sidenote: _King Hudson's Downfall_]
+
+In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"
+on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the
+Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of
+the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of
+_voyages de luxe_.
+
+But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,
+danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are
+rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 _Punch_ ironically
+comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in
+railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,
+only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests
+from correspondents of _The Times_ with the remark:--
+
+    Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the
+    staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and
+    directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and
+    brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and
+    morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with
+    passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive
+    expostulation.
+
+[Illustration: RAILWAY UNDERTAKING
+
+TOUTER: "Going by this train, Sir?"
+
+PASSENGER: "'M? Eh? Yes."
+
+TOUTER: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."]
+
+The directors of the L. & N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking
+their engine drivers, _à propos_ of a well-authenticated case of a man
+who had been on duty for thirty hours without relief or opportunity to
+rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the
+employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done
+for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and
+_Punch_ accordingly suggests that the directors should provide
+themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.
+Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under
+review, and in 1856 _Punch_ is still of opinion that we might take a
+leaf out of the book of the Russians, who carry surgeons on their
+trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal
+equipment of expresses.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Bradshaw: A Mystery"_]
+
+A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing _Bradshaw_
+with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's _Railway Time
+Tables_ were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from
+December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that _Punch_ began to
+realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and
+utilized them in a little play called _Bradshaw: A Mystery_, describing
+the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.
+Love may laugh at locksmiths, but _Bradshaw_ is another matter. Here is
+the happy ending of this romantic libel:--
+
+      _Leonora._ Oh, don't talk of _Bradshaw_!
+    _Bradshaw_ has nearly maddened me.
+    _Orlando_. And me.
+    He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;
+    Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;
+    Of junctions where no union is effected;
+    Of coaches meeting trains that never come;
+    Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;
+    Of trains that start after they have arrived;
+    Of trains arriving long before they leave.
+    He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;
+    Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote
+    From those we seek to reach! By _Bradshaw's_ aid
+    You've tried to get to London--I attempted
+    To get to Liverpool--and here we are,
+    At Chester--'Tis a junction--I'm content
+    Our union--at this junction--to cement.
+    And let us hope, nor you nor I again
+    May be attacked with _Bradshaw_ on the brain.
+      _Leonora._ I'm happy now! My husband!
+      _Orlando._ Ah, my bride!
+    Henceforth take me--not _Bradshaw_--for your guide.
+                    _The curtain falls._
+
+"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of _Bradshaw_ as
+analysed in _Punch's_ "Comic Guide" some years later.
+
+From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. _Punch_ notes the
+adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western
+Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to
+fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to
+Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years
+afterwards, when _Punch_ hailed the completion of the scheme as a new
+link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a
+sonnet.
+
+Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been
+foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated
+responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England _Punch_ rudely
+described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless
+diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the
+embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the
+central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service
+on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake
+shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,
+_Punch_ notes that a writer in the _Limerick Chronicle_ attributed it to
+the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an
+illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;
+and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the
+transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,
+but _Punch's_ compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the
+following lines:--
+
+AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE
+
+    It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,
+    About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,
+    On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;
+    Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,
+    For then t'other side would have nothing to do.
+
+_Punch's_ interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,
+though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing. Designs
+of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too
+bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.
+
+[Illustration: AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aviation Forecasts_]
+
+In 1845 there was actually a periodical called _The Balloon_, though
+_Punch_ is jocular at the expense of its very limited _clientèle_.
+Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise
+attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents
+between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to
+Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. _Punch_, to his credit,
+inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic
+acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less
+fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a
+"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years
+later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:--
+
+    Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to
+    have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful
+    and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means
+    of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,
+    nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a
+    suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of
+    Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is
+    correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran
+    Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.
+
+    One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his
+    balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,
+    who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an
+    argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut
+    proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and
+    take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing
+    shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.
+    The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself
+    the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the
+    medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the
+    enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of
+    course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all
+    directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus
+    the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut
+    also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by
+    taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible
+    to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's
+    invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,
+    "went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."
+
+    "And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your
+    missiles?"
+
+    "Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or
+    an electric communication, or by _another contrivance_ which you
+    must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it _a
+    secret_."
+
+    This "_secret_" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all
+    events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to
+    call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up
+    the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air
+    the basis of military operations.
+
+Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a
+certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both
+"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by
+his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions--the
+long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon--to the committee
+appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of
+£200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,
+of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines
+of modern warfare. _Punch_ at first lent Warner a certain measure of
+support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy
+and intractable.
+
+[Illustration: EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD
+WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE]
+
+[Illustration: Ye Wild Goose Chase after Ye Golden Calfe.
+
+THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849]
+
+The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble
+minds--the desire to "get rich quick"--and cupidity, balked of its
+expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its
+longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there
+is hardly a number of _Punch_ in this year which does not refer to the
+stampede from Europe to the diggings--"the wild-goose chase after the
+golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than
+one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the
+cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not
+likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with _Punch_ as the
+apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and
+Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.
+
+In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state
+of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the
+goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration
+from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the _auri sacra
+fames_ does not escape _Punch's_ notice, though no mention is made of
+the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was
+Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the
+evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we
+find frequent references to the growth of gambling. In 1852 _Punch's_
+pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting
+mania--to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in
+the Crimean War, and _Punch_ is eloquent in his denunciation of the
+contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the
+aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of
+discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and
+enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of
+bank smashes and absconding directors--those of the Royal British Bank
+coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out
+by _Punch_ as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the
+burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The
+brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in
+1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,
+who was the original of Mr. Merdle in _Little Dorrit_, and was described
+in _The Times_ after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped
+punishment by suicide.
+
+[Sidenote: _Novelties and Anticipations_]
+
+As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations
+mentioned in the pages of _Punch_, we are tempted to exclaim, in the
+hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A
+"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.
+"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor
+Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be
+regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index
+cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,
+but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. _Punch's_ account of
+"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece
+of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily
+hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being
+rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the
+perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to
+us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of
+anæsthetics is lightly passed over in _Punch's_ earlier references to
+this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to
+politicians or its use by hen-pecked husbands. Here only ether is
+mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months
+later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and
+phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.
+Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish _Punch_ with food for mirth in
+1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to
+take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more
+justifiable than that shown by _Punch_ towards ironclads in 1850. In
+1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," _i.e._ hypnotism;
+shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,[6] invented by Palmer, an
+American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853
+suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken
+out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves
+for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession
+in 1853 and 1854. _Punch's_ ironical suggestions in the latter year for
+the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of
+Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one
+generation becomes the fact of its successor.
+
+The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their
+colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the
+scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put
+forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by
+kneading and pressing, vide _Punch_, 1856, but he, however, was not
+solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous
+"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret
+Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it
+"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the
+inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty
+and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the
+score of its inhumanity, though _Punch_ welcomed the plan, without
+knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away
+scruples and use _anything_ against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever
+may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a
+nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of
+applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,
+notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for
+"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in
+1855 (see the _Panmure Papers_) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men
+of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,
+the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want
+it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,
+as _Punch_ notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for
+once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.
+
+[Footnote 6: Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument
+maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the
+Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).]
+
+[Sidenote: _Telegram or Telegrapheme?_]
+
+In general, _Punch_, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the
+contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed
+in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced
+academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as
+a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the
+popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of
+enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions--while reserving to himself
+the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the
+pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one
+with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but
+he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in
+high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already
+won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere
+halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound
+doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years
+ago:--
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?
+    Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,
+      But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!
+    Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,
+      Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,
+    Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy
+      Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Persons not uneducated--very highly dressed--
+    Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,
+      To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.
+    Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,
+      Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,
+    Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions
+      Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,
+    You naturally stare, seeing that so many are
+      Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.
+    Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,
+      Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;
+    Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,
+      Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.
+
+
+
+
+EDUCATION
+
+
+Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.
+Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory
+of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.
+Money was doled out in homoeopathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000
+was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which
+£70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which
+_Punch_ had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between
+ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane
+magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared
+that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor
+children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of
+thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth
+in habits and practices of idleness and vice," _Punch_ found himself in
+the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary
+who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points
+out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,
+taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary
+legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the
+transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they
+were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of
+their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in
+1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful
+boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though _Punch_ supported the
+establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply
+of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the
+Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy
+remained, and it was due in the country districts, in _Punch's_ view, to
+the fact that "contending zealots cannot agree with what theological
+mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the
+schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."
+
+[Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION]
+
+[Sidenote: _Abysmal Ignorance_]
+
+In 1850 the following dialogue was given in _The Times_ police report of
+Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in _Punch_:--
+
+    George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and
+    the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished
+    upon taking hold of the book.
+
+    _Ald. Humphrey._ Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know
+    what an oath is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what a Testament is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Can you read?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald._ H. Do you ever say your prayers?
+
+    _Boy._ No, never.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what prayers are?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what God is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald H._ Do you know what the devil is?
+
+    _Boy._ I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.
+
+    _Ald. H._ What do you know, my poor boy?
+
+    _Boy._ I knows how to sweep the crossing.
+
+    _Ald. H._ And that's all?
+
+    _Boy._ That's all. I sweeps the crossing.
+
+    The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a
+    creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the
+    truth.
+
+It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools
+movement had been started several years before. From the first _Punch_
+lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was
+unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at
+the aristocracy:--
+
+    WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO
+
+    It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of
+    Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak
+    advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is
+    not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful
+    mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,
+    taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and
+    misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our
+    views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,
+    and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to
+    the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes
+    generally.
+
+    When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of
+    poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our
+    other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we
+    may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,
+    originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the
+    tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions
+    for the education of the children of the aristocracy.
+
+Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted
+his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as
+all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is
+mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at
+Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ could not
+forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to
+_Punch_ meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of
+laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a
+fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel
+had to die before _Punch_ did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more
+fortunate, for thirty years before he died _Punch_ made the _amende_ in
+"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Distressed Author_]
+
+"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the
+'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian
+reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not
+yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to
+the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of
+the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,
+1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination
+paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the
+works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the
+Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few
+exceptions--such as Thackeray and Macaulay--were generally impecunious,
+and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a
+life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.
+There were no royalties in those days, and for _Black-Eyed Susan_, which
+brought tens of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular
+actors, he received from first to last the sum of £60. _Punch_ was the
+constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as
+Joseph Haydn of the _Dictionary of Dates_, who was granted a Civil List
+pension of £25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,
+1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green
+'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)
+tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund
+dinner in 1856, when a sum of £100 was sent from the proceeds of the
+first portion of the _Peel Papers_:--
+
+[Illustration: NEWSVENDOR: "Now, my man, what is it?"
+
+BOY: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a
+likeness in it."]
+
+    From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the
+    flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter
+    satire of _Punch_ himself], still beneficently thought of the wants
+    of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed
+    the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.
+
+The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph
+Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they
+were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, _Punch_, who
+had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while
+applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting
+homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from
+poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and
+his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and
+State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower
+orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords _Punch_
+suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an
+examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.
+Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to
+Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on
+the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
+Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in _Punch_, who suggested
+the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently
+as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was
+reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was
+meant by those "damned dots."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Education Bill of 1856_]
+
+Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on
+its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from _Punch's_
+"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:--
+
+    _Thursday_, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a
+    series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards
+    withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a
+    matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he
+    threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,
+    comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether
+    voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of
+    four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of
+    age, two millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while
+    a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most
+    miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed
+    House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the
+    children _should_ be taught, that the nation should pay for their
+    teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work
+    should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked
+    commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting
+    Attorney called Hadfield[7] said that the people were taught as
+    well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they
+    wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further
+    interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the
+    House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on
+    the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.
+
+    _Thursday_, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during
+    this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's
+    Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by
+    representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester
+    school: the first think that their religion only should be taught
+    by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,
+    but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be
+    taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no
+    practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people
+    contrived to get the worst in the fray.
+
+[Footnote 7: _Punch_ is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield
+from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal
+who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered
+valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.]
+
+[Illustration: AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.
+
+PRODIGY: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"]
+
+In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England
+and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.
+As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful
+reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a
+Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of
+the Committee of the Council of Education. But _Punch_, in these years
+at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,
+and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediævalism, obscurantism,
+and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and
+State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic
+authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost
+causes" made no appeal to his practical mind. Yet of classical
+scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.
+Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he
+even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the
+education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of
+1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years--until the
+notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was
+introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as
+early as 1848 _Punch_ avowed his belief in the value of making lessons
+interesting to children:--
+
+    The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because
+    they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books
+    should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,
+    but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature
+    which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought
+    before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study
+    should be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and
+    children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness
+    they rush now into the playground.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson_]
+
+[Illustration: HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]
+
+Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which
+so much controversy rages to-day. _Punch_ has always been a lover of
+children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of
+the _enfant terrible_ and of juvenile precocity. One of the most
+delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine
+epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:--
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,
+
+    "we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of
+    Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says
+    you allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as
+    me and charley read in the illusterated London [_News_] that Mr.
+    Hans Christian anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England
+    And We shold like to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with
+    is Betiful storys the ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen
+    the Red shoes the Storks little ida the Constant tinsoldier great
+    claws and Little Claws the darning Neddle and All the rest of Them
+    and it says in the illustat [_several attempts, a smear, and the
+    spelling evaded_] Paper the children shold Meet him in the
+    Crys-pallace and we shold Like to Go and tell him how much We Love
+    him for his betiful stores do you know the tinder box and tommelise
+    and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope you will Excuse bad
+    riting and i Am
+
+    "Yours affectionate
+
+    "NELLY.
+
+    charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you
+    put In  punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how
+    Glad we are He is Coming."
+
+We hope that Hans Andersen--who, by the way, as a writer of fairy
+stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori--saw this
+letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of
+_Punch's_ aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day
+conditions. In the year 1844 the _Comic Blackstone_ reads: "Children owe
+their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must
+support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other
+wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's
+Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out
+the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will
+remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children
+of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.
+
+
+
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+
+_Punch's_ efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,
+exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the _English
+Journal of Education_ declared that _Punch_ was not suitable reading for
+Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But _Punch_ gave as good
+as he got. When the _Record_ attacked the Queen for having a band at
+Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,
+_Punch_ unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced _Mawworm_."[8]
+The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery
+on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
+but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to _Punch's_ great disgust. He
+advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant
+Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of
+Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,
+or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a
+hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent
+electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and
+in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, _Punch_
+summarizes the debate:--
+
+    The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small
+    calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully
+    stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in
+    seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the
+    Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a
+    divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord
+    Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these
+    exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in
+    defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.
+    This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited
+    to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376--add four
+    who were "shut out" and say 380--gentlemen in comfortable
+    circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,
+    decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has
+    left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid
+    house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.
+
+[Footnote 8: Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in
+Bickerstaffe's play _The Hypocrite_.]
+
+This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the
+matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which
+_Punch_ liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to
+call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question
+throughout the year _Punch_ gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of
+Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.
+For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and _Punch_
+celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in
+an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."
+
+But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was
+"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while
+retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday
+music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to
+him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were
+jubilant, as may be gathered from _Punch's_ reference to the _Record_ in
+his issue of August 16:--
+
+    We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call
+    the _Record_ our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by
+    the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:--
+
+    "We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our
+    affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it
+    almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the
+    moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to
+    make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a
+    great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord
+    Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a
+    majority still more overwhelming."
+
+    We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,
+    writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,
+    perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot
+    well conceive any other person guilty thereof.
+
+[Sidenote: Goldsmith Bowdlerized]
+
+[Illustration: SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT]
+
+_Punch_ could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a
+charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin
+Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing
+on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but
+evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an
+edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and
+the lines:--
+
+    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+    For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made--
+
+were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring
+lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, _Punch_
+castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he
+is a noisome fellow, Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he
+is a dunce."
+
+_Punch's_ hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and
+other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal
+Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,
+which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of
+Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:--
+
+    It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and
+    easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet
+    sofa--it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,
+    talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa
+    to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to
+    die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having
+    voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own
+    comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated
+    their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and--taking
+    care of themselves.
+
+In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the
+Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the
+poor at home--multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the
+housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and
+wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with
+Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,
+but _Punch_ could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday
+observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs
+and Chadbands.
+
+His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and
+archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As _The
+Times_ wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of
+England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." _Punch_
+re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic
+comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But
+he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young
+England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church--to
+make it the friend, comforter and protector of the people. "Young
+England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were
+almost as great _bêtes noires_ to _Punch_ as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy
+Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,
+the Bishop of London.
+
+[Illustration: SERIOUS FLUNKEY: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a
+year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,
+and piety hindispensable."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Clerical Bugbears_]
+
+The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great
+prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.
+_Punch_ was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to
+the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife
+to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The
+Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on the
+subject, but one extract from _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" may
+suffice to illustrate his _nolo episcopari_ attitude:--
+
+    _Thursday_, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
+    their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
+    present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
+    deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
+    acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
+    actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
+    more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
+    divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
+    with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
+    bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
+    gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (_Mr.
+    Punch_ does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
+    the _Standard_, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
+    speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
+    "The lower classes did not demand the _privilegia_ afforded to the
+    higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
+    with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
+    Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
+    and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
+    and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
+    postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
+    "amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
+    Priests.
+
+It may be added that _Punch_ was also a supporter of marriage with a
+deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope
+for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'
+Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, _Punch_ notes that the
+result was chiefly due to "four priests"--the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,
+St. David's and Exeter--and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes
+of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."
+Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the
+opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable
+to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence
+for the Common Prayer-book." _Punch's_ own reasons for supporting the
+change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from
+relief, when he remarries takes on a _second_ mother-in-law.
+
+[Illustration: AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND: "Come, Polly--if I _am_ a little
+irritable, it's over in a minute."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Destitute Clergy_]
+
+But _Punch's_ chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in
+the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the
+wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch
+with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect
+of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted
+_Punch's_ attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred
+to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the
+Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic
+inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact
+that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on
+their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to
+2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends _under_ £100 a year, and as many
+as 173 _less_ than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this
+modern clerical instance of Dives and Lazarus is to be found in an
+article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":--
+
+    A curate--"an Agueish curate"--wishes to know of _The Times_ if
+    curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
+    and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
+    disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
+    twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
+    by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
+    atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
+    bishop and curate as below:--
+
+    "To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
+    give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity--a palace and £6,000
+    per annum.
+
+    "To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
+    before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
+    from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
+    inability to be any longer faithful in his calling--the workhouse."
+
+    And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,
+    and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
+    the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
+    Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
+    bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
+    fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
+    the volume to which we have reverently alluded.
+
+It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been
+introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to
+resign, and making provision for them:--
+
+    The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
+    enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
+    at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
+    annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
+    twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
+    £4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.
+
+The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
+departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
+scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
+remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find
+it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
+Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
+expenditure.
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]
+
+In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is
+somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
+Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
+followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
+"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
+but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
+Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
+Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
+Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
+Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
+Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
+violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
+welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
+opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed
+a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
+of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
+masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
+were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
+the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
+the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
+secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
+is ortho-."
+
+Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
+Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
+declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
+Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
+"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
+Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
+bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham
+case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
+for toleration:--
+
+    O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
+    you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
+    these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
+    mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
+    The people in this country _will_ learn to read and write; they
+    will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
+    lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
+    outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
+    long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
+    Jumbo.
+
+Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No
+Popery" movement a few months later. _Punch_, in a poem on "Consolation
+amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:--
+
+    We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,
+    But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!
+    No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,
+    But only just a little jawing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,
+    People beheading, throttling, frying.
+    _Punch_, and he says it without boasting,
+    Does all the cutting up and roasting.
+
+As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one
+subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,
+of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The
+Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"
+we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord
+Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement
+that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new
+Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put
+forward on behalf of other creeds--Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.
+
+[Illustration: THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
+
+Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church]
+
+[Sidenote: _Cardinal Wiseman_]
+
+On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter
+to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely
+whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal
+claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our
+bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as
+asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,
+that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than
+by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most
+forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the
+precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of
+England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with
+contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the
+glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."
+_Punch_ lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of
+November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way
+with the Pope's Puppets." _Punch_ had no desire, he declares, to bring
+back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the
+quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called
+upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all
+spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him
+for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the
+Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"
+appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging
+its way through _Punch's_ columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and
+pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that
+_Punch_ was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting
+the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in
+addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.
+Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that
+the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular
+administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the
+request of English communicants," left _Punch_ cold and derisive. He
+suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed
+to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in
+"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive
+Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist--very much to the advantage
+of the latter--in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of
+history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,
+_Punch_ continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was
+more than a little wrathful with the _Morning Chronicle_ for asserting
+that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."
+But the _Morning Chronicle_ was not far out, and it is noteworthy that
+from this point onwards _Punch's_ attacks were chiefly directed against
+Puseyites and Ritualists--such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico--and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:--
+
+    Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,
+    For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.
+
+Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously
+on _Punch_ in the _Dublin Review_, denouncing his opponent as once
+facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old
+street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented
+him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting
+the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere
+transportation for life. _Punch_ promptly hit back, but he did not get
+the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he
+was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable
+Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and
+literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in
+_Punch's_ pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he
+is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,
+as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop
+Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is
+certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying
+which probably represented the Cardinal's view of _Punch_ accurately in
+the verse:--
+
+    You, for example, clever to a fault,
+    The rough and ready man, who write apace,
+    Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
+
+Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were
+revealed--illustrated, to take only one instance, by _Punch's_ satirical
+picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the
+controversy _Punch_ showed refreshing signs of good sense and good
+feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who
+made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a
+mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on
+behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and
+Wiseman remained the targets of _Punch's_ obloquy for several years.
+Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is
+tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:--
+
+    Roman dictation is my vexation;
+      Oxford is just as bad;
+    Papal aggression is my obsession,
+      And Pusey drives me mad.
+
+In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at
+Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the _Tablet_ attributed
+the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation
+"against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic
+religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and
+described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document,"
+_Punch_ replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look
+upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A
+bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections
+followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than
+the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar
+of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year,
+according to _Punch_, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died
+down during the Crimean War, and then, four years elapsing, the Clapham
+Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified
+slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.
+
+[Sidenote: _A More Tolerant Spirit_]
+
+[Illustration: THE PET PARSON]
+
+For the rest of the period under review in this volume _Punch_ shows a
+slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who
+strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they
+considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently
+rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, _à propos_
+of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of
+all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the
+most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the
+British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact
+that the honorary secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr.
+Samuel Pope, and _Punch_, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is
+"one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that
+of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the
+former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the
+close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon--by no
+means complimentary. _Punch_, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame
+Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist
+preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere
+self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of
+tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." _Punch_, as
+will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose
+portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than
+those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the
+stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these
+aids to popularity.
+
+To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large
+body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the
+man in the street, is reflected in the pages of _Punch_. Where doctrinal
+controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the
+sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We
+find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of
+Exeter," who was prepared to spend--and lose--scores of thousands of
+pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration.
+We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediævalism,
+Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ made no effort to
+disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of
+their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious
+financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts.
+"How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of
+others who have so little of it themselves?"
+
+[Illustration: THE POLITICAL TOPSY
+
+"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."--_Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin._]
+
+On April 26 of this same year of 1845 _Punch_ castigated the violence of
+the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of
+the Maynooth Grant Bill, notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith,
+who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest
+again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of
+"at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the
+House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If _Punch_ showed
+himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant
+gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the
+British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded
+the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an _imperium in imperio_.
+Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter.
+His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his
+honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same
+insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look
+with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged,
+to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his
+early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at,
+in view of the admissions of his biographers:--
+
+    The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
+    accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
+    development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
+    interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
+    which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
+    throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
+    served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
+    of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
+    as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
+    "could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
+    he was in the presence of a foreigner."[9]
+
+Now _Punch_ was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery"
+in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen
+as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic
+tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates
+this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to _Punch_, than the
+part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long
+and chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A
+manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong
+prejudice. As we have seen, _Punch_ frankly admitted the Jews' great
+virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the
+"Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the
+same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the
+cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses & Co." in
+1844.
+
+[Footnote 9: _Life of Disraeli_ (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p.
+635.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and the Jews_]
+
+_Punch's_ jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable
+as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes
+purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at
+Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when
+the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him
+the honorary degree of D.C.L., _Punch_ was prompted to remark that the
+initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in
+Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the rôle of
+world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed
+Jewish Protocol, did not escape _Punch's_ notice, and his comment is
+characteristic:--
+
+    Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
+    _They_ join Secret Societies. _They_ (for the evils complained of
+    by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
+    nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
+    picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
+    Sheriff's Officer! "_All is race._" What a picture of cool
+    malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
+    luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
+    luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
+    him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
+    sherry.
+
+Was _Punch_ an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering,
+if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild
+in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.
+
+Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding
+relief recalled to _Punch_ Martin Luther's saying of the Jews: "They
+sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government."
+This, adds _Punch_, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the
+wheelbarrow still.
+
+[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES
+
+LORD JOHN: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little
+matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Jewish Disabilities_]
+
+Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and
+re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused
+permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed
+to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of
+strangers. In all, _nine_ Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed
+by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by the Lords, before the tenth,
+and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise
+under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the
+oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron
+Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the
+oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John
+Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and
+abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly _Punch_ lent him valuable
+free-lance help throughout.
+
+
+
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+In the 'forties _Punch_, as we have already noted, stood in with "the
+group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in
+Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first
+strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by
+_Punch_. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly
+pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean
+War, it was not due to any change of _personnel_. The gentle Doyle
+resigned because of _Punch's_ "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed
+his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the
+Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy
+of _Punch_ in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most
+bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was
+responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons.
+Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were
+his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a
+conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did
+it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the
+underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything
+savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his
+criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, _Punch_ gave "the
+judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his
+stiffness. _Punch_ supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the
+Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of
+the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of
+Labour--witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of
+1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who
+invariably sided against his country.
+
+[Illustration: "GENERAL FÉVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR
+
+"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide--Generals Janvier and
+Février."--_Speech of the late Emperor of Russia._]
+
+With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic
+tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless
+pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. _Punch's_
+campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never
+recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare
+even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting
+with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the
+principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant
+letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring
+in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General
+for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell
+trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of
+Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel,
+this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by
+this vitriolic comment:--
+
+    If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
+    Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
+    the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
+    widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
+    noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
+    to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
+    of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
+    Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
+    duelling-pistol!
+
+_Punch's_ remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go
+free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch as Pacifist_]
+
+The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series
+named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin
+Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a
+gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and
+pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish,
+blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville,
+Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying
+Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose pamphleteering; but
+_Punch_ was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in
+the _Morning Post_, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall,
+who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain.
+_Punch_, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his
+comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides
+with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with
+France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the
+ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London,
+who would have to flee in case of war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the
+same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which _Punch_
+assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French
+editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter.
+_Punch_ had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the
+eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range
+invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of
+ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on
+the "Science of Warfare," _à propos_ of the benevolent object of some
+inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by
+making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the
+Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very
+ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the
+sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization
+or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical
+references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer--Brook Green being "one
+of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to
+the metropolis on the western side. _Punch_ at this time was a bitter
+critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal
+reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at
+Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the
+clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of
+Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of
+August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish
+flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to
+the Queen":--
+
+    Let thy queenly voice be heard--
+      Who shall dare to disobey?--
+    It but costs thy Royal word,
+      And the lash is cast away.
+    With thyself it rests to scour
+      From our arms the loathsome stain;
+    Then of mercy show thy power,
+      And immortal be thy reign!
+
+This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and
+passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.
+
+[Illustration: A SILLY TRICK
+
+JOHN BULL: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be
+frightened by such a turnip as that!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Invasion Scare_]
+
+In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but _Punch_
+maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the
+alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to _The Times_, and by the letter
+of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by _Punch_ as a
+letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized
+by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have
+contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect,
+may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the
+formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on
+Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls."
+The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the
+violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a
+frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.
+
+England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden
+in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with _Punch_ as the "cleverest Cob"
+in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His
+Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with _Punch's_ cordial
+approval:--
+
+    PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT
+
+    Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
+    practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
+    goodwill--could more be expected?--of the Prime Minister and the
+    Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
+    position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
+    ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
+    themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
+    more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
+    are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
+    as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
+    to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
+    music.
+
+    The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
+    Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
+    cedar in the gardens at Paris--a cedar of hugest girth and widest
+    shape--that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
+    of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
+    Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
+    and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
+    to all nations.
+
+In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in
+Paris:--
+
+    THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS
+
+    Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
+    reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
+    of the tomb of the great peace-breaker--who turned kingdoms into
+    graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
+    human freedom--even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
+    his violet robe--beset with golden bees--the bees that, as in the
+    lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases--Napoleon, with his
+    Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
+    portentous, glistering evil--contrasted with our Quaker friend
+    [Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
+    aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
+    in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
+    his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
+    brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
+    thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.
+
+So, again, _Punch_ breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in
+the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims?
+All great reformers, idealists and benefactors--Harvey, Jenner,
+Stephenson--had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative
+critics:--
+
+    TO THE LAUGHERS
+
+    The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
+    fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
+    All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
+    it--paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
+    it--arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
+    sides.
+
+    "Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
+    supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
+    "Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
+    instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!
+
+    "Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the _Economist_.
+
+    "It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
+    _Statist_; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
+    Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
+    declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
+    growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
+    rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
+    of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
+    Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.
+
+    But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
+    there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
+    this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
+    tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be
+    ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
+    declares that its heart contains the Oak.
+
+The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington
+publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the
+Army, on which _Punch_ remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases,
+how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while
+condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National
+Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when
+£158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea."
+On naval matters _Punch_ foretold many things, but he did not foresee
+the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the
+truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of
+ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in
+foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when
+he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the
+Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and
+proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the
+arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status
+and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his
+heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be
+written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."
+
+The turning point at which _Punch's_ pacificist zeal began to cool was
+reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with
+Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to
+Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his
+colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in
+refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any
+responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by
+_Punch_, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 _Punch_
+waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in
+which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with
+the greatest ease. The _coup d'ètat_ of 1851, and suspicion of the aims
+of Louis Napoleon, whom _Punch_ described as a "perjured homicide,"
+converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and
+needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill,
+Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the
+title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an
+Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for
+exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private
+approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this _Punch_
+regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852
+opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on
+"Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the
+anxious vigil of England.
+
+[Illustration: THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING
+
+"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your
+fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you
+must go, of course."]
+
+"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr.
+Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into
+bitter antagonism:--
+
+    Armaments useless our money to spend on,
+      Certainly we should be acting like geese;
+    _But_ have we any sure ground to depend on,
+      In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?
+                                  Speak, Mr. Cobden!
+
+The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government,
+and _Punch_ (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford
+University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim
+to have been the inventor of _camouflage_ on the strength of the
+following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety
+Uniforms" the reader finds:--
+
+    In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
+    distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
+    provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
+    which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
+    objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
+    possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
+    corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
+    mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
+    manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
+    house-top service amongst the chimney pots, of bright green with
+    mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
+    fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
+    daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
+    brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
+    were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
+    splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
+    the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
+    midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
+    bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
+    uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
+    rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
+    Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
+    Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
+    article and good cut.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of "The Duke"_]
+
+The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct
+attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave
+_Punch_ a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.
+
+RENDERING UP THE SWORD
+
+    Our Arthur sleeps--our Arthur is not dead.
+      Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,
+    Should e'er invading foot this England tread--
+      Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.
+
+    Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn
+      Through all our veins--until the foeman say,
+    "Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"
+      And awestruck from the onset shrink away.
+
+Moreover, _Punch_ defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at
+this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental
+despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism;
+that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the
+spirit of valour."
+
+[Illustration: ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE]
+
+[Illustration: ITINERANT NEWSMAN, No. 1: "I say, Bill, what are you
+givin' 'em?"
+
+DITTO, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of
+the British Troops."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Outbreak of War_]
+
+Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady _crescendo_ of hostility in
+the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this,
+both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in
+the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the
+Russo-Turkish quarrel _Punch's_ long and consistent distrust--to put it
+mildly--of the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined
+him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in
+Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled
+him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his _bête noire_, the
+Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the
+predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and
+Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the
+interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey
+from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, _Punch_ threw
+all his weight into the balance with the War party in the Cabinet, and
+bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen.
+These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown
+with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably
+indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's
+boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The
+Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from
+the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the
+war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness
+of our cause did not blind _Punch_ to the negligence and worse of those
+charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our
+forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to
+preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of
+organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the
+debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank and file of our fighting
+men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this
+excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":--
+
+    It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in _The Times_,
+    will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
+    wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
+    on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
+    the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
+    it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
+    value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
+    children. The girl--and, maybe, the little girls and boys--left by
+    him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
+    the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
+    that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
+    with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
+    and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
+    beadle's.
+
+The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and
+children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there
+were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat
+of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each
+letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."
+
+[Sidenote: _Song of the Nightingale_]
+
+[Illustration: WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND NIGHTINGALES]
+
+But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the
+hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of
+_The Times_, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert
+and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country
+deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence
+Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was _Punch's_
+chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the
+publication of "The Nightingale's Song":--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER
+
+    Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,
+      'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,
+    Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,
+      With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.
+
+    Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,
+      Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,
+    And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,
+      With alacrity and promptitude of motion.
+
+    Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands
+      How to manage every sort of application,
+    From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach
+      The way to make a poppy fomentation.
+
+    Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,
+      By the readiness of feminine invention;
+    Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,
+      With a careful and considerate attention.
+
+    Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,
+      Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,
+    'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
+      To carry out so gallant an idea.
+
+This is only one of a whole series of poems--notably one written at the
+time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855--inspired by the "Lady of the
+Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded
+common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their
+nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement
+of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily
+expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people
+of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale--nor
+can we forget mismanagement."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, Jack, here's good news from home. We're to have a
+medal."
+
+"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it
+on."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Familiar Grievances_]
+
+Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her
+an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition
+was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was
+given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, _Punch_ laboured in
+season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his
+humanity and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and
+was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a
+great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a
+picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example,
+the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the
+winter of 1854:--
+
+    How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,
+    From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!
+    And that's how we pension our officer-foes,
+    For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.
+
+    The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays
+    The wages of postmen will probably raise,
+    And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all
+    The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.
+
+Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of
+bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding
+Officer," early in 1855:--
+
+    Oh! no, we never mention them,
+      Their names must not be heard,
+    My hand Routine forbids to trace
+      Of their exploits one word.
+    Most glorious though their deeds may be,
+      To say it I regret,
+    When they expect a word from me,
+      They find that I forget.
+
+    You say that they are happy now,
+      The bravest of the brave,
+    A "special" pen recording how
+      Mere Grenadiers behave.
+    Of "special" pens I disapprove,
+      An inconvenient set,
+    Who oftentimes the veil remove,
+      And print what we forget.
+
+The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among
+those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring.
+Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were too old; or they were
+"blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or
+inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous
+gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given £5 by the Prince Consort;
+or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed
+by the Queen. Why, asks _Punch_, was he not made an ensign? Of a review
+of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been
+more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the
+invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is
+the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":--
+
+    _Flunkey_ (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
+    Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
+    dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
+    inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."
+
+    _Flunkey_ (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
+    think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
+    Sufficient!'"
+
+[Illustration: A DISTRESSED AGRICULTURIST
+
+LANDLORD: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems
+to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."
+
+TENANT (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why,
+you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Combatants and Non-Combatants_]
+
+The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten
+by _Punch_. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their
+commanders,
+
+    As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,
+    Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.
+    These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand
+    As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.
+
+The Charge of the Light Brigade[10] prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump
+Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, _Punch_, throughout the
+war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of
+unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to
+the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the
+cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive
+bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the
+commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have
+leave to go home on urgent _Private_ affairs?"
+
+The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive
+criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even
+more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:--
+
+    Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,
+      And merrily danced that Quaker,
+    When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,
+      And Mouravieff meant to take her.
+    He said he knew it was wrong to fight,
+      He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,
+    But to see that the battle was going right,
+      O! merrily danced the Quaker.
+
+[Footnote 10: _Punch_ welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally
+appeared in the _Examiner_, but could not agree with the view expressed
+in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be
+the only way--as at the moment--to secure it.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BRITISH LION SMELLS A RAT]
+
+[Sidenote: _Paying the Bill_]
+
+The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation,
+when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and
+devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are
+mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his
+pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace
+came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism,
+dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on
+generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses,
+and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had
+appeared--a painful document with "delay," "want of----" and
+"unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the
+Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts _Punch_ to mitigated "joy and
+satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise
+Lord Malmesbury--no favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as
+crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to
+express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of
+Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his
+ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the
+Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks
+to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and
+those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were
+appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain
+figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two
+years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but
+3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the
+demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her
+attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, _Punch_
+strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His
+general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":--
+
+    Thank Heaven the War is ended!
+      That is the general voice,
+    But let us feign no splendid
+      Endeavours to rejoice.
+    To cease from lamentation
+      We may contrive--but--pooh!
+    Can't rise to exultation,
+      And cock-a-doodle-doo!
+
+    We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,
+      Like supernumeraries on the stage,
+      To smiling happiness from settled rage;
+    We look before and after.
+    Before, to all those skeletons and corses
+    Of gallant men and noble horses;
+      After--though sordid the consideration--
+    Unto a certain bill to pay,
+    Which we shall have for many a day,
+      By unrepealable taxation.
+
+    Yet never fought we in a better cause,
+      Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.
+    We stood in battle for the eternal laws;
+      'Twas an affair of high Police,
+    Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;
+    And now remains--the Rate.
+
+Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington
+led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the
+gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what
+it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the
+Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the
+cause of Italian liberty, _à propos_ of the advance of a million pounds
+to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest
+a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a
+trade offer." _Punch_, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney
+Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and
+establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he
+was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the
+barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every
+prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the
+worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."
+
+Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856--in the
+recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in
+wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque
+in the shape of an imaginary article from the _Morning Herald_ on the
+execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over
+"Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead.
+Here, as so often time has proved, _Punch_ was a prophet as well as a
+critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the
+Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France;
+wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary
+expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced
+_Punch_ to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the
+price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in
+July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:--
+
+    Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;
+    Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;
+    And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,
+    To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.
+
+    So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,
+    With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,
+    To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,
+    Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.
+
+    When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,
+    'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.
+    What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?
+    What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?
+
+[Sidenote: _Incapable Commanders_]
+
+Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex
+of incapacity," but _Punch_ spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the
+Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except
+when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great
+people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement
+we may bracket a useful _obiter dictum_ on appointments generally: "Too
+much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places
+generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing
+report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against
+Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with
+"aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea
+Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."
+
+Evidently _Punch_ is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a
+month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's
+son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at £200 a year for four years, with
+a grant of £500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without
+purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a
+marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money
+to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for
+severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service
+is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was
+a stern critic of extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, _Punch_
+recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State
+to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of
+criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier
+notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a
+comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in
+its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of
+February 23, 1856:--
+
+    Till now the stars and garters
+      Were for birth or fortune's son,
+    And as oft in snug home-quarters
+      As in fields of fight were won.
+    But at length a star arises,
+      Which as glorious will shine
+    On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast
+      Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.
+
+    Too long mere food for powder
+      We've deemed our rank and file,
+    Now higher hopes and prouder
+      Upon the soldier smile.
+    And if no Marshal's bâton
+      Private Smith in his knapsack bears,
+    At least in the War, the chance of the star
+      With his General he shares.
+
+The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until
+June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity _Punch_
+strove to render justice to the occasion:--
+
+THE STAR OF VALOUR
+
+Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.
+
+    The fount of Honour, sealed till now
+      To all save claims of rank and birth,
+    Makes green the laurel on the brow
+      Ennobled but by soldier's worth.
+
+    Of these the bravest and the best
+      Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,
+    England doth, by her Queen, invest
+      With Valour's Cross--their great reward!
+
+    Marking her sense of something still,
+      A central nobleness, that lies
+    Deeper than rank which royal will,
+      Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.
+
+    Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,
+      Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;
+    That knighthood this bronze cross imparts--
+      Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Victoria Cross_]
+
+The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression
+was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:--
+
+    Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,
+      Though rather ugly--take it,
+    John Bull a medal can deserve,
+      But can't contrive to make it.
+
+But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction.
+_Punch_ was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were
+well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts
+of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not
+instituted till 1866. _Punch's_ democratic bias is also agreeably shown
+in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the
+dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were
+thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for
+help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would
+help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in
+fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with
+this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on
+State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on
+Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all
+soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public
+subscription, largely due to the appeal in _Punch's_ columns. Lastly,
+and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the
+timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in
+which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and
+ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would
+probably mean promotion by influence--an equally vicious system. To
+alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered
+the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it
+was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"--not the only reference in
+_Punch_ to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on
+behalf of his protégé and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.
+
+
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of _Punch_ seventy and
+eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that
+was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the
+streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot
+be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the
+streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to
+_Punch_ they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy,
+while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured
+localities--the Poultry and Lombard Street--was a constant source of
+danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in
+recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is
+noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the
+patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which
+Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now
+relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully
+established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To
+those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel
+came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled
+against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted
+so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle,
+and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give
+a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or
+"growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but
+_Punch_, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for
+his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old
+bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The
+one-day cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at
+6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to
+mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the
+matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having
+five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public
+sympathy, fostered by the _Examiner_, was enlisted on behalf of the
+cabman, but _Punch_ was rigidly on the side of the public as against the
+proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and
+rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered
+from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which
+appeared in _The Times_. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor
+to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because
+he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also
+require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen
+were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an
+improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to
+elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of
+cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard
+of taxi-drivers.
+
+[Illustration: CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN THE WRONG
+TURNING--THAT'S ALL]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ancient Omnibus_]
+
+[Illustration: AMY (to Rose): "Good gracious, Rose, I'm afraid from the
+way the man talks that he is intoxicated!"
+
+CABBY (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic)
+intossi--intossi-cated (hic)--itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in
+speesh, Miss!"]
+
+Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their
+dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw on the floors, and the
+perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope
+ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to
+sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of
+the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside
+passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after
+1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a
+journey to the remoter suburbs, if _Punch_ is to be believed, took
+almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar
+inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially
+on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded
+interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are
+vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were
+introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the
+conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a
+superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period
+complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort,
+cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of
+1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a
+good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts,
+stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and
+driver. In one respect only, London was better served--on its waterway.
+The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that
+they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was
+habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in
+general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and
+ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for
+over-population.
+
+[Illustration: FEMALE 'BUSES (A Prophecy)]
+
+From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were
+charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by
+the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has
+frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new
+policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of
+1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of
+_Punch_ in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be
+gauged by his greeting the threat of their strike with the remark that
+he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with
+cooks--a fruitful source of satire--began to be a theme of ridicule in
+the late 'forties, and inspired in _Punch_ "The Loves of the New
+Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post
+owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.
+
+[Sidenote: _The New Police Force_]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLICE]
+
+We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students
+of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.
+
+As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means
+universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844;
+the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was
+foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest
+illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock
+in _The Ogilvies_ speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too
+bright," and _Punch_ is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility
+of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become
+obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter has no longer
+need to climb and never runs. In 1844 _Punch_ speaks of the Lucifer
+having replaced the Congreve--or "Congry" as it was vulgarly
+called--friction match; but the change of name was later, according to
+Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer
+matches as "a triumph of science."
+
+[Illustration: SIR JAMES GRAHAM HOLDS A REVIEW OF THE LONDON POSTMEN]
+
+[Sidenote: _Municipal Apathy_]
+
+The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the
+'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached
+villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from
+Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way
+House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of
+bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea
+Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric
+license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the
+'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year
+1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces
+or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as _Punch_
+called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there
+were wildernesses even in central London, notably Leicester Square and
+Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of
+Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the _terra
+incognita_ of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only
+differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked
+eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the
+region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests
+in _Punch_, belong to an unregretted past. _Punch_ was a great Londoner.
+We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him
+to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For
+years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in
+the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square,
+the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin
+in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven
+years later we read:--
+
+    In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
+    is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
+    on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
+    celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
+    particulars:
+
+    To erect a Simple Column            It takes in England 12 years.
+    Ditto, with Lions, everything
+      complete                             "          "     24   "
+    To build a Common Bridge               "          "     15   "
+    Ditto a Suspension Bridge              "          "     25   "
+    Ditto Houses of Parliament              A trifle under 100   "
+
+    With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
+    curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
+    one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
+    celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
+    Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
+    supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
+    to make his appearance.
+
+"Britannia," _Punch_ makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal
+happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate their memory."
+And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not
+ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it
+likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same
+spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on
+"The Nation and Its Monuments":--
+
+    The National Gallery holds its place
+      In Trafalgar's noble Square,
+    And being a national disgrace,
+      Will remain for ever there.
+
+    The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite
+      Of all that the world could say;
+    And because he stands on an awkward site,
+      We, of course, shall let him stay.
+
+    The Palace of Glass is so much admired,
+      Both in Country and in Town,
+    That its maintenance is by all desired:
+      So we mean to pull it down.
+
+[Sidenote: _London Changes and Improvements_]
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which
+we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British
+Museum Library--_Punch_ was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the
+Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of
+Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can
+walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk.
+The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of
+Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. _Punch_ began by
+objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the
+expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters'
+gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of
+the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge--begun
+in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous,
+and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to
+frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham
+Palace to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of
+removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of
+Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to
+cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road
+past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their
+sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received
+a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.
+
+The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and
+"improvements" kept by _Punch_ is not complete, but it serves to
+illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The
+Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean
+engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of
+London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen
+opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q"
+(Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a
+hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The
+reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an
+apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of
+which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray
+has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the
+pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a
+central octagon room. In view of _Punch's_ persistent attacks on the
+Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task
+of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was
+entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and
+Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from
+Milton's _Comus_. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of
+Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by
+Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, _Punch_ heaped unstinted
+ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms
+on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron
+Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as
+"Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French Ambassador
+as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."
+
+The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some
+jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the
+Billingsgate dialect.
+
+But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E
+natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock
+Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable
+is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as,
+without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The
+announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to
+an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so _Punch_ was
+able to have it both ways:--
+
+    Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;
+      Small Ben is sane, past disputation;
+    Yet we should like to know whose tone
+      Is most offensive to the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Filthy Thames_]
+
+The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work
+on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible
+description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no
+mention of _Punch's_ services in the cause of London sanitation. They
+certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to
+bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports
+the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as
+the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated
+pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:--
+
+    Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
+    the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
+    up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
+    mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
+    the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
+    of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross--and is, by means
+    of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent ingredients
+    of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
+    surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
+    slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
+    contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
+    Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
+    into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
+    side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
+    allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
+    situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
+    (which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
+    perfection.
+
+[Illustration: THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN]
+
+The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is,
+perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The
+noisome state of the Serpentine--"a lake of mere manure"--constantly
+affronted _Punch's_ sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid
+Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties
+onward. But it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus
+visitation, that his crusade against London filth--"Plague, Pestilence
+and Co."--began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of
+bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked
+pollution of the river. _Punch_ salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of
+"Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in
+endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts
+savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and
+extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse.
+He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an
+epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that
+John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard;
+and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in
+accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of
+dirt.
+
+Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington,
+_Punch_ confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary
+Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a
+fetid Dead Sea." Yet _Punch_ refused to lay the blame at the door of
+Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the
+_Morning Herald_ for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London.
+The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and
+cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of
+influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:--
+
+    For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,
+    For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;
+    Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,
+    But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.
+
+    Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;
+    Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and
+      doom;
+    Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;
+    Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR CHILD'S NURSE]
+
+[Sidenote: _King Cholera's Friends_]
+
+The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed
+reform, and furnished _Punch_ with an occasion for free-spoken
+denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other
+obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the
+great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is
+generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as
+in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":--
+
+    What is it to _me_ that fever is never absent from these
+    places--that infants do not rear, and men die before their
+    time--that sickness engenders pauperism--that filth breeds
+    depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
+    telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
+    every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181, in St. Saviour's its 153, in
+    Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
+    Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
+    same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
+    their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
+    slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
+    and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
+    triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.
+
+    It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
+    case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
+    Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
+    still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
+    self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
+    again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
+    1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, _he_, too, is
+    at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."
+
+[Illustration: THE END OF GOG AND MAGOG; OR, THINGS VERY BAD IN THE
+CITY]
+
+_Punch_ naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in
+1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would have preferred a
+more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the
+dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.
+
+[Sidenote: _London's Vanished Glories_]
+
+Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet
+Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and
+unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by _Punch_ on the
+occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell
+Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of
+London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall
+Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with
+its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery,
+was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil
+days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of
+auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties,
+_Punch_ forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of _Bon
+Gaultier_. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was
+going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is
+attributed by _Punch_ to disgust at the failure of Imperialism.
+Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of
+_Punch's_ pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning,
+who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and
+sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B.
+Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and
+only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a
+place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving
+bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in
+their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by _Punch_ along
+with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron
+Nathan, one of the irregular _impresario_ peers who do not appear in
+"Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron
+Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he
+appealed to a fashionable _clientèle_. When Burnand wrote the libretto
+of _Cox and Box_ in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City
+clerk, witness Cox's song,
+
+    My aged employer, his whole physiognomy
+    Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,
+    Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me
+    If you will take this as your holiday!"
+    Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville--
+    Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.
+
+Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume
+of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents
+as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the
+democratic _Punch_ denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in
+1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on,
+however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of
+the Semitic invaders.
+
+[Sidenote: _Burlington Arcadia_]
+
+The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre
+Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her _début_ on the
+stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture
+gallery. _Punch_ describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery
+combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a
+pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough
+Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the
+building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular
+attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various
+vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine
+warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street,
+was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it
+in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin
+trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has
+disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of
+"The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," _Punch_ gives a detailed
+account of its attractions in 1842:--
+
+    The covered passage through which the overland journey from
+    Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
+    in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
+    happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
+    whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
+    of security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
+    regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows--from
+    Gavarni's _Charivari_ sketches, which have been there as far as the
+    memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll _Diableries_,
+    and the _Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age_, who rushed
+    into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
+    he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
+    perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
+    saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
+    water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
+    neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
+    impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
+    young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
+    attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
+    portraits of mortal angels in _very_ low dresses, one of whom is
+    asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
+    at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
+    what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
+    tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
+    and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
+    himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
+    popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
+    ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
+    which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
+    arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.
+
+Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of
+its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in
+1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic _bal masqué_
+organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the
+time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during
+Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in _Punch_
+representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the
+scenes of his many triumphs--an ingenious adaptation of the episode of
+Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. _Punch_ was no
+lover of _bals masqués_, reckoning them among the things which they
+manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud,
+modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the
+present building in 1884. _Punch_ owned that admission to her show was a
+test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as
+ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared Madame Tussaud in
+1849--the year before her death--to the witches who made wax models of
+those whom they wished to injure.
+
+[Illustration: THE HAPPY FAMILY]
+
+Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in _London Past
+and Present_ that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original
+Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its
+memories linger in the early volumes of _Punch_. There is a good series
+entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The
+Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well
+remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at
+the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats,
+mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in _Punch's_
+picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one
+sees now and again. A charge of twopence was made for admission to St.
+Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which
+_Punch_ bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with
+Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on
+Cremorne Gardens--which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge--have
+been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a
+scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions--"The Siege of
+Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851--were not closed till
+1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon,
+and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was
+pulled down and the grounds built over.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Dominion of Din_]
+
+_Punch_ had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings
+so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the
+great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the
+tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games
+which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional
+mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on
+Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well
+as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary
+din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin
+note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the
+sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his
+antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who
+brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's
+fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual
+visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take
+an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know
+that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The
+Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's
+"Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably
+representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera,
+and patriotism.
+
+[Illustration: TASTE
+
+SHOP GIRL (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's
+Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the
+'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements_]
+
+The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most
+popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time almost rivalling "General"
+Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who
+was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime
+favourite with _Punch_, and is never mentioned without a friendly word.
+But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none
+stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone
+from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the
+Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to
+1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and
+introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by _Punch_ in prose and
+verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better
+management of the Metropolis in March, 1855, and _Punch_ more than once
+applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan
+Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused _Punch's_
+special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who
+combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges
+once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were
+conspicuous. _Punch_ devotes a special article to those of the
+Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but
+these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold,
+are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the
+broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials
+bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the
+Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and
+'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which _Punch_ noted
+as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been
+worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the
+close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute
+because entirely unregulated. _Punch_ defended the intermission of
+postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed
+dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to
+record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising _Punch_ is
+a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed
+an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage
+occurs:--
+
+    The _Kentish Herald_ lately contained the following notice:
+    "Ranelagh Gardens, Margate--last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
+    consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
+    tragical enough; but _The Times_ outdoes it in horror by informing
+    us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for _general_ interment";
+    and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
+    General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
+    Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
+    "Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
+    satisfaction."
+
+In 1847 _Punch_ recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing the
+activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to
+restrain the excesses of the advertiser:--
+
+    Advertisements are spreading all over England--they have crept
+    under the bridges--have planted themselves right in the middle of
+    the Thames--have usurped the greatest thoroughfares--and are now
+    just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
+    certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
+    stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
+    nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
+    calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
+    vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
+    most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
+    such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
+    and stuffed with nothing else.
+
+We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus.
+It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the
+fastidious of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+
+
+
+THE COURT
+
+
+At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache,
+the famous French artist--perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar
+_genre_ that our age has produced--published a wonderful design in which
+the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's
+reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain
+was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a
+girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King,
+Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic.
+The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have
+been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is
+rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and
+limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the
+personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in
+temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell,
+Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted
+for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from
+which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment
+created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was
+summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the
+throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over
+the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena
+of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound
+and constitutional--that these appointments should not be made or
+maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences
+hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of
+a certain obstinacy in the assertion of her rights. But the cry that
+the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange
+cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate
+outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the
+ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the
+Queen's relations with Whig Ministers--always excepting Lord
+Palmerston--were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no
+guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are
+familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it
+was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but
+whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the
+Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement
+when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less
+effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of
+affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent
+qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he
+was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not
+in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in
+affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit
+for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to
+that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and
+geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and
+occasionally _gauche_. His notions of sport were not those of an English
+sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To
+put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the
+unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to
+everything foreign--language, art, music, letters--and consistently
+declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal
+patronage of foreigners begin in _Punch's_ first volume. "Ride-a-cock
+horse" is turned into a florid Italian _cavatina_, and the words
+translated into Italian--"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"--for the
+benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as
+"a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an
+utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series
+of complaints which re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn
+to _Punch's_ extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a
+burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal
+nursery, _à propos_ of the birth of the Prince of Wales:--
+
+THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN
+
+By the Correspondent of the _Observer_
+
+    The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
+    agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
+    a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
+    expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.
+
+    According to rumour, the baby--we beg pardon, the scion of the
+    House of Brunswick--was to have been born--we must apologize again,
+    we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
+    the reigning family of Great Britain--some day last month, and of
+    course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
+    that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
+    confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
+    anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
+    Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
+    London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
+    smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
+    rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
+    because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
+    the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
+    opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
+    that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
+    of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
+    conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
+    pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
+    that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
+    heart of the Royal Household.[11] But we hope, for the honour of
+    all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
+    matter of political arrangement.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued_]
+
+[Footnote 11: The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been
+settled in 1840. But Scribe's _Verre d'Eau_, under the title of _The
+Maid of Honour_, with the real incident turned into farce, had been
+adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.]
+
+This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment
+from the same fictitious correspondent:--
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
+
+(By the _Observer's_ own Correspondent)
+
+    It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
+    probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
+    impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
+    positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
+    of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
+    Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
+    title of the _Prince of Wales_, which it is generally understood he
+    will enjoy--at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
+    anything of the kind--until an event shall happen which we hope
+    will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
+    Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
+    whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
+    Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
+    circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to _at present_, nor
+    do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.
+
+    Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
+    Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
+    to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
+    having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
+    have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
+    Mayors of London and Dublin.
+
+[Illustration: A ROYAL NURSERY RHYME FOR 1860
+
+    "There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do."]
+
+This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of
+the infant Prince. _Punch's_ serious views as to the Prince's future are
+to be found in his "Pæan to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by
+the Royal Christening in February, 1842:--
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PRINCELET
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The little Prince _must_ love the poor,
+      And he will heed the cry
+    Of the pauper mother, when she finds
+      Her infant's fountains dry.
+    He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,
+      To make those founts o'erflow,
+    For they have vow'd our little Prince
+      No "vanities" shall know.
+    And we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+    And death's dark bones will then become
+      Like iv'ry pure and white!
+    His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,
+      And his garments be as light;
+    For man will slaughter man no more
+      For wrong begot by wrongs,
+    For our little Prince will say--"To me
+      Nor life nor death belongs."
+    So we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, _Punch_ could not
+emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could
+not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not
+exempt, save on their knees:--
+
+    It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
+    Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
+    Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
+    has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
+    Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
+    Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
+    within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
+    Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
+    Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
+    subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
+    Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
+    that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
+    was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
+    receiving it.
+
+When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some
+apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be
+affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that
+there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at
+present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of
+concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the
+noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:--
+
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E andato al mercato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E a casa restato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.
+
+These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from
+the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained
+campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and
+sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on
+uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this
+hereditary failing. A concise biography in the _Almanack_ for 1842
+states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a
+shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put
+her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and
+malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons.
+He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the _Morning Post_),
+for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Tailor_]
+
+In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his
+sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment
+is associated with the cartoon:--
+
+    Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
+    of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
+    ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
+    trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
+    to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
+    regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
+    do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
+    bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
+    and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
+    whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
+    the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
+    between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then _Punch_ was
+    compelled to interfere, for the honour of the English army. The
+    result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
+    an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
+    Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAILOR'S GOOSE--THE TERROR OF THE ARMY]
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Sportsman_]
+
+The campaign reached its height in 1845 when _Punch_ was given an
+irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained
+by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, _Punch_ averred, was a born tailor,
+the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the
+British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming
+rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse
+his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and
+might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this outburst of
+derision _Punch_ gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the
+running--or baiting--with renewed energy against his sportmanship.
+_Punch_, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field
+sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once
+protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for
+a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to
+support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument
+was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was
+more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his
+crime. _Punch_ was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the
+influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of
+game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the
+Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.
+
+The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were
+the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the
+Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles
+and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony
+phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:--
+
+    Six hares alive were taken out
+      Each in its canvas sack;
+    And five as dead as mutton, in
+      The same were carried back.
+
+The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of
+Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad
+modelled on _John Gilpin_, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting
+down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to
+this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in
+September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and
+pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the
+bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria;
+and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by
+Prince Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":--
+
+    Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear
+      In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)
+    Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,
+      By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.
+    Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;
+      Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;
+    Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,
+      Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.
+    Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,
+      This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,
+    Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court
+      And make a massyker of English Staggs.[12]
+    Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,
+      What avoc he _would_ make and what a trimenjus battu!
+
+    JEAMS.
+
+[Footnote 12: In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway
+speculation.]
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stag Slaughter at Gotha_]
+
+[Illustration: VICTORIA]
+
+Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment
+of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the _Standard_:--
+
+TEARS AT GOTHA
+
+    The _Standard_ gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
+    to a gentleman in London:--
+
+    "This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept _I saw
+    large tears in her eyes_: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
+    difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
+    the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she _naturally felt_ at
+    the death of the animal was _counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
+    propensities_, so that it is almost as meritorious _to destroy an
+    otter as it is a snake_; but this was a totally different case; nor
+    is Her Majesty yet recovered. _For the Prince_, the deer were too
+    numerous, and _must_ be killed. _This_ was the German method; and
+    no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
+    will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."
+
+[Illustration: THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+
+"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have _you_ any Railway Shares?"]
+
+This incident marked the high-water level of _Punch's_
+anti-Albertianism--at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an
+address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting
+season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the
+Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of
+dissatisfaction. What infuriated _Punch_ even more than the ineptitudes
+of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the _Lickspittle-offs_ of the
+Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The
+amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing,"
+_Punch_ frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing
+than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment
+of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its
+discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an
+immense gulf, and _Punch_ was never weary of gibbeting those writers in
+and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning
+spirit of the time--questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges
+the throne--by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone
+age." Assuredly, the absolute _reductio ad absurdum_ of this
+courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any
+reasonable woman would:--
+
+    The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
+    compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
+    dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
+    aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
+    idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars--"what
+    condescension!" If it display the influence of affections, he
+    screams--"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
+    Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
+    says _The Atlas_--"The woman and the mother _for a moment_
+    proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
+    and the _splendour of a diadem_!"
+
+    What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"--but then, we
+    presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
+    in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?
+
+The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for
+deprecating royal excursions by railway:--
+
+    _The Atlas_ thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":--
+
+    "We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
+    managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
+    of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
+    and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
+    regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
+    that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
+    royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
+    abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."
+
+    There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says _The Atlas_,
+    the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
+    chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
+    "take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may _occasionally_
+    take a chance!"
+
+_Punch_, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious
+view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of
+maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf
+fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.
+
+[Sidenote: _Syncophancy Rebuked_]
+
+Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the
+other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well
+rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with
+the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed
+that here, as on so many occasions, _Punch_ adopted the device of
+assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:--
+
+    Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which _Punch_ has
+    been favoured with an early copy.
+
+    WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
+    is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
+    correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
+    write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
+    touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies--it is Our
+    Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
+    really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
+    and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
+    shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
+    all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
+    Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
+    be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
+    shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
+    FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
+    him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
+    without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
+    FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
+    permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
+    exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
+    familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.
+
+    BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
+    FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
+    vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.
+
+  VICTORIA REGINA.
+
+  Given at Blair Athol,
+  September 16, 1844.
+
+In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the _Court
+Circular_--the ironical suggestions that it should be published in
+French or Italian,[13] and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel
+Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile
+nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's.
+
+[Footnote 13: ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person
+puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he
+means."]
+
+Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted
+by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new
+occupant of the post:--
+
+     ... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
+    there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are of
+    too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
+    the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
+    shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
+    would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
+    poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
+    the _Court Circular_, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
+    Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
+    privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
+    following specimen:--
+
+    This morning at an early hour,
+      In Osborne's peaceful grounds,
+    The Queen and Prince--'spite of a shower--
+      Took their accustomed rounds.
+    With them, to bear them company,
+      Prince Leiningen he went,
+    And with the other royal three,
+      The Duchess, eke, of Kent.
+
+    His Royal Highness Prince of Wales
+      Went forth to take the air;
+    The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails
+      His exercise to share.
+    On the young members of the flock
+      Was tenderest care bestowed,
+    For two long hours by the clock
+      They walked--they ran--they rode.
+
+    Calmly away the hours wear
+      In Osborne's tranquil shade,
+    And to the dinner-party there
+      Was no addition made.
+    Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas
+      Having returned to town,
+    The Royal family circle has
+      Settled serenely down.
+
+It is not too much to assume that _Punch's_ ridicule assisted in
+eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record
+of life at Court.
+
+We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his
+prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in
+October, 1843, is treated with acidulated satire, and in his imaginary
+speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new
+academic cap (_novus pileus academicus_) of his own designing. A month
+later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of
+Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato--on the eve
+of the Irish famine--is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but
+then Princes are such wags," adds _Punch_. The much-canvassed
+appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847
+led to sardonic comment:--
+
+    Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
+    this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
+    begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
+    most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
+    feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.
+
+[Sidenote: The Prince of Bricklayers]
+
+But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a
+friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince
+"Al." _Punch_, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the
+hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes,
+and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of
+social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of
+Bricklayers:--
+
+    His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
+    some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
+    Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and _Punch_, in order
+    to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
+    with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
+    be coming out like a regular brick.
+
+But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which,
+more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and
+popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea--and the Prince was its
+only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the
+significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the
+world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in _The Times_, and other
+utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in _The Idea
+of Progress_, that "the Exhibition was, at the time, optimistically
+regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical
+progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to
+a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of
+which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's
+'Federation of the World.'" _Punch_ never failed to give the Prince the
+credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it
+his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the
+Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which
+appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the
+suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde
+Park:--
+
+PRINCE _PUNCH_ TO PRINCE ALBERT
+
+    Illustrious and excellent brother,
+      Don't consider me rude or unkind,
+    If, as from one Prince to another,
+      I give you a bit of my mind--
+    And I do so with all the more roundness,
+      As your conduct amongst us has shown
+    A propriety, judgment and soundness
+      Of taste, not surpassed by my own.
+
+    You've respected John Bull's little oddities,
+      Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
+    Chose his pictures and statues--commodities
+      Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
+    And if you're a leetle more German
+      In these than I'd have you--what is't
+    Beyond what a critic may term an
+      Educational bias or twist?
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    You have never pressed forward unbidden;
+      When called on you've never shown shame,
+    Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
+      Your person, your purse, or your name;
+    You've lent no man occasion to call you
+      Intruder, intriguer, or fool;
+    Even I've not had often to haul you
+      O'er the coals, or to take you to school.
+
+    All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness--
+      Which, _au reste_, our positions allow--
+    For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
+      After all I have written just now):
+    Which is to put down certain flunkies,
+      Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
+    Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
+      Tars throw stones--to get nuts in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then silence your civic applauders,
+      Lest better men cease from applause.
+    He who tribute accepts of marauders,
+      Is held to be pledged to their cause.
+    Let no Corporate magnates of London
+      An honour presume to award:
+    Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,
+      Little honour to spare can afford!
+
+[Sidenote: Prince Punch to Prince Albert]
+
+A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, _Punch_ was evidently
+impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of
+State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on
+thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs--Very Dangerous," and _Mr. Punch_
+shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis"
+warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the _rôle_ of
+an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt
+it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of
+the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the
+charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards,
+but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that
+he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army
+was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the
+Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond
+all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never
+uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the
+honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion
+was not wholly appeased, and _Punch's_ references to the Prince during
+the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the
+intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's bâton and pay, as
+a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry
+for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year
+his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic
+remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told,
+the intention and the desire were both inventions of _Punch_, who was
+playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves
+and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to
+make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have
+criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the
+picture of _Punch_ regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the
+Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself,
+"What sanguinary engagement can it be?" _Punch_ cannot be acquitted of
+treating the Prince Consort--as he only now began to be generally
+called--with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate
+position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to
+meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent
+him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with
+this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted,
+that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused;
+that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and
+self-protective. It was not the first time _Punch_ had been unjust to
+the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the
+campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged
+that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the
+Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in _Punch_--and the
+public--did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince
+Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRASSHOPPERS' FEAST: A PROPHETIC VISION.
+
+Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper--Monday, October 28, 1844.]
+
+As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause
+of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we
+have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the
+influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the
+Queen was by no means exempt from direct censure, remonstrance, and
+exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was
+treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days
+_Punch_ never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are
+always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her
+visit to the City in 1844. Though _Punch's_ pen was sharp his pencil was
+kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon
+published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860[14]":--
+
+    There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
+
+[Footnote 14: See Illustration.]
+
+As early as the Christmas number of 1842 _Punch_ had given "the
+arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names
+and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he
+comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax.
+More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion,
+against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.--
+
+    TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY
+
+    _Punch_ has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
+    the columns of _The Times_. Whether _Punch's_ friend, the Attorney
+    General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
+    immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
+    _Punch_ knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
+    law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
+    future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
+    sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
+    Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
+    of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
+    writes as follows:--
+
+    "Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
+    residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
+    as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
+    that royalty, like property, has its _duties_ as well as its
+    _rights_. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
+    kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
+    essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
+    sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
+    entertainments that deserve to be encouraged by attending such
+    places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
+    arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
+    approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
+    too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
+    these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
+    how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
+    distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
+    lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
+    acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
+    it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
+    constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
+    personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
+    that is likely to accrue from such neglect."
+
+In these years, and for a good many years to come, _Punch_ hunted in
+couples with _The Times_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Neglect of Native Talent_]
+
+The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists,
+musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for
+year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes
+oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court:
+Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity
+was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the
+funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, _Punch_ exclaims, "imagine for
+a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The
+often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him
+very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated
+Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of
+Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang
+several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as _Punch_ notes, of
+the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But _Punch_ had
+his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in
+dwarfs--Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her
+staff--by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results
+that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped
+growing at the age of five months:--
+
+    How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
+    lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
+    merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
+    majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
+    was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!
+
+The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of _Punch_, nor was
+this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of
+Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. _Punch_ considered
+that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the
+latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on
+the Four Georges:--
+
+GEORGIUS ULTIMUS
+
+        He left an example for age and for youth
+                      To avoid.
+        He never acted well by Man or Woman,
+      And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.
+        He deserted his Friends and his Principles.
+      He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;
+        But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,
+          And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.
+    He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,
+        And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,
+                  An admiring Aristocracy
+    Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."
+        Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,
+        And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.
+
+In the same year _Punch_, with malicious inventiveness, represented
+Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on
+Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the
+Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these
+agilities _The Times_ again proved a useful ally, for in the same number
+we find the following:--
+
+HIGH TREASON
+
+A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in _The Times_, writes
+thus:--
+
+    "It is no use to conceal the fact--British high art _is hated at
+    Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy_. They don't want it; they
+    can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
+    vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"
+
+    We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
+    to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.
+
+[Illustration: TRAINING SCHOOL FOR LADIES ABOUT TO APPEAR AT COURT]
+
+It was a letter in _The Times_ that again prompted _Punch's_
+remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French
+milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the
+imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of
+the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:--
+
+THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY
+
+    There was a new Singer of Italy
+    Who went through his part very prettily;
+      "Mamma tinks him so fine,
+      We must have him to dine!"
+    Papa remarked slily and wittily.
+
+THE OLD SINGER OF AVON
+
+    There was an old Singer of Avon,
+    Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;
+      But Mamma doesn't care
+      For this stupid swan's air,
+    Any more than the croak of a raven.
+
+[Sidenote: _Royal Visits and Visitors_]
+
+[Illustration: CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES
+
+Calypso, Q----n V----a; Ulysses, K--g of the F----h.]
+
+The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's
+"bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of
+_Punch's_ frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone
+as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid
+sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but _Punch_ was no
+advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely
+criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the
+remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of
+an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal levées is
+a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; _Punch_ is happy
+in pillorying the _Morning Post_ for the use of the phrase, "the dense
+mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions;
+while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early
+juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were
+carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal
+tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is
+represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty.
+_Punch_ was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe--whom, by the way,
+he once represented as Fagin--and the impending visit of the French
+Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in
+proscribing and impounding _Punch_, followed up by a burlesque account
+of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission
+of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the
+invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, _Punch_
+burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. _Punch_,
+like the _Skibbereen Eagle_, always kept his eye on the Tsar of
+Russia--and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas
+stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks
+began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to
+England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter
+hostility. Readers of _Punch_ are advised to carry every penny of the
+largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid
+any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of
+harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is
+shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the
+Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for
+the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of
+savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to
+the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short,
+was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a
+diamond ring in it. Nor has _Punch_ a single good word to say for the
+King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year,
+"to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with
+anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844,
+_Punch_ profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited
+Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners'
+ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee
+Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout
+the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from
+his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even
+worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit
+in June, 1843:--
+
+TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER
+
+    The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
+    of six years--intensely painful to all parties--the monarch returns
+    to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
+    name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
+    perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
+    marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
+    who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
+    thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
+    the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
+    Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
+    said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
+    medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
+    Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
+    fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
+    evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
+    was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
+    with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
+    the King of Hanover) has £23,000 a year from the sweat of
+    Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
+    taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
+    he not practically teach them the beauty of humility--of long
+    suffering--of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
+    continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
+    who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
+    will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
+    Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
+    expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
+    creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
+    pride and height of their intelligence, allow £23,000 to the King
+    of Hanover.
+
+[Sidenote: Royal Parasites]
+
+The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge,
+to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful
+explosion in the _Morning Post_:--
+
+    Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
+    the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
+    _bouquet_, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
+    proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely premising that
+    we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
+    elated and deeply moved." He says:
+
+    "We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
+    ceremony as _in turn_ we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
+    to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
+    and beauty, _through which is ever discernible the eagle glance_
+    and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
+    Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, _one of the handsomest
+    Princes of the age_, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
+    tempered by the _judgment and wisdom of age_. The Queen Adelaide,
+    living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
+    private life or on a throne."
+
+    So far the _Morning Post_. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
+    _The Times_?
+
+    "The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
+    in consequence of indisposition."
+
+The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of
+never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous
+after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who
+thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:--
+
+    A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:
+
+    _Minister._ From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
+    of the devil----
+
+    (_Duke._ To be sure; very proper--very proper.)
+
+    _Minister._ From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion----
+
+    (_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.)
+
+    And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
+    However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
+    Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:
+
+    _Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
+    for----
+
+    (_Duke._ No objection--no objection!)
+
+[Sidenote: _A Royal Duke's Household_]
+
+One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the
+less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable
+and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he
+was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and
+the people."
+
+On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked
+the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of
+Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and
+Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were
+neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:--
+
+FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS
+
+    What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
+    he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
+    time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
+    these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
+    pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
+    sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
+    Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
+    and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
+    system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
+    have fallen--can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
+    be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
+    which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
+    measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
+    grants to its pensioners--when the allowance is flung at his Royal
+    Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
+    tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN DAMOCLES]
+
+Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the
+mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he
+ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if he did not equal him, as _Punch's_ pet
+aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the
+hostile comment that "empire" meant _empirer_. The _Coup d'État_ was the
+signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His
+matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor
+Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in
+France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are
+vehemently denounced. _Punch's_ attacks ceased during the Crimean War,
+but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace
+was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was
+responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in
+_Punch_.
+
+By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William
+Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the
+Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his _Life of Napoleon
+III_ the chief _apologia_ in English of the Second Empire.
+
+But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst
+_Punch's_ unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his
+reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to
+Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the
+surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to
+Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated
+controversy in 1845 in which _Punch_ ranged himself militantly among the
+partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various
+sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of
+the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a
+burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined
+zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."
+
+[Illustration: SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?]
+
+The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail,
+and in an optimistic vein. _Punch_ never believed in the Repeal
+Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot
+and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father
+Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis,
+or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien,
+an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous
+ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato
+famine had evoked _Punch's_ sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring
+reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of
+Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified _vix paulò ante Diem
+Judicii_--or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's
+visit was hailed as of good omen, though _Punch_ reminds her that she
+had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen--palaces and not
+cabins. "Let Erin _forget_ the days of old" is the burden of his song;
+at least he refrained from quoting--if he ever knew of it--that other
+terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits
+that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her
+traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium.
+Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife,
+paid the costs of her vilifier.
+
+In 1849, also, _Punch_, evidently still in mellower mood, published an
+enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who
+died on December 2. _Punch_ specially refers to her generosity to Mrs.
+Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and
+the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid
+from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton,
+consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest
+charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by
+her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform
+Agitation, and _Punch's_ homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the
+times that _Punch_ begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or
+more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her
+popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties.
+At the close of 1852 _Punch_ ridicules as absurd the rumour of the
+betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
+the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a
+German paper, and proved true. _Punch's_ chief objection was
+sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the
+rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle
+would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the
+domestic graces." Besides, _Punch_ in the summer of 1844 had published
+his own New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by _The Times's_ comment on
+the late Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it
+therefore enacted that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty
+to marry whom or how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or
+pleases."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Princess Royal's Betrothal_]
+
+Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three
+years later:--
+
+ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE
+
+    They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,
+    Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.
+    What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!
+    The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?
+
+    Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd
+    Against her in arms, but his being afraid.
+    His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!
+    Pooh!--the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.
+
+    The Princess is--bless her!--scarce fifteen years old;
+    One summer more even o'er _Dinah_ had roll'd.
+    To marry so early she can't be inclined;
+    A suitable _Villikins_ some day she'll find.
+
+    Moreover, in her case, we know very well,
+    There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,
+    Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,
+    With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."
+
+Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent
+anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856.
+_Punch's_ comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the
+betrothal was celebrated in verse at once ceremonial and friendly.
+References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we
+may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic
+Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, _Punch_
+administered a severe castigation to the offender. _Punch_ did not like
+his monopoly to be infringed.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+
+Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of _Punch_ and in those
+of the _Morning Post_ in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf.
+As we have seen, _Punch's_ admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped
+a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized
+most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not
+denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and
+the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern
+Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington.
+Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action
+against Napoleon, and here was his reply:--
+
+    "---- wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
+    remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
+    advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
+    that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
+    transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
+    that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
+    appoint an executioner, which would not be me."[15]
+
+The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:--
+
+    The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
+    political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
+    defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
+    Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
+    Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
+    Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
+    the Dwarf?
+
+Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded
+the repeal of the Corn Laws--whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or
+strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.
+
+[Footnote 15: Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's
+Dispatches.]
+
+[Illustration: HENRY MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: A NEW STATUE OF ACHILLES
+
+Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo
+Lane, and Waterloo Place.]
+
+The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in
+connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of
+Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When
+Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel _The
+Tuft-hunter_ were exposed, _Punch_ printed this jingling epigram:--
+
+    A Duke once declared--and most solemnly too--
+    That whatever he liked with his own he would do;
+    But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown
+    He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!
+
+[Sidenote: _Marquesses under the Microscope_]
+
+And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of
+Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very
+first number. The Marquess of Hertford--the original of Thackeray's
+Marquess of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_--is subjected to posthumous obloquy,
+_à propos_ of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were
+compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead
+may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of
+Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner,
+but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical
+Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of
+Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 2½d. in
+the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait
+for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but
+then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power
+of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:--
+
+THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY
+
+The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with
+the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of
+office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men,
+to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody,
+save the Earl of Malmesbury. _The Times_ says, and most truly:
+
+    "A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
+    century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
+    deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
+    Secretary seemed able to bestow."
+
+Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the
+heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord
+Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true
+strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years
+of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or
+jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst
+the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a
+little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne
+struck at rotten boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest
+sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon
+his doings? So it is!
+
+    Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
+    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
+    A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
+    Those scraps are good deeds past.
+
+But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the
+history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot
+rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the
+true, manly, English brain that beats--(and in the serene happiness of
+honoured age may it long continue to beat!)--beneath it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Educating the House of Lords_]
+
+[Illustration: APPROPRIATE
+
+FIRST CITIZEN: "I say, Bill--I wonder what he calls hisself?"
+
+SECOND DITTO: "Blowed if I know!--but I calls him a Bloated
+Haristocrat."]
+
+As for peers in general, _Punch's_ views may be gathered from his scheme
+for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:--
+
+    It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
+    born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
+    born ass.
+
+    We are not proving that fact--only stating it--_pace_ your
+    word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.
+
+    But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
+    command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
+    not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
+    ears.
+
+    The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
+    asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
+    country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
+    kicking.
+
+    Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
+    son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
+    dose of physic for an old woman.
+
+    But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
+    certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
+    which is absurd.
+
+    Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
+    any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
+    born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.
+
+    Examine him in the Alphabet--there have been Peers who didn't know
+    that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make a
+    Lord--the Mayor of London--count hobnails. In history--for he is to
+    help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
+    and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
+    are _a fortiori_ to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
+    physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
+    medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
+    individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
+    homoeopaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
+    philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
+    ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
+    house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
+    which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
+    In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
+    stand up for the liberty of unlicensed printing, instead of
+    insulting and calumniating the Press.
+
+    This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
+    objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
+    can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
+    has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
+    touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
+    that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
+    had better not shave ourselves.
+
+To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers,
+extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are
+specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant
+mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in
+the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the
+Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and
+all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected
+therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of _Punch's_
+favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St.
+Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the
+"snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the
+appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children
+out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.
+
+Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic
+example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean
+War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care
+of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's.
+Hence the epigram:--
+
+CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COÛTE
+
+    "The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"
+    "By not taking," says _Punch_, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."
+
+With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer
+but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he earned the dislike of
+_Punch_, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his
+traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.
+
+[Sidenote: _Thackeray on Great Folks_]
+
+_Punch_ saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the
+bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family
+in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble
+personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than
+friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than
+coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible.
+Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold,
+and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed
+the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town."
+Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he
+says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:--
+
+    The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
+    trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
+    persons do, but take you for what you are--a man kindly and
+    good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
+    good _raconteur_, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
+    and judge of wine--or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
+    ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
+    Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
+    Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
+    leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
+    D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
+    what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
+    quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
+    stage King and Queen.
+
+
+
+
+SOCIETY--EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+
+For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties
+_Punch_ cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent
+reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the
+_entrée_ to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often
+overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and
+diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in
+Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances
+and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its
+public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society,
+which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, _Punch_ subdivides the
+three main strata of Society--High Life, Middle Life, Low Life--into
+various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people
+wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we
+pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to
+the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was
+of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby
+genteel, that _Punch_, in his earliest days, had most first-hand
+knowledge.
+
+[Sidenote: _Almack's_]
+
+The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated
+than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing
+less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from
+Galloway--Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name,
+MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a
+Yorkshire Quaker--who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton,
+and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for
+aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous
+Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James's, where, for more than
+seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the
+twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly
+Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a
+committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who
+distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth
+century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be
+introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly
+Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine
+oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of
+Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the _crême de la
+crême_ of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion
+of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of
+laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least,
+meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."[16]
+Great care was taken that the supply of _débutantes_ should not exceed
+the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the
+accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps,
+the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum
+attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781,
+bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after
+whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely
+departed, but so serious a review as the _Quarterly_ wrote respectfully
+of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in
+England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number
+of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are
+quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of
+their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's
+lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed
+and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly
+exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and
+quadrille--the polka--are described by _Punch_ (after Byron) in the
+lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844.
+The craze for dancing was not so widely diffused as in 1920, but to
+judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all
+strata of Society were affected:--
+
+[Footnote 16: _Vide_ Grantley Berkeley's _Recollections_.]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLKA
+
+1. My Polka before Six Lessons.
+
+2. My Polka after Six Lessons.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Polkamania_]
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+AN "AT HOME". YE POLKA.]
+
+    That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
+    have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
+    analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
+    Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
+    entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
+    name of _Aranea Polkapoietica_. The Polkamania, after raging
+    fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
+    length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
+    Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
+    specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
+    nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
+    corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
+    the whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
+    symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
+    the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
+    movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
+    _cerebellum_. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
+    amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
+    terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
+    subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
+    finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
+    strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
+    propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
+    Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
+    Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
+    things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
+    obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
+    go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
+    committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
+    suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
+    now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
+    less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
+    not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
+    have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
+    yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
+    corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
+    variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
+    be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.
+
+Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of
+to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the
+waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour.
+The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but
+the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of
+figures--La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.--is dead beyond
+redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good
+ten years.[17] In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the
+art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a
+Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which
+Thackeray joined) for the suppression of the pest, the malady was
+described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued
+phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue
+in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its
+prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers--Taglioni (who gave
+her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin
+of the _prima-donna_; but though there were schools of dancing, and
+_Thés dansants_, which _Punch_ heavily ridiculed, and though the
+fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at
+Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals,
+as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher
+flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young
+lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at
+least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the
+practice of Poonah painting--an early and crude imitation of Oriental
+art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah
+painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The
+fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing
+tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are
+(allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the
+Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of
+conversation at a social gathering:--
+
+[Footnote 17: A correspondent wrote to _The Times_ in 1846 complaining
+that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and
+suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Modish Futilities_]
+
+    It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
+    sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
+    figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
+    fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
+    be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
+    That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
+    converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
+    Answer, without exception, "Yes"--general rule as before; but when
+    the rejoinder comes, "What instrument do you play?" although the
+    reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the
+    mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind
+    of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you
+    will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine
+    players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or
+    Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call Mercadante "grand" or
+    Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a
+    word or two for Alexander Lee.[18]
+
+    It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two
+    queries) a young lady will answer your questions with
+    indifference--almost contempt--in the belief that you are a very
+    commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of
+    romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging
+    over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or
+    Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is
+    most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to
+    do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with
+    meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance,
+    the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with
+    common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter
+    predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be
+    quoted from _Romeo and Juliet_, which will bring in a reflection
+    upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the
+    quotation:
+
+    "I never knew a young gazelle," etc.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Finishing" a Daughter_]
+
+This was written in _Punch_ in July, 1842, but there is not much
+difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years
+later:--
+
+    HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER
+
+    1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.
+
+    2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.
+
+    3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at
+    home.
+
+    4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.
+
+    5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of
+    life.
+
+    6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of
+    house-keeping.
+
+    7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything
+    for herself.
+
+    8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.
+
+    9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to a
+    clerk in the Treasury upon £75 a year, or to an ensign who is going
+    out to India.
+
+    If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished,
+    you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her
+    escape as nothing short of a miracle.
+
+[Footnote 18: George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican
+and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer,
+music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the
+Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular
+in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's
+Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."]
+
+[Illustration: SPORTING MAN (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a
+promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to
+the black-cob-looking man."]
+
+The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of
+Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official
+recognition of learned women and authoresses--Mrs. Somerville and Maria
+Edgeworth--was supported by _Punch_. In his "Letters to a Young Man
+about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of
+good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little
+encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners,
+regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the
+gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only
+substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."
+
+_Punch_ castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their
+fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women
+exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old
+Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to
+the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or
+scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only
+excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women
+the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely
+patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the
+_Ingoldsby Legends_ deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian
+manners, and can be verified from the pages of _Punch_, who tells us
+how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:--
+
+    All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to
+    sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several
+    instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised
+    seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was
+    pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last
+    four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be
+    fifteen pounds.
+
+The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in
+the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion.
+Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left
+to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to
+subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty
+years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the
+accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a
+correspondent to the _Morning Post_, who wrote to describe how, as the
+result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was
+placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."
+
+[Sidenote: _Verrey and Gunter_]
+
+[Illustration: Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe
+
+A FASHIONABLE CLUB--FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.]
+
+The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony
+was ever a male vice, and _Punch_ is constantly running a tilt against
+civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not
+confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera
+and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four
+thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading for
+more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and
+relations--more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did
+not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later
+age.[19] They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few
+expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The
+nearest approach was Verrey's Café, which was then a fashionable resort,
+and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for
+mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor
+money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title _Punch_
+satirizes the pretensions of the New Rich), the _entrée_ to Almack's.
+For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's
+"Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of
+Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and
+obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of
+to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid
+roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the
+smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have
+borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which
+he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:--
+
+    What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the
+    brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody
+    here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of
+    knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon
+    after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a
+    newspaper. How pleasant this room is--isn't it? with its sober
+    draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes--nothing to
+    interrupt the quiet--only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies
+    asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, _Pendennis_,
+    No. VII.--hum, let us pass on. Have you read _David Copperfield_,
+    by the way? How beautiful it is--how charmingly fresh and simple!
+    In those admirable touches of tender humour--and I should call
+    humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit--who can equal this great
+    genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are
+    like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in
+    the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a
+    writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words
+    go forth to vast congregations of mankind--to grown folks, to their
+    children, and perhaps to their children's children--but must think
+    of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth
+    guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further
+    its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the _Record_ revile him--See,
+    here's Horner waking up--How do you do, Horner?
+
+[Footnote 19: _Who's Who_ first appeared in 1849. In those days it was
+little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not
+until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which
+have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Tobacco Tabooed_]
+
+Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to
+be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and
+Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that
+den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in _some_
+clubs, called the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed
+for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known
+club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate
+pipe-smoking on their precincts. _Punch_ early ranged himself on the
+side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British
+Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with
+hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce
+their small antipathies on the rest of us."
+
+[Illustration: GROUP IN THEATRE BOX]
+
+The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day,
+were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had
+passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness
+Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera,
+was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up,
+during the season of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the
+Superior Classes":--
+
+    Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,
+      Who would not rather gaze
+    On youth and beauty dancing
+      Than one of Shakespeare's plays?
+    Give me the haunt of Fashion,
+      And let the Drama's shrine
+    Engross the vulgar's passion;
+      Fops' Alley, thou art mine.
+
+Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing
+parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the
+manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad
+Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the
+achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in _The Newcomes_, written
+in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the
+"Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his
+son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of
+entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but _Punch_ makes a notable
+exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after
+redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was
+no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of
+the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble
+tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. _Punch's_ only
+adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of
+the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the
+entertainment, whether for mind or body:--
+
+    Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed
+    betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences
+    at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town
+    under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose.
+    To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of
+    Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named
+    institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness--so
+    important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might give
+    it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of
+    his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable
+    amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor--the student of
+    law--of medicine--nay, of divinity--offers an attraction in the
+    right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards
+    the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good
+    singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal
+    harangue and a cup of Twankay.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent
+for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Travellers and Outlaws_]
+
+The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse
+before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always
+the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the
+founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired
+in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing
+generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling
+for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and
+more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to
+appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours"
+was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to
+_Punch_ it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time
+occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long
+been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who
+are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them,
+including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of
+outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in
+poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were
+"the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled
+precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years
+earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of
+fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of
+literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of
+D'Orsay, whom Byron called the _Cupidon déchaîné_, handsome, gifted and
+popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the
+only artist congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call
+sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier
+treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him
+to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from _Punch_
+even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of
+Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They
+at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney
+travellers on the Continent in 1845:--
+
+    SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT
+
+    Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to
+    ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the
+    lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the
+    proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will
+    also find to be an endless source of amusement.
+
+    Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so you
+    may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their
+    faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of
+    ladies, at a _table d'hôte_. Do not care what you say about the
+    government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show
+    your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of
+    the superiority of England and everything English.
+
+[Illustration: THE OPERA
+
+DOORKEEPER: "Beg your pardon, Sir--but must, indeed, Sir, be in full
+dress."
+
+SNOB (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The "Gent" Abroad and at Home_]
+
+The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily
+the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to
+observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as
+"'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of _Punch's_ pet aversions
+under the title of "the Gent":--
+
+    Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares,
+    the _Gent_ is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption
+    of style about him--a futile aping of superiority that inspires us
+    with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we
+    contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the
+    thing."
+
+    No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry
+    vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards
+    which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts
+    to ape _gentility_--a bad style of word, we admit, but one
+    peculiarly adapted to our purpose--are to us more painful than
+    ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
+    his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
+    his dreary efforts to assume a style and _tournure_ which he is so
+    utterly incapable of carrying out.
+
+_Punch_ was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When
+foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a
+moment. John Bull, he declared, _à propos_ of the suspicion of the
+French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant
+fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his
+playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen
+on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their
+failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list
+of the things an Englishman likes:--
+
+    An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
+    more to his liking than: To talk largely about Art, and to have
+    the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!
+
+    To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
+    needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
+    cheap shirts and clothes are sold!
+
+    To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
+    not!
+
+    To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
+    operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
+    foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!
+
+    To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
+    yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
+    be seen in company with one!
+
+    To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
+    greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax[21] that was only
+    put on for three years!
+
+    To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
+    to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
+    staring at her!
+
+    To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
+    Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!
+
+    To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
+    the discordant musicians that infest his streets!
+
+    To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
+    instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!
+
+    To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
+    benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!
+
+    And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:
+
+    To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
+    laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
+    national humiliation, paying or being paid--still he must grumble,
+    and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
+    supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
+    great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
+    impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
+    nothing for him to grumble about!
+
+[Footnote 21: The income tax. _Punch_ knew better, and prophesied from
+the very outset that it would never come off.]
+
+_Punch_ certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the
+full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of
+boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and
+persons that should emigrate," he includes "all persons who give
+imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all
+young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear
+ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the
+risk of the _Quis tulerit Gracchos_ retort when he bans "all punsters
+and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of
+education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and
+reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general
+support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a
+chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British
+Association. The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil
+Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than
+44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him
+publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.
+
+[Sidenote: _Desirable Emigrants_]
+
+[Illustration: OFFENDED DIGNITY
+
+SMALL SWELL (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness
+that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with--I
+prefer grown Women of the World!"
+
+(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when
+he went back to school.)]
+
+[Illustration: TWO WORDS TO A BARGAIN
+
+JAPANESE: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall
+remain so."
+
+AMERICAN: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're
+wrong."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Exploiting the Dead_]
+
+Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties;
+the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous
+"medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid
+his first visit to England. From the very first _Punch's_ attitude was
+hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to
+condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and
+expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution.
+Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the
+_Almanack_ for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there
+are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not
+so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot
+see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a
+mesmerist in the _Morning Post_ that he could get into communication
+with Sir John Franklin; this _Punch_ promptly pilloried, as, too, a
+little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated
+by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 _Punch_ solemnly vouches for the
+authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits
+by retail":--
+
+    COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
+    Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
+    Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
+    Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
+    appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
+    Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
+    Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
+    for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
+    and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
+    will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
+    them.
+
+Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but _Punch_
+was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries.
+He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of
+photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging.
+There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many
+years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic
+feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling.
+In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other
+even more menial trades, _Punch_ was not indulging in exaggeration. The
+mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little
+man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio"
+was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was
+clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the
+'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising
+actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it had not begun to
+be thought of as a means of social _réclame_. Apart from politicians and
+public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The
+relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from
+those which prevail to-day. _Punch_ was a great champion of the
+legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful,
+though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had
+written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the
+Court[22] and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter
+comment. But _Punch_ shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official
+recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he
+expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the
+upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of
+mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip
+about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque
+account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions
+when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel
+between Charles Mathews and the _Morning Chronicle_, _Punch_ stood for
+the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based
+on crime, and the cult of monstrosity _Punch_ waged unceasing war, but
+he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were
+sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family
+visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So
+again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a
+performance of _La Dame aux Camélias_ at Exeter Hall in 1857, but
+prohibited an English translation of the words.
+
+[Footnote 22: "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen
+Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of
+Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d.
+each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic
+reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Respect for Decorum_]
+
+Many of the broader aspects of early Victorian social life remain with
+us to-day, though modified or amended. "The broad vein of plush that
+traverses the whole framework of English society," as _Punch_
+flamboyantly gibed, if not wholly obliterated is at least less
+conspicuous. Jeames and Jenkins are dead. If we cannot say the same of
+bullying at schools, "ragging" in the Army, the unnecessary expense of
+uniforms and the costly pageantry of funerals--all of which were
+strenuously condemned by _Punch_--it may at least be contended that
+public opinion is more vigilant in arraigning and bringing to light
+offences against humanity, good taste and common sense. Modern critics
+have not been wanting who charge _Punch_ with prudery and squeamishness,
+but this is not the place to discuss whether the popularity of the paper
+would have been enhanced, or its influence and power fortified by
+following the example of _La Vie Parisienne_ or of _Jugend_. Certainly
+during the period under review reticence and respectability were
+combined on occasion with a remarkable freedom of comment, and the
+tragedy of "The Great Social Evil" was frankly admitted in Leech's
+famous picture. Though an isolated reference it was worth a hundred
+sermons. If _Punch_ preferred to be the champion of domesticity and
+decorum in public and private life, he was reflecting an essential
+feature of the age--a feature which no longer exists. It was an age of
+patriarchal rule and large families. Nothing strikes one more in
+turning over the pages of old numbers of _Punch_ than the swarms of
+young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech.
+The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress
+the reader. The type represented is mainly drawn from well-to-do
+middle-class households, but all classes were prolific. If one needs
+proof, there is the evidence of Debrett and of the tombstones in our
+country churchyards.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Quiverfull_]
+
+[Illustration: Scene: A Public-house, Bury St. Edmunds, after the Dinner
+given by the Mayor of Bury to the Lord Mayor of London.
+
+COUNTRY FOOTMAN: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of our town? A nice
+place, ain't it?"
+
+LONDON FOOTMAN (condescendingly): "Vell, Joseph, I likes your town well
+enough. It's clean; your streets are hairy; and you've lots of rewins.
+But I don't like your champagne; its all Gewsberry."]
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL
+
+Time: Midnight. A sketch not a hundred miles from the Haymarket.
+
+BELLA: "Ah! Fanny! How long have you been _Gay_?"]
+
+[Illustration: A FRESHENER ON THE DOWNS]
+
+
+
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+
+As a mirror of public opinion on the status and importance of the
+learned and liberal professions _Punch_, when due allowance has been
+made for his limitations, his prejudices and even his passions, cannot
+be overlooked by the student of social history. A whole book has been
+written on his attitude towards the Church; in another section of this
+chronicle I have dealt at some length with his hostility to Pluralism,
+Sabbatarianism, Ritualism, and endeavoured to show how a generally
+tolerant and "hang theology" attitude was in the early 'fifties
+exchanged for one of fierce anti-Vaticanism. The "No Popery" drum was
+banged with great fury, and when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
+re-established in England in 1850, _Punch_ supported the Ecclesiastical
+Titles Act which declared the assumption of titles connected with places
+in the realm illegal and imposed heavy penalties on the persons assuming
+them. This Act, passed in 1851, remained a dead letter until 1871, when
+it was repealed. As for the law and lawyers the record of _Punch_ is
+more consistent and creditable, and, as we have seen, he was from the
+first an unflinching advocate of cheap justice and the removal of
+irregularities which pressed hardest on the poor, an unrelenting critic
+of barbarous and oppressive penalties. No one was too great or small to
+escape his legal pillory, or to secure recognition for reforming zeal or
+humane administration--from Lord Brougham and Lord St. Leonards down to
+unpaid magistrates. To what has been said elsewhere it may be added that
+the series of papers written by Gilbert à Beckett, under the heading of
+"The Comic Blackstone," are much better than their title, for they
+contain a good deal of shrewd satire and sound sense. _Punch_ had good
+reason to be proud of his own legal representative, the humane and
+genial Gilbert à Beckett. He welcomed Talfourd's promotion to the Bench
+as an honour to letters, for Talfourd was not only the executor and
+first biographer of Lamb and the author of the highly successful, but
+now forgotten, tragedy of _Ion_, but his services to authors in
+connexion with copyright earned for him the dedication of _Pickwick_. On
+his death in 1854, _Punch's_ elegy fittingly commemorated the character
+and career of one of whom, as an advocate, it was said that the wrong
+side seldom cared to hear him, and who, like Hood, in his last words,
+deplored the mutual estrangement of classes in English society.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bench and the Universities_]
+
+On the other hand, judges who jested on the Bench, indulged in judicial
+clap-trap, or encouraged the public to regard the Courts of Justice as
+substitutes for theatrical entertainments, are severely handled. _Judex
+jocosus odiosus_; but the type is, apparently, impervious to satire.
+Another anticipation of latter-day criticism is to be found in the
+remark made in 1856: "There was once a Parliament--(we do not live in
+such times now!)--in which there were few or no lawyers." Even more
+red-hot in its up-to-dateness is _Punch's_ sarcastic dismissal of the
+cult of "efficiency" sixty-five years ago:--
+
+    _Mr. Punch's_ reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
+    business is not abject. The "practical men," who smile
+    compassionately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who
+    perpetually make the most frightful smashes and blunders. No
+    attorney, for instance, can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a
+    stock-jobber, the supposed incarnation of shrewdness, is the most
+    credulous _gobemouche_ in London.
+
+With University authorities, professors, dons, and academics generally,
+we look in vain for any sign of sympathy, save that _Punch_ condemned
+the rule which then prevented Fellows from marrying. For the rest, he
+looked on the older Universities as the homes of mediæval obscurantism,
+stubbornly opposed to reforms long overdue. Of the two, Oxford fared the
+worse at his hands on account of the Tractarian movement, Pusey, and
+Newman. This antagonism was based on political and religious
+divergences, not on any hostility to learning or the classical
+curriculum, of which _Punch_ was a supporter, to the extent of printing
+_jeux d'esprit_ in Latin and Greek in his pages. All along he was a
+jealous guardian of the "illustrious order of the goose-quill," a sturdy
+champion of its claims to adequate pay and official recognition, a
+vigilant critic of the "homoeopathic system of rewards" adopted by the
+Crown in the Civil List. References to this undying scandal are
+honourably frequent in the early volumes of _Punch_. It may suffice to
+quote the letter to Lord Palmerston in the summer of 1856:--
+
+    I will not, this hot weather, weary your lordship by specifying
+    every case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:
+
+    To Science, Literature, and Art             £275
+    To sundries                                  925
+                                              ------
+                                              £1,200
+    Deduct sundries                              925
+                                              ------
+                                                £275
+    Due to Science, Literature, and Art          925
+                                              ------
+                  Total Civil List            £1,200
+
+Equally creditable is the reiterated plea--from 1847 onward--for the
+establishment of International Copyright, to guard English authors from
+the piracy of American publishers, amongst whom Putnam is singled out as
+an honourable exception. It may be fairly claimed for _Punch_ that he
+made very few mistakes in appraising the merits of the authors of his
+time or of the rising stars. He failed to render justice to Disraeli as
+a writer, and he curtly dismissed Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ as "a
+mad book by an American rough." But literary values prove him
+substantially right in his distaste for the flamboyant exuberance of
+Bulwer Lytton, and absolutely sound in his castigation of the
+tripe-and-oniony flavour of Samuel Warren's books, one of which he held
+up to not undeserved obloquy under the ferocious misnomer of "The
+Diarrhoea of a Late Physician." He was a veritable _malleus stultorum_
+in dealing alike with the futilities of incompetent aristocrats and the
+homely puerilities of Martin Tupper and Poet Close. The famous campaign
+against the poet Bunn and his bad librettos goaded the victim into
+reprisals in which he gave as good as he got, but the fact remains that
+Bunn _was_ a bad poet, though _Punch_ quite overdid his persecution. The
+nobility of Wordsworth, though the least humorous of poets, was
+handsomely acknowledged; when the erection of a statue to Peel was
+mooted, _Punch_ put in a claim for a similar honour to the sage of
+Rydal. And though indignant with Carlyle for his defence of slavery,
+_Punch_ was still ready to acknowledge "the monarch in his masquerade."
+Lastly, he not only welcomed Tennyson as a master, but threw open his
+columns to him to retort on his detractors.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" and "The Times"_]
+
+[Illustration: JENKINS AT HOME]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian and Georgian Journalism_]
+
+Dog does not eat dog, but the unwritten etiquette in accordance with
+which one newspaper does not directly attack another was much less
+strictly observed sixty or seventy years ago. Delane, the editor of _The
+Times_, exercised a greater political influence than any other
+journalist before or since, and for a good many years _Punch_ acted as a
+sort of free-lance ally of the great daily,[23] drawing liberally from
+its columns in the way of extracts and illustrations, and, according to
+his habitual practice, underlining its policy while pretending to be
+shocked at it. Several of the men on _Punch_ were contributors to _The
+Times_. Gilbert à Beckett's name stands first in the list of the
+principal contributors and members of the staff of _The Times_ under
+Delane given in Mr. Dasent's biography. Yet I have searched the pages of
+the biography and the index in vain for a single reference to _Punch_.
+None the less the relations of the two papers were close and cordial,
+and "Billy" Russell, the _Times_ war correspondent and unsparing critic
+of mismanagement in the Crimea, had no more enthusiastic trumpeter than
+_Punch_. But the great gulf in prestige and power between _The Times_
+under Delane and the rest of the London Press is indirectly but
+unmistakably shown in _Punch's_ habitual disrespect for most of his
+other contemporaries. In another context, I have quoted examples of his
+flagellation of the _Morning Post_--the only paper, by the way, which
+supported the _Coup d'État_; but two masterpieces of malice may be
+added. In 1843, _à propos_ of "Jenkins's" incurably unctuous worship of
+rank, _Punch_ observes: "If the reader be not weeping at this, it is not
+in the power of onions to move him." And again, a little later on in the
+same year, _Punch_ compares the "beastliness" of Jenkins, "the life-long
+toad-eater," with the "beastly fellow" denounced in the _Morning Post_
+for swallowing twelve frogs for a wager! _Punch_ was not content with
+identifying the _Morning Post_ with the imaginary personality of
+Jenkins, the super-flunkey, but was also responsible for re-christening
+the _Morning Herald_ and the _Standard_--Conservative morning and
+evening papers which, until 1857, belonged to the same proprietor--Mrs.
+Gamp and Mrs. Harris. The _Standard_ retaliated by calling _Punch_ the
+"most abject of all the toadies of _The Times_," and accusing it of
+libelling "the young gentlemen of Eton" and the Queen. By an unconscious
+compliment _Punch_ was bracketed with the _Examiner_, the ablest and
+most independent of the weeklies, as _The Times_ was of the dailies, for
+its disloyalty to the Crown. In the war of wits which ensued and was
+carried on for several years, all the honours rested with _Punch_. But
+these controversies belong rather to the domestic history of _Punch_;
+and _Punch's_ friendly relations with the _Daily News_, of which Dickens
+was the first editor, must be somewhat discounted by the facts that
+Douglas Jerrold was an intimate friend of the novelist, who occasionally
+dined with the _Punch_ staff; that Paxton, one of _Punch's_ heroes,
+exerted all his great influence on behalf of the new daily; and finally,
+that Bradbury and Evans were, at the time, the publishers of Dickens, of
+_Punch_, and of the _Daily News_. The journalism of the 'forties and
+'fifties presents curious analogies with and divergences from the
+journalism of to-day. _Punch_ is never weary of girding at the cult of
+monstrosity and sensationalism, the disproportionate amount of space
+devoted to crime and criminals and _causes célèbres_, the habit of
+burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to
+statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime.
+Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were
+anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more
+outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and _Punch_ always
+stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an
+Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the _Scotsman_ in the famous case
+brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, _Punch_ compared them to Bomba, and
+congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the _Scotsman's_ costs
+and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict
+which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at
+political apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or
+indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger
+of being brought before a jury." The _Scotsman_ was then edited by
+Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots
+journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated
+the _Scotsman_ as Delane dominated _The Times_. But it was, in the main,
+a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with
+alert curiosity to _The Times_ in Delane's day was that nobody knew
+beforehand which side he would take on any new question." [24] And much
+the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day.
+There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a
+great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men
+like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap
+that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions
+was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their
+names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a
+fortnight. It is to the credit of _Punch_ that he recognized the value
+of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his
+part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but
+could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern
+sycophantic worshipper of success--no matter how achieved. The
+excellence of provincial journalism--not yet exposed to the competition
+of the cheap London press--is attested by _Punch's_ frequent citations,
+but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to
+refresh our leisure.
+
+[Footnote 23: On the occasion of _Punch's_ Jubilee, in 1891, _The Times_
+remarked: "May we be excused for noting the fact that he (_Punch_) has
+generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from _The Times_?"
+That was substantially true of _The Times_ under the old _régime_ when
+Delane was editor. Mr. Herbert Paul, himself a strong Liberal, writes in
+his _History of Modern England_ that "Delane's chief quality was his
+independence." Mr. Dasent, in his biography, gives good grounds for his
+assertion that Delane was at no time what could be called a party man,
+though his instincts were essentially Liberal, and notes that "if
+charged with inconsistency, Delane would merely remind his critics that
+_The Times_ was the organ of no party, and that every issue was complete
+in itself."]
+
+[Footnote 24: _Delane of "The Times,"_ by Sir Edward Cook, p. 281.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Quacks and Doctors_]
+
+But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of
+_Punch_ than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn
+between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it;
+between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and
+Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and
+their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The
+maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons,
+civil, naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and
+during the Crimean War. _Punch's_ tribute to the services of Florence
+Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been
+noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp,
+and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though
+under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:--
+
+    Great outcry has been raised of late, in the _Lancet_ and other
+    journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter
+    themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a
+    personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society
+    to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of
+    the Fools--a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too
+    great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some
+    people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they
+    want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the
+    practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper
+    sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir
+    James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We
+    propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call
+    himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself
+    what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title
+    of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.
+
+This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of
+the blackest of all _Punch's bêtes noires_--in consequence of the
+postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not
+the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's
+Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of
+_Punch_. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of
+the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in
+the last seventy years goes far to justify _Punch's_ scepticism. But his
+censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who
+exploited and traded on _malades imaginaires_, and more than once
+exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any
+definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in
+1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige
+doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English labels
+on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip
+medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended
+that _Punch_, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and
+gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to
+moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism,
+which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under
+the heading, "Greens for the Green."
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY
+
+PASTRYCOOK: "What have you had, Sir?"
+
+BOY: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of
+those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes--and a
+bottle of ginger beer."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Medical Students_]
+
+By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are
+concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if
+corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which
+has been drawn in _Pickwick_, the pages of _Punch_ supply it in
+distressing abundance. The counterparts of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin
+Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of
+articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDICAL STUDENT]
+
+Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:--
+
+    The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may
+    be thus enumerated:
+
+    Guy's             {Half-and-half, anatomical _fracas_,
+    St. Thomas's      {and billiards.
+    St. George's      Doings at Tattersall's.
+    London            Too remote to be ascertained.
+    University        Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism.
+    Bartholomew's     State of Smithfield Markets.
+    Middlesex         Convivial harmony.
+    Charing Cross     Dancing at the Lowther-rooms.
+    King's College    Has not yet acquired any peculiarity.
+    Westminster       Dashes of all the others combined.
+
+Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the
+satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment,
+and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the
+medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on
+occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate
+episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded,
+we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the
+great majority regretted and reprobated.
+
+
+
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+
+On the position and influence of women in society _Punch_, as we have
+already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary.
+Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with.
+There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing
+that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the
+fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is
+ridiculed, and _Punch_ ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord
+Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in _The Times_ against Mayfair
+matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing
+wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years
+earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously
+discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by _Punch_ in a
+stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the
+"Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the
+winter of 1846:--
+
+    I idolize the ladies. They are fairies
+    That spiritualize this earth of ours;
+    From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,
+    Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.
+    But learning in its barbarous seminaries,
+    Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,
+    And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers
+    Science with all its horrid accessaries.
+    Now, seriously, the only things, I think,
+    In which young ladies should instructed be,
+    Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery--
+    Accomplishments that very soon will sink,
+    Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation,
+    Always form part of female education.
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER
+
+FLORA: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"
+
+EMILY: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of
+town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe.
+Isn't it kind?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian Damsels_]
+
+But even within the ranks of the social _élite_ signs of a desire for
+equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the
+direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we
+read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is
+mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the
+mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty
+frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held
+responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards
+we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine
+ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by
+leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured
+to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode
+of existence met with little commendation from _Punch_. He was a strong
+advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of
+"Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female
+only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency
+he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless
+"unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming
+Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait
+is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty
+or plain spoken--even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy
+brothers. But we know--even from the pages of _Punch_--that Victorian
+women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is
+to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able
+to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from
+sentimentality and intellectualism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Fast Lady_]
+
+    She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in
+    kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap
+    over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If
+    she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and
+    if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time
+    by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into
+    Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is
+    a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was
+    a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and
+    "chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other
+    cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud
+    conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously
+    thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you;
+    but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but
+    "Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"
+
+    The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She
+    waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred
+    and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed
+    over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop,
+    but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."
+
+    By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score--rather a
+    long one--of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned,
+    however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts.
+    She would sell her _Black Bess_ sooner than levant.
+
+    THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of
+    the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment
+    "namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has
+    no idea of being made a fool of.
+
+    At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll
+    take Champagne with you--that is to say, if you're not too proud.
+    You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated.
+    Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of
+    her parasol into your side.
+
+    She dislikes smoking? Not _she_ indeed; she's rather fond of it. In
+    fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you,
+    will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked,
+    and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle faddle. She has
+    a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can
+    play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.
+
+    Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to
+    state she reads _Bell's Life_, and has a few volumes in her bedroom
+    of the _Sporting Magazine_. She knows there was a horse of the name
+    of _Byron_.
+
+    The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her
+    hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm
+    afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to
+    that of her own sex.
+
+    Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is
+    always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to
+    change their dress.
+
+    Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand
+    and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not
+    exchange places with the Queen herself.
+
+    With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the
+    FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of
+    what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be
+    included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and
+    increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and,
+    like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent
+    daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she
+    likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she
+    is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor
+    people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and
+    unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having
+    more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with.
+    The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is
+    the godmother to half the children in the parish.
+
+    Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of
+    feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but
+    then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature
+    may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but
+    imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward
+    gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the
+    highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less
+    effectively if they had only as good a heart--even with the
+    trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped--as the
+    MODEL FAST LADY.
+
+[Illustration: FAST YOUNG LADY (to Old Gent): "Have you such a
+thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at
+home."]
+
+This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have
+seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating _rôles_ of which the leading
+traits were, in essentials, identical with those of the Model Fast
+Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the
+writers and artists of _Punch_, was feminine, kindly, but colourless,
+though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked--the
+lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the
+social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical
+high-priestesses of the marriage market.
+
+When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude
+assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. _Punch_ refused to take it
+seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in
+which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:--
+
+    French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music,
+    drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form
+    the regular _curriculum_. A minor examination on these subjects, or
+    a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts
+    can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in
+    "Télémaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play
+    a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin
+    wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.
+
+    For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in
+    various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others;
+    also in the _libretto_ of the last new opera. She shall be able to
+    play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and
+    shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini,
+    Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in
+    a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a
+    wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with
+    correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman
+    who may be selected for the purpose.
+
+    There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an
+    annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a
+    familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the
+    Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny,
+    and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in
+    preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.
+
+    These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the
+    Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has
+    not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction
+    shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel
+    shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple
+    Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and
+    finally those who barely get their degree.
+
+    The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall
+    be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphées;
+    and lastly, as before, the merely passable.
+
+[Illustration: MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842]
+
+[Sidenote: _Women and Politics_]
+
+This article is fairly typical of the attitude of _Punch_ towards what
+we now call "Feminism"--a term so new that in the _New English
+Dictionary_ it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning
+"the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901.
+Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political
+emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions.
+References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we
+find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss
+Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were
+admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then,
+carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an
+Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The
+possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never
+seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the
+"ladies of creation" in the _Almanack_ for 1852 is modelled on Mrs.
+Jellyby--_Bleak House_ had been coming out serially from March, 1852,
+onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from
+America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., of Boston,[25] is mentioned in
+1848, and in the following year _Punch_ welcomed the innovation in
+verse:--
+
+AN M.D. IN A GOWN
+
+    Young ladies all, of every clime,
+      Especially of Britain,
+    Who wholly occupy your time
+      In novels or in knitting,
+    Whose highest skill is but to play,
+      Sing, dance, or French to clack well,
+    Reflect on the example, pray,
+      Of excellent Miss Blackwell!
+
+    For Doctrix Blackwell--that's the way
+      To dub in rightful gender--
+    In her profession, ever may
+      Prosperity attend her!
+    _Punch_, a gold-handled parasol
+      Suggests for presentation,
+    To one so well deserving all
+      Esteem and admiration.
+
+[Footnote 25: Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an _In Memoriam_ notice
+in _The Times_, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at
+Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there
+described as "the first woman doctor."]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bloomer Craze_]
+
+[Illustration: BLOOMERISM--AN AMERICAN CUSTOM]
+
+_Punch's_ commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza.
+But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852
+merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the
+hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been
+urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; _Punch_ appreciated the
+gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her
+as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a
+strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the
+unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights.
+The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance
+reformer, but _Punch_ was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of
+"trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime
+librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was
+actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress
+for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years
+later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief
+advocate. _Punch_ is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He
+makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess
+Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new
+departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of
+women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a
+whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at
+the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at
+the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England.
+The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857.
+_Punch's_ anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted
+not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a
+means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another
+piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as
+being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers
+from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while
+_Punch_ was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm
+supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was--as we
+have shown in other sections of this survey--at least a persistent
+advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws--and unwearied in his
+exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses,
+sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on
+women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He
+was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of
+some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to
+indignation:--
+
+THE CRY OF THE WOMEN
+
+    Now, this petition or lamentation--in which _Mr. Punch_ gives
+    willing ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering--has been
+    rebuked, pooh-poohed, pished and fiddle-de-dee'd; but in these
+    scoffings _Mr. Punch_ joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him,
+    say, with certain editorial porcupines of the male gender, "Of what
+    avail these lamentations of lamenting women, whose cries are
+    foolishness? Wherefore should women at any time lift up their
+    voices; when is it not manifest from the beginning that women were
+    created to sing small? And finally, if women be beaten by savages,
+    and robbed by sots, what of it? It is better that women should be
+    beaten and crouch in the dust--it is better they should be robbed
+    and sit at home, than go and petition Parliament."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Champions Horatia_]
+
+He espoused the cause of humble heroines, of the neglected widows or
+orphans of heroes and benefactors like a true knight errant. Elsewhere
+we have told of his exertions on behalf of Mother Seacole, the brave old
+sutler in the Crimea, for whose benefit he started a special fund. The
+scurvy treatment of the widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the pioneer of the
+Overland Route, who wore himself out in a work of national importance,
+moved him to righteous indignation. She was given a pension of £25,
+afterwards increased to £40.
+
+But none of these palpable wrongs to women stirred _Punch_ so deeply in
+these years as the tardy and meagre discharge of the nation's debt to
+Nelson in respect of his daughter Horatia. To this particular bit of
+narrow-mindedness he recurs again and again in the years 1849 to 1855,
+when he sums up what had been done to liquidate the debt:--
+
+NELSON'S DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN
+
+ An advertisement in _The Times_ tells the world that the eight
+ children of Nelson's daughter Horatia--Nelson's grandchildren--are
+ "more or less provided for." Perhaps a little less than more; but
+ let that pass. At length a long, long standing debt has been paid,
+ or rather compounded, at something less than nineteen shillings in
+ the pound. The Government, as the Government, has done nothing. The
+ stiff, whalebone virtue that set up the back of Queen Charlotte
+ against Nelson's daughter--George the Third thought Nelson's
+ funeral had too much state in it for a mere subject; such pomp "was
+ for kings"--still kept the Government aloof from all help of
+ Horatia and her children. At length, however, the press spoke out.
+ The "ribald press" for a time laid aside its ribaldry, and
+ condescended to champion the claims of Nelson's daughter upon
+ Nelson's fellow-countrymen. Well, something has been done; and thus
+ much in explanation we take from the advertisement in question:--
+
+    "The eight children of Horatia, Mrs. Ward, are all now, more or
+    less, provided for. Her eldest son has been presented to the living
+    of Radstock by the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave; the second son
+    had been previously appointed by Sir W. Burnett Assistant-Surgeon
+    in the Navy; to the third, Lord Chancellor Cranworth has given a
+    clerkship in the Registry-Office; the fourth son received a Cadetcy
+    from Captain Shepherd; His Royal Highness Prince Albert conferred a
+    similar appointment on the youngest son; and Her Majesty has been
+    graciously pleased to settle upon the three daughters a pension of
+    £300 per annum. To this last result the exertions of the late Mr.
+    Hume, M.P., mainly contributed. Messrs. Green, of Blackwall, and
+    Messrs. Smith, of Newcastle, conveyed the two Cadets to India free
+    of expense."
+
+To this may be added a "small cash balance" paid to Mrs. Ward, "after
+investing £400 in the funds." Altogether some £1,427 have been
+subscribed in the cause of Nelson's daughter. We state the sum, and will
+not pause to calculate whether the amount be the tenth of a farthing or
+even a whole farthing in the pound, for which England is Nelson's
+debtor. Let us anyway thank those who have helped Horatia's children.
+They have all done well, from the Dowager Countess to the Queen, ending
+with the prince ship-owners of Blackwall and Newcastle. Their ships will
+not have the worst fortune of wreck or storm for having borne,
+passage-free, the grandsons of Nelson to their Indian work. Let us, too,
+pause to thank the shade of Joseph Hume--the strong, sound, kind old
+heart! Joseph, who "mainly contributed," with those earnest, honest
+fingers of his to undraw the royal purse-strings, so that the three
+grand-daughters may now keep the wolf from the door, as their immortal
+grandfather kept the foe from the "silver-girt isle."
+
+We omit the bitter words in which _Punch_ heaps scorn on Nelson's
+brother, "the first parson Lord Nelson," because the odious charges
+there made cannot be substantiated. This was not the only occasion on
+which _Punch's_ zeal was disfigured by the vehemence of his
+partisanship. But we cannot blame him for his jubilation over the
+thrashing of General Haynau, the woman-flogger, by the draymen and
+labourers at Barclay's Brewery on the occasion of his visit to London in
+1850, or for the vigour with which he scarified the papers who found
+excuses and parallels for Haynau's ferocity in the military exigencies
+of the Peninsular War.
+
+[_Sidenote: Slavery in America--and England_]
+
+Foremost amongst _Punch's_ heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were
+Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of
+these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of
+notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of
+_Punch_. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett
+Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem,
+Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is
+shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling
+Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric adventuress, Lola
+Montez,[26] and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards
+in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous
+Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,[27] author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, whose sojourn in
+England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social
+prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address,"
+initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The
+appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many
+thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the
+degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do
+not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern
+planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation
+at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, _Punch_ did not fail
+to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In
+the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman
+who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a
+man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical
+disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had
+begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To
+what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and _Punch's_ belief in
+it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":--
+
+    _The Cynical View_:--Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to
+    be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
+    saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of
+    females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and
+    baggage, and start them away.
+
+[Footnote 26: The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert,
+daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite
+of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer,
+who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 27: See the _Examiner_ and _Punch_. The following
+advertisement in the _Examiner_ will be read with interest:--"The
+arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all
+Stephen Glover's compositions connected with _Uncle Tom_: 'The Sea of
+Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and
+Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"]
+
+    _The Alarmist View_:--If the surplus female population with which
+    we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with
+    women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse
+    nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend
+    with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to
+    that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government.
+
+    _Our Own View_:--It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
+    should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only
+    not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and
+    solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they
+    would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches--if only they had
+    the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country
+    to find them wings.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Worm Turns_]
+
+_Punch's_ chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not
+untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years--with rare
+exceptions--he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman
+could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently
+represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without
+apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this
+defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly
+pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in
+moments of generous expansion _Punch_ was capable of crediting them with
+extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water
+mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be
+found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my
+Mind":--
+
+     ... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the
+    civilized!--for, after all, the savages are really and truly more
+    of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to
+    it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and
+    angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were
+    weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized
+    nations--as I fling it at Mouser--they all of 'em make women the
+    sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the
+    dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty,
+    Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely
+    as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're obliged to come
+    to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You
+    paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then--but it's so like
+    you--then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take
+    her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"--for I would be
+    heard--"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again.
+    There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of
+    public-house sign for law, but--is a poor woman allowed to wear
+    false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once
+    open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine
+    on herself--may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can
+    paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor
+    thing say a syllable."
+
+[Illustration: "Are you going?"
+
+"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so
+infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."
+
+"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and
+not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."]
+
+
+
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+
+It is a noteworthy sign of the times that between 1841 and 1857 the
+specific references to the dress of men in the text of _Punch_ are much
+more numerous than those dealing with the vagaries of female attire. The
+balance inclines in the contrary direction in the pictures which, when
+tested by old daguerreotypes and the contents of family albums, form a
+substantially correct and illuminating commentary on the evolution of
+fashion in women's dress. So we begin with the ladies, with the double
+proviso that Leech and Doyle and their brother artists on _Punch_ were
+not fashion-plate designers, and that the charms and extravagances of
+the modish world which they depicted were drawn mainly from the
+Metropolis. _Punch_ was a Londoner, even a Cockney, and throws little
+light on the social life of the provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Breadth of the Fashion_]
+
+[Illustration: EASIER SAID THAN DONE
+
+MASTER OF THE HOUSE: "Oh, Fred, my boy--when dinner is ready, you take
+Mrs. Furbelow downstairs!"]
+
+[Illustration: GRAND CHARGE OF PERAMBULATORS--AND DEFEAT OF SWELLS]
+
+[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aids to Beauty_]
+
+To speak roughly, fashion in women's dress is subject to two great
+alternating influences--in the direction of elongation or of lateral
+extension. In the 'forties and 'fifties the tendency was steadily in the
+second direction and away from the slim elegance which has been the aim
+of the modistes of recent years. Long, "mud-bedraggled" dresses are, it
+is true, condemned in 1844, but width rather than length was the
+prevailing feature. It was the age of flounces, and this expansive
+tendency culminated, in the mid-'fifties, in the reign of the crinoline,
+against which _Punch_ waged for many years a truceless but, as he
+himself admitted, a wholly ineffectual warfare. The first indication of
+the coming portent is to be found in the _annus mirabilis_ of 1848, when
+an "air-tube dress extender" is shown in a picture. This, however, was a
+single hoop and comparatively modest in its circumference. The
+crinoline, in its full amplitude, did not invade London until 1856.
+Thenceforward, hardly a number is free from satire and caricature of
+this exuberant monstrosity, and the inconvenience caused in theatres,
+drawing-rooms, in the parks and public vehicles, and in the streets.
+What with the bath-chairs of invalids, the ladies' dresses, and the
+children's perambulators, we read in 1856, that "it amounts almost to an
+impossibility nowadays to walk on the pavements." People were now
+dressed "not in the height, but the full breadth of the fashion." The
+structure of the machine, with its whalebone ribs and inflated tubes,
+was revealed in all its mammoth dimensions. It was denounced alike as an
+absurdity and as a danger, but satire and warnings were equally
+powerless to abate the nuisance. But the crinoline was only the most
+conspicuous and culminating example of a tendency to superfluous
+clothing and a semi-Oriental muffling-up of the female form, against
+which _Punch_ has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A
+sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against
+the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on
+the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was
+far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the
+projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The
+resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather
+than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find _Punch_ in 1855
+describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A
+huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly"
+of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round
+hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often
+dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But
+extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats--big enough to
+be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger
+brothers--small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols
+were in vogue in 1853. A certain masculinity of attire was affected by
+young ladies of sporting tastes--in the way of waistcoats and ties for
+example--but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against
+anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the
+earliest instances in _Punch_ of the use of the word "æsthetic" in
+connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a
+strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary,
+economical, æsthetic."[28] Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these
+aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the
+fashionable world.
+
+[Illustration: WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS]
+
+[Illustration: PLAIN]
+
+[Illustration: RINGLETS]
+
+This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of
+ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian
+_coiffure_, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full
+dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find
+it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech
+illustrated Surtees's novel _Plain or Ringlets?_ in 1860. Of the "plain"
+variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in _Punch_,
+notably the head given above, with which we couple the ringleted belle
+illustrated at the foot of the same page.
+
+[Footnote 28: "Æsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at _New
+Curiosities of Literature_, and in 1853 we read of an "æsthetic tea," at
+which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass,
+brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism
+and theology."]
+
+[Sidenote: Coiffures in the Fifties]
+
+[Illustration: ÆSTHETIC PIONEERS
+
+MRS. TURTLEDOVE: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have
+for dinner?"
+
+MR. TURTLEDOVE: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday--suppose
+we have a roast butterfly to-day."]
+
+In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to
+wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed _à
+l'impératrice_ in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and _Punch_
+satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a _coiffure_ unsuited
+to people of certain ages, features, and positions--a wide scope for his
+wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the
+time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if
+they had, they escaped _Punch's_ vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on
+whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist
+of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing,
+walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost
+invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of
+sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the
+awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the
+rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture
+opposite.
+
+[Sidenote: MERMAIDS AT PLAY]
+
+[Illustration: BATHING WOMAN: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"]
+
+Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's
+dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour,
+details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made
+itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see
+Parkes's _Hygiene_) at the time of the Peninsular War, but
+pantaloons--the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded
+knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the
+ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You
+will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to
+_Pickwick_, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in _Punch's_
+illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the
+"claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was
+often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and
+waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling
+that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive
+till the late 'forties--they are mentioned in Thackeray's _Book of
+Snobs_, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at
+evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear
+blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable
+in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties.
+The _dégagé_ loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by
+_Punch_, who traces its origin to the neck-wear--as modern hosiers
+say--of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like
+garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned;
+the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of
+the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma
+overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same
+time _Punch_ caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels,
+which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark.
+There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One
+Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however
+(according to _Punch_), was Prince Albert, whose continual and
+unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere.
+_Punch_ speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from
+calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet
+emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But _Punch_ himself was much
+preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall
+beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid
+"chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European
+head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by
+1850. _Punch_ warred against it almost as vigorously and as
+ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to
+the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal
+hat:--
+
+    Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer
+    confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into
+    breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a
+    waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and
+    well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics
+    that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert
+    fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible _sombrero_ of grey, or
+    brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a
+    dress at once becoming and congruous.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fashions for Men_]
+
+[Illustration: WHY, INDEED!
+
+PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves
+like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"]
+
+[Illustration: A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!]
+
+The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to
+enable _Punch_ to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the
+"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars
+are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but
+the "all round collar" of which _Punch_ has a picture in 1854
+approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when
+a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not uncommon; but the
+caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, shows
+that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the
+emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the
+grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of
+little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe
+_Mr. Punch_, caricature was unnecessary.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ideal Hat_]
+
+[Illustration: "SIBBY"--1843]
+
+If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,
+short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord
+Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all
+wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit
+immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his
+whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and
+occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"
+_Punch_, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on
+the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the
+Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to
+which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls
+the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired
+by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.
+The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854
+and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and
+ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.
+
+[Sidenote: _Uncomfortable Uniforms_]
+
+[Illustration: PROCTOR (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so
+good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a
+Scotch terrier?"]
+
+The vagaries of military uniforms--apart from the intrusions of Prince
+Albert--call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy
+shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from
+stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is
+guyed in 1851. In 1854 _Punch_ throws himself with great energy into the
+movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more
+rational and comfortable clothing--witness the verses, "Valour under
+difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;
+the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private
+Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his
+stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged
+tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued
+by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and
+shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by
+soldiers owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.
+But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by
+contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but
+to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some
+measure in the Great War?
+
+[Illustration: RUDE BOY: "O, look 'ere, Jim!--If 'ere ain't a Lobster
+bin and out-growed his cloak!"]
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+
+One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical
+survey of the drama in the pages of _Punch_. Most of his staff had
+dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,
+and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped
+a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen
+out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its
+influence on _Punch's_ persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when
+all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous
+tone which they occasionally inspired, _Punch_ may fairly claim to have
+rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was
+sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and
+loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great
+difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances
+of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on
+"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native
+or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic
+_clichés_, and solecisms in pronunciation.[29] He was also a reformer in
+his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the
+play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as
+we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'
+vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and
+pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and
+British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first
+ten years of _Punch_ with little intermission and was largely
+justified. _Punch_ was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing
+to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in
+1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and
+freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The
+balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance--the
+dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays
+as set forth in the following extract--has been largely remedied, though
+the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is
+by some critics considered worse than the disease:--
+
+    _Galignani's Messenger_ says of the French theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,
+    191 new pieces."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Punch_ says of the English theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London
+    about _ten_ new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,
+    devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen
+    from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"
+
+[Footnote 29: See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"
+"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."]
+
+Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of
+the Newgate drama--_Jack Sheppard_ and _Madame Lafarge_.[30] Of the
+latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and
+filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with _The
+Beggar's Opera_, which is defended as being "real satire and not
+wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy _Martinuzzi_ comes in for
+frequent ridicule, though the chief _rôles_ were taken by Phelps and
+Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what
+grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his
+dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's
+"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met
+with _Punch's_ support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the
+bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor
+theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they
+were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his
+signature of "Q" then develops the argument:--
+
+    Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are
+    only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,
+    the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere
+    they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.
+    There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.
+    The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and
+    laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their _Jack
+    Sheppards_, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced
+    frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of
+    knowing that their _Jack Sheppard_ has been licensed by a Deputy,
+    for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of
+    Tyburn are exhibited with a _cum privilegio_.
+
+    Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this
+    wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We _hope_
+    it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm
+    of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the
+    playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate
+    what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should
+    have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves
+    the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of
+    the English stage.
+
+[Footnote 30: Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister
+immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one
+of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).
+After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died
+in 1852.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Mahon's Petition_]
+
+_Punch's_ pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in
+the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the
+patent theatres--which for more than a hundred years had confined the
+legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket--and
+thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.
+
+Déjazet's London _début_ in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a
+later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as
+broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth
+in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only
+way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the
+dialogue and give the _rôle_ of heroine to a _première danseuse_. As a
+matter of fact Taglioni appeared in _Electra_ in 1845.
+
+In 1844 _Punch_ took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French
+dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized
+at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of
+a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write
+tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"--a
+boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.
+A Greek play, the _Antigone_, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an
+early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the
+'seventies. _Punch's_ spirits, however, had already revived somewhat
+when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden
+found the snuggest asylum near the New River"--at Sadler's Wells under
+the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,
+and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from
+England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the
+person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,
+according to _Punch_, confined to "elegant extracts."
+
+A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical
+programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the
+passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a
+description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic
+affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price
+came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially
+Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by
+four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets
+were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise
+has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not
+always popular, and when _Monte Cristo_ was produced at Drury Lane in
+1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile
+demonstration.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Passing of Pantomimes_]
+
+Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are
+charged with extortion in demanding £60 a week, but it must be
+remembered that £60 was exactly all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out
+of his most popular and successful play--_Black Eyed Susan_. Those
+simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be
+comforted to learn that as early as 1843 _Punch_ deplores the triumph of
+scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he
+returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to
+be":--
+
+    Pantomime's quite on the wane,
+      Though vainly they try to enrich it,
+    By calling, again and again,
+      For "_Hot Codlins_" and "_Tippetywitchet_."
+    The stealing of poultry by clown
+      Has ceased irresistible sport to be,
+    If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;
+      Christmas is not what it ought to be.
+
+The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long
+time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,
+have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The
+present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for
+harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque
+lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which
+it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in
+1852 led _Punch_ to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the
+ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.
+
+_Punch_ was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism
+or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved
+satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed
+to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was
+suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give
+entertainments. We may note that in 1853 _Punch_ suggested that
+theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.
+is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted
+Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are
+constantly mentioned and in the main with good will. The feud with
+Charles Kean was kept up to the end; _Punch_ speaks of his "touchiness,"
+and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was
+made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials
+stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,
+that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the
+father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful
+opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings
+from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his
+death in 1854, _Punch_ paid him this graceful tribute:--
+
+    He linked us with a past of scenic art,
+      Larger and loftier than now is known;
+      Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,
+    Than when he played his part.
+
+    But where shall we now find, upon our scene,
+      The Gentleman in action, look and word,
+      Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,
+    As polished and as keen?
+
+    Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:
+      Look your last look: cover the brave old face:
+      Kindly and gently bear him to his place--
+    Charles Kemble, fare thee well!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Reign of Italian Opera_]
+
+[Illustration: LABLACHE]
+
+A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the
+absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,
+applauded, and criticized in the columns of _Punch_. We say Italian
+opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers
+and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,
+it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe
+in his _Reminiscences_ mentions the visit of a German operatic company
+in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-_rôle_ in Mendelssohn's
+_Elijah_ when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by
+_Punch_ as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's _Der Freischütz_
+was given at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater
+lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable
+patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric
+Malibran--Spanish by race but Italian in training--died suddenly and
+tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage
+shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is
+mentioned in _Punch's_ first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by
+that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple
+endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared
+by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these
+two decades were either Italians by birth--e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom
+_Punch_ likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and
+Piccolomini--or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their
+association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez
+the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of
+Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty
+of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic
+basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,
+Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom _Punch_ in 1852
+irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.
+_Punch_ cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of
+_Nabucco_ and the hectic sentimentality of _Traviata_ and _Trovatore_
+possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with
+_Aïda_ and culminated in _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Michael Costa was the
+conductor _par excellence_, who took outrageous liberties with scores,
+but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our
+debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed--though not by _Punch_--in the
+Latin tag: _Costam subduximus Apennino_. Balfe, it is true, had scored a
+resounding success in 1843 with _The Bohemian Girl_, which still holds
+the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The
+Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was
+at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. _Punch_
+supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that
+Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have
+made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane
+in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.
+The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted
+was the badness of the _libretti_. Italian opera _libretti_ were often
+satirized by _Punch_, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,
+worse.
+
+Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the
+social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.
+The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for
+many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article
+which _Punch_ reproduced from the _Morning Post_ in 1843 with italics
+and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":--
+
+    "The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, _de
+    facto_, as well as _de jure_, are, in their several different
+    spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear
+    an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the
+    distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence
+    _literary and artistical_ (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and
+    fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair
+    tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits
+    which do not consist in the delivery of a _piece of engraved
+    postcard to a servant_. Charming _causeries_ are constantly
+    proceeding _sotto voce_ (of course Jenkins listens), the music
+    filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is
+    interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers--with the more
+    zest and piquancy _it is resumed_. We, whose office it is to record
+    daily events--things as they are--and hold the _glass up to
+    fashion_ (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to
+    imitate this course of things--and we do so with only one
+    regret--that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the
+    general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which
+    have most piquancy."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Jenkins" as Musical Critic_]
+
+For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and
+unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,
+as may be gleaned from his notice of _Semiramide_ in English in the
+winter of 1842:--
+
+    We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of
+    _Semiramide_:--
+
+    "Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct
+    attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way
+    of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her
+    sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and
+    whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates
+    the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the
+    contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss
+    Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!
+    Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as
+    Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of
+    Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half
+    are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and
+    refined order."
+
+But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also
+expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled
+under the heading "Persiani at Sea":--
+
+    An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani--to cry
+    _brava_--to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to
+    receive the honeyed voice of a _prima donna_, and Doctor Wardrop
+    throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth
+    of our metaphor:--
+
+    "Madame Persiani continues to _suffer so severely from the effects
+    of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching_, that it is
+    impossible for her to appear this evening.
+
+"JAMES WARDROP, M.D."
+
+    On this, says _The Times_, "the audience were at first disposed to
+    grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."
+
+    The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming
+    very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and
+    had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,
+    have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,
+    in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!
+
+[Illustration: THE SKATING BALLET]
+
+The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the
+opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose
+engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to
+general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding
+attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this
+"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a
+slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were
+Taglioni--whose skirts were quite long--Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and
+Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the _prima donna_, a wonderful quartet on
+whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory
+epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in _Le
+Prophète_, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch
+in _Punch_, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance
+of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished
+and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all
+nineteenth century _prime donne_. Henriette Sontag, however, was the
+popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still
+handsome, though no longer in her first youth,[31] a perfect singer, an
+incomparable _Susanna_ (as _Punch_ admitted), though lacking dramatic
+force--Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her
+_genre_, but that her _genre_ was not the first.
+
+[Sidenote: Jenny Lind]
+
+Great singers came and went but _Punch_ never wavered in his allegiance
+to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is
+more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,
+and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER
+
+    Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,
+    Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,
+    For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,
+    The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind--
+
+    Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,
+    Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,
+    Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,
+    In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.
+
+    Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,
+    Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;
+    And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,
+    Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.
+
+When her retirement was rumoured _Punch_ declared that the Bishop of
+Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,
+because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris
+prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed
+there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was
+of his female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist
+Lumley, the unlucky _impresario_, then in difficulties, in response to
+appeals which were especially vehement in _Punch_. He asserted that her
+secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without
+making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary
+address from the composer of _Don Giovanni_.
+
+[Footnote 31: She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and
+was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the
+Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these
+great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's
+genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more
+than a passing word of grateful recognition.]
+
+[Illustration: TO JENNY LIND
+
+FROM PUNCH]
+
+The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,
+but Jenny Lind, in spite of _Punch's_ repeated appeals, adhered to her
+decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 _Punch_ still hoped she
+would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall
+in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if
+any sweetening process could purify the building it would be such
+singing as hers."
+
+[Sidenote: _Popular Favourites in 1844_]
+
+In the early 'forties _Norma_ was the opera most frequently mentioned.
+_Punch_ published the stories of several of the most popular operas in
+verse. A fragment from _Linda di Chamouni_ may suffice:--
+
+    Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar
+    About the revenge of his cruel mamma,
+    Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,
+    Resolves to another to get him united:
+    He curses his fate in a charming _falsetto_,
+    Gives way to despair in a _voce di petto_.
+    And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,
+    He calls out for death in a _voce di testa_:
+    Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,
+    And gives on _addio_ a delicate shake.
+    The passage is managed with exquisite skill;
+    And Linda--acquainted with Mario's trill--
+    Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,
+    Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.
+
+Opera singers were great public favourites, but if _Punch_ is to be
+believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of
+the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by
+Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway
+Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities
+of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the
+Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find
+Lablache--Stentor and male Siren in one--put first as a bird unrivalled
+for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can
+sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."
+_Punch_ alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in
+undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to
+mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom
+Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into
+Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate the visitor explained
+"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am
+at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and
+elsewhere _Punch_ happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:
+_ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat_. The notices of Grisi and
+Mario are worth transcribing:--
+
+"THE GRISI"
+
+    Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say
+    the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for
+    its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from
+    what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be
+    those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy
+    its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or
+    not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;
+    for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even
+    the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a
+    kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but
+    we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The
+    kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is
+    to be obtained at M. Verrey's.
+
+"THE MARIO"
+
+    A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient
+    substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of
+    quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter
+    bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has
+    acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"
+    which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to
+    such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him
+    deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in
+    the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our
+    knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian
+    singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty
+    pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be
+    required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.
+    Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay
+    so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as
+    much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to
+    music and sung at the Italian opera.
+
+[Sidenote: _Musical Grab_]
+
+The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an
+earlier volume:--
+
+    The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by
+    Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the _Gazette Musicale_:--
+
+    "Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and
+    German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose
+    of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over
+    everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen
+    on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they
+    all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in
+    England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much
+    _ennui_."
+
+    _Punch_ begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious
+    mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will
+    mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian
+    _ennuyés_--and dispense for the future with their services.
+
+This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a
+musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;
+Hungarian, French and other foreign _prime donne_; Strauss's band and
+Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a
+curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name
+Wagner to _Punch's_ readers and indeed to the British public. It was not
+the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of
+considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously
+accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to
+protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say
+that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and _Punch_ in
+his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to
+express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their
+contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as _Punch_
+called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing
+at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of
+the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left _Punch_ not merely cold but
+pugnaciously antagonistic.
+
+The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared
+musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice
+headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":--
+
+    Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in
+    conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the
+    music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as
+    a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing
+    gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "_allegro_"
+    to "_moderato_"; "_andante_" to "_adagio_"; "_allegretto_" to
+    "_andante_"; and "_allegro_" again to "_prestissimo_." Wagner would
+    seem strongly to resemble his namesake in _Faust_, in the
+    particular wherein that _Wagner_ differs from his master--that is,
+    in the circumstance of being no conjuror.
+
+The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery
+Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is
+duly chronicled in _Punch_. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,
+a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great
+popularity in the _rôle_ of the consumptive heroine of _La Traviata_,
+and _Punch_ celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in
+the following travesty:--
+
+    Art is long and time is fleeting,
+      But of genius the soul,
+    Ordinary talent beating,
+      Reaches at one stride the goal.
+
+    In the operatic battle,
+      In the _Prima Donna's_ life
+    Quit the herd--the vocal cattle,
+      Be a Grisi in the strife.
+
+    Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,
+      Not who may be, but who are;
+    Piccolomini at present,
+      Is the bright particular star.
+
+[Sidenote: _Jullien_]
+
+[Illustration: JULLIEN'S DESPAIR]
+
+Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this
+volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as _Punch_ is
+concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of
+_Punch_. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and
+generous recognition. And _Punch_ was right, for underneath all his
+superficial buffooneries Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The
+present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir
+Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's
+flamboyant attire--on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered
+with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree--and his
+habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging
+himself with a _beau geste_ of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered
+armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said
+to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great
+genius like _you_, or a great charlatan like _me_." Now Jullien had been
+a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire--but so had Verdi at
+Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he
+was "a _ci-devant_ waiter of a _quarante-sous traiteur_." Of the
+charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote
+Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," _Punch_ gives a
+graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first
+number:--
+
+MONSIEUR JULLIEN
+
+            "One!"--crash!
+            "Two!"--clash!
+            "Three!"--dash!
+            "Four!"--smash!
+            Diminuendo,
+            Now crescendo:--
+    Thus play the furious band,
+    Led by the kid-gloved hand
+    Of Jullien--that Napoleon of quadrille,
+    Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;
+            Perspiring raver
+            Over a semi-quaver;
+    Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that
+    The natural key of Johnny Bull's--A flat.
+
+    Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven--
+    Arch-impudent _improver_ of Beethoven--
+    Tricksy Professor of _charlatanerie_--
+    Inventor of musical artillery--
+    Barbarous rain and thunder maker--
+    Unconscionable money taker--
+    Travelling about both near and far,
+    Toll to exact at every _bar_,
+      What brings thee here again
+      To desecrate old Drury's fane?
+
+      Egregious attitudiniser!
+      Antic fifer! com'st to advise her
+    'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?
+      To raze her benches,
+      That Gallic wenches
+    Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?
+
+[Sidenote: _Early Promenade Concerts_]
+
+[Illustration: "GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT]
+
+But when _Punch_ assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and
+meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily
+serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on,
+_coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va_!!!"--_Punch_ was both rude and ungenerous.
+From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade
+Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public
+waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also
+sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his
+musical _menu_. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing
+out _Stabat Mater_ waltzes--by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's
+work--and a _Dead March_ gallopade, we must never forget that he was the
+first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the
+authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at
+the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music
+strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of
+reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and _Punch_
+suggests in 1849 that his _Concerts Monstres_ should be held on
+Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His
+_chevelure_, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to
+escape _Punch's_ vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it
+should be so, for he was a master of the art of _réclame_. He is
+habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for
+"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The
+excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of
+the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of
+the notice of Jullien[32] in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when
+he speaks of _Punch_ as only ridiculing Jullien. Already _Punch_ had
+learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his
+extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to
+his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"
+are in the main friendly. The _Almanack_ for 1852 speaks of the "Julian
+(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera _Peter the Great_ is tenderly
+handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his
+tour in the States, _Punch_ sped the parting minstrel in some verses
+which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical
+education in England:--
+
+FAREWELL TO JULLIEN
+
+    Composer of _Peter the Great_,
+      Ere over Atlantic's broad swell
+    The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,
+      Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.
+
+    With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs
+      At first thou didst wisely begin,
+    And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,
+      As though 'twere to beat music in.
+
+    With national measures of France,
+      With polka, with waltz, and with jig,
+    The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,
+      As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.
+
+    Then, leading them on, by degrees,
+      To a feeling for Genius and Art,
+    Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,
+      And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.
+
+[Footnote 32: Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,
+though he appears in Larousse.]
+
+[Sidenote: _John Hullah_]
+
+The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay
+aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he
+was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money
+difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856
+he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous
+venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no
+"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of
+1857, when _Punch_ describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose
+eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I
+have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But
+things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien
+died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the
+age of forty-eight.
+
+Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom _Punch_
+recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at
+Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a
+fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no
+value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of
+"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of
+Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,
+who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well
+deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through
+his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in
+vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: _Punch_ satirizes the
+prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title
+"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note
+the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and
+monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special
+effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes
+on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a
+fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads
+were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The
+concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the
+remarkable performances of the Italian _virtuoso_ Giulio Regondi, but
+is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that
+the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.
+Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry
+out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark _nobilmente_ on the
+concertina. With regard to fashionable music _Punch_ complains in 1849
+that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only
+anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:--
+
+    Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones--
+    Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Taste in Music_]
+
+[Illustration: TASTE IN 1854--VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE
+DRAWING-ROOM
+
+YOUNG LADY (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low
+enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"]
+
+Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under
+the head of opera. _Punch_ had the root of the matter in him but was
+lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a
+critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable _portamento_." He
+was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling
+Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in
+1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the
+_Eroica_ Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his
+censure, as the _Eroica_ and C minor Symphonies were performed without
+being cut in two. _Punch_ had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but
+he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of
+Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The names
+of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of _Punch_ in
+this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the
+fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of
+Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the
+most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most
+fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.
+_Punch_ does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the
+greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of
+a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of
+waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese
+waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss
+has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an
+enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable
+Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that
+conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of
+the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an
+autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the
+public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since
+been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no
+reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or
+official recognition.
+
+[Sidenote: _Turner as Painter and Poet_]
+
+The low opinion which _Punch_ entertained of contemporary architects and
+sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a
+monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.
+He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have
+recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in
+advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for
+the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the
+adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the
+execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the
+position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a
+judge of painting and painters _Punch_ showed greater independence,
+intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references
+to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper of
+established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the
+autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's
+"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and
+avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his
+representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his
+"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find
+the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.
+_Punch_, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet
+might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we
+read:--
+
+    No. 77 is called _Whalers_, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies
+    one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster
+    salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his
+    pictures _Whalers_, or _Venice_, or _Morning_, or _Noon_, or
+    _Night_, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it
+    one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated
+    artist.
+
+[Illustration: VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,--RETURNING FROM THE BALL
+
+MS. "Fallacies of Hope" (An Unpublished Poem).--TURNER.]
+
+And again:--
+
+    We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his
+    celebrated MS. poem, the _Fallacies of Hope_, to which he
+    constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he
+    has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without
+    troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to
+    his _Morning--returning from the Ball_, which really seems to need
+    a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the
+    _Fallacies of Hope_, we will quote it for him:
+
+    "Oh! what a scene!--Can this be Venice? No.
+    And yet methinks it is--because I see
+    Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,
+    Something which looks like a Venetian spire.
+    That dash of orange in the background there
+    Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat
+    (Almost the colour of tomato sauce)
+    Proclaims them now returning from the ball!
+    This in my picture, I would fain convey,
+    I hope I do. Alas! _what_ FALLACY!"
+
+But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an
+article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:--
+
+    GENERAL MAXIMS
+
+    I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous
+    education.
+
+    II. The critic is greater than the artist.
+
+    III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is
+    to inform him of it.
+
+    IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,
+    like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the
+    vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the
+    rules of which it does not recognise.
+
+    V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in
+    preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity
+    must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good
+    or bad.
+
+     [Sidenote: _Rules for Art Critics_]
+
+     CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES
+
+    1. _To criticise a Picture by Turner._--Begin by protesting against
+    his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such
+    phrases as "_bathed in sunlight_," "_flooded with summer glories_,"
+    "_mellow distance_," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and
+    wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.
+
+    2. _To criticise a Picture by Stanfield._--Begin by unqualified
+    praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "_sharp,
+    hard outline_"; then of "_leathery texture_"; then of "_scenic
+    effect of the figures_"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a
+    scene painter.
+
+    3. _To criticise a Picture by Etty._--Begin by delirious
+    satisfaction with his "_delicious carnations_" and "_mellow
+    flesh-tones_." Remark on the skilful arrangement of colour and
+    admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should
+    content himself with merely painting from "_the nude Academy
+    model_," without troubling himself with that for which you had just
+    before praised him.--N.B. Never mind the contradiction.
+
+    4. _To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer._--Here you are bound to
+    unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or
+    the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is
+    expected.
+
+    _Punch_ will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar
+    directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.
+
+    He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:--
+
+    The "_facile princeps_" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)
+    has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's _Gregory and
+    Choristers_:--
+
+    "There is a want of _modulative melody_ in its colours and
+    mellowness in _its hand_ (whose?), pushed to an _outré_ simplicity
+    in _the plainness and ungrammatical development of its general
+    effect_. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery
+    occasionally too square and inflexible."
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+YE EXHYBITYON. AT YE ROYAL ACADEMYE.]
+
+The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,
+where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a
+frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period--note for
+example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense
+contemporary pictures were roughly handled by _Punch_. Thus in 1849 he
+puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old
+Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of
+clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.
+Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:--
+
+    "The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling
+    one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few
+    cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and
+    the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too
+    plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."
+
+The same complaint recurs in the following year, when _Punch_ is moved,
+as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain
+questions:--
+
+    Is painting a living art in England at this moment?
+
+    Is there a nineteenth century?
+
+    Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?
+
+    Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,
+    their actions, passions and sufferings?
+
+    If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living
+    events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so
+    unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and
+    beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the
+    Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the
+    Third, or George the Second?
+
+[Sidenote: _The P.R.B._]
+
+[Illustration: CONVENT THOUGHTS]
+
+But much more interesting than these generalities--sound and sensible
+though they are--is the first reference to "certain young friends of
+mine, calling themselves--the dear silly boys--Pre-Raphaelites" in the
+same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier
+criticisms of the P.R.B.'s _Mr. Punch_ managed to dissemble his
+affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of
+1851 is largely discounted by what follows:--
+
+    Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve
+    especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to
+    tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.
+    Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against _The Times_
+    on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. _are_ true, and that's
+    the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of
+    Collins's representation of the _Alisma Plantago_, _except_ the
+    unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he
+    has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size
+    of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of
+    brains--while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,
+    he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a
+    figure in the world.
+
+    Mr. Millais's "_Mariana_ in the moated Grange" is obviously meant
+    to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't
+    come--and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's
+    description:--
+
+   _then said she, "I am very dreary."_
+
+    Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet
+    robe, it is impossible to conceive.
+
+[Illustration: MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Commercialism in Art_]
+
+But Punch _makes_ the _amende_ most handsomely in 1852:--
+
+    Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour
+    that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In those
+    two pictures [_Ophelia_ and _The Huguenot_] I find more loving
+    observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her
+    forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest
+    poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a
+    point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate
+    expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of
+    canvas put together.
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes
+and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous
+chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,
+
+    Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had
+    no other name than _bottega_--in English, shop; and moreover, it is
+    an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one
+    demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a
+    trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims--with
+    vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and
+    frivolity--no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with
+    the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the
+    perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of
+    great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the
+    beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in
+    ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display
+    of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many
+    is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,
+    is sure to please."
+
+As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of
+Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of
+_Punch's_ altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his
+palinode in 1853:--
+
+    Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my
+    honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young
+    gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and
+    deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.
+    Millais's historical romance of _The Huguenot_, last year? I am
+    sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly
+    papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be
+    breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in _The Times_,
+    and the _Morning Post_, and the _Examiner_. But I am a sort of
+    chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is
+    serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no
+    character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly--not forgetting Edwin
+    Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, _Night and
+    Morning by the Lochside_, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the
+    Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with
+    his ship for bier--not forgetting these and other picture-books
+    well worth reading--I tell you that Hunt's _Claudio and Isabella_
+    is to me _the_ book of the collection, though it records in colours
+    what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all
+    after it, comes Millais's _Order of Release_, and then the _Strayed
+    Sheep_ and _Proscribed Royalist_ of the same authors. I do not mean
+    to put either after the other, so I bracket them."
+
+In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s _Punch_ shows all the zeal
+of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse
+published shortly afterwards:--
+
+    Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it
+    has to reflect.
+
+    See what follows.
+
+    If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public
+    halls and palaces, they must be small.
+
+    Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close
+    eye, must be highly finished.
+
+    These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect
+    the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the
+    Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for
+    which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely
+    recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding
+    circumstances.
+
+    What have they recognised besides?
+
+    That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must
+    be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of
+    earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be
+    rendered--the more truthfully the better--and that the most
+    accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning
+    work--the creation of the central interest which sums itself in
+    human expression.
+
+    The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the
+    possibility of combining these two things--human expression and
+    accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young
+    men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this--at
+    least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,
+    and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling
+    and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point--and
+    further than might be expected from such beardless champions--it
+    has already succeeded.
+
+    So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they
+    have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have
+    still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father
+    before them went through--devils of their own creating to hurl
+    their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and
+    confute, and put to shame--by trust in their gospel truth that
+    Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.
+
+[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of a Convert]
+
+It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English
+artists in 1855, _Punch_ complained that the newer school, i.e. the
+P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as
+Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of _Punch's_ artistic and
+aesthetic _flair_ and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he
+had expressed high praise for Frith's _Ramsgate Sands_ (which was bought
+by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him
+for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait
+Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile
+"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of
+"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern
+and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the
+musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.
+
+With all deductions and limitations _Punch's_ record as a critic of the
+fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.
+
+
+
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, _Punch_
+enumerates his special _bêtes noires_ as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy
+and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list
+would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,
+notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is
+much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen
+and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in
+the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who
+sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,
+all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar
+Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord
+Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all
+City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi
+(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was
+Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,
+together with Railway Directors, Homoeopathists and Protectionists.
+
+[Illustration: PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES]
+
+Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity
+may be noted _Punch's_ list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious
+suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the
+misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.
+Of some of _Punch's_ butts it may be said that they were rescued from
+oblivion by his satire and caricature--Sibthorp for example, though he
+was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in _Punch_.
+He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of
+Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was
+frequently witty, and as truculently courageous as _Punch_ himself. Sir
+Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to _Punch_ for
+all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City
+administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter
+throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social
+advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But
+the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.
+_Punch_ was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or
+discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that
+he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard
+to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already
+_Punch_ had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in
+politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton
+as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,
+ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work
+again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,
+but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was
+so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,
+_Punch_ was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a
+really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal
+throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and
+grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six
+months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, _Punch_ only
+jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real
+"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude
+towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and
+his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence
+imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later
+'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above
+in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from
+their pinnacles when _Punch_ the peace-loving Free Trader developed in
+the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the
+contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was
+grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry
+reparation for continual abuse of the living, and _Punch's_ treatment of
+Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In _Punch's_ early
+volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the
+Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of
+Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and
+there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,
+in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of
+temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Injustice to Peel_]
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD]
+
+If "Jenkins" was _Punch's_ "chief butler"--in the sense of the supreme
+flunkey--Lord Brougham was his chief butt throughout these years. And
+certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played
+better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal
+sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as
+regularly in _Punch's_ portraits as the straw in Palmerston's
+mouth--which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"
+acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from
+his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been
+Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in _Punch_ appears in the
+composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors
+ascribes to _Punch_ his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for
+"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the
+moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and
+furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements
+of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed
+trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to
+the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,
+with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,
+craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the
+Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings
+for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word
+Competition) we read:--
+
+    If people may, without rebuke,
+    Call Wellington the "Iron----,"
+    Why then we safely may presume
+    The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord----.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS]
+
+The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in
+his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic _Punch_, who in 1849
+was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky
+and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But _Punch's_
+hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which
+represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago
+of inconsistencies which composed the mind of one who was at once a
+charlatan and encyclopædist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year
+_Punch_ suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of
+the erotic and learned lord,"
+
+    Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,
+    Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.
+
+Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of
+1851 excited _Punch's_ wrath, when he himself had become converted to
+the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the
+turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America
+in 1850, when _Punch_ printed the following unofficial letter of
+introduction to the President of the United States:--
+
+    To General Taylor, President of the United States,
+
+    Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.
+
+    "Dear Taylor,
+
+    "I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend
+    _Brougham_--the _Brougham_ whose fame is _not_ European but
+    world-wide--personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,
+    he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked
+    like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has
+    cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp
+    attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look
+    around every attorney's office; and you will _not_ see Brougham's
+    picture."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Palinode to Brougham_]
+
+_Punch_ had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian
+cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the
+following graceful verses printed in 1851:--
+
+      A PALINODE
+
+        From _Punch_ to Henry Brougham
+
+    "During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost
+    difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,
+    attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten
+    days the difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the
+    hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his
+    life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found
+    he could struggle no more."--_Lord Brougham's last speech on Law
+    Reform in the House of Lords._
+
+    And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?
+      Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?
+    Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,
+      Our ten long years of all but weekly war,
+
+    Let _Punch_ hold out to you a friendly hand,
+      And speak what haply he had left unspoken
+    Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,
+      That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.
+
+    Forgot the changes of thy later years,
+      No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,
+    Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers--
+      Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.
+
+    He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue
+      Lashed into infamy and endless scorn
+    The wretches who their blackening scandal flung
+      Upon a Queen--of women most forlorn.
+
+    He knows the lover of his kind, who stood
+      Chief of the banded few who dared to brave
+    The accursed traffickers in negro blood,
+      And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;
+
+    The Statesman who, in a less happy hour
+      Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,
+    And gave the keys of knowledge and of power
+      With equal hand alike to high and low;
+
+    The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,
+      Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:
+    The Chancellor who settled century's claims,
+      And swept an age's dense arrears away;
+
+    The man whose name men read even as they run,
+      On every landmark the world's course along,
+    That speaks to us of a great battle won
+      Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.
+
+    Remembering this, full sad I am to hear
+      That voice which loudest in the combat rung
+    Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,
+      To see that arm of battle all unstrung.
+
+    And so, even as a warrior after fight
+      Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,
+    I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,
+      And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.
+
+This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,
+the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal
+reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his
+disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown
+and lived for seventeen years longer--years crowded with multifarious
+activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique
+figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors
+are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to
+avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,
+vituperation, and vulgarity.
+
+Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in
+respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first
+place amongst _Punch's_ pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up
+any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive
+picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was
+"always in trouble." The predominating cause of _Punch's_ resentment was
+the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably
+that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in
+_Punch's_ view: _nihil tetigit quod non foedavit_. Peter Borthwick,
+the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,
+and editor of the _Morning Post_ from 1850 till his death in 1852, was
+no favourite of _Punch_. He was, however, as the date shows, not
+editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick
+clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married
+couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when
+they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery
+heresies that _Punch_ granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for
+this good act." _Punch's_ antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they
+were united in their Russophobia. But _Punch_ was often intolerant of
+competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Designs a Statue_]
+
+[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE]
+
+If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and
+favourites, _Punch_ emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most
+of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere, and the list[33]
+might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of
+Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;
+Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William
+Russell, of whose lectures _Punch_ wrote an enthusiastic and
+well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.
+
+[Footnote 33: It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of
+Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative
+classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on
+William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made
+a K.C.B. in 1860.]
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+                               PRINTED BY
+             CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,
+                             LONDON, E.C.4
+
+                               F.100.521
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England,
+Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44267 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44267 ***</div>
+
+<div class="cover"  style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/cover.jpg">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="300" alt="Book cover" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="transnote"><p class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE.<br />
+Some pages of this work have been moved from the original sequence to enable
+the contents to continue without interruption. The page numbering remains unaltered.</p>
+
+<p>Only references within this volume have been linked. A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume.</p>
+
+<p class="cover"><span class="center">The book cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>M<sup>R.</sup> PUNCH'S HISTORY<br />
+OF MODERN ENGLAND</h1>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_003.png">
+<img src="images/i_003.png" width="300" alt="Lower class deferring to upper class." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE RECONCILIATION:<br />
+<span class="small">OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE</span></p>
+<p class="center">Reproduced from the cartoon in <em>Punch</em>, 15th March, 1845.<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="cs">M<sup>R.</sup> Punch's History<br />
+of Modern England<br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="small">By</span><br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="cs">CHARLES L. GRAVES<br /></p>
+
+<p class="cite">In Four Volumes<br /><br />
+
+VOL. I.&mdash;1841-1857<br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="cs">CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD<br /></p>
+<p class="center">London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne<br /><br />
+1921<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"</em></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
+limitations. The files of <em>Punch</em> have been generally admitted to be a
+valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
+the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
+use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that <em>Punch</em> has always
+been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
+his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
+especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
+second. For pictures of provincial society&mdash;such, for example, as that
+given in <em>Cranford</em> or in the novels of Trollope&mdash;or of life in
+Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
+outside <em>Punch</em>. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
+part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
+his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
+is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
+subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
+<em>Punch</em>, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
+to Victorian writers in general by a writer in <em>Blackwood</em> holds good:
+"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
+voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
+was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
+They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
+self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
+at all costs." In the 'forties <em>Punch</em> doubled the rôles of jester and
+political pamphleteer, and in the latter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> capacity indulged in a great
+deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
+moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
+Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
+somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
+volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
+with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
+any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
+views expressed in <em>Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
+altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
+after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
+honourable phase of <em>Punch's</em> history, his championship of the poor and
+oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
+Nations"&mdash;the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
+of Disraeli's <em>Sybil</em>, and which I have chosen as the title for the
+first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
+at any time without reference to the political background would be
+difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on <em>Punch</em>
+in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
+redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of <em>Punch's</em>
+London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
+contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
+slums on the other.</p>
+
+<p>No attempt has been made to represent <em>Punch</em> as infallible whether as a
+recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
+cruel&mdash;notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
+the "No Popery" crusade&mdash;though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
+the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
+majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> tributes. As
+for the gradual cooling of <em>Punch's</em> democratic ardour, that may be
+attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
+and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
+follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
+grow older. The great value of <em>Punch</em> resides in the fact that it
+provides us with a history of the Victorians <em>written by themselves</em>.
+This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
+painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
+hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
+mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
+mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
+has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
+or correct the statements or judgments recorded in <em>Punch</em>.
+Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
+the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
+the <em>Dictionary of National Biography</em>; to the <em>New English Dictionary</em>;
+to <em>The Political History of England</em>, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
+Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's <em>Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century</em>;
+and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
+Mr. M. H. Spielmann's <em>History of Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
+encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
+director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
+Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
+research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
+assistant librarian of the Athenæum Club.</p>
+
+<p class="author">CHARLES L. GRAVES.<br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pgviii]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p class="center">PART I<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE TWO NATIONS<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td></td><td>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE"><cite><em>Punch</em></cite> AND THE PEOPLE</a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHARTISM">CHARTISM</a></td><td align="right">49</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING">MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">61</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#EDUCATION">EDUCATION</a></td><td align="right">81</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY">RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY</a></td><td align="right">91</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR">FROM PEACE TO WAR</a></td><td align="right">112</td></tr>
+</table><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">ENTR'ACTE<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY">LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">141</td></tr>
+</table>
+<br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">PART II<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE SOCIAL FABRIC<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_COURT">THE COURT</a></td><td align="left">165</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_OLD_NOBILITY">THE OLD NOBILITY</a></td><td align="left">201</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL">SOCIETY&mdash;EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL</a></td><td align="left">208</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS">THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS</a></td><td align="left">232</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES">WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES</a></td><td align="left">243</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#FASHION_IN_DRESS">FASHION IN DRESS</a></td><td align="left">258</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS">THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS</a></td><td align="left">271</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#PERSONALITIES">PERSONALITIES</a></td><td align="left">304</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bssc"><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</p>
+
+<p class="bssc">THE TWO NATIONS</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE" id="PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE"></a><em>PUNCH</em> AND THE PEOPLE</h2>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">O! fair and fresh the early spring</p>
+<p class="i2">Her budding wreath displays,</p>
+<p class="i0">To all the wide earth promising</p>
+<p class="i2">The joy of harvest days;</p>
+<p class="i0">Yet many a waste of wavy gold</p>
+<p class="i2">Hath bent above the dead;</p>
+<p class="i0">Then let the living share it too&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Give us our daily bread.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of old a nation's cry shook down</p>
+<p class="i2">The sword-defying wall,</p>
+<p class="i0">And ours may reach the mercy-seat,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though not the lordly hall.</p>
+<p class="i0">God of the Corn! shall man restrain</p>
+<p class="i2">Thy blessings freely shed?</p>
+<p class="i0">O! look upon the isles at last&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Give us our daily bread.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Founders of "Punch"</em></div>
+
+<p>It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the
+Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of <em>Punch</em>, should
+begin with the People. For <em>Punch</em> began as a radical and democratic
+paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,
+and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry
+'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of
+jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> us on every page
+was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and
+wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be
+said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry
+Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was
+"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which
+takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the
+<em>Morning Chronicle</em> and his elaborate work on <em>London Labour and the
+London Poor</em>, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of
+twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His
+versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the
+<em>Athenæum</em> observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a
+scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an
+outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the
+original staff was Gilbert à Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary
+amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on <em>The Times</em>,
+comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan
+Magistrate. It was à Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the
+Andover Union&mdash;pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of
+the best ever presented to Parliament&mdash;that led to important alterations
+in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,
+his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's
+references to "à Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on
+his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the
+journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert
+à Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a
+daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the
+highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness
+of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who
+died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and
+impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is
+chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and
+ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist
+and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry
+Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.
+Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education
+was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the
+Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of
+the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh
+discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either
+Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,
+and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to
+militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King
+business" generally&mdash;always excepting Constitutional Monarchy&mdash;was so
+pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him
+into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from
+the temper of <em>Punch</em> in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness
+as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter
+criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden
+and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties
+Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of
+enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade
+movement, and they had been supported by <em>Punch</em> in the campaign against
+the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of <em>Punch's</em> attacks
+on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,
+the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He
+might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of
+the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed
+"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,
+the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are
+as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs
+should not have the best of it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_018.png">
+<img src="images/i_018.png" width="300" alt="Man appealing to ghostly figure." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND<br />
+(The Hungry 'Forties)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Biographies of the <em>Punch</em> staff do not fall within the scope of this
+chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the
+men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential
+to a proper understanding of its influence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> on public opinion. They were
+humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had
+abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke
+of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the
+only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was
+quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a
+heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the
+ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up
+their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered
+by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later
+Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the
+present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the
+manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make
+instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise
+means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until
+such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory
+morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last
+few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of
+every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this
+vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday
+night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful
+imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the
+well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the
+instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a
+full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a
+year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly
+ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which
+prompted <em>Punch</em> to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,
+and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer
+in the <em>Examiner</em> so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the
+sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,
+according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and
+make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>an old story; as
+old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate
+clothed with sackcloth." <em>Punch</em> never wearied of bringing home to his
+readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were
+crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the
+Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The
+amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than
+three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the
+poor. <em>The Times</em> of December 2, 1841, quoted from the <em>Sporting
+Magazine</em> an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince
+Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs&mdash;sleeping beds, compartments
+paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;
+and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the
+building&mdash;and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron
+and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was
+small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one
+time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut
+out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six
+young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the
+same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they
+complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they
+would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the
+latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic
+journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month
+after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same
+issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the
+Lord Mayor's dinner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Fleshpots and Famine</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Oh, men of Paisley&mdash;good folks of Bolton&mdash;what promise for ye is
+here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,
+Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,
+brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches
+at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in
+the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that
+Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord
+Mayor's table!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, <em>Punch</em>
+boldly suggested Lazarus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit
+upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall
+heal the wounds of wretchedness&mdash;shall gather bloodless laurels in
+the hospital and workhouse&mdash;his ermine and purple shall make
+fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey&mdash;he shall be a king enthroned
+and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!</p>
+
+<p>LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the
+wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very
+syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,
+there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the
+beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed&mdash;tatters are
+invested with regality&mdash;man in his most abject and hopeless
+condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the
+earth&mdash;royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the
+embrace of fraternity.</p>
+
+<p>O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and
+cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you
+can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in <em>Punch</em>, in which the cry
+of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from
+"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short
+poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the
+lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Disease and want are sitting by my hearth&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">The world hath left me nothing of its good!</p>
+<p class="i0">The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,</p>
+<p class="i2">And yet I am alone and wanting food.</p>
+<p class="i0">The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth</p>
+<p class="i2">Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE</p>
+<p class="i0">Who gave the mighty universe its birth</p>
+<p class="i2">Would never love the wild bird more than me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,
+as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great
+Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who
+offered evil counsel, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the Chartists themselves had a degree of
+intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of
+public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of
+dissentients:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians&mdash;men keenly
+alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to
+the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to
+Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances&mdash;that it
+prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary
+measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a
+little it is necessary to ask a great deal?</p>
+
+<p>We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its
+army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the
+Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and
+spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has
+been added&mdash;and well added&mdash;that property has also its duties. To
+these let us subjoin&mdash;property has also its cowardice.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural
+labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many
+disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of
+the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence
+of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and
+keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost
+destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for
+a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with
+the wife hungry&mdash;almost crying with hunger&mdash;and in rags, <em>yet the
+floor was perfectly clean</em>. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on
+the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,
+but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his
+wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the
+room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William
+Benton&mdash;"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't
+know justly&mdash;mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;
+can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is
+of the Baptist school religion, <em>whatever that is</em>. Never heard of
+Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who
+Jesus Christ was&mdash;he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to
+school if he could...."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen
+a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a
+violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea
+of a green field was derived from <em>having been stung by a nettle</em>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Song of the Shirt</em></div>
+
+<p>The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions
+of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England
+suggested to <em>Punch</em> an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of
+the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,
+etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined
+being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the
+cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and
+<em>Punch</em> was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor
+widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up
+for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a
+week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which
+paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest
+poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of
+Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all
+the other contributions to insignificance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="thk">THE SONG OF THE SHIRT</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With fingers weary and worn,</p>
+<p class="i2">With eyelids heavy and red,</p>
+<p class="i0">A woman sat in unwomanly rags,</p>
+<p class="i2">Plying her needle and thread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch! stitch! stitch!</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">And still with a voice of dolorous pitch</p>
+<p class="i2">She sang the "Song of the Shirt."</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work! work! work!</p>
+<p class="i2">While the cock is crowing aloof!</p>
+<p class="i0">And work&mdash;work&mdash;work,</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the stars shine through the roof!</p>
+<p class="i0">It's O! to be a slave</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Along with the barbarous Turk,</p>
+<p class="i0">Where woman has never a soul to save,</p>
+<p class="i2">If this is Christian work!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the brain begins to swim;</p>
+<p class="i0">Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the eyes are heavy and dim!</p>
+<p class="i0">Seam and gusset and band,</p>
+<p class="i2">Band and gusset and seam,</p>
+<p class="i0">Till over the buttons I fall asleep,</p>
+<p class="i2">And sew them on in a dream!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"O men, with sisters dear!</p>
+<p class="i2">O men, with mothers and wives!</p>
+<p class="i0">It is not linen you're wearing out,</p>
+<p class="i2">But human creatures' lives!</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch&mdash;stitch&mdash;stitch,</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">Sewing at once, with a double thread,</p>
+<p class="i2">A shroud as well as a shirt.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"But why do I talk of Death,</p>
+<p class="i2">That phantom of grisly bone?</p>
+<p class="i0">I hardly fear his terrible shape,</p>
+<p class="i2">It seems so like my own&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">It seems so like my own,</p>
+<p class="i2">Because of the fasts I keep;</p>
+<p class="i0">Oh God, that bread should be so dear,</p>
+<p class="i2">And flesh and blood so cheap!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work!</p>
+<p class="i2">My labour never flags;</p>
+<p class="i0">And what are its wages? A bed of straw,</p>
+<p class="i2">A crust of bread&mdash;and rags.</p>
+<p class="i0">That shatter'd roof&mdash;and this naked floor&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">A table&mdash;a broken chair&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank</p>
+<p class="i0">For sometimes falling there!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work!</p>
+<p class="i2">From weary chime to chime,</p>
+<p class="i0">Work&mdash;work&mdash;work&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">As prisoners work for crime!</p>
+<p class="i0">Band and gusset and seam,</p>
+<p class="i2">Seam and gusset and band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,</p>
+<p class="i2">As well as the weary hand.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">In the dull December light,</p>
+<p class="i0">And work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">When the weather is warm and bright;</p>
+<p class="i0">While underneath the eaves</p>
+<p class="i2">The brooding swallows cling</p>
+<p class="i0">As if to show me their sunny backs</p>
+<p class="i2">And twit me with the spring.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh! but to breathe the breath</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the cowslip and primrose sweet&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">With the sky above my head,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the grass beneath my feet;</p>
+<p class="i0">For only one short hour</p>
+<p class="i2">To feel as I used to feel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Before I knew the woes of want</p>
+<p class="i2">And the walk that costs a meal!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh, but for one short hour!</p>
+<p class="i2">A respite however brief;</p>
+<p class="i0">No blessed leisure for love or hope,</p>
+<p class="i2">But only time for grief!</p>
+<p class="i0">A little weeping would ease my heart,</p>
+<p class="i2">But in their briny bed</p>
+<p class="i0">My tears must stop, for every drop</p>
+<p class="i2">Hinders needle and thread!"</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With fingers weary and worn,</p>
+<p class="i2">With eyelids heavy and red,</p>
+<p class="i0">A woman sat in unwomanly rags</p>
+<p class="i2">Plying her needle and thread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch! stitch! stitch!</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,</p>
+<p class="i2">Would that its tone could reach the rich!</p>
+<p class="i0">She sang this "Song of the Shirt."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_025.png">
+<img src="images/i_025.png" width="300" alt="Lady having her hair styled." /></a>
+<p class="center">PIN MONEY</p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_026.png">
+<img src="images/i_026.png" width="300" alt="Lady sewing a garment." /></a>
+<p class="center">NEEDLE MONEY</p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sir Robert Peel and Hood</em></div>
+
+<p>The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann
+in his <em>History of "Punch".</em> Mark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Lemon proved himself a great editor
+by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his
+colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by
+his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the
+poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's
+correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,
+received scant justice from <em>Punch</em>. Though the impact of Hood's burning
+verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year
+later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel
+wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him
+a pension. "I am not conferring a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> private obligation upon you, but am
+fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the
+disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in
+recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked
+in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his
+personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's
+health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt
+assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel
+sent the £100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with
+all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.
+He could write no more, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> he had wished to write one more paper.
+Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were
+seventy-five years ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far
+asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer
+by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and
+place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one
+side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the
+last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not
+a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for
+the benefit of my beloved country.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than
+seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and <em>Punch</em> was
+moved to ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,</p>
+<p class="i2">If monuments adorn his place of sleep</p>
+<p class="i0">Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,</p>
+<p class="i2">And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Did <em>he</em> not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?</p>
+<p class="i2">Was not <em>his</em> voice loud for the worker's right?</p>
+<p class="i0">Was <em>he</em> not potent to arrest the slaughters</p>
+<p class="i2">Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song
+of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her
+death a year later. A sum of £800, collected by public subscription, was
+all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then
+Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their
+benefit, at a time when, as <em>Punch</em> reminded him, the Duchess of
+Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of £1,000
+a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not
+end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year <em>Punch</em> was
+moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for
+embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning
+the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Shirt
+Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid
+2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 2½d. apiece, and on these
+earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As
+late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.
+a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage
+gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers
+here were "out of place," <em>Punch</em> retorted with the bitter jibe: "What
+has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea</em></div>
+
+<p>No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant
+feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate
+who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge
+brought against a man earning 7s. a week&mdash;the common rate at the time
+for agricultural labourers&mdash;stated from the Bench that he knew of good
+hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.
+Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and
+salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of
+Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre
+fare by the use of curry powder,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> a suggestion that recalls the
+historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on
+hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"
+<em>Punch</em> dealt faithfully with this ducal <em>gaffe</em> under the heading, "A
+Real Blessing to Landlords":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by
+the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for
+bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the
+empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to
+relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from
+living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede
+potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of
+gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal
+to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their
+rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile
+labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.
+Agricultural societies supplied.</p>
+
+<p>N.B.&mdash;A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In these years the Dukes were constantly in <em>Mr. Punch's</em> pillory; the
+Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in
+connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham
+for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for
+killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for
+prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;
+the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules
+enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into
+sheep-walks, which suggested to <em>Punch</em> that he should be dignified with
+the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that
+agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking
+the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen
+Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and
+censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch
+with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words
+reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845
+<em>Punch</em> made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had
+arrived:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Times</em> says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go
+and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for
+governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great
+thoroughfare of civilisation&mdash;he should be quietly and respectfully
+eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him&mdash;in
+history.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Harsh Sentences on Children</em></div>
+
+<p>Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the
+Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the
+treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to <em>Punch's</em>
+reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from <em>The Times</em> and many
+provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing
+a leveret;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a
+faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and
+twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field
+through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol
+for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;
+a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.
+6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,
+had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday&mdash;which
+reminds <em>Punch</em> of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in
+Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man
+"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,
+because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the
+case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not
+solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,
+sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing 1\2-lb. of
+butter. Small wonder is it that <em>Punch</em> was a fervent and convinced
+anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble
+itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools
+for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine
+or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went
+to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were
+punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;
+fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by
+a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the
+penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find <em>Punch</em>
+tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping
+wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick
+Burner." <em>Facit indignatio versum</em>: here is the picture of "The Fine Old
+English Gentleman of the Present Time"&mdash;in the middle of the Hungry
+'Forties:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.</p>
+<p class="i0">Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,</p>
+<p class="i2">Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,</p>
+<p class="i0">And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,</p>
+<p class="i0">He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;</p>
+<p class="i0">For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,</p>
+<p class="i2">Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here is the portrait of the pauper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,</p>
+<p class="i2">A ragged wretch am I!</p>
+<p class="i0">And how, and when, and where I can,</p>
+<p class="i2">I feed, and lodge, and lie.</p>
+<p class="i0">And I must to the workhouse go,</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>If</em> better may not be;</p>
+<p class="i0">Ay, <em>if</em>, indeed! The workhouse! No!</p>
+<p class="i2">The gaol&mdash;the gaol for me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There shall I get the larger crust,</p>
+<p class="i2">The warmer house-room there;</p>
+<p class="i0">And choose a prison since I must,</p>
+<p class="i2">I'll choose it for its fare.</p>
+<p class="i0">The dog will snatch the biggest bone,</p>
+<p class="i2">So much the wiser he:</p>
+<p class="i0">Call me a dog&mdash;the name I'll own&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">The gaol&mdash;the gaol for me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in
+Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well
+justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the
+Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,
+and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were
+returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the
+humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich
+workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved <em>Punch</em> to
+indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough
+to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the
+management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> were fed
+at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were
+not allowed to see the pantomime <em>Jack and the Beanstalk</em>. Owing to the
+intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were
+actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a
+Bath-brick" <em>Punch</em> dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best
+style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of
+the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the
+workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the
+ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">A fig for honest occupation,</p>
+<p class="i2">Beggary's an easier trade;</p>
+<p class="i0">Industry is mere starvation,</p>
+<p class="i2">Mendicancy's better paid.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Bigamy or Divorce?</em></div>
+
+<p>In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws <em>Punch</em> never
+ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better
+remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice
+Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, <em>Punch</em> hardly rendered
+justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">WAGGERY OF THE BENCH</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a
+bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one
+of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for
+such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice
+Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his
+pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a
+gravity of face worthy of the original <em>Billy Lackaday</em>, "that the
+law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was <em>equally
+open for him</em>, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way
+that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if
+Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have
+both the same papillary organs&mdash;a dignifying truth for the outcast
+wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his
+pleasantry:</p>
+
+<p>"He (Rollins) <em>should have brought an action</em> against the man who
+was living in the way stated with his wife, and <em>he should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> have
+obtained damages</em>, and then <em>should have gone to the Ecclesiastical
+Court</em> and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to
+have been done already, <em>and then he should have gone to the House
+of Lords</em>, and, proving all his case and the preliminary
+proceedings, <em>have obtained a full and complete divorce</em>; after
+which he might, if he liked it, have married again."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,
+earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the
+pauper from court to court&mdash;tarry with him awhile in the House of
+Lords&mdash;and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a
+sustained spirit of drollery, observes:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The prisoner <em>might perhaps object to this</em>, that he had not the
+money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about £500 or
+£600&mdash;<em>perhaps he had not so many pence</em>&mdash;but this did not exempt
+him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he
+had been convicted."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for
+marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about £500 or
+£600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.
+In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.
+Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom
+God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these
+words, "<em>Unless paid about £500 or £600 to separate them</em>."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to
+resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by
+those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted
+to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.
+But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that <em>Punch</em>
+recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a
+sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."</p>
+
+<p>Against the Game Laws and their administration <em>Punch</em> waged a
+continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by
+game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the
+expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and
+amongst his idols<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold
+peasantry" as their constant victims.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Model Labourer</em></div>
+
+<p>The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet
+in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly
+handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps
+the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to
+be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer
+of 1848:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from
+twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he
+calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has
+only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church
+regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits
+outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,
+or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer
+and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas
+or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,
+by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work
+by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him
+discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He
+believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest
+Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them
+the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad
+seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn
+Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for
+rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his
+cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by
+some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows
+absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not
+trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his
+landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"
+wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any
+farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial
+Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy
+tenants, shouts, sings, dances&mdash;any mockery or absurdity, to please
+his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his
+greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.
+His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his
+wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual
+Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his
+master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles
+on, existing rather than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> living, infinitely worse fed than the
+beasts he gets up for the exhibitions&mdash;much less cared about than
+the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,
+autumn and winter, his wages never higher&mdash;frequently less&mdash;and
+perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all
+that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of
+six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on
+his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up
+ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is
+the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he
+is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin
+for himself to be buried in!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are
+heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be
+found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in
+1843, quoted by <em>Punch</em> on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire
+village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with
+political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the
+exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and
+industrious poor, <em>Punch</em> was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this
+parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented
+a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned
+for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of
+£1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the
+shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show
+where the prize pig is awarded £3 3s. and the prize peasant £2 2s. When
+baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn
+with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with
+the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve
+his condition." <em>Punch's</em> democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies
+Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young
+England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that
+Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the
+fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell
+an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the <em>Daily
+Telegraph</em> called <em>Punch</em> in later years), when in "England's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> Trust and
+other Poems" was penned the memorable <em>cri de c&oelig;ur</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Though I could bear to view our crowded towns</p>
+<p class="i0">Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;</p>
+<p class="i0">Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,</p>
+<p class="i0">But leave us still our old nobility.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Lord Shaftesbury</em></div>
+
+<p>But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof
+one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts
+which <em>Punch</em> unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to
+the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the
+industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some
+of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,
+afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if
+there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had
+opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic
+Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that
+the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an
+aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced
+Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by <em>Punch</em>. Yet as
+early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the
+passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the
+hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.
+In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,
+shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a
+Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this
+humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to
+regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group
+supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to
+concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and
+most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of
+the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most
+of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18
+years of age,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a
+day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and
+children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation
+placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its
+provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a
+10½ hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But
+Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this
+compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as
+a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of
+Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The
+Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects
+of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's
+speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of <em>Sybil</em>"&mdash;his
+finest and best constructed novel. <em>Sybil</em> was published in 1845, and
+though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the
+aims of <em>Punch</em>, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a
+Jew. Now <em>Punch</em> consistently supported the removal of Jewish
+disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall
+philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for
+neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,
+Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert
+the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own
+poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity
+make converts of the Hebrews." But <em>Punch</em> was no lover of Jews, and
+least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great
+Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the
+main, however, <em>Punch</em> regarded him at this stage of his career as a
+brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an
+untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet
+<em>Sybil</em> in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social
+and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed
+largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was
+never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue
+between Egremont and the stranger. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> stranger, after observing that
+while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
+modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in
+its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Two Nations</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our
+Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which
+nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The
+stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.
+"Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two
+nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who
+are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if
+they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
+planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a
+different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not
+governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont
+hesitatingly,&mdash;"THE RICH AND THE POOR."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of
+burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in <em>Sybil</em>, though one must not
+forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it
+bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and
+industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the
+evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly
+painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in <em>Sybil</em>. The details
+are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.
+R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green
+and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of
+artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a
+systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his
+campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but
+here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it
+that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all
+on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the
+humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference
+by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the
+existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving
+hand-loom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de
+Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in
+smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a
+real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's
+phrase. But for reasons already given <em>Punch</em> was not prepared to accept
+Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and
+ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to <em>Punch's</em>
+eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to <em>Punch</em> it must be
+admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal
+of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and
+damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the
+"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the
+distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his
+view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the
+leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their
+responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and
+privileges. <em>Punch</em> was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law
+Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of
+Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to
+hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; <em>Punch</em>
+refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group
+were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were
+not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than
+specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate
+action did not appeal to <em>Punch</em>. Though often a petulant and intolerant
+critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,
+legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the
+decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be
+demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there <em>are</em> sermons in stones, and if
+Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and
+wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more
+suggestive text than is written&mdash;written in tears&mdash;on every stone of the
+Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the
+poor he was an impassioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> advocate from the very first. When a police
+magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate
+to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,
+magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later <em>Punch</em>
+vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a
+"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and
+welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder
+at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of
+twelve to prison for stealing £4 12s. from his master "because if he
+went to prison he might become an expert thief."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Plot Against Prisons</em></div>
+
+<p>In the year 1853 <em>Punch</em> discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot
+against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him
+to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy
+organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and
+initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an
+establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,
+and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,
+who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a
+place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and
+seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this
+end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,
+by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular
+branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,
+their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says
+in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:</p>
+
+<p>"I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I
+used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,
+their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves
+generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in
+harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed
+them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society
+together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that
+my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great
+effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them
+clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I
+possibly could."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also
+succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to
+establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will
+most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent
+edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such
+vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,
+Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which
+will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which
+all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of
+his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by
+substituting prevention for cure&mdash;superseding prison discipline by
+reformation.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>High Life Below Stairs</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_041.png">
+<img src="images/i_041.png" width="600" alt="Cook speaking to har mistress." /></a>
+<p class="center">SERVANTGALISM</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Cook</span>: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked
+at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_042.png">
+<img src="images/i_042.png" width="250" alt="Two manservants talking." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Coachman</span>: "Why&mdash;what's the matter, John Thomas?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Footman</span>: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice
+because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat
+down in a week!"<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending
+theme in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. His attitude was governed by the broad
+principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who
+offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.
+But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the
+flunkey, holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its
+prevalence amongst highly paid servants. <em>Punch</em> was the champion of the
+"slavey"&mdash;immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"&mdash;even of the
+much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and
+powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of
+the old régime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and
+furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when
+advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages £3 a year," appeared in a
+fashionable paper and earned <em>Punch's</em> satire. Contrariwise, he never
+spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the
+housemaid." In this spirit <em>Punch</em> makes game of a school for servants
+at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant
+girls and nurses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> were neglectful of their duties and their infant
+charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and
+disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in
+<em>Punch's</em> quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns
+of <em>The Times</em> the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with
+broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the
+North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type
+insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable
+neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting
+from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of
+<em>Punch</em>, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his
+collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These
+gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected
+to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be
+seen nor heard," as <em>Punch</em> put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not
+allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was
+made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real
+aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a
+mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the
+real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which <em>Punch</em>
+impersonated in "Jenkins" of the <em>Morning Post</em> (or <em>Morning Plush</em>, as
+he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to
+ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may
+suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera
+which appeared in the <em>Morning Post</em>:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor
+should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of
+titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the
+State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those
+luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the
+industrious.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And again&mdash;the italics and capitals are <em>Punch's</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites
+of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has
+become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> a ruling passion&mdash;it is the quintessence of all civilized
+pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their
+standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the
+most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society
+assemble.</p>
+
+<p>These <em>ornaments of society</em> are in general absent at the too early
+opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed
+the house previous to the overture, most of those who <em>constitute
+society</em> in England&mdash;those whom we <em>respect, esteem or
+love</em>&mdash;rapidly filled the house.</p>
+
+<p>Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if <em>those
+objectionable spectators were there</em>&mdash;those gentlemen of ambiguous
+gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, <em>tailors</em> and
+<em>shoemakers</em>, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of
+knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot&mdash;<em>they and
+their frowsy dames</em> were so nailed <em>to their benches as not to
+offend the eye</em>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the
+divinity of kings and coronets, prompted <em>Punch</em> to adorn "Jenkins" with
+the <em>alias</em> of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but <em>Punch</em> might
+have retorted <em>tâchez de ne pas le mériter</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Underpaid Governess</em></div>
+
+<p>From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too
+easy. <em>Punch's</em> study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave
+market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write
+the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still
+open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement
+in <em>The Times</em>, in which "S. S." offered a salary of £2 a month to "a
+morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young
+female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with
+French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"
+<em>Punch</em> observes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of
+offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,
+"It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the
+saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen
+indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,
+and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to
+other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such
+offers as those of S.S.?</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_045.png">
+<img src="images/i_045.png" width="600" alt="Servant speaking to his master." /></a>
+<p>Thomas gives warning because his master has given up
+reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a
+governess."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those
+offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was
+expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not
+at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an
+excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the
+problem of these "Sisters of Misery," <em>Punch</em> waxes ironical on the
+results of their improvidence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty
+pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep
+company with the children, the governess has not saved a
+sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know
+that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And
+yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such
+indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature
+who, as I have heard, in her prime&mdash;that is, for the ten
+years&mdash;lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.
+Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank
+lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely
+taught French, Italian, and the harp to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> daughters of small
+tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got
+too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though
+sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of
+the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she
+continues to eke out a miserable existence&mdash;a sad example, if they
+would only be warned, to improvident governesses.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Real Dotheboys Hall</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
+advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
+of them extracted from <em>The Times</em> appears in the issue of August 14,
+1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
+governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
+houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
+Already, some three weeks earlier, <em>Punch</em> had quoted from <em>The Times</em>
+the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
+Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
+instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
+and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
+"Dotheboys Hall" in real life <em>Punch</em> observes that while such a price
+for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
+of miracles has passed, and especially&mdash;after the publication of
+<em>Nicholas Nickleby</em>&mdash;of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
+a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
+least forty years after <em>Punch's</em> protest, as the present writer can
+testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
+"Penny Post Medal" <em>Punch</em> endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
+Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
+treatment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
+<em>Punch</em>, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
+missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
+Postman is the soldier of peace&mdash;the humanizing, benevolent
+distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
+associations. He is the philanthropic go-between&mdash;the cheap and
+constant communicant betwixt man and man.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_047.png">
+<img src="images/i_047.png" width="300" alt="Rowland Hill carried aloft." /></a>
+<p class="center">ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO<br /> ST. MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND</p>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In the Penny Post Medal <em>Punch</em> has endeavoured to show the triumph
+of Rowland Hill&mdash;no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great&mdash;carried
+in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
+If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
+shouts&mdash;he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
+for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
+knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rowland Hill's Reward</em></div>
+
+<p>Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
+ingratitude of man&mdash;old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
+Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
+services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
+or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
+with&mdash;the sack.</p>
+
+<p>After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
+Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
+owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_048.png">
+<img src="images/i_048.png" width="300" alt="Brittania presenting Hill with a mail sack." /></a>
+<p class="center">BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long
+and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it
+is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or
+thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For
+this his salary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post
+Office robberies were frequent, <em>Punch</em>, without excusing theft,
+regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.
+Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in
+1848 we have <em>Punch's</em> assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of
+all Government employees.</p>
+
+<p>The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for
+reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in <em>Punch</em> from
+his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy
+with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4
+instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop
+assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'
+establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy
+took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at
+Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite
+spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an
+association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight
+a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,
+provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund
+to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been
+realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like
+counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But
+<em>Punch's</em> irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and
+Business <em>versus</em> Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"
+not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature
+has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. <em>Punch</em> was
+moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared
+to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly
+advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who
+kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other
+hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at
+eight&mdash;for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.
+But <em>Punch</em> was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a
+revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch
+an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Syndicalism in the 'Forties</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any
+reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,
+according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'
+Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the
+public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a
+model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own
+masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize
+"every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and
+reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that
+the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If
+a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and
+happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but
+it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"
+<em>Punch</em>, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free
+and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in
+putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers
+formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_050.png">
+<img src="images/i_050.png" width="600" alt="People relaxing in an open space." /></a>
+<p class="center">A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the
+Exhibition of Industry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_052.png">
+<img src="images/i_052.png" width="600" alt="Workers' as exhibits." /></a>
+<p class="center">SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO
+BE IMPROVED IN 1851)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only
+holiday of the working classes. <em>Punch's</em> views on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> their recreations,
+therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,
+Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the
+outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for
+keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other
+restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and
+recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have
+seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or
+children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of
+museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,
+in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments
+on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National
+Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are
+left for the people&mdash;the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."
+<em>Punch</em> vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working
+men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the
+Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a
+"Fellow's order," <em>plus</em> a shilling. But of all the movements which
+inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects
+than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the
+name of the "Crystal Palace." <em>Punch</em> had some misgivings as to the
+encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly
+espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held
+possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was
+alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall
+was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,
+but, largely owing to <em>Punch's</em> intervention, was assisted to emigrate
+to Australia. And <em>Punch</em> was indignant at the suggested exclusion of
+the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the
+Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening
+of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of
+criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes
+justified, but often malicious, which <em>Punch</em> had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[Pg 41]</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[Pg 42]</span> conducted against
+the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the
+<em>amende</em> handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great
+Exhibition":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,
+announce the arrival of the Queen&mdash;and the Prince, who, by the idea
+of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,
+rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a
+position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the
+insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,
+and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness
+of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it
+recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident
+of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by
+the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower
+range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for
+foreigners&mdash;and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot
+stir abroad without an armed escort&mdash;to see how securely and
+confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in
+the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost
+everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no
+class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a
+qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a
+splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect
+security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional
+monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the
+world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,
+executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's
+throats in the name of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the
+unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,
+the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord
+Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,
+but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the
+progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant
+when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a
+wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to
+perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward
+evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can
+redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the
+mountebank.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but
+he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and
+especially for their practice of visiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> the Exhibition on the
+"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,</p>
+<p class="i2">And with it blends a sunshine brighter still&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">The loyal love of a great people, knowing</p>
+<p class="i0">That building up is better than o'erthrowing;</p>
+<p class="i2">That freedom lies in taming of self-will.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget
+the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given
+to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,
+<em>Punch</em> agreed with the <em>Examiner</em> that a knighthood was not a
+sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be
+given a share of the profits. But <em>Punch</em> was from the first concerned
+with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming
+it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to
+become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying
+"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare
+flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, <em>Punch</em> voted the suggestion
+of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,
+on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in
+anything he undertook." Nay, <em>Punch</em> went so far as to depict, in a
+cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The
+scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 <em>Punch</em> was indignant at the
+imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs
+and snobs" who despised the masses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:</p>
+<p class="i0">The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;</p>
+<p class="i0">Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,</p>
+<p class="i0">They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,</p>
+<p class="i0">A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;</p>
+<p class="i0">The slams is the place faw a popula show;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue</p>
+<p class="i0">So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,</p>
+<p class="i0">As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,</p>
+<p class="i0">Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with
+the desire to keep up the Palace; <em>Punch</em> threw all his weight on the
+side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in
+June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a
+great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in
+August, and furnished <em>Punch</em> with an opportunity for answering the
+reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on
+Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the
+greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who
+had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts
+and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their
+blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not
+more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and
+promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new
+principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships
+to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but
+too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state
+to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,
+gave the cause their best wishes&mdash;and these were deposited with the
+coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new
+building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation
+before!</p>
+
+<p>If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its
+christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace
+ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have
+built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they
+built one for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if
+Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so
+few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at
+present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new
+playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in
+the world.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sabbatarian Solicitude</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled
+with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> for the
+souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and
+the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in
+order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting
+measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being
+opened to the public on Sundays." <em>Punch</em> is bitterly sarcastic
+against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and
+prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,
+snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not
+only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but
+also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel
+flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior
+classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown
+otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment&mdash;in
+great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small
+consideration for their perishable lungs.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The <em>Morning
+Herald</em> scented revolution in the proposal, and <em>Punch</em> was moved to
+address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed
+treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be
+droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.
+Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ever see the <em>Morning Herald</em>? We thought so. Somehow, you
+look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A
+leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous
+projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read
+you&mdash;when we can get a good mouthful of breath&mdash;a few of the lines:
+the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays
+after one o'clock. In that fact the <em>Herald</em> sees revolution,
+anarchy, and perhaps&mdash;a future republic with John Cromwell Bright
+in Buckingham Palace! Listen:</p>
+
+<p>"'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's
+command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is
+the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to
+say, of Berlin also. And, as <em>one natural result</em>, a single month,
+in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of
+Berlin <em>fugitives before their rebellious subjects</em>. The people of
+England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal
+to their Queen, <em>because</em> they feared their God!"</p>
+
+<p>You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace
+existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone
+to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to
+reign <em>because</em> there has been no People's Palace!</p>
+
+<p>We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.</p>
+
+<p>"The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the
+Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will
+be said, and <em>then</em> they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk
+in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can <em>that</em> do? Just all the
+harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most
+persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin
+myriads!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of
+Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting
+provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday
+School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him
+printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the
+Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning
+service.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that
+in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin
+Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of
+Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of
+Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.
+Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of
+his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be
+found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those
+ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the
+new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful
+refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable
+hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals
+against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if
+gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with
+affluence, and, therefore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> belonging to the better classes, continue to
+legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the
+rest of the worse&mdash;that is the worse off."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch at the Palace</em></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,
+June 10, 1854. <em>Punch</em> describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few
+days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the
+Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the
+opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph
+Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the
+inaugural ceremony:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and
+conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should
+leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the
+day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly
+undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the
+Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the
+Palace on Sundays.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his
+optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it
+characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal
+Palace, which appeared in the pages of <em>Punch</em> in the following months.
+But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the
+chairman, a very good summary of his own views:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the
+crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves&mdash;all mutually
+sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the
+decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace&mdash;than
+that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in
+the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled <em>Punch's</em>
+sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and
+school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational
+institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than
+those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported
+by the patronage of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on
+the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered
+seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's
+Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember
+visits in his school days in the early 'seventies&mdash;recurrent Handel
+festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her
+golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the
+rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above
+all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some
+forty years&mdash;such a one, and there must be many like him, will always
+look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in
+reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August
+Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize
+<em>Punch's</em> ideal.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> For the actual speech of the Duke see the <em>Examiner</em> for
+1845, p. 786.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHARTISM" id="CHARTISM"></a>CHARTISM</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_061.png">
+<img src="images/i_061.png" width="300" alt="Servant speaking to man carrying a large charter." /></a>
+<p class="center">NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">John</span>: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her
+creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be
+properly attended to."</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Fight for Cheap Bread</em></div>
+
+<p>We have seen that <em>Punch</em> did not belittle the Chartist movement, but
+admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it
+sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see
+<em>Sybil</em>), but <em>Punch</em> ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch
+alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who
+denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers
+and superiors.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, too, did a good deal in this line. But
+while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he
+distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely
+justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the
+advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very
+beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the
+leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,
+or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the
+People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded&mdash;No Property
+Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members&mdash;and we have come
+very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal
+Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains
+unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in
+1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged
+from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in
+his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,
+and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the
+years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the
+rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,
+with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to
+control. Feargus O'Connor was one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the exceptions, but his success in
+inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and
+the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many
+of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew
+from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote
+all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily
+lived long enough to see it abolished. <em>Punch</em>, who had pronounced its
+dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged
+34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn
+Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry
+to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer
+of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait
+awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";
+and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge
+any virtue in it. When <em>Punch</em> was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of
+the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: <em>he</em> at least
+had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must
+have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman
+"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience
+in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in
+1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to
+themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man
+whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,
+Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
+though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only
+worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with
+hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject&mdash;as the blacksmith
+strikes from the red iron&mdash;sparkles<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> of burning light; and where
+they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the
+intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made
+resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man
+had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple
+and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the
+mean.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest
+utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate
+suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning
+to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine
+mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.</p>
+
+<p>Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by
+the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott
+was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek
+to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of
+modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Professional Agitator</em></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,
+and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which
+antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at
+every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching
+steadily to disintegration. <em>Punch's</em> distrust of the professional
+agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of
+1848:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MODEL AGITATOR</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for
+them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,
+feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,
+for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered
+in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not
+pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a
+mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,
+and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is
+suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for
+the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a
+testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the
+Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as
+a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,
+and sends agents&mdash;patriotic bagmen&mdash;round the country to sell his
+praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for
+everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is
+publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the
+hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance
+is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the
+Agitator leading off and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> shouting the loudest. The grievance is
+run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there
+is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,
+and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last
+person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves
+for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is
+incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no
+explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a
+chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and
+yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to
+burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on
+the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain
+[the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a
+prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out
+to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets
+quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.
+He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment
+he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he
+bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich
+legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must
+buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the
+dearest."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_064.png">
+<img src="images/i_064.png" width="300" alt="Wall witth cheap bread inscribed." /></a>
+<p class="center">PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> puts it, "was
+the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of
+Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the
+revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The <em>annus mirabilis</em>
+which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of
+Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus
+O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,
+largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as
+Commander-in-Chief&mdash;the swearing in of 170,000 special constables
+(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as
+far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that
+<em>Punch</em> was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"
+position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,
+1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most
+Excellent Majesty":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free
+from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,
+foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and
+blunderbuss&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of
+political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give
+orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better
+instructed for the future&mdash;and thereupon pardon and set free
+William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such
+offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty
+of the English people.</p>
+
+<p>And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="regards">PUNCH.<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a href="images/i_066.png"><img src="images/i_066.png" width="300" alt="Wife talking to husband." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Special's Wife</span>: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!
+Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot
+brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for
+anything."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">"<em>Little Cuffey</em>"</div>
+
+<p>Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,
+and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom <em>Punch</em> always had a
+soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had
+been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the
+declaration of peace after the Crimean War, <em>Punch</em> expressed his
+satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal
+frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater
+importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of
+June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of
+<em>Punch's</em> political and social creed in a time of transition. The
+occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to
+entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may
+be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the
+Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> part in further
+measures of electoral reform. <em>Punch</em> held that the collapse of the
+physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence
+in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further
+efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;</p>
+<p class="i0">I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;</p>
+<p class="i0">Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,</p>
+<p class="i0">Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,</p>
+<p class="i0">But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?</p>
+<p class="i0">I <em>am</em> all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;</p>
+<p class="i0">All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,</p>
+<p class="i0">Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.</p>
+<p class="i0">'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;</p>
+<p class="i0">Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;</p>
+<p class="i0">That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,</p>
+<p class="i0">Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:</p>
+<p class="i0">Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;</p>
+<p class="i0">Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,</p>
+<p class="i0">As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,</p>
+<p class="i0">A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,</p>
+<p class="i0">And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague and sin;</p>
+<p class="i0">Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;</p>
+<p class="i0">Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,</p>
+<p class="i0">That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,</p>
+<p class="i0">Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,</p>
+<p class="i0">And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,</p>
+<p class="i0">The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;</p>
+<p class="i0">Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,</p>
+<p class="i0">That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Nations or men, we may not rest&mdash;look round on Europe's thrones</p>
+<p class="i0">Shattered or shaken&mdash;hearken to her convulsive groans&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,</p>
+<p class="i0">Think 'tis <em>the Tenth</em> of April you invoke, and not <em>the First</em>.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Reform or Revolution?</em></div>
+
+<p>This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political
+philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and
+nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,
+and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South
+Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present
+generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment
+against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the
+proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in
+<em>Genesis</em> (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that
+her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there
+were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and <em>Punch</em> declared that
+Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their
+passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At
+all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three
+miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or
+three times."</p>
+
+<p>Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including <em>Punch</em>, as a
+remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here
+and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos
+Bound?" <em>Punch</em> gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in
+mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers
+to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> time later the
+Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical
+philanthropists, furnished <em>Punch</em> with a text for his oft-repeated
+sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the
+departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station
+for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,
+their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of
+self-reproach:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to
+make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the
+<em>Morning Chronicle</em> newspaper, and reports upon the state of our
+poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all
+kinds&mdash;and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,
+so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that
+readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and
+that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed
+anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and
+terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a
+door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for
+ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they
+not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have
+our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity
+very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such
+wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no
+idea. No. How should you? You and I&mdash;we are of the upper classes;
+we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a
+word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend
+to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance&mdash;mind, of
+course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they
+dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them
+counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know
+nothing&mdash;how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and
+die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet
+like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful <em>Song of the Shirt</em>; some
+prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted
+energetic man like the writer of the <em>Chronicle</em> travels into the
+poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror
+and wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then
+eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few
+more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in
+their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed&mdash;for those who (with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country
+and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for
+those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in
+their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,
+and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new
+country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good
+mercy speed them.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end
+the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far
+more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of
+Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision
+from <em>Punch</em>, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he
+was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any
+recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous
+report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the
+doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were
+repugnant to <em>Punch</em>. There is really not much to choose between his
+criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or
+"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of
+harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the
+Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was
+followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis
+of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was
+not the sole cause of this improvement.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The demand for labour in the
+rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was
+an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries
+equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense
+the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London
+owing to extortionate tolls caused <em>Punch</em> to denounce him as "Cruel
+King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Beginning of Better Times</em></div>
+
+<p>The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought
+with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The
+year 1853 was so notable for strikes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> that <em>Punch</em>, who had already
+applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to
+poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid
+intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania&mdash;a very
+dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not
+attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking
+mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now
+it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and
+thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become
+machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all
+striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking
+become what might be called the order, but that it will be the
+disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except
+the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking
+though, we had better take care that we are not floored.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, <em>Punch's</em> view is
+summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's
+wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until
+they have become <em>cold</em>&mdash;short, and are apt to snap and fly off in
+sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 204.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING" id="MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING"></a>MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING</h2>
+
+<p>In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and
+invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching
+influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The
+views on the new order expressed in <em>Punch</em> reflect, with certain
+variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the
+spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or
+accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as
+a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions
+he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in
+January, 1842, <em>à propos</em> of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that
+increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of
+terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.
+But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and
+philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the
+morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied&mdash;as it will be&mdash;a
+thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made
+idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively
+speaking, there shall be <em>no</em> labour for man? Will the multitude
+lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not&mdash;we are sure not. Then
+will rise&mdash;and already we hear the murmur&mdash;a cry, a shout for an
+adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike
+upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.</p>
+
+<p>We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man
+were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the
+possession of some thousand individuals&mdash;what would be the cry of
+the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?</p>
+
+<p>The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry
+statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend
+to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.</p></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_073.png">
+<img src="images/i_073.png" width="350" alt="RAILWAY MAP" /></a>
+<p class="center">RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Impudence of Steam</em></div>
+
+<p>On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last
+sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day
+of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and
+foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put
+into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated
+good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality
+and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part <em>Punch</em> is
+concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of
+locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway
+directors were to him anathema. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> his first volume <em>Punch</em> sturdily
+declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would
+be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons
+perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting
+on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The
+"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet
+of which is still often quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Ease her, stop her!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Any gentleman for Joppa?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."</p>
+<p class="i0">"Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"What gent or lady's for the Nile,"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Now, where's that party for Engedi?"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,</p>
+<p class="i2">Had ye e'er the least idea,</p>
+<p class="i0">Even in your wildest flights,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of a steam trip to Judea?</p>
+<p class="i0">What next marvel Time will show</p>
+<p class="i2">It is difficult to say,</p>
+<p class="i0">"'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,</p>
+<p class="i2">"Only sixpence all the way."</p>
+<p class="i0">Cabs in Solyma may fly;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis a not unlikely tale:</p>
+<p class="i0">And from Dan the tourist hie</p>
+<p class="i2">Unto Beersheba by "rail."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far
+more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was
+endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with
+overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.
+Third-class passengers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> were negligible and contemptible folk; neither
+punctuality nor civility was to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute&mdash;a "universal epidemic." George
+Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and <em>Punch</em>
+expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation
+which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.
+Burlesques of various railway projects&mdash;centrifugal and
+atmospheric&mdash;abound. <em>Punch</em> ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle
+of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."
+The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves
+him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway
+Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the
+Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering
+witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the
+infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The
+Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and <em>Punch</em> asserts that the
+largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the
+casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of
+railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is
+submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.
+The protests of fox-hunters, noted by <em>Punch</em>, recall the verses of the
+Cheshire poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let the steam pot</p>
+<p class="i0">Hiss till it's hot,</p>
+<p class="i0">But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_076.png">
+<img src="images/i_076.png" width="600" alt="Locomotive surrounded by a horde of people." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The mania was not confined to men: <em>Punch</em> satirizes the ladies who were
+"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a
+Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all
+these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel
+Court," a parody which begins:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">All the world are stags!</p>
+<p class="i0">Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers&mdash;</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Last scene of all,</p>
+<p class="i0">That ends this sad but common history,</p>
+<p class="i0">Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:</p>
+<p class="i0">Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with
+King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace
+at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull&mdash;on whom "the sweet
+simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall&mdash;with humbugging
+promoters is hit off in the stanza:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,</p>
+<p class="i0">I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;</p>
+<p class="i0">And don't get enough by my paltry rents"&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_077.png">
+<img src="images/i_077.png" width="600" alt="Hudson with followers at his feet." /></a>
+<p class="center">KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rules for Railways</em></div>
+
+<p>In his anti-Puseyite zeal <em>Punch</em> mendaciously declares that a railway
+from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In
+fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley
+Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the
+Board of Trade,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,
+is described in humorous detail in a <em>Punch</em> ballad. Padded suits are
+suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the
+best summary&mdash;with all its exaggerations&mdash;of the discomforts of railway
+travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and
+Regulations for Railways":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The French Government has published a royal <em>ordonnance</em>, fixing
+the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway
+companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things
+should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations
+for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he
+likes.</p>
+
+<p>Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to
+carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the
+train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark
+quite long enough.</p>
+
+<p>No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be
+ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.</p>
+
+<p>Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,
+as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not
+mix sociably together.</p>
+
+<p>No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be
+divided oftener than once a month.</p>
+
+<p>No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.</p>
+
+<p>No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of
+water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming
+belts should always be kept in open carriages.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.</p>
+
+<p>Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.</p>
+
+<p>Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or
+refreshment.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be
+allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or
+third class&mdash;whichever of the two he prefers.</p>
+
+<p>Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in
+attendance at every station.</p>
+
+<p>There must be some communication between every carriage and the
+stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a
+portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or
+falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken
+loose.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are
+noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,
+but in the same year to <em>Punch</em> belongs the credit of suggesting
+refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground
+railways.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_079.png">
+<img src="images/i_079.png" width="600" alt="Two trains entering a tunnel and about to collide." /></a>
+<p class="center">A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as
+a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on
+the L. &amp; N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the
+temper of the speculating public had changed, and <em>Punch</em> is a faithful
+index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the
+over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New
+World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The
+papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The
+Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in
+<em>Punch</em> as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at
+Madame Tussaud's. For a while <em>Punch</em> was inclined to extend to him a
+certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he
+draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's
+high priest by his greedy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> discontented worshippers. But the mood of
+compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of
+Cowper's poem, <em>The Loss of the Royal George</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Toll for a knave!</p>
+<p class="i2">A knave whose day is o'er!</p>
+<p class="i0">All sunk&mdash;with those who gave</p>
+<p class="i2">Their cash, till they'd no more!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The <em>Royal George</em> is gone,</p>
+<p class="i2">His iron rule is o'er&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And he and his directors</p>
+<p class="i2">Shall break the lines no more!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>King Hudson's Downfall</em></div>
+
+<p>In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"
+on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the
+Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of
+the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of
+<em>voyages de luxe</em>.</p>
+
+<p>But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,
+danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are
+rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 <em>Punch</em> ironically
+comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in
+railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,
+only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests
+from correspondents of <em>The Times</em> with the remark:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the
+staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and
+directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and
+brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and
+morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with
+passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive
+expostulation.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_081.png">
+<img src="images/i_081.png" width="300" alt="Undertaker proffering a business card." /></a>
+<p class="center">RAILWAY UNDERTAKING</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Touter</span>: "Going by this train, Sir?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Passenger</span>: "'M? Eh? Yes."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Touter</span>: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The directors of the L. &amp; N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking
+their engine drivers, <em>à propos</em> of a well-authenticated case of a man
+who had been on duty for thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> hours without relief or opportunity to
+rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the
+employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done
+for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and
+<em>Punch</em> accordingly suggests that the directors should provide
+themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.
+Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under
+review, and in 1856 <em>Punch</em> is still of opinion that we might take a
+leaf out of the book of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Russians, who carry surgeons on their
+trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal
+equipment of expresses.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Bradshaw: A Mystery"</em></div>
+
+<p>A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing <em>Bradshaw</em>
+with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's <em>Railway Time
+Tables</em> were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from
+December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that <em>Punch</em> began to
+realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and
+utilized them in a little play called <em>Bradshaw: A Mystery</em>, describing
+the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.
+Love may laugh at locksmiths, but <em>Bradshaw</em> is another matter. Here is
+the happy ending of this romantic libel:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2"><em>Leonora.</em> Oh, don't talk of <em>Bradshaw</em>!</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Bradshaw</em> has nearly maddened me.</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Orlando</em>. And me.</p>
+<p class="i0">He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of junctions where no union is effected;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of coaches meeting trains that never come;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains that start after they have arrived;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains arriving long before they leave.</p>
+<p class="i0">He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;</p>
+<p class="i0">Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote</p>
+<p class="i0">From those we seek to reach! By <em>Bradshaw's</em> aid</p>
+<p class="i0">You've tried to get to London&mdash;I attempted</p>
+<p class="i0">To get to Liverpool&mdash;and here we are,</p>
+<p class="i0">At Chester&mdash;'Tis a junction&mdash;I'm content</p>
+<p class="i0">Our union&mdash;at this junction&mdash;to cement.</p>
+<p class="i0">And let us hope, nor you nor I again</p>
+<p class="i0">May be attacked with <em>Bradshaw</em> on the brain.</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>Leonora.</em> I'm happy now! My husband!</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>Orlando.</em> Ah, my bride!</p>
+<p class="i0">Henceforth take me&mdash;not <em>Bradshaw</em>&mdash;for your guide.</p>
+<p class="i16"><em>The curtain falls.</em></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of <em>Bradshaw</em> as
+analysed in <em>Punch's</em> "Comic Guide" some years later.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. <em>Punch</em> notes the
+adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western
+Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to
+fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to
+Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years
+afterwards, when <em>Punch</em> hailed the completion of the scheme as a new
+link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a
+sonnet.</p>
+
+<p>Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been
+foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated
+responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England <em>Punch</em> rudely
+described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless
+diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the
+embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the
+central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service
+on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake
+shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,
+<em>Punch</em> notes that a writer in the <em>Limerick Chronicle</em> attributed it to
+the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an
+illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;
+and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the
+transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,
+but <em>Punch's</em> compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the
+following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w34"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,</p>
+<p class="i0">About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,</p>
+<p class="i0">On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;</p>
+<p class="i0">Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,</p>
+<p class="i0">For then t'other side would have nothing to do.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,
+though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> Designs
+of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too
+bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_084.png">
+<img src="images/i_084.png" width="600" alt="Representation of an aeroplane." /></a>
+<p class="center">AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Aviation Forecasts</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1845 there was actually a periodical called <em>The Balloon</em>, though
+<em>Punch</em> is jocular at the expense of its very limited <em>clientèle</em>.
+Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise
+attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents
+between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to
+Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. <em>Punch</em>, to his credit,
+inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic
+acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less
+fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a
+"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years
+later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to
+have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful
+and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means
+of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,
+nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a
+suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of
+Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is
+correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran
+Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his
+balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,
+who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an
+argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut
+proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and
+take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing
+shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.
+The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself
+the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the
+medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the
+enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of
+course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all
+directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus
+the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut
+also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by
+taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible
+to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's
+invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,
+"went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."</p>
+
+<p>"And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your
+missiles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or
+an electric communication, or by <em>another contrivance</em> which you
+must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it <em>a
+secret</em>."</p>
+
+<p>This "<em>secret</em>" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all
+events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to
+call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up
+the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air
+the basis of military operations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a
+certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both
+"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by
+his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions&mdash;the
+long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon&mdash;to the committee
+appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of
+£200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,
+of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines
+of modern warfare. <em>Punch</em> at first lent Warner a certain measure of
+support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy
+and intractable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_086.png">
+<img src="images/i_086.png" width="600" alt="Two angels swimming carrying an olive branch." /></a>
+<p class="center">EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD
+WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_087.png">
+<img src="images/i_087.png" width="600" alt="Flock of  geese flying towards California." /></a>
+<p class="center">Y<sup>e</sup> Wild Goose Chase after Y<sup>e</sup> Golden Calfe.<br />
+THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble
+minds&mdash;the desire to "get rich quick"&mdash;and cupidity, balked of its
+expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its
+longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there
+is hardly a number of <em>Punch</em> in this year which does not refer to the
+stampede from Europe to the diggings&mdash;"the wild-goose chase after the
+golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than
+one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the
+cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not
+likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with <em>Punch</em> as the
+apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and
+Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state
+of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the
+goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration
+from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the <em>auri sacra
+fames</em> does not escape <em>Punch's</em> notice, though no mention is made of
+the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was
+Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the
+evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we
+find frequent references to the growth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> gambling. In 1852 <em>Punch's</em>
+pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting
+mania&mdash;to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in
+the Crimean War, and <em>Punch</em> is eloquent in his denunciation of the
+contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the
+aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of
+discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and
+enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of
+bank smashes and absconding directors&mdash;those of the Royal British Bank
+coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out
+by <em>Punch</em> as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the
+burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The
+brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in
+1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,
+who was the original of Mr. Merdle in <em>Little Dorrit</em>, and was described
+in <em>The Times</em> after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped
+punishment by suicide.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Novelties and Anticipations</em></div>
+
+<p>As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations
+mentioned in the pages of <em>Punch</em>, we are tempted to exclaim, in the
+hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A
+"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.
+"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor
+Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be
+regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index
+cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,
+but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. <em>Punch's</em> account of
+"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece
+of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily
+hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being
+rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the
+perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to
+us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of
+anæsthetics is lightly passed over in <em>Punch's</em> earlier references to
+this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to
+politicians or its use by hen-pecked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> husbands. Here only ether is
+mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months
+later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and
+phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.
+Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish <em>Punch</em> with food for mirth in
+1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to
+take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more
+justifiable than that shown by <em>Punch</em> towards ironclads in 1850. In
+1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," <em>i.e.</em> hypnotism;
+shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> invented by Palmer, an
+American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853
+suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken
+out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves
+for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession
+in 1853 and 1854. <em>Punch's</em> ironical suggestions in the latter year for
+the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of
+Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one
+generation becomes the fact of its successor.</p>
+
+<p>The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their
+colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the
+scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put
+forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by
+kneading and pressing, vide <em>Punch</em>, 1856, but he, however, was not
+solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous
+"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret
+Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it
+"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the
+inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty
+and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the
+score of its inhumanity, though <em>Punch</em> welcomed the plan, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away
+scruples and use <em>anything</em> against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever
+may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a
+nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of
+applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,
+notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for
+"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in
+1855 (see the <em>Panmure Papers</em>) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men
+of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,
+the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want
+it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,
+as <em>Punch</em> notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for
+once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Telegram or Telegrapheme?</em></div>
+
+<p>In general, <em>Punch</em>, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the
+contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed
+in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced
+academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as
+a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the
+popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of
+enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions&mdash;while reserving to himself
+the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the
+pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one
+with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but
+he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in
+high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already
+won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere
+halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound
+doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years
+ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?</p>
+<p class="i0">Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!</p>
+<p class="i0">Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,</p>
+<p class="i2">Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,</p>
+<p class="i0">Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy</p>
+<p class="i2">Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Persons not uneducated&mdash;very highly dressed&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,</p>
+<p class="i2">To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.</p>
+<p class="i0">Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,</p>
+<p class="i2">Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,</p>
+<p class="i0">Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions</p>
+<p class="i2">Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,</p>
+<p class="i0">You naturally stare, seeing that so many are</p>
+<p class="i2">Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.</p>
+<p class="i0">Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,</p>
+<p class="i2">Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;</p>
+<p class="i0">Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,</p>
+<p class="i2">Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for
+scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument
+maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the
+Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).</p></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="EDUCATION" id="EDUCATION"></a>EDUCATION</h2>
+
+<p>Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.
+Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory
+of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.
+Money was doled out in hom&oelig;opathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000
+was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which
+£70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which
+<em>Punch</em> had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between
+ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane
+magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared
+that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor
+children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of
+thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth
+in habits and practices of idleness and vice," <em>Punch</em> found himself in
+the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary
+who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points
+out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,
+taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary
+legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the
+transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they
+were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of
+their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in
+1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful
+boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though <em>Punch</em> supported the
+establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply
+of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the
+Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy
+remained, and it was due in the country districts, in <em>Punch's</em> view, to
+the fact that "contending zealots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> cannot agree with what theological
+mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the
+schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_093.png">
+<img src="images/i_093.png" width="400" alt="Child sitting between two stools." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Abysmal Ignorance</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1850 the following dialogue was given in <em>The Times</em> police report of
+Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in <em>Punch</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and
+the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished
+upon taking hold of the book.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+<p><em>Ald. Humphrey.</em> Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know
+what an oath is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what a Testament is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Can you read?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald.</em> H. Do you ever say your prayers?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No, never.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what prayers are?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what God is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald H.</em> Do you know what the devil is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> What do you know, my poor boy?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> I knows how to sweep the crossing.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> And that's all?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> That's all. I sweeps the crossing.</p>
+
+<p>The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a
+creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the
+truth.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools
+movement had been started several years before. From the first <em>Punch</em>
+lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was
+unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at
+the aristocracy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO</p>
+
+<p>It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of
+Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak
+advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is
+not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful
+mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,
+taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and
+misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our
+views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,
+and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to
+the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes
+generally.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of
+poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we
+may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,
+originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the
+tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions
+for the education of the children of the aristocracy.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted
+his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as
+all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is
+mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at
+Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. <em>Punch</em> could not
+forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to
+<em>Punch</em> meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of
+laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a
+fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel
+had to die before <em>Punch</em> did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more
+fortunate, for thirty years before he died <em>Punch</em> made the <em>amende</em> in
+"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Distressed Author</em></div>
+
+<p>"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the
+'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian
+reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not
+yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to
+the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of
+the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,
+1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination
+paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the
+works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the
+Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few
+exceptions&mdash;such as Thackeray and Macaulay&mdash;were generally impecunious,
+and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a
+life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.
+There were no royalties in those days, and for <em>Black-Eyed Susan</em>, which
+brought tens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular
+actors, he received from first to last the sum of £60. <em>Punch</em> was the
+constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as
+Joseph Haydn of the <em>Dictionary of Dates</em>, who was granted a Civil List
+pension of £25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,
+1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green
+'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)
+tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund
+dinner in 1856, when a sum of £100 was sent from the proceeds of the
+first portion of the <em>Peel Papers</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the
+flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+satire of <em>Punch</em> himself], still beneficently thought of the wants
+of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed
+the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_096.png">
+<img src="images/i_096.png" width="400" alt="Boy buying a newspaper." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Newsvendor</span>: "Now, my man, what is it?"<br />
+<span class="smcap">Boy</span>: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a
+likeness in it."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph
+Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they
+were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, <em>Punch</em>, who
+had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while
+applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting
+homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from
+poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and
+his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and
+State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower
+orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords <em>Punch</em>
+suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an
+examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.
+Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to
+Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on
+the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
+Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in <em>Punch</em>, who suggested
+the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently
+as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was
+reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was
+meant by those "damned dots."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Education Bill of 1856</em></div>
+
+<p>Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on
+its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from <em>Punch's</em>
+"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a
+series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards
+withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a
+matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he
+threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,
+comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether
+voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of
+four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of
+age, two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while
+a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most
+miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed
+House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the
+children <em>should</em> be taught, that the nation should pay for their
+teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work
+should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked
+commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting
+Attorney called Hadfield<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> said that the people were taught as
+well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they
+wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further
+interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the
+House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on
+the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.</p>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during
+this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's
+Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by
+representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester
+school: the first think that their religion only should be taught
+by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,
+but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be
+taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no
+practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people
+contrived to get the worst in the fray.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_099.png">
+<img src="images/i_099.png" width="500" alt="Child pointing to a monkey." /></a>
+<p class="center">AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Prodigy</span>: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England
+and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.
+As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful
+reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a
+Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of
+the Committee of the Council of Education. But <em>Punch</em>, in these years
+at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,
+and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediævalism, obscurantism,
+and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and
+State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic
+authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost
+causes" made no appeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to his practical mind. Yet of classical
+scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.
+Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he
+even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the
+education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of
+1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years&mdash;until the
+notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was
+introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as
+early as 1848 <em>Punch</em> avowed his belief in the value of making lessons
+interesting to children:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because
+they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books
+should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,
+but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature
+which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought
+before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study
+should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and
+children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness
+they rush now into the playground.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_100.png">
+<img src="images/i_100.png" width="400" alt="Anderson surrounded by children." /></a>
+<p class="center">HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson</em></div>
+
+<p>Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which
+so much controversy rages to-day. <em>Punch</em> has always been a lover of
+children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of
+the <em>enfant terrible</em> and of juvenile precocity. One of the most
+delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine
+epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+
+"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Punch</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of
+Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says you
+allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as me and
+charley read in the illusterated London [<em>News</em>] that Mr. Hans Christian
+anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England And We shold like
+to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with is Betiful storys the
+ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen the Red shoes the Storks
+little ida the Constant tinsoldier great claws and Little Claws the
+darning Neddle and All the rest of Them and it says in the illustat
+[<em>several attempts, a smear, and the spelling evaded</em>] Paper the
+children shold Meet him in the Crys-pallace and we shold Like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> to Go and
+tell him how much We Love him for his betiful stores do you know the
+tinder box and tommelise and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope
+you will Excuse bad riting and i Am</p>
+
+<p class="regards">"Yours affectionate</p>
+
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Nelly</span>.</p>
+
+<p>charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you put In
+punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how Glad we are
+He is Coming."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We hope that Hans Andersen&mdash;who, by the way, as a writer of fairy
+stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori&mdash;saw this
+letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of
+<em>Punch's</em> aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day
+conditions. In the year 1844 the <em>Comic Blackstone</em> reads: "Children owe
+their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must
+support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other
+wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's
+Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out
+the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will
+remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children
+of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield
+from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal
+who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered
+valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY" id="RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY"></a>RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY</h2>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,
+exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the <em>English
+Journal of Education</em> declared that <em>Punch</em> was not suitable reading for
+Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But <em>Punch</em> gave as good
+as he got. When the <em>Record</em> attacked the Queen for having a band at
+Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,
+<em>Punch</em> unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced <em>Mawworm</em>."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>
+The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery
+on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
+but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to <em>Punch's</em> great disgust. He
+advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant
+Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of
+Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,
+or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a
+hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent
+electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and
+in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, <em>Punch</em>
+summarizes the debate:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small
+calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully
+stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in
+seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the
+Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a
+divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord
+Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these
+exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in
+defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.
+This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376&mdash;add four
+who were "shut out" and say 380&mdash;gentlemen in comfortable
+circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,
+decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has
+left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid
+house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the
+matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which
+<em>Punch</em> liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to
+call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question
+throughout the year <em>Punch</em> gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of
+Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.
+For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and <em>Punch</em>
+celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in
+an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."</p>
+
+<p>But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was
+"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while
+retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday
+music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to
+him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were
+jubilant, as may be gathered from <em>Punch's</em> reference to the <em>Record</em> in
+his issue of August 16:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call
+the <em>Record</em> our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by
+the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our
+affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it
+almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the
+moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to
+make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a
+great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord
+Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a
+majority still more overwhelming."</p>
+
+<p>We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,
+writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,
+perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot
+well conceive any other person guilty thereof.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_104.png">
+<img src="images/i_104.png" width="600" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Goldsmith Bowdlerized</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a
+charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin
+Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing
+on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but
+evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an
+edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and
+the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,</p>
+<p class="i0">For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made&mdash;</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring
+lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, <em>Punch</em>
+castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he
+is a noisome fellow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he
+is a dunce."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and
+other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal
+Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,
+which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of
+Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and
+easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet
+sofa&mdash;it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,
+talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa
+to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to
+die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having
+voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own
+comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated
+their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and&mdash;taking
+care of themselves.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the
+Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the
+poor at home&mdash;multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the
+housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and
+wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with
+Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,
+but <em>Punch</em> could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday
+observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs
+and Chadbands.</p>
+
+<p>His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and
+archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As <em>The
+Times</em> wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of
+England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." <em>Punch</em>
+re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic
+comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But
+he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young
+England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church&mdash;to
+make it the friend, comforter and protector<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of the people. "Young
+England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were
+almost as great <em>bêtes noires</em> to <em>Punch</em> as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy
+Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,
+the Bishop of London.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_106.png">
+<img src="images/i_106.png" width="500" alt="Manservant at job interview" /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Serious Flunkey</span>: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a
+year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,
+and piety hindispensable."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Clerical Bugbears</em></div>
+
+<p>The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great
+prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.
+<em>Punch</em> was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to
+the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife
+to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The
+Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> the
+subject, but one extract from <em>Punch's</em> "Essence of Parliament" may
+suffice to illustrate his <em>nolo episcopari</em> attitude:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
+their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
+present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
+deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
+acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
+actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
+more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
+divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
+with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
+bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
+gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (<em>Mr.
+Punch</em> does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
+the <em>Standard</em>, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
+speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
+"The lower classes did not demand the <em>privilegia</em> afforded to the
+higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
+with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
+Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
+and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
+and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
+postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
+"amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
+Priests.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It may be added that <em>Punch</em> was also a supporter of marriage with a
+deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope
+for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'
+Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, <em>Punch</em> notes that the
+result was chiefly due to "four priests"&mdash;the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,
+St. David's and Exeter&mdash;and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes
+of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."
+Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the
+opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable
+to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence
+for the Common Prayer-book." <em>Punch's</em> own reasons for supporting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> the
+change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from
+relief, when he remarries takes on a <em>second</em> mother-in-law.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_108.png">
+<img src="images/i_108.png" width="600" alt="Man with wife in devastated room." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Affectionate Husband</span>: "Come, Polly&mdash;if I <em>am</em> a little
+irritable, it's over in a minute."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Destitute Clergy</em></div>
+
+<p>But <em>Punch's</em> chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in
+the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the
+wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch
+with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect
+of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted
+<em>Punch's</em> attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred
+to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the
+Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic
+inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact
+that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on
+their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to
+2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends <em>under</em> £100 a year, and as many
+as 173 <em>less</em> than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this
+modern clerical instance of Dives and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> Lazarus is to be found in an
+article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A curate&mdash;"an Agueish curate"&mdash;wishes to know of <em>The Times</em> if
+curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
+and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
+disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
+twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
+by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
+atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
+bishop and curate as below:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
+give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity&mdash;a palace and £6,000
+per annum.</p>
+
+<p>"To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
+before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
+from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
+inability to be any longer faithful in his calling&mdash;the workhouse."</p>
+
+<p>And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,
+and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
+the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
+Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
+bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
+fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
+the volume to which we have reverently alluded.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been
+introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to
+resign, and making provision for them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
+enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
+at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
+annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
+twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
+£4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
+departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
+scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
+remains, but the disparity is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> so great. The best paid prelates find
+it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
+Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
+expenditure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch and "No Popery"</em></div>
+
+<p>In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy <em>Punch's</em> record is
+somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
+Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
+followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
+"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
+but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
+Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
+Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
+Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
+Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
+Roman Church, <em>Punch's</em> indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
+violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
+welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
+opening stages of the <em>Risorgimento</em> movement in Italy, and had printed
+a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
+of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
+masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
+were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
+the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
+the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
+secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
+is ortho-."</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
+Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
+declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
+Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
+"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
+Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
+bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Gorham
+case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
+for toleration:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
+you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
+these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
+mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
+The people in this country <em>will</em> learn to read and write; they
+will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
+lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
+outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
+long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
+Jumbo.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No
+Popery" movement a few months later. <em>Punch</em>, in a poem on "Consolation
+amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,</p>
+<p class="i0">But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!</p>
+<p class="i0">No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,</p>
+<p class="i0">But only just a little jawing.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,</p>
+<p class="i0">People beheading, throttling, frying.</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Punch</em>, and he says it without boasting,</p>
+<p class="i0">Does all the cutting up and roasting.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one
+subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,
+of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The
+Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"
+we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord
+Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement
+that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new
+Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put
+forward on behalf of other creeds&mdash;Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_112.png">
+<img src="images/i_112.png" width="300" alt="Roman archbishop breaking open a door." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE<br />
+Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Cardinal Wiseman</em></div>
+
+<p>On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter
+to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely
+whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal
+claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our
+bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as
+asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,
+that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than
+by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most
+forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the
+precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of
+England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with
+contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the
+glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."
+<em>Punch</em> lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of
+November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way
+with the Pope's Puppets." <em>Punch</em> had no desire, he declares, to bring
+back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the
+quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called
+upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all
+spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him
+for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the
+Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"
+appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging
+its way through <em>Punch's</em> columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and
+pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that
+<em>Punch</em> was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting
+the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in
+addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.
+Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that
+the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular
+administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the
+request of English communicants," left <em>Punch</em> cold and derisive. He
+suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed
+to create Mazzini President<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in
+"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive
+Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist&mdash;very much to the advantage
+of the latter&mdash;in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of
+history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,
+<em>Punch</em> continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was
+more than a little wrathful with the <em>Morning Chronicle</em> for asserting
+that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."
+But the <em>Morning Chronicle</em> was not far out, and it is noteworthy that
+from this point onwards <em>Punch's</em> attacks were chiefly directed against
+Puseyites and Ritualists&mdash;such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico&mdash;and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,</p>
+<p class="i0">For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously
+on <em>Punch</em> in the <em>Dublin Review</em>, denouncing his opponent as once
+facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old
+street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented
+him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting
+the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere
+transportation for life. <em>Punch</em> promptly hit back, but he did not get
+the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he
+was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable
+Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and
+literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in
+<em>Punch's</em> pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he
+is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,
+as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop
+Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is
+certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying
+which probably represented the Cardinal's view of <em>Punch</em> accurately in
+the verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You, for example, clever to a fault,</p>
+<p class="i0">The rough and ready man, who write apace,</p>
+<p class="i0">Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were
+revealed&mdash;illustrated, to take only one instance, by <em>Punch's</em> satirical
+picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the
+controversy <em>Punch</em> showed refreshing signs of good sense and good
+feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who
+made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a
+mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on
+behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and
+Wiseman remained the targets of <em>Punch's</em> obloquy for several years.
+Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is
+tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Roman dictation is my vexation;</p>
+<p class="i2">Oxford is just as bad;</p>
+<p class="i0">Papal aggression is my obsession,</p>
+<p class="i2">And Pusey drives me mad.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at
+Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the <em>Tablet</em> attributed
+the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation
+"against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic
+religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and
+described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document,"
+<em>Punch</em> replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look
+upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A
+bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections
+followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than
+the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar
+of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year,
+according to <em>Punch</em>, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died
+down during the Crimean War, and then, four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> years elapsing, the Clapham
+Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified
+slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_116.png">
+<img src="images/i_116.png" width="500" alt="Parson about to don a robe." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE PET PARSON</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A More Tolerant Spirit</em></div>
+
+<p>For the rest of the period under review in this volume <em>Punch</em> shows a
+slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who
+strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they
+considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently
+rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, <em>à propos</em>
+of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of
+all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the
+most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the
+British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact
+that the honorary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr.
+Samuel Pope, and <em>Punch</em>, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is
+"one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that
+of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the
+former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the
+close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon&mdash;by no
+means complimentary. <em>Punch</em>, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame
+Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist
+preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere
+self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of
+tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." <em>Punch</em>, as
+will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose
+portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than
+those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the
+stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these
+aids to popularity.</p>
+
+<p>To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large
+body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the
+man in the street, is reflected in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. Where doctrinal
+controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the
+sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We
+find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of
+Exeter," who was prepared to spend&mdash;and lose&mdash;scores of thousands of
+pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration.
+We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediævalism,
+Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. <em>Punch</em> made no effort to
+disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of
+their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious
+financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts.
+"How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of
+others who have so little of it themselves?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_118.png">
+<img src="images/i_118.png" width="300" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLITICAL TOPSY<br />
+"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."&mdash;<em>Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin.</em></p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<p>On April 26 of this same year of 1845 <em>Punch</em> castigated the violence of
+the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of
+the Maynooth Grant Bill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith,
+who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest
+again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of
+"at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the
+House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If <em>Punch</em> showed
+himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant
+gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the
+British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded
+the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an <em>imperium in imperio</em>.
+Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter.
+His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his
+honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same
+insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look
+with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged,
+to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his
+early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at,
+in view of the admissions of his biographers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
+accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
+development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
+interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
+which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
+throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
+served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
+of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
+as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
+"could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
+he was in the presence of a foreigner."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now <em>Punch</em> was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery"
+in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen
+as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic
+tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates
+this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to <em>Punch</em>, than the
+part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A
+manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong
+prejudice. As we have seen, <em>Punch</em> frankly admitted the Jews' great
+virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the
+"Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the
+same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the
+cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses &amp; Co." in
+1844.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch and the Jews</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable
+as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes
+purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at
+Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when
+the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him
+the honorary degree of D.C.L., <em>Punch</em> was prompted to remark that the
+initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in
+Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the rôle of
+world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed
+Jewish Protocol, did not escape <em>Punch's</em> notice, and his comment is
+characteristic:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
+<em>They</em> join Secret Societies. <em>They</em> (for the evils complained of
+by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
+nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
+picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
+Sheriff's Officer! "<em>All is race.</em>" What a picture of cool
+malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
+luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
+luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
+him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
+sherry.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Was <em>Punch</em> an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering,
+if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild
+in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding
+relief recalled to <em>Punch</em> Martin Luther's saying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of the Jews: "They
+sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government."
+This, adds <em>Punch</em>, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the
+wheelbarrow still.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_121.png">
+<img src="images/i_121.png" width="400" alt="Two men talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Lord John</span>: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little
+matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jewish Disabilities</em></div>
+
+<p>Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and
+re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused
+permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed
+to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of
+strangers. In all, <em>nine</em> Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed
+by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the Lords, before the tenth,
+and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise
+under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the
+oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron
+Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the
+oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John
+Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and
+abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly <em>Punch</em> lent him valuable
+free-lance help throughout.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in
+Bickerstaffe's play <em>The Hypocrite</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <em>Life of Disraeli</em> (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p.
+635.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR" id="FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR"></a>FROM PEACE TO WAR</h2>
+
+<p>In the 'forties <em>Punch</em>, as we have already noted, stood in with "the
+group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in
+Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first
+strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by
+<em>Punch</em>. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly
+pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean
+War, it was not due to any change of <em>personnel</em>. The gentle Doyle
+resigned because of <em>Punch's</em> "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed
+his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the
+Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy
+of <em>Punch</em> in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most
+bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was
+responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons.
+Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were
+his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a
+conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did
+it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the
+underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything
+savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his
+criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, <em>Punch</em> gave "the
+judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his
+stiffness. <em>Punch</em> supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the
+Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of
+the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of
+Labour&mdash;witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of
+1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who
+invariably sided against his country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_124.png">
+<img src="images/i_124.png" width="350" alt="Cartoon" /></a>
+<p class="center">"GENERAL FÉVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR</p>
+<p>"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide&mdash;Generals Janvier and
+Février."&mdash;<em>Speech of the late Emperor of Russia.</em></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic
+tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless
+pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. <em>Punch's</em>
+campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never
+recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare
+even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting
+with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the
+principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant
+letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring
+in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General
+for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell
+trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of
+Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel,
+this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by
+this vitriolic comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
+Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
+the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
+widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
+noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
+to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
+of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
+Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
+duelling-pistol!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go
+free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_126.png">
+<img src="images/i_126.png" width="400" alt="Widow Fawcett being denied her pension." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch as Pacifist</em></div>
+
+<p>The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series
+named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin
+Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a
+gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and
+pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish,
+blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville,
+Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying
+Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> pamphleteering; but
+<em>Punch</em> was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in
+the <em>Morning Post</em>, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall,
+who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain.
+<em>Punch</em>, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his
+comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides
+with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with
+France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the
+ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London,
+who would have to flee in case of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the
+same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which <em>Punch</em>
+assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French
+editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter.
+<em>Punch</em> had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the
+eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range
+invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of
+ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on
+the "Science of Warfare," <em>à propos</em> of the benevolent object of some
+inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by
+making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the
+Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very
+ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the
+sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization
+or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical
+references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer&mdash;Brook Green being "one
+of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to
+the metropolis on the western side. <em>Punch</em> at this time was a bitter
+critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal
+reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at
+Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the
+clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of
+Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of
+August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish
+flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to
+the Queen":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let thy queenly voice be heard&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Who shall dare to disobey?&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">It but costs thy Royal word,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the lash is cast away.</p>
+<p class="i0">With thyself it rests to scour</p>
+<p class="i2">From our arms the loathsome stain;</p>
+<p class="i0">Then of mercy show thy power,</p>
+<p class="i2">And immortal be thy reign!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and
+passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_128.png">
+<img src="images/i_128.png" width="400" alt="John Bull mocking disguised figure." /></a>
+<p class="center">A SILLY TRICK</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">John Bull</span>: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be
+frightened by such a turnip as that!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Invasion Scare</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but <em>Punch</em>
+maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the
+alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to <em>The Times</em>, and by the letter
+of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by <em>Punch</em> as a
+letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized
+by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have
+contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the
+formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on
+Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls."
+The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the
+violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a
+frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden
+in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with <em>Punch</em> as the "cleverest Cob"
+in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His
+Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with <em>Punch's</em> cordial
+approval:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
+practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
+goodwill&mdash;could more be expected?&mdash;of the Prime Minister and the
+Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
+position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
+ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
+themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
+more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
+are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
+as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
+to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
+music.</p>
+
+<p>The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
+Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
+cedar in the gardens at Paris&mdash;a cedar of hugest girth and widest
+shape&mdash;that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
+of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
+Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
+and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
+to all nations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in
+Paris:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
+reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
+of the tomb of the great peace-breaker&mdash;who turned kingdoms into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
+human freedom&mdash;even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
+his violet robe&mdash;beset with golden bees&mdash;the bees that, as in the
+lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases&mdash;Napoleon, with his
+Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
+portentous, glistering evil&mdash;contrasted with our Quaker friend
+[Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
+aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
+in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
+his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
+brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
+thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So, again, <em>Punch</em> breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in
+the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims?
+All great reformers, idealists and benefactors&mdash;Harvey, Jenner,
+Stephenson&mdash;had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative
+critics:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TO THE LAUGHERS</p>
+
+<p>The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
+fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
+All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
+it&mdash;paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
+it&mdash;arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
+sides.</p>
+
+<p>"Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
+supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
+"Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
+instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the <em>Economist</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
+<em>Statist</em>; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
+Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
+declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
+growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
+rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
+of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
+Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.</p>
+
+<p>But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
+there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
+this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
+tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
+declares that its heart contains the Oak.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington
+publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the
+Army, on which <em>Punch</em> remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases,
+how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while
+condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National
+Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when
+£158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea."
+On naval matters <em>Punch</em> foretold many things, but he did not foresee
+the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the
+truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of
+ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in
+foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when
+he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the
+Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and
+proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the
+arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status
+and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his
+heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be
+written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."</p>
+
+<p>The turning point at which <em>Punch's</em> pacificist zeal began to cool was
+reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with
+Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to
+Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his
+colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in
+refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any
+responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by
+<em>Punch</em>, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 <em>Punch</em>
+waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in
+which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with
+the greatest ease. The <em>coup d'ètat</em> of 1851, and suspicion of the aims
+of Louis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Napoleon, whom <em>Punch</em> described as a "perjured homicide,"
+converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and
+needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill,
+Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the
+title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an
+Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for
+exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private
+approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this <em>Punch</em>
+regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852
+opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on
+"Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the
+anxious vigil of England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_132.png">
+<img src="images/i_132.png" width="350" alt="Mistress dismissing servant." /></a>
+
+<p class="center">THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING</p>
+<p>"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your
+fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you
+must go, of course."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr.
+Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into
+bitter antagonism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Armaments useless our money to spend on,</p>
+<p class="i2">Certainly we should be acting like geese;</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>But</em> have we any sure ground to depend on,</p>
+<p class="i2">In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?</p>
+<p class="i30">Speak, Mr. Cobden!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government,
+and <em>Punch</em> (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford
+University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim
+to have been the inventor of <em>camouflage</em> on the strength of the
+following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety
+Uniforms" the reader finds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
+distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
+provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
+which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
+objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
+possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
+corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
+mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
+manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
+house-top service amongst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the chimney pots, of bright green with
+mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
+fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
+daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
+brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
+were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
+splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
+the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
+midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
+bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
+uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
+rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
+Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
+Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
+article and good cut.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Death of "The Duke"</em></div>
+
+<p>The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct
+attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave
+<em>Punch</em> a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.</p>
+
+<p class="center">RENDERING UP THE SWORD</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Our Arthur sleeps&mdash;our Arthur is not dead.</p>
+<p class="i2">Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,</p>
+<p class="i0">Should e'er invading foot this England tread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn</p>
+<p class="i2">Through all our veins&mdash;until the foeman say,</p>
+<p class="i0">"Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"</p>
+<p class="i2">And awestruck from the onset shrink away.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Moreover, <em>Punch</em> defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at
+this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental
+despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism;
+that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the
+spirit of valour."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_135.png">
+<img src="images/i_135.png" width="350" alt="His Lordship sitting on a keg of gunpowder." /></a>
+<p class="center">ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_136.png">
+<img src="images/i_136.png" width="350" alt="Two news sellers talking." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Itinerant Newsman</span>, No. 1: "I say, Bill, what are you
+givin' 'em?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Ditto</span>, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of
+the British Troops."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Outbreak of War</em></div>
+
+<p>Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady <em>crescendo</em> of hostility in
+the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this,
+both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in
+the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the
+Russo-Turkish quarrel <em>Punch's</em> long and consistent distrust&mdash;to put it
+mildly&mdash;of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined
+him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in
+Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled
+him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his <em>bête noire</em>, the
+Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the
+predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and
+Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the
+interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey
+from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, <em>Punch</em> threw
+all his weight into the balance with the War party<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> in the Cabinet, and
+bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen.
+These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown
+with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably
+indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's
+boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The
+Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from
+the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the
+war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness
+of our cause did not blind <em>Punch</em> to the negligence and worse of those
+charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our
+forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to
+preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of
+organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the
+debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> and file of our fighting
+men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this
+excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in <em>The Times</em>,
+will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
+wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
+on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
+the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
+it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
+value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
+children. The girl&mdash;and, maybe, the little girls and boys&mdash;left by
+him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
+the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
+that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
+with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
+and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
+beadle's.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and
+children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there
+were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat
+of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each
+letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_138.png">
+<img src="images/i_138.png" width="600" alt="Angel and bird as nurses." /></a>
+<p class="center">WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND NIGHTINGALES</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Song of the Nightingale</em></div>
+
+<p>But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the
+hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of
+<em>The Times</em>, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert
+and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country
+deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence
+Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was <em>Punch's</em>
+chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the
+publication of "The Nightingale's Song":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,</p>
+<p class="i2">Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,</p>
+<p class="i0">And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,</p>
+<p class="i2">With alacrity and promptitude of motion.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands</p>
+<p class="i2">How to manage every sort of application,</p>
+<p class="i0">From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach</p>
+<p class="i2">The way to make a poppy fomentation.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,</p>
+<p class="i2">By the readiness of feminine invention;</p>
+<p class="i0">Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,</p>
+<p class="i2">With a careful and considerate attention.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,</p>
+<p class="i2">Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,</p>
+<p class="i0">'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,</p>
+<p class="i2">To carry out so gallant an idea.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is only one of a whole series of poems&mdash;notably one written at the
+time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855&mdash;inspired by the "Lady of the
+Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded
+common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their
+nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement
+of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily
+expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people
+of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale&mdash;nor
+can we forget mismanagement."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_139.png">
+<img src="images/i_139.png" width="600" alt="Two soldiers talking." /></a>
+<p>"Well, Jack, here's good news from home. We're to have a
+medal."</p>
+<p>"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it
+on."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Familiar Grievances</em></div>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her
+an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition
+was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was
+given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, <em>Punch</em> laboured in
+season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his
+humanity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and
+was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a
+great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a
+picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example,
+the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the
+winter of 1854:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,</p>
+<p class="i0">From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!</p>
+<p class="i0">And that's how we pension our officer-foes,</p>
+<p class="i0">For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays</p>
+<p class="i0">The wages of postmen will probably raise,</p>
+<p class="i0">And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all</p>
+<p class="i0">The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of
+bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding
+Officer," early in 1855:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh! no, we never mention them,</p>
+<p class="i2">Their names must not be heard,</p>
+<p class="i0">My hand Routine forbids to trace</p>
+<p class="i2">Of their exploits one word.</p>
+<p class="i0">Most glorious though their deeds may be,</p>
+<p class="i2">To say it I regret,</p>
+<p class="i0">When they expect a word from me,</p>
+<p class="i2">They find that I forget.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You say that they are happy now,</p>
+<p class="i2">The bravest of the brave,</p>
+<p class="i0">A "special" pen recording how</p>
+<p class="i2">Mere Grenadiers behave.</p>
+<p class="i0">Of "special" pens I disapprove,</p>
+<p class="i2">An inconvenient set,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who oftentimes the veil remove,</p>
+<p class="i2">And print what we forget.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among
+those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring.
+Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> too old; or they were
+"blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or
+inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous
+gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given £5 by the Prince Consort;
+or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed
+by the Queen. Why, asks <em>Punch</em>, was he not made an ensign? Of a review
+of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been
+more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the
+invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is
+the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Flunkey</em> (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
+Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
+dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
+inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><em>Flunkey</em> (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
+think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
+Sufficient!'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_141.png">
+<img src="images/i_141.png" width="500" alt="Landlord and tenant in conversation." /></a>
+<p class="center">A DISTRESSED AGRICULTURIST</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Landlord</span>: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems
+to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Tenant</span> (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why,
+you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten
+by <em>Punch</em>. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their
+commanders,</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.</p>
+<p class="i0">These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand</p>
+<p class="i0">As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Combatants and Non-Combatants</em></div>
+
+<p>The Charge of the Light Brigade<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump
+Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, <em>Punch</em>, throughout the
+war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of
+unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to
+the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the
+cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive
+bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the
+commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have
+leave to go home on urgent <em>Private</em> affairs?"</p>
+
+<p>The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive
+criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even
+more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,</p>
+<p class="i2">And merrily danced that Quaker,</p>
+<p class="i0">When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,</p>
+<p class="i2">And Mouravieff meant to take her.</p>
+<p class="i0">He said he knew it was wrong to fight,</p>
+<p class="i2">He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,</p>
+<p class="i0">But to see that the battle was going right,</p>
+<p class="i2">O! merrily danced the Quaker.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_143.png">
+<img src="images/i_143.png" width="600" alt="Lion sniffing at conference room door." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE BRITISH LION SMELLS A RAT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Paying the Bill</em></div>
+
+<p>The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation,
+when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and
+devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are
+mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his
+pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace
+came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism,
+dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on
+generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses,
+and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had
+appeared&mdash;a painful document with "delay," "want of&mdash;&mdash;" and
+"unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the
+Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts <em>Punch</em> to mitigated "joy and
+satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise
+Lord Malmesbury&mdash;no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as
+crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to
+express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of
+Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his
+ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the
+Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks
+to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and
+those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were
+appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain
+figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two
+years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but
+3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the
+demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her
+attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, <em>Punch</em>
+strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His
+general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Thank Heaven the War is ended!</p>
+<p class="i2">That is the general voice,</p>
+<p class="i0">But let us feign no splendid</p>
+<p class="i2">Endeavours to rejoice.</p>
+<p class="i0">To cease from lamentation</p>
+<p class="i2">We may contrive&mdash;but&mdash;pooh!</p>
+<p class="i0">Can't rise to exultation,</p>
+<p class="i2">And cock-a-doodle-doo!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,</p>
+<p class="i2">Like supernumeraries on the stage,</p>
+<p class="i2">To smiling happiness from settled rage;</p>
+<p class="i0">We look before and after.</p>
+<p class="i0">Before, to all those skeletons and corses</p>
+<p class="i0">Of gallant men and noble horses;</p>
+<p class="i2">After&mdash;though sordid the consideration&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Unto a certain bill to pay,</p>
+<p class="i0">Which we shall have for many a day,</p>
+<p class="i2">By unrepealable taxation.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Yet never fought we in a better cause,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.</p>
+<p class="i0">We stood in battle for the eternal laws;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Twas an affair of high Police,</p>
+<p class="i0">Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;</p>
+<p class="i0">And now remains&mdash;the Rate.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington
+led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the
+gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what
+it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the
+Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the
+cause of Italian liberty, <em>à propos</em> of the advance of a million pounds
+to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest
+a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a
+trade offer." <em>Punch</em>, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney
+Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and
+establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he
+was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the
+barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every
+prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the
+worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."</p>
+
+<p>Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856&mdash;in the
+recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in
+wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque
+in the shape of an imaginary article from the <em>Morning Herald</em> on the
+execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over
+"Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead.
+Here, as so often time has proved, <em>Punch</em> was a prophet as well as a
+critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the
+Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France;
+wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary
+expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced
+<em>Punch</em> to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the
+price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in
+July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;</p>
+<p class="i0">Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;</p>
+<p class="i0">And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,</p>
+<p class="i0">To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,</p>
+<p class="i0">With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,</p>
+<p class="i0">To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,</p>
+<p class="i0">Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,</p>
+<p class="i0">'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.</p>
+<p class="i0">What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?</p>
+<p class="i0">What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Incapable Commanders</em></div>
+
+<p>Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex
+of incapacity," but <em>Punch</em> spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the
+Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except
+when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great
+people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement
+we may bracket a useful <em>obiter dictum</em> on appointments generally: "Too
+much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places
+generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing
+report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against
+Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with
+"aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea
+Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."</p>
+
+<p>Evidently <em>Punch</em> is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a
+month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's
+son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at £200 a year for four years, with
+a grant of £500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without
+purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a
+marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money
+to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for
+severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service
+is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was
+a stern critic of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, <em>Punch</em>
+recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State
+to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of
+criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier
+notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a
+comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in
+its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of
+February 23, 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Till now the stars and garters</p>
+<p class="i2">Were for birth or fortune's son,</p>
+<p class="i0">And as oft in snug home-quarters</p>
+<p class="i2">As in fields of fight were won.</p>
+<p class="i0">But at length a star arises,</p>
+<p class="i2">Which as glorious will shine</p>
+<p class="i0">On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast</p>
+<p class="i2">Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Too long mere food for powder</p>
+<p class="i2">We've deemed our rank and file,</p>
+<p class="i0">Now higher hopes and prouder</p>
+<p class="i2">Upon the soldier smile.</p>
+<p class="i0">And if no Marshal's bâton</p>
+<p class="i2">Private Smith in his knapsack bears,</p>
+<p class="i0">At least in the War, the chance of the star</p>
+<p class="i2">With his General he shares.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until
+June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity <em>Punch</em>
+strove to render justice to the occasion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE STAR OF VALOUR<br /><br />
+Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The fount of Honour, sealed till now</p>
+<p class="i2">To all save claims of rank and birth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Makes green the laurel on the brow</p>
+<p class="i2">Ennobled but by soldier's worth.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of these the bravest and the best</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,</p>
+<p class="i0">England doth, by her Queen, invest</p>
+<p class="i2">With Valour's Cross&mdash;their great reward!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Marking her sense of something still,</p>
+<p class="i2">A central nobleness, that lies</p>
+<p class="i0">Deeper than rank which royal will,</p>
+<p class="i2">Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,</p>
+<p class="i2">Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;</p>
+<p class="i0">That knighthood this bronze cross imparts&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression
+was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though rather ugly&mdash;take it,</p>
+<p class="i0">John Bull a medal can deserve,</p>
+<p class="i2">But can't contrive to make it.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Victoria Cross</em></div>
+
+<p>But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction.
+<em>Punch</em> was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were
+well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts
+of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not
+instituted till 1866. <em>Punch's</em> democratic bias is also agreeably shown
+in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the
+dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were
+thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for
+help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would
+help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in
+fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with
+this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on
+State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on
+Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all
+soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public
+subscription, largely due<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+to the appeal in <em>Punch's</em> columns. Lastly,
+and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the
+timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in
+which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and
+ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would
+probably mean promotion by influence&mdash;an equally vicious system. To
+alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered
+the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it
+was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"&mdash;not the only reference in
+<em>Punch</em> to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on
+behalf of his protégé and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally
+appeared in the <em>Examiner</em>, but could not agree with the view expressed
+in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be
+the only way&mdash;as at the moment&mdash;to secure it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="cs"><a name="ENTRACTE" id="ENTRACTE"></a>ENTR'ACTE</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY" id="LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY"></a>LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY</h2>
+
+<p>The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of <em>Punch</em> seventy and
+eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that
+was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the
+streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot
+be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the
+streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to
+<em>Punch</em> they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy,
+while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured
+localities&mdash;the Poultry and Lombard Street&mdash;was a constant source of
+danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in
+recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is
+noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the
+patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which
+Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now
+relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully
+established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To
+those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel
+came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled
+against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted
+so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle,
+and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give
+a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or
+"growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but
+<em>Punch</em>, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for
+his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old
+bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The
+one-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at
+6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to
+mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the
+matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having
+five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public
+sympathy, fostered by the <em>Examiner</em>, was enlisted on behalf of the
+cabman, but <em>Punch</em> was rigidly on the side of the public as against the
+proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and
+rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered
+from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which
+appeared in <em>The Times</em>. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor
+to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because
+he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also
+require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen
+were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an
+improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to
+elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of
+cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard
+of taxi-drivers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_153.png">
+<img src="images/i_153.png" width="400" alt="Man poking stick through roof of cab." /></a>
+<p class="center">CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN THE WRONG
+TURNING&mdash;THAT'S ALL</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_154.png">
+<img src="images/i_154.png" width="600" alt="Lady discussing cab driver." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Amy</span> (to Rose): "Good gracious, Rose, I'm afraid from the
+way the man talks that he is intoxicated!"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Cabby</span> (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic)
+intossi&mdash;intossi-cated (hic)&mdash;itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in
+speesh, Miss!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Ancient Omnibus</em></div>
+
+<p>Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their
+dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> on the floors, and the
+perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope
+ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to
+sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of
+the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside
+passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after
+1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a
+journey to the remoter suburbs, if <em>Punch</em> is to be believed, took
+almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar
+inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially
+on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded
+interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are
+vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were
+introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the
+conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a
+superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period
+complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of
+1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a
+good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts,
+stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and
+driver. In one respect only, London was better served&mdash;on its waterway.
+The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that
+they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was
+habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in
+general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and
+ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for
+over-population.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_155.png">
+<img src="images/i_155.png" width="400" alt="Conductoress with  bus full of infants." /></a>
+<p class="center">FEMALE 'BUSES (A Prophecy)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The New Police Force</em></div>
+
+<p>From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were
+charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by
+the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has
+frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new
+policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of
+1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of
+<em>Punch</em> in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be
+gauged by his greeting the threat of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> strike with the remark that
+he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with
+cooks&mdash;a fruitful source of satire&mdash;began to be a theme of ridicule in
+the late 'forties, and inspired in <em>Punch</em> "The Loves of the New
+Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post
+owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_156.png">
+<img src="images/i_156.png" width="400" alt="Tall policemen arresting short persons." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLICE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students
+of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.</p>
+
+<p>As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means
+universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844;
+the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was
+foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest
+illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock
+in <em>The Ogilvies</em> speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too
+bright," and <em>Punch</em> is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility
+of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become
+obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> has no longer
+need to climb and never runs. In 1844 <em>Punch</em> speaks of the Lucifer
+having replaced the Congreve&mdash;or "Congry" as it was vulgarly
+called&mdash;friction match; but the change of name was later, according to
+Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer
+matches as "a triumph of science."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_157.png">
+<img src="images/i_157.png" width="600" alt="Postmen on parade." /></a>
+<p class="center">SIR JAMES GRAHAM HOLDS A REVIEW OF THE LONDON POSTMEN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Municipal Apathy</em></div>
+
+<p>The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the
+'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached
+villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from
+Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way
+House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of
+bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea
+Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric
+license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the
+'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year
+1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces
+or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as <em>Punch</em>
+called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there
+were wildernesses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> even in central London, notably Leicester Square and
+Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of
+Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the <em>terra
+incognita</em> of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only
+differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked
+eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the
+region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests
+in <em>Punch</em>, belong to an unregretted past. <em>Punch</em> was a great Londoner.
+We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him
+to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For
+years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in
+the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square,
+the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin
+in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven
+years later we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
+is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
+on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
+celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
+particulars:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Time to build">
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td> years.</td><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To erect a Simple Column</td><td>It takes in England</td><td>12</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto, with Lions, everything complete</td><td>"</td><td>24</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To build a Common Bridge</td><td>"</td><td>15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto a Suspension Bridge</td><td>"</td><td>25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto Houses of Parliament</td><td>"</td><td>A trifle under 100</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
+curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
+one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
+celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
+Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
+supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
+to make his appearance.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Britannia," <em>Punch</em> makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal
+happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> their memory."
+And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not
+ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it
+likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same
+spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on
+"The Nation and Its Monuments":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The National Gallery holds its place</p>
+<p class="i2">In Trafalgar's noble Square,</p>
+<p class="i0">And being a national disgrace,</p>
+<p class="i2">Will remain for ever there.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite</p>
+<p class="i2">Of all that the world could say;</p>
+<p class="i0">And because he stands on an awkward site,</p>
+<p class="i2">We, of course, shall let him stay.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Palace of Glass is so much admired,</p>
+<p class="i2">Both in Country and in Town,</p>
+<p class="i0">That its maintenance is by all desired:</p>
+<p class="i2">So we mean to pull it down.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>London Changes and Improvements</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1852 <em>Punch</em> gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which
+we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British
+Museum Library&mdash;<em>Punch</em> was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the
+Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of
+Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can
+walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk.
+The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of
+Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. <em>Punch</em> began by
+objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the
+expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters'
+gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of
+the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge&mdash;begun
+in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous,
+and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to
+frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham
+Palace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of
+removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of
+Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to
+cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road
+past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their
+sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received
+a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.</p>
+
+<p>The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and
+"improvements" kept by <em>Punch</em> is not complete, but it serves to
+illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The
+Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean
+engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of
+London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen
+opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q"
+(Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a
+hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The
+reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an
+apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of
+which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray
+has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the
+pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a
+central octagon room. In view of <em>Punch's</em> persistent attacks on the
+Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task
+of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was
+entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and
+Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from
+Milton's <em>Comus</em>. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of
+Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by
+Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, <em>Punch</em> heaped unstinted
+ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms
+on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron
+Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as
+"Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Ambassador
+as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."</p>
+
+<p>The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some
+jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the
+Billingsgate dialect.</p>
+
+<p>But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E
+natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock
+Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable
+is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as,
+without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The
+announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to
+an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so <em>Punch</em> was
+able to have it both ways:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;</p>
+<p class="i2">Small Ben is sane, past disputation;</p>
+<p class="i0">Yet we should like to know whose tone</p>
+<p class="i2">Is most offensive to the nation.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Filthy Thames</em></div>
+
+<p>The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work
+on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible
+description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no
+mention of <em>Punch's</em> services in the cause of London sanitation. They
+certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to
+bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports
+the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as
+the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated
+pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
+the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
+up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
+mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
+the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
+of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross&mdash;and is, by means
+of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> ingredients
+of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
+surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
+slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
+contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
+Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
+into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
+side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
+allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
+situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
+(which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
+perfection.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_162.png">
+<img src="images/i_162.png" width="500" alt="Skeleton rowing a boat." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is,
+perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The
+noisome state of the Serpentine&mdash;"a lake of mere manure"&mdash;constantly
+affronted <em>Punch's</em> sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid
+Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties
+onward. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus
+visitation, that his crusade against London filth&mdash;"Plague, Pestilence
+and Co."&mdash;began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of
+bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked
+pollution of the river. <em>Punch</em> salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of
+"Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in
+endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts
+savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and
+extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse.
+He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an
+epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that
+John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard;
+and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in
+accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of
+dirt.</p>
+
+<p>Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington,
+<em>Punch</em> confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary
+Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a
+fetid Dead Sea." Yet <em>Punch</em> refused to lay the blame at the door of
+Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the
+<em>Morning Herald</em> for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London.
+The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and
+cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of
+influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,</p>
+<p class="i0">For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;</p>
+<p class="i0">Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,</p>
+<p class="i0">But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and doom;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_164.png">
+<img src="images/i_164.png" width="400" alt="Child's room with bottle labelled opium." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POOR CHILD'S NURSE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>King Cholera's Friends</em></div>
+
+<p>The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed
+reform, and furnished <em>Punch</em> with an occasion for free-spoken
+denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other
+obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the
+great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is
+generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as
+in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What is it to <em>me</em> that fever is never absent from these
+places&mdash;that infants do not rear, and men die before their
+time&mdash;that sickness engenders pauperism&mdash;that filth breeds
+depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
+telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
+every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> in St. Saviour's its 153, in
+Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
+Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
+same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
+their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
+slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
+and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
+triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.</p>
+
+<p>It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
+case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
+Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
+still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
+self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
+again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
+1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, <em>he</em>, too, is
+at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_165.png">
+<img src="images/i_165.png" width="500" alt="Two people looking at a fish and a turtle." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE END OF GOG AND MAGOG; OR, THINGS VERY BAD IN THE
+CITY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in
+1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> have preferred a
+more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the
+dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>London's Vanished Glories</em></div>
+
+<p>Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet
+Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and
+unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by <em>Punch</em> on the
+occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell
+Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of
+London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall
+Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with
+its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery,
+was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil
+days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of
+auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties,
+<em>Punch</em> forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of <em>Bon
+Gaultier</em>. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was
+going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is
+attributed by <em>Punch</em> to disgust at the failure of Imperialism.
+Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of
+<em>Punch's</em> pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning,
+who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and
+sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B.
+Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and
+only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a
+place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving
+bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in
+their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by <em>Punch</em> along
+with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron
+Nathan, one of the irregular <em>impresario</em> peers who do not appear in
+"Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron
+Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he
+appealed to a fashionable <em>clientèle</em>. When Burnand wrote the libretto
+of <em>Cox and Box</em> in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City
+clerk, witness Cox's song,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">My aged employer, his whole physiognomy</p>
+<p class="i0">Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,</p>
+<p class="i0">Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me</p>
+<p class="i0">If you will take this as your holiday!"</p>
+<p class="i0">Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume
+of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents
+as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the
+democratic <em>Punch</em> denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in
+1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on,
+however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of
+the Semitic invaders.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Burlington Arcadia</em></div>
+
+<p>The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre
+Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her <em>début</em> on the
+stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture
+gallery. <em>Punch</em> describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery
+combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a
+pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough
+Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the
+building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular
+attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various
+vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine
+warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street,
+was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it
+in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin
+trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has
+disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of
+"The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," <em>Punch</em> gives a detailed
+account of its attractions in 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The covered passage through which the overland journey from
+Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
+in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
+happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
+whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
+regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows&mdash;from
+Gavarni's <em>Charivari</em> sketches, which have been there as far as the
+memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll <em>Diableries</em>,
+and the <em>Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age</em>, who rushed
+into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
+he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
+perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
+saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
+water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
+neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
+impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
+young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
+attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
+portraits of mortal angels in <em>very</em> low dresses, one of whom is
+asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
+at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
+what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
+tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
+and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
+himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
+popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
+ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
+which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
+arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of
+its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in
+1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic <em>bal masqué</em>
+organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the
+time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during
+Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in <em>Punch</em>
+representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the
+scenes of his many triumphs&mdash;an ingenious adaptation of the episode of
+Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. <em>Punch</em> was no
+lover of <em>bals masqués</em>, reckoning them among the things which they
+manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud,
+modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the
+present building in 1884. <em>Punch</em> owned that admission to her show was a
+test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as
+ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Madame Tussaud in
+1849&mdash;the year before her death&mdash;to the witches who made wax models of
+those whom they wished to injure.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_169.png">
+<img src="images/i_169.png" width="400" alt="Transportable menagerie." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE HAPPY FAMILY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in <em>London Past
+and Present</em> that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original
+Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its
+memories linger in the early volumes of <em>Punch</em>. There is a good series
+entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The
+Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well
+remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at
+the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats,
+mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in <em>Punch's</em>
+picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one
+sees now and again. A charge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of twopence was made for admission to St.
+Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which
+<em>Punch</em> bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with
+Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on
+Cremorne Gardens&mdash;which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge&mdash;have
+been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a
+scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions&mdash;"The Siege of
+Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851&mdash;were not closed till
+1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon,
+and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was
+pulled down and the grounds built over.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Dominion of Din</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings
+so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the
+great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the
+tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games
+which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional
+mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on
+Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well
+as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary
+din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin
+note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the
+sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his
+antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who
+brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's
+fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual
+visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take
+an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know
+that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The
+Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's
+"Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably
+representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera,
+and patriotism.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_171.png">
+<img src="images/i_171.png" width="500" alt="Shopgirl with a customer." /></a>
+<p class="center">TASTE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Shop Girl</span> (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's
+Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the
+'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements</em></div>
+
+<p>The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most
+popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> almost rivalling "General"
+Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who
+was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime
+favourite with <em>Punch</em>, and is never mentioned without a friendly word.
+But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none
+stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone
+from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the
+Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to
+1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and
+introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by <em>Punch</em> in prose and
+verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better
+management of the Metropolis in March,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[Pg 161]</span> 1855, and <em>Punch</em> more than once
+applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan
+Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused <em>Punch's</em>
+special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who
+combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges
+once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were
+conspicuous. <em>Punch</em> devotes a special article to those of the
+Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but
+these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold,
+are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the
+broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials
+bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the
+Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and
+'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which <em>Punch</em> noted
+as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been
+worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the
+close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute
+because entirely unregulated. <em>Punch</em> defended the intermission of
+postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed
+dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to
+record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising <em>Punch</em> is
+a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed
+an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage
+occurs:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The <em>Kentish Herald</em> lately contained the following notice:
+"Ranelagh Gardens, Margate&mdash;last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
+consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
+tragical enough; but <em>The Times</em> outdoes it in horror by informing
+us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for <em>general</em> interment";
+and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
+General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
+Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
+"Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
+satisfaction."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1847 <em>Punch</em> recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[Pg 162]</span> the
+activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to
+restrain the excesses of the advertiser:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Advertisements are spreading all over England&mdash;they have crept
+under the bridges&mdash;have planted themselves right in the middle of
+the Thames&mdash;have usurped the greatest thoroughfares&mdash;and are now
+just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
+certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
+stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
+nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
+calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
+vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
+most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
+such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
+and stuffed with nothing else.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus.
+It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the
+fastidious of to-day.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bssc"><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</p>
+
+<p class="cs">THE SOCIAL FABRIC</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>[Pg 164]</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[Pg 165]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_COURT" id="THE_COURT"></a>THE COURT</h2>
+
+<p>At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache,
+the famous French artist&mdash;perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar
+<em>genre</em> that our age has produced&mdash;published a wonderful design in which
+the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's
+reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain
+was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a
+girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King,
+Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic.
+The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have
+been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is
+rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and
+limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the
+personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in
+temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell,
+Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted
+for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from
+which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment
+created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was
+summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the
+throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over
+the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena
+of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound
+and constitutional&mdash;that these appointments should not be made or
+maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences
+hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of
+a certain obstinacy in the assertion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> her rights. But the cry that
+the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange
+cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate
+outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the
+ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the
+Queen's relations with Whig Ministers&mdash;always excepting Lord
+Palmerston&mdash;were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no
+guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are
+familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it
+was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but
+whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the
+Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement
+when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less
+effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of
+affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent
+qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he
+was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not
+in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in
+affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit
+for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to
+that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and
+geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and
+occasionally <em>gauche</em>. His notions of sport were not those of an English
+sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To
+put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the
+unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to
+everything foreign&mdash;language, art, music, letters&mdash;and consistently
+declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal
+patronage of foreigners begin in <em>Punch's</em> first volume. "Ride-a-cock
+horse" is turned into a florid Italian <em>cavatina</em>, and the words
+translated into Italian&mdash;"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"&mdash;for the
+benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as
+"a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an
+utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series
+of complaints which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn
+to <em>Punch's</em> extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a
+burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal
+nursery, <em>à propos</em> of the birth of the Prince of Wales:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN<br />
+<br />
+By the Correspondent of the <em>Observer</em><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
+agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
+a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
+expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.</p>
+
+<p>According to rumour, the baby&mdash;we beg pardon, the scion of the
+House of Brunswick&mdash;was to have been born&mdash;we must apologize again,
+we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
+the reigning family of Great Britain&mdash;some day last month, and of
+course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
+that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
+confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
+anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
+Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
+London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
+smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
+rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
+because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
+the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
+opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
+that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
+of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
+conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
+pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
+that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
+heart of the Royal Household.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But we hope, for the honour of
+all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
+matter of political arrangement.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued</em></div>
+
+<p>This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment
+from the same fictitious correspondent:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES<br />
+<br />
+(By the <em>Observer's</em> own Correspondent)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
+probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
+impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
+positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
+of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
+Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
+title of the <em>Prince of Wales</em>, which it is generally understood he
+will enjoy&mdash;at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
+anything of the kind&mdash;until an event shall happen which we hope
+will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
+Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
+whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
+Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
+circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to <em>at present</em>, nor
+do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.</p>
+
+<p>Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
+Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
+to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
+having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
+have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
+Mayors of London and Dublin.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_180.png">
+<img src="images/i_180.png" width="350" alt="Old woman who lived in a shoe, with children." /></a>
+<p class="center">A ROYAL NURSERY RHYME FOR 1860</p>
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,</p>
+<p class="i0">She had so many children she didn't know what to do."</p>
+<br /></div></div></div>
+
+<p>This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of
+the infant Prince. <em>Punch's</em> serious views as to the Prince's future are
+to be found in his "Pæan to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by
+the Royal Christening in February, 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>PUNCH</em> AND THE PRINCELET</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The little Prince <em>must</em> love the poor,</p>
+<p class="i2">And he will heed the cry</p>
+<p class="i0">Of the pauper mother, when she finds</p>
+<p class="i2">Her infant's fountains dry.</p>
+<p class="i0">He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,</p>
+<p class="i2">To make those founts o'erflow,</p>
+<p class="i0">For they have vow'd our little Prince</p>
+<p class="i2">No "vanities" shall know.</p>
+<p class="i0">And we will rattle our little bell,</p>
+<p class="i0">And laugh, and dance, and sing as well&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i4">Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+<p class="i4">Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And death's dark bones will then become</p>
+<p class="i2">Like iv'ry pure and white!</p>
+<p class="i0">His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,</p>
+<p class="i2">And his garments be as light;</p>
+<p class="i0">For man will slaughter man no more</p>
+<p class="i2">For wrong begot by wrongs,</p>
+<p class="i0">For our little Prince will say&mdash;"To me</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor life nor death belongs."</p>
+<p class="i0">So we will rattle our little bell,</p>
+<p class="i0">And laugh, and dance, and sing as well&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i4">Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!</p>
+<p class="i4">Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, <em>Punch</em> could not
+emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could
+not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not
+exempt, save on their knees:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
+Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
+Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
+has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
+Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
+Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
+within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
+Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
+Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
+subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
+Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
+that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
+was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
+receiving it.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some
+apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be
+affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that
+there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at
+present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of
+concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the
+noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">E andato al mercato.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">E a casa restato.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from
+the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained
+campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and
+sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on
+uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this
+hereditary failing. A concise biography in the <em>Almanack</em> for 1842
+states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a
+shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put
+her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and
+malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons.
+He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the <em>Morning Post</em>),
+for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Prince Albert as Tailor</em></div>
+
+<p>In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his
+sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment
+is associated with the cartoon:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
+of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
+ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
+trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
+to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
+regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
+do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
+bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
+and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
+whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
+the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
+between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then <em>Punch</em> was
+compelled to interfere, for the honour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> of the English army. The
+result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
+an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
+Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_183.png">
+<img src="images/i_183.png" width="350" alt="Gigantic cartoon goose." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE TAILOR'S GOOSE&mdash;THE TERROR OF THE ARMY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Prince Albert as Sportsman</em></div>
+
+<p>The campaign reached its height in 1845 when <em>Punch</em> was given an
+irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained
+by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, <em>Punch</em> averred, was a born tailor,
+the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the
+British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming
+rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse
+his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and
+might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> outburst of
+derision <em>Punch</em> gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the
+running&mdash;or baiting&mdash;with renewed energy against his sportmanship.
+<em>Punch</em>, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field
+sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once
+protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for
+a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to
+support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument
+was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was
+more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his
+crime. <em>Punch</em> was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the
+influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of
+game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the
+Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Stag Slaughter at Gotha</em></div>
+
+<p>The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were
+the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the
+Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles
+and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony
+phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Six hares alive were taken out</p>
+<p class="i2">Each in its canvas sack;</p>
+<p class="i0">And five as dead as mutton, in</p>
+<p class="i2">The same were carried back.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of
+Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad
+modelled on <em>John Gilpin</em>, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting
+down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to
+this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in
+September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and
+pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the
+bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria;
+and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by
+Prince<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear</p>
+<p class="i2">In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)</p>
+<p class="i0">Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,</p>
+<p class="i2">By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.</p>
+<p class="i0">Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;</p>
+<p class="i2">Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;</p>
+<p class="i0">Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,</p>
+<p class="i2">Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.</p>
+<p class="i0">Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,</p>
+<p class="i0">Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court</p>
+<p class="i2">And make a massyker of English Staggs.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+<p class="i0">Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,</p>
+<p class="i2">What avoc he <em>would</em> make and what a trimenjus battu!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Jeams.</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_185.png">
+<img src="images/i_185.png" width="400" alt="Bear baiting in bear pit." /></a>
+<p class="center">ELIZABETH</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_186.png">
+<img src="images/i_186.png" width="400" alt="Victoria at a killing." /></a>
+<p class="center">VICTORIA</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment
+of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the <em>Standard</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">TEARS AT GOTHA</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The <em>Standard</em> gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
+to a gentleman in London:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> <em>I saw
+large tears in her eyes</em>: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
+difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
+the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she <em>naturally felt</em> at
+the death of the animal was <em>counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
+propensities</em>, so that it is almost as meritorious <em>to destroy an
+otter as it is a snake</em>; but this was a totally different case; nor
+is Her Majesty yet recovered. <em>For the Prince</em>, the deer were too
+numerous, and <em>must</em> be killed. <em>This</em> was the German method; and
+no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
+will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_188.png">
+<img src="images/i_188.png" width="400" alt="Victoria with  a distressed albert." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION</p>
+<p>"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have <em>you</em> any Railway Shares?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This incident marked the high-water level of <em>Punch's</em>
+anti-Albertianism&mdash;at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an
+address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting
+season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the
+Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of
+dissatisfaction. What infuriated <em>Punch</em> even more than the ineptitudes
+of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the <em>Lickspittle-offs</em> of the
+Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The
+amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing,"
+<em>Punch</em> frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing
+than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment
+of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its
+discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an
+immense gulf, and <em>Punch</em> was never weary of gibbeting those writers in
+and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning
+spirit of the time&mdash;questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges
+the throne&mdash;by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone
+age." Assuredly, the absolute <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> of this
+courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any
+reasonable woman would:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
+compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
+dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
+aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
+idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars&mdash;"what
+condescension!" If it display the influence of affections,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> he
+screams&mdash;"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
+Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
+says <em>The Atlas</em>&mdash;"The woman and the mother <em>for a moment</em>
+proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
+and the <em>splendour of a diadem</em>!"</p>
+
+<p>What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"&mdash;but then, we
+presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
+in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for
+deprecating royal excursions by railway:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Atlas</em> thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
+managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
+of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
+and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
+regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
+that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
+royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
+abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."</p>
+
+<p>There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says <em>The Atlas</em>,
+the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
+chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
+"take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may <em>occasionally</em>
+take a chance!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious
+view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of
+maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf
+fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Syncophancy Rebuked</em></div>
+
+<p>Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the
+other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well
+rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with
+the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed
+that here, as on so many occasions, <em>Punch</em> adopted the device of
+assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which <em>Punch</em> has
+been favoured with an early copy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
+is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
+correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
+write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
+touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies&mdash;it is Our
+Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
+really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
+and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
+shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
+all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
+Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
+be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
+shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
+FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
+him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
+without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
+FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
+permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
+exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
+familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.</p>
+
+<p>BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
+FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
+vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.</p>
+
+<p class="author">VICTORIA REGINA.</p>
+
+<p>Given at Blair Athol,</p>
+
+<p>September 16, 1844.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+<p>In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the <em>Court
+Circular</em>&mdash;the ironical suggestions that it should be published in
+French or Italian,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel
+Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile
+nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's.</p>
+
+<p>Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted
+by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new
+occupant of the post:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
+there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of
+too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
+the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
+shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
+would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
+poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
+the <em>Court Circular</em>, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
+Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
+privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
+following specimen:&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">This morning at an early hour,</p>
+<p class="i2">In Osborne's peaceful grounds,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Queen and Prince&mdash;'spite of a shower&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Took their accustomed rounds.</p>
+<p class="i0">With them, to bear them company,</p>
+<p class="i2">Prince Leiningen he went,</p>
+<p class="i0">And with the other royal three,</p>
+<p class="i2">The Duchess, eke, of Kent.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">His Royal Highness Prince of Wales</p>
+<p class="i2">Went forth to take the air;</p>
+<p class="i0">The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails</p>
+<p class="i2">His exercise to share.</p>
+<p class="i0">On the young members of the flock</p>
+<p class="i2">Was tenderest care bestowed,</p>
+<p class="i0">For two long hours by the clock</p>
+<p class="i2">They walked&mdash;they ran&mdash;they rode.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Calmly away the hours wear</p>
+<p class="i2">In Osborne's tranquil shade,</p>
+<p class="i0">And to the dinner-party there</p>
+<p class="i2">Was no addition made.</p>
+<p class="i0">Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas</p>
+<p class="i2">Having returned to town,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Royal family circle has</p>
+<p class="i2">Settled serenely down.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is not too much to assume that <em>Punch's</em> ridicule assisted in
+eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record
+of life at Court.</p>
+
+<p>We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his
+prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in
+October, 1843, is treated with acidulated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> satire, and in his imaginary
+speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new
+academic cap (<em>novus pileus academicus</em>) of his own designing. A month
+later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of
+Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato&mdash;on the eve
+of the Irish famine&mdash;is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but
+then Princes are such wags," adds <em>Punch</em>. The much-canvassed
+appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847
+led to sardonic comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
+this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
+begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
+most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
+feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Prince of Bricklayers</div>
+
+<p>But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a
+friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince
+"Al." <em>Punch</em>, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the
+hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes,
+and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of
+social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of
+Bricklayers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
+some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
+Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and <em>Punch</em>, in order
+to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
+with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
+be coming out like a regular brick.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which,
+more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and
+popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea&mdash;and the Prince was its
+only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the
+significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the
+world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in <em>The Times</em>, and other
+utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in <em>The Idea
+of Progress</em>, that "the Exhibition was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> at the time, optimistically
+regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical
+progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to
+a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of
+which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's
+'Federation of the World.'" <em>Punch</em> never failed to give the Prince the
+credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it
+his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the
+Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which
+appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the
+suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde
+Park:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINCE <em>PUNCH</em> TO PRINCE ALBERT</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Illustrious and excellent brother,</p>
+<p class="i2">Don't consider me rude or unkind,</p>
+<p class="i0">If, as from one Prince to another,</p>
+<p class="i2">I give you a bit of my mind&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And I do so with all the more roundness,</p>
+<p class="i2">As your conduct amongst us has shown</p>
+<p class="i0">A propriety, judgment and soundness</p>
+<p class="i2">Of taste, not surpassed by my own.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You've respected John Bull's little oddities,</p>
+<p class="i2">Never trod on the old fellow's corns;</p>
+<p class="i0">Chose his pictures and statues&mdash;commodities</p>
+<p class="i2">Wherein his own blunders he mourns.</p>
+<p class="i0">And if you're a leetle more German</p>
+<p class="i2">In these than I'd have you&mdash;what is't</p>
+<p class="i0">Beyond what a critic may term an</p>
+<p class="i2">Educational bias or twist?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You have never pressed forward unbidden;</p>
+<p class="i2">When called on you've never shown shame,</p>
+<p class="i0">Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden</p>
+<p class="i2">Your person, your purse, or your name;</p>
+<p class="i0">You've lent no man occasion to call you</p>
+<p class="i2">Intruder, intriguer, or fool;</p>
+<p class="i0">Even I've not had often to haul you</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">O'er the coals, or to take you to school.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Which, <em>au reste</em>, our positions allow&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,</p>
+<p class="i2">After all I have written just now):</p>
+<p class="i0">Which is to put down certain flunkies,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,</p>
+<p class="i0">Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys</p>
+<p class="i2">Tars throw stones&mdash;to get nuts in return.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then silence your civic applauders,</p>
+<p class="i2">Lest better men cease from applause.</p>
+<p class="i0">He who tribute accepts of marauders,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is held to be pledged to their cause.</p>
+<p class="i0">Let no Corporate magnates of London</p>
+<p class="i2">An honour presume to award:</p>
+<p class="i0">Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,</p>
+<p class="i2">Little honour to spare can afford!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prince Punch to Prince Albert</div>
+
+<p>A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, <em>Punch</em> was evidently
+impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of
+State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on
+thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs&mdash;Very Dangerous," and <em>Mr. Punch</em>
+shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis"
+warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the <em>rôle</em> of
+an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt
+it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of
+the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the
+charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards,
+but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that
+he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army
+was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the
+Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond
+all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never
+uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the
+honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion
+was not wholly appeased, and <em>Punch's</em> references to the Prince during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the
+intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's bâton and pay, as
+a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry
+for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year
+his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic
+remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told,
+the intention and the desire were both inventions of <em>Punch</em>, who was
+playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves
+and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to
+make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have
+criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the
+picture of <em>Punch</em> regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the
+Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself,
+"What sanguinary engagement can it be?" <em>Punch</em> cannot be acquitted of
+treating the Prince Consort&mdash;as he only now began to be generally
+called&mdash;with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate
+position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to
+meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent
+him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with
+this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted,
+that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused;
+that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and
+self-protective. It was not the first time <em>Punch</em> had been unjust to
+the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the
+campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged
+that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the
+Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in <em>Punch</em>&mdash;and the
+public&mdash;did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince
+Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_196.png">
+<img src="images/i_196.png" width="400" alt="Queen surrounded by mythical creatures," /></a>
+<p class="center">THE GRASSHOPPERS' FEAST: A PROPHETIC VISION.<br />
+Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper&mdash;Monday, October 28, 1844.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause
+of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we
+have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the
+influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the
+Queen was by no means exempt from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> direct censure, remonstrance, and
+exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was
+treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days
+<em>Punch</em> never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are
+always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her
+visit to the City in 1844. Though <em>Punch's</em> pen was sharp his pencil was
+kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon
+published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,</p>
+<p class="i0">She had so many children she didn't know what to do.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As early as the Christmas number of 1842 <em>Punch</em> had given "the
+arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names
+and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he
+comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax.
+More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion,
+against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
+the columns of <em>The Times</em>. Whether <em>Punch's</em> friend, the Attorney
+General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
+immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
+<em>Punch</em> knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
+law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
+future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
+sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
+Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
+of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
+writes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
+residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
+as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
+that royalty, like property, has its <em>duties</em> as well as its
+<em>rights</em>. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
+kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
+essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
+sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
+entertainments that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> deserve to be encouraged by attending such
+places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
+arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
+approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
+too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
+these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
+how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
+distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
+lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
+acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
+it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
+constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
+personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
+that is likely to accrue from such neglect."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In these years, and for a good many years to come, <em>Punch</em> hunted in
+couples with <em>The Times</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Neglect of Native Talent</em></div>
+
+<p>The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists,
+musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for
+year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes
+oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court:
+Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity
+was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the
+funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, <em>Punch</em> exclaims, "imagine for
+a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The
+often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him
+very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated
+Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of
+Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang
+several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as <em>Punch</em> notes, of
+the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But <em>Punch</em> had
+his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in
+dwarfs&mdash;Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her
+staff&mdash;by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results
+that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped
+growing at the age of five months:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
+lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
+merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
+majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
+was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of <em>Punch</em>, nor was
+this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of
+Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. <em>Punch</em> considered
+that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the
+latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on
+the Four Georges:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">GEORGIUS ULTIMUS</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">He left an example for age and for youth</p>
+<p class="i18">To avoid.</p>
+<p class="i4">He never acted well by Man or Woman,</p>
+<p class="i2">And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.</p>
+<p class="i4">He deserted his Friends and his Principles.</p>
+<p class="i2">He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;</p>
+<p class="i4">But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,</p>
+<p class="i6">And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.</p>
+<p class="i0">He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,</p>
+<p class="i4">And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,</p>
+<p class="i14">An admiring Aristocracy</p>
+<p class="i0">Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."</p>
+<p class="i4">Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,</p>
+<p class="i4">And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the same year <em>Punch</em>, with malicious inventiveness, represented
+Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on
+Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the
+Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these
+agilities <em>The Times</em> again proved a useful ally, for in the same number
+we find the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">HIGH TREASON</p>
+
+<p>A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in <em>The Times</em>, writes
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"It is no use to conceal the fact&mdash;British high art <em>is hated at
+Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy</em>. They don't want it; they
+can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
+vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"</p>
+
+<p>We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
+to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_200.png">
+<img src="images/i_200.png" width="600" alt="Overcrowded room full of ladies." /></a>
+<p class="center">TRAINING SCHOOL FOR LADIES ABOUT TO APPEAR AT COURT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a letter in <em>The Times</em> that again prompted <em>Punch's</em>
+remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French
+milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the
+imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of
+the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was a new Singer of Italy</p>
+<p class="i0">Who went through his part very prettily;</p>
+<p class="i2">"Mamma tinks him so fine,</p>
+<p class="i2">We must have him to dine!"</p>
+<p class="i0">Papa remarked slily and wittily.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center">THE OLD SINGER OF AVON</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was an old Singer of Avon,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;</p>
+<p class="i2">But Mamma doesn't care</p>
+<p class="i2">For this stupid swan's air,</p>
+<p class="i0">Any more than the croak of a raven.<br /></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_202.png">
+<img src="images/i_202.png" width="350" alt="Scene from mythology." /></a>
+<p class="center">CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES<br />
+Calypso, Q&mdash;&mdash;n V&mdash;&mdash;a; Ulysses, K&mdash;g of the F&mdash;&mdash;h.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Royal Visits and Visitors</em></div>
+
+<p>The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's
+"bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of
+<em>Punch's</em> frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone
+as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid
+sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but <em>Punch</em> was no
+advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely
+criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the
+remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of
+an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> levées is
+a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; <em>Punch</em> is happy
+in pillorying the <em>Morning Post</em> for the use of the phrase, "the dense
+mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions;
+while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early
+juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were
+carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal
+tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is
+represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty.
+<em>Punch</em> was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe&mdash;whom, by the way,
+he once represented as Fagin&mdash;and the impending visit of the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in
+proscribing and impounding <em>Punch</em>, followed up by a burlesque account
+of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission
+of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the
+invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, <em>Punch</em>
+burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. <em>Punch</em>,
+like the <em>Skibbereen Eagle</em>, always kept his eye on the Tsar of
+Russia&mdash;and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas
+stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks
+began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to
+England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter
+hostility. Readers of <em>Punch</em> are advised to carry every penny of the
+largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid
+any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of
+harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is
+shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the
+Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for
+the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of
+savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to
+the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short,
+was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a
+diamond ring in it. Nor has <em>Punch</em> a single good word to say for the
+King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year,
+"to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with
+anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844,
+<em>Punch</em> profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited
+Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners'
+ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee
+Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout
+the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from
+his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even
+worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit
+in June, 1843:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER</p>
+
+<p>The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
+of six years&mdash;intensely painful to all parties&mdash;the monarch returns
+to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
+name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
+perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
+marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
+who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
+thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
+the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
+Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
+said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
+medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
+Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
+fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
+evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
+was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
+with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
+the King of Hanover) has £23,000 a year from the sweat of
+Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
+taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
+he not practically teach them the beauty of humility&mdash;of long
+suffering&mdash;of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
+continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
+who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
+will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
+Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
+expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
+creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
+pride and height of their intelligence, allow £23,000 to the King
+of Hanover.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge,
+to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful
+explosion in the <em>Morning Post</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Royal Parasites</div>
+
+<p>Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
+the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
+<em>bouquet</em>, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
+proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> premising that
+we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
+elated and deeply moved." He says:</p>
+
+<p>"We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
+ceremony as <em>in turn</em> we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
+to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
+and beauty, <em>through which is ever discernible the eagle glance</em>
+and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
+Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, <em>one of the handsomest
+Princes of the age</em>, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
+tempered by the <em>judgment and wisdom of age</em>. The Queen Adelaide,
+living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
+private life or on a throne."</p>
+
+<p>So far the <em>Morning Post</em>. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
+<em>The Times</em>?</p>
+
+<p>"The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
+in consequence of indisposition."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of
+never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous
+after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who
+thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
+of the devil&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> To be sure; very proper&mdash;very proper.)</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> Certainly; very right&mdash;very right.)</p>
+
+<p>And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
+However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
+Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
+for&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> No objection&mdash;no objection!)</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Royal Duke's Household</em></div>
+
+<p>One certainly does not gather from <em>Punch's</em> pages what was none the
+less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable
+and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he
+was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and
+the people."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the Duke's death in 1850, <em>Punch</em>, with his usual vigour, attacked
+the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of
+Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and
+Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were
+neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS</p>
+
+<p>What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
+he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
+time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
+these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
+pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
+sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
+Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
+and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
+system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
+have fallen&mdash;can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
+be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
+which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
+measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
+grants to its pensioners&mdash;when the allowance is flung at his Royal
+Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
+tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+<a href="images/i_206.png">
+<img src="images/i_206.png" width="200" alt="Cartoon" /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MODERN DAMOCLES</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the
+mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he
+ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> he did not equal him, as <em>Punch's</em> pet
+aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the
+hostile comment that "empire" meant <em>empirer</em>. The <em>Coup d'État</em> was the
+signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His
+matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor
+Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in
+France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are
+vehemently denounced. <em>Punch's</em> attacks ceased during the Crimean War,
+but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace
+was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was
+responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in
+<em>Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William
+Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the
+Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his <em>Life of Napoleon
+III</em> the chief <em>apologia</em> in English of the Second Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst
+<em>Punch's</em> unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his
+reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to
+Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the
+surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to
+Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated
+controversy in 1845 in which <em>Punch</em> ranged himself militantly among the
+partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various
+sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of
+the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a
+burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined
+zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_208.png">
+<img src="images/i_208.png" width="400" alt="Three statues." /></a>
+<p class="center">SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail,
+and in an optimistic vein. <em>Punch</em> never believed in the Repeal
+Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot
+and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father
+Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis,
+or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien,
+an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous
+ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato
+famine had evoked <em>Punch's</em> sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring
+reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of
+Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified <em>vix paulò ante Diem
+Judicii</em>&mdash;or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's
+visit was hailed as of good omen, though <em>Punch</em> reminds her that she
+had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen&mdash;palaces and not
+cabins. "Let Erin <em>forget</em> the days of old" is the burden of his song;
+at least he refrained from quoting&mdash;if he ever knew of it&mdash;that other
+terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits
+that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her
+traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium.
+Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife,
+paid the costs of her vilifier.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Princess Royal's Betrothal</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1849, also, <em>Punch</em>, evidently still in mellower mood, published an
+enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who
+died on December 2. <em>Punch</em> specially refers to her generosity to Mrs.
+Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and
+the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid
+from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton,
+consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest
+charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by
+her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform
+Agitation, and <em>Punch's</em> homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the
+times that <em>Punch</em> begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or
+more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her
+popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties.
+At the close of 1852 <em>Punch</em> ridicules as absurd the rumour of the
+betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
+the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a
+German paper, and proved true. <em>Punch's</em> chief objection was
+sentimental:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+"The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the rate of live
+stock," and he could not believe that such a principle would govern the
+Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the domestic
+graces." Besides, <em>Punch</em> in the summer of 1844 had published his own
+New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by <em>The Times's</em> comment on the late
+Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it therefore enacted
+that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty to marry whom or
+how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or pleases."</p>
+
+<p>Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three
+years later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,</p>
+<p class="i0">Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.</p>
+<p class="i0">What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!</p>
+<p class="i0">The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd</p>
+<p class="i0">Against her in arms, but his being afraid.</p>
+<p class="i0">His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!</p>
+<p class="i0">Pooh!&mdash;the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Princess is&mdash;bless her!&mdash;scarce fifteen years old;</p>
+<p class="i0">One summer more even o'er <em>Dinah</em> had roll'd.</p>
+<p class="i0">To marry so early she can't be inclined;</p>
+<p class="i0">A suitable <em>Villikins</em> some day she'll find.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Moreover, in her case, we know very well,</p>
+<p class="i0">There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,</p>
+<p class="i0">With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent
+anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856.
+<em>Punch's</em> comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the
+betrothal was celebrated in verse at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> once ceremonial and friendly.
+References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we
+may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic
+Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, <em>Punch</em>
+administered a severe castigation to the offender. <em>Punch</em> did not like
+his monopoly to be infringed.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been
+settled in 1840. But Scribe's <em>Verre d'Eau</em>, under the title of <em>The
+Maid of Honour</em>, with the real incident turned into farce, had been
+adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway
+speculation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person
+puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he
+means."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See Illustration.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_OLD_NOBILITY" id="THE_OLD_NOBILITY"></a>THE OLD NOBILITY</h2>
+
+<p>Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of <em>Punch</em> and in those
+of the <em>Morning Post</em> in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf.
+As we have seen, <em>Punch's</em> admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped
+a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized
+most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not
+denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and
+the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern
+Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington.
+Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action
+against Napoleon, and here was his reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash; wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
+remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
+advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
+that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
+transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
+that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
+appoint an executioner, which would not be me."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
+political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
+defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
+Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
+Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
+Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
+the Dwarf?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded
+the repeal of the Corn Laws&mdash;whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or
+strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_213.png">
+<img src="images/i_213.png" width="300" alt="Statue" /></a>
+<p class="center">HENRY MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: A NEW STATUE OF ACHILLES</p>
+<p>Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo
+Lane, and Waterloo Place.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in
+connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of
+Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When
+Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel <em>The
+Tuft-hunter</em> were exposed, <em>Punch</em> printed this jingling epigram:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">A Duke once declared&mdash;and most solemnly too&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">That whatever he liked with his own he would do;</p>
+<p class="i0">But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown</p>
+<p class="i0">He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!</p>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Marquesses under the Microscope</em></div>
+
+<p>And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of
+Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very
+first number. The Marquess of Hertford&mdash;the original of Thackeray's
+Marquess of Steyne in <em>Vanity Fair</em>&mdash;is subjected to posthumous obloquy,
+<em>à propos</em> of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were
+compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead
+may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of
+Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner,
+but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical
+Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of
+Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 2½d. in
+the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait
+for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but
+then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power
+of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY</p>
+
+<p>The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with
+the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of
+office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men,
+to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody,
+save the Earl of Malmesbury. <em>The Times</em> says, and most truly:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
+century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
+deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
+Secretary seemed able to bestow."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the
+heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord
+Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true
+strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years
+of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or
+jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst
+the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a
+little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne
+struck at rotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest
+sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon
+his doings? So it is!</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back</p>
+<p class="i0">Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,</p>
+<p class="i0">A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:</p>
+<p class="i0">Those scraps are good deeds past.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the
+history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot
+rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the
+true, manly, English brain that beats&mdash;(and in the serene happiness of
+honoured age may it long continue to beat!)&mdash;beneath it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_216.png">
+<img src="images/i_216.png" width="300" alt="Two workers looking at richly dressed man." /></a>
+<p class="center">APPROPRIATE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span>: "I say, Bill&mdash;I wonder what he calls hisself?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Second Ditto</span>: "Blowed if I know!&mdash;but I calls him a Bloated
+Haristocrat."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Educating the House of Lords</em></div>
+
+<p>As for peers in general, <em>Punch's</em> views may be gathered from his scheme
+for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
+born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
+born ass.</p>
+
+<p>We are not proving that fact&mdash;only stating it&mdash;<em>pace</em> your
+word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.</p>
+
+<p>But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
+command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
+not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
+asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
+country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
+kicking.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
+son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
+dose of physic for an old woman.</p>
+
+<p>But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
+certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
+which is absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
+any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
+born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.</p>
+
+<p>Examine him in the Alphabet&mdash;there have been Peers who didn't know
+that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> a
+Lord&mdash;the Mayor of London&mdash;count hobnails. In history&mdash;for he is to
+help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
+and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
+are <em>a fortiori</em> to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
+physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
+medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
+individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
+hom&oelig;opaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
+philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
+ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
+house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
+which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
+In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
+stand up for the liberty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> of unlicensed printing, instead of
+insulting and calumniating the Press.</p>
+
+<p>This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
+objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
+can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
+has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
+touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
+that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
+had better not shave ourselves.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers,
+extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are
+specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant
+mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in
+the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the
+Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and
+all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected
+therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of <em>Punch's</em>
+favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St.
+Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the
+"snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the
+appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children
+out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.</p>
+
+<p>Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic
+example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean
+War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care
+of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's.
+Hence the epigram:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COÛTE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"By not taking," says <em>Punch</em>, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer
+but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> earned the dislike of
+<em>Punch</em>, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his
+traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Thackeray on Great Folks</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the
+bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family
+in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble
+personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than
+friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than
+coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible.
+Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold,
+and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed
+the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town."
+Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he
+says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
+trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
+persons do, but take you for what you are&mdash;a man kindly and
+good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
+good <em>raconteur</em>, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
+and judge of wine&mdash;or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
+ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
+Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
+Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
+leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
+D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
+what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
+quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
+stage King and Queen.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's
+Dispatches.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL" id="SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL"></a>SOCIETY&mdash;EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL</h2>
+
+<p>For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties
+<em>Punch</em> cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent
+reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the
+<em>entrée</em> to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often
+overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and
+diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in
+Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances
+and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its
+public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society,
+which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, <em>Punch</em> subdivides the
+three main strata of Society&mdash;High Life, Middle Life, Low Life&mdash;into
+various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people
+wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we
+pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to
+the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was
+of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby
+genteel, that <em>Punch</em>, in his earliest days, had most first-hand
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Almack's</em></div>
+
+<p>The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated
+than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing
+less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from
+Galloway&mdash;Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name,
+MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a
+Yorkshire Quaker&mdash;who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton,
+and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for
+aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous
+Assembly Rooms in King Street, St.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> James's, where, for more than
+seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the
+twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly
+Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a
+committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who
+distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth
+century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be
+introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly
+Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine
+oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of
+Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the <em>crême de la
+crême</em> of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion
+of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of
+laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least,
+meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+Great care was taken that the supply of <em>débutantes</em> should not exceed
+the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the
+accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps,
+the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum
+attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781,
+bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after
+whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely
+departed, but so serious a review as the <em>Quarterly</em> wrote respectfully
+of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in
+England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number
+of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are
+quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of
+their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's
+lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed
+and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly
+exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and
+quadrille&mdash;the polka&mdash;are described by <em>Punch</em> (after Byron) in the
+lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844.
+The craze for dancing was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> so widely diffused as in 1920, but to
+judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all
+strata of Society were affected:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_221a.png">
+<img src="images/i_221a.png" width="500" alt="Clumsy man trying to dance." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLKA</p>
+<p class="center">1. My Polka before Six Lessons.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_221b.png">
+<img src="images/i_221b.png" width="500" alt="Same man dancing  well." /></a>
+<p class="center">2. My Polka after Six Lessons.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_222.png">
+<img src="images/i_222.png" width="500" alt="Crowded dance hall." /></a>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Manners and Cvstoms of Y<sup>e</sup> Englyshe in 1849</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">An "At Home".</span> <span class="smcap">y<sup>e</sup> Polka.</span></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Polkamania</em></div>
+
+<p>That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
+have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
+analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
+Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
+entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
+name of <em>Aranea Polkapoietica</em>. The Polkamania, after raging
+fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
+length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
+Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
+specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
+nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
+corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
+symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
+the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
+movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
+<em>cerebellum</em>. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
+amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
+terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
+subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
+finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
+strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
+propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
+Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
+Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
+things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
+obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
+go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
+committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
+suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
+now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
+less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
+not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
+have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
+yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
+corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
+variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
+be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of
+to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the
+waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour.
+The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but
+the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of
+figures&mdash;La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.&mdash;is dead beyond
+redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good
+ten years.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the
+art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a
+Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which
+Thackeray joined)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> for the suppression of the pest, the malady was
+described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued
+phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue
+in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its
+prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers&mdash;Taglioni (who gave
+her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin
+of the <em>prima-donna</em>; but though there were schools of dancing, and
+<em>Thés dansants</em>, which <em>Punch</em> heavily ridiculed, and though the
+fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at
+Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals,
+as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher
+flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young
+lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at
+least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the
+practice of Poonah painting&mdash;an early and crude imitation of Oriental
+art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah
+painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The
+fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing
+tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are
+(allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the
+Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of
+conversation at a social gathering:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Modish Futilities</em></div>
+<p>It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
+sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
+figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
+fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
+be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
+That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
+converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
+Answer, without exception, "Yes"&mdash;general rule as before; but when
+the rejoinder comes, "What instrument do you play?" although the
+reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the
+mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind
+of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you
+will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine
+players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or
+Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Mercadante "grand" or
+Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a
+word or two for Alexander Lee.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two
+queries) a young lady will answer your questions with
+indifference&mdash;almost contempt&mdash;in the belief that you are a very
+commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of
+romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging
+over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or
+Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is
+most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to
+do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with
+meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance,
+the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with
+common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter
+predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be
+quoted from <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>, which will bring in a reflection
+upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the
+quotation:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"I never knew a young gazelle," etc.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Finishing" a Daughter</em></div>
+
+<p>This was written in <em>Punch</em> in July, 1842, but there is not much
+difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years
+later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER</p>
+
+<p>1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.</p>
+
+<p>2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.</p>
+
+<p>3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.</p>
+
+<p>5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of
+house-keeping.</p>
+
+<p>7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything
+for herself.</p>
+
+<p>8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.</p>
+
+<p>9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> a
+clerk in the Treasury upon £75 a year, or to an ensign who is going
+out to India.</p>
+
+<p>If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished,
+you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her
+escape as nothing short of a miracle.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_226.png">
+<img src="images/i_226.png" width="600" alt="Men discussing  a young lady." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Sporting Man</span> (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a
+promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to
+the black-cob-looking man."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of
+Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official
+recognition of learned women and authoresses&mdash;Mrs. Somerville and Maria
+Edgeworth&mdash;was supported by <em>Punch</em>. In his "Letters to a Young Man
+about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of
+good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little
+encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners,
+regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the
+gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only
+substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women
+exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old
+Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to
+the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or
+scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only
+excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women
+the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely
+patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the
+<em>Ingoldsby Legends</em> deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian
+manners, and can be verified from the pages of <em>Punch</em>, who tells us
+how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to
+sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several
+instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised
+seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was
+pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last
+four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be
+fifteen pounds.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in
+the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion.
+Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left
+to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to
+subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty
+years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the
+accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a
+correspondent to the <em>Morning Post</em>, who wrote to describe how, as the
+result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was
+placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_228.png">
+<img src="images/i_228.png" width="600" alt="Occupants of a Gentlemen's club." /></a>
+<p class="center">Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe.<br />
+A FASHIONABLE CLUB&mdash;FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Verrey and Gunter</em></div>
+
+<p>The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony
+was ever a male vice, and <em>Punch</em> is constantly running a tilt against
+civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not
+confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera
+and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four
+thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> for
+more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and
+relations&mdash;more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did
+not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later
+age.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few
+expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The
+nearest approach was Verrey's Café, which was then a fashionable resort,
+and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for
+mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor
+money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title <em>Punch</em>
+satirizes the pretensions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> of the New Rich), the <em>entrée</em> to Almack's.
+For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's
+"Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of
+Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and
+obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of
+to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid
+roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the
+smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have
+borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which
+he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the
+brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody
+here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of
+knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon
+after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a
+newspaper. How pleasant this room is&mdash;isn't it? with its sober
+draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes&mdash;nothing to
+interrupt the quiet&mdash;only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies
+asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, <em>Pendennis</em>,
+No. VII.&mdash;hum, let us pass on. Have you read <em>David Copperfield</em>,
+by the way? How beautiful it is&mdash;how charmingly fresh and simple!
+In those admirable touches of tender humour&mdash;and I should call
+humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit&mdash;who can equal this great
+genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are
+like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in
+the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a
+writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words
+go forth to vast congregations of mankind&mdash;to grown folks, to their
+children, and perhaps to their children's children&mdash;but must think
+of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth
+guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further
+its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the <em>Record</em> revile him&mdash;See,
+here's Horner waking up&mdash;How do you do, Horner?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Tobacco Tabooed</em></div>
+
+<p>Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to
+be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and
+Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that
+den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in <em>some</em>
+clubs, called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed
+for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known
+club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate
+pipe-smoking on their precincts. <em>Punch</em> early ranged himself on the
+side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British
+Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with
+hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce
+their small antipathies on the rest of us."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_230.png">
+<img src="images/i_230.png" width="400" alt="Man and women in evening dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">GROUP IN THEATRE BOX</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day,
+were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had
+passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness
+Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera,
+was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up,
+during the season<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the
+Superior Classes":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who would not rather gaze</p>
+<p class="i0">On youth and beauty dancing</p>
+<p class="i2">Than one of Shakespeare's plays?</p>
+<p class="i0">Give me the haunt of Fashion,</p>
+<p class="i2">And let the Drama's shrine</p>
+<p class="i0">Engross the vulgar's passion;</p>
+<p class="i2">Fops' Alley, thou art mine.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing
+parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the
+manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad
+Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the
+achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in <em>The Newcomes</em>, written
+in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the
+"Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his
+son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of
+entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but <em>Punch</em> makes a notable
+exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after
+redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was
+no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of
+the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble
+tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. <em>Punch's</em> only
+adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of
+the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the
+entertainment, whether for mind or body:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed
+betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences
+at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town
+under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose.
+To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of
+Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named
+institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness&mdash;so
+important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> give
+it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of
+his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable
+amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor&mdash;the student of
+law&mdash;of medicine&mdash;nay, of divinity&mdash;offers an attraction in the
+right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards
+the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good
+singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal
+harangue and a cup of Twankay.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Travellers and Outlaws</em></div>
+
+<p>The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse
+before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always
+the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the
+founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired
+in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing
+generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling
+for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and
+more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to
+appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours"
+was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to
+<em>Punch</em> it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time
+occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long
+been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who
+are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them,
+including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of
+outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in
+poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were
+"the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled
+precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years
+earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of
+fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of
+literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of
+D'Orsay, whom Byron called the <em>Cupidon déchaîné</em>, handsome, gifted and
+popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the
+only artist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call
+sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier
+treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him
+to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from <em>Punch</em>
+even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of
+Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They
+at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney
+travellers on the Continent in 1845:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT</p>
+
+<p>Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to
+ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the
+lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the
+proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will
+also find to be an endless source of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> you
+may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their
+faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of
+ladies, at a <em>table d'hôte</em>. Do not care what you say about the
+government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show
+your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of
+the superiority of England and everything English.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_233.png">
+<img src="images/i_233.png" width="600" alt="Inappropriately dressesd man." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE OPERA</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Doorkeeper</span>: "Beg your pardon, Sir&mdash;but must, indeed, Sir, be in full
+dress."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Snob</span> (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The "Gent" Abroad and at Home</em></div>
+
+<p>The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily
+the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to
+observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as
+"'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of <em>Punch's</em> pet aversions
+under the title of "the Gent":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares,
+the <em>Gent</em> is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption
+of style about him&mdash;a futile aping of superiority that inspires us
+with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we
+contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry
+vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards
+which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts
+to ape <em>gentility</em>&mdash;a bad style of word, we admit, but one
+peculiarly adapted to our purpose&mdash;are to us more painful than
+ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
+his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
+his dreary efforts to assume a style and <em>tournure</em> which he is so
+utterly incapable of carrying out.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When
+foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a
+moment. John Bull, he declared, <em>à propos</em> of the suspicion of the
+French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant
+fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his
+playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen
+on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their
+failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list
+of the things an Englishman likes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
+more to his liking than:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> To talk largely about Art, and to have
+the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!</p>
+
+<p>To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
+needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
+cheap shirts and clothes are sold!</p>
+
+<p>To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
+not!</p>
+
+<p>To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
+operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
+foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!</p>
+
+<p>To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
+yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
+be seen in company with one!</p>
+
+<p>To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
+greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> that was only
+put on for three years!</p>
+
+<p>To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
+to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
+staring at her!</p>
+
+<p>To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
+Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!</p>
+
+<p>To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
+the discordant musicians that infest his streets!</p>
+
+<p>To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
+instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!</p>
+
+<p>To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
+benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!</p>
+
+<p>And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:</p>
+
+<p>To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
+laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
+national humiliation, paying or being paid&mdash;still he must grumble,
+and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
+supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
+great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
+impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
+nothing for him to grumble about!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the
+full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of
+boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and
+persons that should emigrate,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> he includes "all persons who give
+imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all
+young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear
+ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the
+risk of the <em>Quis tulerit Gracchos</em> retort when he bans "all punsters
+and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of
+education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and
+reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general
+support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a
+chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British
+Association.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil
+Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than
+44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him
+publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Desirable Emigrants</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_236.png">
+<img src="images/i_236.png" width="300" alt="Two men discussing a lady." /></a>
+<p class="center">OFFENDED DIGNITY</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Small Swell</span> (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness
+that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with&mdash;I
+prefer grown Women of the World!"</p>
+<p>(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when
+he went back to school.)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_237.png">
+<img src="images/i_237.png" width="400" alt="Two men talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">TWO WORDS TO A BARGAIN</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Japanese</span>: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall
+remain so."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">American</span>: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're
+wrong."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Exploiting the Dead</em></div>
+
+<p>Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties;
+the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous
+"medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid
+his first visit to England. From the very first <em>Punch's</em> attitude was
+hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to
+condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and
+expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution.
+Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+<em>Almanack</em> for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there
+are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not
+so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot
+see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a
+mesmerist in the <em>Morning Post</em> that he could get into communication
+with Sir John Franklin; this <em>Punch</em> promptly pilloried, as, too, a
+little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated
+by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 <em>Punch</em> solemnly vouches for the
+authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits
+by retail":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
+Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
+Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
+Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
+appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
+Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
+Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
+for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
+and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
+will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
+them.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but <em>Punch</em>
+was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries.
+He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of
+photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging.
+There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many
+years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic
+feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling.
+In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other
+even more menial trades, <em>Punch</em> was not indulging in exaggeration. The
+mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little
+man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio"
+was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was
+clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the
+'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising
+actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> had not begun to
+be thought of as a means of social <em>réclame</em>. Apart from politicians and
+public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The
+relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from
+those which prevail to-day. <em>Punch</em> was a great champion of the
+legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful,
+though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had
+written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the
+Court<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter
+comment. But <em>Punch</em> shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official
+recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he
+expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the
+upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of
+mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip
+about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque
+account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions
+when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel
+between Charles Mathews and the <em>Morning Chronicle</em>, <em>Punch</em> stood for
+the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based
+on crime, and the cult of monstrosity <em>Punch</em> waged unceasing war, but
+he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were
+sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family
+visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So
+again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a
+performance of <em>La Dame aux Camélias</em> at Exeter Hall in 1857, but
+prohibited an English translation of the words.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Respect for Decorum</em></div>
+
+<p>Many of the broader aspects of early Victorian social life remain with
+us to-day, though modified or amended. "The broad vein of plush that
+traverses the whole framework of English society," as <em>Punch</em>
+flamboyantly gibed, if not wholly obliterated is at least less
+conspicuous. Jeames and Jenkins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> are dead. If we cannot say the same of
+bullying at schools, "ragging" in the Army, the unnecessary expense of
+uniforms and the costly pageantry of funerals&mdash;all of which were
+strenuously condemned by <em>Punch</em>&mdash;it may at least be contended that
+public opinion is more vigilant in arraigning and bringing to light
+offences against humanity, good taste and common sense. Modern critics
+have not been wanting who charge <em>Punch</em> with prudery and squeamishness,
+but this is not the place to discuss whether the popularity of the paper
+would have been enhanced, or its influence and power fortified by
+following the example of <em>La Vie Parisienne</em> or of <em>Jugend</em>. Certainly
+during the period under review reticence and respectability were
+combined on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> occasion with a remarkable freedom of comment, and the
+tragedy of "The Great Social Evil" was frankly admitted in Leech's
+famous picture. Though an isolated reference it was worth a hundred
+sermons. If <em>Punch</em> preferred to be the champion of domesticity and
+decorum in public and private life, he was reflecting an essential
+feature of the age&mdash;a feature which no longer exists. It was an age of
+patriarchal rule and large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> families. Nothing strikes one more in
+turning over the pages of old numbers of <em>Punch</em> than the swarms of
+young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech.
+The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress
+the reader. The type represented is mainly drawn from well-to-do
+middle-class households, but all classes were prolific. If one needs
+proof, there is the evidence of Debrett and of the tombstones in our
+country churchyards.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Quiverfull</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_240.png">
+<img src="images/i_240.png" width="500" alt="After dinner conservation" /></a>
+<p class="center">Scene: A Public-house, Bury St. Edmunds, after the Dinner
+given by the Mayor of Bury to the Lord Mayor of London.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Country Footman</span>: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of our town? A nice
+place, ain't it?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">London Footman</span> (condescendingly): "Vell, Joseph, I likes your town well
+enough. It's clean; your streets are hairy; and you've lots of rewins.
+But I don't like your champagne; its all Gewsberry."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_241.png">
+<img src="images/i_241.png" width="300" alt="Two women talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL</p>
+<p>Time: Midnight. A sketch not a hundred miles from the Haymarket.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Bella</span>: "Ah! Fanny! How long have you been <em>Gay</em>?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_242.png">
+<img src="images/i_242.png" width="600" alt="Hunting scene." /></a>
+<p class="center">A FRESHENER ON THE DOWNS]</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a>
+<em>Vide</em> Grantley Berkeley's <em>Recollections</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A correspondent wrote to <em>The Times</em> in 1846 complaining
+that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and
+suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican
+and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer,
+music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the
+Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular
+in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's
+Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <em>Who's Who</em> first appeared in 1849. In those days it was
+little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not
+until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which
+have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent
+for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The income tax. <em>Punch</em> knew better, and prophesied from
+the very outset that it would never come off.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen
+Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of
+Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d.
+each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic
+reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS" id="THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS"></a>THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS</h2>
+
+<p>As a mirror of public opinion on the status and importance of the
+learned and liberal professions <em>Punch</em>, when due allowance has been
+made for his limitations, his prejudices and even his passions, cannot
+be overlooked by the student of social history. A whole book has been
+written on his attitude towards the Church; in another section of this
+chronicle I have dealt at some length with his hostility to Pluralism,
+Sabbatarianism, Ritualism, and endeavoured to show how a generally
+tolerant and "hang theology" attitude was in the early 'fifties
+exchanged for one of fierce anti-Vaticanism. The "No Popery" drum was
+banged with great fury, and when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
+re-established in England in 1850, <em>Punch</em> supported the Ecclesiastical
+Titles Act which declared the assumption of titles connected with places
+in the realm illegal and imposed heavy penalties on the persons assuming
+them. This Act, passed in 1851, remained a dead letter until 1871, when
+it was repealed. As for the law and lawyers the record of <em>Punch</em> is
+more consistent and creditable, and, as we have seen, he was from the
+first an unflinching advocate of cheap justice and the removal of
+irregularities which pressed hardest on the poor, an unrelenting critic
+of barbarous and oppressive penalties. No one was too great or small to
+escape his legal pillory, or to secure recognition for reforming zeal or
+humane administration&mdash;from Lord Brougham and Lord St. Leonards down to
+unpaid magistrates. To what has been said elsewhere it may be added that
+the series of papers written by Gilbert à Beckett, under the heading of
+"The Comic Blackstone," are much better than their title, for they
+contain a good deal of shrewd satire and sound sense. <em>Punch</em> had good
+reason to be proud of his own legal representative, the humane and
+genial Gilbert à Beckett. He welcomed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> Talfourd's promotion to the Bench
+as an honour to letters, for Talfourd was not only the executor and
+first biographer of Lamb and the author of the highly successful, but
+now forgotten, tragedy of <em>Ion</em>, but his services to authors in
+connexion with copyright earned for him the dedication of <em>Pickwick</em>. On
+his death in 1854, <em>Punch's</em> elegy fittingly commemorated the character
+and career of one of whom, as an advocate, it was said that the wrong
+side seldom cared to hear him, and who, like Hood, in his last words,
+deplored the mutual estrangement of classes in English society.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bench and the Universities</em></div>
+
+<p>On the other hand, judges who jested on the Bench, indulged in judicial
+clap-trap, or encouraged the public to regard the Courts of Justice as
+substitutes for theatrical entertainments, are severely handled. <em>Judex
+jocosus odiosus</em>; but the type is, apparently, impervious to satire.
+Another anticipation of latter-day criticism is to be found in the
+remark made in 1856: "There was once a Parliament&mdash;(we do not live in
+such times now!)&mdash;in which there were few or no lawyers." Even more
+red-hot in its up-to-dateness is <em>Punch's</em> sarcastic dismissal of the
+cult of "efficiency" sixty-five years ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Mr. Punch's</em> reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
+business is not abject. The "practical men," who smile
+compassionately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who
+perpetually make the most frightful smashes and blunders. No
+attorney, for instance, can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a
+stock-jobber, the supposed incarnation of shrewdness, is the most
+credulous <em>gobemouche</em> in London.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With University authorities, professors, dons, and academics generally,
+we look in vain for any sign of sympathy, save that <em>Punch</em> condemned
+the rule which then prevented Fellows from marrying. For the rest, he
+looked on the older Universities as the homes of mediæval obscurantism,
+stubbornly opposed to reforms long overdue. Of the two, Oxford fared the
+worse at his hands on account of the Tractarian movement, Pusey, and
+Newman. This antagonism was based on political and religious
+divergences, not on any hostility to learning or the classical
+curriculum, of which <em>Punch</em> was a supporter, to the extent of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> printing
+<em>jeux d'esprit</em> in Latin and Greek in his pages. All along he was a
+jealous guardian of the "illustrious order of the goose-quill," a sturdy
+champion of its claims to adequate pay and official recognition, a
+vigilant critic of the "hom&oelig;opathic system of rewards" adopted by the
+Crown in the Civil List. References to this undying scandal are
+honourably frequent in the early volumes of <em>Punch</em>. It may suffice to
+quote the letter to Lord Palmerston in the summer of 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I will not, this hot weather, weary your lordship by specifying
+every case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of accounts.">
+<tr><td align="left">To Science, Literature, and Art</td><td align="right">£275</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To sundries</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">£1,200</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Deduct sundries</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">£275</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Due to Science, Literature, and Art</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">Total Civil List</td><td align="right">£1,200</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Equally creditable is the reiterated plea&mdash;from 1847 onward&mdash;for the
+establishment of International Copyright, to guard English authors from
+the piracy of American publishers, amongst whom Putnam is singled out as
+an honourable exception. It may be fairly claimed for <em>Punch</em> that he
+made very few mistakes in appraising the merits of the authors of his
+time or of the rising stars. He failed to render justice to Disraeli as
+a writer, and he curtly dismissed Walt Whitman's <em>Leaves of Grass</em> as "a
+mad book by an American rough." But literary values prove him
+substantially right in his distaste for the flamboyant exuberance of
+Bulwer Lytton, and absolutely sound in his castigation of the
+tripe-and-oniony flavour of Samuel Warren's books, one of which he held
+up to not undeserved obloquy under the ferocious misnomer of "The
+Diarrh&oelig;a of a Late Physician." He was a veritable <em>malleus stultorum</em>
+in dealing alike with the futilities of incompetent aristocrats and the
+homely puerilities of Martin Tupper and Poet Close. The famous campaign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+against the poet Bunn and his bad librettos goaded the victim into
+reprisals in which he gave as good as he got, but the fact remains that
+Bunn <em>was</em> a bad poet, though <em>Punch</em> quite overdid his persecution. The
+nobility of Wordsworth, though the least humorous of poets, was
+handsomely acknowledged; when the erection of a statue to Peel was
+mooted, <em>Punch</em> put in a claim for a similar honour to the sage of
+Rydal. And though indignant with Carlyle for his defence of slavery,
+<em>Punch</em> was still ready to acknowledge "the monarch in his masquerade."
+Lastly, he not only welcomed Tennyson as a master, but threw open his
+columns to him to retort on his detractors.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" and "The Times"</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_247.png">
+<img src="images/i_247.png" width="400" alt="Writer at his desk." /></a>
+<p class="center">JENKINS AT HOME</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Victorian and Georgian Journalism</em></div>
+
+<p>Dog does not eat dog, but the unwritten etiquette in accordance with
+which one newspaper does not directly attack another was much less
+strictly observed sixty or seventy years ago. Delane, the editor of <em>The
+Times</em>, exercised a greater political influence than any other
+journalist before or since, and for a good many years <em>Punch</em> acted as a
+sort of free-lance ally of the great daily,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> drawing liberally from
+its columns in the way of extracts and illustrations, and, according to
+his habitual practice, underlining its policy while pretending to be
+shocked at it. Several of the men on <em>Punch</em> were contributors to <em>The
+Times</em>. Gilbert à Beckett's name stands first in the list of the
+principal contributors and members of the staff of <em>The Times</em> under
+Delane given in Mr. Dasent's biography. Yet I have searched the pages of
+the biography and the index in vain for a single reference to <em>Punch</em>.
+None the less the relations of the two papers were close and cordial,
+and "Billy" Russell, the <em>Times</em> war correspondent and unsparing critic
+of mismanagement in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> Crimea, had no more enthusiastic trumpeter than
+<em>Punch</em>. But the great gulf in prestige and power between <em>The Times</em>
+under Delane and the rest of the London Press is indirectly but
+unmistakably shown in <em>Punch's</em> habitual disrespect for most of his
+other contemporaries. In another context, I have quoted examples of his
+flagellation of the <em>Morning Post</em>&mdash;the only paper, by the way, which
+supported the <em>Coup d'État</em>; but two masterpieces of malice may be
+added. In 1843, <em>à propos</em> of "Jenkins's" incurably unctuous worship of
+rank, <em>Punch</em> observes: "If the reader be not weeping at this, it is not
+in the power of onions to move him." And again, a little later on in the
+same year, <em>Punch</em> compares the "beastliness" of Jenkins, "the life-long
+toad-eater," with the "beastly fellow" denounced in the <em>Morning Post</em>
+for swallowing twelve frogs for a wager! <em>Punch</em> was not content with
+identifying the <em>Morning Post</em> with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> the imaginary personality of
+Jenkins, the super-flunkey, but was also responsible for re-christening
+the <em>Morning Herald</em> and the <em>Standard</em>&mdash;Conservative morning and
+evening papers which, until 1857, belonged to the same proprietor&mdash;Mrs.
+Gamp and Mrs. Harris. The <em>Standard</em> retaliated by calling <em>Punch</em> the
+"most abject of all the toadies of <em>The Times</em>," and accusing it of
+libelling "the young gentlemen of Eton" and the Queen. By an unconscious
+compliment <em>Punch</em> was bracketed with the <em>Examiner</em>, the ablest and
+most independent of the weeklies, as <em>The Times</em> was of the dailies, for
+its disloyalty to the Crown. In the war of wits which ensued and was
+carried on for several years, all the honours rested with <em>Punch</em>. But
+these controversies belong rather to the domestic history of <em>Punch</em>;
+and <em>Punch's</em> friendly relations with the <em>Daily News</em>, of which Dickens
+was the first editor, must be somewhat discounted by the facts that
+Douglas Jerrold was an intimate friend of the novelist, who occasionally
+dined with the <em>Punch</em> staff; that Paxton, one of <em>Punch's</em> heroes,
+exerted all his great influence on behalf of the new daily; and finally,
+that Bradbury and Evans were, at the time, the publishers of Dickens, of
+<em>Punch</em>, and of the <em>Daily News</em>. The journalism of the 'forties and
+'fifties presents curious analogies with and divergences from the
+journalism of to-day. <em>Punch</em> is never weary of girding at the cult of
+monstrosity and sensationalism, the disproportionate amount of space
+devoted to crime and criminals and <em>causes célèbres</em>, the habit of
+burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to
+statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime.
+Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were
+anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more
+outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and <em>Punch</em> always
+stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an
+Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the <em>Scotsman</em> in the famous case
+brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, <em>Punch</em> compared them to Bomba, and
+congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the <em>Scotsman's</em> costs
+and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict
+which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at
+political<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or
+indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger
+of being brought before a jury." The <em>Scotsman</em> was then edited by
+Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots
+journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated
+the <em>Scotsman</em> as Delane dominated <em>The Times</em>. But it was, in the main,
+a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with
+alert curiosity to <em>The Times</em> in Delane's day was that nobody knew
+beforehand which side he would take on any new question." <a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> And much
+the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day.
+There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a
+great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men
+like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap
+that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions
+was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their
+names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a
+fortnight. It is to the credit of <em>Punch</em> that he recognized the value
+of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his
+part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but
+could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern
+sycophantic worshipper of success&mdash;no matter how achieved. The
+excellence of provincial journalism&mdash;not yet exposed to the competition
+of the cheap London press&mdash;is attested by <em>Punch's</em> frequent citations,
+but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to
+refresh our leisure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Quacks and Doctors</em></div>
+
+<p>But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of
+<em>Punch</em> than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn
+between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it;
+between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and
+Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and
+their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The
+maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons,
+civil,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and
+during the Crimean War. <em>Punch's</em> tribute to the services of Florence
+Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been
+noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp,
+and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though
+under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Great outcry has been raised of late, in the <em>Lancet</em> and other
+journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter
+themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a
+personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society
+to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of
+the Fools&mdash;a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too
+great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some
+people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they
+want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the
+practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper
+sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir
+James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We
+propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call
+himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself
+what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title
+of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of
+the blackest of all <em>Punch's</em> <em>bêtes noires</em>&mdash;in consequence of the
+postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not
+the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's
+Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of
+<em>Punch</em>. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of
+the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in
+the last seventy years goes far to justify <em>Punch's</em> scepticism. But his
+censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who
+exploited and traded on <em>malades imaginaires</em>, and more than once
+exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any
+definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in
+1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige
+doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> labels
+on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip
+medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended
+that <em>Punch</em>, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and
+gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to
+moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism,
+which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under
+the heading, "Greens for the Green."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_251.png">
+<img src="images/i_251.png" width="400" alt="Portly boy talking to shop assistant." /></a>
+<p class="center">SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Pastrycook</span>: "What have you had, Sir?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Boy</span>: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of
+those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes&mdash;and a
+bottle of ginger beer."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Medical Students</em></div>
+
+<p>By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are
+concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if
+corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which
+has been drawn in <em>Pickwick</em>, the pages of <em>Punch</em> supply it in
+distressing abundance. The counterparts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin
+Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of
+articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_252.png">
+<img src="images/i_252.png" width="400" alt="Man drinking beer." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MEDICAL STUDENT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may
+be thus enumerated:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">Guy's</td><td align="left">Half-and-half, anatomical <em>fracas</em>,and billiards.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">St. Thomas's</td><td align="center">Ditto</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">St. George's</td><td align="left">Doings at Tattersall's.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">London</td><td align="left">Too remote to be ascertained.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">University</td><td align="left">Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Bartholomew's</td><td align="left">State of Smithfield Markets.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Middlesex</td><td align="left">Convivial harmony.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Charing Cross</td><td align="left">Dancing at the Lowther-rooms.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">King's College</td><td align="left">Has not yet acquired any peculiarity.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Westminster</td><td align="left">Dashes of all the others combined.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the
+satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment,
+and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the
+medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on
+occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate
+episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded,
+we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the
+great majority regretted and reprobated.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> On the occasion of <em>Punch's</em> Jubilee, in 1891, <em>The Times</em>
+remarked: "May we be excused for noting the fact that he (<em>Punch</em>) has
+generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from <em>The Times</em>?"
+That was substantially true of <em>The Times</em> under the old <em>régime</em> when
+Delane was editor. Mr. Herbert Paul, himself a strong Liberal, writes in
+his <em>History of Modern England</em> that "Delane's chief quality was his
+independence." Mr. Dasent, in his biography, gives good grounds for his
+assertion that Delane was at no time what could be called a party man,
+though his instincts were essentially Liberal, and notes that "if
+charged with inconsistency, Delane would merely remind his critics that
+<em>The Times</em> was the organ of no party, and that every issue was complete
+in itself."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <em>Delane of "The Times,"</em> by Sir Edward Cook, p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES" id="WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES"></a>WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES</h2>
+
+<p>On the position and influence of women in society <em>Punch</em>, as we have
+already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary.
+Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with.
+There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing
+that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the
+fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is
+ridiculed, and <em>Punch</em> ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord
+Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in <em>The Times</em> against Mayfair
+matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing
+wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years
+earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously
+discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by <em>Punch</em> in a
+stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the
+"Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the
+winter of 1846:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w24"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I idolize the ladies. They are fairies</p>
+<p class="i0">That spiritualize this earth of ours;</p>
+<p class="i0">From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,</p>
+<p class="i0">Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.</p>
+<p class="i0">But learning in its barbarous seminaries,</p>
+<p class="i0">Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,</p>
+<p class="i0">And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers</p>
+<p class="i0">Science with all its horrid accessaries.</p>
+<p class="i0">Now, seriously, the only things, I think,</p>
+<p class="i0">In which young ladies should instructed be,</p>
+<p class="i0">Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Accomplishments that very soon will sink,</p>
+<p class="i0">Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation,</p>
+<p class="i0">Always form part of female education.</p>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_255.png">
+<img src="images/i_255.png" width="300" alt="Two ladies talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Flora</span>: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Emily</span>: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of
+town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe.
+Isn't it kind?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Victorian Damsels</em></div>
+
+<p>But even within the ranks of the social <em>élite</em> signs of a desire for
+equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the
+direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we
+read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is
+mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the
+mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty
+frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held
+responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards
+we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine
+ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured
+to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode
+of existence met with little commendation from <em>Punch</em>. He was a strong
+advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of
+"Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female
+only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency
+he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless
+"unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming
+Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait
+is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty
+or plain spoken&mdash;even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy
+brothers. But we know&mdash;even from the pages of <em>Punch</em>&mdash;that Victorian
+women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is
+to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able
+to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from
+sentimentality and intellectualism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Model Fast Lady</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in
+kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap
+over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If
+she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and
+if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time
+by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into
+Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is
+a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was
+a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and
+"chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other
+cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud
+conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously
+thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you;
+but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but
+"Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"</p>
+
+<p>The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She
+waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred
+and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed
+over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop,
+but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."</p>
+
+<p>By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score&mdash;rather a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+long one&mdash;of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned,
+however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts.
+She would sell her <em>Black Bess</em> sooner than levant.</p>
+
+<p>THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of
+the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment
+"namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has
+no idea of being made a fool of.</p>
+
+<p>At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll
+take Champagne with you&mdash;that is to say, if you're not too proud.
+You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated.
+Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of
+her parasol into your side.</p>
+
+<p>She dislikes smoking? Not <em>she</em> indeed; she's rather fond of it. In
+fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you,
+will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked,
+and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> faddle. She has
+a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can
+play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.</p>
+
+<p>Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to
+state she reads <em>Bell's Life</em>, and has a few volumes in her bedroom
+of the <em>Sporting Magazine</em>. She knows there was a horse of the name
+of <em>Byron</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her
+hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm
+afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to
+that of her own sex.</p>
+
+<p>Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is
+always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to
+change their dress.</p>
+
+<p>Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand
+and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not
+exchange places with the Queen herself.</p>
+
+<p>With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the
+FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of
+what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be
+included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and
+increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and,
+like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent
+daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she
+likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she
+is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor
+people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and
+unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having
+more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with.
+The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is
+the godmother to half the children in the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of
+feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but
+then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature
+may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but
+imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward
+gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the
+highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less
+effectively if they had only as good a heart&mdash;even with the
+trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped&mdash;as the
+MODEL FAST LADY.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_257.png">
+<img src="images/i_257.png" width="400" alt="Man and woman in railway carriage." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Fast Young Lady</span> (to Old Gent): "Have you such a
+thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at
+home."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have
+seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating <em>rôles</em> of which the leading
+traits were, in essentials, identical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> with those of the Model Fast
+Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the
+writers and artists of <em>Punch</em>, was feminine, kindly, but colourless,
+though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked&mdash;the
+lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the
+social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical
+high-priestesses of the marriage market.</p>
+
+<p>When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude
+assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. <em>Punch</em> refused to take it
+seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in
+which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music,
+drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form
+the regular <em>curriculum</em>. A minor examination on these subjects, or
+a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts
+can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in
+"Télémaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play
+a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin
+wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.</p>
+
+<p>For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in
+various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others;
+also in the <em>libretto</em> of the last new opera. She shall be able to
+play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and
+shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini,
+Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in
+a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a
+wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with
+correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman
+who may be selected for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an
+annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a
+familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the
+Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny,
+and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in
+preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.</p>
+
+<p>These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the
+Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has
+not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction
+shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple
+Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and
+finally those who barely get their degree.</p>
+
+<p>The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall
+be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphées;
+and lastly, as before, the merely passable.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/i_260.png">
+<img src="images/i_260.png" width="200" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Women and Politics</em></div>
+
+<p>This article is fairly typical of the attitude of <em>Punch</em> towards what
+we now call "Feminism"&mdash;a term so new that in the <em>New English
+Dictionary</em> it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning
+"the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901.
+Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political
+emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions.
+References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we
+find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss
+Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were
+admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then,
+carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an
+Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The
+possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never
+seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the
+"ladies of creation" in the <em>Almanack</em> for 1852 is modelled on Mrs.
+Jellyby&mdash;<em>Bleak House</em> had been coming out serially from March, 1852,
+onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from
+America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> of Boston,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> is mentioned in
+1848, and in the following year <em>Punch</em> welcomed the innovation in
+verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">AN M.D. IN A GOWN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Young ladies all, of every clime,</p>
+<p class="i2">Especially of Britain,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who wholly occupy your time</p>
+<p class="i2">In novels or in knitting,</p>
+<p class="i0">Whose highest skill is but to play,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sing, dance, or French to clack well,</p>
+<p class="i0">Reflect on the example, pray,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of excellent Miss Blackwell!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">For Doctrix Blackwell&mdash;that's the way</p>
+<p class="i2">To dub in rightful gender&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">In her profession, ever may</p>
+<p class="i2">Prosperity attend her!</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Punch</em>, a gold-handled parasol</p>
+<p class="i2">Suggests for presentation,</p>
+<p class="i0">To one so well deserving all</p>
+<p class="i2">Esteem and admiration.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bloomer Craze</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_262.png">
+<img src="images/i_262.png" width="600" alt="People deriding women wearing bloomers" /></a>
+<p class="center"> BLOOMERISM&mdash;AN AMERICAN CUSTOM</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza.
+But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852
+merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the
+hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been
+urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; <em>Punch</em> appreciated the
+gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her
+as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a
+strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the
+unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights.
+The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance
+reformer, but <em>Punch</em> was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+"trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime
+librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was
+actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress
+for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years
+later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief
+advocate. <em>Punch</em> is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He
+makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess
+Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new
+departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of
+women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a
+whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at
+the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at
+the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857.
+<em>Punch's</em> anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted
+not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a
+means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another
+piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as
+being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers
+from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while
+<em>Punch</em> was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm
+supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was&mdash;as we
+have shown in other sections of this survey&mdash;at least a persistent
+advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws&mdash;and unwearied in his
+exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses,
+sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on
+women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He
+was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of
+some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to
+indignation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE CRY OF THE WOMEN<br /></p>
+
+<p>Now, this petition or lamentation&mdash;in which <em>Mr. Punch</em> gives
+willing ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering&mdash;has been
+rebuked, pooh-poohed, pished and fiddle-de-dee'd; but in these
+scoffings <em>Mr. Punch</em> joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him,
+say, with certain editorial porcupines of the male gender, "Of what
+avail these lamentations of lamenting women, whose cries are
+foolishness? Wherefore should women at any time lift up their
+voices; when is it not manifest from the beginning that women were
+created to sing small? And finally, if women be beaten by savages,
+and robbed by sots, what of it? It is better that women should be
+beaten and crouch in the dust&mdash;it is better they should be robbed
+and sit at home, than go and petition Parliament."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" Champions Horatia</em></div>
+
+<p>He espoused the cause of humble heroines, of the neglected widows or
+orphans of heroes and benefactors like a true knight errant. Elsewhere
+we have told of his exertions on behalf of Mother Seacole, the brave old
+sutler in the Crimea, for whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> benefit he started a special fund. The
+scurvy treatment of the widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the pioneer of the
+Overland Route, who wore himself out in a work of national importance,
+moved him to righteous indignation. She was given a pension of £25,
+afterwards increased to £40.</p>
+
+<p>But none of these palpable wrongs to women stirred <em>Punch</em> so deeply in
+these years as the tardy and meagre discharge of the nation's debt to
+Nelson in respect of his daughter Horatia. To this particular bit of
+narrow-mindedness he recurs again and again in the years 1849 to 1855,
+when he sums up what had been done to liquidate the debt:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">NELSON'S DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN</p>
+
+<p>An advertisement in <em>The Times</em> tells the world that the eight
+children of Nelson's daughter Horatia&mdash;Nelson's grandchildren&mdash;are
+"more or less provided for." Perhaps a little less than more; but
+let that pass. At length a long, long standing debt has been paid,
+or rather compounded, at something less than nineteen shillings in
+the pound. The Government, as the Government, has done nothing. The
+stiff, whalebone virtue that set up the back of Queen Charlotte
+against Nelson's daughter&mdash;George the Third thought Nelson's
+funeral had too much state in it for a mere subject; such pomp "was
+for kings"&mdash;still kept the Government aloof from all help of
+Horatia and her children. At length, however, the press spoke out.
+The "ribald press" for a time laid aside its ribaldry, and
+condescended to champion the claims of Nelson's daughter upon
+Nelson's fellow-countrymen. Well, something has been done; and thus
+much in explanation we take from the advertisement in question:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The eight children of Horatia, Mrs. Ward, are all now, more or
+less, provided for. Her eldest son has been presented to the living
+of Radstock by the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave; the second son
+had been previously appointed by Sir W. Burnett Assistant-Surgeon
+in the Navy; to the third, Lord Chancellor Cranworth has given a
+clerkship in the Registry-Office; the fourth son received a Cadetcy
+from Captain Shepherd; His Royal Highness Prince Albert conferred a
+similar appointment on the youngest son; and Her Majesty has been
+graciously pleased to settle upon the three daughters a pension of
+£300 per annum. To this last result the exertions of the late Mr.
+Hume, M.P., mainly contributed. Messrs. Green,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> of Blackwall, and
+Messrs. Smith, of Newcastle, conveyed the two Cadets to India free
+of expense."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this may be added a "small cash balance" paid to Mrs. Ward, "after
+investing £400 in the funds." Altogether some £1,427 have been
+subscribed in the cause of Nelson's daughter. We state the sum, and will
+not pause to calculate whether the amount be the tenth of a farthing or
+even a whole farthing in the pound, for which England is Nelson's
+debtor. Let us anyway thank those who have helped Horatia's children.
+They have all done well, from the Dowager Countess to the Queen, ending
+with the prince ship-owners of Blackwall and Newcastle. Their ships will
+not have the worst fortune of wreck or storm for having borne,
+passage-free, the grandsons of Nelson to their Indian work. Let us, too,
+pause to thank the shade of Joseph Hume&mdash;the strong, sound, kind old
+heart! Joseph, who "mainly contributed," with those earnest, honest
+fingers of his to undraw the royal purse-strings, so that the three
+grand-daughters may now keep the wolf from the door, as their immortal
+grandfather kept the foe from the "silver-girt isle."</p>
+
+<p>We omit the bitter words in which <em>Punch</em> heaps scorn on Nelson's
+brother, "the first parson Lord Nelson," because the odious charges
+there made cannot be substantiated. This was not the only occasion on
+which <em>Punch's</em> zeal was disfigured by the vehemence of his
+partisanship. But we cannot blame him for his jubilation over the
+thrashing of General Haynau, the woman-flogger, by the draymen and
+labourers at Barclay's Brewery on the occasion of his visit to London in
+1850, or for the vigour with which he scarified the papers who found
+excuses and parallels for Haynau's ferocity in the military exigencies
+of the Peninsular War.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Slavery in America&mdash;and England</em></div>
+
+<p>Foremost amongst <em>Punch's</em> heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were
+Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of
+these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of
+notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of
+<em>Punch</em>. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett
+Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem,
+Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is
+shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling
+Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> adventuress, Lola
+Montez,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards
+in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous
+Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> author of <em>Uncle Tom's Cabin</em>, whose sojourn in
+England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social
+prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address,"
+initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The
+appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many
+thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the
+degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do
+not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern
+planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation
+at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, <em>Punch</em> did not fail
+to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In
+the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman
+who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a
+man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical
+disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had
+begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To
+what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and <em>Punch's</em> belief in
+it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Cynical View</em>:&mdash;Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to
+be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
+saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of
+females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and
+baggage, and start them away.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Alarmist View</em>:&mdash;If the surplus female population with which
+we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with
+women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse
+nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend
+with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to
+that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government.</p>
+
+<p><em>Our Own View</em>:&mdash;It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
+should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only
+not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and
+solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they
+would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches&mdash;if only they had
+the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country
+to find them wings.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Worm Turns</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not
+untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years&mdash;with rare
+exceptions&mdash;he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman
+could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently
+represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without
+apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this
+defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly
+pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in
+moments of generous expansion <em>Punch</em> was capable of crediting them with
+extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water
+mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be
+found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my
+Mind":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the
+civilized!&mdash;for, after all, the savages are really and truly more
+of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to
+it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and
+angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were
+weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized
+nations&mdash;as I fling it at Mouser&mdash;they all of 'em make women the
+sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the
+dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty,
+Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely
+as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> obliged to come
+to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You
+paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then&mdash;but it's so like
+you&mdash;then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take
+her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"&mdash;for I would be
+heard&mdash;"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again.
+There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of
+public-house sign for law, but&mdash;is a poor woman allowed to wear
+false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once
+open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine
+on herself&mdash;may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can
+paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor
+thing say a syllable."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_268.png">
+<img src="images/i_268.png" width="350" alt="Man and woman talking." /></a>
+<p>"Are you going?"</p>
+<p>"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so
+infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."</p>
+<p>"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and
+not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an <em>In Memoriam</em> notice
+in <em>The Times</em>, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at
+Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there
+described as "the first woman doctor."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert,
+daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite
+of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer,
+who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See the <em>Examiner</em> and <em>Punch</em>. The following
+advertisement in the <em>Examiner</em> will be read with interest:&mdash;"The
+arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all
+Stephen Glover's compositions connected with <em>Uncle Tom</em>: 'The Sea of
+Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and
+Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="FASHION_IN_DRESS" id="FASHION_IN_DRESS"></a>FASHION IN DRESS</h2>
+
+<p>It is a noteworthy sign of the times that between 1841 and 1857 the
+specific references to the dress of men in the text of <em>Punch</em> are much
+more numerous than those dealing with the vagaries of female attire. The
+balance inclines in the contrary direction in the pictures which, when
+tested by old daguerreotypes and the contents of family albums, form a
+substantially correct and illuminating commentary on the evolution of
+fashion in women's dress. So we begin with the ladies, with the double
+proviso that Leech and Doyle and their brother artists on <em>Punch</em> were
+not fashion-plate designers, and that the charms and extravagances of
+the modish world which they depicted were drawn mainly from the
+Metropolis. <em>Punch</em> was a Londoner, even a Cockney, and throws little
+light on the social life of the provinces.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Breadth of the Fashion</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_270.png">
+<img src="images/i_270.png" width="400" alt="Woman in crinoline dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">EASIER SAID THAN DONE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Master of the House</span>: "Oh, Fred, my boy&mdash;when dinner is ready, you take
+Mrs. Furbelow downstairs!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_271a.png">
+<img src="images/i_271a.png" width="600" alt="Men pushed aside by women with baby carriages" /></a>
+<p class="center">GRAND CHARGE OF PERAMBULATORS&mdash;AND DEFEAT OF SWELLS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_271b.png">
+<img src="images/i_271b.png" width="600" alt="Man reaching to a woman  who is wearing a crinoline dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Aids to Beauty</em></div>
+
+<p>To speak roughly, fashion in women's dress is subject to two great
+alternating influences&mdash;in the direction of elongation or of lateral
+extension. In the 'forties and 'fifties the tendency was steadily in the
+second direction and away from the slim elegance which has been the aim
+of the modistes of recent years. Long, "mud-bedraggled" dresses are, it
+is true, condemned in 1844, but width rather than length was the
+prevailing feature. It was the age of flounces, and this expansive
+tendency culminated, in the mid-'fifties, in the reign of the crinoline,
+against which <em>Punch</em> waged for many years a truceless but, as he
+himself admitted, a wholly ineffectual warfare. The first indication of
+the coming portent is to be found in the <em>annus mirabilis</em> of 1848, when
+an "air-tube dress extender" is shown in a picture. This, however, was a
+single hoop and comparatively modest in its circumference. The
+crinoline, in its full amplitude, did not invade London until 1856.
+Thenceforward, hardly a number is free from satire and caricature of
+this exuberant monstrosity, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> the inconvenience caused in theatres,
+drawing-rooms, in the parks and public vehicles, and in the streets.
+What with the bath-chairs of invalids, the ladies' dresses, and the
+children's perambulators, we read in 1856, that "it amounts almost to an
+impossibility nowadays to walk on the pavements." People were now
+dressed "not in the height, but the full breadth of the fashion." The
+structure of the machine, with its whalebone ribs and inflated tubes,
+was revealed in all its mammoth dimensions. It was denounced alike as an
+absurdity and as a danger, but satire and warnings were equally
+powerless to abate the nuisance. But the crinoline was only the most
+conspicuous and culminating example of a tendency to superfluous
+clothing and a semi-Oriental muffling-up of the female form, against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+which <em>Punch</em> has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A
+sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against
+the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on
+the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was
+far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the
+projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The
+resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather
+than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find <em>Punch</em> in 1855
+describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A
+huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly"
+of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round
+hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often
+dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But
+extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats&mdash;big enough to
+be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger
+brothers&mdash;small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols
+were in vogue in 1853. A certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> masculinity of attire was affected by
+young ladies of sporting tastes&mdash;in the way of waistcoats and ties for
+example&mdash;but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against
+anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the
+earliest instances in <em>Punch</em> of the use of the word "æsthetic" in
+connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a
+strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary,
+economical, æsthetic."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these
+aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the
+fashionable world.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_272.png">
+<img src="images/i_272.png" width="600" alt="Men, carrying a selection of bonnets, following women." /></a>
+<p class="center">WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 100px;">
+<a href="images/i_273a.png">
+<img src="images/i_273a.png" width="100" alt="Female head." /></a>
+<p class="center">PLAIN</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;">
+<a href="images/i_273b.png">
+<img src="images/i_273b.png" width="150" alt="Female head with ringlets." /></a>
+<p class="center">RINGLETS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of
+ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian
+<em>coiffure</em>, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full
+dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find
+it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech
+illustrated Surtees's novel <em>Plain or Ringlets?</em> in 1860. Of the "plain"
+variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in <em>Punch</em>,
+notably the head given above, with which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> we couple the ringleted belle
+illustrated at the foot of the same page.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_274.png">
+<img src="images/i_274.png" width="400" alt="Wife talking to husband." /></a>
+<p class="center">ÆSTHETIC PIONEERS</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Turtledove</span>: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have
+for dinner?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Turtledove</span>: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday&mdash;suppose
+we have a roast butterfly to-day."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Coiffures in the Fifties</div>
+
+<p>In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to
+wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed <em>à
+l'impératrice</em> in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and <em>Punch</em>
+satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a <em>coiffure</em> unsuited
+to people of certain ages, features, and positions&mdash;a wide scope for his
+wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the
+time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if
+they had, they escaped <em>Punch's</em> vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on
+whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist
+of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing,
+walking or doing nothing, the young women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> he drew were almost
+invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of
+sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the
+awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the
+rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture
+below.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_276.png">
+<img src="images/i_276.png" width="500" alt="Woman persuading child to bathe." /></a>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Bathing Woman</span>: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!&mdash;He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_275.png">
+<img src="images/i_275.png" width="600" alt="Female bathers'." /></a>
+<p class="center">MERMAIDS AT PLAY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Fashions for Men</em></div>
+
+<p>Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's dress as we know
+it was already established, though in regard to colour, details, and
+decoration the influence of the Regency period still made itself felt.
+Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see Parkes's
+<em>Hygiene</em>) at the time of the Peninsular War, but pantaloons&mdash;the
+tight-fitting nether garments which superseded knee-breeches late in the
+eighteenth century, and were secured at the ankles with ribbons and
+straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You will see no trousers, as
+we know them to-day, in the illustrations to <em>Pickwick</em>, and in the
+early 'forties pantaloons appear in <em>Punch's</em> illustrations of
+fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the "claw-hammer" dress-coat does
+not differ from that of to-day, but it was often of blue cloth with
+brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and waistcoats of gold-sprigged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling that worn by nigger minstrels.
+"Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive till the late 'forties&mdash;they are
+mentioned in Thackeray's <em>Book of Snobs</em>, and gentlemen always carried
+their tall hats in their hands at evening parties, and habitually wore
+them at clubs. For morning wear blue frock-coats, with white drill
+trousers and straps, were fashionable in 1844. Stocks and cravats and
+neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties. The <em>dégagé</em> loose neck-cloth
+of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by <em>Punch</em>, who traces its origin
+to the neck-wear&mdash;as modern hosiers say&mdash;of the British dustman. Amongst
+overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like garment, called after the famous
+dancer, is most frequently mentioned; the Petersham, a heavy overcoat
+named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of the Waterloo period, still held
+its own. The Crimea brought Alma overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and
+Crimea cloaks, and about the same time <em>Punch</em> caricatures a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> long
+garment reaching nearly to the heels, which gave the wearer the
+appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark. There is a mention of the
+"Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One Stultz was the
+fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however (according to
+<em>Punch</em>), was Prince Albert, whose continual and unfortunate experiments
+with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere. <em>Punch</em> speaks of his
+obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from calling him "the mad
+hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet emerged from the
+brain of Lewis Carroll. But <em>Punch</em> himself was much preoccupied with
+hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall beaver hat which
+tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid "chimney-pot" or
+cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European head-dresses, with its
+flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by 1850. <em>Punch</em> warred
+against it almost as vigorously and as ineffectually as against the
+crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to the length of suggesting the
+form and materials suitable for an ideal hat:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Ideal Hat</em></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer
+confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into
+breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a
+waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and
+well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics
+that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert
+fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible <em>sombrero</em> of grey, or
+brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a
+dress at once becoming and congruous.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_277.png">
+<img src="images/i_277.png" width="600" alt="Child remarking on mens' dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">WHY, INDEED!</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Perceptive Child</span>: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves
+like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_278.png">
+<img src="images/i_278.png" width="500" alt="Group of smartly dressed men." /></a>
+<p class="center">A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to
+enable <em>Punch</em> to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the
+"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars
+are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but
+the "all round collar" of which <em>Punch</em> has a picture in 1854
+approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when
+a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> uncommon; but the
+caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of <em>Punch's</em> favourite butts, shows
+that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the
+emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the
+grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of
+little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe
+<em>Mr. Punch</em>, caricature was unnecessary.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 50px;">
+<a href="images/i_279.png">
+<img src="images/i_279.png" width="50" alt="Caricature in the form  of a spoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">"SIBBY"&mdash;<br />1843</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,
+short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord
+Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all
+wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit
+immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his
+whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and
+occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"
+<em>Punch</em>, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on
+the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the
+Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to
+which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls
+the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired
+by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.
+The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854
+and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and
+ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_280.png">
+<img src="images/i_280.png" width="400" alt="Man addressing a strangely dressed student." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Proctor</span> (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so
+good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a
+Scotch terrier?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Uncomfortable Uniforms</em></div>
+
+<p>The vagaries of military uniforms&mdash;apart from the intrusions of Prince
+Albert&mdash;call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy
+shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from
+stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is
+guyed in 1851. In 1854 <em>Punch</em> throws himself with great energy into the
+movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more
+rational and comfortable clothing&mdash;witness the verses, "Valour under
+difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;
+the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private
+Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his
+stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged
+tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued
+by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and
+shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by
+soldiers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.
+But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by
+contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but
+to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some
+measure in the Great War?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_281.png">
+<img src="images/i_281.png" width="400" alt="Man in wide shouldered cape." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Rude Boy</span>: "O, look 'ere, Jim!&mdash;If 'ere ain't a Lobster
+bin and out-growed his cloak!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> "Æsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at <em>New
+Curiosities of Literature</em>, and in 1853 we read of an "æsthetic tea," at
+which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass,
+brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism
+and theology."</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS" id="THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS"></a>THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS</h2>
+
+<p>One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical
+survey of the drama in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. Most of his staff had
+dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,
+and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped
+a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen
+out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its
+influence on <em>Punch's</em> persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when
+all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous
+tone which they occasionally inspired, <em>Punch</em> may fairly claim to have
+rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was
+sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and
+loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great
+difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances
+of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on
+"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native
+or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic
+<em>clichés</em>, and solecisms in pronunciation.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> He was also a reformer in
+his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the
+play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as
+we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'
+vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and
+pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and
+British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first
+ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> years of <em>Punch</em> with little intermission and was largely
+justified. <em>Punch</em> was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing
+to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in
+1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and
+freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The
+balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance&mdash;the
+dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays
+as set forth in the following extract&mdash;has been largely remedied, though
+the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is
+by some critics considered worse than the disease:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Galignani's Messenger</em> says of the French theatre:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,
+191 new pieces."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> says of the English theatre:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London
+about <em>ten</em> new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,
+devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen
+from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of
+the Newgate drama&mdash;<em>Jack Sheppard</em> and <em>Madame Lafarge</em>.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Of the
+latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and
+filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with <em>The
+Beggar's Opera</em>, which is defended as being "real satire and not
+wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy <em>Martinuzzi</em> comes in for
+frequent ridicule, though the chief <em>rôles</em> were taken by Phelps and
+Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what
+grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his
+dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's
+"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met
+with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> <em>Punch's</em> support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the
+bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor
+theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they
+were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his
+signature of "Q" then develops the argument:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are
+only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,
+the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere
+they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.
+There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.
+The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and
+laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their <em>Jack
+Sheppards</em>, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced
+frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of
+knowing that their <em>Jack Sheppard</em> has been licensed by a Deputy,
+for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of
+Tyburn are exhibited with a <em>cum privilegio</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this
+wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We <em>hope</em>
+it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm
+of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the
+playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate
+what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should
+have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves
+the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of
+the English stage.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Lord Mahon's Petition</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in
+the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the
+patent theatres&mdash;which for more than a hundred years had confined the
+legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket&mdash;and
+thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.</p>
+
+<p>Déjazet's London <em>début</em> in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a
+later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as
+broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth
+in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only
+way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the
+dialogue and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> give the <em>rôle</em> of heroine to a <em>première danseuse</em>. As a
+matter of fact Taglioni appeared in <em>Electra</em> in 1845.</p>
+
+<p>In 1844 <em>Punch</em> took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French
+dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized
+at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of
+a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write
+tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"&mdash;a
+boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.
+A Greek play, the <em>Antigone</em>, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an
+early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the
+'seventies. <em>Punch's</em> spirits, however, had already revived somewhat
+when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden
+found the snuggest asylum near the New River"&mdash;at Sadler's Wells under
+the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,
+and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from
+England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the
+person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,
+according to <em>Punch</em>, confined to "elegant extracts."</p>
+
+<p>A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical
+programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the
+passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a
+description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic
+affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price
+came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially
+Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by
+four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets
+were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise
+has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not
+always popular, and when <em>Monte Cristo</em> was produced at Drury Lane in
+1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile
+demonstration.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Passing of Pantomimes</em></div>
+
+<p>Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are
+charged with extortion in demanding £60 a week, but it must be
+remembered that £60 was exactly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out
+of his most popular and successful play&mdash;<em>Black Eyed Susan</em>. Those
+simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be
+comforted to learn that as early as 1843 <em>Punch</em> deplores the triumph of
+scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he
+returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to
+be":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Pantomime's quite on the wane,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though vainly they try to enrich it,</p>
+<p class="i0">By calling, again and again,</p>
+<p class="i2">For "<em>Hot Codlins</em>" and "<em>Tippetywitchet</em>."</p>
+<p class="i0">The stealing of poultry by clown</p>
+<p class="i2">Has ceased irresistible sport to be,</p>
+<p class="i0">If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;</p>
+<p class="i2">Christmas is not what it ought to be.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long
+time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,
+have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The
+present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for
+harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque
+lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which
+it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in
+1852 led <em>Punch</em> to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the
+ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism
+or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved
+satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed
+to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was
+suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give
+entertainments. We may note that in 1853 <em>Punch</em> suggested that
+theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.
+is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted
+Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are
+constantly mentioned and in the main with good will.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> The feud with
+Charles Kean was kept up to the end; <em>Punch</em> speaks of his "touchiness,"
+and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was
+made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials
+stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,
+that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the
+father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful
+opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings
+from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his
+death in 1854, <em>Punch</em> paid him this graceful tribute:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He linked us with a past of scenic art,</p>
+<p class="i2">Larger and loftier than now is known;</p>
+<p class="i2">Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,</p>
+<p class="i0">Than when he played his part.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">But where shall we now find, upon our scene,</p>
+<p class="i2">The Gentleman in action, look and word,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,</p>
+<p class="i0">As polished and as keen?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:</p>
+<p class="i2">Look your last look: cover the brave old face:</p>
+<p class="i2">Kindly and gently bear him to his place&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Charles Kemble, fare thee well!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/i_288.png">
+<img src="images/i_288.png" width="300" alt="Caricature  of Italian tenor." /></a>
+<p class="center">LABLACHE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Reign of Italian Opera</em></div>
+
+<p>A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the
+absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,
+applauded, and criticized in the columns of <em>Punch</em>. We say Italian
+opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers
+and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,
+it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe
+in his <em>Reminiscences</em> mentions the visit of a German operatic company
+in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-<em>rôle</em> in Mendelssohn's
+<em>Elijah</em> when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by
+<em>Punch</em> as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's <em>Der Freischütz</em>
+was given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater
+lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable
+patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric
+Malibran&mdash;Spanish by race but Italian in training&mdash;died suddenly and
+tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage
+shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is
+mentioned in <em>Punch's</em> first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by
+that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple
+endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared
+by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these
+two decades were either Italians by birth&mdash;e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom
+<em>Punch</em> likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and
+Piccolomini&mdash;or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their
+association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez
+the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of
+Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty
+of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic
+basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,
+Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom <em>Punch</em> in 1852
+irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.
+<em>Punch</em> cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of
+<em>Nabucco</em> and the hectic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> sentimentality of <em>Traviata</em> and <em>Trovatore</em>
+possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with
+<em>Aïda</em> and culminated in <em>Otello</em> and <em>Falstaff</em>. Michael Costa was the
+conductor <em>par excellence</em>, who took outrageous liberties with scores,
+but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our
+debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed&mdash;though not by <em>Punch</em>&mdash;in the
+Latin tag: <em>Costam subduximus Apennino</em>. Balfe, it is true, had scored a
+resounding success in 1843 with <em>The Bohemian Girl</em>, which still holds
+the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The
+Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was
+at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. <em>Punch</em>
+supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that
+Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have
+made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane
+in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.
+The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted
+was the badness of the <em>libretti</em>. Italian opera <em>libretti</em> were often
+satirized by <em>Punch</em>, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the
+social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.
+The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for
+many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article
+which <em>Punch</em> reproduced from the <em>Morning Post</em> in 1843 with italics
+and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, <em>de
+facto</em>, as well as <em>de jure</em>, are, in their several different
+spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear
+an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the
+distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence
+<em>literary and artistical</em> (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and
+fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair
+tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits
+which do not consist in the delivery of a <em>piece of engraved
+postcard to a servant</em>. Charming <em>causeries</em> are constantly
+proceeding <em>sotto voce</em> (of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Jenkins listens), the music
+filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is
+interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers&mdash;with the more
+zest and piquancy <em>it is resumed</em>. We, whose office it is to record
+daily events&mdash;things as they are&mdash;and hold the <em>glass up to
+fashion</em> (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to
+imitate this course of things&mdash;and we do so with only one
+regret&mdash;that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the
+general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which
+have most piquancy."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Jenkins" as Musical Critic</em></div>
+
+<p>For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and
+unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,
+as may be gleaned from his notice of <em>Semiramide</em> in English in the
+winter of 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of
+<em>Semiramide</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct
+attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way
+of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her
+sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and
+whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates
+the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the
+contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss
+Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!
+Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as
+Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of
+Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half
+are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and
+refined order."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also
+expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled
+under the heading "Persiani at Sea":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani&mdash;to cry
+<em>brava</em>&mdash;to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to
+receive the honeyed voice of a <em>prima donna</em>, and Doctor Wardrop
+throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth
+of our metaphor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Persiani continues to <em>suffer so severely from the effects<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching</em>, that it is
+impossible for her to appear this evening.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+"<span class="smcap">James Wardrop</span>, M.D."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>On this, says <em>The Times</em>, "the audience were at first disposed to
+grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming
+very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and
+had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,
+have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,
+in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_291.png">
+<img src="images/i_291.png" width="500" alt="Ballet chorus." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE SKATING BALLET</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the
+opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose
+engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to
+general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding
+attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this
+"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a
+slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were
+Taglioni&mdash;whose skirts were quite long&mdash;Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and
+Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the <em>prima donna</em>, a wonderful quartet on
+whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory
+epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in <em>Le
+Prophète</em>, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch
+in <em>Punch</em>, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance
+of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished
+and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all
+nineteenth century <em>prime donne</em>. Henriette Sontag, however, was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still
+handsome, though no longer in her first youth,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> a perfect singer, an
+incomparable <em>Susanna</em> (as <em>Punch</em> admitted), though lacking dramatic
+force&mdash;Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her
+<em>genre</em>, but that her <em>genre</em> was not the first.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Jenny Lind</div>
+
+<p>Great singers came and went but <em>Punch</em> never wavered in his allegiance
+to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is
+more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,
+and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,</p>
+<p class="i0">Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,</p>
+<p class="i0">For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,</p>
+<p class="i0">The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind&mdash;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,</p>
+<p class="i0">In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,</p>
+<p class="i0">Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;</p>
+<p class="i0">And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,</p>
+<p class="i0">Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When her retirement was rumoured <em>Punch</em> declared that the Bishop of
+Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,
+because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris
+prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed
+there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was
+of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist
+Lumley, the unlucky <em>impresario</em>, then in difficulties, in response to
+appeals which were especially vehement in <em>Punch</em>. He asserted that her
+secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without
+making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary
+address from the composer of <em>Don Giovanni</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_293.png">
+<img src="images/i_293.png" width="400" alt="The singer with admiring fans'" /></a>
+<p class="center">TO JENNY LIND<br />
+FROM PUNCH<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,
+but Jenny Lind, in spite of <em>Punch's</em> repeated appeals, adhered to her
+decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 <em>Punch</em> still hoped she
+would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall
+in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if
+any sweetening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> process could purify the building it would be such
+singing as hers."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Popular Favourites in 1844</em></div>
+
+<p>In the early 'forties <em>Norma</em> was the opera most frequently mentioned.
+<em>Punch</em> published the stories of several of the most popular operas in
+verse. A fragment from <em>Linda di Chamouni</em> may suffice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar</p>
+<p class="i0">About the revenge of his cruel mamma,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,</p>
+<p class="i0">Resolves to another to get him united:</p>
+<p class="i0">He curses his fate in a charming <em>falsetto</em>,</p>
+<p class="i0">Gives way to despair in a <em>voce di petto</em>.</p>
+<p class="i0">And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,</p>
+<p class="i0">He calls out for death in a <em>voce di testa</em>:</p>
+<p class="i0">Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,</p>
+<p class="i0">And gives on <em>addio</em> a delicate shake.</p>
+<p class="i0">The passage is managed with exquisite skill;</p>
+<p class="i0">And Linda&mdash;acquainted with Mario's trill&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,</p>
+<p class="i0">Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Opera singers were great public favourites, but if <em>Punch</em> is to be
+believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of
+the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by
+Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway
+Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities
+of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the
+Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find
+Lablache&mdash;Stentor and male Siren in one&mdash;put first as a bird unrivalled
+for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can
+sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."
+<em>Punch</em> alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in
+undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to
+mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom
+Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into
+Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> the visitor explained
+"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am
+at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and
+elsewhere <em>Punch</em> happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:
+<em>ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat</em>. The notices of Grisi and
+Mario are worth transcribing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">"THE GRISI"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say
+the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for
+its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from
+what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be
+those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy
+its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or
+not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;
+for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even
+the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a
+kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but
+we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The
+kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is
+to be obtained at M. Verrey's.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">"THE MARIO"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient
+substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of
+quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter
+bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has
+acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"
+which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to
+such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him
+deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in
+the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our
+knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian
+singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty
+pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be
+required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.
+Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay
+so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as
+much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to
+music and sung at the Italian opera.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Musical Grab</em></div>
+
+<p>The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an
+earlier volume:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by
+Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the <em>Gazette Musicale</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and
+German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose
+of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over
+everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen
+on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they
+all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in
+England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much
+<em>ennui</em>."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious
+mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will
+mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian
+<em>ennuyés</em>&mdash;and dispense for the future with their services.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a
+musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;
+Hungarian, French and other foreign <em>prime donne</em>; Strauss's band and
+Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a
+curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name
+Wagner to <em>Punch's</em> readers and indeed to the British public. It was not
+the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of
+considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously
+accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to
+protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say
+that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and <em>Punch</em> in
+his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to
+express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their
+contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as <em>Punch</em>
+called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing
+at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of
+the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left <em>Punch</em> not merely cold but
+pugnaciously antagonistic.</p>
+
+<p>The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared
+musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice
+headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in
+conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the
+music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as
+a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing
+gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "<em>allegro</em>"
+to "<em>moderato</em>"; "<em>andante</em>" to "<em>adagio</em>"; "<em>allegretto</em>" to
+"<em>andante</em>"; and "<em>allegro</em>" again to "<em>prestissimo</em>." Wagner would
+seem strongly to resemble his namesake in <em>Faust</em>, in the
+particular wherein that <em>Wagner</em> differs from his master&mdash;that is,
+in the circumstance of being no conjuror.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery
+Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is
+duly chronicled in <em>Punch</em>. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,
+a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great
+popularity in the <em>rôle</em> of the consumptive heroine of <em>La Traviata</em>,
+and <em>Punch</em> celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in
+the following travesty:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Art is long and time is fleeting,</p>
+<p class="i2">But of genius the soul,</p>
+<p class="i0">Ordinary talent beating,</p>
+<p class="i2">Reaches at one stride the goal.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">In the operatic battle,</p>
+<p class="i2">In the <em>Prima Donna's</em> life</p>
+<p class="i0">Quit the herd&mdash;the vocal cattle,</p>
+<p class="i2">Be a Grisi in the strife.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,</p>
+<p class="i2">Not who may be, but who are;</p>
+<p class="i0">Piccolomini at present,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is the bright particular star.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_298.png">
+<img src="images/i_298.png" width="250" alt="caricature of Jullien." /></a>
+<p class="center">JULLIEN'S DESPAIR</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jullien</em></div>
+
+<p>Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this
+volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as <em>Punch</em> is
+concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of
+<em>Punch</em>. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and
+generous recognition. And <em>Punch</em> was right, for underneath all his
+superficial buffooneries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The
+present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir
+Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's
+flamboyant attire&mdash;on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered
+with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree&mdash;and his
+habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging
+himself with a <em>beau geste</em> of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered
+armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said
+to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great
+genius like <em>you</em>, or a great charlatan like <em>me</em>." Now Jullien had been
+a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire&mdash;but so had Verdi at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he
+was "a <em>ci-devant</em> waiter of a <em>quarante-sous traiteur</em>." Of the
+charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote
+Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," <em>Punch</em> gives a
+graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first
+number:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">MONSIEUR JULLIEN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">"One!"&mdash;crash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Two!"&mdash;clash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Three!"&mdash;dash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Four!"&mdash;smash!</p>
+<p class="i8">Diminuendo,</p>
+<p class="i8">Now crescendo:&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Thus play the furious band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Led by the kid-gloved hand</p>
+<p class="i0">Of Jullien&mdash;that Napoleon of quadrille,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;</p>
+<p class="i8">Perspiring raver</p>
+<p class="i8">Over a semi-quaver;</p>
+<p class="i0">Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that</p>
+<p class="i0">The natural key of Johnny Bull's&mdash;A flat.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Arch-impudent <em>improver</em> of Beethoven&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Tricksy Professor of <em>charlatanerie</em>&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Inventor of musical artillery&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Barbarous rain and thunder maker&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Unconscionable money taker&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Travelling about both near and far,</p>
+<p class="i0">Toll to exact at every <em>bar</em>,</p>
+<p class="i2">What brings thee here again</p>
+<p class="i2">To desecrate old Drury's fane?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">Egregious attitudiniser!</p>
+<p class="i2">Antic fifer! com'st to advise her</p>
+<p class="i0">'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?</p>
+<p class="i2">To raze her benches,</p>
+<p class="i2">That Gallic wenches</p>
+<p class="i0">Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_300.png">
+<img src="images/i_300.png" width="500" alt="Men in tall hats obstructing the view  for other patrons." /></a>
+<p class="center">"GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Early Promenade Concerts</em></div>
+
+<p>But when <em>Punch</em> assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and
+meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily
+serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> your hat on,
+<em>coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va</em>!!!"&mdash;<em>Punch</em> was both rude and ungenerous.
+From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade
+Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public
+waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also
+sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his
+musical <em>menu</em>. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing
+out <em>Stabat Mater</em> waltzes&mdash;by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's
+work&mdash;and a <em>Dead March</em> gallopade, we must never forget that he was the
+first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the
+authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at
+the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music
+strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of
+reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and <em>Punch</em>
+suggests in 1849 that his <em>Concerts Monstres</em> should be held on
+Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His
+<em>chevelure</em>, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to
+escape <em>Punch's</em> vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it
+should be so, for he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> master of the art of <em>réclame</em>. He is
+habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for
+"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The
+excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of
+the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of
+the notice of Jullien<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when
+he speaks of <em>Punch</em> as only ridiculing Jullien. Already <em>Punch</em> had
+learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his
+extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to
+his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"
+are in the main friendly. The <em>Almanack</em> for 1852 speaks of the "Julian
+(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera <em>Peter the Great</em> is tenderly
+handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his
+tour in the States, <em>Punch</em> sped the parting minstrel in some verses
+which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical
+education in England:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">FAREWELL TO JULLIEN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Composer of <em>Peter the Great</em>,</p>
+<p class="i2">Ere over Atlantic's broad swell</p>
+<p class="i0">The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,</p>
+<p class="i2">Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs</p>
+<p class="i2">At first thou didst wisely begin,</p>
+<p class="i0">And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,</p>
+<p class="i2">As though 'twere to beat music in.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With national measures of France,</p>
+<p class="i2">With polka, with waltz, and with jig,</p>
+<p class="i0">The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,</p>
+<p class="i2">As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then, leading them on, by degrees,</p>
+<p class="i2">To a feeling for Genius and Art,</p>
+<p class="i0">Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,</p>
+<p class="i2">And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>John Hullah</em></div>
+
+<p>The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay
+aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he
+was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money
+difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856
+he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous
+venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no
+"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of
+1857, when <em>Punch</em> describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose
+eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I
+have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But
+things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien
+died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the
+age of forty-eight.</p>
+
+<p>Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom <em>Punch</em>
+recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at
+Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a
+fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no
+value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of
+"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of
+Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,
+who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well
+deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through
+his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in
+vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: <em>Punch</em> satirizes the
+prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title
+"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note
+the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and
+monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special
+effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes
+on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a
+fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads
+were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The
+concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the
+remarkable performances of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Italian <em>virtuoso</em> Giulio Regondi, but
+is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that
+the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.
+Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry
+out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark <em>nobilmente</em> on the
+concertina. With regard to fashionable music <em>Punch</em> complains in 1849
+that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only
+anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.</p><br /><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_303.png">
+<img src="images/i_303.png" width="500" alt="A crowded concert room." /></a>
+<p class="center">MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849<br />
+A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_304.png">
+<img src="images/i_304.png" width="500" alt="Male singer with female pianist." /></a>
+<p class="center">TASTE IN 1854&mdash;VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE
+DRAWING-ROOM</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Lady</span> (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low
+enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Taste in Music</em></div>
+
+<p>Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under
+the head of opera. <em>Punch</em> had the root of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> matter in him but was
+lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a
+critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable <em>portamento</em>." He
+was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling
+Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in
+1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the
+<em>Eroica</em> Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his
+censure, as the <em>Eroica</em> and C minor Symphonies were performed without
+being cut in two. <em>Punch</em> had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but
+he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of
+Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> names
+of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of <em>Punch</em> in
+this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the
+fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of
+Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the
+most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most
+fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.
+<em>Punch</em> does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the
+greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of
+a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of
+waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese
+waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss
+has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an
+enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable
+Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that
+conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of
+the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an
+autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the
+public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since
+been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no
+reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or
+official recognition.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Turner as Painter and Poet</em></div>
+
+<p>The low opinion which <em>Punch</em> entertained of contemporary architects and
+sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a
+monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.
+He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have
+recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in
+advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for
+the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the
+adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the
+execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the
+position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a
+judge of painting and painters <em>Punch</em> showed greater independence,
+intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references
+to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> of
+established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the
+autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's
+"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and
+avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his
+representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his
+"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find
+the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.
+<em>Punch</em>, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet
+might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we
+read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>No. 77 is called <em>Whalers</em>, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies
+one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster
+salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his
+pictures <em>Whalers</em>, or <em>Venice</em>, or <em>Morning</em>, or <em>Noon</em>, or
+<em>Night</em>, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it
+one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated
+artist.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/i_306b.png">
+<img src="images/i_306b.png" width="350" alt="Signed sketch by J. M. W. Turner, R.A." /></a>
+<p class="center">VENICE BY GASLIGHT  GOING TO THE BALL</p>
+<p class="center">MS. "Fallacies of Hope"<br /> (An Unpublished Poem).&mdash;<span class="smcap">Turner.</span></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/i_306a.png">
+<img src="images/i_306a.png" width="350" alt="Signed sketch by J. M. W. Turner, R.A." /></a>
+<p class="center">VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,&mdash;RETURNING FROM THE BALL</p>
+<p class="center">MS. "Fallacies of Hope"<br /> (An Unpublished Poem).&mdash;<span class="smcap">Turner.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his
+celebrated MS. poem, the <em>Fallacies of Hope</em>, to which he
+constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he
+has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without
+troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to
+his <em>Morning&mdash;returning from the Ball</em>, which really seems to need
+a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the
+<em>Fallacies of Hope</em>, we will quote it for him:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh! what a scene!&mdash;Can this be Venice? No.</p>
+<p class="i0">And yet methinks it is&mdash;because I see</p>
+<p class="i0">Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,</p>
+<p class="i0">Something which looks like a Venetian spire.</p>
+<p class="i0">That dash of orange in the background there</p>
+<p class="i0">Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat</p>
+<p class="i0">(Almost the colour of tomato sauce)</p>
+<p class="i0">Proclaims them now returning from the ball!</p>
+<p class="i0">This in my picture, I would fain convey,</p>
+<p class="i0">I hope I do. Alas! <em>what</em> FALLACY!"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an
+article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">GENERAL MAXIMS</p>
+
+<p>I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous
+education.</p>
+
+<p>II. The critic is greater than the artist.</p>
+
+<p>III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is
+to inform him of it.</p>
+
+<p>IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,
+like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the
+vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the
+rules of which it does not recognise.</p>
+
+<p>V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in
+preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity
+must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good
+or bad.</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rules for Art Critics</em></div>
+
+<p>1. <em>To criticise a Picture by Turner.</em>&mdash;Begin by protesting against
+his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such
+phrases as "<em>bathed in sunlight</em>," "<em>flooded with summer glories</em>,"
+"<em>mellow distance</em>," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and
+wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.</p>
+
+<p>2. <em>To criticise a Picture by Stanfield.</em>&mdash;Begin by unqualified
+praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "<em>sharp,
+hard outline</em>"; then of "<em>leathery texture</em>"; then of "<em>scenic
+effect of the figures</em>"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a
+scene painter.</p>
+
+<p>3. <em>To criticise a Picture by Etty.</em>&mdash;Begin by delirious
+satisfaction with his "<em>delicious carnations</em>" and "<em>mellow
+flesh-tones</em>." Remark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> on the skilful arrangement of colour and
+admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should
+content himself with merely painting from "<em>the nude Academy
+model</em>," without troubling himself with that for which you had just
+before praised him.&mdash;N.B. Never mind the contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>4. <em>To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer.</em>&mdash;Here you are bound to
+unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or
+the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is
+expected.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar
+directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.</p>
+
+<p>He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The "<em>facile princeps</em>" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)
+has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's <em>Gregory and
+Choristers</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is a want of <em>modulative melody</em> in its colours and
+mellowness in <em>its hand</em> (whose?), pushed to an <em>outré</em> simplicity
+in <em>the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> plainness and ungrammatical development of its general
+effect</em>. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery
+occasionally too square and inflexible."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_308.png">
+<img src="images/i_308.png" width="400" alt="Scene in an art gallery" /></a>
+<p class="center">MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF Y<sup>E</sup> ENGLYSHE IN 1849<br />
+Y<sup>E</sup> EXHYBITYON. AT Y<sup>E</sup> ROYAL ACADEMYE.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,
+where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a
+frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period&mdash;note for
+example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense
+contemporary pictures were roughly handled by <em>Punch</em>. Thus in 1849 he
+puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old
+Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of
+clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.
+Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling
+one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few
+cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and
+the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too
+plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same complaint recurs in the following year, when <em>Punch</em> is moved,
+as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain
+questions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Is painting a living art in England at this moment?</p>
+
+<p>Is there a nineteenth century?</p>
+
+<p>Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?</p>
+
+<p>Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,
+their actions, passions and sufferings?</p>
+
+<p>If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living
+events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so
+unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and
+beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the
+Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the
+Third, or George the Second?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_310.png">
+<img src="images/i_310.png" width="300" alt="Standing nun." /></a>
+<p class="center">CONVENT THOUGHTS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The P.R.B.</em></div>
+
+<p>But much more interesting than these generalities&mdash;sound and sensible
+though they are&mdash;is the first reference to "certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> young friends of
+mine, calling themselves&mdash;the dear silly boys&mdash;Pre-Raphaelites" in the
+same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier
+criticisms of the P.R.B.'s <em>Mr. Punch</em> managed to dissemble his
+affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of
+1851 is largely discounted by what follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve
+especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to
+tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.
+Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against <em>The Times</em>
+on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. <em>are</em> true, and that's
+the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of
+Collins's representation of the <em>Alisma Plantago</em>, <em>except</em> the
+unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size
+of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of
+brains&mdash;while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,
+he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a
+figure in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Millais's "<em>Mariana</em> in the moated Grange" is obviously meant
+to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't
+come&mdash;and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's
+description:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0"><em>then said she, "I am very dreary."</em></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet
+robe, it is impossible to conceive.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_311.png">
+<img src="images/i_311.png" width="300" alt="Lady standing before a window." /></a>
+<p class="center">MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>But Punch <em>makes</em> the <em>amende</em> most handsomely in 1852:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Commercialism in Art</em></div>
+
+<p>Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour
+that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> those
+two pictures [<em>Ophelia</em> and <em>The Huguenot</em>] I find more loving
+observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her
+forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest
+poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a
+point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate
+expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of
+canvas put together.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1852 <em>Punch</em> singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes
+and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous
+chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had
+no other name than <em>bottega</em>&mdash;in English, shop; and moreover, it is
+an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one
+demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a
+trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims&mdash;with
+vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and
+frivolity&mdash;no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with
+the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the
+perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of
+great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the
+beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in
+ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display
+of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many
+is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,
+is sure to please."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of
+Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of
+<em>Punch's</em> altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his
+palinode in 1853:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my
+honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young
+gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and
+deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.
+Millais's historical romance of <em>The Huguenot</em>, last year? I am
+sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly
+papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be
+breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in <em>The Times</em>,
+and the <em>Morning Post</em>, and the <em>Examiner</em>. But I am a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is
+serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no
+character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly&mdash;not forgetting Edwin
+Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, <em>Night and
+Morning by the Lochside</em>, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the
+Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with
+his ship for bier&mdash;not forgetting these and other picture-books
+well worth reading&mdash;I tell you that Hunt's <em>Claudio and Isabella</em>
+is to me <em>the</em> book of the collection, though it records in colours
+what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all
+after it, comes Millais's <em>Order of Release</em>, and then the <em>Strayed
+Sheep</em> and <em>Proscribed Royalist</em> of the same authors. I do not mean
+to put either after the other, so I bracket them."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s <em>Punch</em> shows all the zeal
+of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse
+published shortly afterwards:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it
+has to reflect.</p>
+
+<p>See what follows.</p>
+
+<p>If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public
+halls and palaces, they must be small.</p>
+
+<p>Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close
+eye, must be highly finished.</p>
+
+<p>These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect
+the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the
+Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for
+which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely
+recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>What have they recognised besides?</p>
+
+<p>That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must
+be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of
+earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be
+rendered&mdash;the more truthfully the better&mdash;and that the most
+accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning
+work&mdash;the creation of the central interest which sums itself in
+human expression.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the
+possibility of combining these two things&mdash;human expression and
+accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young
+men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this&mdash;at
+least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,
+and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling
+and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+further than might be expected from such beardless champions&mdash;it
+has already succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they
+have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have
+still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father
+before them went through&mdash;devils of their own creating to hurl
+their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and
+confute, and put to shame&mdash;by trust in their gospel truth that
+Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enthusiasm of a Convert</div>
+
+<p>It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English
+artists in 1855, <em>Punch</em> complained that the newer school, i.e. the
+P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as
+Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of <em>Punch's</em> artistic and
+aesthetic <em>flair</em> and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he
+had expressed high praise for Frith's <em>Ramsgate Sands</em> (which was bought
+by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him
+for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait
+Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile
+"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of
+"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern
+and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the
+musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.</p>
+
+<p>With all deductions and limitations <em>Punch's</em> record as a critic of the
+fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"
+"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister
+immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one
+of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).
+After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died
+in 1852.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and
+was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the
+Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these
+great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's
+genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more
+than a passing word of grateful recognition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,
+though he appears in Larousse.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PERSONALITIES" id="PERSONALITIES"></a>PERSONALITIES</h2>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, <em>Punch</em>
+enumerates his special <em>bêtes noires</em> as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy
+and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list
+would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,
+notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is
+much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen
+and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in
+the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who
+sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,
+all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar
+Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord
+Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all
+City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi
+(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was
+Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,
+together with Railway Directors, Hom&oelig;opathists and Protectionists.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_316.png">
+<img src="images/i_316.png" width="300" alt="As caption." /></a>
+<p class="center">PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity
+may be noted <em>Punch's</em> list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious
+suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the
+misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.
+Of some of <em>Punch's</em> butts it may be said that they were rescued from
+oblivion by his satire and caricature&mdash;Sibthorp for example, though he
+was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in <em>Punch</em>.
+He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of
+Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was
+frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> witty, and as truculently courageous as <em>Punch</em> himself. Sir
+Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to <em>Punch</em> for
+all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City
+administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter
+throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social
+advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But
+the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.
+<em>Punch</em> was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or
+discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that
+he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard
+to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already
+<em>Punch</em> had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in
+politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton
+as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,
+ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work
+again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,
+but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was
+so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,
+<em>Punch</em> was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a
+really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal
+throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and
+grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six
+months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, <em>Punch</em> only
+jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real
+"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude
+towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and
+his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence
+imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later
+'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above
+in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from
+their pinnacles when <em>Punch</em> the peace-loving Free Trader developed in
+the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the
+contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry
+reparation for continual abuse of the living, and <em>Punch's</em> treatment of
+Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In <em>Punch's</em> early
+volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the
+Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of
+Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and
+there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,
+in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of
+temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_318.png">
+<img src="images/i_318.png" width="400" alt="Caricature" /></a>
+<p class="center">THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Injustice to Peel</em></div>
+
+<p>If "Jenkins" was <em>Punch's</em> "chief butler"&mdash;in the sense of the supreme
+flunkey&mdash;Lord Brougham was his chief butt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> throughout these years. And
+certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played
+better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal
+sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as
+regularly in <em>Punch's</em> portraits as the straw in Palmerston's
+mouth&mdash;which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"
+acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from
+his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been
+Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in <em>Punch</em> appears in the
+composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors
+ascribes to <em>Punch</em> his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for
+"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the
+moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and
+furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements
+of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed
+trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to
+the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,
+with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,
+craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the
+Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings
+for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word
+Competition) we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">If people may, without rebuke,</p>
+<p class="i0">Call Wellington the "Iron&mdash;&mdash;,"</p>
+<p class="i0">Why then we safely may presume</p>
+<p class="i0">The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_320.png">
+<img src="images/i_320.png" width="600" alt="Caricature with Mr. Punch and politicians." /></a>
+<p class="center">QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in
+his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic <em>Punch</em>, who in 1849
+was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky
+and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But <em>Punch's</em>
+hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which
+represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago
+of inconsistencies which composed the mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> of one who was at once a
+charlatan and encyclopædist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year
+<em>Punch</em> suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of
+the erotic and learned lord,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of
+1851 excited <em>Punch's</em> wrath, when he himself had become converted to
+the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the
+turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America
+in 1850, when <em>Punch</em> printed the following unofficial letter of
+introduction to the President of the United States:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>To General Taylor, President of the United States,</p>
+
+<p>Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Taylor,</p>
+
+<p>"I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend
+<em>Brougham</em>&mdash;the <em>Brougham</em> whose fame is <em>not</em> European but
+world-wide&mdash;personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,
+he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked
+like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has
+cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp
+attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look
+around every attorney's office; and you will <em>not</em> see Brougham's
+picture."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian
+cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the
+following graceful verses printed in 1851:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">A PALINODE<br />
+From <em>Punch</em> to Henry Brougham<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Palinode to Brougham</em></div>
+
+<p>"During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost
+difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,
+attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten
+days the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the
+hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his
+life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found
+he could struggle no more."&mdash;<em>Lord Brougham's last speech on Law
+Reform in the House of Lords.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?</p>
+<p class="i2">Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?</p>
+<p class="i0">Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,</p>
+<p class="i2">Our ten long years of all but weekly war,</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let <em>Punch</em> hold out to you a friendly hand,</p>
+<p class="i2">And speak what haply he had left unspoken</p>
+<p class="i0">Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,</p>
+<p class="i2">That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Forgot the changes of thy later years,</p>
+<p class="i2">No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,</p>
+<p class="i0">Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue</p>
+<p class="i2">Lashed into infamy and endless scorn</p>
+<p class="i0">The wretches who their blackening scandal flung</p>
+<p class="i2">Upon a Queen&mdash;of women most forlorn.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He knows the lover of his kind, who stood</p>
+<p class="i2">Chief of the banded few who dared to brave</p>
+<p class="i0">The accursed traffickers in negro blood,</p>
+<p class="i2">And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Statesman who, in a less happy hour</p>
+<p class="i2">Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,</p>
+<p class="i0">And gave the keys of knowledge and of power</p>
+<p class="i2">With equal hand alike to high and low;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,</p>
+<p class="i2">Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:</p>
+<p class="i0">The Chancellor who settled century's claims,</p>
+<p class="i2">And swept an age's dense arrears away;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The man whose name men read even as they run,</p>
+<p class="i2">On every landmark the world's course along,</p>
+<p class="i0">That speaks to us of a great battle won</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Remembering this, full sad I am to hear</p>
+<p class="i2">That voice which loudest in the combat rung</p>
+<p class="i0">Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,</p>
+<p class="i2">To see that arm of battle all unstrung.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And so, even as a warrior after fight</p>
+<p class="i2">Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,</p>
+<p class="i0">I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,</p>
+<p class="i2">And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,
+the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal
+reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his
+disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown
+and lived for seventeen years longer&mdash;years crowded with multifarious
+activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique
+figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors
+are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to
+avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,
+vituperation, and vulgarity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in
+respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first
+place amongst <em>Punch's</em> pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up
+any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive
+picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was
+"always in trouble." The predominating cause of <em>Punch's</em> resentment was
+the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably
+that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in
+<em>Punch's</em> view: <em>nihil tetigit quod non f&oelig;davit</em>. Peter Borthwick,
+the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,
+and editor of the <em>Morning Post</em> from 1850 till his death in 1852, was
+no favourite of <em>Punch</em>. He was, however, as the date shows, not
+editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick
+clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married
+couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when
+they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+heresies that <em>Punch</em> granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for
+this good act." <em>Punch's</em> antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they
+were united in their Russophobia. But <em>Punch</em> was often intolerant of
+competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_324.png">
+<img src="images/i_324.png" width="300" alt="MIiss Nightgale with wounded soldier." /></a>
+<p class="center">MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" Designs a Statue</em></div>
+
+<p>If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and
+favourites, <em>Punch</em> emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most
+of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> and the list<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>
+might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of
+Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;
+Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William
+Russell, of whose lectures <em>Punch</em> wrote an enthusiastic and
+well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of
+Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative
+classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on
+William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made
+a K.C.B. in 1860.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume.</em><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Printed by<br />
+Cassell &amp; Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,<br />
+London, E.C.4</span><br />
+<br />
+F.100.521<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44267 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #44267 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44267)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol.
+I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857
+
+Author: Charles L. Graves
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2013 [EBook #44267]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Neville Allen, Chris Curnow and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
+been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
+underscores: _italics_.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE RECONCILIATION:
+
+OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE
+
+Reproduced from the cartoon in _Punch_, 15th March, 1845.]
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+By
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES
+
+IN FOUR VOLUMES
+
+VOL. I.--1841-1857
+
+  CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
+  London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
+  1921
+
+_Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
+limitations. The files of _Punch_ have been generally admitted to be a
+valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
+the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
+use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that _Punch_ has always
+been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
+his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
+especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
+second. For pictures of provincial society--such, for example, as that
+given in _Cranford_ or in the novels of Trollope--or of life in
+Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
+outside _Punch_. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
+part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
+his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
+is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
+subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
+_Punch_, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
+to Victorian writers in general by a writer in _Blackwood_ holds good:
+"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
+voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
+was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
+They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
+self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
+at all costs." In the 'forties _Punch_ doubled the rôles of jester and
+political pamphleteer, and in the latter capacity indulged in a great
+deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
+moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
+Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
+somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
+volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
+with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
+any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
+views expressed in _Punch_.
+
+My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
+altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
+after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
+honourable phase of _Punch's_ history, his championship of the poor and
+oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
+Nations"--the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
+of Disraeli's _Sybil_, and which I have chosen as the title for the
+first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
+at any time without reference to the political background would be
+difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on _Punch_
+in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
+redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of _Punch's_
+London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
+contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
+slums on the other.
+
+No attempt has been made to represent _Punch_ as infallible whether as a
+recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
+cruel--notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
+the "No Popery" crusade--though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
+the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
+majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous tributes. As
+for the gradual cooling of _Punch's_ democratic ardour, that may be
+attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
+and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
+follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
+grow older. The great value of _Punch_ resides in the fact that it
+provides us with a history of the Victorians _written by themselves_.
+This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
+painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
+hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
+mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
+mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
+has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
+or correct the statements or judgments recorded in _Punch_.
+Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
+the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
+the _Dictionary of National Biography_; to the _New English Dictionary_;
+to _The Political History of England_, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
+Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_;
+and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
+Mr. M. H. Spielmann's _History of Punch_.
+
+The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
+encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
+director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
+Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
+research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
+assistant librarian of the Athenæum Club.
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES.
+
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+CHARTISM
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+EDUCATION
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+THE COURT
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+SOCIETY-EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+    O! fair and fresh the early spring
+      Her budding wreath displays,
+    To all the wide earth promising
+      The joy of harvest days;
+    Yet many a waste of wavy gold
+      Hath bent above the dead;
+    Then let the living share it too--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+    Of old a nation's cry shook down
+      The sword-defying wall,
+    And ours may reach the mercy-seat,
+      Though not the lordly hall.
+    God of the Corn! shall man restrain
+      Thy blessings freely shed?
+    O! look upon the isles at last--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Founders of "Punch"_]
+
+It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the
+Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of _Punch_, should
+begin with the People. For _Punch_ began as a radical and democratic
+paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,
+and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry
+'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of
+jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts us on every page
+was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and
+wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be
+said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry
+Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was
+"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which
+takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the
+_Morning Chronicle_ and his elaborate work on _London Labour and the
+London Poor_, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of
+twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His
+versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the
+_Athenæum_ observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a
+scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an
+outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the
+original staff was Gilbert à Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary
+amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on _The Times_,
+comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan
+Magistrate. It was à Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the
+Andover Union--pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of
+the best ever presented to Parliament--that led to important alterations
+in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,
+his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's
+references to "à Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on
+his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the
+journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert
+à Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a
+daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the
+highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness
+of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who
+died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and
+impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is
+chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and
+ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist
+and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long
+champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry
+Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.
+Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education
+was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the
+Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of
+the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh
+discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either
+Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,
+and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to
+militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King
+business" generally--always excepting Constitutional Monarchy--was so
+pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him
+into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from
+the temper of _Punch_ in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness
+as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter
+criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden
+and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties
+Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of
+enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade
+movement, and they had been supported by _Punch_ in the campaign against
+the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of _Punch's_ attacks
+on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,
+the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He
+might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of
+the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed
+"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,
+the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are
+as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs
+should not have the best of it.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND
+
+(The Hungry 'Forties)]
+
+Biographies of the _Punch_ staff do not fall within the scope of this
+chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the
+men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential
+to a proper understanding of its influence on public opinion. They were
+humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had
+abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke
+of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the
+only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was
+quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a
+heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the
+ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up
+their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered
+by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later
+Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the
+present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the
+manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make
+instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise
+means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until
+such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory
+morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last
+few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of
+every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this
+vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday
+night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful
+imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the
+well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the
+instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a
+full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a
+year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly
+ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which
+prompted _Punch_ to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,
+and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer
+in the _Examiner_ so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the
+sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,
+according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and
+make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is an old story; as
+old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate
+clothed with sackcloth." _Punch_ never wearied of bringing home to his
+readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were
+crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the
+Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The
+amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than
+three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the
+poor. _The Times_ of December 2, 1841, quoted from the _Sporting
+Magazine_ an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince
+Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs--sleeping beds, compartments
+paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;
+and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the
+building--and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron
+and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was
+small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one
+time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut
+out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six
+young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the
+same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they
+complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they
+would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the
+latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic
+journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month
+after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same
+issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the
+Lord Mayor's dinner:--
+
+    Oh, men of Paisley--good folks of Bolton--what promise for ye is
+    here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,
+    Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,
+    brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches
+    at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in
+    the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that
+    Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord
+    Mayor's table!
+
+[Sidenote: _Fleshpots and Famine_]
+
+When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, _Punch_
+boldly suggested Lazarus:--
+
+    Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit
+    upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall
+    heal the wounds of wretchedness--shall gather bloodless laurels in
+    the hospital and workhouse--his ermine and purple shall make
+    fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey--he shall be a king enthroned
+    and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!
+
+    LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the
+    wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very
+    syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,
+    there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the
+    beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed--tatters are
+    invested with regality--man in his most abject and hopeless
+    condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the
+    earth--royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the
+    embrace of fraternity.
+
+    O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and
+    cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you
+    can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"
+
+In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in _Punch_, in which the cry
+of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from
+"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short
+poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the
+lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:--
+
+    Disease and want are sitting by my hearth--
+      The world hath left me nothing of its good!
+    The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,
+      And yet I am alone and wanting food.
+    The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth
+      Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE
+    Who gave the mighty universe its birth
+      Would never love the wild bird more than me.
+
+_Punch_ had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,
+as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great
+Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who
+offered evil counsel, but the Chartists themselves had a degree of
+intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of
+public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of
+dissentients:--
+
+    There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians--men keenly
+    alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to
+    the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to
+    Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances--that it
+    prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary
+    measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a
+    little it is necessary to ask a great deal?
+
+    We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its
+    army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the
+    Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and
+    spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has
+    been added--and well added--that property has also its duties. To
+    these let us subjoin--property has also its cowardice.
+
+Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural
+labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many
+disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of
+the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence
+of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:--
+
+    I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and
+    keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost
+    destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for
+    a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with
+    the wife hungry--almost crying with hunger--and in rags, _yet the
+    floor was perfectly clean_. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on
+    the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,
+    but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his
+    wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the
+    room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William
+    Benton--"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't
+    know justly--mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;
+    can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is
+    of the Baptist school religion, _whatever that is_. Never heard of
+    Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who
+    Jesus Christ was--he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to
+    school if he could...."
+
+    You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen
+    a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a
+    violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea
+    of a green field was derived from _having been stung by a nettle_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Song of the Shirt_]
+
+The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions
+of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England
+suggested to _Punch_ an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of
+the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,
+etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined
+being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the
+cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and
+_Punch_ was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor
+widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up
+for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a
+week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which
+paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest
+poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of
+Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all
+the other contributions to insignificance:--
+
+THE SONG OF THE SHIRT
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
+      She sang the "Song of the Shirt."
+
+    "Work! work! work!
+      While the cock is crowing aloof!
+    And work--work--work,
+      Till the stars shine through the roof!
+    It's O! to be a slave
+      Along with the barbarous Turk,
+    Where woman has never a soul to save,
+      If this is Christian work!
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      Till the brain begins to swim;
+    Work--work--work
+      Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
+    Seam and gusset and band,
+      Band and gusset and seam,
+    Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
+      And sew them on in a dream!
+
+    "O men, with sisters dear!
+      O men, with mothers and wives!
+    It is not linen you're wearing out,
+      But human creatures' lives!
+    Stitch--stitch--stitch,
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    Sewing at once, with a double thread,
+      A shroud as well as a shirt.
+
+    "But why do I talk of Death,
+      That phantom of grisly bone?
+    I hardly fear his terrible shape,
+      It seems so like my own--
+      It seems so like my own,
+      Because of the fasts I keep;
+    Oh God, that bread should be so dear,
+      And flesh and blood so cheap!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      My labour never flags;
+    And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
+      A crust of bread--and rags.
+    That shatter'd roof--and this naked floor--
+      A table--a broken chair--
+    And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
+    For sometimes falling there!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      From weary chime to chime,
+    Work--work--work--
+      As prisoners work for crime!
+    Band and gusset and seam,
+      Seam and gusset and band,
+    Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,
+      As well as the weary hand.
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      In the dull December light,
+    And work--work--work
+      When the weather is warm and bright;
+    While underneath the eaves
+      The brooding swallows cling
+    As if to show me their sunny backs
+      And twit me with the spring.
+
+    "Oh! but to breathe the breath
+      Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--
+    With the sky above my head,
+      And the grass beneath my feet;
+    For only one short hour
+      To feel as I used to feel,
+    Before I knew the woes of want
+      And the walk that costs a meal!
+
+    "Oh, but for one short hour!
+      A respite however brief;
+    No blessed leisure for love or hope,
+      But only time for grief!
+    A little weeping would ease my heart,
+      But in their briny bed
+    My tears must stop, for every drop
+     Hinders needle and thread!"
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
+      Would that its tone could reach the rich!
+    She sang this "Song of the Shirt."
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir Robert Peel and Hood_]
+
+[Illustration: PIN MONEY]
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLE MONEY]
+
+The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann
+in his _History of "Punch"._ Mark Lemon proved himself a great editor
+by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his
+colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by
+his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the
+poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's
+correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,
+received scant justice from _Punch_. Though the impact of Hood's burning
+verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year
+later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel
+wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him
+a pension. "I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am
+fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the
+disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in
+recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked
+in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his
+personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's
+health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt
+assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel
+sent the £100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with
+all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.
+He could write no more, though he had wished to write one more paper.
+Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were
+seventy-five years ago:--
+
+    Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far
+    asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer
+    by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and
+    place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one
+    side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the
+    last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not
+    a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for
+    the benefit of my beloved country.
+
+Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than
+seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and _Punch_ was
+moved to ask:--
+
+    If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,
+      If monuments adorn his place of sleep
+    Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,
+      And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,
+
+    Did _he_ not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?
+      Was not _his_ voice loud for the worker's right?
+    Was _he_ not potent to arrest the slaughters
+      Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?
+
+Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song
+of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her
+death a year later. A sum of £800, collected by public subscription, was
+all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then
+Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their
+benefit, at a time when, as _Punch_ reminded him, the Duchess of
+Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of £1,000
+a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not
+end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year _Punch_ was
+moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for
+embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning
+the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap Shirt
+Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid
+2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 2½d. apiece, and on these
+earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As
+late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.
+a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage
+gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers
+here were "out of place," _Punch_ retorted with the bitter jibe: "What
+has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"
+
+[Sidenote: _The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea_]
+
+No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant
+feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate
+who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge
+brought against a man earning 7s. a week--the common rate at the time
+for agricultural labourers--stated from the Bench that he knew of good
+hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.
+Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and
+salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of
+Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre
+fare by the use of curry powder,[1] a suggestion that recalls the
+historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on
+hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"
+_Punch_ dealt faithfully with this ducal _gaffe_ under the heading, "A
+Real Blessing to Landlords":--
+
+    The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by
+    the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for
+    bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the
+    empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to
+    relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from
+    living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede
+    potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of
+    gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal
+    to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their
+    rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile
+    labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost
+    entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.
+    Agricultural societies supplied.
+
+    N.B.--A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.
+
+[Footnote 1: For the actual speech of the Duke see the _Examiner_ for
+1845, p. 786.]
+
+In these years the Dukes were constantly in _Mr. Punch's_ pillory; the
+Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in
+connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham
+for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for
+killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for
+prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;
+the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules
+enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into
+sheep-walks, which suggested to _Punch_ that he should be dignified with
+the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that
+agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking
+the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen
+Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and
+censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch
+with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words
+reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845
+_Punch_ made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had
+arrived:--
+
+    _The Times_ says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go
+    and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for
+    governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great
+    thoroughfare of civilisation--he should be quietly and respectfully
+    eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him--in
+    history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Harsh Sentences on Children_]
+
+Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the
+Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the
+treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to _Punch's_
+reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from _The Times_ and many
+provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing
+a leveret; the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a
+faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and
+twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field
+through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol
+for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;
+a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.
+6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,
+had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday--which
+reminds _Punch_ of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in
+Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man
+"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,
+because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the
+case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not
+solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,
+sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing ½lb. of
+butter. Small wonder is it that _Punch_ was a fervent and convinced
+anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble
+itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools
+for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine
+or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went
+to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were
+punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;
+fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by
+a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the
+penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find _Punch_
+tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping
+wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick
+Burner." _Facit indignatio versum_: here is the picture of "The Fine Old
+English Gentleman of the Present Time"--in the middle of the Hungry
+'Forties:--
+
+    I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,
+    Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,
+    But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.
+    Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,
+      Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,
+    And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,
+    He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;
+    For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,
+      Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+Here is the portrait of the pauper:--
+
+    Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,
+      A ragged wretch am I!
+    And how, and when, and where I can,
+      I feed, and lodge, and lie.
+    And I must to the workhouse go,
+      _If_ better may not be;
+    Ay, _if_, indeed! The workhouse! No!
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There shall I get the larger crust,
+      The warmer house-room there;
+    And choose a prison since I must,
+      I'll choose it for its fare.
+    The dog will snatch the biggest bone,
+      So much the wiser he:
+    Call me a dog--the name I'll own--
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in
+Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well
+justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the
+Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,
+and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were
+returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the
+humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich
+workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved _Punch_ to
+indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough
+to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the
+management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates were fed
+at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were
+not allowed to see the pantomime _Jack and the Beanstalk_. Owing to the
+intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were
+actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a
+Bath-brick" _Punch_ dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best
+style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of
+the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the
+workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the
+ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":--
+
+    A fig for honest occupation,
+      Beggary's an easier trade;
+    Industry is mere starvation,
+      Mendicancy's better paid.
+
+[Sidenote: _Bigamy or Divorce?_]
+
+In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws _Punch_ never
+ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better
+remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice
+Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, _Punch_ hardly rendered
+justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:--
+
+WAGGERY OF THE BENCH
+
+    One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a
+    bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one
+    of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for
+    such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice
+    Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his
+    pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a
+    gravity of face worthy of the original _Billy Lackaday_, "that the
+    law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was _equally
+    open for him_, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way
+    that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if
+    Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have
+    both the same papillary organs--a dignifying truth for the outcast
+    wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his
+    pleasantry:
+
+    "He (Rollins) _should have brought an action_ against the man who
+    was living in the way stated with his wife, and _he should have
+    obtained damages_, and then _should have gone to the Ecclesiastical
+    Court_ and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to
+    have been done already, _and then he should have gone to the House
+    of Lords_, and, proving all his case and the preliminary
+    proceedings, _have obtained a full and complete divorce_; after
+    which he might, if he liked it, have married again."
+
+There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,
+earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the
+pauper from court to court--tarry with him awhile in the House of
+Lords--and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a
+sustained spirit of drollery, observes:
+
+    "The prisoner _might perhaps object to this_, that he had not the
+    money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about £500 or
+    £600--_perhaps he had not so many pence_--but this did not exempt
+    him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he
+    had been convicted."
+
+Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for
+marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about £500 or
+£600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.
+In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.
+Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom
+God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these
+words, "_Unless paid about £500 or £600 to separate them_."
+
+_Punch_, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to
+resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by
+those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted
+to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.
+But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that _Punch_
+recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a
+sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."
+
+Against the Game Laws and their administration _Punch_ waged a
+continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by
+game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the
+expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and
+amongst his idols were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold
+peasantry" as their constant victims.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Labourer_]
+
+The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet
+in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly
+handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps
+the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to
+be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer
+of 1848:--
+
+    He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from
+    twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he
+    calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has
+    only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church
+    regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits
+    outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,
+    or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer
+    and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas
+    or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,
+    by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work
+    by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him
+    discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He
+    believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest
+    Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them
+    the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad
+    seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn
+    Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for
+    rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his
+    cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by
+    some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows
+    absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not
+    trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his
+    landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"
+    wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any
+    farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial
+    Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy
+    tenants, shouts, sings, dances--any mockery or absurdity, to please
+    his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his
+    greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.
+    His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his
+    wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual
+    Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his
+    master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles
+    on, existing rather than living, infinitely worse fed than the
+    beasts he gets up for the exhibitions--much less cared about than
+    the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,
+    autumn and winter, his wages never higher--frequently less--and
+    perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all
+    that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of
+    six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on
+    his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up
+    ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is
+    the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he
+    is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin
+    for himself to be buried in!
+
+This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are
+heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be
+found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in
+1843, quoted by _Punch_ on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire
+village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with
+political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the
+exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and
+industrious poor, _Punch_ was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this
+parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented
+a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned
+for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of
+£1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the
+shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show
+where the prize pig is awarded £3 3s. and the prize peasant £2 2s. When
+baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn
+with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with
+the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve
+his condition." _Punch's_ democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies
+Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young
+England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that
+Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the
+fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell
+an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the _Daily
+Telegraph_ called _Punch_ in later years), when in "England's Trust and
+other Poems" was penned the memorable _cri de coeur_:--
+
+    Though I could bear to view our crowded towns
+    Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;
+    Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
+    But leave us still our old nobility.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Shaftesbury_]
+
+But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof
+one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts
+which _Punch_ unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to
+the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the
+industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some
+of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,
+afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if
+there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had
+opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic
+Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that
+the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an
+aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced
+Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by _Punch_. Yet as
+early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the
+passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the
+hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.
+In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,
+shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a
+Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this
+humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to
+regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group
+supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to
+concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and
+most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of
+the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most
+of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18
+years of age, and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a
+day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and
+children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation
+placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its
+provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a
+10½ hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But
+Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this
+compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as
+a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of
+Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The
+Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects
+of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's
+speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of _Sybil_"--his
+finest and best constructed novel. _Sybil_ was published in 1845, and
+though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the
+aims of _Punch_, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a
+Jew. Now _Punch_ consistently supported the removal of Jewish
+disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall
+philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for
+neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,
+Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert
+the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own
+poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity
+make converts of the Hebrews." But _Punch_ was no lover of Jews, and
+least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great
+Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the
+main, however, _Punch_ regarded him at this stage of his career as a
+brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an
+untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet
+_Sybil_ in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social
+and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed
+largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was
+never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue
+between Egremont and the stranger. The stranger, after observing that
+while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
+modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in
+its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Two Nations_]
+
+    "Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our
+    Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which
+    nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The
+    stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.
+    "Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two
+    nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who
+    are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if
+    they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
+    planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a
+    different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not
+    governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont
+    hesitatingly,--"THE RICH AND THE POOR."
+
+Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of
+burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in _Sybil_, though one must not
+forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it
+bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and
+industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the
+evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly
+painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in _Sybil_. The details
+are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.
+R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green
+and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of
+artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a
+systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his
+campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but
+here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it
+that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all
+on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the
+humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference
+by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the
+existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving
+hand-loom weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de
+Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in
+smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a
+real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's
+phrase. But for reasons already given _Punch_ was not prepared to accept
+Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and
+ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to _Punch's_
+eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to _Punch_ it must be
+admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal
+of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and
+damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the
+"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the
+distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his
+view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the
+leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their
+responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and
+privileges. _Punch_ was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law
+Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of
+Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to
+hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; _Punch_
+refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group
+were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were
+not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than
+specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate
+action did not appeal to _Punch_. Though often a petulant and intolerant
+critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,
+legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the
+decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be
+demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there _are_ sermons in stones, and if
+Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and
+wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more
+suggestive text than is written--written in tears--on every stone of the
+Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the
+poor he was an impassioned advocate from the very first. When a police
+magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate
+to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,
+magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later _Punch_
+vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a
+"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and
+welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder
+at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of
+twelve to prison for stealing £4 12s. from his master "because if he
+went to prison he might become an expert thief."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Plot Against Prisons_]
+
+In the year 1853 _Punch_ discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot
+against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him
+to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy
+organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and
+initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:--
+
+    The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an
+    establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,
+    and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,
+    who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a
+    place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and
+    seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this
+    end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,
+    by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular
+    branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,
+    their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says
+    in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:
+
+    "I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I
+    used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,
+    their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves
+    generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in
+    harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed
+    them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society
+    together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that
+    my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great
+    effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them
+    clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I
+    possibly could."
+
+    The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also
+    succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to
+    establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will
+    most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent
+    edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such
+    vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,
+    Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which
+    will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which
+    all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of
+    his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by
+    substituting prevention for cure--superseding prison discipline by
+    reformation.
+
+[Sidenote: _High Life Below Stairs_]
+
+[Illustration: SERVANTGALISM
+
+COOK: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked
+at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"]
+
+[Illustration: COACHMAN: "Why--what's the matter, John Thomas?"
+
+FOOTMAN: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice
+because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat
+down in a week!"]
+
+The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending
+theme in the pages of _Punch_. His attitude was governed by the broad
+principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who
+offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.
+But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the
+flunkey, holding that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its
+prevalence amongst highly paid servants. _Punch_ was the champion of the
+"slavey"--immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"--even of the
+much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and
+powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of
+the old régime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and
+furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when
+advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages £3 a year," appeared in a
+fashionable paper and earned _Punch's_ satire. Contrariwise, he never
+spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the
+housemaid." In this spirit _Punch_ makes game of a school for servants
+at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant
+girls and nurses were neglectful of their duties and their infant
+charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and
+disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in
+_Punch's_ quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns
+of _The Times_ the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with
+broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the
+North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type
+insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable
+neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting
+from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of
+_Punch_, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his
+collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These
+gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected
+to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be
+seen nor heard," as _Punch_ put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not
+allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was
+made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real
+aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a
+mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the
+real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which _Punch_
+impersonated in "Jenkins" of the _Morning Post_ (or _Morning Plush_, as
+he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to
+ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may
+suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera
+which appeared in the _Morning Post_:
+
+    It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor
+    should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of
+    titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the
+    State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those
+    luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the
+    industrious.
+
+And again--the italics and capitals are _Punch's_:--
+
+    Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites
+    of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has
+    become a ruling passion--it is the quintessence of all civilized
+    pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their
+    standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the
+    most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society
+    assemble.
+
+    These _ornaments of society_ are in general absent at the too early
+    opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed
+    the house previous to the overture, most of those who _constitute
+    society_ in England--those whom we _respect, esteem or
+    love_--rapidly filled the house.
+
+    Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if _those
+    objectionable spectators were there_--those gentlemen of ambiguous
+    gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, _tailors_ and
+    _shoemakers_, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of
+    knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot--_they and
+    their frowsy dames_ were so nailed _to their benches as not to
+    offend the eye_.
+
+These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the
+divinity of kings and coronets, prompted _Punch_ to adorn "Jenkins" with
+the _alias_ of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but _Punch_ might
+have retorted _tâchez de ne pas le mériter_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Underpaid Governess_]
+
+From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too
+easy. _Punch's_ study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave
+market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write
+the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still
+open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement
+in _The Times_, in which "S. S." offered a salary of £2 a month to "a
+morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young
+female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with
+French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"
+_Punch_ observes:--
+
+    How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of
+    offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,
+    "It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the
+    saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen
+    indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,
+    and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to
+    other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such
+    offers as those of S.S.?
+
+[Illustration: Thomas gives warning because his master has given up
+reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a
+governess."]
+
+The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those
+offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was
+expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not
+at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an
+excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the
+problem of these "Sisters of Misery," _Punch_ waxes ironical on the
+results of their improvidence:--
+
+    If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty
+    pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep
+    company with the children, the governess has not saved a
+    sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know
+    that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And
+    yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such
+    indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature
+    who, as I have heard, in her prime--that is, for the ten
+    years--lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.
+    Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank
+    lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely
+    taught French, Italian, and the harp to the daughters of small
+    tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got
+    too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though
+    sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of
+    the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she
+    continues to eke out a miserable existence--a sad example, if they
+    would only be warned, to improvident governesses.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Real Dotheboys Hall_]
+
+_Punch's_ attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
+advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
+of them extracted from _The Times_ appears in the issue of August 14,
+1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
+governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
+houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
+Already, some three weeks earlier, _Punch_ had quoted from _The Times_
+the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
+Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
+instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
+and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
+"Dotheboys Hall" in real life _Punch_ observes that while such a price
+for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
+of miracles has passed, and especially--after the publication of
+_Nicholas Nickleby_--of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
+a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
+least forty years after _Punch's_ protest, as the present writer can
+testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
+"Penny Post Medal" _Punch_ endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
+Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
+treatment:--
+
+    Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
+    _Punch_, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
+    missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
+    Postman is the soldier of peace--the humanizing, benevolent
+    distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
+    associations. He is the philanthropic go-between--the cheap and
+    constant communicant betwixt man and man.
+
+[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ST.
+MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rowland Hill's Reward_]
+
+    In the Penny Post Medal _Punch_ has endeavoured to show the triumph
+    of Rowland Hill--no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great--carried
+    in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
+    If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
+    shouts--he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
+    for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
+    knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.
+
+    Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
+    ingratitude of man--old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
+    Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
+    services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
+    or as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
+    with--the sack.
+
+    After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
+    Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
+    owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!
+
+[Illustration: BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK]
+
+But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long
+and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it
+is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or
+thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For
+this his salary is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post
+Office robberies were frequent, _Punch_, without excusing theft,
+regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.
+Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in
+1848 we have _Punch's_ assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of
+all Government employees.
+
+The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for
+reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in _Punch_ from
+his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy
+with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4
+instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop
+assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'
+establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy
+took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at
+Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite
+spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an
+association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight
+a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,
+provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund
+to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been
+realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like
+counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But
+_Punch's_ irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and
+Business _versus_ Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"
+not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature
+has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. _Punch_ was
+moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared
+to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly
+advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who
+kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other
+hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at
+eight--for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.
+But _Punch_ was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a
+revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch
+an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _Syndicalism in the 'Forties_]
+
+    Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any
+    reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,
+    according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'
+    Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the
+    public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a
+    model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own
+    masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize
+    "every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and
+    reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that
+    the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If
+    a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and
+    happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but
+    it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.
+
+Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"
+_Punch_, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free
+and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in
+putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers
+formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.
+
+[Illustration: A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the
+Exhibition of Industry.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO
+BE IMPROVED IN 1851)]
+
+In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only
+holiday of the working classes. _Punch's_ views on their recreations,
+therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,
+Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the
+outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for
+keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other
+restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and
+recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have
+seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or
+children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of
+museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,
+in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments
+on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National
+Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are
+left for the people--the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."
+_Punch_ vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working
+men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the
+Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a
+"Fellow's order," _plus_ a shilling. But of all the movements which
+inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects
+than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the
+name of the "Crystal Palace." _Punch_ had some misgivings as to the
+encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly
+espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held
+possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was
+alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall
+was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,
+but, largely owing to _Punch's_ intervention, was assisted to emigrate
+to Australia. And _Punch_ was indignant at the suggested exclusion of
+the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the
+Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening
+of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of
+criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes
+justified, but often malicious, which _Punch_ had conducted against
+the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the
+_amende_ handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great
+Exhibition":--
+
+    At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,
+    announce the arrival of the Queen--and the Prince, who, by the idea
+    of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,
+    rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a
+    position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the
+    insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,
+    and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness
+    of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it
+    recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident
+    of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by
+    the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower
+    range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for
+    foreigners--and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot
+    stir abroad without an armed escort--to see how securely and
+    confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in
+    the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost
+    everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no
+    class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a
+    qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a
+    splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect
+    security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional
+    monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the
+    world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,
+    executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's
+    throats in the name of liberty.
+
+    The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the
+    unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,
+    the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord
+    Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,
+    but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the
+    progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant
+    when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a
+    wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to
+    perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward
+    evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can
+    redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the
+    mountebank.
+
+_Punch_ could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but
+he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and
+especially for their practice of visiting the Exhibition on the
+"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:--
+
+    Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,
+      And with it blends a sunshine brighter still--
+    The loyal love of a great people, knowing
+    That building up is better than o'erthrowing;
+      That freedom lies in taming of self-will.
+
+_Punch's_ loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget
+the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given
+to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,
+_Punch_ agreed with the _Examiner_ that a knighthood was not a
+sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be
+given a share of the profits. But _Punch_ was from the first concerned
+with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming
+it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to
+become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying
+"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare
+flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, _Punch_ voted the suggestion
+of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,
+on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in
+anything he undertook." Nay, _Punch_ went so far as to depict, in a
+cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The
+scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 _Punch_ was indignant at the
+imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs
+and snobs" who despised the masses:--
+
+THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE
+
+    The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:
+    The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;
+    Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,
+    They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.
+
+    They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,
+    A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;
+    The slams is the place faw a popula show;
+    Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.
+
+    It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue
+    So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,
+    As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,
+    Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.
+
+The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with
+the desire to keep up the Palace; _Punch_ threw all his weight on the
+side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in
+June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a
+great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in
+August, and furnished _Punch_ with an opportunity for answering the
+reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":--
+
+    The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on
+    Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the
+    greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who
+    had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts
+    and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their
+    blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not
+    more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and
+    promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new
+    principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships
+    to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but
+    too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state
+    to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,
+    gave the cause their best wishes--and these were deposited with the
+    coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new
+    building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation
+    before!
+
+    If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its
+    christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace
+    ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have
+    built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they
+    built one for themselves.
+
+    And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if
+    Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so
+    few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at
+    present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new
+    playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in
+    the world.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sabbatarian Solicitude_]
+
+    _Punch's_ generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled
+    with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous for the
+    souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the
+    Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and
+    the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in
+    order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting
+    measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being
+    opened to the public on Sundays." _Punch_ is bitterly sarcastic
+    against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and
+    prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,
+    snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not
+    only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but
+    also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel
+    flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior
+    classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown
+    otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment--in
+    great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small
+    consideration for their perishable lungs.
+
+But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The _Morning
+Herald_ scented revolution in the proposal, and _Punch_ was moved to
+address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:--
+
+    A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed
+    treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be
+    droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.
+    Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.
+
+    Do you ever see the _Morning Herald_? We thought so. Somehow, you
+    look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A
+    leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous
+    projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read
+    you--when we can get a good mouthful of breath--a few of the lines:
+    the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays
+    after one o'clock. In that fact the _Herald_ sees revolution,
+    anarchy, and perhaps--a future republic with John Cromwell Bright
+    in Buckingham Palace! Listen:
+
+    "'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's
+    command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is
+    the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to
+    say, of Berlin also. And, as _one natural result_, a single month,
+    in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of
+    Berlin _fugitives before their rebellious subjects_. The people of
+    England remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal
+    to their Queen, _because_ they feared their God!"
+
+    You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace
+    existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone
+    to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to
+    reign _because_ there has been no People's Palace!
+
+    We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.
+
+    "The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the
+    Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will
+    be said, and _then_ they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk
+    in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can _that_ do? Just all the
+    harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most
+    persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin
+    myriads!"
+
+_Punch_, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of
+Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting
+provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday
+School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him
+printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the
+Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning
+service.
+
+_Punch's_ views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that
+in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin
+Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of
+Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of
+Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.
+Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of
+his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be
+found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those
+ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the
+new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful
+refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable
+hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals
+against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if
+gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with
+affluence, and, therefore, belonging to the better classes, continue to
+legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the
+rest of the worse--that is the worse off."
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch at the Palace_]
+
+Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,
+June 10, 1854. _Punch_ describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few
+days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the
+Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the
+opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph
+Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the
+inaugural ceremony:--
+
+    He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and
+    conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should
+    leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the
+    day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly
+    undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the
+    Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the
+    Palace on Sundays.
+
+Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his
+optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it
+characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal
+Palace, which appeared in the pages of _Punch_ in the following months.
+But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the
+chairman, a very good summary of his own views:--
+
+    On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the
+    crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves--all mutually
+    sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the
+    decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace--than
+    that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in
+    the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.
+
+The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled _Punch's_
+sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and
+school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational
+institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than
+those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported
+by the patronage of the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on
+the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered
+seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's
+Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember
+visits in his school days in the early 'seventies--recurrent Handel
+festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her
+golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the
+rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above
+all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some
+forty years--such a one, and there must be many like him, will always
+look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in
+reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August
+Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize
+_Punch's_ ideal.
+
+
+
+
+CHARTISM
+
+
+[Sidenote: _The Fight for Cheap Bread_]
+
+[Illustration: NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?
+
+JOHN: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her
+creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be
+properly attended to."]
+
+We have seen that _Punch_ did not belittle the Chartist movement, but
+admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it
+sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see
+_Sybil_), but _Punch_ ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch
+alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who
+denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers
+and superiors.
+
+_Punch_, too, did a good deal in this line. But
+while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he
+distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely
+justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the
+advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very
+beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the
+leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,
+or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the
+People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded--No Property
+Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members--and we have come
+very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal
+Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains
+unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in
+1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged
+from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in
+his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,
+and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the
+years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the
+rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,
+with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to
+control. Feargus O'Connor was one of the exceptions, but his success in
+inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and
+the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many
+of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew
+from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote
+all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily
+lived long enough to see it abolished. _Punch_, who had pronounced its
+dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged
+34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn
+Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry
+to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer
+of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait
+awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";
+and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge
+any virtue in it. When _Punch_ was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of
+the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: _he_ at least
+had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must
+have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman
+"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience
+in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in
+1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:--
+
+    The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to
+    themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man
+    whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,
+    Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
+    though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only
+    worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with
+    hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject--as the blacksmith
+    strikes from the red iron--sparkles[2] of burning light; and where
+    they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the
+    intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made
+    resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man
+    had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple
+    and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the
+    mean.
+
+    The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest
+    utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate
+    suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning
+    to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine
+    mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.
+
+    Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by
+    the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott
+    was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek
+    to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of
+    modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.
+
+[Footnote 2: Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until
+they have become _cold_--short, and are apt to snap and fly off in
+sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).]
+
+Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,
+and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which
+antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at
+every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching
+steadily to disintegration. _Punch's_ distrust of the professional
+agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of
+1848:--
+
+THE MODEL AGITATOR
+
+[Sidenote: _The Professional Agitator_]
+
+    The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for
+    them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,
+    feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,
+    for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered
+    in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not
+    pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a
+    mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,
+    and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is
+    suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for
+    the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a
+    testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the
+    Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as
+    a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,
+    and sends agents--patriotic bagmen--round the country to sell his
+    praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for
+    everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is
+    publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the
+    hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance
+    is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the
+    Agitator leading off and shouting the loudest. The grievance is
+    run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there
+    is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,
+    and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last
+    person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves
+    for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is
+    incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no
+    explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a
+    chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and
+    yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to
+    burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on
+    the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.
+
+    A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain
+    [the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly
+    unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a
+    prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out
+    to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets
+    quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.
+    He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment
+    he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.
+
+    The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he
+    bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich
+    legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must
+    buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the
+    dearest."
+
+[Illustration: PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL]
+
+The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer[3] puts it, "was
+the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of
+Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the
+revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The _annus mirabilis_
+which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of
+Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus
+O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,
+largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as
+Commander-in-Chief--the swearing in of 170,000 special constables
+(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as
+far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that
+_Punch_ was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"
+position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,
+1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most
+Excellent Majesty":--
+
+MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY--
+
+    WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free
+    from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,
+    foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and
+    blunderbuss--
+
+    _Punch_ humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of
+    political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give
+    orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better
+    instructed for the future--and thereupon pardon and set free
+    William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such
+    offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty
+    of the English people.
+
+    And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray--
+
+  PUNCH.
+
+[Footnote 3: C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 166.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIAL'S WIFE: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!
+Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot
+brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for
+anything."]
+
+[Sidenote: "_Little Cuffey_"]
+
+Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,
+and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom _Punch_ always had a
+soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had
+been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the
+declaration of peace after the Crimean War, _Punch_ expressed his
+satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal
+frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater
+importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of
+June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of
+_Punch's_ political and social creed in a time of transition. The
+occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to
+entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may
+be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the
+Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take part in further
+measures of electoral reform. _Punch_ held that the collapse of the
+physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence
+in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further
+efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:--
+
+THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
+
+    My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;
+    I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;
+    Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,
+    Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.
+
+    At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,
+    But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?
+    I _am_ all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;
+    All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.
+
+    I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,
+    Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.
+    'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot--
+    Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.
+
+    I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,
+    The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;
+    Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;
+    That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.
+
+    "Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,
+    Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:
+    Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;
+    Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!
+
+    But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,
+    As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,
+    A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,
+    And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.
+
+    Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague
+      and sin;
+    Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;
+    Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;
+    The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.
+
+    Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,
+    That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,
+    Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,
+    And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.
+
+    Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,
+    The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;
+    Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,
+    That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.
+
+    Nations or men, we may not rest--look round on Europe's thrones
+    Shattered or shaken--hearken to her convulsive groans--
+    Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,
+    Think 'tis _the Tenth_ of April you invoke, and not _the First_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reform or Revolution?_]
+
+This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political
+philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and
+nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,
+and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South
+Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present
+generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment
+against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the
+proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in
+_Genesis_ (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that
+her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there
+were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and _Punch_ declared that
+Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their
+passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At
+all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three
+miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or
+three times."
+
+Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including _Punch_, as a
+remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here
+and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos
+Bound?" _Punch_ gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in
+mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers
+to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little time later the
+Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical
+philanthropists, furnished _Punch_ with a text for his oft-repeated
+sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the
+departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station
+for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,
+their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of
+self-reproach:--
+
+    What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to
+    make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the
+    _Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, and reports upon the state of our
+    poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all
+    kinds--and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,
+    so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that
+    readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and
+    that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed
+    anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and
+    terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a
+    door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for
+    ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they
+    not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have
+    our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity
+    very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such
+    wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no
+    idea. No. How should you? You and I--we are of the upper classes;
+    we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a
+    word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend
+    to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance--mind, of
+    course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they
+    dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them
+    counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know
+    nothing--how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and
+    die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet
+    like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful _Song of the Shirt_; some
+    prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted
+    energetic man like the writer of the _Chronicle_ travels into the
+    poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror
+    and wonder.
+
+    Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then
+    eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few
+    more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in
+    their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed--for those who (with
+    the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country
+    and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for
+    those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in
+    their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,
+    and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new
+    country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good
+    mercy speed them.
+
+Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end
+the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far
+more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of
+Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision
+from _Punch_, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he
+was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any
+recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous
+report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the
+doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were
+repugnant to _Punch_. There is really not much to choose between his
+criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or
+"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of
+harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the
+Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was
+followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis
+of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was
+not the sole cause of this improvement.[4] The demand for labour in the
+rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was
+an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries
+equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense
+the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London
+owing to extortionate tolls caused _Punch_ to denounce him as "Cruel
+King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.
+
+[Footnote 4: See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 204.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Beginning of Better Times_]
+
+The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought
+with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The
+year 1853 was so notable for strikes that _Punch_, who had already
+applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to
+poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:--
+
+    Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid
+    intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania--a very
+    dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not
+    attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking
+    mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now
+    it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and
+    thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become
+    machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all
+    striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking
+    become what might be called the order, but that it will be the
+    disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except
+    the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking
+    though, we had better take care that we are not floored.
+
+As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, _Punch's_ view is
+summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's
+wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"
+
+
+
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+
+In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and
+invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching
+influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The
+views on the new order expressed in _Punch_ reflect, with certain
+variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the
+spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or
+accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as
+a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions
+he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in
+January, 1842, _à propos_ of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that
+increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:--
+
+    Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of
+    terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.
+    But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and
+    philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the
+    morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied--as it will be--a
+    thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made
+    idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively
+    speaking, there shall be _no_ labour for man? Will the multitude
+    lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not--we are sure not. Then
+    will rise--and already we hear the murmur--a cry, a shout for an
+    adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike
+    upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.
+
+    We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man
+    were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the
+    possession of some thousand individuals--what would be the cry of
+    the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?
+
+    The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry
+    statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend
+    to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.
+
+[Illustration: Proposed lines....
+
+RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Impudence of Steam_]
+
+On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last
+sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day
+of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and
+foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put
+into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated
+good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality
+and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part _Punch_ is
+concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of
+locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway
+directors were to him anathema. In his first volume _Punch_ sturdily
+declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would
+be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons
+perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting
+on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The
+"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet
+of which is still often quoted:--
+
+    "Ease her, stop her!"
+    "Any gentleman for Joppa?"
+    "'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."
+    "Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"
+    "Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"
+    "Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"
+    "Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"
+    "Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"
+    "Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"
+    "What gent or lady's for the Nile,"
+    "Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"
+    "Now, where's that party for Engedi?"
+
+    Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,
+      Had ye e'er the least idea,
+    Even in your wildest flights,
+      Of a steam trip to Judea?
+    What next marvel Time will show
+      It is difficult to say,
+    "'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,
+      "Only sixpence all the way."
+    Cabs in Solyma may fly;
+      'Tis a not unlikely tale:
+    And from Dan the tourist hie
+      Unto Beersheba by "rail."
+
+But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far
+more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was
+endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with
+overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.
+Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither
+punctuality nor civility was to be expected.
+
+In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute--a "universal epidemic." George
+Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and _Punch_
+expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation
+which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.
+Burlesques of various railway projects--centrifugal and
+atmospheric--abound. _Punch_ ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle
+of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."
+The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves
+him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway
+Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the
+Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering
+witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the
+infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The
+Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and _Punch_ asserts that the
+largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the
+casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of
+railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is
+submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.
+The protests of fox-hunters, noted by _Punch_, recall the verses of the
+Cheshire poet:--
+
+    Let the steam pot
+    Hiss till it's hot,
+    But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.
+
+[Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845]
+
+The mania was not confined to men: _Punch_ satirizes the ladies who were
+"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a
+Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all
+these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel
+Court," a parody which begins:--
+
+    All the world are stags!
+    Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers--
+
+and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:--
+
+    Last scene of all,
+    That ends this sad but common history,
+    Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:
+    Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.
+
+Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with
+King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace
+at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull--on whom "the sweet
+simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall--with humbugging
+promoters is hit off in the stanza:--
+
+    Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,
+    I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;
+    And don't get enough by my paltry rents"--
+    So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."
+
+[Illustration: KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rules for Railways_]
+
+In his anti-Puseyite zeal _Punch_ mendaciously declares that a railway
+from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In
+fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley
+Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the
+Board of Trade, when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,
+is described in humorous detail in a _Punch_ ballad. Padded suits are
+suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the
+best summary--with all its exaggerations--of the discomforts of railway
+travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and
+Regulations for Railways":--
+
+    The French Government has published a royal _ordonnance_, fixing
+    the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway
+    companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things
+    should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations
+    for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he
+    likes.
+
+    Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to
+    carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the
+    train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark
+    quite long enough.
+
+    No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be
+    ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
+
+    Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,
+    as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not
+    mix sociably together.
+
+    No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.
+
+    No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be
+    divided oftener than once a month.
+
+    No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.
+
+    No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of
+    water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming
+    belts should always be kept in open carriages.
+
+    The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.
+
+    Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.
+
+    Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or
+    refreshment.[5]
+
+    One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be
+    allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or
+    third class--whichever of the two he prefers.
+
+    Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in
+    attendance at every station.
+
+    There must be some communication between every carriage and the
+    stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a
+    portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some
+    means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or
+    falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken
+    loose.
+
+There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are
+noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,
+but in the same year to _Punch_ belongs the credit of suggesting
+refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground
+railways.
+
+[Footnote 5: _Punch_ was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for
+scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.]
+
+[Illustration: A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS]
+
+The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as
+a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on
+the L. & N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the
+temper of the speculating public had changed, and _Punch_ is a faithful
+index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the
+over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New
+World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The
+papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The
+Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in
+_Punch_ as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at
+Madame Tussaud's. For a while _Punch_ was inclined to extend to him a
+certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he
+draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's
+high priest by his greedy and discontented worshippers. But the mood of
+compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of
+Cowper's poem, _The Loss of the Royal George_:--
+
+    Toll for a knave!
+      A knave whose day is o'er!
+    All sunk--with those who gave
+      Their cash, till they'd no more!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The _Royal George_ is gone,
+      His iron rule is o'er--
+    And he and his directors
+      Shall break the lines no more!
+
+[Sidenote: _King Hudson's Downfall_]
+
+In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"
+on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the
+Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of
+the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of
+_voyages de luxe_.
+
+But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,
+danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are
+rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 _Punch_ ironically
+comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in
+railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,
+only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests
+from correspondents of _The Times_ with the remark:--
+
+    Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the
+    staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and
+    directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and
+    brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and
+    morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with
+    passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive
+    expostulation.
+
+[Illustration: RAILWAY UNDERTAKING
+
+TOUTER: "Going by this train, Sir?"
+
+PASSENGER: "'M? Eh? Yes."
+
+TOUTER: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."]
+
+The directors of the L. & N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking
+their engine drivers, _à propos_ of a well-authenticated case of a man
+who had been on duty for thirty hours without relief or opportunity to
+rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the
+employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done
+for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and
+_Punch_ accordingly suggests that the directors should provide
+themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.
+Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under
+review, and in 1856 _Punch_ is still of opinion that we might take a
+leaf out of the book of the Russians, who carry surgeons on their
+trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal
+equipment of expresses.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Bradshaw: A Mystery"_]
+
+A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing _Bradshaw_
+with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's _Railway Time
+Tables_ were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from
+December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that _Punch_ began to
+realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and
+utilized them in a little play called _Bradshaw: A Mystery_, describing
+the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.
+Love may laugh at locksmiths, but _Bradshaw_ is another matter. Here is
+the happy ending of this romantic libel:--
+
+      _Leonora._ Oh, don't talk of _Bradshaw_!
+    _Bradshaw_ has nearly maddened me.
+    _Orlando_. And me.
+    He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;
+    Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;
+    Of junctions where no union is effected;
+    Of coaches meeting trains that never come;
+    Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;
+    Of trains that start after they have arrived;
+    Of trains arriving long before they leave.
+    He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;
+    Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote
+    From those we seek to reach! By _Bradshaw's_ aid
+    You've tried to get to London--I attempted
+    To get to Liverpool--and here we are,
+    At Chester--'Tis a junction--I'm content
+    Our union--at this junction--to cement.
+    And let us hope, nor you nor I again
+    May be attacked with _Bradshaw_ on the brain.
+      _Leonora._ I'm happy now! My husband!
+      _Orlando._ Ah, my bride!
+    Henceforth take me--not _Bradshaw_--for your guide.
+                    _The curtain falls._
+
+"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of _Bradshaw_ as
+analysed in _Punch's_ "Comic Guide" some years later.
+
+From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. _Punch_ notes the
+adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western
+Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to
+fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to
+Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years
+afterwards, when _Punch_ hailed the completion of the scheme as a new
+link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a
+sonnet.
+
+Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been
+foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated
+responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England _Punch_ rudely
+described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless
+diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the
+embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the
+central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service
+on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake
+shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,
+_Punch_ notes that a writer in the _Limerick Chronicle_ attributed it to
+the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an
+illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;
+and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the
+transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,
+but _Punch's_ compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the
+following lines:--
+
+AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE
+
+    It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,
+    About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,
+    On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;
+    Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,
+    For then t'other side would have nothing to do.
+
+_Punch's_ interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,
+though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing. Designs
+of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too
+bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.
+
+[Illustration: AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aviation Forecasts_]
+
+In 1845 there was actually a periodical called _The Balloon_, though
+_Punch_ is jocular at the expense of its very limited _clientèle_.
+Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise
+attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents
+between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to
+Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. _Punch_, to his credit,
+inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic
+acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less
+fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a
+"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years
+later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:--
+
+    Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to
+    have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful
+    and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means
+    of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,
+    nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a
+    suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of
+    Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is
+    correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran
+    Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.
+
+    One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his
+    balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,
+    who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an
+    argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut
+    proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and
+    take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing
+    shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.
+    The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself
+    the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the
+    medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the
+    enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of
+    course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all
+    directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus
+    the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut
+    also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by
+    taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible
+    to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's
+    invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,
+    "went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."
+
+    "And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your
+    missiles?"
+
+    "Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or
+    an electric communication, or by _another contrivance_ which you
+    must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it _a
+    secret_."
+
+    This "_secret_" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all
+    events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to
+    call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up
+    the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air
+    the basis of military operations.
+
+Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a
+certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both
+"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by
+his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions--the
+long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon--to the committee
+appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of
+£200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,
+of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines
+of modern warfare. _Punch_ at first lent Warner a certain measure of
+support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy
+and intractable.
+
+[Illustration: EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD
+WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE]
+
+[Illustration: Ye Wild Goose Chase after Ye Golden Calfe.
+
+THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849]
+
+The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble
+minds--the desire to "get rich quick"--and cupidity, balked of its
+expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its
+longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there
+is hardly a number of _Punch_ in this year which does not refer to the
+stampede from Europe to the diggings--"the wild-goose chase after the
+golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than
+one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the
+cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not
+likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with _Punch_ as the
+apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and
+Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.
+
+In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state
+of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the
+goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration
+from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the _auri sacra
+fames_ does not escape _Punch's_ notice, though no mention is made of
+the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was
+Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the
+evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we
+find frequent references to the growth of gambling. In 1852 _Punch's_
+pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting
+mania--to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in
+the Crimean War, and _Punch_ is eloquent in his denunciation of the
+contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the
+aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of
+discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and
+enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of
+bank smashes and absconding directors--those of the Royal British Bank
+coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out
+by _Punch_ as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the
+burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The
+brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in
+1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,
+who was the original of Mr. Merdle in _Little Dorrit_, and was described
+in _The Times_ after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped
+punishment by suicide.
+
+[Sidenote: _Novelties and Anticipations_]
+
+As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations
+mentioned in the pages of _Punch_, we are tempted to exclaim, in the
+hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A
+"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.
+"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor
+Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be
+regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index
+cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,
+but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. _Punch's_ account of
+"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece
+of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily
+hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being
+rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the
+perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to
+us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of
+anæsthetics is lightly passed over in _Punch's_ earlier references to
+this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to
+politicians or its use by hen-pecked husbands. Here only ether is
+mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months
+later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and
+phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.
+Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish _Punch_ with food for mirth in
+1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to
+take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more
+justifiable than that shown by _Punch_ towards ironclads in 1850. In
+1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," _i.e._ hypnotism;
+shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,[6] invented by Palmer, an
+American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853
+suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken
+out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves
+for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession
+in 1853 and 1854. _Punch's_ ironical suggestions in the latter year for
+the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of
+Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one
+generation becomes the fact of its successor.
+
+The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their
+colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the
+scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put
+forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by
+kneading and pressing, vide _Punch_, 1856, but he, however, was not
+solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous
+"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret
+Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it
+"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the
+inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty
+and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the
+score of its inhumanity, though _Punch_ welcomed the plan, without
+knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away
+scruples and use _anything_ against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever
+may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a
+nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of
+applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,
+notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for
+"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in
+1855 (see the _Panmure Papers_) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men
+of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,
+the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want
+it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,
+as _Punch_ notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for
+once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.
+
+[Footnote 6: Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument
+maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the
+Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).]
+
+[Sidenote: _Telegram or Telegrapheme?_]
+
+In general, _Punch_, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the
+contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed
+in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced
+academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as
+a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the
+popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of
+enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions--while reserving to himself
+the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the
+pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one
+with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but
+he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in
+high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already
+won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere
+halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound
+doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years
+ago:--
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?
+    Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,
+      But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!
+    Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,
+      Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,
+    Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy
+      Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Persons not uneducated--very highly dressed--
+    Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,
+      To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.
+    Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,
+      Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,
+    Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions
+      Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,
+    You naturally stare, seeing that so many are
+      Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.
+    Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,
+      Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;
+    Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,
+      Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.
+
+
+
+
+EDUCATION
+
+
+Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.
+Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory
+of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.
+Money was doled out in homoeopathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000
+was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which
+£70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which
+_Punch_ had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between
+ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane
+magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared
+that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor
+children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of
+thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth
+in habits and practices of idleness and vice," _Punch_ found himself in
+the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary
+who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points
+out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,
+taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary
+legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the
+transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they
+were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of
+their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in
+1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful
+boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though _Punch_ supported the
+establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply
+of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the
+Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy
+remained, and it was due in the country districts, in _Punch's_ view, to
+the fact that "contending zealots cannot agree with what theological
+mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the
+schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."
+
+[Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION]
+
+[Sidenote: _Abysmal Ignorance_]
+
+In 1850 the following dialogue was given in _The Times_ police report of
+Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in _Punch_:--
+
+    George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and
+    the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished
+    upon taking hold of the book.
+
+    _Ald. Humphrey._ Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know
+    what an oath is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what a Testament is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Can you read?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald._ H. Do you ever say your prayers?
+
+    _Boy._ No, never.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what prayers are?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what God is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald H._ Do you know what the devil is?
+
+    _Boy._ I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.
+
+    _Ald. H._ What do you know, my poor boy?
+
+    _Boy._ I knows how to sweep the crossing.
+
+    _Ald. H._ And that's all?
+
+    _Boy._ That's all. I sweeps the crossing.
+
+    The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a
+    creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the
+    truth.
+
+It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools
+movement had been started several years before. From the first _Punch_
+lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was
+unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at
+the aristocracy:--
+
+    WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO
+
+    It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of
+    Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak
+    advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is
+    not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful
+    mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,
+    taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and
+    misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our
+    views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,
+    and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to
+    the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes
+    generally.
+
+    When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of
+    poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our
+    other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we
+    may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,
+    originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the
+    tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions
+    for the education of the children of the aristocracy.
+
+Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted
+his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as
+all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is
+mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at
+Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ could not
+forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to
+_Punch_ meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of
+laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a
+fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel
+had to die before _Punch_ did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more
+fortunate, for thirty years before he died _Punch_ made the _amende_ in
+"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Distressed Author_]
+
+"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the
+'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian
+reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not
+yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to
+the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of
+the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,
+1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination
+paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the
+works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the
+Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few
+exceptions--such as Thackeray and Macaulay--were generally impecunious,
+and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a
+life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.
+There were no royalties in those days, and for _Black-Eyed Susan_, which
+brought tens of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular
+actors, he received from first to last the sum of £60. _Punch_ was the
+constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as
+Joseph Haydn of the _Dictionary of Dates_, who was granted a Civil List
+pension of £25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,
+1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green
+'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)
+tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund
+dinner in 1856, when a sum of £100 was sent from the proceeds of the
+first portion of the _Peel Papers_:--
+
+[Illustration: NEWSVENDOR: "Now, my man, what is it?"
+
+BOY: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a
+likeness in it."]
+
+    From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the
+    flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter
+    satire of _Punch_ himself], still beneficently thought of the wants
+    of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed
+    the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.
+
+The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph
+Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they
+were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, _Punch_, who
+had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while
+applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting
+homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from
+poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and
+his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and
+State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower
+orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords _Punch_
+suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an
+examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.
+Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to
+Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on
+the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
+Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in _Punch_, who suggested
+the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently
+as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was
+reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was
+meant by those "damned dots."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Education Bill of 1856_]
+
+Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on
+its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from _Punch's_
+"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:--
+
+    _Thursday_, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a
+    series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards
+    withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a
+    matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he
+    threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,
+    comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether
+    voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of
+    four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of
+    age, two millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while
+    a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most
+    miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed
+    House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the
+    children _should_ be taught, that the nation should pay for their
+    teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work
+    should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked
+    commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting
+    Attorney called Hadfield[7] said that the people were taught as
+    well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they
+    wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further
+    interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the
+    House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on
+    the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.
+
+    _Thursday_, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during
+    this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's
+    Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by
+    representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester
+    school: the first think that their religion only should be taught
+    by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,
+    but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be
+    taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no
+    practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people
+    contrived to get the worst in the fray.
+
+[Footnote 7: _Punch_ is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield
+from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal
+who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered
+valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.]
+
+[Illustration: AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.
+
+PRODIGY: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"]
+
+In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England
+and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.
+As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful
+reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a
+Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of
+the Committee of the Council of Education. But _Punch_, in these years
+at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,
+and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediævalism, obscurantism,
+and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and
+State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic
+authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost
+causes" made no appeal to his practical mind. Yet of classical
+scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.
+Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he
+even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the
+education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of
+1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years--until the
+notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was
+introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as
+early as 1848 _Punch_ avowed his belief in the value of making lessons
+interesting to children:--
+
+    The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because
+    they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books
+    should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,
+    but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature
+    which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought
+    before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study
+    should be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and
+    children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness
+    they rush now into the playground.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson_]
+
+[Illustration: HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]
+
+Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which
+so much controversy rages to-day. _Punch_ has always been a lover of
+children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of
+the _enfant terrible_ and of juvenile precocity. One of the most
+delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine
+epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:--
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,
+
+    "we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of
+    Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says
+    you allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as
+    me and charley read in the illusterated London [_News_] that Mr.
+    Hans Christian anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England
+    And We shold like to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with
+    is Betiful storys the ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen
+    the Red shoes the Storks little ida the Constant tinsoldier great
+    claws and Little Claws the darning Neddle and All the rest of Them
+    and it says in the illustat [_several attempts, a smear, and the
+    spelling evaded_] Paper the children shold Meet him in the
+    Crys-pallace and we shold Like to Go and tell him how much We Love
+    him for his betiful stores do you know the tinder box and tommelise
+    and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope you will Excuse bad
+    riting and i Am
+
+    "Yours affectionate
+
+    "NELLY.
+
+    charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you
+    put In  punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how
+    Glad we are He is Coming."
+
+We hope that Hans Andersen--who, by the way, as a writer of fairy
+stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori--saw this
+letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of
+_Punch's_ aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day
+conditions. In the year 1844 the _Comic Blackstone_ reads: "Children owe
+their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must
+support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other
+wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's
+Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out
+the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will
+remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children
+of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.
+
+
+
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+
+_Punch's_ efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,
+exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the _English
+Journal of Education_ declared that _Punch_ was not suitable reading for
+Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But _Punch_ gave as good
+as he got. When the _Record_ attacked the Queen for having a band at
+Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,
+_Punch_ unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced _Mawworm_."[8]
+The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery
+on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
+but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to _Punch's_ great disgust. He
+advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant
+Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of
+Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,
+or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a
+hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent
+electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and
+in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, _Punch_
+summarizes the debate:--
+
+    The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small
+    calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully
+    stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in
+    seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the
+    Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a
+    divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord
+    Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these
+    exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in
+    defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.
+    This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited
+    to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376--add four
+    who were "shut out" and say 380--gentlemen in comfortable
+    circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,
+    decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has
+    left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid
+    house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.
+
+[Footnote 8: Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in
+Bickerstaffe's play _The Hypocrite_.]
+
+This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the
+matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which
+_Punch_ liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to
+call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question
+throughout the year _Punch_ gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of
+Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.
+For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and _Punch_
+celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in
+an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."
+
+But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was
+"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while
+retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday
+music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to
+him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were
+jubilant, as may be gathered from _Punch's_ reference to the _Record_ in
+his issue of August 16:--
+
+    We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call
+    the _Record_ our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by
+    the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:--
+
+    "We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our
+    affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it
+    almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the
+    moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to
+    make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a
+    great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord
+    Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a
+    majority still more overwhelming."
+
+    We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,
+    writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,
+    perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot
+    well conceive any other person guilty thereof.
+
+[Sidenote: Goldsmith Bowdlerized]
+
+[Illustration: SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT]
+
+_Punch_ could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a
+charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin
+Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing
+on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but
+evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an
+edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and
+the lines:--
+
+    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+    For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made--
+
+were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring
+lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, _Punch_
+castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he
+is a noisome fellow, Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he
+is a dunce."
+
+_Punch's_ hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and
+other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal
+Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,
+which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of
+Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:--
+
+    It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and
+    easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet
+    sofa--it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,
+    talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa
+    to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to
+    die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having
+    voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own
+    comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated
+    their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and--taking
+    care of themselves.
+
+In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the
+Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the
+poor at home--multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the
+housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and
+wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with
+Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,
+but _Punch_ could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday
+observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs
+and Chadbands.
+
+His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and
+archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As _The
+Times_ wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of
+England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." _Punch_
+re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic
+comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But
+he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young
+England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church--to
+make it the friend, comforter and protector of the people. "Young
+England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were
+almost as great _bêtes noires_ to _Punch_ as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy
+Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,
+the Bishop of London.
+
+[Illustration: SERIOUS FLUNKEY: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a
+year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,
+and piety hindispensable."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Clerical Bugbears_]
+
+The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great
+prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.
+_Punch_ was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to
+the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife
+to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The
+Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on the
+subject, but one extract from _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" may
+suffice to illustrate his _nolo episcopari_ attitude:--
+
+    _Thursday_, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
+    their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
+    present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
+    deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
+    acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
+    actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
+    more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
+    divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
+    with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
+    bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
+    gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (_Mr.
+    Punch_ does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
+    the _Standard_, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
+    speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
+    "The lower classes did not demand the _privilegia_ afforded to the
+    higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
+    with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
+    Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
+    and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
+    and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
+    postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
+    "amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
+    Priests.
+
+It may be added that _Punch_ was also a supporter of marriage with a
+deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope
+for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'
+Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, _Punch_ notes that the
+result was chiefly due to "four priests"--the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,
+St. David's and Exeter--and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes
+of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."
+Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the
+opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable
+to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence
+for the Common Prayer-book." _Punch's_ own reasons for supporting the
+change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from
+relief, when he remarries takes on a _second_ mother-in-law.
+
+[Illustration: AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND: "Come, Polly--if I _am_ a little
+irritable, it's over in a minute."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Destitute Clergy_]
+
+But _Punch's_ chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in
+the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the
+wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch
+with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect
+of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted
+_Punch's_ attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred
+to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the
+Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic
+inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact
+that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on
+their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to
+2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends _under_ £100 a year, and as many
+as 173 _less_ than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this
+modern clerical instance of Dives and Lazarus is to be found in an
+article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":--
+
+    A curate--"an Agueish curate"--wishes to know of _The Times_ if
+    curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
+    and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
+    disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
+    twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
+    by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
+    atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
+    bishop and curate as below:--
+
+    "To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
+    give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity--a palace and £6,000
+    per annum.
+
+    "To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
+    before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
+    from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
+    inability to be any longer faithful in his calling--the workhouse."
+
+    And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,
+    and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
+    the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
+    Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
+    bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
+    fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
+    the volume to which we have reverently alluded.
+
+It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been
+introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to
+resign, and making provision for them:--
+
+    The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
+    enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
+    at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
+    annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
+    twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
+    £4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.
+
+The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
+departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
+scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
+remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find
+it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
+Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
+expenditure.
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]
+
+In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is
+somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
+Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
+followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
+"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
+but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
+Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
+Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
+Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
+Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
+Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
+violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
+welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
+opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed
+a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
+of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
+masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
+were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
+the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
+the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
+secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
+is ortho-."
+
+Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
+Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
+declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
+Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
+"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
+Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
+bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham
+case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
+for toleration:--
+
+    O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
+    you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
+    these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
+    mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
+    The people in this country _will_ learn to read and write; they
+    will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
+    lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
+    outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
+    long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
+    Jumbo.
+
+Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No
+Popery" movement a few months later. _Punch_, in a poem on "Consolation
+amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:--
+
+    We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,
+    But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!
+    No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,
+    But only just a little jawing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,
+    People beheading, throttling, frying.
+    _Punch_, and he says it without boasting,
+    Does all the cutting up and roasting.
+
+As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one
+subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,
+of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The
+Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"
+we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord
+Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement
+that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new
+Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put
+forward on behalf of other creeds--Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.
+
+[Illustration: THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
+
+Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church]
+
+[Sidenote: _Cardinal Wiseman_]
+
+On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter
+to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely
+whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal
+claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our
+bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as
+asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,
+that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than
+by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most
+forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the
+precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of
+England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with
+contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the
+glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."
+_Punch_ lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of
+November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way
+with the Pope's Puppets." _Punch_ had no desire, he declares, to bring
+back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the
+quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called
+upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all
+spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him
+for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the
+Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"
+appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging
+its way through _Punch's_ columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and
+pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that
+_Punch_ was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting
+the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in
+addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.
+Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that
+the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular
+administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the
+request of English communicants," left _Punch_ cold and derisive. He
+suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed
+to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in
+"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive
+Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist--very much to the advantage
+of the latter--in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of
+history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,
+_Punch_ continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was
+more than a little wrathful with the _Morning Chronicle_ for asserting
+that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."
+But the _Morning Chronicle_ was not far out, and it is noteworthy that
+from this point onwards _Punch's_ attacks were chiefly directed against
+Puseyites and Ritualists--such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico--and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:--
+
+    Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,
+    For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.
+
+Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously
+on _Punch_ in the _Dublin Review_, denouncing his opponent as once
+facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old
+street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented
+him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting
+the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere
+transportation for life. _Punch_ promptly hit back, but he did not get
+the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he
+was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable
+Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and
+literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in
+_Punch's_ pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he
+is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,
+as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop
+Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is
+certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying
+which probably represented the Cardinal's view of _Punch_ accurately in
+the verse:--
+
+    You, for example, clever to a fault,
+    The rough and ready man, who write apace,
+    Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
+
+Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were
+revealed--illustrated, to take only one instance, by _Punch's_ satirical
+picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the
+controversy _Punch_ showed refreshing signs of good sense and good
+feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who
+made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a
+mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on
+behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and
+Wiseman remained the targets of _Punch's_ obloquy for several years.
+Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is
+tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:--
+
+    Roman dictation is my vexation;
+      Oxford is just as bad;
+    Papal aggression is my obsession,
+      And Pusey drives me mad.
+
+In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at
+Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the _Tablet_ attributed
+the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation
+"against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic
+religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and
+described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document,"
+_Punch_ replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look
+upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A
+bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections
+followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than
+the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar
+of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year,
+according to _Punch_, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died
+down during the Crimean War, and then, four years elapsing, the Clapham
+Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified
+slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.
+
+[Sidenote: _A More Tolerant Spirit_]
+
+[Illustration: THE PET PARSON]
+
+For the rest of the period under review in this volume _Punch_ shows a
+slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who
+strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they
+considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently
+rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, _à propos_
+of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of
+all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the
+most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the
+British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact
+that the honorary secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr.
+Samuel Pope, and _Punch_, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is
+"one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that
+of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the
+former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the
+close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon--by no
+means complimentary. _Punch_, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame
+Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist
+preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere
+self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of
+tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." _Punch_, as
+will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose
+portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than
+those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the
+stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these
+aids to popularity.
+
+To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large
+body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the
+man in the street, is reflected in the pages of _Punch_. Where doctrinal
+controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the
+sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We
+find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of
+Exeter," who was prepared to spend--and lose--scores of thousands of
+pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration.
+We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediævalism,
+Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ made no effort to
+disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of
+their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious
+financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts.
+"How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of
+others who have so little of it themselves?"
+
+[Illustration: THE POLITICAL TOPSY
+
+"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."--_Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin._]
+
+On April 26 of this same year of 1845 _Punch_ castigated the violence of
+the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of
+the Maynooth Grant Bill, notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith,
+who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest
+again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of
+"at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the
+House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If _Punch_ showed
+himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant
+gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the
+British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded
+the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an _imperium in imperio_.
+Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter.
+His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his
+honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same
+insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look
+with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged,
+to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his
+early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at,
+in view of the admissions of his biographers:--
+
+    The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
+    accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
+    development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
+    interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
+    which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
+    throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
+    served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
+    of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
+    as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
+    "could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
+    he was in the presence of a foreigner."[9]
+
+Now _Punch_ was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery"
+in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen
+as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic
+tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates
+this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to _Punch_, than the
+part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long
+and chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A
+manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong
+prejudice. As we have seen, _Punch_ frankly admitted the Jews' great
+virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the
+"Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the
+same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the
+cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses & Co." in
+1844.
+
+[Footnote 9: _Life of Disraeli_ (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p.
+635.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and the Jews_]
+
+_Punch's_ jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable
+as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes
+purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at
+Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when
+the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him
+the honorary degree of D.C.L., _Punch_ was prompted to remark that the
+initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in
+Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the rôle of
+world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed
+Jewish Protocol, did not escape _Punch's_ notice, and his comment is
+characteristic:--
+
+    Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
+    _They_ join Secret Societies. _They_ (for the evils complained of
+    by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
+    nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
+    picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
+    Sheriff's Officer! "_All is race._" What a picture of cool
+    malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
+    luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
+    luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
+    him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
+    sherry.
+
+Was _Punch_ an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering,
+if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild
+in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.
+
+Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding
+relief recalled to _Punch_ Martin Luther's saying of the Jews: "They
+sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government."
+This, adds _Punch_, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the
+wheelbarrow still.
+
+[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES
+
+LORD JOHN: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little
+matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Jewish Disabilities_]
+
+Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and
+re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused
+permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed
+to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of
+strangers. In all, _nine_ Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed
+by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by the Lords, before the tenth,
+and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise
+under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the
+oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron
+Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the
+oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John
+Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and
+abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly _Punch_ lent him valuable
+free-lance help throughout.
+
+
+
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+In the 'forties _Punch_, as we have already noted, stood in with "the
+group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in
+Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first
+strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by
+_Punch_. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly
+pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean
+War, it was not due to any change of _personnel_. The gentle Doyle
+resigned because of _Punch's_ "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed
+his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the
+Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy
+of _Punch_ in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most
+bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was
+responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons.
+Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were
+his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a
+conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did
+it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the
+underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything
+savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his
+criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, _Punch_ gave "the
+judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his
+stiffness. _Punch_ supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the
+Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of
+the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of
+Labour--witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of
+1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who
+invariably sided against his country.
+
+[Illustration: "GENERAL FÉVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR
+
+"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide--Generals Janvier and
+Février."--_Speech of the late Emperor of Russia._]
+
+With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic
+tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless
+pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. _Punch's_
+campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never
+recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare
+even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting
+with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the
+principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant
+letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring
+in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General
+for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell
+trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of
+Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel,
+this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by
+this vitriolic comment:--
+
+    If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
+    Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
+    the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
+    widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
+    noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
+    to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
+    of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
+    Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
+    duelling-pistol!
+
+_Punch's_ remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go
+free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch as Pacifist_]
+
+The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series
+named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin
+Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a
+gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and
+pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish,
+blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville,
+Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying
+Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose pamphleteering; but
+_Punch_ was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in
+the _Morning Post_, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall,
+who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain.
+_Punch_, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his
+comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides
+with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with
+France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the
+ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London,
+who would have to flee in case of war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the
+same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which _Punch_
+assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French
+editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter.
+_Punch_ had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the
+eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range
+invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of
+ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on
+the "Science of Warfare," _à propos_ of the benevolent object of some
+inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by
+making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the
+Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very
+ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the
+sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization
+or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical
+references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer--Brook Green being "one
+of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to
+the metropolis on the western side. _Punch_ at this time was a bitter
+critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal
+reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at
+Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the
+clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of
+Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of
+August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish
+flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to
+the Queen":--
+
+    Let thy queenly voice be heard--
+      Who shall dare to disobey?--
+    It but costs thy Royal word,
+      And the lash is cast away.
+    With thyself it rests to scour
+      From our arms the loathsome stain;
+    Then of mercy show thy power,
+      And immortal be thy reign!
+
+This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and
+passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.
+
+[Illustration: A SILLY TRICK
+
+JOHN BULL: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be
+frightened by such a turnip as that!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Invasion Scare_]
+
+In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but _Punch_
+maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the
+alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to _The Times_, and by the letter
+of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by _Punch_ as a
+letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized
+by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have
+contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect,
+may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the
+formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on
+Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls."
+The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the
+violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a
+frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.
+
+England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden
+in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with _Punch_ as the "cleverest Cob"
+in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His
+Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with _Punch's_ cordial
+approval:--
+
+    PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT
+
+    Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
+    practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
+    goodwill--could more be expected?--of the Prime Minister and the
+    Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
+    position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
+    ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
+    themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
+    more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
+    are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
+    as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
+    to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
+    music.
+
+    The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
+    Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
+    cedar in the gardens at Paris--a cedar of hugest girth and widest
+    shape--that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
+    of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
+    Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
+    and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
+    to all nations.
+
+In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in
+Paris:--
+
+    THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS
+
+    Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
+    reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
+    of the tomb of the great peace-breaker--who turned kingdoms into
+    graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
+    human freedom--even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
+    his violet robe--beset with golden bees--the bees that, as in the
+    lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases--Napoleon, with his
+    Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
+    portentous, glistering evil--contrasted with our Quaker friend
+    [Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
+    aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
+    in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
+    his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
+    brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
+    thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.
+
+So, again, _Punch_ breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in
+the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims?
+All great reformers, idealists and benefactors--Harvey, Jenner,
+Stephenson--had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative
+critics:--
+
+    TO THE LAUGHERS
+
+    The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
+    fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
+    All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
+    it--paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
+    it--arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
+    sides.
+
+    "Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
+    supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
+    "Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
+    instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!
+
+    "Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the _Economist_.
+
+    "It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
+    _Statist_; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
+    Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
+    declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
+    growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
+    rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
+    of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
+    Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.
+
+    But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
+    there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
+    this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
+    tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be
+    ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
+    declares that its heart contains the Oak.
+
+The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington
+publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the
+Army, on which _Punch_ remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases,
+how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while
+condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National
+Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when
+£158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea."
+On naval matters _Punch_ foretold many things, but he did not foresee
+the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the
+truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of
+ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in
+foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when
+he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the
+Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and
+proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the
+arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status
+and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his
+heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be
+written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."
+
+The turning point at which _Punch's_ pacificist zeal began to cool was
+reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with
+Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to
+Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his
+colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in
+refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any
+responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by
+_Punch_, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 _Punch_
+waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in
+which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with
+the greatest ease. The _coup d'ètat_ of 1851, and suspicion of the aims
+of Louis Napoleon, whom _Punch_ described as a "perjured homicide,"
+converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and
+needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill,
+Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the
+title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an
+Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for
+exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private
+approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this _Punch_
+regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852
+opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on
+"Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the
+anxious vigil of England.
+
+[Illustration: THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING
+
+"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your
+fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you
+must go, of course."]
+
+"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr.
+Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into
+bitter antagonism:--
+
+    Armaments useless our money to spend on,
+      Certainly we should be acting like geese;
+    _But_ have we any sure ground to depend on,
+      In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?
+                                  Speak, Mr. Cobden!
+
+The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government,
+and _Punch_ (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford
+University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim
+to have been the inventor of _camouflage_ on the strength of the
+following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety
+Uniforms" the reader finds:--
+
+    In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
+    distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
+    provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
+    which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
+    objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
+    possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
+    corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
+    mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
+    manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
+    house-top service amongst the chimney pots, of bright green with
+    mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
+    fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
+    daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
+    brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
+    were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
+    splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
+    the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
+    midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
+    bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
+    uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
+    rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
+    Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
+    Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
+    article and good cut.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of "The Duke"_]
+
+The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct
+attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave
+_Punch_ a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.
+
+RENDERING UP THE SWORD
+
+    Our Arthur sleeps--our Arthur is not dead.
+      Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,
+    Should e'er invading foot this England tread--
+      Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.
+
+    Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn
+      Through all our veins--until the foeman say,
+    "Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"
+      And awestruck from the onset shrink away.
+
+Moreover, _Punch_ defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at
+this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental
+despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism;
+that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the
+spirit of valour."
+
+[Illustration: ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE]
+
+[Illustration: ITINERANT NEWSMAN, No. 1: "I say, Bill, what are you
+givin' 'em?"
+
+DITTO, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of
+the British Troops."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Outbreak of War_]
+
+Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady _crescendo_ of hostility in
+the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this,
+both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in
+the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the
+Russo-Turkish quarrel _Punch's_ long and consistent distrust--to put it
+mildly--of the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined
+him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in
+Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled
+him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his _bête noire_, the
+Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the
+predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and
+Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the
+interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey
+from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, _Punch_ threw
+all his weight into the balance with the War party in the Cabinet, and
+bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen.
+These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown
+with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably
+indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's
+boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The
+Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from
+the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the
+war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness
+of our cause did not blind _Punch_ to the negligence and worse of those
+charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our
+forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to
+preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of
+organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the
+debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank and file of our fighting
+men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this
+excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":--
+
+    It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in _The Times_,
+    will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
+    wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
+    on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
+    the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
+    it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
+    value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
+    children. The girl--and, maybe, the little girls and boys--left by
+    him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
+    the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
+    that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
+    with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
+    and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
+    beadle's.
+
+The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and
+children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there
+were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat
+of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each
+letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."
+
+[Sidenote: _Song of the Nightingale_]
+
+[Illustration: WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND NIGHTINGALES]
+
+But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the
+hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of
+_The Times_, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert
+and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country
+deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence
+Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was _Punch's_
+chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the
+publication of "The Nightingale's Song":--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER
+
+    Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,
+      'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,
+    Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,
+      With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.
+
+    Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,
+      Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,
+    And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,
+      With alacrity and promptitude of motion.
+
+    Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands
+      How to manage every sort of application,
+    From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach
+      The way to make a poppy fomentation.
+
+    Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,
+      By the readiness of feminine invention;
+    Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,
+      With a careful and considerate attention.
+
+    Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,
+      Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,
+    'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
+      To carry out so gallant an idea.
+
+This is only one of a whole series of poems--notably one written at the
+time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855--inspired by the "Lady of the
+Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded
+common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their
+nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement
+of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily
+expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people
+of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale--nor
+can we forget mismanagement."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, Jack, here's good news from home. We're to have a
+medal."
+
+"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it
+on."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Familiar Grievances_]
+
+Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her
+an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition
+was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was
+given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, _Punch_ laboured in
+season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his
+humanity and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and
+was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a
+great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a
+picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example,
+the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the
+winter of 1854:--
+
+    How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,
+    From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!
+    And that's how we pension our officer-foes,
+    For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.
+
+    The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays
+    The wages of postmen will probably raise,
+    And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all
+    The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.
+
+Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of
+bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding
+Officer," early in 1855:--
+
+    Oh! no, we never mention them,
+      Their names must not be heard,
+    My hand Routine forbids to trace
+      Of their exploits one word.
+    Most glorious though their deeds may be,
+      To say it I regret,
+    When they expect a word from me,
+      They find that I forget.
+
+    You say that they are happy now,
+      The bravest of the brave,
+    A "special" pen recording how
+      Mere Grenadiers behave.
+    Of "special" pens I disapprove,
+      An inconvenient set,
+    Who oftentimes the veil remove,
+      And print what we forget.
+
+The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among
+those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring.
+Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were too old; or they were
+"blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or
+inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous
+gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given £5 by the Prince Consort;
+or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed
+by the Queen. Why, asks _Punch_, was he not made an ensign? Of a review
+of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been
+more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the
+invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is
+the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":--
+
+    _Flunkey_ (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
+    Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
+    dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
+    inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."
+
+    _Flunkey_ (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
+    think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
+    Sufficient!'"
+
+[Illustration: A DISTRESSED AGRICULTURIST
+
+LANDLORD: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems
+to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."
+
+TENANT (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why,
+you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Combatants and Non-Combatants_]
+
+The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten
+by _Punch_. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their
+commanders,
+
+    As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,
+    Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.
+    These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand
+    As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.
+
+The Charge of the Light Brigade[10] prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump
+Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, _Punch_, throughout the
+war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of
+unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to
+the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the
+cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive
+bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the
+commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have
+leave to go home on urgent _Private_ affairs?"
+
+The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive
+criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even
+more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:--
+
+    Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,
+      And merrily danced that Quaker,
+    When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,
+      And Mouravieff meant to take her.
+    He said he knew it was wrong to fight,
+      He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,
+    But to see that the battle was going right,
+      O! merrily danced the Quaker.
+
+[Footnote 10: _Punch_ welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally
+appeared in the _Examiner_, but could not agree with the view expressed
+in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be
+the only way--as at the moment--to secure it.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BRITISH LION SMELLS A RAT]
+
+[Sidenote: _Paying the Bill_]
+
+The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation,
+when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and
+devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are
+mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his
+pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace
+came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism,
+dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on
+generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses,
+and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had
+appeared--a painful document with "delay," "want of----" and
+"unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the
+Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts _Punch_ to mitigated "joy and
+satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise
+Lord Malmesbury--no favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as
+crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to
+express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of
+Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his
+ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the
+Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks
+to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and
+those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were
+appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain
+figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two
+years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but
+3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the
+demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her
+attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, _Punch_
+strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His
+general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":--
+
+    Thank Heaven the War is ended!
+      That is the general voice,
+    But let us feign no splendid
+      Endeavours to rejoice.
+    To cease from lamentation
+      We may contrive--but--pooh!
+    Can't rise to exultation,
+      And cock-a-doodle-doo!
+
+    We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,
+      Like supernumeraries on the stage,
+      To smiling happiness from settled rage;
+    We look before and after.
+    Before, to all those skeletons and corses
+    Of gallant men and noble horses;
+      After--though sordid the consideration--
+    Unto a certain bill to pay,
+    Which we shall have for many a day,
+      By unrepealable taxation.
+
+    Yet never fought we in a better cause,
+      Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.
+    We stood in battle for the eternal laws;
+      'Twas an affair of high Police,
+    Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;
+    And now remains--the Rate.
+
+Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington
+led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the
+gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what
+it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the
+Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the
+cause of Italian liberty, _à propos_ of the advance of a million pounds
+to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest
+a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a
+trade offer." _Punch_, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney
+Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and
+establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he
+was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the
+barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every
+prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the
+worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."
+
+Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856--in the
+recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in
+wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque
+in the shape of an imaginary article from the _Morning Herald_ on the
+execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over
+"Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead.
+Here, as so often time has proved, _Punch_ was a prophet as well as a
+critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the
+Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France;
+wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary
+expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced
+_Punch_ to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the
+price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in
+July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:--
+
+    Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;
+    Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;
+    And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,
+    To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.
+
+    So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,
+    With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,
+    To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,
+    Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.
+
+    When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,
+    'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.
+    What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?
+    What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?
+
+[Sidenote: _Incapable Commanders_]
+
+Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex
+of incapacity," but _Punch_ spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the
+Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except
+when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great
+people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement
+we may bracket a useful _obiter dictum_ on appointments generally: "Too
+much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places
+generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing
+report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against
+Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with
+"aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea
+Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."
+
+Evidently _Punch_ is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a
+month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's
+son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at £200 a year for four years, with
+a grant of £500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without
+purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a
+marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money
+to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for
+severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service
+is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was
+a stern critic of extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, _Punch_
+recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State
+to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of
+criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier
+notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a
+comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in
+its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of
+February 23, 1856:--
+
+    Till now the stars and garters
+      Were for birth or fortune's son,
+    And as oft in snug home-quarters
+      As in fields of fight were won.
+    But at length a star arises,
+      Which as glorious will shine
+    On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast
+      Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.
+
+    Too long mere food for powder
+      We've deemed our rank and file,
+    Now higher hopes and prouder
+      Upon the soldier smile.
+    And if no Marshal's bâton
+      Private Smith in his knapsack bears,
+    At least in the War, the chance of the star
+      With his General he shares.
+
+The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until
+June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity _Punch_
+strove to render justice to the occasion:--
+
+THE STAR OF VALOUR
+
+Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.
+
+    The fount of Honour, sealed till now
+      To all save claims of rank and birth,
+    Makes green the laurel on the brow
+      Ennobled but by soldier's worth.
+
+    Of these the bravest and the best
+      Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,
+    England doth, by her Queen, invest
+      With Valour's Cross--their great reward!
+
+    Marking her sense of something still,
+      A central nobleness, that lies
+    Deeper than rank which royal will,
+      Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.
+
+    Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,
+      Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;
+    That knighthood this bronze cross imparts--
+      Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Victoria Cross_]
+
+The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression
+was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:--
+
+    Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,
+      Though rather ugly--take it,
+    John Bull a medal can deserve,
+      But can't contrive to make it.
+
+But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction.
+_Punch_ was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were
+well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts
+of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not
+instituted till 1866. _Punch's_ democratic bias is also agreeably shown
+in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the
+dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were
+thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for
+help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would
+help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in
+fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with
+this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on
+State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on
+Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all
+soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public
+subscription, largely due to the appeal in _Punch's_ columns. Lastly,
+and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the
+timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in
+which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and
+ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would
+probably mean promotion by influence--an equally vicious system. To
+alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered
+the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it
+was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"--not the only reference in
+_Punch_ to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on
+behalf of his protégé and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.
+
+
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of _Punch_ seventy and
+eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that
+was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the
+streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot
+be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the
+streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to
+_Punch_ they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy,
+while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured
+localities--the Poultry and Lombard Street--was a constant source of
+danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in
+recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is
+noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the
+patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which
+Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now
+relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully
+established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To
+those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel
+came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled
+against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted
+so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle,
+and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give
+a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or
+"growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but
+_Punch_, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for
+his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old
+bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The
+one-day cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at
+6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to
+mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the
+matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having
+five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public
+sympathy, fostered by the _Examiner_, was enlisted on behalf of the
+cabman, but _Punch_ was rigidly on the side of the public as against the
+proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and
+rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered
+from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which
+appeared in _The Times_. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor
+to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because
+he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also
+require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen
+were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an
+improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to
+elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of
+cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard
+of taxi-drivers.
+
+[Illustration: CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN THE WRONG
+TURNING--THAT'S ALL]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ancient Omnibus_]
+
+[Illustration: AMY (to Rose): "Good gracious, Rose, I'm afraid from the
+way the man talks that he is intoxicated!"
+
+CABBY (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic)
+intossi--intossi-cated (hic)--itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in
+speesh, Miss!"]
+
+Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their
+dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw on the floors, and the
+perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope
+ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to
+sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of
+the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside
+passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after
+1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a
+journey to the remoter suburbs, if _Punch_ is to be believed, took
+almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar
+inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially
+on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded
+interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are
+vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were
+introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the
+conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a
+superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period
+complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort,
+cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of
+1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a
+good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts,
+stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and
+driver. In one respect only, London was better served--on its waterway.
+The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that
+they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was
+habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in
+general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and
+ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for
+over-population.
+
+[Illustration: FEMALE 'BUSES (A Prophecy)]
+
+From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were
+charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by
+the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has
+frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new
+policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of
+1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of
+_Punch_ in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be
+gauged by his greeting the threat of their strike with the remark that
+he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with
+cooks--a fruitful source of satire--began to be a theme of ridicule in
+the late 'forties, and inspired in _Punch_ "The Loves of the New
+Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post
+owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.
+
+[Sidenote: _The New Police Force_]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLICE]
+
+We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students
+of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.
+
+As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means
+universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844;
+the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was
+foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest
+illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock
+in _The Ogilvies_ speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too
+bright," and _Punch_ is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility
+of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become
+obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter has no longer
+need to climb and never runs. In 1844 _Punch_ speaks of the Lucifer
+having replaced the Congreve--or "Congry" as it was vulgarly
+called--friction match; but the change of name was later, according to
+Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer
+matches as "a triumph of science."
+
+[Illustration: SIR JAMES GRAHAM HOLDS A REVIEW OF THE LONDON POSTMEN]
+
+[Sidenote: _Municipal Apathy_]
+
+The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the
+'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached
+villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from
+Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way
+House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of
+bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea
+Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric
+license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the
+'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year
+1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces
+or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as _Punch_
+called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there
+were wildernesses even in central London, notably Leicester Square and
+Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of
+Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the _terra
+incognita_ of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only
+differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked
+eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the
+region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests
+in _Punch_, belong to an unregretted past. _Punch_ was a great Londoner.
+We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him
+to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For
+years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in
+the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square,
+the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin
+in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven
+years later we read:--
+
+    In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
+    is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
+    on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
+    celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
+    particulars:
+
+    To erect a Simple Column            It takes in England 12 years.
+    Ditto, with Lions, everything
+      complete                             "          "     24   "
+    To build a Common Bridge               "          "     15   "
+    Ditto a Suspension Bridge              "          "     25   "
+    Ditto Houses of Parliament              A trifle under 100   "
+
+    With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
+    curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
+    one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
+    celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
+    Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
+    supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
+    to make his appearance.
+
+"Britannia," _Punch_ makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal
+happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate their memory."
+And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not
+ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it
+likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same
+spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on
+"The Nation and Its Monuments":--
+
+    The National Gallery holds its place
+      In Trafalgar's noble Square,
+    And being a national disgrace,
+      Will remain for ever there.
+
+    The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite
+      Of all that the world could say;
+    And because he stands on an awkward site,
+      We, of course, shall let him stay.
+
+    The Palace of Glass is so much admired,
+      Both in Country and in Town,
+    That its maintenance is by all desired:
+      So we mean to pull it down.
+
+[Sidenote: _London Changes and Improvements_]
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which
+we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British
+Museum Library--_Punch_ was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the
+Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of
+Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can
+walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk.
+The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of
+Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. _Punch_ began by
+objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the
+expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters'
+gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of
+the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge--begun
+in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous,
+and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to
+frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham
+Palace to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of
+removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of
+Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to
+cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road
+past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their
+sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received
+a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.
+
+The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and
+"improvements" kept by _Punch_ is not complete, but it serves to
+illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The
+Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean
+engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of
+London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen
+opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q"
+(Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a
+hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The
+reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an
+apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of
+which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray
+has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the
+pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a
+central octagon room. In view of _Punch's_ persistent attacks on the
+Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task
+of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was
+entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and
+Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from
+Milton's _Comus_. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of
+Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by
+Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, _Punch_ heaped unstinted
+ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms
+on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron
+Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as
+"Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French Ambassador
+as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."
+
+The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some
+jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the
+Billingsgate dialect.
+
+But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E
+natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock
+Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable
+is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as,
+without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The
+announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to
+an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so _Punch_ was
+able to have it both ways:--
+
+    Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;
+      Small Ben is sane, past disputation;
+    Yet we should like to know whose tone
+      Is most offensive to the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Filthy Thames_]
+
+The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work
+on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible
+description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no
+mention of _Punch's_ services in the cause of London sanitation. They
+certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to
+bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports
+the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as
+the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated
+pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:--
+
+    Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
+    the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
+    up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
+    mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
+    the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
+    of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross--and is, by means
+    of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent ingredients
+    of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
+    surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
+    slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
+    contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
+    Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
+    into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
+    side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
+    allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
+    situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
+    (which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
+    perfection.
+
+[Illustration: THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN]
+
+The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is,
+perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The
+noisome state of the Serpentine--"a lake of mere manure"--constantly
+affronted _Punch's_ sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid
+Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties
+onward. But it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus
+visitation, that his crusade against London filth--"Plague, Pestilence
+and Co."--began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of
+bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked
+pollution of the river. _Punch_ salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of
+"Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in
+endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts
+savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and
+extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse.
+He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an
+epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that
+John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard;
+and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in
+accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of
+dirt.
+
+Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington,
+_Punch_ confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary
+Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a
+fetid Dead Sea." Yet _Punch_ refused to lay the blame at the door of
+Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the
+_Morning Herald_ for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London.
+The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and
+cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of
+influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:--
+
+    For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,
+    For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;
+    Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,
+    But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.
+
+    Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;
+    Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and
+      doom;
+    Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;
+    Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR CHILD'S NURSE]
+
+[Sidenote: _King Cholera's Friends_]
+
+The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed
+reform, and furnished _Punch_ with an occasion for free-spoken
+denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other
+obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the
+great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is
+generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as
+in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":--
+
+    What is it to _me_ that fever is never absent from these
+    places--that infants do not rear, and men die before their
+    time--that sickness engenders pauperism--that filth breeds
+    depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
+    telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
+    every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181, in St. Saviour's its 153, in
+    Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
+    Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
+    same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
+    their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
+    slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
+    and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
+    triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.
+
+    It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
+    case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
+    Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
+    still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
+    self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
+    again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
+    1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, _he_, too, is
+    at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."
+
+[Illustration: THE END OF GOG AND MAGOG; OR, THINGS VERY BAD IN THE
+CITY]
+
+_Punch_ naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in
+1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would have preferred a
+more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the
+dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.
+
+[Sidenote: _London's Vanished Glories_]
+
+Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet
+Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and
+unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by _Punch_ on the
+occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell
+Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of
+London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall
+Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with
+its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery,
+was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil
+days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of
+auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties,
+_Punch_ forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of _Bon
+Gaultier_. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was
+going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is
+attributed by _Punch_ to disgust at the failure of Imperialism.
+Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of
+_Punch's_ pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning,
+who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and
+sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B.
+Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and
+only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a
+place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving
+bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in
+their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by _Punch_ along
+with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron
+Nathan, one of the irregular _impresario_ peers who do not appear in
+"Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron
+Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he
+appealed to a fashionable _clientèle_. When Burnand wrote the libretto
+of _Cox and Box_ in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City
+clerk, witness Cox's song,
+
+    My aged employer, his whole physiognomy
+    Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,
+    Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me
+    If you will take this as your holiday!"
+    Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville--
+    Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.
+
+Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume
+of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents
+as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the
+democratic _Punch_ denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in
+1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on,
+however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of
+the Semitic invaders.
+
+[Sidenote: _Burlington Arcadia_]
+
+The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre
+Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her _début_ on the
+stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture
+gallery. _Punch_ describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery
+combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a
+pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough
+Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the
+building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular
+attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various
+vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine
+warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street,
+was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it
+in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin
+trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has
+disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of
+"The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," _Punch_ gives a detailed
+account of its attractions in 1842:--
+
+    The covered passage through which the overland journey from
+    Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
+    in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
+    happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
+    whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
+    of security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
+    regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows--from
+    Gavarni's _Charivari_ sketches, which have been there as far as the
+    memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll _Diableries_,
+    and the _Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age_, who rushed
+    into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
+    he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
+    perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
+    saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
+    water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
+    neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
+    impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
+    young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
+    attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
+    portraits of mortal angels in _very_ low dresses, one of whom is
+    asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
+    at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
+    what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
+    tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
+    and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
+    himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
+    popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
+    ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
+    which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
+    arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.
+
+Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of
+its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in
+1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic _bal masqué_
+organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the
+time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during
+Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in _Punch_
+representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the
+scenes of his many triumphs--an ingenious adaptation of the episode of
+Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. _Punch_ was no
+lover of _bals masqués_, reckoning them among the things which they
+manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud,
+modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the
+present building in 1884. _Punch_ owned that admission to her show was a
+test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as
+ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared Madame Tussaud in
+1849--the year before her death--to the witches who made wax models of
+those whom they wished to injure.
+
+[Illustration: THE HAPPY FAMILY]
+
+Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in _London Past
+and Present_ that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original
+Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its
+memories linger in the early volumes of _Punch_. There is a good series
+entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The
+Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well
+remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at
+the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats,
+mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in _Punch's_
+picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one
+sees now and again. A charge of twopence was made for admission to St.
+Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which
+_Punch_ bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with
+Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on
+Cremorne Gardens--which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge--have
+been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a
+scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions--"The Siege of
+Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851--were not closed till
+1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon,
+and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was
+pulled down and the grounds built over.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Dominion of Din_]
+
+_Punch_ had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings
+so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the
+great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the
+tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games
+which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional
+mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on
+Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well
+as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary
+din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin
+note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the
+sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his
+antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who
+brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's
+fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual
+visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take
+an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know
+that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The
+Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's
+"Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably
+representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera,
+and patriotism.
+
+[Illustration: TASTE
+
+SHOP GIRL (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's
+Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the
+'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements_]
+
+The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most
+popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time almost rivalling "General"
+Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who
+was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime
+favourite with _Punch_, and is never mentioned without a friendly word.
+But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none
+stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone
+from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the
+Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to
+1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and
+introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by _Punch_ in prose and
+verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better
+management of the Metropolis in March, 1855, and _Punch_ more than once
+applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan
+Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused _Punch's_
+special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who
+combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges
+once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were
+conspicuous. _Punch_ devotes a special article to those of the
+Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but
+these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold,
+are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the
+broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials
+bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the
+Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and
+'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which _Punch_ noted
+as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been
+worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the
+close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute
+because entirely unregulated. _Punch_ defended the intermission of
+postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed
+dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to
+record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising _Punch_ is
+a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed
+an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage
+occurs:--
+
+    The _Kentish Herald_ lately contained the following notice:
+    "Ranelagh Gardens, Margate--last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
+    consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
+    tragical enough; but _The Times_ outdoes it in horror by informing
+    us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for _general_ interment";
+    and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
+    General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
+    Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
+    "Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
+    satisfaction."
+
+In 1847 _Punch_ recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing the
+activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to
+restrain the excesses of the advertiser:--
+
+    Advertisements are spreading all over England--they have crept
+    under the bridges--have planted themselves right in the middle of
+    the Thames--have usurped the greatest thoroughfares--and are now
+    just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
+    certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
+    stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
+    nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
+    calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
+    vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
+    most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
+    such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
+    and stuffed with nothing else.
+
+We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus.
+It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the
+fastidious of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+
+
+
+THE COURT
+
+
+At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache,
+the famous French artist--perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar
+_genre_ that our age has produced--published a wonderful design in which
+the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's
+reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain
+was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a
+girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King,
+Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic.
+The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have
+been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is
+rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and
+limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the
+personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in
+temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell,
+Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted
+for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from
+which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment
+created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was
+summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the
+throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over
+the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena
+of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound
+and constitutional--that these appointments should not be made or
+maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences
+hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of
+a certain obstinacy in the assertion of her rights. But the cry that
+the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange
+cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate
+outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the
+ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the
+Queen's relations with Whig Ministers--always excepting Lord
+Palmerston--were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no
+guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are
+familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it
+was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but
+whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the
+Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement
+when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less
+effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of
+affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent
+qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he
+was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not
+in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in
+affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit
+for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to
+that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and
+geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and
+occasionally _gauche_. His notions of sport were not those of an English
+sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To
+put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the
+unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to
+everything foreign--language, art, music, letters--and consistently
+declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal
+patronage of foreigners begin in _Punch's_ first volume. "Ride-a-cock
+horse" is turned into a florid Italian _cavatina_, and the words
+translated into Italian--"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"--for the
+benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as
+"a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an
+utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series
+of complaints which re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn
+to _Punch's_ extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a
+burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal
+nursery, _à propos_ of the birth of the Prince of Wales:--
+
+THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN
+
+By the Correspondent of the _Observer_
+
+    The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
+    agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
+    a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
+    expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.
+
+    According to rumour, the baby--we beg pardon, the scion of the
+    House of Brunswick--was to have been born--we must apologize again,
+    we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
+    the reigning family of Great Britain--some day last month, and of
+    course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
+    that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
+    confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
+    anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
+    Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
+    London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
+    smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
+    rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
+    because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
+    the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
+    opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
+    that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
+    of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
+    conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
+    pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
+    that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
+    heart of the Royal Household.[11] But we hope, for the honour of
+    all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
+    matter of political arrangement.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued_]
+
+[Footnote 11: The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been
+settled in 1840. But Scribe's _Verre d'Eau_, under the title of _The
+Maid of Honour_, with the real incident turned into farce, had been
+adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.]
+
+This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment
+from the same fictitious correspondent:--
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
+
+(By the _Observer's_ own Correspondent)
+
+    It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
+    probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
+    impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
+    positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
+    of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
+    Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
+    title of the _Prince of Wales_, which it is generally understood he
+    will enjoy--at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
+    anything of the kind--until an event shall happen which we hope
+    will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
+    Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
+    whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
+    Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
+    circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to _at present_, nor
+    do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.
+
+    Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
+    Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
+    to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
+    having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
+    have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
+    Mayors of London and Dublin.
+
+[Illustration: A ROYAL NURSERY RHYME FOR 1860
+
+    "There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do."]
+
+This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of
+the infant Prince. _Punch's_ serious views as to the Prince's future are
+to be found in his "Pæan to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by
+the Royal Christening in February, 1842:--
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PRINCELET
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The little Prince _must_ love the poor,
+      And he will heed the cry
+    Of the pauper mother, when she finds
+      Her infant's fountains dry.
+    He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,
+      To make those founts o'erflow,
+    For they have vow'd our little Prince
+      No "vanities" shall know.
+    And we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+    And death's dark bones will then become
+      Like iv'ry pure and white!
+    His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,
+      And his garments be as light;
+    For man will slaughter man no more
+      For wrong begot by wrongs,
+    For our little Prince will say--"To me
+      Nor life nor death belongs."
+    So we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, _Punch_ could not
+emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could
+not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not
+exempt, save on their knees:--
+
+    It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
+    Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
+    Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
+    has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
+    Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
+    Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
+    within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
+    Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
+    Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
+    subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
+    Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
+    that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
+    was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
+    receiving it.
+
+When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some
+apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be
+affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that
+there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at
+present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of
+concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the
+noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:--
+
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E andato al mercato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E a casa restato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.
+
+These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from
+the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained
+campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and
+sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on
+uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this
+hereditary failing. A concise biography in the _Almanack_ for 1842
+states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a
+shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put
+her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and
+malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons.
+He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the _Morning Post_),
+for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Tailor_]
+
+In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his
+sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment
+is associated with the cartoon:--
+
+    Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
+    of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
+    ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
+    trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
+    to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
+    regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
+    do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
+    bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
+    and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
+    whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
+    the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
+    between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then _Punch_ was
+    compelled to interfere, for the honour of the English army. The
+    result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
+    an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
+    Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAILOR'S GOOSE--THE TERROR OF THE ARMY]
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Sportsman_]
+
+The campaign reached its height in 1845 when _Punch_ was given an
+irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained
+by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, _Punch_ averred, was a born tailor,
+the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the
+British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming
+rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse
+his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and
+might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this outburst of
+derision _Punch_ gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the
+running--or baiting--with renewed energy against his sportmanship.
+_Punch_, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field
+sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once
+protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for
+a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to
+support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument
+was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was
+more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his
+crime. _Punch_ was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the
+influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of
+game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the
+Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.
+
+The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were
+the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the
+Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles
+and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony
+phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:--
+
+    Six hares alive were taken out
+      Each in its canvas sack;
+    And five as dead as mutton, in
+      The same were carried back.
+
+The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of
+Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad
+modelled on _John Gilpin_, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting
+down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to
+this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in
+September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and
+pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the
+bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria;
+and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by
+Prince Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":--
+
+    Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear
+      In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)
+    Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,
+      By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.
+    Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;
+      Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;
+    Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,
+      Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.
+    Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,
+      This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,
+    Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court
+      And make a massyker of English Staggs.[12]
+    Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,
+      What avoc he _would_ make and what a trimenjus battu!
+
+    JEAMS.
+
+[Footnote 12: In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway
+speculation.]
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stag Slaughter at Gotha_]
+
+[Illustration: VICTORIA]
+
+Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment
+of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the _Standard_:--
+
+TEARS AT GOTHA
+
+    The _Standard_ gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
+    to a gentleman in London:--
+
+    "This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept _I saw
+    large tears in her eyes_: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
+    difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
+    the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she _naturally felt_ at
+    the death of the animal was _counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
+    propensities_, so that it is almost as meritorious _to destroy an
+    otter as it is a snake_; but this was a totally different case; nor
+    is Her Majesty yet recovered. _For the Prince_, the deer were too
+    numerous, and _must_ be killed. _This_ was the German method; and
+    no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
+    will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."
+
+[Illustration: THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+
+"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have _you_ any Railway Shares?"]
+
+This incident marked the high-water level of _Punch's_
+anti-Albertianism--at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an
+address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting
+season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the
+Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of
+dissatisfaction. What infuriated _Punch_ even more than the ineptitudes
+of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the _Lickspittle-offs_ of the
+Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The
+amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing,"
+_Punch_ frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing
+than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment
+of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its
+discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an
+immense gulf, and _Punch_ was never weary of gibbeting those writers in
+and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning
+spirit of the time--questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges
+the throne--by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone
+age." Assuredly, the absolute _reductio ad absurdum_ of this
+courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any
+reasonable woman would:--
+
+    The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
+    compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
+    dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
+    aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
+    idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars--"what
+    condescension!" If it display the influence of affections, he
+    screams--"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
+    Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
+    says _The Atlas_--"The woman and the mother _for a moment_
+    proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
+    and the _splendour of a diadem_!"
+
+    What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"--but then, we
+    presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
+    in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?
+
+The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for
+deprecating royal excursions by railway:--
+
+    _The Atlas_ thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":--
+
+    "We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
+    managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
+    of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
+    and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
+    regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
+    that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
+    royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
+    abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."
+
+    There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says _The Atlas_,
+    the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
+    chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
+    "take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may _occasionally_
+    take a chance!"
+
+_Punch_, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious
+view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of
+maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf
+fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.
+
+[Sidenote: _Syncophancy Rebuked_]
+
+Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the
+other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well
+rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with
+the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed
+that here, as on so many occasions, _Punch_ adopted the device of
+assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:--
+
+    Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which _Punch_ has
+    been favoured with an early copy.
+
+    WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
+    is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
+    correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
+    write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
+    touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies--it is Our
+    Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
+    really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
+    and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
+    shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
+    all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
+    Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
+    be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
+    shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
+    FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
+    him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
+    without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
+    FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
+    permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
+    exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
+    familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.
+
+    BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
+    FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
+    vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.
+
+  VICTORIA REGINA.
+
+  Given at Blair Athol,
+  September 16, 1844.
+
+In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the _Court
+Circular_--the ironical suggestions that it should be published in
+French or Italian,[13] and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel
+Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile
+nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's.
+
+[Footnote 13: ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person
+puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he
+means."]
+
+Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted
+by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new
+occupant of the post:--
+
+     ... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
+    there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are of
+    too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
+    the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
+    shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
+    would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
+    poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
+    the _Court Circular_, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
+    Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
+    privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
+    following specimen:--
+
+    This morning at an early hour,
+      In Osborne's peaceful grounds,
+    The Queen and Prince--'spite of a shower--
+      Took their accustomed rounds.
+    With them, to bear them company,
+      Prince Leiningen he went,
+    And with the other royal three,
+      The Duchess, eke, of Kent.
+
+    His Royal Highness Prince of Wales
+      Went forth to take the air;
+    The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails
+      His exercise to share.
+    On the young members of the flock
+      Was tenderest care bestowed,
+    For two long hours by the clock
+      They walked--they ran--they rode.
+
+    Calmly away the hours wear
+      In Osborne's tranquil shade,
+    And to the dinner-party there
+      Was no addition made.
+    Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas
+      Having returned to town,
+    The Royal family circle has
+      Settled serenely down.
+
+It is not too much to assume that _Punch's_ ridicule assisted in
+eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record
+of life at Court.
+
+We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his
+prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in
+October, 1843, is treated with acidulated satire, and in his imaginary
+speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new
+academic cap (_novus pileus academicus_) of his own designing. A month
+later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of
+Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato--on the eve
+of the Irish famine--is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but
+then Princes are such wags," adds _Punch_. The much-canvassed
+appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847
+led to sardonic comment:--
+
+    Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
+    this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
+    begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
+    most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
+    feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.
+
+[Sidenote: The Prince of Bricklayers]
+
+But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a
+friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince
+"Al." _Punch_, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the
+hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes,
+and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of
+social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of
+Bricklayers:--
+
+    His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
+    some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
+    Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and _Punch_, in order
+    to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
+    with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
+    be coming out like a regular brick.
+
+But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which,
+more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and
+popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea--and the Prince was its
+only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the
+significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the
+world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in _The Times_, and other
+utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in _The Idea
+of Progress_, that "the Exhibition was, at the time, optimistically
+regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical
+progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to
+a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of
+which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's
+'Federation of the World.'" _Punch_ never failed to give the Prince the
+credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it
+his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the
+Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which
+appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the
+suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde
+Park:--
+
+PRINCE _PUNCH_ TO PRINCE ALBERT
+
+    Illustrious and excellent brother,
+      Don't consider me rude or unkind,
+    If, as from one Prince to another,
+      I give you a bit of my mind--
+    And I do so with all the more roundness,
+      As your conduct amongst us has shown
+    A propriety, judgment and soundness
+      Of taste, not surpassed by my own.
+
+    You've respected John Bull's little oddities,
+      Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
+    Chose his pictures and statues--commodities
+      Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
+    And if you're a leetle more German
+      In these than I'd have you--what is't
+    Beyond what a critic may term an
+      Educational bias or twist?
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    You have never pressed forward unbidden;
+      When called on you've never shown shame,
+    Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
+      Your person, your purse, or your name;
+    You've lent no man occasion to call you
+      Intruder, intriguer, or fool;
+    Even I've not had often to haul you
+      O'er the coals, or to take you to school.
+
+    All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness--
+      Which, _au reste_, our positions allow--
+    For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
+      After all I have written just now):
+    Which is to put down certain flunkies,
+      Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
+    Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
+      Tars throw stones--to get nuts in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then silence your civic applauders,
+      Lest better men cease from applause.
+    He who tribute accepts of marauders,
+      Is held to be pledged to their cause.
+    Let no Corporate magnates of London
+      An honour presume to award:
+    Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,
+      Little honour to spare can afford!
+
+[Sidenote: Prince Punch to Prince Albert]
+
+A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, _Punch_ was evidently
+impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of
+State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on
+thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs--Very Dangerous," and _Mr. Punch_
+shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis"
+warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the _rôle_ of
+an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt
+it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of
+the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the
+charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards,
+but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that
+he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army
+was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the
+Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond
+all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never
+uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the
+honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion
+was not wholly appeased, and _Punch's_ references to the Prince during
+the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the
+intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's bâton and pay, as
+a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry
+for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year
+his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic
+remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told,
+the intention and the desire were both inventions of _Punch_, who was
+playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves
+and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to
+make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have
+criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the
+picture of _Punch_ regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the
+Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself,
+"What sanguinary engagement can it be?" _Punch_ cannot be acquitted of
+treating the Prince Consort--as he only now began to be generally
+called--with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate
+position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to
+meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent
+him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with
+this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted,
+that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused;
+that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and
+self-protective. It was not the first time _Punch_ had been unjust to
+the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the
+campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged
+that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the
+Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in _Punch_--and the
+public--did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince
+Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRASSHOPPERS' FEAST: A PROPHETIC VISION.
+
+Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper--Monday, October 28, 1844.]
+
+As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause
+of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we
+have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the
+influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the
+Queen was by no means exempt from direct censure, remonstrance, and
+exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was
+treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days
+_Punch_ never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are
+always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her
+visit to the City in 1844. Though _Punch's_ pen was sharp his pencil was
+kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon
+published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860[14]":--
+
+    There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
+
+[Footnote 14: See Illustration.]
+
+As early as the Christmas number of 1842 _Punch_ had given "the
+arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names
+and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he
+comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax.
+More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion,
+against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.--
+
+    TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY
+
+    _Punch_ has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
+    the columns of _The Times_. Whether _Punch's_ friend, the Attorney
+    General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
+    immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
+    _Punch_ knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
+    law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
+    future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
+    sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
+    Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
+    of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
+    writes as follows:--
+
+    "Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
+    residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
+    as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
+    that royalty, like property, has its _duties_ as well as its
+    _rights_. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
+    kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
+    essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
+    sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
+    entertainments that deserve to be encouraged by attending such
+    places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
+    arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
+    approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
+    too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
+    these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
+    how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
+    distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
+    lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
+    acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
+    it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
+    constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
+    personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
+    that is likely to accrue from such neglect."
+
+In these years, and for a good many years to come, _Punch_ hunted in
+couples with _The Times_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Neglect of Native Talent_]
+
+The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists,
+musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for
+year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes
+oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court:
+Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity
+was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the
+funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, _Punch_ exclaims, "imagine for
+a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The
+often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him
+very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated
+Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of
+Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang
+several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as _Punch_ notes, of
+the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But _Punch_ had
+his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in
+dwarfs--Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her
+staff--by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results
+that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped
+growing at the age of five months:--
+
+    How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
+    lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
+    merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
+    majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
+    was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!
+
+The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of _Punch_, nor was
+this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of
+Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. _Punch_ considered
+that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the
+latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on
+the Four Georges:--
+
+GEORGIUS ULTIMUS
+
+        He left an example for age and for youth
+                      To avoid.
+        He never acted well by Man or Woman,
+      And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.
+        He deserted his Friends and his Principles.
+      He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;
+        But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,
+          And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.
+    He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,
+        And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,
+                  An admiring Aristocracy
+    Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."
+        Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,
+        And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.
+
+In the same year _Punch_, with malicious inventiveness, represented
+Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on
+Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the
+Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these
+agilities _The Times_ again proved a useful ally, for in the same number
+we find the following:--
+
+HIGH TREASON
+
+A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in _The Times_, writes
+thus:--
+
+    "It is no use to conceal the fact--British high art _is hated at
+    Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy_. They don't want it; they
+    can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
+    vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"
+
+    We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
+    to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.
+
+[Illustration: TRAINING SCHOOL FOR LADIES ABOUT TO APPEAR AT COURT]
+
+It was a letter in _The Times_ that again prompted _Punch's_
+remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French
+milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the
+imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of
+the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:--
+
+THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY
+
+    There was a new Singer of Italy
+    Who went through his part very prettily;
+      "Mamma tinks him so fine,
+      We must have him to dine!"
+    Papa remarked slily and wittily.
+
+THE OLD SINGER OF AVON
+
+    There was an old Singer of Avon,
+    Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;
+      But Mamma doesn't care
+      For this stupid swan's air,
+    Any more than the croak of a raven.
+
+[Sidenote: _Royal Visits and Visitors_]
+
+[Illustration: CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES
+
+Calypso, Q----n V----a; Ulysses, K--g of the F----h.]
+
+The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's
+"bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of
+_Punch's_ frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone
+as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid
+sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but _Punch_ was no
+advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely
+criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the
+remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of
+an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal levées is
+a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; _Punch_ is happy
+in pillorying the _Morning Post_ for the use of the phrase, "the dense
+mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions;
+while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early
+juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were
+carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal
+tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is
+represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty.
+_Punch_ was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe--whom, by the way,
+he once represented as Fagin--and the impending visit of the French
+Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in
+proscribing and impounding _Punch_, followed up by a burlesque account
+of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission
+of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the
+invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, _Punch_
+burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. _Punch_,
+like the _Skibbereen Eagle_, always kept his eye on the Tsar of
+Russia--and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas
+stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks
+began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to
+England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter
+hostility. Readers of _Punch_ are advised to carry every penny of the
+largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid
+any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of
+harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is
+shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the
+Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for
+the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of
+savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to
+the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short,
+was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a
+diamond ring in it. Nor has _Punch_ a single good word to say for the
+King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year,
+"to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with
+anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844,
+_Punch_ profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited
+Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners'
+ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee
+Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout
+the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from
+his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even
+worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit
+in June, 1843:--
+
+TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER
+
+    The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
+    of six years--intensely painful to all parties--the monarch returns
+    to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
+    name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
+    perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
+    marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
+    who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
+    thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
+    the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
+    Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
+    said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
+    medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
+    Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
+    fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
+    evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
+    was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
+    with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
+    the King of Hanover) has £23,000 a year from the sweat of
+    Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
+    taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
+    he not practically teach them the beauty of humility--of long
+    suffering--of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
+    continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
+    who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
+    will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
+    Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
+    expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
+    creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
+    pride and height of their intelligence, allow £23,000 to the King
+    of Hanover.
+
+[Sidenote: Royal Parasites]
+
+The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge,
+to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful
+explosion in the _Morning Post_:--
+
+    Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
+    the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
+    _bouquet_, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
+    proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely premising that
+    we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
+    elated and deeply moved." He says:
+
+    "We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
+    ceremony as _in turn_ we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
+    to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
+    and beauty, _through which is ever discernible the eagle glance_
+    and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
+    Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, _one of the handsomest
+    Princes of the age_, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
+    tempered by the _judgment and wisdom of age_. The Queen Adelaide,
+    living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
+    private life or on a throne."
+
+    So far the _Morning Post_. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
+    _The Times_?
+
+    "The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
+    in consequence of indisposition."
+
+The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of
+never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous
+after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who
+thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:--
+
+    A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:
+
+    _Minister._ From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
+    of the devil----
+
+    (_Duke._ To be sure; very proper--very proper.)
+
+    _Minister._ From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion----
+
+    (_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.)
+
+    And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
+    However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
+    Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:
+
+    _Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
+    for----
+
+    (_Duke._ No objection--no objection!)
+
+[Sidenote: _A Royal Duke's Household_]
+
+One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the
+less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable
+and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he
+was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and
+the people."
+
+On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked
+the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of
+Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and
+Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were
+neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:--
+
+FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS
+
+    What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
+    he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
+    time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
+    these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
+    pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
+    sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
+    Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
+    and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
+    system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
+    have fallen--can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
+    be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
+    which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
+    measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
+    grants to its pensioners--when the allowance is flung at his Royal
+    Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
+    tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN DAMOCLES]
+
+Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the
+mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he
+ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if he did not equal him, as _Punch's_ pet
+aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the
+hostile comment that "empire" meant _empirer_. The _Coup d'État_ was the
+signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His
+matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor
+Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in
+France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are
+vehemently denounced. _Punch's_ attacks ceased during the Crimean War,
+but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace
+was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was
+responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in
+_Punch_.
+
+By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William
+Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the
+Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his _Life of Napoleon
+III_ the chief _apologia_ in English of the Second Empire.
+
+But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst
+_Punch's_ unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his
+reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to
+Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the
+surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to
+Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated
+controversy in 1845 in which _Punch_ ranged himself militantly among the
+partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various
+sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of
+the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a
+burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined
+zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."
+
+[Illustration: SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?]
+
+The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail,
+and in an optimistic vein. _Punch_ never believed in the Repeal
+Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot
+and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father
+Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis,
+or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien,
+an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous
+ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato
+famine had evoked _Punch's_ sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring
+reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of
+Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified _vix paulò ante Diem
+Judicii_--or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's
+visit was hailed as of good omen, though _Punch_ reminds her that she
+had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen--palaces and not
+cabins. "Let Erin _forget_ the days of old" is the burden of his song;
+at least he refrained from quoting--if he ever knew of it--that other
+terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits
+that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her
+traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium.
+Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife,
+paid the costs of her vilifier.
+
+In 1849, also, _Punch_, evidently still in mellower mood, published an
+enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who
+died on December 2. _Punch_ specially refers to her generosity to Mrs.
+Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and
+the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid
+from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton,
+consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest
+charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by
+her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform
+Agitation, and _Punch's_ homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the
+times that _Punch_ begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or
+more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her
+popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties.
+At the close of 1852 _Punch_ ridicules as absurd the rumour of the
+betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
+the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a
+German paper, and proved true. _Punch's_ chief objection was
+sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the
+rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle
+would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the
+domestic graces." Besides, _Punch_ in the summer of 1844 had published
+his own New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by _The Times's_ comment on
+the late Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it
+therefore enacted that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty
+to marry whom or how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or
+pleases."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Princess Royal's Betrothal_]
+
+Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three
+years later:--
+
+ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE
+
+    They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,
+    Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.
+    What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!
+    The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?
+
+    Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd
+    Against her in arms, but his being afraid.
+    His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!
+    Pooh!--the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.
+
+    The Princess is--bless her!--scarce fifteen years old;
+    One summer more even o'er _Dinah_ had roll'd.
+    To marry so early she can't be inclined;
+    A suitable _Villikins_ some day she'll find.
+
+    Moreover, in her case, we know very well,
+    There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,
+    Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,
+    With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."
+
+Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent
+anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856.
+_Punch's_ comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the
+betrothal was celebrated in verse at once ceremonial and friendly.
+References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we
+may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic
+Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, _Punch_
+administered a severe castigation to the offender. _Punch_ did not like
+his monopoly to be infringed.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+
+Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of _Punch_ and in those
+of the _Morning Post_ in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf.
+As we have seen, _Punch's_ admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped
+a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized
+most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not
+denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and
+the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern
+Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington.
+Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action
+against Napoleon, and here was his reply:--
+
+    "---- wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
+    remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
+    advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
+    that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
+    transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
+    that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
+    appoint an executioner, which would not be me."[15]
+
+The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:--
+
+    The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
+    political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
+    defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
+    Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
+    Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
+    Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
+    the Dwarf?
+
+Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded
+the repeal of the Corn Laws--whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or
+strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.
+
+[Footnote 15: Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's
+Dispatches.]
+
+[Illustration: HENRY MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: A NEW STATUE OF ACHILLES
+
+Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo
+Lane, and Waterloo Place.]
+
+The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in
+connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of
+Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When
+Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel _The
+Tuft-hunter_ were exposed, _Punch_ printed this jingling epigram:--
+
+    A Duke once declared--and most solemnly too--
+    That whatever he liked with his own he would do;
+    But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown
+    He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!
+
+[Sidenote: _Marquesses under the Microscope_]
+
+And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of
+Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very
+first number. The Marquess of Hertford--the original of Thackeray's
+Marquess of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_--is subjected to posthumous obloquy,
+_à propos_ of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were
+compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead
+may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of
+Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner,
+but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical
+Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of
+Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 2½d. in
+the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait
+for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but
+then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power
+of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:--
+
+THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY
+
+The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with
+the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of
+office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men,
+to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody,
+save the Earl of Malmesbury. _The Times_ says, and most truly:
+
+    "A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
+    century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
+    deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
+    Secretary seemed able to bestow."
+
+Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the
+heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord
+Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true
+strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years
+of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or
+jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst
+the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a
+little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne
+struck at rotten boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest
+sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon
+his doings? So it is!
+
+    Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
+    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
+    A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
+    Those scraps are good deeds past.
+
+But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the
+history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot
+rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the
+true, manly, English brain that beats--(and in the serene happiness of
+honoured age may it long continue to beat!)--beneath it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Educating the House of Lords_]
+
+[Illustration: APPROPRIATE
+
+FIRST CITIZEN: "I say, Bill--I wonder what he calls hisself?"
+
+SECOND DITTO: "Blowed if I know!--but I calls him a Bloated
+Haristocrat."]
+
+As for peers in general, _Punch's_ views may be gathered from his scheme
+for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:--
+
+    It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
+    born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
+    born ass.
+
+    We are not proving that fact--only stating it--_pace_ your
+    word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.
+
+    But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
+    command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
+    not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
+    ears.
+
+    The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
+    asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
+    country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
+    kicking.
+
+    Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
+    son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
+    dose of physic for an old woman.
+
+    But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
+    certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
+    which is absurd.
+
+    Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
+    any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
+    born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.
+
+    Examine him in the Alphabet--there have been Peers who didn't know
+    that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make a
+    Lord--the Mayor of London--count hobnails. In history--for he is to
+    help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
+    and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
+    are _a fortiori_ to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
+    physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
+    medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
+    individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
+    homoeopaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
+    philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
+    ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
+    house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
+    which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
+    In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
+    stand up for the liberty of unlicensed printing, instead of
+    insulting and calumniating the Press.
+
+    This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
+    objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
+    can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
+    has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
+    touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
+    that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
+    had better not shave ourselves.
+
+To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers,
+extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are
+specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant
+mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in
+the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the
+Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and
+all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected
+therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of _Punch's_
+favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St.
+Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the
+"snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the
+appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children
+out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.
+
+Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic
+example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean
+War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care
+of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's.
+Hence the epigram:--
+
+CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COÛTE
+
+    "The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"
+    "By not taking," says _Punch_, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."
+
+With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer
+but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he earned the dislike of
+_Punch_, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his
+traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.
+
+[Sidenote: _Thackeray on Great Folks_]
+
+_Punch_ saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the
+bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family
+in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble
+personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than
+friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than
+coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible.
+Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold,
+and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed
+the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town."
+Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he
+says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:--
+
+    The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
+    trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
+    persons do, but take you for what you are--a man kindly and
+    good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
+    good _raconteur_, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
+    and judge of wine--or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
+    ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
+    Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
+    Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
+    leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
+    D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
+    what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
+    quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
+    stage King and Queen.
+
+
+
+
+SOCIETY--EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+
+For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties
+_Punch_ cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent
+reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the
+_entrée_ to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often
+overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and
+diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in
+Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances
+and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its
+public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society,
+which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, _Punch_ subdivides the
+three main strata of Society--High Life, Middle Life, Low Life--into
+various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people
+wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we
+pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to
+the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was
+of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby
+genteel, that _Punch_, in his earliest days, had most first-hand
+knowledge.
+
+[Sidenote: _Almack's_]
+
+The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated
+than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing
+less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from
+Galloway--Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name,
+MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a
+Yorkshire Quaker--who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton,
+and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for
+aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous
+Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James's, where, for more than
+seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the
+twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly
+Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a
+committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who
+distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth
+century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be
+introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly
+Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine
+oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of
+Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the _crême de la
+crême_ of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion
+of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of
+laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least,
+meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."[16]
+Great care was taken that the supply of _débutantes_ should not exceed
+the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the
+accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps,
+the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum
+attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781,
+bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after
+whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely
+departed, but so serious a review as the _Quarterly_ wrote respectfully
+of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in
+England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number
+of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are
+quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of
+their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's
+lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed
+and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly
+exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and
+quadrille--the polka--are described by _Punch_ (after Byron) in the
+lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844.
+The craze for dancing was not so widely diffused as in 1920, but to
+judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all
+strata of Society were affected:--
+
+[Footnote 16: _Vide_ Grantley Berkeley's _Recollections_.]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLKA
+
+1. My Polka before Six Lessons.
+
+2. My Polka after Six Lessons.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Polkamania_]
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+AN "AT HOME". YE POLKA.]
+
+    That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
+    have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
+    analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
+    Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
+    entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
+    name of _Aranea Polkapoietica_. The Polkamania, after raging
+    fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
+    length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
+    Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
+    specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
+    nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
+    corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
+    the whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
+    symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
+    the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
+    movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
+    _cerebellum_. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
+    amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
+    terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
+    subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
+    finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
+    strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
+    propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
+    Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
+    Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
+    things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
+    obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
+    go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
+    committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
+    suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
+    now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
+    less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
+    not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
+    have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
+    yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
+    corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
+    variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
+    be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.
+
+Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of
+to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the
+waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour.
+The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but
+the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of
+figures--La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.--is dead beyond
+redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good
+ten years.[17] In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the
+art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a
+Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which
+Thackeray joined) for the suppression of the pest, the malady was
+described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued
+phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue
+in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its
+prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers--Taglioni (who gave
+her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin
+of the _prima-donna_; but though there were schools of dancing, and
+_Thés dansants_, which _Punch_ heavily ridiculed, and though the
+fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at
+Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals,
+as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher
+flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young
+lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at
+least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the
+practice of Poonah painting--an early and crude imitation of Oriental
+art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah
+painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The
+fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing
+tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are
+(allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the
+Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of
+conversation at a social gathering:--
+
+[Footnote 17: A correspondent wrote to _The Times_ in 1846 complaining
+that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and
+suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Modish Futilities_]
+
+    It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
+    sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
+    figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
+    fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
+    be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
+    That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
+    converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
+    Answer, without exception, "Yes"--general rule as before; but when
+    the rejoinder comes, "What instrument do you play?" although the
+    reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the
+    mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind
+    of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you
+    will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine
+    players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or
+    Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call Mercadante "grand" or
+    Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a
+    word or two for Alexander Lee.[18]
+
+    It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two
+    queries) a young lady will answer your questions with
+    indifference--almost contempt--in the belief that you are a very
+    commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of
+    romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging
+    over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or
+    Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is
+    most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to
+    do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with
+    meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance,
+    the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with
+    common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter
+    predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be
+    quoted from _Romeo and Juliet_, which will bring in a reflection
+    upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the
+    quotation:
+
+    "I never knew a young gazelle," etc.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Finishing" a Daughter_]
+
+This was written in _Punch_ in July, 1842, but there is not much
+difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years
+later:--
+
+    HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER
+
+    1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.
+
+    2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.
+
+    3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at
+    home.
+
+    4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.
+
+    5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of
+    life.
+
+    6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of
+    house-keeping.
+
+    7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything
+    for herself.
+
+    8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.
+
+    9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to a
+    clerk in the Treasury upon £75 a year, or to an ensign who is going
+    out to India.
+
+    If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished,
+    you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her
+    escape as nothing short of a miracle.
+
+[Footnote 18: George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican
+and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer,
+music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the
+Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular
+in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's
+Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."]
+
+[Illustration: SPORTING MAN (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a
+promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to
+the black-cob-looking man."]
+
+The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of
+Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official
+recognition of learned women and authoresses--Mrs. Somerville and Maria
+Edgeworth--was supported by _Punch_. In his "Letters to a Young Man
+about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of
+good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little
+encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners,
+regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the
+gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only
+substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."
+
+_Punch_ castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their
+fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women
+exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old
+Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to
+the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or
+scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only
+excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women
+the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely
+patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the
+_Ingoldsby Legends_ deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian
+manners, and can be verified from the pages of _Punch_, who tells us
+how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:--
+
+    All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to
+    sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several
+    instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised
+    seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was
+    pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last
+    four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be
+    fifteen pounds.
+
+The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in
+the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion.
+Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left
+to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to
+subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty
+years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the
+accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a
+correspondent to the _Morning Post_, who wrote to describe how, as the
+result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was
+placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."
+
+[Sidenote: _Verrey and Gunter_]
+
+[Illustration: Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe
+
+A FASHIONABLE CLUB--FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.]
+
+The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony
+was ever a male vice, and _Punch_ is constantly running a tilt against
+civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not
+confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera
+and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four
+thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading for
+more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and
+relations--more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did
+not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later
+age.[19] They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few
+expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The
+nearest approach was Verrey's Café, which was then a fashionable resort,
+and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for
+mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor
+money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title _Punch_
+satirizes the pretensions of the New Rich), the _entrée_ to Almack's.
+For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's
+"Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of
+Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and
+obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of
+to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid
+roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the
+smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have
+borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which
+he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:--
+
+    What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the
+    brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody
+    here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of
+    knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon
+    after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a
+    newspaper. How pleasant this room is--isn't it? with its sober
+    draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes--nothing to
+    interrupt the quiet--only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies
+    asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, _Pendennis_,
+    No. VII.--hum, let us pass on. Have you read _David Copperfield_,
+    by the way? How beautiful it is--how charmingly fresh and simple!
+    In those admirable touches of tender humour--and I should call
+    humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit--who can equal this great
+    genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are
+    like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in
+    the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a
+    writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words
+    go forth to vast congregations of mankind--to grown folks, to their
+    children, and perhaps to their children's children--but must think
+    of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth
+    guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further
+    its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the _Record_ revile him--See,
+    here's Horner waking up--How do you do, Horner?
+
+[Footnote 19: _Who's Who_ first appeared in 1849. In those days it was
+little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not
+until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which
+have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Tobacco Tabooed_]
+
+Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to
+be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and
+Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that
+den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in _some_
+clubs, called the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed
+for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known
+club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate
+pipe-smoking on their precincts. _Punch_ early ranged himself on the
+side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British
+Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with
+hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce
+their small antipathies on the rest of us."
+
+[Illustration: GROUP IN THEATRE BOX]
+
+The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day,
+were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had
+passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness
+Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera,
+was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up,
+during the season of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the
+Superior Classes":--
+
+    Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,
+      Who would not rather gaze
+    On youth and beauty dancing
+      Than one of Shakespeare's plays?
+    Give me the haunt of Fashion,
+      And let the Drama's shrine
+    Engross the vulgar's passion;
+      Fops' Alley, thou art mine.
+
+Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing
+parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the
+manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad
+Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the
+achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in _The Newcomes_, written
+in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the
+"Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his
+son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of
+entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but _Punch_ makes a notable
+exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after
+redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was
+no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of
+the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble
+tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. _Punch's_ only
+adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of
+the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the
+entertainment, whether for mind or body:--
+
+    Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed
+    betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences
+    at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town
+    under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose.
+    To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of
+    Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named
+    institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness--so
+    important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might give
+    it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of
+    his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable
+    amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor--the student of
+    law--of medicine--nay, of divinity--offers an attraction in the
+    right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards
+    the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good
+    singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal
+    harangue and a cup of Twankay.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent
+for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Travellers and Outlaws_]
+
+The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse
+before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always
+the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the
+founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired
+in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing
+generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling
+for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and
+more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to
+appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours"
+was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to
+_Punch_ it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time
+occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long
+been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who
+are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them,
+including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of
+outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in
+poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were
+"the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled
+precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years
+earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of
+fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of
+literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of
+D'Orsay, whom Byron called the _Cupidon déchaîné_, handsome, gifted and
+popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the
+only artist congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call
+sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier
+treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him
+to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from _Punch_
+even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of
+Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They
+at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney
+travellers on the Continent in 1845:--
+
+    SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT
+
+    Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to
+    ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the
+    lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the
+    proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will
+    also find to be an endless source of amusement.
+
+    Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so you
+    may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their
+    faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of
+    ladies, at a _table d'hôte_. Do not care what you say about the
+    government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show
+    your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of
+    the superiority of England and everything English.
+
+[Illustration: THE OPERA
+
+DOORKEEPER: "Beg your pardon, Sir--but must, indeed, Sir, be in full
+dress."
+
+SNOB (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The "Gent" Abroad and at Home_]
+
+The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily
+the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to
+observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as
+"'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of _Punch's_ pet aversions
+under the title of "the Gent":--
+
+    Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares,
+    the _Gent_ is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption
+    of style about him--a futile aping of superiority that inspires us
+    with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we
+    contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the
+    thing."
+
+    No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry
+    vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards
+    which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts
+    to ape _gentility_--a bad style of word, we admit, but one
+    peculiarly adapted to our purpose--are to us more painful than
+    ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
+    his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
+    his dreary efforts to assume a style and _tournure_ which he is so
+    utterly incapable of carrying out.
+
+_Punch_ was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When
+foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a
+moment. John Bull, he declared, _à propos_ of the suspicion of the
+French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant
+fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his
+playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen
+on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their
+failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list
+of the things an Englishman likes:--
+
+    An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
+    more to his liking than: To talk largely about Art, and to have
+    the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!
+
+    To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
+    needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
+    cheap shirts and clothes are sold!
+
+    To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
+    not!
+
+    To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
+    operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
+    foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!
+
+    To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
+    yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
+    be seen in company with one!
+
+    To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
+    greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax[21] that was only
+    put on for three years!
+
+    To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
+    to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
+    staring at her!
+
+    To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
+    Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!
+
+    To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
+    the discordant musicians that infest his streets!
+
+    To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
+    instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!
+
+    To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
+    benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!
+
+    And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:
+
+    To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
+    laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
+    national humiliation, paying or being paid--still he must grumble,
+    and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
+    supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
+    great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
+    impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
+    nothing for him to grumble about!
+
+[Footnote 21: The income tax. _Punch_ knew better, and prophesied from
+the very outset that it would never come off.]
+
+_Punch_ certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the
+full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of
+boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and
+persons that should emigrate," he includes "all persons who give
+imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all
+young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear
+ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the
+risk of the _Quis tulerit Gracchos_ retort when he bans "all punsters
+and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of
+education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and
+reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general
+support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a
+chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British
+Association. The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil
+Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than
+44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him
+publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.
+
+[Sidenote: _Desirable Emigrants_]
+
+[Illustration: OFFENDED DIGNITY
+
+SMALL SWELL (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness
+that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with--I
+prefer grown Women of the World!"
+
+(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when
+he went back to school.)]
+
+[Illustration: TWO WORDS TO A BARGAIN
+
+JAPANESE: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall
+remain so."
+
+AMERICAN: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're
+wrong."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Exploiting the Dead_]
+
+Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties;
+the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous
+"medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid
+his first visit to England. From the very first _Punch's_ attitude was
+hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to
+condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and
+expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution.
+Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the
+_Almanack_ for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there
+are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not
+so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot
+see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a
+mesmerist in the _Morning Post_ that he could get into communication
+with Sir John Franklin; this _Punch_ promptly pilloried, as, too, a
+little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated
+by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 _Punch_ solemnly vouches for the
+authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits
+by retail":--
+
+    COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
+    Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
+    Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
+    Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
+    appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
+    Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
+    Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
+    for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
+    and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
+    will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
+    them.
+
+Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but _Punch_
+was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries.
+He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of
+photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging.
+There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many
+years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic
+feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling.
+In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other
+even more menial trades, _Punch_ was not indulging in exaggeration. The
+mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little
+man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio"
+was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was
+clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the
+'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising
+actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it had not begun to
+be thought of as a means of social _réclame_. Apart from politicians and
+public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The
+relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from
+those which prevail to-day. _Punch_ was a great champion of the
+legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful,
+though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had
+written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the
+Court[22] and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter
+comment. But _Punch_ shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official
+recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he
+expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the
+upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of
+mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip
+about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque
+account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions
+when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel
+between Charles Mathews and the _Morning Chronicle_, _Punch_ stood for
+the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based
+on crime, and the cult of monstrosity _Punch_ waged unceasing war, but
+he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were
+sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family
+visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So
+again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a
+performance of _La Dame aux Camélias_ at Exeter Hall in 1857, but
+prohibited an English translation of the words.
+
+[Footnote 22: "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen
+Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of
+Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d.
+each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic
+reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Respect for Decorum_]
+
+Many of the broader aspects of early Victorian social life remain with
+us to-day, though modified or amended. "The broad vein of plush that
+traverses the whole framework of English society," as _Punch_
+flamboyantly gibed, if not wholly obliterated is at least less
+conspicuous. Jeames and Jenkins are dead. If we cannot say the same of
+bullying at schools, "ragging" in the Army, the unnecessary expense of
+uniforms and the costly pageantry of funerals--all of which were
+strenuously condemned by _Punch_--it may at least be contended that
+public opinion is more vigilant in arraigning and bringing to light
+offences against humanity, good taste and common sense. Modern critics
+have not been wanting who charge _Punch_ with prudery and squeamishness,
+but this is not the place to discuss whether the popularity of the paper
+would have been enhanced, or its influence and power fortified by
+following the example of _La Vie Parisienne_ or of _Jugend_. Certainly
+during the period under review reticence and respectability were
+combined on occasion with a remarkable freedom of comment, and the
+tragedy of "The Great Social Evil" was frankly admitted in Leech's
+famous picture. Though an isolated reference it was worth a hundred
+sermons. If _Punch_ preferred to be the champion of domesticity and
+decorum in public and private life, he was reflecting an essential
+feature of the age--a feature which no longer exists. It was an age of
+patriarchal rule and large families. Nothing strikes one more in
+turning over the pages of old numbers of _Punch_ than the swarms of
+young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech.
+The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress
+the reader. The type represented is mainly drawn from well-to-do
+middle-class households, but all classes were prolific. If one needs
+proof, there is the evidence of Debrett and of the tombstones in our
+country churchyards.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Quiverfull_]
+
+[Illustration: Scene: A Public-house, Bury St. Edmunds, after the Dinner
+given by the Mayor of Bury to the Lord Mayor of London.
+
+COUNTRY FOOTMAN: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of our town? A nice
+place, ain't it?"
+
+LONDON FOOTMAN (condescendingly): "Vell, Joseph, I likes your town well
+enough. It's clean; your streets are hairy; and you've lots of rewins.
+But I don't like your champagne; its all Gewsberry."]
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL
+
+Time: Midnight. A sketch not a hundred miles from the Haymarket.
+
+BELLA: "Ah! Fanny! How long have you been _Gay_?"]
+
+[Illustration: A FRESHENER ON THE DOWNS]
+
+
+
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+
+As a mirror of public opinion on the status and importance of the
+learned and liberal professions _Punch_, when due allowance has been
+made for his limitations, his prejudices and even his passions, cannot
+be overlooked by the student of social history. A whole book has been
+written on his attitude towards the Church; in another section of this
+chronicle I have dealt at some length with his hostility to Pluralism,
+Sabbatarianism, Ritualism, and endeavoured to show how a generally
+tolerant and "hang theology" attitude was in the early 'fifties
+exchanged for one of fierce anti-Vaticanism. The "No Popery" drum was
+banged with great fury, and when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
+re-established in England in 1850, _Punch_ supported the Ecclesiastical
+Titles Act which declared the assumption of titles connected with places
+in the realm illegal and imposed heavy penalties on the persons assuming
+them. This Act, passed in 1851, remained a dead letter until 1871, when
+it was repealed. As for the law and lawyers the record of _Punch_ is
+more consistent and creditable, and, as we have seen, he was from the
+first an unflinching advocate of cheap justice and the removal of
+irregularities which pressed hardest on the poor, an unrelenting critic
+of barbarous and oppressive penalties. No one was too great or small to
+escape his legal pillory, or to secure recognition for reforming zeal or
+humane administration--from Lord Brougham and Lord St. Leonards down to
+unpaid magistrates. To what has been said elsewhere it may be added that
+the series of papers written by Gilbert à Beckett, under the heading of
+"The Comic Blackstone," are much better than their title, for they
+contain a good deal of shrewd satire and sound sense. _Punch_ had good
+reason to be proud of his own legal representative, the humane and
+genial Gilbert à Beckett. He welcomed Talfourd's promotion to the Bench
+as an honour to letters, for Talfourd was not only the executor and
+first biographer of Lamb and the author of the highly successful, but
+now forgotten, tragedy of _Ion_, but his services to authors in
+connexion with copyright earned for him the dedication of _Pickwick_. On
+his death in 1854, _Punch's_ elegy fittingly commemorated the character
+and career of one of whom, as an advocate, it was said that the wrong
+side seldom cared to hear him, and who, like Hood, in his last words,
+deplored the mutual estrangement of classes in English society.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bench and the Universities_]
+
+On the other hand, judges who jested on the Bench, indulged in judicial
+clap-trap, or encouraged the public to regard the Courts of Justice as
+substitutes for theatrical entertainments, are severely handled. _Judex
+jocosus odiosus_; but the type is, apparently, impervious to satire.
+Another anticipation of latter-day criticism is to be found in the
+remark made in 1856: "There was once a Parliament--(we do not live in
+such times now!)--in which there were few or no lawyers." Even more
+red-hot in its up-to-dateness is _Punch's_ sarcastic dismissal of the
+cult of "efficiency" sixty-five years ago:--
+
+    _Mr. Punch's_ reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
+    business is not abject. The "practical men," who smile
+    compassionately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who
+    perpetually make the most frightful smashes and blunders. No
+    attorney, for instance, can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a
+    stock-jobber, the supposed incarnation of shrewdness, is the most
+    credulous _gobemouche_ in London.
+
+With University authorities, professors, dons, and academics generally,
+we look in vain for any sign of sympathy, save that _Punch_ condemned
+the rule which then prevented Fellows from marrying. For the rest, he
+looked on the older Universities as the homes of mediæval obscurantism,
+stubbornly opposed to reforms long overdue. Of the two, Oxford fared the
+worse at his hands on account of the Tractarian movement, Pusey, and
+Newman. This antagonism was based on political and religious
+divergences, not on any hostility to learning or the classical
+curriculum, of which _Punch_ was a supporter, to the extent of printing
+_jeux d'esprit_ in Latin and Greek in his pages. All along he was a
+jealous guardian of the "illustrious order of the goose-quill," a sturdy
+champion of its claims to adequate pay and official recognition, a
+vigilant critic of the "homoeopathic system of rewards" adopted by the
+Crown in the Civil List. References to this undying scandal are
+honourably frequent in the early volumes of _Punch_. It may suffice to
+quote the letter to Lord Palmerston in the summer of 1856:--
+
+    I will not, this hot weather, weary your lordship by specifying
+    every case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:
+
+    To Science, Literature, and Art             £275
+    To sundries                                  925
+                                              ------
+                                              £1,200
+    Deduct sundries                              925
+                                              ------
+                                                £275
+    Due to Science, Literature, and Art          925
+                                              ------
+                  Total Civil List            £1,200
+
+Equally creditable is the reiterated plea--from 1847 onward--for the
+establishment of International Copyright, to guard English authors from
+the piracy of American publishers, amongst whom Putnam is singled out as
+an honourable exception. It may be fairly claimed for _Punch_ that he
+made very few mistakes in appraising the merits of the authors of his
+time or of the rising stars. He failed to render justice to Disraeli as
+a writer, and he curtly dismissed Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ as "a
+mad book by an American rough." But literary values prove him
+substantially right in his distaste for the flamboyant exuberance of
+Bulwer Lytton, and absolutely sound in his castigation of the
+tripe-and-oniony flavour of Samuel Warren's books, one of which he held
+up to not undeserved obloquy under the ferocious misnomer of "The
+Diarrhoea of a Late Physician." He was a veritable _malleus stultorum_
+in dealing alike with the futilities of incompetent aristocrats and the
+homely puerilities of Martin Tupper and Poet Close. The famous campaign
+against the poet Bunn and his bad librettos goaded the victim into
+reprisals in which he gave as good as he got, but the fact remains that
+Bunn _was_ a bad poet, though _Punch_ quite overdid his persecution. The
+nobility of Wordsworth, though the least humorous of poets, was
+handsomely acknowledged; when the erection of a statue to Peel was
+mooted, _Punch_ put in a claim for a similar honour to the sage of
+Rydal. And though indignant with Carlyle for his defence of slavery,
+_Punch_ was still ready to acknowledge "the monarch in his masquerade."
+Lastly, he not only welcomed Tennyson as a master, but threw open his
+columns to him to retort on his detractors.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" and "The Times"_]
+
+[Illustration: JENKINS AT HOME]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian and Georgian Journalism_]
+
+Dog does not eat dog, but the unwritten etiquette in accordance with
+which one newspaper does not directly attack another was much less
+strictly observed sixty or seventy years ago. Delane, the editor of _The
+Times_, exercised a greater political influence than any other
+journalist before or since, and for a good many years _Punch_ acted as a
+sort of free-lance ally of the great daily,[23] drawing liberally from
+its columns in the way of extracts and illustrations, and, according to
+his habitual practice, underlining its policy while pretending to be
+shocked at it. Several of the men on _Punch_ were contributors to _The
+Times_. Gilbert à Beckett's name stands first in the list of the
+principal contributors and members of the staff of _The Times_ under
+Delane given in Mr. Dasent's biography. Yet I have searched the pages of
+the biography and the index in vain for a single reference to _Punch_.
+None the less the relations of the two papers were close and cordial,
+and "Billy" Russell, the _Times_ war correspondent and unsparing critic
+of mismanagement in the Crimea, had no more enthusiastic trumpeter than
+_Punch_. But the great gulf in prestige and power between _The Times_
+under Delane and the rest of the London Press is indirectly but
+unmistakably shown in _Punch's_ habitual disrespect for most of his
+other contemporaries. In another context, I have quoted examples of his
+flagellation of the _Morning Post_--the only paper, by the way, which
+supported the _Coup d'État_; but two masterpieces of malice may be
+added. In 1843, _à propos_ of "Jenkins's" incurably unctuous worship of
+rank, _Punch_ observes: "If the reader be not weeping at this, it is not
+in the power of onions to move him." And again, a little later on in the
+same year, _Punch_ compares the "beastliness" of Jenkins, "the life-long
+toad-eater," with the "beastly fellow" denounced in the _Morning Post_
+for swallowing twelve frogs for a wager! _Punch_ was not content with
+identifying the _Morning Post_ with the imaginary personality of
+Jenkins, the super-flunkey, but was also responsible for re-christening
+the _Morning Herald_ and the _Standard_--Conservative morning and
+evening papers which, until 1857, belonged to the same proprietor--Mrs.
+Gamp and Mrs. Harris. The _Standard_ retaliated by calling _Punch_ the
+"most abject of all the toadies of _The Times_," and accusing it of
+libelling "the young gentlemen of Eton" and the Queen. By an unconscious
+compliment _Punch_ was bracketed with the _Examiner_, the ablest and
+most independent of the weeklies, as _The Times_ was of the dailies, for
+its disloyalty to the Crown. In the war of wits which ensued and was
+carried on for several years, all the honours rested with _Punch_. But
+these controversies belong rather to the domestic history of _Punch_;
+and _Punch's_ friendly relations with the _Daily News_, of which Dickens
+was the first editor, must be somewhat discounted by the facts that
+Douglas Jerrold was an intimate friend of the novelist, who occasionally
+dined with the _Punch_ staff; that Paxton, one of _Punch's_ heroes,
+exerted all his great influence on behalf of the new daily; and finally,
+that Bradbury and Evans were, at the time, the publishers of Dickens, of
+_Punch_, and of the _Daily News_. The journalism of the 'forties and
+'fifties presents curious analogies with and divergences from the
+journalism of to-day. _Punch_ is never weary of girding at the cult of
+monstrosity and sensationalism, the disproportionate amount of space
+devoted to crime and criminals and _causes célèbres_, the habit of
+burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to
+statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime.
+Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were
+anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more
+outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and _Punch_ always
+stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an
+Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the _Scotsman_ in the famous case
+brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, _Punch_ compared them to Bomba, and
+congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the _Scotsman's_ costs
+and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict
+which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at
+political apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or
+indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger
+of being brought before a jury." The _Scotsman_ was then edited by
+Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots
+journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated
+the _Scotsman_ as Delane dominated _The Times_. But it was, in the main,
+a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with
+alert curiosity to _The Times_ in Delane's day was that nobody knew
+beforehand which side he would take on any new question." [24] And much
+the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day.
+There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a
+great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men
+like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap
+that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions
+was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their
+names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a
+fortnight. It is to the credit of _Punch_ that he recognized the value
+of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his
+part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but
+could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern
+sycophantic worshipper of success--no matter how achieved. The
+excellence of provincial journalism--not yet exposed to the competition
+of the cheap London press--is attested by _Punch's_ frequent citations,
+but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to
+refresh our leisure.
+
+[Footnote 23: On the occasion of _Punch's_ Jubilee, in 1891, _The Times_
+remarked: "May we be excused for noting the fact that he (_Punch_) has
+generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from _The Times_?"
+That was substantially true of _The Times_ under the old _régime_ when
+Delane was editor. Mr. Herbert Paul, himself a strong Liberal, writes in
+his _History of Modern England_ that "Delane's chief quality was his
+independence." Mr. Dasent, in his biography, gives good grounds for his
+assertion that Delane was at no time what could be called a party man,
+though his instincts were essentially Liberal, and notes that "if
+charged with inconsistency, Delane would merely remind his critics that
+_The Times_ was the organ of no party, and that every issue was complete
+in itself."]
+
+[Footnote 24: _Delane of "The Times,"_ by Sir Edward Cook, p. 281.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Quacks and Doctors_]
+
+But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of
+_Punch_ than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn
+between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it;
+between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and
+Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and
+their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The
+maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons,
+civil, naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and
+during the Crimean War. _Punch's_ tribute to the services of Florence
+Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been
+noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp,
+and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though
+under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:--
+
+    Great outcry has been raised of late, in the _Lancet_ and other
+    journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter
+    themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a
+    personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society
+    to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of
+    the Fools--a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too
+    great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some
+    people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they
+    want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the
+    practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper
+    sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir
+    James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We
+    propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call
+    himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself
+    what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title
+    of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.
+
+This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of
+the blackest of all _Punch's bêtes noires_--in consequence of the
+postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not
+the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's
+Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of
+_Punch_. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of
+the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in
+the last seventy years goes far to justify _Punch's_ scepticism. But his
+censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who
+exploited and traded on _malades imaginaires_, and more than once
+exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any
+definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in
+1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige
+doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English labels
+on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip
+medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended
+that _Punch_, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and
+gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to
+moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism,
+which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under
+the heading, "Greens for the Green."
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY
+
+PASTRYCOOK: "What have you had, Sir?"
+
+BOY: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of
+those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes--and a
+bottle of ginger beer."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Medical Students_]
+
+By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are
+concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if
+corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which
+has been drawn in _Pickwick_, the pages of _Punch_ supply it in
+distressing abundance. The counterparts of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin
+Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of
+articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDICAL STUDENT]
+
+Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:--
+
+    The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may
+    be thus enumerated:
+
+    Guy's             {Half-and-half, anatomical _fracas_,
+    St. Thomas's      {and billiards.
+    St. George's      Doings at Tattersall's.
+    London            Too remote to be ascertained.
+    University        Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism.
+    Bartholomew's     State of Smithfield Markets.
+    Middlesex         Convivial harmony.
+    Charing Cross     Dancing at the Lowther-rooms.
+    King's College    Has not yet acquired any peculiarity.
+    Westminster       Dashes of all the others combined.
+
+Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the
+satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment,
+and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the
+medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on
+occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate
+episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded,
+we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the
+great majority regretted and reprobated.
+
+
+
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+
+On the position and influence of women in society _Punch_, as we have
+already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary.
+Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with.
+There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing
+that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the
+fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is
+ridiculed, and _Punch_ ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord
+Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in _The Times_ against Mayfair
+matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing
+wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years
+earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously
+discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by _Punch_ in a
+stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the
+"Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the
+winter of 1846:--
+
+    I idolize the ladies. They are fairies
+    That spiritualize this earth of ours;
+    From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,
+    Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.
+    But learning in its barbarous seminaries,
+    Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,
+    And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers
+    Science with all its horrid accessaries.
+    Now, seriously, the only things, I think,
+    In which young ladies should instructed be,
+    Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery--
+    Accomplishments that very soon will sink,
+    Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation,
+    Always form part of female education.
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER
+
+FLORA: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"
+
+EMILY: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of
+town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe.
+Isn't it kind?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian Damsels_]
+
+But even within the ranks of the social _élite_ signs of a desire for
+equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the
+direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we
+read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is
+mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the
+mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty
+frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held
+responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards
+we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine
+ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by
+leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured
+to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode
+of existence met with little commendation from _Punch_. He was a strong
+advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of
+"Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female
+only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency
+he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless
+"unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming
+Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait
+is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty
+or plain spoken--even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy
+brothers. But we know--even from the pages of _Punch_--that Victorian
+women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is
+to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able
+to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from
+sentimentality and intellectualism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Fast Lady_]
+
+    She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in
+    kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap
+    over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If
+    she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and
+    if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time
+    by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into
+    Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is
+    a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was
+    a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and
+    "chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other
+    cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud
+    conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously
+    thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you;
+    but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but
+    "Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"
+
+    The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She
+    waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred
+    and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed
+    over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop,
+    but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."
+
+    By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score--rather a
+    long one--of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned,
+    however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts.
+    She would sell her _Black Bess_ sooner than levant.
+
+    THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of
+    the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment
+    "namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has
+    no idea of being made a fool of.
+
+    At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll
+    take Champagne with you--that is to say, if you're not too proud.
+    You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated.
+    Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of
+    her parasol into your side.
+
+    She dislikes smoking? Not _she_ indeed; she's rather fond of it. In
+    fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you,
+    will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked,
+    and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle faddle. She has
+    a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can
+    play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.
+
+    Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to
+    state she reads _Bell's Life_, and has a few volumes in her bedroom
+    of the _Sporting Magazine_. She knows there was a horse of the name
+    of _Byron_.
+
+    The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her
+    hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm
+    afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to
+    that of her own sex.
+
+    Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is
+    always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to
+    change their dress.
+
+    Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand
+    and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not
+    exchange places with the Queen herself.
+
+    With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the
+    FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of
+    what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be
+    included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and
+    increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and,
+    like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent
+    daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she
+    likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she
+    is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor
+    people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and
+    unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having
+    more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with.
+    The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is
+    the godmother to half the children in the parish.
+
+    Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of
+    feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but
+    then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature
+    may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but
+    imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward
+    gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the
+    highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less
+    effectively if they had only as good a heart--even with the
+    trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped--as the
+    MODEL FAST LADY.
+
+[Illustration: FAST YOUNG LADY (to Old Gent): "Have you such a
+thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at
+home."]
+
+This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have
+seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating _rôles_ of which the leading
+traits were, in essentials, identical with those of the Model Fast
+Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the
+writers and artists of _Punch_, was feminine, kindly, but colourless,
+though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked--the
+lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the
+social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical
+high-priestesses of the marriage market.
+
+When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude
+assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. _Punch_ refused to take it
+seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in
+which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:--
+
+    French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music,
+    drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form
+    the regular _curriculum_. A minor examination on these subjects, or
+    a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts
+    can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in
+    "Télémaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play
+    a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin
+    wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.
+
+    For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in
+    various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others;
+    also in the _libretto_ of the last new opera. She shall be able to
+    play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and
+    shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini,
+    Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in
+    a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a
+    wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with
+    correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman
+    who may be selected for the purpose.
+
+    There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an
+    annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a
+    familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the
+    Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny,
+    and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in
+    preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.
+
+    These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the
+    Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has
+    not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction
+    shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel
+    shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple
+    Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and
+    finally those who barely get their degree.
+
+    The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall
+    be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphées;
+    and lastly, as before, the merely passable.
+
+[Illustration: MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842]
+
+[Sidenote: _Women and Politics_]
+
+This article is fairly typical of the attitude of _Punch_ towards what
+we now call "Feminism"--a term so new that in the _New English
+Dictionary_ it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning
+"the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901.
+Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political
+emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions.
+References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we
+find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss
+Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were
+admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then,
+carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an
+Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The
+possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never
+seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the
+"ladies of creation" in the _Almanack_ for 1852 is modelled on Mrs.
+Jellyby--_Bleak House_ had been coming out serially from March, 1852,
+onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from
+America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., of Boston,[25] is mentioned in
+1848, and in the following year _Punch_ welcomed the innovation in
+verse:--
+
+AN M.D. IN A GOWN
+
+    Young ladies all, of every clime,
+      Especially of Britain,
+    Who wholly occupy your time
+      In novels or in knitting,
+    Whose highest skill is but to play,
+      Sing, dance, or French to clack well,
+    Reflect on the example, pray,
+      Of excellent Miss Blackwell!
+
+    For Doctrix Blackwell--that's the way
+      To dub in rightful gender--
+    In her profession, ever may
+      Prosperity attend her!
+    _Punch_, a gold-handled parasol
+      Suggests for presentation,
+    To one so well deserving all
+      Esteem and admiration.
+
+[Footnote 25: Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an _In Memoriam_ notice
+in _The Times_, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at
+Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there
+described as "the first woman doctor."]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bloomer Craze_]
+
+[Illustration: BLOOMERISM--AN AMERICAN CUSTOM]
+
+_Punch's_ commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza.
+But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852
+merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the
+hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been
+urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; _Punch_ appreciated the
+gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her
+as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a
+strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the
+unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights.
+The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance
+reformer, but _Punch_ was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of
+"trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime
+librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was
+actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress
+for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years
+later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief
+advocate. _Punch_ is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He
+makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess
+Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new
+departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of
+women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a
+whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at
+the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at
+the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England.
+The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857.
+_Punch's_ anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted
+not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a
+means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another
+piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as
+being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers
+from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while
+_Punch_ was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm
+supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was--as we
+have shown in other sections of this survey--at least a persistent
+advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws--and unwearied in his
+exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses,
+sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on
+women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He
+was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of
+some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to
+indignation:--
+
+THE CRY OF THE WOMEN
+
+    Now, this petition or lamentation--in which _Mr. Punch_ gives
+    willing ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering--has been
+    rebuked, pooh-poohed, pished and fiddle-de-dee'd; but in these
+    scoffings _Mr. Punch_ joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him,
+    say, with certain editorial porcupines of the male gender, "Of what
+    avail these lamentations of lamenting women, whose cries are
+    foolishness? Wherefore should women at any time lift up their
+    voices; when is it not manifest from the beginning that women were
+    created to sing small? And finally, if women be beaten by savages,
+    and robbed by sots, what of it? It is better that women should be
+    beaten and crouch in the dust--it is better they should be robbed
+    and sit at home, than go and petition Parliament."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Champions Horatia_]
+
+He espoused the cause of humble heroines, of the neglected widows or
+orphans of heroes and benefactors like a true knight errant. Elsewhere
+we have told of his exertions on behalf of Mother Seacole, the brave old
+sutler in the Crimea, for whose benefit he started a special fund. The
+scurvy treatment of the widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the pioneer of the
+Overland Route, who wore himself out in a work of national importance,
+moved him to righteous indignation. She was given a pension of £25,
+afterwards increased to £40.
+
+But none of these palpable wrongs to women stirred _Punch_ so deeply in
+these years as the tardy and meagre discharge of the nation's debt to
+Nelson in respect of his daughter Horatia. To this particular bit of
+narrow-mindedness he recurs again and again in the years 1849 to 1855,
+when he sums up what had been done to liquidate the debt:--
+
+NELSON'S DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN
+
+ An advertisement in _The Times_ tells the world that the eight
+ children of Nelson's daughter Horatia--Nelson's grandchildren--are
+ "more or less provided for." Perhaps a little less than more; but
+ let that pass. At length a long, long standing debt has been paid,
+ or rather compounded, at something less than nineteen shillings in
+ the pound. The Government, as the Government, has done nothing. The
+ stiff, whalebone virtue that set up the back of Queen Charlotte
+ against Nelson's daughter--George the Third thought Nelson's
+ funeral had too much state in it for a mere subject; such pomp "was
+ for kings"--still kept the Government aloof from all help of
+ Horatia and her children. At length, however, the press spoke out.
+ The "ribald press" for a time laid aside its ribaldry, and
+ condescended to champion the claims of Nelson's daughter upon
+ Nelson's fellow-countrymen. Well, something has been done; and thus
+ much in explanation we take from the advertisement in question:--
+
+    "The eight children of Horatia, Mrs. Ward, are all now, more or
+    less, provided for. Her eldest son has been presented to the living
+    of Radstock by the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave; the second son
+    had been previously appointed by Sir W. Burnett Assistant-Surgeon
+    in the Navy; to the third, Lord Chancellor Cranworth has given a
+    clerkship in the Registry-Office; the fourth son received a Cadetcy
+    from Captain Shepherd; His Royal Highness Prince Albert conferred a
+    similar appointment on the youngest son; and Her Majesty has been
+    graciously pleased to settle upon the three daughters a pension of
+    £300 per annum. To this last result the exertions of the late Mr.
+    Hume, M.P., mainly contributed. Messrs. Green, of Blackwall, and
+    Messrs. Smith, of Newcastle, conveyed the two Cadets to India free
+    of expense."
+
+To this may be added a "small cash balance" paid to Mrs. Ward, "after
+investing £400 in the funds." Altogether some £1,427 have been
+subscribed in the cause of Nelson's daughter. We state the sum, and will
+not pause to calculate whether the amount be the tenth of a farthing or
+even a whole farthing in the pound, for which England is Nelson's
+debtor. Let us anyway thank those who have helped Horatia's children.
+They have all done well, from the Dowager Countess to the Queen, ending
+with the prince ship-owners of Blackwall and Newcastle. Their ships will
+not have the worst fortune of wreck or storm for having borne,
+passage-free, the grandsons of Nelson to their Indian work. Let us, too,
+pause to thank the shade of Joseph Hume--the strong, sound, kind old
+heart! Joseph, who "mainly contributed," with those earnest, honest
+fingers of his to undraw the royal purse-strings, so that the three
+grand-daughters may now keep the wolf from the door, as their immortal
+grandfather kept the foe from the "silver-girt isle."
+
+We omit the bitter words in which _Punch_ heaps scorn on Nelson's
+brother, "the first parson Lord Nelson," because the odious charges
+there made cannot be substantiated. This was not the only occasion on
+which _Punch's_ zeal was disfigured by the vehemence of his
+partisanship. But we cannot blame him for his jubilation over the
+thrashing of General Haynau, the woman-flogger, by the draymen and
+labourers at Barclay's Brewery on the occasion of his visit to London in
+1850, or for the vigour with which he scarified the papers who found
+excuses and parallels for Haynau's ferocity in the military exigencies
+of the Peninsular War.
+
+[_Sidenote: Slavery in America--and England_]
+
+Foremost amongst _Punch's_ heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were
+Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of
+these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of
+notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of
+_Punch_. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett
+Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem,
+Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is
+shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling
+Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric adventuress, Lola
+Montez,[26] and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards
+in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous
+Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,[27] author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, whose sojourn in
+England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social
+prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address,"
+initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The
+appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many
+thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the
+degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do
+not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern
+planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation
+at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, _Punch_ did not fail
+to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In
+the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman
+who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a
+man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical
+disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had
+begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To
+what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and _Punch's_ belief in
+it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":--
+
+    _The Cynical View_:--Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to
+    be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
+    saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of
+    females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and
+    baggage, and start them away.
+
+[Footnote 26: The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert,
+daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite
+of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer,
+who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 27: See the _Examiner_ and _Punch_. The following
+advertisement in the _Examiner_ will be read with interest:--"The
+arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all
+Stephen Glover's compositions connected with _Uncle Tom_: 'The Sea of
+Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and
+Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"]
+
+    _The Alarmist View_:--If the surplus female population with which
+    we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with
+    women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse
+    nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend
+    with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to
+    that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government.
+
+    _Our Own View_:--It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
+    should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only
+    not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and
+    solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they
+    would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches--if only they had
+    the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country
+    to find them wings.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Worm Turns_]
+
+_Punch's_ chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not
+untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years--with rare
+exceptions--he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman
+could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently
+represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without
+apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this
+defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly
+pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in
+moments of generous expansion _Punch_ was capable of crediting them with
+extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water
+mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be
+found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my
+Mind":--
+
+     ... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the
+    civilized!--for, after all, the savages are really and truly more
+    of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to
+    it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and
+    angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were
+    weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized
+    nations--as I fling it at Mouser--they all of 'em make women the
+    sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the
+    dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty,
+    Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely
+    as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're obliged to come
+    to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You
+    paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then--but it's so like
+    you--then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take
+    her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"--for I would be
+    heard--"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again.
+    There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of
+    public-house sign for law, but--is a poor woman allowed to wear
+    false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once
+    open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine
+    on herself--may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can
+    paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor
+    thing say a syllable."
+
+[Illustration: "Are you going?"
+
+"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so
+infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."
+
+"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and
+not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."]
+
+
+
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+
+It is a noteworthy sign of the times that between 1841 and 1857 the
+specific references to the dress of men in the text of _Punch_ are much
+more numerous than those dealing with the vagaries of female attire. The
+balance inclines in the contrary direction in the pictures which, when
+tested by old daguerreotypes and the contents of family albums, form a
+substantially correct and illuminating commentary on the evolution of
+fashion in women's dress. So we begin with the ladies, with the double
+proviso that Leech and Doyle and their brother artists on _Punch_ were
+not fashion-plate designers, and that the charms and extravagances of
+the modish world which they depicted were drawn mainly from the
+Metropolis. _Punch_ was a Londoner, even a Cockney, and throws little
+light on the social life of the provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Breadth of the Fashion_]
+
+[Illustration: EASIER SAID THAN DONE
+
+MASTER OF THE HOUSE: "Oh, Fred, my boy--when dinner is ready, you take
+Mrs. Furbelow downstairs!"]
+
+[Illustration: GRAND CHARGE OF PERAMBULATORS--AND DEFEAT OF SWELLS]
+
+[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aids to Beauty_]
+
+To speak roughly, fashion in women's dress is subject to two great
+alternating influences--in the direction of elongation or of lateral
+extension. In the 'forties and 'fifties the tendency was steadily in the
+second direction and away from the slim elegance which has been the aim
+of the modistes of recent years. Long, "mud-bedraggled" dresses are, it
+is true, condemned in 1844, but width rather than length was the
+prevailing feature. It was the age of flounces, and this expansive
+tendency culminated, in the mid-'fifties, in the reign of the crinoline,
+against which _Punch_ waged for many years a truceless but, as he
+himself admitted, a wholly ineffectual warfare. The first indication of
+the coming portent is to be found in the _annus mirabilis_ of 1848, when
+an "air-tube dress extender" is shown in a picture. This, however, was a
+single hoop and comparatively modest in its circumference. The
+crinoline, in its full amplitude, did not invade London until 1856.
+Thenceforward, hardly a number is free from satire and caricature of
+this exuberant monstrosity, and the inconvenience caused in theatres,
+drawing-rooms, in the parks and public vehicles, and in the streets.
+What with the bath-chairs of invalids, the ladies' dresses, and the
+children's perambulators, we read in 1856, that "it amounts almost to an
+impossibility nowadays to walk on the pavements." People were now
+dressed "not in the height, but the full breadth of the fashion." The
+structure of the machine, with its whalebone ribs and inflated tubes,
+was revealed in all its mammoth dimensions. It was denounced alike as an
+absurdity and as a danger, but satire and warnings were equally
+powerless to abate the nuisance. But the crinoline was only the most
+conspicuous and culminating example of a tendency to superfluous
+clothing and a semi-Oriental muffling-up of the female form, against
+which _Punch_ has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A
+sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against
+the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on
+the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was
+far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the
+projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The
+resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather
+than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find _Punch_ in 1855
+describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A
+huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly"
+of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round
+hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often
+dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But
+extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats--big enough to
+be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger
+brothers--small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols
+were in vogue in 1853. A certain masculinity of attire was affected by
+young ladies of sporting tastes--in the way of waistcoats and ties for
+example--but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against
+anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the
+earliest instances in _Punch_ of the use of the word "æsthetic" in
+connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a
+strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary,
+economical, æsthetic."[28] Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these
+aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the
+fashionable world.
+
+[Illustration: WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS]
+
+[Illustration: PLAIN]
+
+[Illustration: RINGLETS]
+
+This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of
+ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian
+_coiffure_, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full
+dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find
+it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech
+illustrated Surtees's novel _Plain or Ringlets?_ in 1860. Of the "plain"
+variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in _Punch_,
+notably the head given above, with which we couple the ringleted belle
+illustrated at the foot of the same page.
+
+[Footnote 28: "Æsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at _New
+Curiosities of Literature_, and in 1853 we read of an "æsthetic tea," at
+which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass,
+brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism
+and theology."]
+
+[Sidenote: Coiffures in the Fifties]
+
+[Illustration: ÆSTHETIC PIONEERS
+
+MRS. TURTLEDOVE: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have
+for dinner?"
+
+MR. TURTLEDOVE: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday--suppose
+we have a roast butterfly to-day."]
+
+In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to
+wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed _à
+l'impératrice_ in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and _Punch_
+satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a _coiffure_ unsuited
+to people of certain ages, features, and positions--a wide scope for his
+wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the
+time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if
+they had, they escaped _Punch's_ vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on
+whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist
+of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing,
+walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost
+invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of
+sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the
+awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the
+rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture
+opposite.
+
+[Sidenote: MERMAIDS AT PLAY]
+
+[Illustration: BATHING WOMAN: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"]
+
+Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's
+dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour,
+details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made
+itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see
+Parkes's _Hygiene_) at the time of the Peninsular War, but
+pantaloons--the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded
+knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the
+ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You
+will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to
+_Pickwick_, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in _Punch's_
+illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the
+"claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was
+often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and
+waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling
+that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive
+till the late 'forties--they are mentioned in Thackeray's _Book of
+Snobs_, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at
+evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear
+blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable
+in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties.
+The _dégagé_ loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by
+_Punch_, who traces its origin to the neck-wear--as modern hosiers
+say--of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like
+garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned;
+the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of
+the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma
+overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same
+time _Punch_ caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels,
+which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark.
+There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One
+Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however
+(according to _Punch_), was Prince Albert, whose continual and
+unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere.
+_Punch_ speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from
+calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet
+emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But _Punch_ himself was much
+preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall
+beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid
+"chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European
+head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by
+1850. _Punch_ warred against it almost as vigorously and as
+ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to
+the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal
+hat:--
+
+    Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer
+    confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into
+    breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a
+    waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and
+    well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics
+    that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert
+    fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible _sombrero_ of grey, or
+    brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a
+    dress at once becoming and congruous.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fashions for Men_]
+
+[Illustration: WHY, INDEED!
+
+PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves
+like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"]
+
+[Illustration: A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!]
+
+The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to
+enable _Punch_ to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the
+"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars
+are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but
+the "all round collar" of which _Punch_ has a picture in 1854
+approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when
+a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not uncommon; but the
+caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, shows
+that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the
+emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the
+grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of
+little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe
+_Mr. Punch_, caricature was unnecessary.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ideal Hat_]
+
+[Illustration: "SIBBY"--1843]
+
+If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,
+short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord
+Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all
+wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit
+immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his
+whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and
+occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"
+_Punch_, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on
+the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the
+Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to
+which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls
+the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired
+by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.
+The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854
+and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and
+ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.
+
+[Sidenote: _Uncomfortable Uniforms_]
+
+[Illustration: PROCTOR (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so
+good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a
+Scotch terrier?"]
+
+The vagaries of military uniforms--apart from the intrusions of Prince
+Albert--call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy
+shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from
+stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is
+guyed in 1851. In 1854 _Punch_ throws himself with great energy into the
+movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more
+rational and comfortable clothing--witness the verses, "Valour under
+difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;
+the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private
+Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his
+stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged
+tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued
+by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and
+shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by
+soldiers owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.
+But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by
+contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but
+to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some
+measure in the Great War?
+
+[Illustration: RUDE BOY: "O, look 'ere, Jim!--If 'ere ain't a Lobster
+bin and out-growed his cloak!"]
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+
+One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical
+survey of the drama in the pages of _Punch_. Most of his staff had
+dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,
+and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped
+a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen
+out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its
+influence on _Punch's_ persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when
+all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous
+tone which they occasionally inspired, _Punch_ may fairly claim to have
+rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was
+sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and
+loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great
+difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances
+of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on
+"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native
+or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic
+_clichés_, and solecisms in pronunciation.[29] He was also a reformer in
+his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the
+play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as
+we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'
+vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and
+pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and
+British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first
+ten years of _Punch_ with little intermission and was largely
+justified. _Punch_ was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing
+to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in
+1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and
+freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The
+balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance--the
+dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays
+as set forth in the following extract--has been largely remedied, though
+the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is
+by some critics considered worse than the disease:--
+
+    _Galignani's Messenger_ says of the French theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,
+    191 new pieces."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Punch_ says of the English theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London
+    about _ten_ new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,
+    devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen
+    from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"
+
+[Footnote 29: See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"
+"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."]
+
+Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of
+the Newgate drama--_Jack Sheppard_ and _Madame Lafarge_.[30] Of the
+latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and
+filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with _The
+Beggar's Opera_, which is defended as being "real satire and not
+wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy _Martinuzzi_ comes in for
+frequent ridicule, though the chief _rôles_ were taken by Phelps and
+Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what
+grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his
+dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's
+"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met
+with _Punch's_ support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the
+bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor
+theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they
+were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his
+signature of "Q" then develops the argument:--
+
+    Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are
+    only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,
+    the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere
+    they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.
+    There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.
+    The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and
+    laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their _Jack
+    Sheppards_, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced
+    frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of
+    knowing that their _Jack Sheppard_ has been licensed by a Deputy,
+    for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of
+    Tyburn are exhibited with a _cum privilegio_.
+
+    Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this
+    wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We _hope_
+    it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm
+    of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the
+    playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate
+    what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should
+    have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves
+    the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of
+    the English stage.
+
+[Footnote 30: Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister
+immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one
+of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).
+After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died
+in 1852.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Mahon's Petition_]
+
+_Punch's_ pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in
+the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the
+patent theatres--which for more than a hundred years had confined the
+legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket--and
+thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.
+
+Déjazet's London _début_ in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a
+later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as
+broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth
+in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only
+way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the
+dialogue and give the _rôle_ of heroine to a _première danseuse_. As a
+matter of fact Taglioni appeared in _Electra_ in 1845.
+
+In 1844 _Punch_ took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French
+dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized
+at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of
+a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write
+tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"--a
+boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.
+A Greek play, the _Antigone_, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an
+early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the
+'seventies. _Punch's_ spirits, however, had already revived somewhat
+when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden
+found the snuggest asylum near the New River"--at Sadler's Wells under
+the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,
+and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from
+England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the
+person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,
+according to _Punch_, confined to "elegant extracts."
+
+A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical
+programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the
+passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a
+description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic
+affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price
+came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially
+Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by
+four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets
+were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise
+has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not
+always popular, and when _Monte Cristo_ was produced at Drury Lane in
+1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile
+demonstration.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Passing of Pantomimes_]
+
+Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are
+charged with extortion in demanding £60 a week, but it must be
+remembered that £60 was exactly all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out
+of his most popular and successful play--_Black Eyed Susan_. Those
+simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be
+comforted to learn that as early as 1843 _Punch_ deplores the triumph of
+scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he
+returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to
+be":--
+
+    Pantomime's quite on the wane,
+      Though vainly they try to enrich it,
+    By calling, again and again,
+      For "_Hot Codlins_" and "_Tippetywitchet_."
+    The stealing of poultry by clown
+      Has ceased irresistible sport to be,
+    If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;
+      Christmas is not what it ought to be.
+
+The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long
+time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,
+have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The
+present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for
+harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque
+lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which
+it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in
+1852 led _Punch_ to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the
+ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.
+
+_Punch_ was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism
+or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved
+satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed
+to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was
+suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give
+entertainments. We may note that in 1853 _Punch_ suggested that
+theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.
+is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted
+Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are
+constantly mentioned and in the main with good will. The feud with
+Charles Kean was kept up to the end; _Punch_ speaks of his "touchiness,"
+and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was
+made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials
+stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,
+that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the
+father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful
+opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings
+from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his
+death in 1854, _Punch_ paid him this graceful tribute:--
+
+    He linked us with a past of scenic art,
+      Larger and loftier than now is known;
+      Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,
+    Than when he played his part.
+
+    But where shall we now find, upon our scene,
+      The Gentleman in action, look and word,
+      Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,
+    As polished and as keen?
+
+    Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:
+      Look your last look: cover the brave old face:
+      Kindly and gently bear him to his place--
+    Charles Kemble, fare thee well!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Reign of Italian Opera_]
+
+[Illustration: LABLACHE]
+
+A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the
+absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,
+applauded, and criticized in the columns of _Punch_. We say Italian
+opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers
+and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,
+it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe
+in his _Reminiscences_ mentions the visit of a German operatic company
+in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-_rôle_ in Mendelssohn's
+_Elijah_ when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by
+_Punch_ as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's _Der Freischütz_
+was given at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater
+lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable
+patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric
+Malibran--Spanish by race but Italian in training--died suddenly and
+tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage
+shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is
+mentioned in _Punch's_ first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by
+that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple
+endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared
+by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these
+two decades were either Italians by birth--e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom
+_Punch_ likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and
+Piccolomini--or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their
+association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez
+the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of
+Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty
+of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic
+basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,
+Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom _Punch_ in 1852
+irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.
+_Punch_ cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of
+_Nabucco_ and the hectic sentimentality of _Traviata_ and _Trovatore_
+possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with
+_Aïda_ and culminated in _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Michael Costa was the
+conductor _par excellence_, who took outrageous liberties with scores,
+but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our
+debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed--though not by _Punch_--in the
+Latin tag: _Costam subduximus Apennino_. Balfe, it is true, had scored a
+resounding success in 1843 with _The Bohemian Girl_, which still holds
+the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The
+Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was
+at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. _Punch_
+supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that
+Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have
+made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane
+in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.
+The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted
+was the badness of the _libretti_. Italian opera _libretti_ were often
+satirized by _Punch_, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,
+worse.
+
+Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the
+social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.
+The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for
+many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article
+which _Punch_ reproduced from the _Morning Post_ in 1843 with italics
+and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":--
+
+    "The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, _de
+    facto_, as well as _de jure_, are, in their several different
+    spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear
+    an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the
+    distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence
+    _literary and artistical_ (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and
+    fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair
+    tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits
+    which do not consist in the delivery of a _piece of engraved
+    postcard to a servant_. Charming _causeries_ are constantly
+    proceeding _sotto voce_ (of course Jenkins listens), the music
+    filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is
+    interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers--with the more
+    zest and piquancy _it is resumed_. We, whose office it is to record
+    daily events--things as they are--and hold the _glass up to
+    fashion_ (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to
+    imitate this course of things--and we do so with only one
+    regret--that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the
+    general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which
+    have most piquancy."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Jenkins" as Musical Critic_]
+
+For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and
+unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,
+as may be gleaned from his notice of _Semiramide_ in English in the
+winter of 1842:--
+
+    We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of
+    _Semiramide_:--
+
+    "Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct
+    attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way
+    of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her
+    sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and
+    whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates
+    the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the
+    contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss
+    Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!
+    Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as
+    Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of
+    Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half
+    are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and
+    refined order."
+
+But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also
+expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled
+under the heading "Persiani at Sea":--
+
+    An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani--to cry
+    _brava_--to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to
+    receive the honeyed voice of a _prima donna_, and Doctor Wardrop
+    throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth
+    of our metaphor:--
+
+    "Madame Persiani continues to _suffer so severely from the effects
+    of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching_, that it is
+    impossible for her to appear this evening.
+
+"JAMES WARDROP, M.D."
+
+    On this, says _The Times_, "the audience were at first disposed to
+    grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."
+
+    The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming
+    very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and
+    had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,
+    have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,
+    in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!
+
+[Illustration: THE SKATING BALLET]
+
+The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the
+opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose
+engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to
+general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding
+attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this
+"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a
+slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were
+Taglioni--whose skirts were quite long--Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and
+Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the _prima donna_, a wonderful quartet on
+whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory
+epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in _Le
+Prophète_, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch
+in _Punch_, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance
+of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished
+and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all
+nineteenth century _prime donne_. Henriette Sontag, however, was the
+popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still
+handsome, though no longer in her first youth,[31] a perfect singer, an
+incomparable _Susanna_ (as _Punch_ admitted), though lacking dramatic
+force--Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her
+_genre_, but that her _genre_ was not the first.
+
+[Sidenote: Jenny Lind]
+
+Great singers came and went but _Punch_ never wavered in his allegiance
+to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is
+more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,
+and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER
+
+    Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,
+    Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,
+    For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,
+    The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind--
+
+    Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,
+    Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,
+    Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,
+    In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.
+
+    Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,
+    Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;
+    And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,
+    Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.
+
+When her retirement was rumoured _Punch_ declared that the Bishop of
+Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,
+because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris
+prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed
+there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was
+of his female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist
+Lumley, the unlucky _impresario_, then in difficulties, in response to
+appeals which were especially vehement in _Punch_. He asserted that her
+secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without
+making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary
+address from the composer of _Don Giovanni_.
+
+[Footnote 31: She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and
+was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the
+Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these
+great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's
+genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more
+than a passing word of grateful recognition.]
+
+[Illustration: TO JENNY LIND
+
+FROM PUNCH]
+
+The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,
+but Jenny Lind, in spite of _Punch's_ repeated appeals, adhered to her
+decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 _Punch_ still hoped she
+would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall
+in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if
+any sweetening process could purify the building it would be such
+singing as hers."
+
+[Sidenote: _Popular Favourites in 1844_]
+
+In the early 'forties _Norma_ was the opera most frequently mentioned.
+_Punch_ published the stories of several of the most popular operas in
+verse. A fragment from _Linda di Chamouni_ may suffice:--
+
+    Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar
+    About the revenge of his cruel mamma,
+    Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,
+    Resolves to another to get him united:
+    He curses his fate in a charming _falsetto_,
+    Gives way to despair in a _voce di petto_.
+    And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,
+    He calls out for death in a _voce di testa_:
+    Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,
+    And gives on _addio_ a delicate shake.
+    The passage is managed with exquisite skill;
+    And Linda--acquainted with Mario's trill--
+    Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,
+    Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.
+
+Opera singers were great public favourites, but if _Punch_ is to be
+believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of
+the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by
+Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway
+Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities
+of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the
+Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find
+Lablache--Stentor and male Siren in one--put first as a bird unrivalled
+for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can
+sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."
+_Punch_ alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in
+undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to
+mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom
+Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into
+Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate the visitor explained
+"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am
+at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and
+elsewhere _Punch_ happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:
+_ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat_. The notices of Grisi and
+Mario are worth transcribing:--
+
+"THE GRISI"
+
+    Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say
+    the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for
+    its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from
+    what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be
+    those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy
+    its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or
+    not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;
+    for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even
+    the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a
+    kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but
+    we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The
+    kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is
+    to be obtained at M. Verrey's.
+
+"THE MARIO"
+
+    A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient
+    substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of
+    quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter
+    bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has
+    acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"
+    which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to
+    such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him
+    deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in
+    the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our
+    knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian
+    singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty
+    pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be
+    required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.
+    Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay
+    so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as
+    much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to
+    music and sung at the Italian opera.
+
+[Sidenote: _Musical Grab_]
+
+The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an
+earlier volume:--
+
+    The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by
+    Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the _Gazette Musicale_:--
+
+    "Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and
+    German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose
+    of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over
+    everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen
+    on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they
+    all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in
+    England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much
+    _ennui_."
+
+    _Punch_ begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious
+    mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will
+    mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian
+    _ennuyés_--and dispense for the future with their services.
+
+This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a
+musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;
+Hungarian, French and other foreign _prime donne_; Strauss's band and
+Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a
+curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name
+Wagner to _Punch's_ readers and indeed to the British public. It was not
+the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of
+considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously
+accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to
+protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say
+that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and _Punch_ in
+his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to
+express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their
+contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as _Punch_
+called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing
+at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of
+the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left _Punch_ not merely cold but
+pugnaciously antagonistic.
+
+The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared
+musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice
+headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":--
+
+    Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in
+    conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the
+    music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as
+    a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing
+    gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "_allegro_"
+    to "_moderato_"; "_andante_" to "_adagio_"; "_allegretto_" to
+    "_andante_"; and "_allegro_" again to "_prestissimo_." Wagner would
+    seem strongly to resemble his namesake in _Faust_, in the
+    particular wherein that _Wagner_ differs from his master--that is,
+    in the circumstance of being no conjuror.
+
+The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery
+Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is
+duly chronicled in _Punch_. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,
+a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great
+popularity in the _rôle_ of the consumptive heroine of _La Traviata_,
+and _Punch_ celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in
+the following travesty:--
+
+    Art is long and time is fleeting,
+      But of genius the soul,
+    Ordinary talent beating,
+      Reaches at one stride the goal.
+
+    In the operatic battle,
+      In the _Prima Donna's_ life
+    Quit the herd--the vocal cattle,
+      Be a Grisi in the strife.
+
+    Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,
+      Not who may be, but who are;
+    Piccolomini at present,
+      Is the bright particular star.
+
+[Sidenote: _Jullien_]
+
+[Illustration: JULLIEN'S DESPAIR]
+
+Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this
+volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as _Punch_ is
+concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of
+_Punch_. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and
+generous recognition. And _Punch_ was right, for underneath all his
+superficial buffooneries Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The
+present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir
+Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's
+flamboyant attire--on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered
+with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree--and his
+habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging
+himself with a _beau geste_ of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered
+armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said
+to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great
+genius like _you_, or a great charlatan like _me_." Now Jullien had been
+a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire--but so had Verdi at
+Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he
+was "a _ci-devant_ waiter of a _quarante-sous traiteur_." Of the
+charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote
+Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," _Punch_ gives a
+graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first
+number:--
+
+MONSIEUR JULLIEN
+
+            "One!"--crash!
+            "Two!"--clash!
+            "Three!"--dash!
+            "Four!"--smash!
+            Diminuendo,
+            Now crescendo:--
+    Thus play the furious band,
+    Led by the kid-gloved hand
+    Of Jullien--that Napoleon of quadrille,
+    Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;
+            Perspiring raver
+            Over a semi-quaver;
+    Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that
+    The natural key of Johnny Bull's--A flat.
+
+    Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven--
+    Arch-impudent _improver_ of Beethoven--
+    Tricksy Professor of _charlatanerie_--
+    Inventor of musical artillery--
+    Barbarous rain and thunder maker--
+    Unconscionable money taker--
+    Travelling about both near and far,
+    Toll to exact at every _bar_,
+      What brings thee here again
+      To desecrate old Drury's fane?
+
+      Egregious attitudiniser!
+      Antic fifer! com'st to advise her
+    'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?
+      To raze her benches,
+      That Gallic wenches
+    Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?
+
+[Sidenote: _Early Promenade Concerts_]
+
+[Illustration: "GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT]
+
+But when _Punch_ assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and
+meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily
+serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on,
+_coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va_!!!"--_Punch_ was both rude and ungenerous.
+From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade
+Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public
+waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also
+sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his
+musical _menu_. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing
+out _Stabat Mater_ waltzes--by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's
+work--and a _Dead March_ gallopade, we must never forget that he was the
+first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the
+authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at
+the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music
+strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of
+reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and _Punch_
+suggests in 1849 that his _Concerts Monstres_ should be held on
+Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His
+_chevelure_, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to
+escape _Punch's_ vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it
+should be so, for he was a master of the art of _réclame_. He is
+habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for
+"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The
+excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of
+the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of
+the notice of Jullien[32] in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when
+he speaks of _Punch_ as only ridiculing Jullien. Already _Punch_ had
+learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his
+extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to
+his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"
+are in the main friendly. The _Almanack_ for 1852 speaks of the "Julian
+(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera _Peter the Great_ is tenderly
+handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his
+tour in the States, _Punch_ sped the parting minstrel in some verses
+which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical
+education in England:--
+
+FAREWELL TO JULLIEN
+
+    Composer of _Peter the Great_,
+      Ere over Atlantic's broad swell
+    The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,
+      Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.
+
+    With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs
+      At first thou didst wisely begin,
+    And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,
+      As though 'twere to beat music in.
+
+    With national measures of France,
+      With polka, with waltz, and with jig,
+    The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,
+      As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.
+
+    Then, leading them on, by degrees,
+      To a feeling for Genius and Art,
+    Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,
+      And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.
+
+[Footnote 32: Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,
+though he appears in Larousse.]
+
+[Sidenote: _John Hullah_]
+
+The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay
+aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he
+was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money
+difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856
+he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous
+venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no
+"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of
+1857, when _Punch_ describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose
+eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I
+have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But
+things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien
+died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the
+age of forty-eight.
+
+Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom _Punch_
+recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at
+Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a
+fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no
+value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of
+"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of
+Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,
+who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well
+deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through
+his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in
+vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: _Punch_ satirizes the
+prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title
+"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note
+the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and
+monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special
+effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes
+on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a
+fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads
+were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The
+concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the
+remarkable performances of the Italian _virtuoso_ Giulio Regondi, but
+is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that
+the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.
+Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry
+out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark _nobilmente_ on the
+concertina. With regard to fashionable music _Punch_ complains in 1849
+that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only
+anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:--
+
+    Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones--
+    Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Taste in Music_]
+
+[Illustration: TASTE IN 1854--VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE
+DRAWING-ROOM
+
+YOUNG LADY (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low
+enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"]
+
+Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under
+the head of opera. _Punch_ had the root of the matter in him but was
+lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a
+critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable _portamento_." He
+was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling
+Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in
+1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the
+_Eroica_ Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his
+censure, as the _Eroica_ and C minor Symphonies were performed without
+being cut in two. _Punch_ had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but
+he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of
+Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The names
+of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of _Punch_ in
+this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the
+fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of
+Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the
+most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most
+fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.
+_Punch_ does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the
+greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of
+a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of
+waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese
+waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss
+has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an
+enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable
+Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that
+conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of
+the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an
+autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the
+public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since
+been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no
+reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or
+official recognition.
+
+[Sidenote: _Turner as Painter and Poet_]
+
+The low opinion which _Punch_ entertained of contemporary architects and
+sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a
+monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.
+He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have
+recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in
+advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for
+the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the
+adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the
+execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the
+position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a
+judge of painting and painters _Punch_ showed greater independence,
+intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references
+to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper of
+established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the
+autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's
+"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and
+avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his
+representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his
+"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find
+the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.
+_Punch_, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet
+might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we
+read:--
+
+    No. 77 is called _Whalers_, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies
+    one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster
+    salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his
+    pictures _Whalers_, or _Venice_, or _Morning_, or _Noon_, or
+    _Night_, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it
+    one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated
+    artist.
+
+[Illustration: VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,--RETURNING FROM THE BALL
+
+MS. "Fallacies of Hope" (An Unpublished Poem).--TURNER.]
+
+And again:--
+
+    We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his
+    celebrated MS. poem, the _Fallacies of Hope_, to which he
+    constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he
+    has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without
+    troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to
+    his _Morning--returning from the Ball_, which really seems to need
+    a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the
+    _Fallacies of Hope_, we will quote it for him:
+
+    "Oh! what a scene!--Can this be Venice? No.
+    And yet methinks it is--because I see
+    Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,
+    Something which looks like a Venetian spire.
+    That dash of orange in the background there
+    Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat
+    (Almost the colour of tomato sauce)
+    Proclaims them now returning from the ball!
+    This in my picture, I would fain convey,
+    I hope I do. Alas! _what_ FALLACY!"
+
+But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an
+article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:--
+
+    GENERAL MAXIMS
+
+    I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous
+    education.
+
+    II. The critic is greater than the artist.
+
+    III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is
+    to inform him of it.
+
+    IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,
+    like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the
+    vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the
+    rules of which it does not recognise.
+
+    V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in
+    preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity
+    must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good
+    or bad.
+
+     [Sidenote: _Rules for Art Critics_]
+
+     CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES
+
+    1. _To criticise a Picture by Turner._--Begin by protesting against
+    his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such
+    phrases as "_bathed in sunlight_," "_flooded with summer glories_,"
+    "_mellow distance_," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and
+    wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.
+
+    2. _To criticise a Picture by Stanfield._--Begin by unqualified
+    praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "_sharp,
+    hard outline_"; then of "_leathery texture_"; then of "_scenic
+    effect of the figures_"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a
+    scene painter.
+
+    3. _To criticise a Picture by Etty._--Begin by delirious
+    satisfaction with his "_delicious carnations_" and "_mellow
+    flesh-tones_." Remark on the skilful arrangement of colour and
+    admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should
+    content himself with merely painting from "_the nude Academy
+    model_," without troubling himself with that for which you had just
+    before praised him.--N.B. Never mind the contradiction.
+
+    4. _To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer._--Here you are bound to
+    unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or
+    the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is
+    expected.
+
+    _Punch_ will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar
+    directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.
+
+    He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:--
+
+    The "_facile princeps_" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)
+    has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's _Gregory and
+    Choristers_:--
+
+    "There is a want of _modulative melody_ in its colours and
+    mellowness in _its hand_ (whose?), pushed to an _outré_ simplicity
+    in _the plainness and ungrammatical development of its general
+    effect_. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery
+    occasionally too square and inflexible."
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+YE EXHYBITYON. AT YE ROYAL ACADEMYE.]
+
+The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,
+where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a
+frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period--note for
+example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense
+contemporary pictures were roughly handled by _Punch_. Thus in 1849 he
+puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old
+Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of
+clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.
+Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:--
+
+    "The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling
+    one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few
+    cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and
+    the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too
+    plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."
+
+The same complaint recurs in the following year, when _Punch_ is moved,
+as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain
+questions:--
+
+    Is painting a living art in England at this moment?
+
+    Is there a nineteenth century?
+
+    Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?
+
+    Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,
+    their actions, passions and sufferings?
+
+    If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living
+    events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so
+    unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and
+    beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the
+    Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the
+    Third, or George the Second?
+
+[Sidenote: _The P.R.B._]
+
+[Illustration: CONVENT THOUGHTS]
+
+But much more interesting than these generalities--sound and sensible
+though they are--is the first reference to "certain young friends of
+mine, calling themselves--the dear silly boys--Pre-Raphaelites" in the
+same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier
+criticisms of the P.R.B.'s _Mr. Punch_ managed to dissemble his
+affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of
+1851 is largely discounted by what follows:--
+
+    Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve
+    especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to
+    tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.
+    Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against _The Times_
+    on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. _are_ true, and that's
+    the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of
+    Collins's representation of the _Alisma Plantago_, _except_ the
+    unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he
+    has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size
+    of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of
+    brains--while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,
+    he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a
+    figure in the world.
+
+    Mr. Millais's "_Mariana_ in the moated Grange" is obviously meant
+    to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't
+    come--and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's
+    description:--
+
+   _then said she, "I am very dreary."_
+
+    Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet
+    robe, it is impossible to conceive.
+
+[Illustration: MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Commercialism in Art_]
+
+But Punch _makes_ the _amende_ most handsomely in 1852:--
+
+    Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour
+    that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In those
+    two pictures [_Ophelia_ and _The Huguenot_] I find more loving
+    observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her
+    forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest
+    poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a
+    point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate
+    expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of
+    canvas put together.
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes
+and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous
+chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,
+
+    Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had
+    no other name than _bottega_--in English, shop; and moreover, it is
+    an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one
+    demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a
+    trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims--with
+    vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and
+    frivolity--no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with
+    the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the
+    perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of
+    great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the
+    beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in
+    ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display
+    of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many
+    is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,
+    is sure to please."
+
+As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of
+Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of
+_Punch's_ altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his
+palinode in 1853:--
+
+    Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my
+    honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young
+    gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and
+    deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.
+    Millais's historical romance of _The Huguenot_, last year? I am
+    sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly
+    papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be
+    breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in _The Times_,
+    and the _Morning Post_, and the _Examiner_. But I am a sort of
+    chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is
+    serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no
+    character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly--not forgetting Edwin
+    Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, _Night and
+    Morning by the Lochside_, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the
+    Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with
+    his ship for bier--not forgetting these and other picture-books
+    well worth reading--I tell you that Hunt's _Claudio and Isabella_
+    is to me _the_ book of the collection, though it records in colours
+    what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all
+    after it, comes Millais's _Order of Release_, and then the _Strayed
+    Sheep_ and _Proscribed Royalist_ of the same authors. I do not mean
+    to put either after the other, so I bracket them."
+
+In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s _Punch_ shows all the zeal
+of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse
+published shortly afterwards:--
+
+    Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it
+    has to reflect.
+
+    See what follows.
+
+    If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public
+    halls and palaces, they must be small.
+
+    Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close
+    eye, must be highly finished.
+
+    These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect
+    the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the
+    Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for
+    which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely
+    recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding
+    circumstances.
+
+    What have they recognised besides?
+
+    That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must
+    be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of
+    earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be
+    rendered--the more truthfully the better--and that the most
+    accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning
+    work--the creation of the central interest which sums itself in
+    human expression.
+
+    The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the
+    possibility of combining these two things--human expression and
+    accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young
+    men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this--at
+    least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,
+    and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling
+    and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point--and
+    further than might be expected from such beardless champions--it
+    has already succeeded.
+
+    So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they
+    have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have
+    still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father
+    before them went through--devils of their own creating to hurl
+    their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and
+    confute, and put to shame--by trust in their gospel truth that
+    Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.
+
+[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of a Convert]
+
+It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English
+artists in 1855, _Punch_ complained that the newer school, i.e. the
+P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as
+Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of _Punch's_ artistic and
+aesthetic _flair_ and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he
+had expressed high praise for Frith's _Ramsgate Sands_ (which was bought
+by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him
+for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait
+Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile
+"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of
+"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern
+and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the
+musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.
+
+With all deductions and limitations _Punch's_ record as a critic of the
+fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.
+
+
+
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, _Punch_
+enumerates his special _bêtes noires_ as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy
+and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list
+would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,
+notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is
+much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen
+and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in
+the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who
+sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,
+all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar
+Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord
+Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all
+City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi
+(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was
+Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,
+together with Railway Directors, Homoeopathists and Protectionists.
+
+[Illustration: PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES]
+
+Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity
+may be noted _Punch's_ list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious
+suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the
+misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.
+Of some of _Punch's_ butts it may be said that they were rescued from
+oblivion by his satire and caricature--Sibthorp for example, though he
+was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in _Punch_.
+He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of
+Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was
+frequently witty, and as truculently courageous as _Punch_ himself. Sir
+Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to _Punch_ for
+all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City
+administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter
+throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social
+advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But
+the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.
+_Punch_ was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or
+discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that
+he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard
+to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already
+_Punch_ had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in
+politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton
+as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,
+ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work
+again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,
+but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was
+so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,
+_Punch_ was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a
+really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal
+throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and
+grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six
+months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, _Punch_ only
+jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real
+"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude
+towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and
+his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence
+imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later
+'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above
+in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from
+their pinnacles when _Punch_ the peace-loving Free Trader developed in
+the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the
+contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was
+grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry
+reparation for continual abuse of the living, and _Punch's_ treatment of
+Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In _Punch's_ early
+volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the
+Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of
+Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and
+there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,
+in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of
+temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Injustice to Peel_]
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD]
+
+If "Jenkins" was _Punch's_ "chief butler"--in the sense of the supreme
+flunkey--Lord Brougham was his chief butt throughout these years. And
+certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played
+better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal
+sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as
+regularly in _Punch's_ portraits as the straw in Palmerston's
+mouth--which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"
+acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from
+his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been
+Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in _Punch_ appears in the
+composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors
+ascribes to _Punch_ his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for
+"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the
+moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and
+furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements
+of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed
+trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to
+the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,
+with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,
+craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the
+Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings
+for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word
+Competition) we read:--
+
+    If people may, without rebuke,
+    Call Wellington the "Iron----,"
+    Why then we safely may presume
+    The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord----.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS]
+
+The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in
+his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic _Punch_, who in 1849
+was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky
+and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But _Punch's_
+hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which
+represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago
+of inconsistencies which composed the mind of one who was at once a
+charlatan and encyclopædist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year
+_Punch_ suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of
+the erotic and learned lord,"
+
+    Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,
+    Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.
+
+Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of
+1851 excited _Punch's_ wrath, when he himself had become converted to
+the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the
+turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America
+in 1850, when _Punch_ printed the following unofficial letter of
+introduction to the President of the United States:--
+
+    To General Taylor, President of the United States,
+
+    Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.
+
+    "Dear Taylor,
+
+    "I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend
+    _Brougham_--the _Brougham_ whose fame is _not_ European but
+    world-wide--personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,
+    he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked
+    like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has
+    cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp
+    attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look
+    around every attorney's office; and you will _not_ see Brougham's
+    picture."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Palinode to Brougham_]
+
+_Punch_ had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian
+cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the
+following graceful verses printed in 1851:--
+
+      A PALINODE
+
+        From _Punch_ to Henry Brougham
+
+    "During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost
+    difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,
+    attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten
+    days the difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the
+    hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his
+    life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found
+    he could struggle no more."--_Lord Brougham's last speech on Law
+    Reform in the House of Lords._
+
+    And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?
+      Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?
+    Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,
+      Our ten long years of all but weekly war,
+
+    Let _Punch_ hold out to you a friendly hand,
+      And speak what haply he had left unspoken
+    Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,
+      That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.
+
+    Forgot the changes of thy later years,
+      No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,
+    Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers--
+      Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.
+
+    He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue
+      Lashed into infamy and endless scorn
+    The wretches who their blackening scandal flung
+      Upon a Queen--of women most forlorn.
+
+    He knows the lover of his kind, who stood
+      Chief of the banded few who dared to brave
+    The accursed traffickers in negro blood,
+      And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;
+
+    The Statesman who, in a less happy hour
+      Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,
+    And gave the keys of knowledge and of power
+      With equal hand alike to high and low;
+
+    The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,
+      Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:
+    The Chancellor who settled century's claims,
+      And swept an age's dense arrears away;
+
+    The man whose name men read even as they run,
+      On every landmark the world's course along,
+    That speaks to us of a great battle won
+      Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.
+
+    Remembering this, full sad I am to hear
+      That voice which loudest in the combat rung
+    Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,
+      To see that arm of battle all unstrung.
+
+    And so, even as a warrior after fight
+      Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,
+    I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,
+      And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.
+
+This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,
+the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal
+reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his
+disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown
+and lived for seventeen years longer--years crowded with multifarious
+activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique
+figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors
+are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to
+avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,
+vituperation, and vulgarity.
+
+Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in
+respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first
+place amongst _Punch's_ pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up
+any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive
+picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was
+"always in trouble." The predominating cause of _Punch's_ resentment was
+the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably
+that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in
+_Punch's_ view: _nihil tetigit quod non foedavit_. Peter Borthwick,
+the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,
+and editor of the _Morning Post_ from 1850 till his death in 1852, was
+no favourite of _Punch_. He was, however, as the date shows, not
+editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick
+clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married
+couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when
+they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery
+heresies that _Punch_ granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for
+this good act." _Punch's_ antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they
+were united in their Russophobia. But _Punch_ was often intolerant of
+competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Designs a Statue_]
+
+[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE]
+
+If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and
+favourites, _Punch_ emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most
+of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere, and the list[33]
+might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of
+Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;
+Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William
+Russell, of whose lectures _Punch_ wrote an enthusiastic and
+well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.
+
+[Footnote 33: It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of
+Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative
+classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on
+William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made
+a K.C.B. in 1860.]
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+                               PRINTED BY
+             CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,
+                             LONDON, E.C.4
+
+                               F.100.521
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England,
+Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol.
+I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857
+
+Author: Charles L. Graves
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2013 [EBook #44267]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Neville Allen, Chris Curnow and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="cover"  style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/cover.jpg">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="300" alt="Book cover" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="transnote"><p class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE.<br />
+Some pages of this work have been moved from the original sequence to enable
+the contents to continue without interruption. The page numbering remains unaltered.</p>
+
+<p>Only references within this volume have been linked. A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume.</p>
+
+<p class="cover"><span class="center">The book cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>M<sup>R.</sup> PUNCH'S HISTORY<br />
+OF MODERN ENGLAND</h1>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_003.png">
+<img src="images/i_003.png" width="300" alt="Lower class deferring to upper class." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE RECONCILIATION:<br />
+<span class="small">OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE</span></p>
+<p class="center">Reproduced from the cartoon in <em>Punch</em>, 15th March, 1845.<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="cs">M<sup>R.</sup> Punch's History<br />
+of Modern England<br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="small">By</span><br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="cs">CHARLES L. GRAVES<br /></p>
+
+<p class="cite">In Four Volumes<br /><br />
+
+VOL. I.&mdash;1841-1857<br />
+<br /></p>
+<p class="cs">CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD<br /></p>
+<p class="center">London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne<br /><br />
+1921<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"</em></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
+limitations. The files of <em>Punch</em> have been generally admitted to be a
+valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
+the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
+use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that <em>Punch</em> has always
+been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
+his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
+especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
+second. For pictures of provincial society&mdash;such, for example, as that
+given in <em>Cranford</em> or in the novels of Trollope&mdash;or of life in
+Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
+outside <em>Punch</em>. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
+part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
+his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
+is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
+subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
+<em>Punch</em>, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
+to Victorian writers in general by a writer in <em>Blackwood</em> holds good:
+"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
+voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
+was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
+They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
+self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
+at all costs." In the 'forties <em>Punch</em> doubled the rôles of jester and
+political pamphleteer, and in the latter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> capacity indulged in a great
+deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
+moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
+Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
+somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
+volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
+with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
+any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
+views expressed in <em>Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
+altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
+after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
+honourable phase of <em>Punch's</em> history, his championship of the poor and
+oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
+Nations"&mdash;the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
+of Disraeli's <em>Sybil</em>, and which I have chosen as the title for the
+first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
+at any time without reference to the political background would be
+difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on <em>Punch</em>
+in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
+redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of <em>Punch's</em>
+London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
+contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
+slums on the other.</p>
+
+<p>No attempt has been made to represent <em>Punch</em> as infallible whether as a
+recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
+cruel&mdash;notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
+the "No Popery" crusade&mdash;though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
+the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
+majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> tributes. As
+for the gradual cooling of <em>Punch's</em> democratic ardour, that may be
+attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
+and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
+follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
+grow older. The great value of <em>Punch</em> resides in the fact that it
+provides us with a history of the Victorians <em>written by themselves</em>.
+This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
+painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
+hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
+mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
+mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
+has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
+or correct the statements or judgments recorded in <em>Punch</em>.
+Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
+the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
+the <em>Dictionary of National Biography</em>; to the <em>New English Dictionary</em>;
+to <em>The Political History of England</em>, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
+Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's <em>Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century</em>;
+and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
+Mr. M. H. Spielmann's <em>History of Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
+encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
+director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
+Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
+research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
+assistant librarian of the Athenæum Club.</p>
+
+<p class="author">CHARLES L. GRAVES.<br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pgviii]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p class="center">PART I<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE TWO NATIONS<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td></td><td>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE"><cite><em>Punch</em></cite> AND THE PEOPLE</a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHARTISM">CHARTISM</a></td><td align="right">49</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING">MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">61</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#EDUCATION">EDUCATION</a></td><td align="right">81</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY">RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY</a></td><td align="right">91</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR">FROM PEACE TO WAR</a></td><td align="right">112</td></tr>
+</table><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">ENTR'ACTE<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY">LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">141</td></tr>
+</table>
+<br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">PART II<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE SOCIAL FABRIC<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_COURT">THE COURT</a></td><td align="left">165</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_OLD_NOBILITY">THE OLD NOBILITY</a></td><td align="left">201</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL">SOCIETY&mdash;EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL</a></td><td align="left">208</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS">THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS</a></td><td align="left">232</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES">WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES</a></td><td align="left">243</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#FASHION_IN_DRESS">FASHION IN DRESS</a></td><td align="left">258</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS">THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS</a></td><td align="left">271</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#PERSONALITIES">PERSONALITIES</a></td><td align="left">304</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bssc"><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</p>
+
+<p class="bssc">THE TWO NATIONS</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE" id="PUNCH_AND_THE_PEOPLE"></a><em>PUNCH</em> AND THE PEOPLE</h2>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">O! fair and fresh the early spring</p>
+<p class="i2">Her budding wreath displays,</p>
+<p class="i0">To all the wide earth promising</p>
+<p class="i2">The joy of harvest days;</p>
+<p class="i0">Yet many a waste of wavy gold</p>
+<p class="i2">Hath bent above the dead;</p>
+<p class="i0">Then let the living share it too&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Give us our daily bread.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of old a nation's cry shook down</p>
+<p class="i2">The sword-defying wall,</p>
+<p class="i0">And ours may reach the mercy-seat,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though not the lordly hall.</p>
+<p class="i0">God of the Corn! shall man restrain</p>
+<p class="i2">Thy blessings freely shed?</p>
+<p class="i0">O! look upon the isles at last&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Give us our daily bread.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Founders of "Punch"</em></div>
+
+<p>It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the
+Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of <em>Punch</em>, should
+begin with the People. For <em>Punch</em> began as a radical and democratic
+paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,
+and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry
+'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of
+jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> us on every page
+was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and
+wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be
+said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry
+Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was
+"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which
+takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the
+<em>Morning Chronicle</em> and his elaborate work on <em>London Labour and the
+London Poor</em>, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of
+twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His
+versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the
+<em>Athenæum</em> observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a
+scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an
+outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the
+original staff was Gilbert à Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary
+amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on <em>The Times</em>,
+comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan
+Magistrate. It was à Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the
+Andover Union&mdash;pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of
+the best ever presented to Parliament&mdash;that led to important alterations
+in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,
+his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's
+references to "à Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on
+his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the
+journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert
+à Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a
+daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the
+highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness
+of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who
+died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and
+impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is
+chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and
+ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist
+and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry
+Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.
+Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education
+was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the
+Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of
+the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh
+discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either
+Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,
+and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to
+militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King
+business" generally&mdash;always excepting Constitutional Monarchy&mdash;was so
+pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him
+into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from
+the temper of <em>Punch</em> in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness
+as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter
+criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden
+and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties
+Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of
+enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade
+movement, and they had been supported by <em>Punch</em> in the campaign against
+the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of <em>Punch's</em> attacks
+on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,
+the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He
+might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of
+the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed
+"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,
+the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are
+as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs
+should not have the best of it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_018.png">
+<img src="images/i_018.png" width="300" alt="Man appealing to ghostly figure." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND<br />
+(The Hungry 'Forties)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Biographies of the <em>Punch</em> staff do not fall within the scope of this
+chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the
+men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential
+to a proper understanding of its influence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> on public opinion. They were
+humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had
+abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke
+of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the
+only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was
+quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a
+heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the
+ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up
+their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered
+by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later
+Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the
+present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the
+manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make
+instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise
+means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until
+such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory
+morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last
+few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of
+every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this
+vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday
+night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful
+imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the
+well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the
+instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a
+full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a
+year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly
+ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which
+prompted <em>Punch</em> to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,
+and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer
+in the <em>Examiner</em> so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the
+sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,
+according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and
+make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>an old story; as
+old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate
+clothed with sackcloth." <em>Punch</em> never wearied of bringing home to his
+readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were
+crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the
+Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The
+amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than
+three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the
+poor. <em>The Times</em> of December 2, 1841, quoted from the <em>Sporting
+Magazine</em> an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince
+Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs&mdash;sleeping beds, compartments
+paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;
+and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the
+building&mdash;and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron
+and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was
+small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one
+time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut
+out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six
+young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the
+same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they
+complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they
+would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the
+latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic
+journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month
+after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same
+issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the
+Lord Mayor's dinner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Fleshpots and Famine</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Oh, men of Paisley&mdash;good folks of Bolton&mdash;what promise for ye is
+here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,
+Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,
+brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches
+at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in
+the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that
+Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord
+Mayor's table!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, <em>Punch</em>
+boldly suggested Lazarus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit
+upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall
+heal the wounds of wretchedness&mdash;shall gather bloodless laurels in
+the hospital and workhouse&mdash;his ermine and purple shall make
+fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey&mdash;he shall be a king enthroned
+and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!</p>
+
+<p>LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the
+wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very
+syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,
+there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the
+beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed&mdash;tatters are
+invested with regality&mdash;man in his most abject and hopeless
+condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the
+earth&mdash;royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the
+embrace of fraternity.</p>
+
+<p>O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and
+cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you
+can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in <em>Punch</em>, in which the cry
+of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from
+"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short
+poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the
+lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Disease and want are sitting by my hearth&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">The world hath left me nothing of its good!</p>
+<p class="i0">The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,</p>
+<p class="i2">And yet I am alone and wanting food.</p>
+<p class="i0">The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth</p>
+<p class="i2">Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE</p>
+<p class="i0">Who gave the mighty universe its birth</p>
+<p class="i2">Would never love the wild bird more than me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,
+as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great
+Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who
+offered evil counsel, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the Chartists themselves had a degree of
+intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of
+public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of
+dissentients:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians&mdash;men keenly
+alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to
+the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to
+Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances&mdash;that it
+prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary
+measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a
+little it is necessary to ask a great deal?</p>
+
+<p>We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its
+army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the
+Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and
+spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has
+been added&mdash;and well added&mdash;that property has also its duties. To
+these let us subjoin&mdash;property has also its cowardice.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural
+labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many
+disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of
+the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence
+of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and
+keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost
+destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for
+a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with
+the wife hungry&mdash;almost crying with hunger&mdash;and in rags, <em>yet the
+floor was perfectly clean</em>. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on
+the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,
+but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his
+wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the
+room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William
+Benton&mdash;"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't
+know justly&mdash;mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;
+can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is
+of the Baptist school religion, <em>whatever that is</em>. Never heard of
+Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who
+Jesus Christ was&mdash;he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to
+school if he could...."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen
+a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a
+violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea
+of a green field was derived from <em>having been stung by a nettle</em>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Song of the Shirt</em></div>
+
+<p>The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions
+of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England
+suggested to <em>Punch</em> an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of
+the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,
+etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined
+being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the
+cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and
+<em>Punch</em> was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor
+widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up
+for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a
+week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which
+paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest
+poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of
+Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all
+the other contributions to insignificance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="thk">THE SONG OF THE SHIRT</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With fingers weary and worn,</p>
+<p class="i2">With eyelids heavy and red,</p>
+<p class="i0">A woman sat in unwomanly rags,</p>
+<p class="i2">Plying her needle and thread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch! stitch! stitch!</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">And still with a voice of dolorous pitch</p>
+<p class="i2">She sang the "Song of the Shirt."</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work! work! work!</p>
+<p class="i2">While the cock is crowing aloof!</p>
+<p class="i0">And work&mdash;work&mdash;work,</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the stars shine through the roof!</p>
+<p class="i0">It's O! to be a slave</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Along with the barbarous Turk,</p>
+<p class="i0">Where woman has never a soul to save,</p>
+<p class="i2">If this is Christian work!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the brain begins to swim;</p>
+<p class="i0">Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">Till the eyes are heavy and dim!</p>
+<p class="i0">Seam and gusset and band,</p>
+<p class="i2">Band and gusset and seam,</p>
+<p class="i0">Till over the buttons I fall asleep,</p>
+<p class="i2">And sew them on in a dream!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"O men, with sisters dear!</p>
+<p class="i2">O men, with mothers and wives!</p>
+<p class="i0">It is not linen you're wearing out,</p>
+<p class="i2">But human creatures' lives!</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch&mdash;stitch&mdash;stitch,</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">Sewing at once, with a double thread,</p>
+<p class="i2">A shroud as well as a shirt.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"But why do I talk of Death,</p>
+<p class="i2">That phantom of grisly bone?</p>
+<p class="i0">I hardly fear his terrible shape,</p>
+<p class="i2">It seems so like my own&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">It seems so like my own,</p>
+<p class="i2">Because of the fasts I keep;</p>
+<p class="i0">Oh God, that bread should be so dear,</p>
+<p class="i2">And flesh and blood so cheap!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work!</p>
+<p class="i2">My labour never flags;</p>
+<p class="i0">And what are its wages? A bed of straw,</p>
+<p class="i2">A crust of bread&mdash;and rags.</p>
+<p class="i0">That shatter'd roof&mdash;and this naked floor&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">A table&mdash;a broken chair&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank</p>
+<p class="i0">For sometimes falling there!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work!</p>
+<p class="i2">From weary chime to chime,</p>
+<p class="i0">Work&mdash;work&mdash;work&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">As prisoners work for crime!</p>
+<p class="i0">Band and gusset and seam,</p>
+<p class="i2">Seam and gusset and band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,</p>
+<p class="i2">As well as the weary hand.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">In the dull December light,</p>
+<p class="i0">And work&mdash;work&mdash;work</p>
+<p class="i2">When the weather is warm and bright;</p>
+<p class="i0">While underneath the eaves</p>
+<p class="i2">The brooding swallows cling</p>
+<p class="i0">As if to show me their sunny backs</p>
+<p class="i2">And twit me with the spring.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh! but to breathe the breath</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the cowslip and primrose sweet&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">With the sky above my head,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the grass beneath my feet;</p>
+<p class="i0">For only one short hour</p>
+<p class="i2">To feel as I used to feel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Before I knew the woes of want</p>
+<p class="i2">And the walk that costs a meal!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh, but for one short hour!</p>
+<p class="i2">A respite however brief;</p>
+<p class="i0">No blessed leisure for love or hope,</p>
+<p class="i2">But only time for grief!</p>
+<p class="i0">A little weeping would ease my heart,</p>
+<p class="i2">But in their briny bed</p>
+<p class="i0">My tears must stop, for every drop</p>
+<p class="i2">Hinders needle and thread!"</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With fingers weary and worn,</p>
+<p class="i2">With eyelids heavy and red,</p>
+<p class="i0">A woman sat in unwomanly rags</p>
+<p class="i2">Plying her needle and thread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Stitch! stitch! stitch!</p>
+<p class="i2">In poverty, hunger and dirt,</p>
+<p class="i0">And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,</p>
+<p class="i2">Would that its tone could reach the rich!</p>
+<p class="i0">She sang this "Song of the Shirt."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_025.png">
+<img src="images/i_025.png" width="300" alt="Lady having her hair styled." /></a>
+<p class="center">PIN MONEY</p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_026.png">
+<img src="images/i_026.png" width="300" alt="Lady sewing a garment." /></a>
+<p class="center">NEEDLE MONEY</p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sir Robert Peel and Hood</em></div>
+
+<p>The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann
+in his <em>History of "Punch".</em> Mark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Lemon proved himself a great editor
+by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his
+colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by
+his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the
+poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's
+correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,
+received scant justice from <em>Punch</em>. Though the impact of Hood's burning
+verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year
+later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel
+wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him
+a pension. "I am not conferring a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> private obligation upon you, but am
+fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the
+disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in
+recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked
+in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his
+personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's
+health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt
+assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel
+sent the £100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with
+all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.
+He could write no more, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> he had wished to write one more paper.
+Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were
+seventy-five years ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far
+asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer
+by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and
+place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one
+side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the
+last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not
+a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for
+the benefit of my beloved country.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than
+seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and <em>Punch</em> was
+moved to ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,</p>
+<p class="i2">If monuments adorn his place of sleep</p>
+<p class="i0">Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,</p>
+<p class="i2">And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Did <em>he</em> not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?</p>
+<p class="i2">Was not <em>his</em> voice loud for the worker's right?</p>
+<p class="i0">Was <em>he</em> not potent to arrest the slaughters</p>
+<p class="i2">Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song
+of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her
+death a year later. A sum of £800, collected by public subscription, was
+all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then
+Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their
+benefit, at a time when, as <em>Punch</em> reminded him, the Duchess of
+Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of £1,000
+a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not
+end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year <em>Punch</em> was
+moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for
+embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning
+the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Shirt
+Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid
+2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 2½d. apiece, and on these
+earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As
+late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.
+a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage
+gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers
+here were "out of place," <em>Punch</em> retorted with the bitter jibe: "What
+has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea</em></div>
+
+<p>No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant
+feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate
+who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge
+brought against a man earning 7s. a week&mdash;the common rate at the time
+for agricultural labourers&mdash;stated from the Bench that he knew of good
+hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.
+Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and
+salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of
+Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre
+fare by the use of curry powder,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> a suggestion that recalls the
+historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on
+hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"
+<em>Punch</em> dealt faithfully with this ducal <em>gaffe</em> under the heading, "A
+Real Blessing to Landlords":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by
+the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for
+bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the
+empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to
+relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from
+living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede
+potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of
+gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal
+to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their
+rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile
+labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.
+Agricultural societies supplied.</p>
+
+<p>N.B.&mdash;A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In these years the Dukes were constantly in <em>Mr. Punch's</em> pillory; the
+Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in
+connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham
+for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for
+killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for
+prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;
+the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules
+enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into
+sheep-walks, which suggested to <em>Punch</em> that he should be dignified with
+the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that
+agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking
+the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen
+Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and
+censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch
+with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words
+reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845
+<em>Punch</em> made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had
+arrived:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Times</em> says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go
+and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for
+governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great
+thoroughfare of civilisation&mdash;he should be quietly and respectfully
+eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him&mdash;in
+history.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Harsh Sentences on Children</em></div>
+
+<p>Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the
+Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the
+treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to <em>Punch's</em>
+reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from <em>The Times</em> and many
+provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing
+a leveret;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a
+faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and
+twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field
+through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol
+for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;
+a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.
+6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,
+had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday&mdash;which
+reminds <em>Punch</em> of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in
+Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man
+"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,
+because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the
+case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not
+solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,
+sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing 1\2-lb. of
+butter. Small wonder is it that <em>Punch</em> was a fervent and convinced
+anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble
+itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools
+for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine
+or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went
+to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were
+punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;
+fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by
+a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the
+penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find <em>Punch</em>
+tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping
+wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick
+Burner." <em>Facit indignatio versum</em>: here is the picture of "The Fine Old
+English Gentleman of the Present Time"&mdash;in the middle of the Hungry
+'Forties:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.</p>
+<p class="i0">Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,</p>
+<p class="i2">Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,</p>
+<p class="i0">And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,</p>
+<p class="i0">He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;</p>
+<p class="i0">For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,</p>
+<p class="i2">Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here is the portrait of the pauper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,</p>
+<p class="i2">A ragged wretch am I!</p>
+<p class="i0">And how, and when, and where I can,</p>
+<p class="i2">I feed, and lodge, and lie.</p>
+<p class="i0">And I must to the workhouse go,</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>If</em> better may not be;</p>
+<p class="i0">Ay, <em>if</em>, indeed! The workhouse! No!</p>
+<p class="i2">The gaol&mdash;the gaol for me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There shall I get the larger crust,</p>
+<p class="i2">The warmer house-room there;</p>
+<p class="i0">And choose a prison since I must,</p>
+<p class="i2">I'll choose it for its fare.</p>
+<p class="i0">The dog will snatch the biggest bone,</p>
+<p class="i2">So much the wiser he:</p>
+<p class="i0">Call me a dog&mdash;the name I'll own&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">The gaol&mdash;the gaol for me.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in
+Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well
+justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the
+Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,
+and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were
+returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the
+humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich
+workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved <em>Punch</em> to
+indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough
+to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the
+management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> were fed
+at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were
+not allowed to see the pantomime <em>Jack and the Beanstalk</em>. Owing to the
+intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were
+actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a
+Bath-brick" <em>Punch</em> dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best
+style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of
+the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the
+workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the
+ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">A fig for honest occupation,</p>
+<p class="i2">Beggary's an easier trade;</p>
+<p class="i0">Industry is mere starvation,</p>
+<p class="i2">Mendicancy's better paid.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Bigamy or Divorce?</em></div>
+
+<p>In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws <em>Punch</em> never
+ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better
+remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice
+Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, <em>Punch</em> hardly rendered
+justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">WAGGERY OF THE BENCH</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a
+bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one
+of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for
+such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice
+Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his
+pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a
+gravity of face worthy of the original <em>Billy Lackaday</em>, "that the
+law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was <em>equally
+open for him</em>, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way
+that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if
+Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have
+both the same papillary organs&mdash;a dignifying truth for the outcast
+wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his
+pleasantry:</p>
+
+<p>"He (Rollins) <em>should have brought an action</em> against the man who
+was living in the way stated with his wife, and <em>he should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> have
+obtained damages</em>, and then <em>should have gone to the Ecclesiastical
+Court</em> and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to
+have been done already, <em>and then he should have gone to the House
+of Lords</em>, and, proving all his case and the preliminary
+proceedings, <em>have obtained a full and complete divorce</em>; after
+which he might, if he liked it, have married again."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,
+earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the
+pauper from court to court&mdash;tarry with him awhile in the House of
+Lords&mdash;and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a
+sustained spirit of drollery, observes:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The prisoner <em>might perhaps object to this</em>, that he had not the
+money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about £500 or
+£600&mdash;<em>perhaps he had not so many pence</em>&mdash;but this did not exempt
+him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he
+had been convicted."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for
+marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about £500 or
+£600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.
+In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.
+Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom
+God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these
+words, "<em>Unless paid about £500 or £600 to separate them</em>."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to
+resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by
+those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted
+to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.
+But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that <em>Punch</em>
+recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a
+sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."</p>
+
+<p>Against the Game Laws and their administration <em>Punch</em> waged a
+continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by
+game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the
+expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and
+amongst his idols<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold
+peasantry" as their constant victims.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Model Labourer</em></div>
+
+<p>The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet
+in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly
+handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps
+the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to
+be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer
+of 1848:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from
+twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he
+calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has
+only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church
+regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits
+outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,
+or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer
+and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas
+or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,
+by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work
+by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him
+discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He
+believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest
+Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them
+the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad
+seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn
+Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for
+rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his
+cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by
+some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows
+absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not
+trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his
+landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"
+wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any
+farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial
+Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy
+tenants, shouts, sings, dances&mdash;any mockery or absurdity, to please
+his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his
+greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.
+His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his
+wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual
+Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his
+master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles
+on, existing rather than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> living, infinitely worse fed than the
+beasts he gets up for the exhibitions&mdash;much less cared about than
+the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,
+autumn and winter, his wages never higher&mdash;frequently less&mdash;and
+perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all
+that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of
+six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on
+his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up
+ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is
+the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he
+is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin
+for himself to be buried in!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are
+heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be
+found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in
+1843, quoted by <em>Punch</em> on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire
+village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with
+political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the
+exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and
+industrious poor, <em>Punch</em> was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this
+parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented
+a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned
+for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of
+£1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the
+shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show
+where the prize pig is awarded £3 3s. and the prize peasant £2 2s. When
+baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn
+with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with
+the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve
+his condition." <em>Punch's</em> democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies
+Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young
+England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that
+Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the
+fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell
+an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the <em>Daily
+Telegraph</em> called <em>Punch</em> in later years), when in "England's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> Trust and
+other Poems" was penned the memorable <em>cri de c&oelig;ur</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Though I could bear to view our crowded towns</p>
+<p class="i0">Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;</p>
+<p class="i0">Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,</p>
+<p class="i0">But leave us still our old nobility.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Lord Shaftesbury</em></div>
+
+<p>But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof
+one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts
+which <em>Punch</em> unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to
+the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the
+industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some
+of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,
+afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if
+there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had
+opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic
+Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that
+the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an
+aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced
+Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by <em>Punch</em>. Yet as
+early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the
+passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the
+hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.
+In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,
+shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a
+Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this
+humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to
+regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group
+supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to
+concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and
+most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of
+the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most
+of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18
+years of age,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a
+day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and
+children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation
+placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its
+provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a
+10½ hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But
+Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this
+compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as
+a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of
+Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The
+Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects
+of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's
+speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of <em>Sybil</em>"&mdash;his
+finest and best constructed novel. <em>Sybil</em> was published in 1845, and
+though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the
+aims of <em>Punch</em>, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a
+Jew. Now <em>Punch</em> consistently supported the removal of Jewish
+disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall
+philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for
+neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,
+Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert
+the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own
+poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity
+make converts of the Hebrews." But <em>Punch</em> was no lover of Jews, and
+least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great
+Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the
+main, however, <em>Punch</em> regarded him at this stage of his career as a
+brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an
+untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet
+<em>Sybil</em> in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social
+and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed
+largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was
+never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue
+between Egremont and the stranger. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> stranger, after observing that
+while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
+modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in
+its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Two Nations</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our
+Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which
+nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The
+stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.
+"Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two
+nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who
+are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if
+they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
+planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a
+different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not
+governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont
+hesitatingly,&mdash;"THE RICH AND THE POOR."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of
+burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in <em>Sybil</em>, though one must not
+forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it
+bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and
+industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the
+evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly
+painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in <em>Sybil</em>. The details
+are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.
+R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green
+and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of
+artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a
+systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his
+campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but
+here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it
+that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all
+on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the
+humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference
+by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the
+existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving
+hand-loom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de
+Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in
+smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a
+real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's
+phrase. But for reasons already given <em>Punch</em> was not prepared to accept
+Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and
+ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to <em>Punch's</em>
+eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to <em>Punch</em> it must be
+admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal
+of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and
+damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the
+"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the
+distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his
+view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the
+leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their
+responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and
+privileges. <em>Punch</em> was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law
+Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of
+Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to
+hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; <em>Punch</em>
+refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group
+were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were
+not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than
+specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate
+action did not appeal to <em>Punch</em>. Though often a petulant and intolerant
+critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,
+legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the
+decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be
+demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there <em>are</em> sermons in stones, and if
+Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and
+wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more
+suggestive text than is written&mdash;written in tears&mdash;on every stone of the
+Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the
+poor he was an impassioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> advocate from the very first. When a police
+magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate
+to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,
+magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later <em>Punch</em>
+vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a
+"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and
+welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder
+at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of
+twelve to prison for stealing £4 12s. from his master "because if he
+went to prison he might become an expert thief."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Plot Against Prisons</em></div>
+
+<p>In the year 1853 <em>Punch</em> discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot
+against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him
+to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy
+organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and
+initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an
+establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,
+and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,
+who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a
+place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and
+seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this
+end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,
+by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular
+branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,
+their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says
+in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:</p>
+
+<p>"I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I
+used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,
+their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves
+generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in
+harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed
+them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society
+together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that
+my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great
+effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them
+clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I
+possibly could."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also
+succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to
+establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will
+most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent
+edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such
+vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,
+Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which
+will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which
+all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of
+his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by
+substituting prevention for cure&mdash;superseding prison discipline by
+reformation.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>High Life Below Stairs</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_041.png">
+<img src="images/i_041.png" width="600" alt="Cook speaking to har mistress." /></a>
+<p class="center">SERVANTGALISM</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Cook</span>: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked
+at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_042.png">
+<img src="images/i_042.png" width="250" alt="Two manservants talking." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Coachman</span>: "Why&mdash;what's the matter, John Thomas?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Footman</span>: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice
+because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat
+down in a week!"<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending
+theme in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. His attitude was governed by the broad
+principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who
+offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.
+But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the
+flunkey, holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its
+prevalence amongst highly paid servants. <em>Punch</em> was the champion of the
+"slavey"&mdash;immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"&mdash;even of the
+much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and
+powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of
+the old régime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and
+furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when
+advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages £3 a year," appeared in a
+fashionable paper and earned <em>Punch's</em> satire. Contrariwise, he never
+spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the
+housemaid." In this spirit <em>Punch</em> makes game of a school for servants
+at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant
+girls and nurses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> were neglectful of their duties and their infant
+charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and
+disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in
+<em>Punch's</em> quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns
+of <em>The Times</em> the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with
+broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the
+North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type
+insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable
+neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting
+from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of
+<em>Punch</em>, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his
+collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These
+gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected
+to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be
+seen nor heard," as <em>Punch</em> put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not
+allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was
+made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real
+aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a
+mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the
+real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which <em>Punch</em>
+impersonated in "Jenkins" of the <em>Morning Post</em> (or <em>Morning Plush</em>, as
+he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to
+ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may
+suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera
+which appeared in the <em>Morning Post</em>:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor
+should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of
+titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the
+State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those
+luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the
+industrious.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And again&mdash;the italics and capitals are <em>Punch's</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites
+of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has
+become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> a ruling passion&mdash;it is the quintessence of all civilized
+pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their
+standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the
+most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society
+assemble.</p>
+
+<p>These <em>ornaments of society</em> are in general absent at the too early
+opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed
+the house previous to the overture, most of those who <em>constitute
+society</em> in England&mdash;those whom we <em>respect, esteem or
+love</em>&mdash;rapidly filled the house.</p>
+
+<p>Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if <em>those
+objectionable spectators were there</em>&mdash;those gentlemen of ambiguous
+gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, <em>tailors</em> and
+<em>shoemakers</em>, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of
+knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot&mdash;<em>they and
+their frowsy dames</em> were so nailed <em>to their benches as not to
+offend the eye</em>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the
+divinity of kings and coronets, prompted <em>Punch</em> to adorn "Jenkins" with
+the <em>alias</em> of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but <em>Punch</em> might
+have retorted <em>tâchez de ne pas le mériter</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Underpaid Governess</em></div>
+
+<p>From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too
+easy. <em>Punch's</em> study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave
+market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write
+the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still
+open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement
+in <em>The Times</em>, in which "S. S." offered a salary of £2 a month to "a
+morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young
+female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with
+French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"
+<em>Punch</em> observes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of
+offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,
+"It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the
+saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen
+indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,
+and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to
+other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such
+offers as those of S.S.?</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_045.png">
+<img src="images/i_045.png" width="600" alt="Servant speaking to his master." /></a>
+<p>Thomas gives warning because his master has given up
+reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a
+governess."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those
+offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was
+expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not
+at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an
+excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the
+problem of these "Sisters of Misery," <em>Punch</em> waxes ironical on the
+results of their improvidence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty
+pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep
+company with the children, the governess has not saved a
+sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know
+that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And
+yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such
+indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature
+who, as I have heard, in her prime&mdash;that is, for the ten
+years&mdash;lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.
+Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank
+lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely
+taught French, Italian, and the harp to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> daughters of small
+tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got
+too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though
+sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of
+the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she
+continues to eke out a miserable existence&mdash;a sad example, if they
+would only be warned, to improvident governesses.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Real Dotheboys Hall</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
+advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
+of them extracted from <em>The Times</em> appears in the issue of August 14,
+1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
+governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
+houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
+Already, some three weeks earlier, <em>Punch</em> had quoted from <em>The Times</em>
+the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
+Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
+instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
+and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
+"Dotheboys Hall" in real life <em>Punch</em> observes that while such a price
+for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
+of miracles has passed, and especially&mdash;after the publication of
+<em>Nicholas Nickleby</em>&mdash;of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
+a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
+least forty years after <em>Punch's</em> protest, as the present writer can
+testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
+"Penny Post Medal" <em>Punch</em> endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
+Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
+treatment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
+<em>Punch</em>, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
+missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
+Postman is the soldier of peace&mdash;the humanizing, benevolent
+distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
+associations. He is the philanthropic go-between&mdash;the cheap and
+constant communicant betwixt man and man.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_047.png">
+<img src="images/i_047.png" width="300" alt="Rowland Hill carried aloft." /></a>
+<p class="center">ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO<br /> ST. MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND</p>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In the Penny Post Medal <em>Punch</em> has endeavoured to show the triumph
+of Rowland Hill&mdash;no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great&mdash;carried
+in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
+If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
+shouts&mdash;he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
+for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
+knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rowland Hill's Reward</em></div>
+
+<p>Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
+ingratitude of man&mdash;old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
+Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
+services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
+or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
+with&mdash;the sack.</p>
+
+<p>After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
+Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
+owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_048.png">
+<img src="images/i_048.png" width="300" alt="Brittania presenting Hill with a mail sack." /></a>
+<p class="center">BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long
+and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it
+is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or
+thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For
+this his salary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post
+Office robberies were frequent, <em>Punch</em>, without excusing theft,
+regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.
+Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in
+1848 we have <em>Punch's</em> assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of
+all Government employees.</p>
+
+<p>The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for
+reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in <em>Punch</em> from
+his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy
+with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4
+instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop
+assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'
+establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy
+took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at
+Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite
+spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an
+association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight
+a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,
+provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund
+to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been
+realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like
+counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But
+<em>Punch's</em> irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and
+Business <em>versus</em> Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"
+not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature
+has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. <em>Punch</em> was
+moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared
+to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly
+advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who
+kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other
+hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at
+eight&mdash;for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.
+But <em>Punch</em> was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a
+revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch
+an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Syndicalism in the 'Forties</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any
+reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,
+according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'
+Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the
+public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a
+model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own
+masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize
+"every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and
+reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that
+the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If
+a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and
+happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but
+it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"
+<em>Punch</em>, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free
+and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in
+putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers
+formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_050.png">
+<img src="images/i_050.png" width="600" alt="People relaxing in an open space." /></a>
+<p class="center">A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the
+Exhibition of Industry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_052.png">
+<img src="images/i_052.png" width="600" alt="Workers' as exhibits." /></a>
+<p class="center">SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO
+BE IMPROVED IN 1851)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only
+holiday of the working classes. <em>Punch's</em> views on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> their recreations,
+therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,
+Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the
+outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for
+keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other
+restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and
+recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have
+seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or
+children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of
+museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,
+in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments
+on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National
+Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are
+left for the people&mdash;the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."
+<em>Punch</em> vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working
+men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the
+Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a
+"Fellow's order," <em>plus</em> a shilling. But of all the movements which
+inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects
+than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the
+name of the "Crystal Palace." <em>Punch</em> had some misgivings as to the
+encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly
+espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held
+possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was
+alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall
+was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,
+but, largely owing to <em>Punch's</em> intervention, was assisted to emigrate
+to Australia. And <em>Punch</em> was indignant at the suggested exclusion of
+the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the
+Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening
+of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of
+criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes
+justified, but often malicious, which <em>Punch</em> had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[Pg 41]</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[Pg 42]</span> conducted against
+the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the
+<em>amende</em> handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great
+Exhibition":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,
+announce the arrival of the Queen&mdash;and the Prince, who, by the idea
+of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,
+rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a
+position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the
+insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,
+and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness
+of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it
+recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident
+of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by
+the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower
+range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for
+foreigners&mdash;and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot
+stir abroad without an armed escort&mdash;to see how securely and
+confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in
+the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost
+everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no
+class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a
+qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a
+splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect
+security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional
+monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the
+world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,
+executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's
+throats in the name of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the
+unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,
+the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord
+Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,
+but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the
+progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant
+when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a
+wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to
+perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward
+evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can
+redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the
+mountebank.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but
+he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and
+especially for their practice of visiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> the Exhibition on the
+"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,</p>
+<p class="i2">And with it blends a sunshine brighter still&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">The loyal love of a great people, knowing</p>
+<p class="i0">That building up is better than o'erthrowing;</p>
+<p class="i2">That freedom lies in taming of self-will.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget
+the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given
+to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,
+<em>Punch</em> agreed with the <em>Examiner</em> that a knighthood was not a
+sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be
+given a share of the profits. But <em>Punch</em> was from the first concerned
+with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming
+it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to
+become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying
+"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare
+flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, <em>Punch</em> voted the suggestion
+of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,
+on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in
+anything he undertook." Nay, <em>Punch</em> went so far as to depict, in a
+cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The
+scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 <em>Punch</em> was indignant at the
+imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs
+and snobs" who despised the masses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:</p>
+<p class="i0">The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;</p>
+<p class="i0">Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,</p>
+<p class="i0">They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,</p>
+<p class="i0">A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;</p>
+<p class="i0">The slams is the place faw a popula show;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue</p>
+<p class="i0">So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,</p>
+<p class="i0">As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,</p>
+<p class="i0">Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with
+the desire to keep up the Palace; <em>Punch</em> threw all his weight on the
+side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in
+June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a
+great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in
+August, and furnished <em>Punch</em> with an opportunity for answering the
+reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on
+Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the
+greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who
+had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts
+and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their
+blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not
+more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and
+promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new
+principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships
+to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but
+too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state
+to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,
+gave the cause their best wishes&mdash;and these were deposited with the
+coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new
+building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation
+before!</p>
+
+<p>If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its
+christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace
+ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have
+built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they
+built one for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if
+Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so
+few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at
+present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new
+playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in
+the world.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sabbatarian Solicitude</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled
+with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> for the
+souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and
+the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in
+order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting
+measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being
+opened to the public on Sundays." <em>Punch</em> is bitterly sarcastic
+against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and
+prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,
+snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not
+only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but
+also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel
+flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior
+classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown
+otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment&mdash;in
+great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small
+consideration for their perishable lungs.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The <em>Morning
+Herald</em> scented revolution in the proposal, and <em>Punch</em> was moved to
+address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed
+treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be
+droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.
+Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ever see the <em>Morning Herald</em>? We thought so. Somehow, you
+look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A
+leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous
+projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read
+you&mdash;when we can get a good mouthful of breath&mdash;a few of the lines:
+the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays
+after one o'clock. In that fact the <em>Herald</em> sees revolution,
+anarchy, and perhaps&mdash;a future republic with John Cromwell Bright
+in Buckingham Palace! Listen:</p>
+
+<p>"'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's
+command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is
+the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to
+say, of Berlin also. And, as <em>one natural result</em>, a single month,
+in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of
+Berlin <em>fugitives before their rebellious subjects</em>. The people of
+England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal
+to their Queen, <em>because</em> they feared their God!"</p>
+
+<p>You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace
+existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone
+to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to
+reign <em>because</em> there has been no People's Palace!</p>
+
+<p>We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.</p>
+
+<p>"The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the
+Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will
+be said, and <em>then</em> they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk
+in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can <em>that</em> do? Just all the
+harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most
+persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin
+myriads!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of
+Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting
+provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday
+School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him
+printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the
+Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning
+service.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that
+in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin
+Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of
+Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of
+Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.
+Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of
+his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be
+found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those
+ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the
+new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful
+refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable
+hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals
+against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if
+gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with
+affluence, and, therefore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> belonging to the better classes, continue to
+legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the
+rest of the worse&mdash;that is the worse off."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch at the Palace</em></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,
+June 10, 1854. <em>Punch</em> describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few
+days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the
+Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the
+opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph
+Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the
+inaugural ceremony:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and
+conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should
+leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the
+day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly
+undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the
+Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the
+Palace on Sundays.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his
+optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it
+characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal
+Palace, which appeared in the pages of <em>Punch</em> in the following months.
+But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the
+chairman, a very good summary of his own views:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the
+crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves&mdash;all mutually
+sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the
+decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace&mdash;than
+that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in
+the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled <em>Punch's</em>
+sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and
+school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational
+institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than
+those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported
+by the patronage of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on
+the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered
+seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's
+Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember
+visits in his school days in the early 'seventies&mdash;recurrent Handel
+festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her
+golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the
+rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above
+all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some
+forty years&mdash;such a one, and there must be many like him, will always
+look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in
+reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August
+Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize
+<em>Punch's</em> ideal.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> For the actual speech of the Duke see the <em>Examiner</em> for
+1845, p. 786.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHARTISM" id="CHARTISM"></a>CHARTISM</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_061.png">
+<img src="images/i_061.png" width="300" alt="Servant speaking to man carrying a large charter." /></a>
+<p class="center">NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">John</span>: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her
+creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be
+properly attended to."</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Fight for Cheap Bread</em></div>
+
+<p>We have seen that <em>Punch</em> did not belittle the Chartist movement, but
+admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it
+sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see
+<em>Sybil</em>), but <em>Punch</em> ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch
+alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who
+denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers
+and superiors.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, too, did a good deal in this line. But
+while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he
+distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely
+justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the
+advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very
+beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the
+leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,
+or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the
+People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded&mdash;No Property
+Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members&mdash;and we have come
+very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal
+Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains
+unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in
+1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged
+from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in
+his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,
+and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the
+years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the
+rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,
+with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to
+control. Feargus O'Connor was one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the exceptions, but his success in
+inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and
+the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many
+of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew
+from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote
+all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily
+lived long enough to see it abolished. <em>Punch</em>, who had pronounced its
+dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged
+34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn
+Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry
+to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer
+of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait
+awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";
+and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge
+any virtue in it. When <em>Punch</em> was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of
+the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: <em>he</em> at least
+had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must
+have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman
+"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience
+in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in
+1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to
+themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man
+whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,
+Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
+though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only
+worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with
+hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject&mdash;as the blacksmith
+strikes from the red iron&mdash;sparkles<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> of burning light; and where
+they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the
+intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made
+resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man
+had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple
+and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the
+mean.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest
+utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate
+suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning
+to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine
+mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.</p>
+
+<p>Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by
+the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott
+was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek
+to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of
+modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Professional Agitator</em></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,
+and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which
+antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at
+every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching
+steadily to disintegration. <em>Punch's</em> distrust of the professional
+agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of
+1848:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MODEL AGITATOR</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for
+them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,
+feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,
+for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered
+in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not
+pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a
+mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,
+and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is
+suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for
+the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a
+testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the
+Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as
+a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,
+and sends agents&mdash;patriotic bagmen&mdash;round the country to sell his
+praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for
+everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is
+publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the
+hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance
+is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the
+Agitator leading off and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> shouting the loudest. The grievance is
+run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there
+is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,
+and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last
+person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves
+for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is
+incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no
+explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a
+chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and
+yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to
+burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on
+the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain
+[the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a
+prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out
+to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets
+quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.
+He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment
+he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he
+bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich
+legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must
+buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the
+dearest."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_064.png">
+<img src="images/i_064.png" width="300" alt="Wall witth cheap bread inscribed." /></a>
+<p class="center">PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> puts it, "was
+the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of
+Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the
+revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The <em>annus mirabilis</em>
+which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of
+Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus
+O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,
+largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as
+Commander-in-Chief&mdash;the swearing in of 170,000 special constables
+(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as
+far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that
+<em>Punch</em> was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"
+position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,
+1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most
+Excellent Majesty":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free
+from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,
+foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and
+blunderbuss&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of
+political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give
+orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better
+instructed for the future&mdash;and thereupon pardon and set free
+William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such
+offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty
+of the English people.</p>
+
+<p>And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="regards">PUNCH.<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a href="images/i_066.png"><img src="images/i_066.png" width="300" alt="Wife talking to husband." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Special's Wife</span>: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!
+Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot
+brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for
+anything."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">"<em>Little Cuffey</em>"</div>
+
+<p>Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,
+and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom <em>Punch</em> always had a
+soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had
+been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the
+declaration of peace after the Crimean War, <em>Punch</em> expressed his
+satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal
+frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater
+importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of
+June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of
+<em>Punch's</em> political and social creed in a time of transition. The
+occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to
+entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may
+be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the
+Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> part in further
+measures of electoral reform. <em>Punch</em> held that the collapse of the
+physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence
+in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further
+efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;</p>
+<p class="i0">I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;</p>
+<p class="i0">Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,</p>
+<p class="i0">Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,</p>
+<p class="i0">But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?</p>
+<p class="i0">I <em>am</em> all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;</p>
+<p class="i0">All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,</p>
+<p class="i0">Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.</p>
+<p class="i0">'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;</p>
+<p class="i0">Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;</p>
+<p class="i0">That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,</p>
+<p class="i0">Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:</p>
+<p class="i0">Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;</p>
+<p class="i0">Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,</p>
+<p class="i0">As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,</p>
+<p class="i0">A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,</p>
+<p class="i0">And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague and sin;</p>
+<p class="i0">Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;</p>
+<p class="i0">Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+<p class="i0">The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,</p>
+<p class="i0">That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,</p>
+<p class="i0">Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,</p>
+<p class="i0">And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,</p>
+<p class="i0">The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;</p>
+<p class="i0">Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,</p>
+<p class="i0">That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Nations or men, we may not rest&mdash;look round on Europe's thrones</p>
+<p class="i0">Shattered or shaken&mdash;hearken to her convulsive groans&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,</p>
+<p class="i0">Think 'tis <em>the Tenth</em> of April you invoke, and not <em>the First</em>.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Reform or Revolution?</em></div>
+
+<p>This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political
+philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and
+nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,
+and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South
+Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present
+generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment
+against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the
+proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in
+<em>Genesis</em> (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that
+her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there
+were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and <em>Punch</em> declared that
+Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their
+passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At
+all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three
+miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or
+three times."</p>
+
+<p>Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including <em>Punch</em>, as a
+remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here
+and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos
+Bound?" <em>Punch</em> gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in
+mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers
+to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> time later the
+Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical
+philanthropists, furnished <em>Punch</em> with a text for his oft-repeated
+sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the
+departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station
+for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,
+their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of
+self-reproach:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to
+make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the
+<em>Morning Chronicle</em> newspaper, and reports upon the state of our
+poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all
+kinds&mdash;and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,
+so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that
+readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and
+that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed
+anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and
+terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a
+door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for
+ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they
+not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have
+our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity
+very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such
+wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no
+idea. No. How should you? You and I&mdash;we are of the upper classes;
+we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a
+word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend
+to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance&mdash;mind, of
+course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they
+dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them
+counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know
+nothing&mdash;how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and
+die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet
+like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful <em>Song of the Shirt</em>; some
+prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted
+energetic man like the writer of the <em>Chronicle</em> travels into the
+poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror
+and wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then
+eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few
+more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in
+their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed&mdash;for those who (with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country
+and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for
+those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in
+their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,
+and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new
+country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good
+mercy speed them.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end
+the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far
+more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of
+Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision
+from <em>Punch</em>, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he
+was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any
+recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous
+report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the
+doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were
+repugnant to <em>Punch</em>. There is really not much to choose between his
+criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or
+"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of
+harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the
+Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was
+followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis
+of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was
+not the sole cause of this improvement.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The demand for labour in the
+rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was
+an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries
+equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense
+the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London
+owing to extortionate tolls caused <em>Punch</em> to denounce him as "Cruel
+King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Beginning of Better Times</em></div>
+
+<p>The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought
+with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The
+year 1853 was so notable for strikes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> that <em>Punch</em>, who had already
+applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to
+poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid
+intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania&mdash;a very
+dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not
+attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking
+mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now
+it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and
+thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become
+machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all
+striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking
+become what might be called the order, but that it will be the
+disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except
+the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking
+though, we had better take care that we are not floored.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, <em>Punch's</em> view is
+summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's
+wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until
+they have become <em>cold</em>&mdash;short, and are apt to snap and fly off in
+sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 204.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING" id="MACHINERY_AND_MONEY-MAKING"></a>MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING</h2>
+
+<p>In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and
+invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching
+influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The
+views on the new order expressed in <em>Punch</em> reflect, with certain
+variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the
+spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or
+accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as
+a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions
+he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in
+January, 1842, <em>à propos</em> of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that
+increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of
+terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.
+But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and
+philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the
+morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied&mdash;as it will be&mdash;a
+thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made
+idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively
+speaking, there shall be <em>no</em> labour for man? Will the multitude
+lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not&mdash;we are sure not. Then
+will rise&mdash;and already we hear the murmur&mdash;a cry, a shout for an
+adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike
+upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.</p>
+
+<p>We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man
+were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the
+possession of some thousand individuals&mdash;what would be the cry of
+the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?</p>
+
+<p>The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry
+statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend
+to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.</p></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_073.png">
+<img src="images/i_073.png" width="350" alt="RAILWAY MAP" /></a>
+<p class="center">RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Impudence of Steam</em></div>
+
+<p>On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last
+sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day
+of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and
+foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put
+into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated
+good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality
+and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part <em>Punch</em> is
+concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of
+locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway
+directors were to him anathema. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> his first volume <em>Punch</em> sturdily
+declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would
+be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons
+perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting
+on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The
+"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet
+of which is still often quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Ease her, stop her!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Any gentleman for Joppa?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."</p>
+<p class="i0">"Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"What gent or lady's for the Nile,"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"</p>
+<p class="i0">"Now, where's that party for Engedi?"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,</p>
+<p class="i2">Had ye e'er the least idea,</p>
+<p class="i0">Even in your wildest flights,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of a steam trip to Judea?</p>
+<p class="i0">What next marvel Time will show</p>
+<p class="i2">It is difficult to say,</p>
+<p class="i0">"'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,</p>
+<p class="i2">"Only sixpence all the way."</p>
+<p class="i0">Cabs in Solyma may fly;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis a not unlikely tale:</p>
+<p class="i0">And from Dan the tourist hie</p>
+<p class="i2">Unto Beersheba by "rail."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far
+more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was
+endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with
+overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.
+Third-class passengers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> were negligible and contemptible folk; neither
+punctuality nor civility was to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute&mdash;a "universal epidemic." George
+Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and <em>Punch</em>
+expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation
+which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.
+Burlesques of various railway projects&mdash;centrifugal and
+atmospheric&mdash;abound. <em>Punch</em> ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle
+of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."
+The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves
+him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway
+Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the
+Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering
+witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the
+infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The
+Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and <em>Punch</em> asserts that the
+largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the
+casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of
+railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is
+submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.
+The protests of fox-hunters, noted by <em>Punch</em>, recall the verses of the
+Cheshire poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let the steam pot</p>
+<p class="i0">Hiss till it's hot,</p>
+<p class="i0">But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_076.png">
+<img src="images/i_076.png" width="600" alt="Locomotive surrounded by a horde of people." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The mania was not confined to men: <em>Punch</em> satirizes the ladies who were
+"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a
+Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all
+these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel
+Court," a parody which begins:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">All the world are stags!</p>
+<p class="i0">Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers&mdash;</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Last scene of all,</p>
+<p class="i0">That ends this sad but common history,</p>
+<p class="i0">Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:</p>
+<p class="i0">Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with
+King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace
+at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull&mdash;on whom "the sweet
+simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall&mdash;with humbugging
+promoters is hit off in the stanza:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,</p>
+<p class="i0">I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;</p>
+<p class="i0">And don't get enough by my paltry rents"&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_077.png">
+<img src="images/i_077.png" width="600" alt="Hudson with followers at his feet." /></a>
+<p class="center">KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rules for Railways</em></div>
+
+<p>In his anti-Puseyite zeal <em>Punch</em> mendaciously declares that a railway
+from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In
+fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley
+Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the
+Board of Trade,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,
+is described in humorous detail in a <em>Punch</em> ballad. Padded suits are
+suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the
+best summary&mdash;with all its exaggerations&mdash;of the discomforts of railway
+travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and
+Regulations for Railways":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The French Government has published a royal <em>ordonnance</em>, fixing
+the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway
+companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things
+should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations
+for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he
+likes.</p>
+
+<p>Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to
+carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the
+train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark
+quite long enough.</p>
+
+<p>No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be
+ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.</p>
+
+<p>Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,
+as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not
+mix sociably together.</p>
+
+<p>No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be
+divided oftener than once a month.</p>
+
+<p>No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.</p>
+
+<p>No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of
+water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming
+belts should always be kept in open carriages.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.</p>
+
+<p>Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.</p>
+
+<p>Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or
+refreshment.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be
+allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or
+third class&mdash;whichever of the two he prefers.</p>
+
+<p>Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in
+attendance at every station.</p>
+
+<p>There must be some communication between every carriage and the
+stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a
+portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or
+falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken
+loose.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are
+noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,
+but in the same year to <em>Punch</em> belongs the credit of suggesting
+refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground
+railways.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_079.png">
+<img src="images/i_079.png" width="600" alt="Two trains entering a tunnel and about to collide." /></a>
+<p class="center">A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as
+a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on
+the L. &amp; N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the
+temper of the speculating public had changed, and <em>Punch</em> is a faithful
+index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the
+over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New
+World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The
+papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The
+Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in
+<em>Punch</em> as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at
+Madame Tussaud's. For a while <em>Punch</em> was inclined to extend to him a
+certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he
+draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's
+high priest by his greedy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> discontented worshippers. But the mood of
+compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of
+Cowper's poem, <em>The Loss of the Royal George</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Toll for a knave!</p>
+<p class="i2">A knave whose day is o'er!</p>
+<p class="i0">All sunk&mdash;with those who gave</p>
+<p class="i2">Their cash, till they'd no more!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The <em>Royal George</em> is gone,</p>
+<p class="i2">His iron rule is o'er&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And he and his directors</p>
+<p class="i2">Shall break the lines no more!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>King Hudson's Downfall</em></div>
+
+<p>In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"
+on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the
+Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of
+the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of
+<em>voyages de luxe</em>.</p>
+
+<p>But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,
+danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are
+rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 <em>Punch</em> ironically
+comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in
+railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,
+only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests
+from correspondents of <em>The Times</em> with the remark:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the
+staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and
+directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and
+brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and
+morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with
+passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive
+expostulation.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_081.png">
+<img src="images/i_081.png" width="300" alt="Undertaker proffering a business card." /></a>
+<p class="center">RAILWAY UNDERTAKING</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Touter</span>: "Going by this train, Sir?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Passenger</span>: "'M? Eh? Yes."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Touter</span>: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The directors of the L. &amp; N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking
+their engine drivers, <em>à propos</em> of a well-authenticated case of a man
+who had been on duty for thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> hours without relief or opportunity to
+rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the
+employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done
+for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and
+<em>Punch</em> accordingly suggests that the directors should provide
+themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.
+Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under
+review, and in 1856 <em>Punch</em> is still of opinion that we might take a
+leaf out of the book of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Russians, who carry surgeons on their
+trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal
+equipment of expresses.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Bradshaw: A Mystery"</em></div>
+
+<p>A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing <em>Bradshaw</em>
+with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's <em>Railway Time
+Tables</em> were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from
+December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that <em>Punch</em> began to
+realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and
+utilized them in a little play called <em>Bradshaw: A Mystery</em>, describing
+the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.
+Love may laugh at locksmiths, but <em>Bradshaw</em> is another matter. Here is
+the happy ending of this romantic libel:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2"><em>Leonora.</em> Oh, don't talk of <em>Bradshaw</em>!</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Bradshaw</em> has nearly maddened me.</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Orlando</em>. And me.</p>
+<p class="i0">He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of junctions where no union is effected;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of coaches meeting trains that never come;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains that start after they have arrived;</p>
+<p class="i0">Of trains arriving long before they leave.</p>
+<p class="i0">He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;</p>
+<p class="i0">Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote</p>
+<p class="i0">From those we seek to reach! By <em>Bradshaw's</em> aid</p>
+<p class="i0">You've tried to get to London&mdash;I attempted</p>
+<p class="i0">To get to Liverpool&mdash;and here we are,</p>
+<p class="i0">At Chester&mdash;'Tis a junction&mdash;I'm content</p>
+<p class="i0">Our union&mdash;at this junction&mdash;to cement.</p>
+<p class="i0">And let us hope, nor you nor I again</p>
+<p class="i0">May be attacked with <em>Bradshaw</em> on the brain.</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>Leonora.</em> I'm happy now! My husband!</p>
+<p class="i2"><em>Orlando.</em> Ah, my bride!</p>
+<p class="i0">Henceforth take me&mdash;not <em>Bradshaw</em>&mdash;for your guide.</p>
+<p class="i16"><em>The curtain falls.</em></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of <em>Bradshaw</em> as
+analysed in <em>Punch's</em> "Comic Guide" some years later.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. <em>Punch</em> notes the
+adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western
+Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to
+fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to
+Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years
+afterwards, when <em>Punch</em> hailed the completion of the scheme as a new
+link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a
+sonnet.</p>
+
+<p>Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been
+foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated
+responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England <em>Punch</em> rudely
+described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless
+diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the
+embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the
+central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service
+on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake
+shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,
+<em>Punch</em> notes that a writer in the <em>Limerick Chronicle</em> attributed it to
+the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an
+illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;
+and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the
+transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,
+but <em>Punch's</em> compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the
+following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w34"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,</p>
+<p class="i0">About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,</p>
+<p class="i0">On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;</p>
+<p class="i0">Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,</p>
+<p class="i0">For then t'other side would have nothing to do.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,
+though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> Designs
+of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too
+bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_084.png">
+<img src="images/i_084.png" width="600" alt="Representation of an aeroplane." /></a>
+<p class="center">AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Aviation Forecasts</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1845 there was actually a periodical called <em>The Balloon</em>, though
+<em>Punch</em> is jocular at the expense of its very limited <em>clientèle</em>.
+Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise
+attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents
+between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to
+Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. <em>Punch</em>, to his credit,
+inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic
+acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less
+fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a
+"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years
+later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to
+have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful
+and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means
+of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,
+nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a
+suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of
+Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is
+correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran
+Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his
+balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,
+who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an
+argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut
+proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and
+take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing
+shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.
+The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself
+the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the
+medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the
+enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of
+course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all
+directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus
+the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut
+also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by
+taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible
+to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's
+invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,
+"went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."</p>
+
+<p>"And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your
+missiles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or
+an electric communication, or by <em>another contrivance</em> which you
+must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it <em>a
+secret</em>."</p>
+
+<p>This "<em>secret</em>" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all
+events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to
+call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up
+the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air
+the basis of military operations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a
+certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both
+"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by
+his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions&mdash;the
+long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon&mdash;to the committee
+appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of
+£200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,
+of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines
+of modern warfare. <em>Punch</em> at first lent Warner a certain measure of
+support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy
+and intractable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_086.png">
+<img src="images/i_086.png" width="600" alt="Two angels swimming carrying an olive branch." /></a>
+<p class="center">EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD
+WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_087.png">
+<img src="images/i_087.png" width="600" alt="Flock of  geese flying towards California." /></a>
+<p class="center">Y<sup>e</sup> Wild Goose Chase after Y<sup>e</sup> Golden Calfe.<br />
+THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble
+minds&mdash;the desire to "get rich quick"&mdash;and cupidity, balked of its
+expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its
+longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there
+is hardly a number of <em>Punch</em> in this year which does not refer to the
+stampede from Europe to the diggings&mdash;"the wild-goose chase after the
+golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than
+one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the
+cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not
+likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with <em>Punch</em> as the
+apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and
+Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state
+of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the
+goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration
+from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the <em>auri sacra
+fames</em> does not escape <em>Punch's</em> notice, though no mention is made of
+the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was
+Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the
+evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we
+find frequent references to the growth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> gambling. In 1852 <em>Punch's</em>
+pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting
+mania&mdash;to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in
+the Crimean War, and <em>Punch</em> is eloquent in his denunciation of the
+contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the
+aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of
+discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and
+enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of
+bank smashes and absconding directors&mdash;those of the Royal British Bank
+coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out
+by <em>Punch</em> as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the
+burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The
+brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in
+1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,
+who was the original of Mr. Merdle in <em>Little Dorrit</em>, and was described
+in <em>The Times</em> after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped
+punishment by suicide.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Novelties and Anticipations</em></div>
+
+<p>As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations
+mentioned in the pages of <em>Punch</em>, we are tempted to exclaim, in the
+hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A
+"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.
+"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor
+Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be
+regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index
+cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,
+but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. <em>Punch's</em> account of
+"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece
+of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily
+hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being
+rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the
+perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to
+us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of
+anæsthetics is lightly passed over in <em>Punch's</em> earlier references to
+this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to
+politicians or its use by hen-pecked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> husbands. Here only ether is
+mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months
+later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and
+phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.
+Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish <em>Punch</em> with food for mirth in
+1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to
+take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more
+justifiable than that shown by <em>Punch</em> towards ironclads in 1850. In
+1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," <em>i.e.</em> hypnotism;
+shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> invented by Palmer, an
+American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853
+suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken
+out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves
+for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession
+in 1853 and 1854. <em>Punch's</em> ironical suggestions in the latter year for
+the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of
+Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one
+generation becomes the fact of its successor.</p>
+
+<p>The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their
+colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the
+scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put
+forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by
+kneading and pressing, vide <em>Punch</em>, 1856, but he, however, was not
+solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous
+"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret
+Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it
+"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the
+inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty
+and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the
+score of its inhumanity, though <em>Punch</em> welcomed the plan, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away
+scruples and use <em>anything</em> against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever
+may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a
+nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of
+applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,
+notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for
+"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in
+1855 (see the <em>Panmure Papers</em>) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men
+of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,
+the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want
+it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,
+as <em>Punch</em> notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for
+once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Telegram or Telegrapheme?</em></div>
+
+<p>In general, <em>Punch</em>, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the
+contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed
+in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced
+academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as
+a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the
+popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of
+enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions&mdash;while reserving to himself
+the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the
+pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one
+with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but
+he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in
+high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already
+won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere
+halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound
+doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years
+ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?</p>
+<p class="i0">Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!</p>
+<p class="i0">Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,</p>
+<p class="i2">Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,</p>
+<p class="i0">Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy</p>
+<p class="i2">Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Persons not uneducated&mdash;very highly dressed&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,</p>
+<p class="i2">To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.</p>
+<p class="i0">Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,</p>
+<p class="i2">Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,</p>
+<p class="i0">Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions</p>
+<p class="i2">Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!</p>
+<p class="i2">Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,</p>
+<p class="i0">You naturally stare, seeing that so many are</p>
+<p class="i2">Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.</p>
+<p class="i0">Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,</p>
+<p class="i2">Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;</p>
+<p class="i0">Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,</p>
+<p class="i2">Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for
+scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument
+maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the
+Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).</p></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="EDUCATION" id="EDUCATION"></a>EDUCATION</h2>
+
+<p>Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.
+Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory
+of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.
+Money was doled out in hom&oelig;opathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000
+was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which
+£70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which
+<em>Punch</em> had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between
+ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane
+magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared
+that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor
+children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of
+thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth
+in habits and practices of idleness and vice," <em>Punch</em> found himself in
+the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary
+who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points
+out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,
+taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary
+legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the
+transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they
+were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of
+their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in
+1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful
+boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though <em>Punch</em> supported the
+establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply
+of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the
+Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy
+remained, and it was due in the country districts, in <em>Punch's</em> view, to
+the fact that "contending zealots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> cannot agree with what theological
+mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the
+schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_093.png">
+<img src="images/i_093.png" width="400" alt="Child sitting between two stools." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Abysmal Ignorance</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1850 the following dialogue was given in <em>The Times</em> police report of
+Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in <em>Punch</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and
+the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished
+upon taking hold of the book.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+<p><em>Ald. Humphrey.</em> Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know
+what an oath is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what a Testament is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Can you read?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald.</em> H. Do you ever say your prayers?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No, never.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what prayers are?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> Do you know what God is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> No.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald H.</em> Do you know what the devil is?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> What do you know, my poor boy?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> I knows how to sweep the crossing.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ald. H.</em> And that's all?</p>
+
+<p><em>Boy.</em> That's all. I sweeps the crossing.</p>
+
+<p>The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a
+creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the
+truth.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools
+movement had been started several years before. From the first <em>Punch</em>
+lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was
+unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at
+the aristocracy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO</p>
+
+<p>It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of
+Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak
+advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is
+not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful
+mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,
+taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and
+misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our
+views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,
+and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to
+the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes
+generally.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of
+poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we
+may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,
+originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the
+tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions
+for the education of the children of the aristocracy.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted
+his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as
+all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is
+mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at
+Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. <em>Punch</em> could not
+forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to
+<em>Punch</em> meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of
+laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a
+fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel
+had to die before <em>Punch</em> did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more
+fortunate, for thirty years before he died <em>Punch</em> made the <em>amende</em> in
+"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Distressed Author</em></div>
+
+<p>"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the
+'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian
+reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not
+yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to
+the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of
+the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,
+1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination
+paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the
+works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the
+Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few
+exceptions&mdash;such as Thackeray and Macaulay&mdash;were generally impecunious,
+and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a
+life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.
+There were no royalties in those days, and for <em>Black-Eyed Susan</em>, which
+brought tens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular
+actors, he received from first to last the sum of £60. <em>Punch</em> was the
+constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as
+Joseph Haydn of the <em>Dictionary of Dates</em>, who was granted a Civil List
+pension of £25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,
+1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green
+'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)
+tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund
+dinner in 1856, when a sum of £100 was sent from the proceeds of the
+first portion of the <em>Peel Papers</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the
+flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+satire of <em>Punch</em> himself], still beneficently thought of the wants
+of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed
+the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_096.png">
+<img src="images/i_096.png" width="400" alt="Boy buying a newspaper." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Newsvendor</span>: "Now, my man, what is it?"<br />
+<span class="smcap">Boy</span>: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a
+likeness in it."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph
+Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they
+were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, <em>Punch</em>, who
+had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while
+applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting
+homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from
+poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and
+his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and
+State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower
+orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords <em>Punch</em>
+suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an
+examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.
+Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to
+Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on
+the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
+Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in <em>Punch</em>, who suggested
+the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently
+as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was
+reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was
+meant by those "damned dots."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Education Bill of 1856</em></div>
+
+<p>Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on
+its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from <em>Punch's</em>
+"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a
+series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards
+withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a
+matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he
+threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,
+comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether
+voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of
+four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of
+age, two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while
+a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most
+miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed
+House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the
+children <em>should</em> be taught, that the nation should pay for their
+teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work
+should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked
+commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting
+Attorney called Hadfield<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> said that the people were taught as
+well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they
+wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further
+interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the
+House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on
+the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.</p>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during
+this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's
+Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by
+representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester
+school: the first think that their religion only should be taught
+by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,
+but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be
+taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no
+practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people
+contrived to get the worst in the fray.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_099.png">
+<img src="images/i_099.png" width="500" alt="Child pointing to a monkey." /></a>
+<p class="center">AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Prodigy</span>: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England
+and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.
+As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful
+reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a
+Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of
+the Committee of the Council of Education. But <em>Punch</em>, in these years
+at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,
+and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediævalism, obscurantism,
+and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and
+State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic
+authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost
+causes" made no appeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to his practical mind. Yet of classical
+scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.
+Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he
+even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the
+education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of
+1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years&mdash;until the
+notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was
+introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as
+early as 1848 <em>Punch</em> avowed his belief in the value of making lessons
+interesting to children:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because
+they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books
+should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,
+but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature
+which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought
+before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study
+should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and
+children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness
+they rush now into the playground.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_100.png">
+<img src="images/i_100.png" width="400" alt="Anderson surrounded by children." /></a>
+<p class="center">HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson</em></div>
+
+<p>Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which
+so much controversy rages to-day. <em>Punch</em> has always been a lover of
+children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of
+the <em>enfant terrible</em> and of juvenile precocity. One of the most
+delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine
+epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+
+"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Punch</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of
+Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says you
+allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as me and
+charley read in the illusterated London [<em>News</em>] that Mr. Hans Christian
+anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England And We shold like
+to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with is Betiful storys the
+ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen the Red shoes the Storks
+little ida the Constant tinsoldier great claws and Little Claws the
+darning Neddle and All the rest of Them and it says in the illustat
+[<em>several attempts, a smear, and the spelling evaded</em>] Paper the
+children shold Meet him in the Crys-pallace and we shold Like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> to Go and
+tell him how much We Love him for his betiful stores do you know the
+tinder box and tommelise and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope
+you will Excuse bad riting and i Am</p>
+
+<p class="regards">"Yours affectionate</p>
+
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Nelly</span>.</p>
+
+<p>charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you put In
+punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how Glad we are
+He is Coming."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We hope that Hans Andersen&mdash;who, by the way, as a writer of fairy
+stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori&mdash;saw this
+letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of
+<em>Punch's</em> aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day
+conditions. In the year 1844 the <em>Comic Blackstone</em> reads: "Children owe
+their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must
+support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other
+wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's
+Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out
+the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will
+remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children
+of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield
+from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal
+who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered
+valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY" id="RELIGIOUS_CONTROVERSY"></a>RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY</h2>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,
+exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the <em>English
+Journal of Education</em> declared that <em>Punch</em> was not suitable reading for
+Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But <em>Punch</em> gave as good
+as he got. When the <em>Record</em> attacked the Queen for having a band at
+Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,
+<em>Punch</em> unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced <em>Mawworm</em>."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>
+The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery
+on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
+but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to <em>Punch's</em> great disgust. He
+advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant
+Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of
+Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,
+or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a
+hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent
+electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and
+in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, <em>Punch</em>
+summarizes the debate:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small
+calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully
+stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in
+seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the
+Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a
+divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord
+Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these
+exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in
+defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.
+This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376&mdash;add four
+who were "shut out" and say 380&mdash;gentlemen in comfortable
+circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,
+decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has
+left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid
+house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the
+matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which
+<em>Punch</em> liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to
+call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question
+throughout the year <em>Punch</em> gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of
+Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.
+For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and <em>Punch</em>
+celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in
+an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."</p>
+
+<p>But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was
+"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while
+retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday
+music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to
+him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were
+jubilant, as may be gathered from <em>Punch's</em> reference to the <em>Record</em> in
+his issue of August 16:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call
+the <em>Record</em> our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by
+the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our
+affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it
+almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the
+moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to
+make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a
+great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord
+Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a
+majority still more overwhelming."</p>
+
+<p>We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,
+writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,
+perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot
+well conceive any other person guilty thereof.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_104.png">
+<img src="images/i_104.png" width="600" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Goldsmith Bowdlerized</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a
+charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin
+Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing
+on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but
+evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an
+edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and
+the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,</p>
+<p class="i0">For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made&mdash;</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring
+lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, <em>Punch</em>
+castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he
+is a noisome fellow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he
+is a dunce."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and
+other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal
+Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,
+which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of
+Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and
+easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet
+sofa&mdash;it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,
+talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa
+to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to
+die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having
+voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own
+comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated
+their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and&mdash;taking
+care of themselves.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the
+Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the
+poor at home&mdash;multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the
+housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and
+wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with
+Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,
+but <em>Punch</em> could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday
+observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs
+and Chadbands.</p>
+
+<p>His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and
+archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As <em>The
+Times</em> wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of
+England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." <em>Punch</em>
+re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic
+comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But
+he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young
+England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church&mdash;to
+make it the friend, comforter and protector<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of the people. "Young
+England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were
+almost as great <em>bêtes noires</em> to <em>Punch</em> as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy
+Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,
+the Bishop of London.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_106.png">
+<img src="images/i_106.png" width="500" alt="Manservant at job interview" /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Serious Flunkey</span>: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a
+year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,
+and piety hindispensable."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Clerical Bugbears</em></div>
+
+<p>The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great
+prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.
+<em>Punch</em> was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to
+the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife
+to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The
+Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> the
+subject, but one extract from <em>Punch's</em> "Essence of Parliament" may
+suffice to illustrate his <em>nolo episcopari</em> attitude:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Thursday</em>, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
+their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
+present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
+deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
+acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
+actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
+more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
+divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
+with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
+bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
+gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (<em>Mr.
+Punch</em> does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
+the <em>Standard</em>, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
+speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
+"The lower classes did not demand the <em>privilegia</em> afforded to the
+higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
+with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
+Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
+and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
+and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
+postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
+"amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
+Priests.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It may be added that <em>Punch</em> was also a supporter of marriage with a
+deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope
+for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'
+Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, <em>Punch</em> notes that the
+result was chiefly due to "four priests"&mdash;the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,
+St. David's and Exeter&mdash;and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes
+of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."
+Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the
+opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable
+to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence
+for the Common Prayer-book." <em>Punch's</em> own reasons for supporting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> the
+change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from
+relief, when he remarries takes on a <em>second</em> mother-in-law.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_108.png">
+<img src="images/i_108.png" width="600" alt="Man with wife in devastated room." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Affectionate Husband</span>: "Come, Polly&mdash;if I <em>am</em> a little
+irritable, it's over in a minute."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Destitute Clergy</em></div>
+
+<p>But <em>Punch's</em> chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in
+the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the
+wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch
+with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect
+of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted
+<em>Punch's</em> attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred
+to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the
+Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic
+inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact
+that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on
+their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to
+2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends <em>under</em> £100 a year, and as many
+as 173 <em>less</em> than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this
+modern clerical instance of Dives and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> Lazarus is to be found in an
+article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A curate&mdash;"an Agueish curate"&mdash;wishes to know of <em>The Times</em> if
+curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
+and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
+disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
+twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
+by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
+atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
+bishop and curate as below:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
+give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity&mdash;a palace and £6,000
+per annum.</p>
+
+<p>"To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
+before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
+from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
+inability to be any longer faithful in his calling&mdash;the workhouse."</p>
+
+<p>And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,
+and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
+the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
+Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
+bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
+fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
+the volume to which we have reverently alluded.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been
+introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to
+resign, and making provision for them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
+enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
+at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
+annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
+twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
+£4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
+departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
+scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
+remains, but the disparity is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> so great. The best paid prelates find
+it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
+Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
+expenditure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch and "No Popery"</em></div>
+
+<p>In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy <em>Punch's</em> record is
+somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
+Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
+followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
+"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
+but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
+Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
+Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
+Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
+Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
+Roman Church, <em>Punch's</em> indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
+violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
+welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
+opening stages of the <em>Risorgimento</em> movement in Italy, and had printed
+a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
+of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
+masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
+were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
+the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
+the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
+secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
+is ortho-."</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
+Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
+declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
+Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
+"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
+Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
+bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Gorham
+case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
+for toleration:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
+you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
+these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
+mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
+The people in this country <em>will</em> learn to read and write; they
+will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
+lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
+outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
+long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
+Jumbo.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No
+Popery" movement a few months later. <em>Punch</em>, in a poem on "Consolation
+amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,</p>
+<p class="i0">But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!</p>
+<p class="i0">No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,</p>
+<p class="i0">But only just a little jawing.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,</p>
+<p class="i0">People beheading, throttling, frying.</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Punch</em>, and he says it without boasting,</p>
+<p class="i0">Does all the cutting up and roasting.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one
+subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,
+of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The
+Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"
+we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord
+Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement
+that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new
+Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put
+forward on behalf of other creeds&mdash;Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_112.png">
+<img src="images/i_112.png" width="300" alt="Roman archbishop breaking open a door." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE<br />
+Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Cardinal Wiseman</em></div>
+
+<p>On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter
+to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely
+whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal
+claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our
+bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as
+asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,
+that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than
+by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most
+forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the
+precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of
+England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with
+contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the
+glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."
+<em>Punch</em> lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of
+November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way
+with the Pope's Puppets." <em>Punch</em> had no desire, he declares, to bring
+back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the
+quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called
+upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all
+spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him
+for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the
+Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"
+appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging
+its way through <em>Punch's</em> columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and
+pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that
+<em>Punch</em> was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting
+the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in
+addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.
+Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that
+the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular
+administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the
+request of English communicants," left <em>Punch</em> cold and derisive. He
+suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed
+to create Mazzini President<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in
+"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive
+Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist&mdash;very much to the advantage
+of the latter&mdash;in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of
+history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,
+<em>Punch</em> continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was
+more than a little wrathful with the <em>Morning Chronicle</em> for asserting
+that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."
+But the <em>Morning Chronicle</em> was not far out, and it is noteworthy that
+from this point onwards <em>Punch's</em> attacks were chiefly directed against
+Puseyites and Ritualists&mdash;such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico&mdash;and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,</p>
+<p class="i0">For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously
+on <em>Punch</em> in the <em>Dublin Review</em>, denouncing his opponent as once
+facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old
+street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented
+him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting
+the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere
+transportation for life. <em>Punch</em> promptly hit back, but he did not get
+the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he
+was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable
+Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and
+literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in
+<em>Punch's</em> pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he
+is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,
+as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop
+Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is
+certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying
+which probably represented the Cardinal's view of <em>Punch</em> accurately in
+the verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You, for example, clever to a fault,</p>
+<p class="i0">The rough and ready man, who write apace,</p>
+<p class="i0">Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were
+revealed&mdash;illustrated, to take only one instance, by <em>Punch's</em> satirical
+picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the
+controversy <em>Punch</em> showed refreshing signs of good sense and good
+feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who
+made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a
+mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on
+behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and
+Wiseman remained the targets of <em>Punch's</em> obloquy for several years.
+Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is
+tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Roman dictation is my vexation;</p>
+<p class="i2">Oxford is just as bad;</p>
+<p class="i0">Papal aggression is my obsession,</p>
+<p class="i2">And Pusey drives me mad.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at
+Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the <em>Tablet</em> attributed
+the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation
+"against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic
+religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and
+described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document,"
+<em>Punch</em> replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look
+upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A
+bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections
+followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than
+the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar
+of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year,
+according to <em>Punch</em>, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died
+down during the Crimean War, and then, four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> years elapsing, the Clapham
+Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified
+slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_116.png">
+<img src="images/i_116.png" width="500" alt="Parson about to don a robe." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE PET PARSON</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A More Tolerant Spirit</em></div>
+
+<p>For the rest of the period under review in this volume <em>Punch</em> shows a
+slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who
+strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they
+considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently
+rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, <em>à propos</em>
+of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of
+all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the
+most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the
+British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact
+that the honorary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr.
+Samuel Pope, and <em>Punch</em>, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is
+"one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that
+of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the
+former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the
+close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon&mdash;by no
+means complimentary. <em>Punch</em>, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame
+Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist
+preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere
+self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of
+tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." <em>Punch</em>, as
+will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose
+portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than
+those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the
+stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these
+aids to popularity.</p>
+
+<p>To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large
+body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the
+man in the street, is reflected in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. Where doctrinal
+controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the
+sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We
+find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of
+Exeter," who was prepared to spend&mdash;and lose&mdash;scores of thousands of
+pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration.
+We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediævalism,
+Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. <em>Punch</em> made no effort to
+disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of
+their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious
+financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts.
+"How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of
+others who have so little of it themselves?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_118.png">
+<img src="images/i_118.png" width="300" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLITICAL TOPSY<br />
+"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."&mdash;<em>Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin.</em></p>
+<br /></div>
+
+<p>On April 26 of this same year of 1845 <em>Punch</em> castigated the violence of
+the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of
+the Maynooth Grant Bill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith,
+who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest
+again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of
+"at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the
+House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If <em>Punch</em> showed
+himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant
+gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the
+British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded
+the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an <em>imperium in imperio</em>.
+Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter.
+His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his
+honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same
+insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look
+with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged,
+to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his
+early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at,
+in view of the admissions of his biographers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
+accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
+development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
+interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
+which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
+throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
+served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
+of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
+as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
+"could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
+he was in the presence of a foreigner."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now <em>Punch</em> was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery"
+in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen
+as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic
+tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates
+this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to <em>Punch</em>, than the
+part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A
+manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong
+prejudice. As we have seen, <em>Punch</em> frankly admitted the Jews' great
+virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the
+"Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the
+same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the
+cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses &amp; Co." in
+1844.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch and the Jews</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable
+as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes
+purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at
+Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when
+the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him
+the honorary degree of D.C.L., <em>Punch</em> was prompted to remark that the
+initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in
+Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the rôle of
+world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed
+Jewish Protocol, did not escape <em>Punch's</em> notice, and his comment is
+characteristic:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
+<em>They</em> join Secret Societies. <em>They</em> (for the evils complained of
+by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
+nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
+picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
+Sheriff's Officer! "<em>All is race.</em>" What a picture of cool
+malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
+luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
+luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
+him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
+sherry.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Was <em>Punch</em> an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering,
+if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild
+in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding
+relief recalled to <em>Punch</em> Martin Luther's saying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of the Jews: "They
+sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government."
+This, adds <em>Punch</em>, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the
+wheelbarrow still.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_121.png">
+<img src="images/i_121.png" width="400" alt="Two men talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Lord John</span>: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little
+matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jewish Disabilities</em></div>
+
+<p>Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and
+re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused
+permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed
+to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of
+strangers. In all, <em>nine</em> Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed
+by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the Lords, before the tenth,
+and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise
+under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the
+oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron
+Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the
+oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John
+Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and
+abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly <em>Punch</em> lent him valuable
+free-lance help throughout.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in
+Bickerstaffe's play <em>The Hypocrite</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <em>Life of Disraeli</em> (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p.
+635.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR" id="FROM_PEACE_TO_WAR"></a>FROM PEACE TO WAR</h2>
+
+<p>In the 'forties <em>Punch</em>, as we have already noted, stood in with "the
+group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in
+Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first
+strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by
+<em>Punch</em>. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly
+pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean
+War, it was not due to any change of <em>personnel</em>. The gentle Doyle
+resigned because of <em>Punch's</em> "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed
+his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the
+Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy
+of <em>Punch</em> in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most
+bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was
+responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons.
+Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were
+his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a
+conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did
+it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the
+underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything
+savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his
+criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, <em>Punch</em> gave "the
+judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his
+stiffness. <em>Punch</em> supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the
+Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of
+the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of
+Labour&mdash;witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of
+1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who
+invariably sided against his country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_124.png">
+<img src="images/i_124.png" width="350" alt="Cartoon" /></a>
+<p class="center">"GENERAL FÉVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR</p>
+<p>"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide&mdash;Generals Janvier and
+Février."&mdash;<em>Speech of the late Emperor of Russia.</em></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic
+tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless
+pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. <em>Punch's</em>
+campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never
+recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare
+even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting
+with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the
+principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant
+letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring
+in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General
+for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell
+trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of
+Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel,
+this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by
+this vitriolic comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
+Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
+the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
+widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
+noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
+to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
+of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
+Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
+duelling-pistol!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go
+free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_126.png">
+<img src="images/i_126.png" width="400" alt="Widow Fawcett being denied her pension." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Punch as Pacifist</em></div>
+
+<p>The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series
+named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin
+Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a
+gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and
+pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish,
+blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville,
+Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying
+Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> pamphleteering; but
+<em>Punch</em> was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in
+the <em>Morning Post</em>, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall,
+who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain.
+<em>Punch</em>, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his
+comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides
+with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with
+France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the
+ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London,
+who would have to flee in case of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the
+same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which <em>Punch</em>
+assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French
+editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter.
+<em>Punch</em> had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the
+eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range
+invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of
+ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on
+the "Science of Warfare," <em>à propos</em> of the benevolent object of some
+inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by
+making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the
+Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very
+ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the
+sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization
+or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical
+references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer&mdash;Brook Green being "one
+of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to
+the metropolis on the western side. <em>Punch</em> at this time was a bitter
+critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal
+reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at
+Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the
+clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of
+Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of
+August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish
+flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to
+the Queen":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let thy queenly voice be heard&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Who shall dare to disobey?&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">It but costs thy Royal word,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the lash is cast away.</p>
+<p class="i0">With thyself it rests to scour</p>
+<p class="i2">From our arms the loathsome stain;</p>
+<p class="i0">Then of mercy show thy power,</p>
+<p class="i2">And immortal be thy reign!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and
+passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_128.png">
+<img src="images/i_128.png" width="400" alt="John Bull mocking disguised figure." /></a>
+<p class="center">A SILLY TRICK</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">John Bull</span>: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be
+frightened by such a turnip as that!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Invasion Scare</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but <em>Punch</em>
+maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the
+alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to <em>The Times</em>, and by the letter
+of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by <em>Punch</em> as a
+letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized
+by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have
+contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the
+formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on
+Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls."
+The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the
+violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a
+frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden
+in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with <em>Punch</em> as the "cleverest Cob"
+in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His
+Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with <em>Punch's</em> cordial
+approval:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
+practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
+goodwill&mdash;could more be expected?&mdash;of the Prime Minister and the
+Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
+position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
+ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
+themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
+more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
+are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
+as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
+to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
+music.</p>
+
+<p>The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
+Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
+cedar in the gardens at Paris&mdash;a cedar of hugest girth and widest
+shape&mdash;that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
+of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
+Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
+and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
+to all nations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in
+Paris:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
+reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
+of the tomb of the great peace-breaker&mdash;who turned kingdoms into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
+human freedom&mdash;even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
+his violet robe&mdash;beset with golden bees&mdash;the bees that, as in the
+lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases&mdash;Napoleon, with his
+Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
+portentous, glistering evil&mdash;contrasted with our Quaker friend
+[Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
+aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
+in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
+his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
+brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
+thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So, again, <em>Punch</em> breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in
+the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims?
+All great reformers, idealists and benefactors&mdash;Harvey, Jenner,
+Stephenson&mdash;had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative
+critics:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TO THE LAUGHERS</p>
+
+<p>The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
+fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
+All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
+it&mdash;paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
+it&mdash;arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
+sides.</p>
+
+<p>"Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
+supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
+"Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
+instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the <em>Economist</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
+<em>Statist</em>; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
+Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
+declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
+growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
+rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
+of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
+Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.</p>
+
+<p>But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
+there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
+this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
+tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
+declares that its heart contains the Oak.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington
+publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the
+Army, on which <em>Punch</em> remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases,
+how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while
+condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National
+Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when
+£158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea."
+On naval matters <em>Punch</em> foretold many things, but he did not foresee
+the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the
+truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of
+ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in
+foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when
+he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the
+Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and
+proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the
+arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status
+and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his
+heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be
+written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."</p>
+
+<p>The turning point at which <em>Punch's</em> pacificist zeal began to cool was
+reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with
+Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to
+Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his
+colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in
+refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any
+responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by
+<em>Punch</em>, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 <em>Punch</em>
+waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in
+which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with
+the greatest ease. The <em>coup d'ètat</em> of 1851, and suspicion of the aims
+of Louis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Napoleon, whom <em>Punch</em> described as a "perjured homicide,"
+converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and
+needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill,
+Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the
+title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an
+Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for
+exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private
+approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this <em>Punch</em>
+regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852
+opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on
+"Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the
+anxious vigil of England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_132.png">
+<img src="images/i_132.png" width="350" alt="Mistress dismissing servant." /></a>
+
+<p class="center">THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING</p>
+<p>"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your
+fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you
+must go, of course."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr.
+Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into
+bitter antagonism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Armaments useless our money to spend on,</p>
+<p class="i2">Certainly we should be acting like geese;</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>But</em> have we any sure ground to depend on,</p>
+<p class="i2">In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?</p>
+<p class="i30">Speak, Mr. Cobden!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government,
+and <em>Punch</em> (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford
+University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim
+to have been the inventor of <em>camouflage</em> on the strength of the
+following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety
+Uniforms" the reader finds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
+distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
+provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
+which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
+objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
+possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
+corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
+mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
+manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
+house-top service amongst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the chimney pots, of bright green with
+mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
+fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
+daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
+brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
+were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
+splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
+the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
+midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
+bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
+uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
+rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
+Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
+Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
+article and good cut.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Death of "The Duke"</em></div>
+
+<p>The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct
+attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave
+<em>Punch</em> a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.</p>
+
+<p class="center">RENDERING UP THE SWORD</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Our Arthur sleeps&mdash;our Arthur is not dead.</p>
+<p class="i2">Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,</p>
+<p class="i0">Should e'er invading foot this England tread&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn</p>
+<p class="i2">Through all our veins&mdash;until the foeman say,</p>
+<p class="i0">"Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"</p>
+<p class="i2">And awestruck from the onset shrink away.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Moreover, <em>Punch</em> defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at
+this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental
+despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism;
+that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the
+spirit of valour."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_135.png">
+<img src="images/i_135.png" width="350" alt="His Lordship sitting on a keg of gunpowder." /></a>
+<p class="center">ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_136.png">
+<img src="images/i_136.png" width="350" alt="Two news sellers talking." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Itinerant Newsman</span>, No. 1: "I say, Bill, what are you
+givin' 'em?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Ditto</span>, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of
+the British Troops."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Outbreak of War</em></div>
+
+<p>Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady <em>crescendo</em> of hostility in
+the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this,
+both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in
+the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the
+Russo-Turkish quarrel <em>Punch's</em> long and consistent distrust&mdash;to put it
+mildly&mdash;of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined
+him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in
+Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled
+him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his <em>bête noire</em>, the
+Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the
+predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and
+Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the
+interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey
+from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, <em>Punch</em> threw
+all his weight into the balance with the War party<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> in the Cabinet, and
+bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen.
+These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown
+with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably
+indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's
+boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The
+Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from
+the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the
+war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness
+of our cause did not blind <em>Punch</em> to the negligence and worse of those
+charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our
+forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to
+preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of
+organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the
+debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> and file of our fighting
+men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this
+excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in <em>The Times</em>,
+will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
+wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
+on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
+the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
+it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
+value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
+children. The girl&mdash;and, maybe, the little girls and boys&mdash;left by
+him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
+the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
+that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
+with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
+and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
+beadle's.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and
+children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there
+were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat
+of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each
+letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_138.png">
+<img src="images/i_138.png" width="600" alt="Angel and bird as nurses." /></a>
+<p class="center">WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND NIGHTINGALES</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Song of the Nightingale</em></div>
+
+<p>But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the
+hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of
+<em>The Times</em>, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert
+and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country
+deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence
+Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was <em>Punch's</em>
+chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the
+publication of "The Nightingale's Song":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,</p>
+<p class="i2">Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,</p>
+<p class="i0">And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,</p>
+<p class="i2">With alacrity and promptitude of motion.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands</p>
+<p class="i2">How to manage every sort of application,</p>
+<p class="i0">From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach</p>
+<p class="i2">The way to make a poppy fomentation.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,</p>
+<p class="i2">By the readiness of feminine invention;</p>
+<p class="i0">Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,</p>
+<p class="i2">With a careful and considerate attention.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,</p>
+<p class="i2">Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,</p>
+<p class="i0">'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,</p>
+<p class="i2">To carry out so gallant an idea.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is only one of a whole series of poems&mdash;notably one written at the
+time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855&mdash;inspired by the "Lady of the
+Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded
+common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their
+nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement
+of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily
+expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people
+of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale&mdash;nor
+can we forget mismanagement."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_139.png">
+<img src="images/i_139.png" width="600" alt="Two soldiers talking." /></a>
+<p>"Well, Jack, here's good news from home. We're to have a
+medal."</p>
+<p>"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it
+on."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Familiar Grievances</em></div>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her
+an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition
+was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was
+given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, <em>Punch</em> laboured in
+season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his
+humanity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and
+was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a
+great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a
+picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example,
+the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the
+winter of 1854:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,</p>
+<p class="i0">From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!</p>
+<p class="i0">And that's how we pension our officer-foes,</p>
+<p class="i0">For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays</p>
+<p class="i0">The wages of postmen will probably raise,</p>
+<p class="i0">And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all</p>
+<p class="i0">The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of
+bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding
+Officer," early in 1855:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Oh! no, we never mention them,</p>
+<p class="i2">Their names must not be heard,</p>
+<p class="i0">My hand Routine forbids to trace</p>
+<p class="i2">Of their exploits one word.</p>
+<p class="i0">Most glorious though their deeds may be,</p>
+<p class="i2">To say it I regret,</p>
+<p class="i0">When they expect a word from me,</p>
+<p class="i2">They find that I forget.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You say that they are happy now,</p>
+<p class="i2">The bravest of the brave,</p>
+<p class="i0">A "special" pen recording how</p>
+<p class="i2">Mere Grenadiers behave.</p>
+<p class="i0">Of "special" pens I disapprove,</p>
+<p class="i2">An inconvenient set,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who oftentimes the veil remove,</p>
+<p class="i2">And print what we forget.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among
+those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring.
+Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> too old; or they were
+"blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or
+inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous
+gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given £5 by the Prince Consort;
+or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed
+by the Queen. Why, asks <em>Punch</em>, was he not made an ensign? Of a review
+of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been
+more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the
+invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is
+the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Flunkey</em> (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
+Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
+dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
+inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><em>Flunkey</em> (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
+think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
+Sufficient!'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_141.png">
+<img src="images/i_141.png" width="500" alt="Landlord and tenant in conversation." /></a>
+<p class="center">A DISTRESSED AGRICULTURIST</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Landlord</span>: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems
+to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Tenant</span> (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why,
+you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten
+by <em>Punch</em>. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their
+commanders,</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.</p>
+<p class="i0">These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand</p>
+<p class="i0">As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Combatants and Non-Combatants</em></div>
+
+<p>The Charge of the Light Brigade<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump
+Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, <em>Punch</em>, throughout the
+war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of
+unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to
+the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the
+cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive
+bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the
+commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have
+leave to go home on urgent <em>Private</em> affairs?"</p>
+
+<p>The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive
+criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even
+more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,</p>
+<p class="i2">And merrily danced that Quaker,</p>
+<p class="i0">When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,</p>
+<p class="i2">And Mouravieff meant to take her.</p>
+<p class="i0">He said he knew it was wrong to fight,</p>
+<p class="i2">He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,</p>
+<p class="i0">But to see that the battle was going right,</p>
+<p class="i2">O! merrily danced the Quaker.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_143.png">
+<img src="images/i_143.png" width="600" alt="Lion sniffing at conference room door." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE BRITISH LION SMELLS A RAT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Paying the Bill</em></div>
+
+<p>The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation,
+when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and
+devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are
+mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his
+pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace
+came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism,
+dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on
+generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses,
+and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had
+appeared&mdash;a painful document with "delay," "want of&mdash;&mdash;" and
+"unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the
+Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts <em>Punch</em> to mitigated "joy and
+satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise
+Lord Malmesbury&mdash;no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as
+crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to
+express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of
+Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his
+ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the
+Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks
+to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and
+those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were
+appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain
+figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two
+years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but
+3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the
+demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her
+attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, <em>Punch</em>
+strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His
+general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Thank Heaven the War is ended!</p>
+<p class="i2">That is the general voice,</p>
+<p class="i0">But let us feign no splendid</p>
+<p class="i2">Endeavours to rejoice.</p>
+<p class="i0">To cease from lamentation</p>
+<p class="i2">We may contrive&mdash;but&mdash;pooh!</p>
+<p class="i0">Can't rise to exultation,</p>
+<p class="i2">And cock-a-doodle-doo!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,</p>
+<p class="i2">Like supernumeraries on the stage,</p>
+<p class="i2">To smiling happiness from settled rage;</p>
+<p class="i0">We look before and after.</p>
+<p class="i0">Before, to all those skeletons and corses</p>
+<p class="i0">Of gallant men and noble horses;</p>
+<p class="i2">After&mdash;though sordid the consideration&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Unto a certain bill to pay,</p>
+<p class="i0">Which we shall have for many a day,</p>
+<p class="i2">By unrepealable taxation.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Yet never fought we in a better cause,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.</p>
+<p class="i0">We stood in battle for the eternal laws;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Twas an affair of high Police,</p>
+<p class="i0">Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;</p>
+<p class="i0">And now remains&mdash;the Rate.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington
+led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the
+gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what
+it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the
+Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the
+cause of Italian liberty, <em>à propos</em> of the advance of a million pounds
+to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest
+a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a
+trade offer." <em>Punch</em>, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney
+Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and
+establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he
+was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the
+barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every
+prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the
+worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."</p>
+
+<p>Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856&mdash;in the
+recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in
+wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque
+in the shape of an imaginary article from the <em>Morning Herald</em> on the
+execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over
+"Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead.
+Here, as so often time has proved, <em>Punch</em> was a prophet as well as a
+critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the
+Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France;
+wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary
+expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced
+<em>Punch</em> to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the
+price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in
+July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;</p>
+<p class="i0">Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;</p>
+<p class="i0">And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,</p>
+<p class="i0">To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,</p>
+<p class="i0">With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,</p>
+<p class="i0">To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,</p>
+<p class="i0">Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,</p>
+<p class="i0">'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.</p>
+<p class="i0">What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?</p>
+<p class="i0">What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Incapable Commanders</em></div>
+
+<p>Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex
+of incapacity," but <em>Punch</em> spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the
+Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except
+when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great
+people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement
+we may bracket a useful <em>obiter dictum</em> on appointments generally: "Too
+much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places
+generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing
+report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against
+Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with
+"aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea
+Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."</p>
+
+<p>Evidently <em>Punch</em> is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a
+month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's
+son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at £200 a year for four years, with
+a grant of £500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without
+purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a
+marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money
+to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for
+severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service
+is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was
+a stern critic of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, <em>Punch</em>
+recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State
+to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of
+criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier
+notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a
+comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in
+its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of
+February 23, 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Till now the stars and garters</p>
+<p class="i2">Were for birth or fortune's son,</p>
+<p class="i0">And as oft in snug home-quarters</p>
+<p class="i2">As in fields of fight were won.</p>
+<p class="i0">But at length a star arises,</p>
+<p class="i2">Which as glorious will shine</p>
+<p class="i0">On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast</p>
+<p class="i2">Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Too long mere food for powder</p>
+<p class="i2">We've deemed our rank and file,</p>
+<p class="i0">Now higher hopes and prouder</p>
+<p class="i2">Upon the soldier smile.</p>
+<p class="i0">And if no Marshal's bâton</p>
+<p class="i2">Private Smith in his knapsack bears,</p>
+<p class="i0">At least in the War, the chance of the star</p>
+<p class="i2">With his General he shares.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until
+June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity <em>Punch</em>
+strove to render justice to the occasion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE STAR OF VALOUR<br /><br />
+Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The fount of Honour, sealed till now</p>
+<p class="i2">To all save claims of rank and birth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Makes green the laurel on the brow</p>
+<p class="i2">Ennobled but by soldier's worth.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of these the bravest and the best</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,</p>
+<p class="i0">England doth, by her Queen, invest</p>
+<p class="i2">With Valour's Cross&mdash;their great reward!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Marking her sense of something still,</p>
+<p class="i2">A central nobleness, that lies</p>
+<p class="i0">Deeper than rank which royal will,</p>
+<p class="i2">Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,</p>
+<p class="i2">Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;</p>
+<p class="i0">That knighthood this bronze cross imparts&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression
+was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though rather ugly&mdash;take it,</p>
+<p class="i0">John Bull a medal can deserve,</p>
+<p class="i2">But can't contrive to make it.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Victoria Cross</em></div>
+
+<p>But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction.
+<em>Punch</em> was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were
+well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts
+of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not
+instituted till 1866. <em>Punch's</em> democratic bias is also agreeably shown
+in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the
+dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were
+thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for
+help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would
+help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in
+fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with
+this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on
+State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on
+Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all
+soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public
+subscription, largely due<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+to the appeal in <em>Punch's</em> columns. Lastly,
+and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the
+timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in
+which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and
+ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would
+probably mean promotion by influence&mdash;an equally vicious system. To
+alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered
+the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it
+was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"&mdash;not the only reference in
+<em>Punch</em> to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on
+behalf of his protégé and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <em>Punch</em> welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally
+appeared in the <em>Examiner</em>, but could not agree with the view expressed
+in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be
+the only way&mdash;as at the moment&mdash;to secure it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="cs"><a name="ENTRACTE" id="ENTRACTE"></a>ENTR'ACTE</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY" id="LONDON_IN_THE_MID-NINETEENTH_CENTURY"></a>LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY</h2>
+
+<p>The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of <em>Punch</em> seventy and
+eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that
+was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the
+streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot
+be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the
+streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to
+<em>Punch</em> they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy,
+while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured
+localities&mdash;the Poultry and Lombard Street&mdash;was a constant source of
+danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in
+recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is
+noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the
+patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which
+Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now
+relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully
+established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To
+those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel
+came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled
+against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted
+so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle,
+and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give
+a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or
+"growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but
+<em>Punch</em>, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for
+his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old
+bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The
+one-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at
+6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to
+mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the
+matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having
+five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public
+sympathy, fostered by the <em>Examiner</em>, was enlisted on behalf of the
+cabman, but <em>Punch</em> was rigidly on the side of the public as against the
+proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and
+rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered
+from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which
+appeared in <em>The Times</em>. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor
+to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because
+he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also
+require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen
+were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an
+improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to
+elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of
+cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard
+of taxi-drivers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_153.png">
+<img src="images/i_153.png" width="400" alt="Man poking stick through roof of cab." /></a>
+<p class="center">CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN THE WRONG
+TURNING&mdash;THAT'S ALL</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_154.png">
+<img src="images/i_154.png" width="600" alt="Lady discussing cab driver." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Amy</span> (to Rose): "Good gracious, Rose, I'm afraid from the
+way the man talks that he is intoxicated!"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Cabby</span> (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic)
+intossi&mdash;intossi-cated (hic)&mdash;itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in
+speesh, Miss!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Ancient Omnibus</em></div>
+
+<p>Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their
+dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> on the floors, and the
+perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope
+ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to
+sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of
+the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside
+passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after
+1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a
+journey to the remoter suburbs, if <em>Punch</em> is to be believed, took
+almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar
+inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially
+on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded
+interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are
+vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were
+introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the
+conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a
+superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period
+complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of
+1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a
+good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts,
+stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and
+driver. In one respect only, London was better served&mdash;on its waterway.
+The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that
+they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was
+habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in
+general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and
+ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for
+over-population.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_155.png">
+<img src="images/i_155.png" width="400" alt="Conductoress with  bus full of infants." /></a>
+<p class="center">FEMALE 'BUSES (A Prophecy)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The New Police Force</em></div>
+
+<p>From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were
+charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by
+the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has
+frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new
+policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of
+1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of
+<em>Punch</em> in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be
+gauged by his greeting the threat of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> strike with the remark that
+he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with
+cooks&mdash;a fruitful source of satire&mdash;began to be a theme of ridicule in
+the late 'forties, and inspired in <em>Punch</em> "The Loves of the New
+Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post
+owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_156.png">
+<img src="images/i_156.png" width="400" alt="Tall policemen arresting short persons." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLICE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students
+of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.</p>
+
+<p>As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means
+universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844;
+the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was
+foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest
+illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock
+in <em>The Ogilvies</em> speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too
+bright," and <em>Punch</em> is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility
+of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become
+obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> has no longer
+need to climb and never runs. In 1844 <em>Punch</em> speaks of the Lucifer
+having replaced the Congreve&mdash;or "Congry" as it was vulgarly
+called&mdash;friction match; but the change of name was later, according to
+Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer
+matches as "a triumph of science."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_157.png">
+<img src="images/i_157.png" width="600" alt="Postmen on parade." /></a>
+<p class="center">SIR JAMES GRAHAM HOLDS A REVIEW OF THE LONDON POSTMEN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Municipal Apathy</em></div>
+
+<p>The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the
+'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached
+villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from
+Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way
+House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of
+bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea
+Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric
+license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the
+'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year
+1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces
+or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as <em>Punch</em>
+called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there
+were wildernesses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> even in central London, notably Leicester Square and
+Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of
+Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the <em>terra
+incognita</em> of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only
+differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked
+eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the
+region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests
+in <em>Punch</em>, belong to an unregretted past. <em>Punch</em> was a great Londoner.
+We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him
+to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For
+years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in
+the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square,
+the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin
+in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven
+years later we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
+is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
+on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
+celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
+particulars:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Time to build">
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td> years.</td><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To erect a Simple Column</td><td>It takes in England</td><td>12</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto, with Lions, everything complete</td><td>"</td><td>24</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To build a Common Bridge</td><td>"</td><td>15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto a Suspension Bridge</td><td>"</td><td>25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ditto Houses of Parliament</td><td>"</td><td>A trifle under 100</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
+curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
+one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
+celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
+Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
+supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
+to make his appearance.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Britannia," <em>Punch</em> makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal
+happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> their memory."
+And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not
+ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it
+likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same
+spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on
+"The Nation and Its Monuments":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The National Gallery holds its place</p>
+<p class="i2">In Trafalgar's noble Square,</p>
+<p class="i0">And being a national disgrace,</p>
+<p class="i2">Will remain for ever there.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite</p>
+<p class="i2">Of all that the world could say;</p>
+<p class="i0">And because he stands on an awkward site,</p>
+<p class="i2">We, of course, shall let him stay.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Palace of Glass is so much admired,</p>
+<p class="i2">Both in Country and in Town,</p>
+<p class="i0">That its maintenance is by all desired:</p>
+<p class="i2">So we mean to pull it down.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>London Changes and Improvements</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1852 <em>Punch</em> gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which
+we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British
+Museum Library&mdash;<em>Punch</em> was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the
+Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of
+Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can
+walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk.
+The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of
+Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. <em>Punch</em> began by
+objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the
+expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters'
+gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of
+the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge&mdash;begun
+in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous,
+and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to
+frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham
+Palace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of
+removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of
+Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to
+cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road
+past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their
+sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received
+a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.</p>
+
+<p>The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and
+"improvements" kept by <em>Punch</em> is not complete, but it serves to
+illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The
+Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean
+engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of
+London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen
+opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q"
+(Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a
+hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The
+reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an
+apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of
+which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray
+has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the
+pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a
+central octagon room. In view of <em>Punch's</em> persistent attacks on the
+Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task
+of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was
+entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and
+Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from
+Milton's <em>Comus</em>. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of
+Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by
+Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, <em>Punch</em> heaped unstinted
+ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms
+on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron
+Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as
+"Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Ambassador
+as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."</p>
+
+<p>The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some
+jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the
+Billingsgate dialect.</p>
+
+<p>But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E
+natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock
+Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable
+is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as,
+without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The
+announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to
+an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so <em>Punch</em> was
+able to have it both ways:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;</p>
+<p class="i2">Small Ben is sane, past disputation;</p>
+<p class="i0">Yet we should like to know whose tone</p>
+<p class="i2">Is most offensive to the nation.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Filthy Thames</em></div>
+
+<p>The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work
+on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible
+description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no
+mention of <em>Punch's</em> services in the cause of London sanitation. They
+certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to
+bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports
+the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as
+the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated
+pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
+the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
+up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
+mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
+the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
+of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross&mdash;and is, by means
+of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> ingredients
+of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
+surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
+slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
+contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
+Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
+into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
+side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
+allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
+situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
+(which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
+perfection.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_162.png">
+<img src="images/i_162.png" width="500" alt="Skeleton rowing a boat." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is,
+perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The
+noisome state of the Serpentine&mdash;"a lake of mere manure"&mdash;constantly
+affronted <em>Punch's</em> sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid
+Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties
+onward. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus
+visitation, that his crusade against London filth&mdash;"Plague, Pestilence
+and Co."&mdash;began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of
+bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked
+pollution of the river. <em>Punch</em> salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of
+"Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in
+endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts
+savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and
+extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse.
+He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an
+epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that
+John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard;
+and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in
+accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of
+dirt.</p>
+
+<p>Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington,
+<em>Punch</em> confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary
+Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a
+fetid Dead Sea." Yet <em>Punch</em> refused to lay the blame at the door of
+Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the
+<em>Morning Herald</em> for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London.
+The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and
+cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of
+influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,</p>
+<p class="i0">For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;</p>
+<p class="i0">Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,</p>
+<p class="i0">But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and doom;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;</p>
+<p class="i0">Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_164.png">
+<img src="images/i_164.png" width="400" alt="Child's room with bottle labelled opium." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POOR CHILD'S NURSE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>King Cholera's Friends</em></div>
+
+<p>The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed
+reform, and furnished <em>Punch</em> with an occasion for free-spoken
+denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other
+obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the
+great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is
+generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as
+in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What is it to <em>me</em> that fever is never absent from these
+places&mdash;that infants do not rear, and men die before their
+time&mdash;that sickness engenders pauperism&mdash;that filth breeds
+depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
+telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
+every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> in St. Saviour's its 153, in
+Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
+Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
+same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
+their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
+slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
+and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
+triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.</p>
+
+<p>It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
+case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
+Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
+still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
+self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
+again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
+1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, <em>he</em>, too, is
+at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_165.png">
+<img src="images/i_165.png" width="500" alt="Two people looking at a fish and a turtle." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE END OF GOG AND MAGOG; OR, THINGS VERY BAD IN THE
+CITY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in
+1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> have preferred a
+more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the
+dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>London's Vanished Glories</em></div>
+
+<p>Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet
+Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and
+unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by <em>Punch</em> on the
+occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell
+Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of
+London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall
+Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with
+its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery,
+was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil
+days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of
+auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties,
+<em>Punch</em> forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of <em>Bon
+Gaultier</em>. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was
+going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is
+attributed by <em>Punch</em> to disgust at the failure of Imperialism.
+Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of
+<em>Punch's</em> pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning,
+who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and
+sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B.
+Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and
+only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a
+place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving
+bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in
+their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by <em>Punch</em> along
+with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron
+Nathan, one of the irregular <em>impresario</em> peers who do not appear in
+"Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron
+Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he
+appealed to a fashionable <em>clientèle</em>. When Burnand wrote the libretto
+of <em>Cox and Box</em> in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City
+clerk, witness Cox's song,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">My aged employer, his whole physiognomy</p>
+<p class="i0">Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,</p>
+<p class="i0">Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me</p>
+<p class="i0">If you will take this as your holiday!"</p>
+<p class="i0">Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume
+of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents
+as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the
+democratic <em>Punch</em> denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in
+1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on,
+however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of
+the Semitic invaders.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Burlington Arcadia</em></div>
+
+<p>The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre
+Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her <em>début</em> on the
+stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture
+gallery. <em>Punch</em> describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery
+combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a
+pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough
+Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the
+building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular
+attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various
+vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine
+warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street,
+was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it
+in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin
+trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has
+disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of
+"The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," <em>Punch</em> gives a detailed
+account of its attractions in 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The covered passage through which the overland journey from
+Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
+in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
+happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
+whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
+regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows&mdash;from
+Gavarni's <em>Charivari</em> sketches, which have been there as far as the
+memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll <em>Diableries</em>,
+and the <em>Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age</em>, who rushed
+into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
+he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
+perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
+saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
+water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
+neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
+impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
+young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
+attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
+portraits of mortal angels in <em>very</em> low dresses, one of whom is
+asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
+at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
+what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
+tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
+and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
+himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
+popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
+ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
+which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
+arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of
+its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in
+1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic <em>bal masqué</em>
+organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the
+time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during
+Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in <em>Punch</em>
+representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the
+scenes of his many triumphs&mdash;an ingenious adaptation of the episode of
+Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. <em>Punch</em> was no
+lover of <em>bals masqués</em>, reckoning them among the things which they
+manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud,
+modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the
+present building in 1884. <em>Punch</em> owned that admission to her show was a
+test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as
+ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Madame Tussaud in
+1849&mdash;the year before her death&mdash;to the witches who made wax models of
+those whom they wished to injure.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_169.png">
+<img src="images/i_169.png" width="400" alt="Transportable menagerie." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE HAPPY FAMILY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in <em>London Past
+and Present</em> that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original
+Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its
+memories linger in the early volumes of <em>Punch</em>. There is a good series
+entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The
+Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well
+remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at
+the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats,
+mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in <em>Punch's</em>
+picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one
+sees now and again. A charge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of twopence was made for admission to St.
+Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which
+<em>Punch</em> bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with
+Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on
+Cremorne Gardens&mdash;which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge&mdash;have
+been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a
+scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions&mdash;"The Siege of
+Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851&mdash;were not closed till
+1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon,
+and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was
+pulled down and the grounds built over.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Dominion of Din</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings
+so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the
+great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the
+tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games
+which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional
+mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on
+Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well
+as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary
+din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin
+note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the
+sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his
+antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who
+brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's
+fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual
+visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take
+an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know
+that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The
+Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's
+"Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably
+representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera,
+and patriotism.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_171.png">
+<img src="images/i_171.png" width="500" alt="Shopgirl with a customer." /></a>
+<p class="center">TASTE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Shop Girl</span> (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's
+Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the
+'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements</em></div>
+
+<p>The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most
+popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> almost rivalling "General"
+Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who
+was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime
+favourite with <em>Punch</em>, and is never mentioned without a friendly word.
+But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none
+stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone
+from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the
+Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to
+1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and
+introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by <em>Punch</em> in prose and
+verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better
+management of the Metropolis in March,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[Pg 161]</span> 1855, and <em>Punch</em> more than once
+applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan
+Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused <em>Punch's</em>
+special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who
+combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges
+once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were
+conspicuous. <em>Punch</em> devotes a special article to those of the
+Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but
+these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold,
+are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the
+broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials
+bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the
+Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and
+'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which <em>Punch</em> noted
+as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been
+worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the
+close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute
+because entirely unregulated. <em>Punch</em> defended the intermission of
+postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed
+dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to
+record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising <em>Punch</em> is
+a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed
+an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage
+occurs:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The <em>Kentish Herald</em> lately contained the following notice:
+"Ranelagh Gardens, Margate&mdash;last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
+consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
+tragical enough; but <em>The Times</em> outdoes it in horror by informing
+us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for <em>general</em> interment";
+and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
+General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
+Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
+"Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
+satisfaction."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1847 <em>Punch</em> recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[Pg 162]</span> the
+activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to
+restrain the excesses of the advertiser:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Advertisements are spreading all over England&mdash;they have crept
+under the bridges&mdash;have planted themselves right in the middle of
+the Thames&mdash;have usurped the greatest thoroughfares&mdash;and are now
+just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
+certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
+stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
+nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
+calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
+vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
+most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
+such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
+and stuffed with nothing else.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus.
+It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the
+fastidious of to-day.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bssc"><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</p>
+
+<p class="cs">THE SOCIAL FABRIC</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>[Pg 164]</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[Pg 165]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_COURT" id="THE_COURT"></a>THE COURT</h2>
+
+<p>At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache,
+the famous French artist&mdash;perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar
+<em>genre</em> that our age has produced&mdash;published a wonderful design in which
+the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's
+reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain
+was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a
+girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King,
+Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic.
+The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have
+been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is
+rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and
+limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the
+personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in
+temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell,
+Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted
+for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from
+which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment
+created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was
+summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the
+throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over
+the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena
+of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound
+and constitutional&mdash;that these appointments should not be made or
+maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences
+hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of
+a certain obstinacy in the assertion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> her rights. But the cry that
+the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange
+cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate
+outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the
+ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the
+Queen's relations with Whig Ministers&mdash;always excepting Lord
+Palmerston&mdash;were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no
+guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are
+familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it
+was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but
+whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the
+Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement
+when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less
+effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of
+affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent
+qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he
+was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not
+in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in
+affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit
+for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to
+that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and
+geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and
+occasionally <em>gauche</em>. His notions of sport were not those of an English
+sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To
+put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the
+unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to
+everything foreign&mdash;language, art, music, letters&mdash;and consistently
+declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal
+patronage of foreigners begin in <em>Punch's</em> first volume. "Ride-a-cock
+horse" is turned into a florid Italian <em>cavatina</em>, and the words
+translated into Italian&mdash;"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"&mdash;for the
+benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as
+"a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an
+utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series
+of complaints which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn
+to <em>Punch's</em> extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a
+burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal
+nursery, <em>à propos</em> of the birth of the Prince of Wales:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN<br />
+<br />
+By the Correspondent of the <em>Observer</em><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
+agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
+a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
+expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.</p>
+
+<p>According to rumour, the baby&mdash;we beg pardon, the scion of the
+House of Brunswick&mdash;was to have been born&mdash;we must apologize again,
+we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
+the reigning family of Great Britain&mdash;some day last month, and of
+course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
+that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
+confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
+anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
+Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
+London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
+smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
+rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
+because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
+the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
+opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
+that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
+of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
+conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
+pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
+that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
+heart of the Royal Household.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But we hope, for the honour of
+all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
+matter of political arrangement.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued</em></div>
+
+<p>This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment
+from the same fictitious correspondent:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES<br />
+<br />
+(By the <em>Observer's</em> own Correspondent)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
+probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
+impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
+positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
+of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
+Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
+title of the <em>Prince of Wales</em>, which it is generally understood he
+will enjoy&mdash;at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
+anything of the kind&mdash;until an event shall happen which we hope
+will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
+Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
+whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
+Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
+circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to <em>at present</em>, nor
+do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.</p>
+
+<p>Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
+Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
+to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
+having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
+have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
+Mayors of London and Dublin.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_180.png">
+<img src="images/i_180.png" width="350" alt="Old woman who lived in a shoe, with children." /></a>
+<p class="center">A ROYAL NURSERY RHYME FOR 1860</p>
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,</p>
+<p class="i0">She had so many children she didn't know what to do."</p>
+<br /></div></div></div>
+
+<p>This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of
+the infant Prince. <em>Punch's</em> serious views as to the Prince's future are
+to be found in his "Pæan to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by
+the Royal Christening in February, 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>PUNCH</em> AND THE PRINCELET</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The little Prince <em>must</em> love the poor,</p>
+<p class="i2">And he will heed the cry</p>
+<p class="i0">Of the pauper mother, when she finds</p>
+<p class="i2">Her infant's fountains dry.</p>
+<p class="i0">He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,</p>
+<p class="i2">To make those founts o'erflow,</p>
+<p class="i0">For they have vow'd our little Prince</p>
+<p class="i2">No "vanities" shall know.</p>
+<p class="i0">And we will rattle our little bell,</p>
+<p class="i0">And laugh, and dance, and sing as well&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i4">Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+<p class="i4">Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And death's dark bones will then become</p>
+<p class="i2">Like iv'ry pure and white!</p>
+<p class="i0">His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,</p>
+<p class="i2">And his garments be as light;</p>
+<p class="i0">For man will slaughter man no more</p>
+<p class="i2">For wrong begot by wrongs,</p>
+<p class="i0">For our little Prince will say&mdash;"To me</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor life nor death belongs."</p>
+<p class="i0">So we will rattle our little bell,</p>
+<p class="i0">And laugh, and dance, and sing as well&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i4">Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!</p>
+<p class="i4">Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, <em>Punch</em> could not
+emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could
+not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not
+exempt, save on their knees:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
+Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
+Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
+has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
+Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
+Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
+within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
+Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
+Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
+subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
+Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
+that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
+was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
+receiving it.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some
+apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be
+affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that
+there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at
+present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of
+concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the
+noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">E andato al mercato.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">E a casa restato.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.</p>
+<p class="i0">Questo piccolo porco</p>
+<p class="i2">Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from
+the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained
+campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and
+sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on
+uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this
+hereditary failing. A concise biography in the <em>Almanack</em> for 1842
+states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a
+shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put
+her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and
+malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons.
+He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the <em>Morning Post</em>),
+for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Prince Albert as Tailor</em></div>
+
+<p>In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his
+sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment
+is associated with the cartoon:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
+of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
+ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
+trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
+to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
+regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
+do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
+bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
+and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
+whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
+the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
+between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then <em>Punch</em> was
+compelled to interfere, for the honour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> of the English army. The
+result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
+an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
+Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_183.png">
+<img src="images/i_183.png" width="350" alt="Gigantic cartoon goose." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE TAILOR'S GOOSE&mdash;THE TERROR OF THE ARMY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Prince Albert as Sportsman</em></div>
+
+<p>The campaign reached its height in 1845 when <em>Punch</em> was given an
+irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained
+by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, <em>Punch</em> averred, was a born tailor,
+the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the
+British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming
+rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse
+his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and
+might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> outburst of
+derision <em>Punch</em> gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the
+running&mdash;or baiting&mdash;with renewed energy against his sportmanship.
+<em>Punch</em>, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field
+sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once
+protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for
+a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to
+support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument
+was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was
+more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his
+crime. <em>Punch</em> was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the
+influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of
+game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the
+Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Stag Slaughter at Gotha</em></div>
+
+<p>The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were
+the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the
+Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles
+and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony
+phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Six hares alive were taken out</p>
+<p class="i2">Each in its canvas sack;</p>
+<p class="i0">And five as dead as mutton, in</p>
+<p class="i2">The same were carried back.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of
+Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad
+modelled on <em>John Gilpin</em>, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting
+down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to
+this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in
+September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and
+pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the
+bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria;
+and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by
+Prince<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear</p>
+<p class="i2">In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)</p>
+<p class="i0">Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,</p>
+<p class="i2">By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.</p>
+<p class="i0">Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;</p>
+<p class="i2">Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;</p>
+<p class="i0">Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,</p>
+<p class="i2">Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.</p>
+<p class="i0">Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,</p>
+<p class="i0">Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court</p>
+<p class="i2">And make a massyker of English Staggs.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+<p class="i0">Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,</p>
+<p class="i2">What avoc he <em>would</em> make and what a trimenjus battu!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Jeams.</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_185.png">
+<img src="images/i_185.png" width="400" alt="Bear baiting in bear pit." /></a>
+<p class="center">ELIZABETH</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_186.png">
+<img src="images/i_186.png" width="400" alt="Victoria at a killing." /></a>
+<p class="center">VICTORIA</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment
+of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the <em>Standard</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">TEARS AT GOTHA</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The <em>Standard</em> gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
+to a gentleman in London:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> <em>I saw
+large tears in her eyes</em>: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
+difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
+the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she <em>naturally felt</em> at
+the death of the animal was <em>counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
+propensities</em>, so that it is almost as meritorious <em>to destroy an
+otter as it is a snake</em>; but this was a totally different case; nor
+is Her Majesty yet recovered. <em>For the Prince</em>, the deer were too
+numerous, and <em>must</em> be killed. <em>This</em> was the German method; and
+no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
+will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_188.png">
+<img src="images/i_188.png" width="400" alt="Victoria with  a distressed albert." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION</p>
+<p>"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have <em>you</em> any Railway Shares?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This incident marked the high-water level of <em>Punch's</em>
+anti-Albertianism&mdash;at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an
+address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting
+season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the
+Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of
+dissatisfaction. What infuriated <em>Punch</em> even more than the ineptitudes
+of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the <em>Lickspittle-offs</em> of the
+Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The
+amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing,"
+<em>Punch</em> frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing
+than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment
+of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its
+discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an
+immense gulf, and <em>Punch</em> was never weary of gibbeting those writers in
+and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning
+spirit of the time&mdash;questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges
+the throne&mdash;by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone
+age." Assuredly, the absolute <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> of this
+courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any
+reasonable woman would:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
+compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
+dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
+aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
+idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars&mdash;"what
+condescension!" If it display the influence of affections,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> he
+screams&mdash;"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
+Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
+says <em>The Atlas</em>&mdash;"The woman and the mother <em>for a moment</em>
+proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
+and the <em>splendour of a diadem</em>!"</p>
+
+<p>What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"&mdash;but then, we
+presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
+in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for
+deprecating royal excursions by railway:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Atlas</em> thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
+managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
+of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
+and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
+regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
+that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
+royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
+abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."</p>
+
+<p>There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says <em>The Atlas</em>,
+the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
+chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
+"take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may <em>occasionally</em>
+take a chance!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em>, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious
+view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of
+maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf
+fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Syncophancy Rebuked</em></div>
+
+<p>Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the
+other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well
+rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with
+the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed
+that here, as on so many occasions, <em>Punch</em> adopted the device of
+assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which <em>Punch</em> has
+been favoured with an early copy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
+is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
+correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
+write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
+touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies&mdash;it is Our
+Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
+really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
+and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
+shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
+all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
+Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
+be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
+shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
+FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
+him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
+without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
+FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
+permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
+exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
+familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.</p>
+
+<p>BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
+FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
+vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.</p>
+
+<p class="author">VICTORIA REGINA.</p>
+
+<p>Given at Blair Athol,</p>
+
+<p>September 16, 1844.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+<p>In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the <em>Court
+Circular</em>&mdash;the ironical suggestions that it should be published in
+French or Italian,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel
+Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile
+nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's.</p>
+
+<p>Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted
+by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new
+occupant of the post:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
+there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of
+too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
+the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
+shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
+would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
+poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
+the <em>Court Circular</em>, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
+Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
+privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
+following specimen:&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">This morning at an early hour,</p>
+<p class="i2">In Osborne's peaceful grounds,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Queen and Prince&mdash;'spite of a shower&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Took their accustomed rounds.</p>
+<p class="i0">With them, to bear them company,</p>
+<p class="i2">Prince Leiningen he went,</p>
+<p class="i0">And with the other royal three,</p>
+<p class="i2">The Duchess, eke, of Kent.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">His Royal Highness Prince of Wales</p>
+<p class="i2">Went forth to take the air;</p>
+<p class="i0">The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails</p>
+<p class="i2">His exercise to share.</p>
+<p class="i0">On the young members of the flock</p>
+<p class="i2">Was tenderest care bestowed,</p>
+<p class="i0">For two long hours by the clock</p>
+<p class="i2">They walked&mdash;they ran&mdash;they rode.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Calmly away the hours wear</p>
+<p class="i2">In Osborne's tranquil shade,</p>
+<p class="i0">And to the dinner-party there</p>
+<p class="i2">Was no addition made.</p>
+<p class="i0">Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas</p>
+<p class="i2">Having returned to town,</p>
+<p class="i0">The Royal family circle has</p>
+<p class="i2">Settled serenely down.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is not too much to assume that <em>Punch's</em> ridicule assisted in
+eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record
+of life at Court.</p>
+
+<p>We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his
+prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in
+October, 1843, is treated with acidulated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> satire, and in his imaginary
+speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new
+academic cap (<em>novus pileus academicus</em>) of his own designing. A month
+later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of
+Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato&mdash;on the eve
+of the Irish famine&mdash;is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but
+then Princes are such wags," adds <em>Punch</em>. The much-canvassed
+appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847
+led to sardonic comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
+this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
+begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
+most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
+feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Prince of Bricklayers</div>
+
+<p>But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a
+friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince
+"Al." <em>Punch</em>, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the
+hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes,
+and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of
+social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of
+Bricklayers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
+some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
+Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and <em>Punch</em>, in order
+to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
+with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
+be coming out like a regular brick.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which,
+more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and
+popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea&mdash;and the Prince was its
+only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the
+significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the
+world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in <em>The Times</em>, and other
+utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in <em>The Idea
+of Progress</em>, that "the Exhibition was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> at the time, optimistically
+regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical
+progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to
+a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of
+which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's
+'Federation of the World.'" <em>Punch</em> never failed to give the Prince the
+credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it
+his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the
+Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which
+appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the
+suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde
+Park:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINCE <em>PUNCH</em> TO PRINCE ALBERT</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Illustrious and excellent brother,</p>
+<p class="i2">Don't consider me rude or unkind,</p>
+<p class="i0">If, as from one Prince to another,</p>
+<p class="i2">I give you a bit of my mind&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">And I do so with all the more roundness,</p>
+<p class="i2">As your conduct amongst us has shown</p>
+<p class="i0">A propriety, judgment and soundness</p>
+<p class="i2">Of taste, not surpassed by my own.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You've respected John Bull's little oddities,</p>
+<p class="i2">Never trod on the old fellow's corns;</p>
+<p class="i0">Chose his pictures and statues&mdash;commodities</p>
+<p class="i2">Wherein his own blunders he mourns.</p>
+<p class="i0">And if you're a leetle more German</p>
+<p class="i2">In these than I'd have you&mdash;what is't</p>
+<p class="i0">Beyond what a critic may term an</p>
+<p class="i2">Educational bias or twist?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">You have never pressed forward unbidden;</p>
+<p class="i2">When called on you've never shown shame,</p>
+<p class="i0">Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden</p>
+<p class="i2">Your person, your purse, or your name;</p>
+<p class="i0">You've lent no man occasion to call you</p>
+<p class="i2">Intruder, intriguer, or fool;</p>
+<p class="i0">Even I've not had often to haul you</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">O'er the coals, or to take you to school.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Which, <em>au reste</em>, our positions allow&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,</p>
+<p class="i2">After all I have written just now):</p>
+<p class="i0">Which is to put down certain flunkies,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,</p>
+<p class="i0">Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys</p>
+<p class="i2">Tars throw stones&mdash;to get nuts in return.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then silence your civic applauders,</p>
+<p class="i2">Lest better men cease from applause.</p>
+<p class="i0">He who tribute accepts of marauders,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is held to be pledged to their cause.</p>
+<p class="i0">Let no Corporate magnates of London</p>
+<p class="i2">An honour presume to award:</p>
+<p class="i0">Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,</p>
+<p class="i2">Little honour to spare can afford!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prince Punch to Prince Albert</div>
+
+<p>A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, <em>Punch</em> was evidently
+impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of
+State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on
+thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs&mdash;Very Dangerous," and <em>Mr. Punch</em>
+shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis"
+warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the <em>rôle</em> of
+an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt
+it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of
+the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the
+charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards,
+but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that
+he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army
+was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the
+Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond
+all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never
+uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the
+honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion
+was not wholly appeased, and <em>Punch's</em> references to the Prince during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the
+intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's bâton and pay, as
+a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry
+for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year
+his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic
+remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told,
+the intention and the desire were both inventions of <em>Punch</em>, who was
+playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves
+and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to
+make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have
+criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the
+picture of <em>Punch</em> regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the
+Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself,
+"What sanguinary engagement can it be?" <em>Punch</em> cannot be acquitted of
+treating the Prince Consort&mdash;as he only now began to be generally
+called&mdash;with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate
+position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to
+meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent
+him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with
+this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted,
+that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused;
+that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and
+self-protective. It was not the first time <em>Punch</em> had been unjust to
+the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the
+campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged
+that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the
+Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in <em>Punch</em>&mdash;and the
+public&mdash;did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince
+Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_196.png">
+<img src="images/i_196.png" width="400" alt="Queen surrounded by mythical creatures," /></a>
+<p class="center">THE GRASSHOPPERS' FEAST: A PROPHETIC VISION.<br />
+Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper&mdash;Monday, October 28, 1844.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause
+of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we
+have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the
+influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the
+Queen was by no means exempt from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> direct censure, remonstrance, and
+exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was
+treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days
+<em>Punch</em> never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are
+always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her
+visit to the City in 1844. Though <em>Punch's</em> pen was sharp his pencil was
+kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon
+published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,</p>
+<p class="i0">She had so many children she didn't know what to do.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As early as the Christmas number of 1842 <em>Punch</em> had given "the
+arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names
+and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he
+comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax.
+More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion,
+against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
+the columns of <em>The Times</em>. Whether <em>Punch's</em> friend, the Attorney
+General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
+immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
+<em>Punch</em> knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
+law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
+future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
+sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
+Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
+of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
+writes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
+residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
+as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
+that royalty, like property, has its <em>duties</em> as well as its
+<em>rights</em>. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
+kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
+essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
+sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
+entertainments that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> deserve to be encouraged by attending such
+places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
+arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
+approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
+too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
+these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
+how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
+distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
+lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
+acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
+it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
+constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
+personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
+that is likely to accrue from such neglect."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In these years, and for a good many years to come, <em>Punch</em> hunted in
+couples with <em>The Times</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Neglect of Native Talent</em></div>
+
+<p>The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists,
+musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for
+year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes
+oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court:
+Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity
+was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the
+funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, <em>Punch</em> exclaims, "imagine for
+a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The
+often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him
+very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated
+Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of
+Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang
+several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as <em>Punch</em> notes, of
+the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But <em>Punch</em> had
+his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in
+dwarfs&mdash;Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her
+staff&mdash;by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results
+that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped
+growing at the age of five months:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
+lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
+merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
+majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
+was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of <em>Punch</em>, nor was
+this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of
+Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. <em>Punch</em> considered
+that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the
+latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on
+the Four Georges:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">GEORGIUS ULTIMUS</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">He left an example for age and for youth</p>
+<p class="i18">To avoid.</p>
+<p class="i4">He never acted well by Man or Woman,</p>
+<p class="i2">And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.</p>
+<p class="i4">He deserted his Friends and his Principles.</p>
+<p class="i2">He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;</p>
+<p class="i4">But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,</p>
+<p class="i6">And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.</p>
+<p class="i0">He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,</p>
+<p class="i4">And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,</p>
+<p class="i14">An admiring Aristocracy</p>
+<p class="i0">Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."</p>
+<p class="i4">Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,</p>
+<p class="i4">And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the same year <em>Punch</em>, with malicious inventiveness, represented
+Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on
+Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the
+Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these
+agilities <em>The Times</em> again proved a useful ally, for in the same number
+we find the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">HIGH TREASON</p>
+
+<p>A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in <em>The Times</em>, writes
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"It is no use to conceal the fact&mdash;British high art <em>is hated at
+Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy</em>. They don't want it; they
+can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
+vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"</p>
+
+<p>We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
+to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_200.png">
+<img src="images/i_200.png" width="600" alt="Overcrowded room full of ladies." /></a>
+<p class="center">TRAINING SCHOOL FOR LADIES ABOUT TO APPEAR AT COURT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a letter in <em>The Times</em> that again prompted <em>Punch's</em>
+remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French
+milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the
+imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of
+the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was a new Singer of Italy</p>
+<p class="i0">Who went through his part very prettily;</p>
+<p class="i2">"Mamma tinks him so fine,</p>
+<p class="i2">We must have him to dine!"</p>
+<p class="i0">Papa remarked slily and wittily.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center">THE OLD SINGER OF AVON</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">There was an old Singer of Avon,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;</p>
+<p class="i2">But Mamma doesn't care</p>
+<p class="i2">For this stupid swan's air,</p>
+<p class="i0">Any more than the croak of a raven.<br /></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_202.png">
+<img src="images/i_202.png" width="350" alt="Scene from mythology." /></a>
+<p class="center">CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES<br />
+Calypso, Q&mdash;&mdash;n V&mdash;&mdash;a; Ulysses, K&mdash;g of the F&mdash;&mdash;h.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Royal Visits and Visitors</em></div>
+
+<p>The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's
+"bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of
+<em>Punch's</em> frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone
+as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid
+sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but <em>Punch</em> was no
+advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely
+criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the
+remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of
+an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> levées is
+a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; <em>Punch</em> is happy
+in pillorying the <em>Morning Post</em> for the use of the phrase, "the dense
+mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions;
+while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early
+juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were
+carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal
+tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is
+represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty.
+<em>Punch</em> was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe&mdash;whom, by the way,
+he once represented as Fagin&mdash;and the impending visit of the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in
+proscribing and impounding <em>Punch</em>, followed up by a burlesque account
+of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission
+of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the
+invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, <em>Punch</em>
+burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. <em>Punch</em>,
+like the <em>Skibbereen Eagle</em>, always kept his eye on the Tsar of
+Russia&mdash;and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas
+stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks
+began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to
+England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter
+hostility. Readers of <em>Punch</em> are advised to carry every penny of the
+largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid
+any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of
+harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is
+shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the
+Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for
+the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of
+savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to
+the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short,
+was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a
+diamond ring in it. Nor has <em>Punch</em> a single good word to say for the
+King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year,
+"to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with
+anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844,
+<em>Punch</em> profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited
+Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners'
+ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee
+Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout
+the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from
+his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even
+worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit
+in June, 1843:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER</p>
+
+<p>The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
+of six years&mdash;intensely painful to all parties&mdash;the monarch returns
+to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
+name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
+perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
+marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
+who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
+thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
+the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
+Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
+said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
+medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
+Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
+fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
+evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
+was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
+with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
+the King of Hanover) has £23,000 a year from the sweat of
+Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
+taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
+he not practically teach them the beauty of humility&mdash;of long
+suffering&mdash;of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
+continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
+who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
+will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
+Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
+expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
+creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
+pride and height of their intelligence, allow £23,000 to the King
+of Hanover.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge,
+to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful
+explosion in the <em>Morning Post</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Royal Parasites</div>
+
+<p>Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
+the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
+<em>bouquet</em>, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
+proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> premising that
+we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
+elated and deeply moved." He says:</p>
+
+<p>"We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
+ceremony as <em>in turn</em> we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
+to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
+and beauty, <em>through which is ever discernible the eagle glance</em>
+and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
+Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, <em>one of the handsomest
+Princes of the age</em>, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
+tempered by the <em>judgment and wisdom of age</em>. The Queen Adelaide,
+living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
+private life or on a throne."</p>
+
+<p>So far the <em>Morning Post</em>. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
+<em>The Times</em>?</p>
+
+<p>"The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
+in consequence of indisposition."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of
+never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous
+after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who
+thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
+of the devil&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> To be sure; very proper&mdash;very proper.)</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> Certainly; very right&mdash;very right.)</p>
+
+<p>And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
+However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
+Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:</p>
+
+<p><em>Minister.</em> The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
+for&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<em>Duke.</em> No objection&mdash;no objection!)</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Royal Duke's Household</em></div>
+
+<p>One certainly does not gather from <em>Punch's</em> pages what was none the
+less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable
+and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he
+was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and
+the people."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the Duke's death in 1850, <em>Punch</em>, with his usual vigour, attacked
+the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of
+Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and
+Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were
+neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS</p>
+
+<p>What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
+he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
+time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
+these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
+pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
+sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
+Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
+and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
+system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
+have fallen&mdash;can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
+be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
+which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
+measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
+grants to its pensioners&mdash;when the allowance is flung at his Royal
+Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
+tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+<a href="images/i_206.png">
+<img src="images/i_206.png" width="200" alt="Cartoon" /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MODERN DAMOCLES</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the
+mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he
+ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> he did not equal him, as <em>Punch's</em> pet
+aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the
+hostile comment that "empire" meant <em>empirer</em>. The <em>Coup d'État</em> was the
+signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His
+matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor
+Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in
+France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are
+vehemently denounced. <em>Punch's</em> attacks ceased during the Crimean War,
+but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace
+was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was
+responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in
+<em>Punch</em>.</p>
+
+<p>By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William
+Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the
+Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his <em>Life of Napoleon
+III</em> the chief <em>apologia</em> in English of the Second Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst
+<em>Punch's</em> unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his
+reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to
+Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the
+surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to
+Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated
+controversy in 1845 in which <em>Punch</em> ranged himself militantly among the
+partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various
+sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of
+the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a
+burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined
+zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_208.png">
+<img src="images/i_208.png" width="400" alt="Three statues." /></a>
+<p class="center">SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail,
+and in an optimistic vein. <em>Punch</em> never believed in the Repeal
+Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot
+and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father
+Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis,
+or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien,
+an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous
+ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato
+famine had evoked <em>Punch's</em> sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring
+reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of
+Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified <em>vix paulò ante Diem
+Judicii</em>&mdash;or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's
+visit was hailed as of good omen, though <em>Punch</em> reminds her that she
+had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen&mdash;palaces and not
+cabins. "Let Erin <em>forget</em> the days of old" is the burden of his song;
+at least he refrained from quoting&mdash;if he ever knew of it&mdash;that other
+terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits
+that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her
+traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium.
+Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife,
+paid the costs of her vilifier.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Princess Royal's Betrothal</em></div>
+
+<p>In 1849, also, <em>Punch</em>, evidently still in mellower mood, published an
+enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who
+died on December 2. <em>Punch</em> specially refers to her generosity to Mrs.
+Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and
+the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid
+from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton,
+consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest
+charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by
+her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform
+Agitation, and <em>Punch's</em> homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the
+times that <em>Punch</em> begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or
+more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her
+popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties.
+At the close of 1852 <em>Punch</em> ridicules as absurd the rumour of the
+betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
+the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a
+German paper, and proved true. <em>Punch's</em> chief objection was
+sentimental:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+"The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the rate of live
+stock," and he could not believe that such a principle would govern the
+Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the domestic
+graces." Besides, <em>Punch</em> in the summer of 1844 had published his own
+New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by <em>The Times's</em> comment on the late
+Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it therefore enacted
+that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty to marry whom or
+how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or pleases."</p>
+
+<p>Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three
+years later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,</p>
+<p class="i0">Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.</p>
+<p class="i0">What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!</p>
+<p class="i0">The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd</p>
+<p class="i0">Against her in arms, but his being afraid.</p>
+<p class="i0">His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!</p>
+<p class="i0">Pooh!&mdash;the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Princess is&mdash;bless her!&mdash;scarce fifteen years old;</p>
+<p class="i0">One summer more even o'er <em>Dinah</em> had roll'd.</p>
+<p class="i0">To marry so early she can't be inclined;</p>
+<p class="i0">A suitable <em>Villikins</em> some day she'll find.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Moreover, in her case, we know very well,</p>
+<p class="i0">There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,</p>
+<p class="i0">Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,</p>
+<p class="i0">With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent
+anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856.
+<em>Punch's</em> comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the
+betrothal was celebrated in verse at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> once ceremonial and friendly.
+References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we
+may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic
+Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, <em>Punch</em>
+administered a severe castigation to the offender. <em>Punch</em> did not like
+his monopoly to be infringed.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been
+settled in 1840. But Scribe's <em>Verre d'Eau</em>, under the title of <em>The
+Maid of Honour</em>, with the real incident turned into farce, had been
+adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway
+speculation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person
+puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he
+means."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See Illustration.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_OLD_NOBILITY" id="THE_OLD_NOBILITY"></a>THE OLD NOBILITY</h2>
+
+<p>Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of <em>Punch</em> and in those
+of the <em>Morning Post</em> in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf.
+As we have seen, <em>Punch's</em> admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped
+a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized
+most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not
+denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and
+the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern
+Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington.
+Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action
+against Napoleon, and here was his reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash; wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
+remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
+advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
+that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
+transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
+that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
+appoint an executioner, which would not be me."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
+political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
+defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
+Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
+Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
+Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
+the Dwarf?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded
+the repeal of the Corn Laws&mdash;whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or
+strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_213.png">
+<img src="images/i_213.png" width="300" alt="Statue" /></a>
+<p class="center">HENRY MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: A NEW STATUE OF ACHILLES</p>
+<p>Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo
+Lane, and Waterloo Place.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in
+connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of
+Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When
+Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel <em>The
+Tuft-hunter</em> were exposed, <em>Punch</em> printed this jingling epigram:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">A Duke once declared&mdash;and most solemnly too&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">That whatever he liked with his own he would do;</p>
+<p class="i0">But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown</p>
+<p class="i0">He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!</p>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Marquesses under the Microscope</em></div>
+
+<p>And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of
+Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very
+first number. The Marquess of Hertford&mdash;the original of Thackeray's
+Marquess of Steyne in <em>Vanity Fair</em>&mdash;is subjected to posthumous obloquy,
+<em>à propos</em> of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were
+compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead
+may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of
+Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner,
+but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical
+Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of
+Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 2½d. in
+the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait
+for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but
+then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power
+of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY</p>
+
+<p>The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with
+the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of
+office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men,
+to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody,
+save the Earl of Malmesbury. <em>The Times</em> says, and most truly:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
+century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
+deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
+Secretary seemed able to bestow."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the
+heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord
+Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true
+strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years
+of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or
+jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst
+the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a
+little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne
+struck at rotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest
+sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon
+his doings? So it is!</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back</p>
+<p class="i0">Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,</p>
+<p class="i0">A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:</p>
+<p class="i0">Those scraps are good deeds past.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the
+history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot
+rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the
+true, manly, English brain that beats&mdash;(and in the serene happiness of
+honoured age may it long continue to beat!)&mdash;beneath it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_216.png">
+<img src="images/i_216.png" width="300" alt="Two workers looking at richly dressed man." /></a>
+<p class="center">APPROPRIATE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span>: "I say, Bill&mdash;I wonder what he calls hisself?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Second Ditto</span>: "Blowed if I know!&mdash;but I calls him a Bloated
+Haristocrat."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Educating the House of Lords</em></div>
+
+<p>As for peers in general, <em>Punch's</em> views may be gathered from his scheme
+for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
+born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
+born ass.</p>
+
+<p>We are not proving that fact&mdash;only stating it&mdash;<em>pace</em> your
+word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.</p>
+
+<p>But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
+command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
+not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
+asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
+country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
+kicking.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
+son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
+dose of physic for an old woman.</p>
+
+<p>But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
+certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
+which is absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
+any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
+born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.</p>
+
+<p>Examine him in the Alphabet&mdash;there have been Peers who didn't know
+that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> a
+Lord&mdash;the Mayor of London&mdash;count hobnails. In history&mdash;for he is to
+help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
+and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
+are <em>a fortiori</em> to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
+physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
+medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
+individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
+hom&oelig;opaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
+philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
+ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
+house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
+which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
+In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
+stand up for the liberty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> of unlicensed printing, instead of
+insulting and calumniating the Press.</p>
+
+<p>This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
+objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
+can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
+has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
+touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
+that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
+had better not shave ourselves.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers,
+extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are
+specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant
+mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in
+the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the
+Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and
+all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected
+therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of <em>Punch's</em>
+favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St.
+Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the
+"snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the
+appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children
+out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.</p>
+
+<p>Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic
+example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean
+War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care
+of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's.
+Hence the epigram:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COÛTE</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"</p>
+<p class="i0">"By not taking," says <em>Punch</em>, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer
+but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> earned the dislike of
+<em>Punch</em>, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his
+traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Thackeray on Great Folks</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the
+bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family
+in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble
+personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than
+friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than
+coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible.
+Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold,
+and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed
+the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town."
+Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he
+says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
+trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
+persons do, but take you for what you are&mdash;a man kindly and
+good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
+good <em>raconteur</em>, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
+and judge of wine&mdash;or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
+ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
+Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
+Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
+leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
+D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
+what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
+quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
+stage King and Queen.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's
+Dispatches.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL" id="SOCIETY_EXCLUSIVE_GENTEEL_AND_SHABBY_GENTEEL"></a>SOCIETY&mdash;EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL</h2>
+
+<p>For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties
+<em>Punch</em> cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent
+reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the
+<em>entrée</em> to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often
+overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and
+diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in
+Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances
+and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its
+public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society,
+which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, <em>Punch</em> subdivides the
+three main strata of Society&mdash;High Life, Middle Life, Low Life&mdash;into
+various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people
+wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we
+pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to
+the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was
+of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby
+genteel, that <em>Punch</em>, in his earliest days, had most first-hand
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Almack's</em></div>
+
+<p>The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated
+than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing
+less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from
+Galloway&mdash;Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name,
+MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a
+Yorkshire Quaker&mdash;who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton,
+and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for
+aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous
+Assembly Rooms in King Street, St.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> James's, where, for more than
+seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the
+twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly
+Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a
+committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who
+distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth
+century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be
+introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly
+Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine
+oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of
+Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the <em>crême de la
+crême</em> of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion
+of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of
+laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least,
+meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+Great care was taken that the supply of <em>débutantes</em> should not exceed
+the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the
+accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps,
+the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum
+attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781,
+bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after
+whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely
+departed, but so serious a review as the <em>Quarterly</em> wrote respectfully
+of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in
+England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number
+of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are
+quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of
+their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's
+lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed
+and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly
+exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and
+quadrille&mdash;the polka&mdash;are described by <em>Punch</em> (after Byron) in the
+lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844.
+The craze for dancing was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> so widely diffused as in 1920, but to
+judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all
+strata of Society were affected:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_221a.png">
+<img src="images/i_221a.png" width="500" alt="Clumsy man trying to dance." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE POLKA</p>
+<p class="center">1. My Polka before Six Lessons.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_221b.png">
+<img src="images/i_221b.png" width="500" alt="Same man dancing  well." /></a>
+<p class="center">2. My Polka after Six Lessons.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_222.png">
+<img src="images/i_222.png" width="500" alt="Crowded dance hall." /></a>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Manners and Cvstoms of Y<sup>e</sup> Englyshe in 1849</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">An "At Home".</span> <span class="smcap">y<sup>e</sup> Polka.</span></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Polkamania</em></div>
+
+<p>That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
+have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
+analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
+Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
+entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
+name of <em>Aranea Polkapoietica</em>. The Polkamania, after raging
+fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
+length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
+Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
+specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
+nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
+corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
+symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
+the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
+movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
+<em>cerebellum</em>. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
+amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
+terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
+subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
+finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
+strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
+propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
+Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
+Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
+things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
+obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
+go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
+committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
+suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
+now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
+less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
+not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
+have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
+yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
+corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
+variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
+be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of
+to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the
+waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour.
+The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but
+the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of
+figures&mdash;La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.&mdash;is dead beyond
+redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good
+ten years.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the
+art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a
+Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which
+Thackeray joined)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> for the suppression of the pest, the malady was
+described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued
+phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue
+in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its
+prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers&mdash;Taglioni (who gave
+her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin
+of the <em>prima-donna</em>; but though there were schools of dancing, and
+<em>Thés dansants</em>, which <em>Punch</em> heavily ridiculed, and though the
+fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at
+Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals,
+as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher
+flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young
+lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at
+least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the
+practice of Poonah painting&mdash;an early and crude imitation of Oriental
+art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah
+painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The
+fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing
+tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are
+(allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the
+Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of
+conversation at a social gathering:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Modish Futilities</em></div>
+<p>It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
+sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
+figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
+fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
+be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
+That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
+converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
+Answer, without exception, "Yes"&mdash;general rule as before; but when
+the rejoinder comes, "What instrument do you play?" although the
+reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the
+mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind
+of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you
+will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine
+players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or
+Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Mercadante "grand" or
+Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a
+word or two for Alexander Lee.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two
+queries) a young lady will answer your questions with
+indifference&mdash;almost contempt&mdash;in the belief that you are a very
+commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of
+romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging
+over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or
+Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is
+most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to
+do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with
+meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance,
+the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with
+common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter
+predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be
+quoted from <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>, which will bring in a reflection
+upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the
+quotation:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"I never knew a young gazelle," etc.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Finishing" a Daughter</em></div>
+
+<p>This was written in <em>Punch</em> in July, 1842, but there is not much
+difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years
+later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER</p>
+
+<p>1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.</p>
+
+<p>2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.</p>
+
+<p>3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.</p>
+
+<p>5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of
+house-keeping.</p>
+
+<p>7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything
+for herself.</p>
+
+<p>8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.</p>
+
+<p>9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> a
+clerk in the Treasury upon £75 a year, or to an ensign who is going
+out to India.</p>
+
+<p>If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished,
+you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her
+escape as nothing short of a miracle.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_226.png">
+<img src="images/i_226.png" width="600" alt="Men discussing  a young lady." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Sporting Man</span> (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a
+promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to
+the black-cob-looking man."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of
+Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official
+recognition of learned women and authoresses&mdash;Mrs. Somerville and Maria
+Edgeworth&mdash;was supported by <em>Punch</em>. In his "Letters to a Young Man
+about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of
+good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little
+encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners,
+regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the
+gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only
+substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women
+exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old
+Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to
+the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or
+scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only
+excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women
+the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely
+patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the
+<em>Ingoldsby Legends</em> deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian
+manners, and can be verified from the pages of <em>Punch</em>, who tells us
+how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to
+sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several
+instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised
+seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was
+pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last
+four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be
+fifteen pounds.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in
+the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion.
+Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left
+to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to
+subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty
+years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the
+accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a
+correspondent to the <em>Morning Post</em>, who wrote to describe how, as the
+result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was
+placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_228.png">
+<img src="images/i_228.png" width="600" alt="Occupants of a Gentlemen's club." /></a>
+<p class="center">Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe.<br />
+A FASHIONABLE CLUB&mdash;FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Verrey and Gunter</em></div>
+
+<p>The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony
+was ever a male vice, and <em>Punch</em> is constantly running a tilt against
+civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not
+confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera
+and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four
+thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> for
+more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and
+relations&mdash;more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did
+not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later
+age.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few
+expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The
+nearest approach was Verrey's Café, which was then a fashionable resort,
+and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for
+mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor
+money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title <em>Punch</em>
+satirizes the pretensions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> of the New Rich), the <em>entrée</em> to Almack's.
+For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's
+"Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of
+Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and
+obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of
+to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid
+roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the
+smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have
+borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which
+he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the
+brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody
+here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of
+knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon
+after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a
+newspaper. How pleasant this room is&mdash;isn't it? with its sober
+draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes&mdash;nothing to
+interrupt the quiet&mdash;only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies
+asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, <em>Pendennis</em>,
+No. VII.&mdash;hum, let us pass on. Have you read <em>David Copperfield</em>,
+by the way? How beautiful it is&mdash;how charmingly fresh and simple!
+In those admirable touches of tender humour&mdash;and I should call
+humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit&mdash;who can equal this great
+genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are
+like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in
+the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a
+writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words
+go forth to vast congregations of mankind&mdash;to grown folks, to their
+children, and perhaps to their children's children&mdash;but must think
+of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth
+guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further
+its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the <em>Record</em> revile him&mdash;See,
+here's Horner waking up&mdash;How do you do, Horner?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Tobacco Tabooed</em></div>
+
+<p>Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to
+be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and
+Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that
+den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in <em>some</em>
+clubs, called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed
+for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known
+club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate
+pipe-smoking on their precincts. <em>Punch</em> early ranged himself on the
+side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British
+Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with
+hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce
+their small antipathies on the rest of us."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_230.png">
+<img src="images/i_230.png" width="400" alt="Man and women in evening dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">GROUP IN THEATRE BOX</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day,
+were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had
+passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness
+Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera,
+was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up,
+during the season<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the
+Superior Classes":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who would not rather gaze</p>
+<p class="i0">On youth and beauty dancing</p>
+<p class="i2">Than one of Shakespeare's plays?</p>
+<p class="i0">Give me the haunt of Fashion,</p>
+<p class="i2">And let the Drama's shrine</p>
+<p class="i0">Engross the vulgar's passion;</p>
+<p class="i2">Fops' Alley, thou art mine.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing
+parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the
+manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad
+Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the
+achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in <em>The Newcomes</em>, written
+in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the
+"Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his
+son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of
+entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but <em>Punch</em> makes a notable
+exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after
+redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was
+no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of
+the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble
+tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. <em>Punch's</em> only
+adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of
+the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the
+entertainment, whether for mind or body:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed
+betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences
+at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town
+under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose.
+To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of
+Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named
+institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness&mdash;so
+important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> give
+it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of
+his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable
+amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor&mdash;the student of
+law&mdash;of medicine&mdash;nay, of divinity&mdash;offers an attraction in the
+right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards
+the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good
+singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal
+harangue and a cup of Twankay.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Travellers and Outlaws</em></div>
+
+<p>The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse
+before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always
+the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the
+founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired
+in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing
+generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling
+for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and
+more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to
+appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours"
+was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to
+<em>Punch</em> it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time
+occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long
+been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who
+are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them,
+including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of
+outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in
+poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were
+"the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled
+precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years
+earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of
+fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of
+literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of
+D'Orsay, whom Byron called the <em>Cupidon déchaîné</em>, handsome, gifted and
+popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the
+only artist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call
+sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier
+treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him
+to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from <em>Punch</em>
+even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of
+Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They
+at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney
+travellers on the Continent in 1845:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT</p>
+
+<p>Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to
+ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the
+lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the
+proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will
+also find to be an endless source of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> you
+may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their
+faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of
+ladies, at a <em>table d'hôte</em>. Do not care what you say about the
+government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show
+your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of
+the superiority of England and everything English.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_233.png">
+<img src="images/i_233.png" width="600" alt="Inappropriately dressesd man." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE OPERA</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Doorkeeper</span>: "Beg your pardon, Sir&mdash;but must, indeed, Sir, be in full
+dress."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Snob</span> (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The "Gent" Abroad and at Home</em></div>
+
+<p>The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily
+the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to
+observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as
+"'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of <em>Punch's</em> pet aversions
+under the title of "the Gent":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares,
+the <em>Gent</em> is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption
+of style about him&mdash;a futile aping of superiority that inspires us
+with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we
+contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry
+vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards
+which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts
+to ape <em>gentility</em>&mdash;a bad style of word, we admit, but one
+peculiarly adapted to our purpose&mdash;are to us more painful than
+ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
+his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
+his dreary efforts to assume a style and <em>tournure</em> which he is so
+utterly incapable of carrying out.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When
+foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a
+moment. John Bull, he declared, <em>à propos</em> of the suspicion of the
+French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant
+fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his
+playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen
+on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their
+failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list
+of the things an Englishman likes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
+more to his liking than:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> To talk largely about Art, and to have
+the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!</p>
+
+<p>To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
+needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
+cheap shirts and clothes are sold!</p>
+
+<p>To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
+not!</p>
+
+<p>To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
+operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
+foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!</p>
+
+<p>To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
+yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
+be seen in company with one!</p>
+
+<p>To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
+greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> that was only
+put on for three years!</p>
+
+<p>To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
+to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
+staring at her!</p>
+
+<p>To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
+Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!</p>
+
+<p>To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
+the discordant musicians that infest his streets!</p>
+
+<p>To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
+instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!</p>
+
+<p>To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
+benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!</p>
+
+<p>And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:</p>
+
+<p>To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
+laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
+national humiliation, paying or being paid&mdash;still he must grumble,
+and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
+supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
+great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
+impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
+nothing for him to grumble about!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the
+full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of
+boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and
+persons that should emigrate,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> he includes "all persons who give
+imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all
+young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear
+ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the
+risk of the <em>Quis tulerit Gracchos</em> retort when he bans "all punsters
+and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of
+education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and
+reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general
+support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a
+chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British
+Association.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil
+Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than
+44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him
+publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Desirable Emigrants</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_236.png">
+<img src="images/i_236.png" width="300" alt="Two men discussing a lady." /></a>
+<p class="center">OFFENDED DIGNITY</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Small Swell</span> (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness
+that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with&mdash;I
+prefer grown Women of the World!"</p>
+<p>(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when
+he went back to school.)</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_237.png">
+<img src="images/i_237.png" width="400" alt="Two men talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">TWO WORDS TO A BARGAIN</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Japanese</span>: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall
+remain so."</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">American</span>: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're
+wrong."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Exploiting the Dead</em></div>
+
+<p>Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties;
+the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous
+"medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid
+his first visit to England. From the very first <em>Punch's</em> attitude was
+hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to
+condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and
+expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution.
+Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+<em>Almanack</em> for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there
+are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not
+so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot
+see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a
+mesmerist in the <em>Morning Post</em> that he could get into communication
+with Sir John Franklin; this <em>Punch</em> promptly pilloried, as, too, a
+little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated
+by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 <em>Punch</em> solemnly vouches for the
+authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits
+by retail":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
+Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
+Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
+Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
+appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
+Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
+Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
+for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
+and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
+will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
+them.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but <em>Punch</em>
+was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries.
+He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of
+photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging.
+There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many
+years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic
+feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling.
+In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other
+even more menial trades, <em>Punch</em> was not indulging in exaggeration. The
+mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little
+man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio"
+was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was
+clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the
+'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising
+actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> had not begun to
+be thought of as a means of social <em>réclame</em>. Apart from politicians and
+public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The
+relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from
+those which prevail to-day. <em>Punch</em> was a great champion of the
+legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful,
+though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had
+written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the
+Court<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter
+comment. But <em>Punch</em> shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official
+recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he
+expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the
+upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of
+mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip
+about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque
+account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions
+when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel
+between Charles Mathews and the <em>Morning Chronicle</em>, <em>Punch</em> stood for
+the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based
+on crime, and the cult of monstrosity <em>Punch</em> waged unceasing war, but
+he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were
+sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family
+visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So
+again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a
+performance of <em>La Dame aux Camélias</em> at Exeter Hall in 1857, but
+prohibited an English translation of the words.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Respect for Decorum</em></div>
+
+<p>Many of the broader aspects of early Victorian social life remain with
+us to-day, though modified or amended. "The broad vein of plush that
+traverses the whole framework of English society," as <em>Punch</em>
+flamboyantly gibed, if not wholly obliterated is at least less
+conspicuous. Jeames and Jenkins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> are dead. If we cannot say the same of
+bullying at schools, "ragging" in the Army, the unnecessary expense of
+uniforms and the costly pageantry of funerals&mdash;all of which were
+strenuously condemned by <em>Punch</em>&mdash;it may at least be contended that
+public opinion is more vigilant in arraigning and bringing to light
+offences against humanity, good taste and common sense. Modern critics
+have not been wanting who charge <em>Punch</em> with prudery and squeamishness,
+but this is not the place to discuss whether the popularity of the paper
+would have been enhanced, or its influence and power fortified by
+following the example of <em>La Vie Parisienne</em> or of <em>Jugend</em>. Certainly
+during the period under review reticence and respectability were
+combined on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> occasion with a remarkable freedom of comment, and the
+tragedy of "The Great Social Evil" was frankly admitted in Leech's
+famous picture. Though an isolated reference it was worth a hundred
+sermons. If <em>Punch</em> preferred to be the champion of domesticity and
+decorum in public and private life, he was reflecting an essential
+feature of the age&mdash;a feature which no longer exists. It was an age of
+patriarchal rule and large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> families. Nothing strikes one more in
+turning over the pages of old numbers of <em>Punch</em> than the swarms of
+young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech.
+The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress
+the reader. The type represented is mainly drawn from well-to-do
+middle-class households, but all classes were prolific. If one needs
+proof, there is the evidence of Debrett and of the tombstones in our
+country churchyards.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Quiverfull</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_240.png">
+<img src="images/i_240.png" width="500" alt="After dinner conservation" /></a>
+<p class="center">Scene: A Public-house, Bury St. Edmunds, after the Dinner
+given by the Mayor of Bury to the Lord Mayor of London.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Country Footman</span>: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of our town? A nice
+place, ain't it?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">London Footman</span> (condescendingly): "Vell, Joseph, I likes your town well
+enough. It's clean; your streets are hairy; and you've lots of rewins.
+But I don't like your champagne; its all Gewsberry."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_241.png">
+<img src="images/i_241.png" width="300" alt="Two women talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL</p>
+<p>Time: Midnight. A sketch not a hundred miles from the Haymarket.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Bella</span>: "Ah! Fanny! How long have you been <em>Gay</em>?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_242.png">
+<img src="images/i_242.png" width="600" alt="Hunting scene." /></a>
+<p class="center">A FRESHENER ON THE DOWNS]</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a>
+<em>Vide</em> Grantley Berkeley's <em>Recollections</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A correspondent wrote to <em>The Times</em> in 1846 complaining
+that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and
+suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican
+and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer,
+music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the
+Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular
+in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's
+Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <em>Who's Who</em> first appeared in 1849. In those days it was
+little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not
+until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which
+have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent
+for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The income tax. <em>Punch</em> knew better, and prophesied from
+the very outset that it would never come off.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen
+Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of
+Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d.
+each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic
+reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS" id="THE_LIBERAL_PROFESSIONS"></a>THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS</h2>
+
+<p>As a mirror of public opinion on the status and importance of the
+learned and liberal professions <em>Punch</em>, when due allowance has been
+made for his limitations, his prejudices and even his passions, cannot
+be overlooked by the student of social history. A whole book has been
+written on his attitude towards the Church; in another section of this
+chronicle I have dealt at some length with his hostility to Pluralism,
+Sabbatarianism, Ritualism, and endeavoured to show how a generally
+tolerant and "hang theology" attitude was in the early 'fifties
+exchanged for one of fierce anti-Vaticanism. The "No Popery" drum was
+banged with great fury, and when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
+re-established in England in 1850, <em>Punch</em> supported the Ecclesiastical
+Titles Act which declared the assumption of titles connected with places
+in the realm illegal and imposed heavy penalties on the persons assuming
+them. This Act, passed in 1851, remained a dead letter until 1871, when
+it was repealed. As for the law and lawyers the record of <em>Punch</em> is
+more consistent and creditable, and, as we have seen, he was from the
+first an unflinching advocate of cheap justice and the removal of
+irregularities which pressed hardest on the poor, an unrelenting critic
+of barbarous and oppressive penalties. No one was too great or small to
+escape his legal pillory, or to secure recognition for reforming zeal or
+humane administration&mdash;from Lord Brougham and Lord St. Leonards down to
+unpaid magistrates. To what has been said elsewhere it may be added that
+the series of papers written by Gilbert à Beckett, under the heading of
+"The Comic Blackstone," are much better than their title, for they
+contain a good deal of shrewd satire and sound sense. <em>Punch</em> had good
+reason to be proud of his own legal representative, the humane and
+genial Gilbert à Beckett. He welcomed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> Talfourd's promotion to the Bench
+as an honour to letters, for Talfourd was not only the executor and
+first biographer of Lamb and the author of the highly successful, but
+now forgotten, tragedy of <em>Ion</em>, but his services to authors in
+connexion with copyright earned for him the dedication of <em>Pickwick</em>. On
+his death in 1854, <em>Punch's</em> elegy fittingly commemorated the character
+and career of one of whom, as an advocate, it was said that the wrong
+side seldom cared to hear him, and who, like Hood, in his last words,
+deplored the mutual estrangement of classes in English society.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bench and the Universities</em></div>
+
+<p>On the other hand, judges who jested on the Bench, indulged in judicial
+clap-trap, or encouraged the public to regard the Courts of Justice as
+substitutes for theatrical entertainments, are severely handled. <em>Judex
+jocosus odiosus</em>; but the type is, apparently, impervious to satire.
+Another anticipation of latter-day criticism is to be found in the
+remark made in 1856: "There was once a Parliament&mdash;(we do not live in
+such times now!)&mdash;in which there were few or no lawyers." Even more
+red-hot in its up-to-dateness is <em>Punch's</em> sarcastic dismissal of the
+cult of "efficiency" sixty-five years ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Mr. Punch's</em> reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
+business is not abject. The "practical men," who smile
+compassionately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who
+perpetually make the most frightful smashes and blunders. No
+attorney, for instance, can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a
+stock-jobber, the supposed incarnation of shrewdness, is the most
+credulous <em>gobemouche</em> in London.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With University authorities, professors, dons, and academics generally,
+we look in vain for any sign of sympathy, save that <em>Punch</em> condemned
+the rule which then prevented Fellows from marrying. For the rest, he
+looked on the older Universities as the homes of mediæval obscurantism,
+stubbornly opposed to reforms long overdue. Of the two, Oxford fared the
+worse at his hands on account of the Tractarian movement, Pusey, and
+Newman. This antagonism was based on political and religious
+divergences, not on any hostility to learning or the classical
+curriculum, of which <em>Punch</em> was a supporter, to the extent of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> printing
+<em>jeux d'esprit</em> in Latin and Greek in his pages. All along he was a
+jealous guardian of the "illustrious order of the goose-quill," a sturdy
+champion of its claims to adequate pay and official recognition, a
+vigilant critic of the "hom&oelig;opathic system of rewards" adopted by the
+Crown in the Civil List. References to this undying scandal are
+honourably frequent in the early volumes of <em>Punch</em>. It may suffice to
+quote the letter to Lord Palmerston in the summer of 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I will not, this hot weather, weary your lordship by specifying
+every case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of accounts.">
+<tr><td align="left">To Science, Literature, and Art</td><td align="right">£275</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To sundries</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">£1,200</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Deduct sundries</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">£275</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Due to Science, Literature, and Art</td><td align="right">925</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">Total Civil List</td><td align="right">£1,200</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Equally creditable is the reiterated plea&mdash;from 1847 onward&mdash;for the
+establishment of International Copyright, to guard English authors from
+the piracy of American publishers, amongst whom Putnam is singled out as
+an honourable exception. It may be fairly claimed for <em>Punch</em> that he
+made very few mistakes in appraising the merits of the authors of his
+time or of the rising stars. He failed to render justice to Disraeli as
+a writer, and he curtly dismissed Walt Whitman's <em>Leaves of Grass</em> as "a
+mad book by an American rough." But literary values prove him
+substantially right in his distaste for the flamboyant exuberance of
+Bulwer Lytton, and absolutely sound in his castigation of the
+tripe-and-oniony flavour of Samuel Warren's books, one of which he held
+up to not undeserved obloquy under the ferocious misnomer of "The
+Diarrh&oelig;a of a Late Physician." He was a veritable <em>malleus stultorum</em>
+in dealing alike with the futilities of incompetent aristocrats and the
+homely puerilities of Martin Tupper and Poet Close. The famous campaign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+against the poet Bunn and his bad librettos goaded the victim into
+reprisals in which he gave as good as he got, but the fact remains that
+Bunn <em>was</em> a bad poet, though <em>Punch</em> quite overdid his persecution. The
+nobility of Wordsworth, though the least humorous of poets, was
+handsomely acknowledged; when the erection of a statue to Peel was
+mooted, <em>Punch</em> put in a claim for a similar honour to the sage of
+Rydal. And though indignant with Carlyle for his defence of slavery,
+<em>Punch</em> was still ready to acknowledge "the monarch in his masquerade."
+Lastly, he not only welcomed Tennyson as a master, but threw open his
+columns to him to retort on his detractors.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" and "The Times"</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_247.png">
+<img src="images/i_247.png" width="400" alt="Writer at his desk." /></a>
+<p class="center">JENKINS AT HOME</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Victorian and Georgian Journalism</em></div>
+
+<p>Dog does not eat dog, but the unwritten etiquette in accordance with
+which one newspaper does not directly attack another was much less
+strictly observed sixty or seventy years ago. Delane, the editor of <em>The
+Times</em>, exercised a greater political influence than any other
+journalist before or since, and for a good many years <em>Punch</em> acted as a
+sort of free-lance ally of the great daily,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> drawing liberally from
+its columns in the way of extracts and illustrations, and, according to
+his habitual practice, underlining its policy while pretending to be
+shocked at it. Several of the men on <em>Punch</em> were contributors to <em>The
+Times</em>. Gilbert à Beckett's name stands first in the list of the
+principal contributors and members of the staff of <em>The Times</em> under
+Delane given in Mr. Dasent's biography. Yet I have searched the pages of
+the biography and the index in vain for a single reference to <em>Punch</em>.
+None the less the relations of the two papers were close and cordial,
+and "Billy" Russell, the <em>Times</em> war correspondent and unsparing critic
+of mismanagement in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> Crimea, had no more enthusiastic trumpeter than
+<em>Punch</em>. But the great gulf in prestige and power between <em>The Times</em>
+under Delane and the rest of the London Press is indirectly but
+unmistakably shown in <em>Punch's</em> habitual disrespect for most of his
+other contemporaries. In another context, I have quoted examples of his
+flagellation of the <em>Morning Post</em>&mdash;the only paper, by the way, which
+supported the <em>Coup d'État</em>; but two masterpieces of malice may be
+added. In 1843, <em>à propos</em> of "Jenkins's" incurably unctuous worship of
+rank, <em>Punch</em> observes: "If the reader be not weeping at this, it is not
+in the power of onions to move him." And again, a little later on in the
+same year, <em>Punch</em> compares the "beastliness" of Jenkins, "the life-long
+toad-eater," with the "beastly fellow" denounced in the <em>Morning Post</em>
+for swallowing twelve frogs for a wager! <em>Punch</em> was not content with
+identifying the <em>Morning Post</em> with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> the imaginary personality of
+Jenkins, the super-flunkey, but was also responsible for re-christening
+the <em>Morning Herald</em> and the <em>Standard</em>&mdash;Conservative morning and
+evening papers which, until 1857, belonged to the same proprietor&mdash;Mrs.
+Gamp and Mrs. Harris. The <em>Standard</em> retaliated by calling <em>Punch</em> the
+"most abject of all the toadies of <em>The Times</em>," and accusing it of
+libelling "the young gentlemen of Eton" and the Queen. By an unconscious
+compliment <em>Punch</em> was bracketed with the <em>Examiner</em>, the ablest and
+most independent of the weeklies, as <em>The Times</em> was of the dailies, for
+its disloyalty to the Crown. In the war of wits which ensued and was
+carried on for several years, all the honours rested with <em>Punch</em>. But
+these controversies belong rather to the domestic history of <em>Punch</em>;
+and <em>Punch's</em> friendly relations with the <em>Daily News</em>, of which Dickens
+was the first editor, must be somewhat discounted by the facts that
+Douglas Jerrold was an intimate friend of the novelist, who occasionally
+dined with the <em>Punch</em> staff; that Paxton, one of <em>Punch's</em> heroes,
+exerted all his great influence on behalf of the new daily; and finally,
+that Bradbury and Evans were, at the time, the publishers of Dickens, of
+<em>Punch</em>, and of the <em>Daily News</em>. The journalism of the 'forties and
+'fifties presents curious analogies with and divergences from the
+journalism of to-day. <em>Punch</em> is never weary of girding at the cult of
+monstrosity and sensationalism, the disproportionate amount of space
+devoted to crime and criminals and <em>causes célèbres</em>, the habit of
+burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to
+statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime.
+Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were
+anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more
+outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and <em>Punch</em> always
+stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an
+Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the <em>Scotsman</em> in the famous case
+brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, <em>Punch</em> compared them to Bomba, and
+congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the <em>Scotsman's</em> costs
+and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict
+which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at
+political<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or
+indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger
+of being brought before a jury." The <em>Scotsman</em> was then edited by
+Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots
+journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated
+the <em>Scotsman</em> as Delane dominated <em>The Times</em>. But it was, in the main,
+a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with
+alert curiosity to <em>The Times</em> in Delane's day was that nobody knew
+beforehand which side he would take on any new question." <a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> And much
+the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day.
+There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a
+great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men
+like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap
+that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions
+was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their
+names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a
+fortnight. It is to the credit of <em>Punch</em> that he recognized the value
+of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his
+part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but
+could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern
+sycophantic worshipper of success&mdash;no matter how achieved. The
+excellence of provincial journalism&mdash;not yet exposed to the competition
+of the cheap London press&mdash;is attested by <em>Punch's</em> frequent citations,
+but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to
+refresh our leisure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Quacks and Doctors</em></div>
+
+<p>But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of
+<em>Punch</em> than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn
+between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it;
+between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and
+Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and
+their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The
+maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons,
+civil,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and
+during the Crimean War. <em>Punch's</em> tribute to the services of Florence
+Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been
+noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp,
+and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though
+under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Great outcry has been raised of late, in the <em>Lancet</em> and other
+journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter
+themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a
+personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society
+to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of
+the Fools&mdash;a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too
+great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some
+people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they
+want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the
+practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper
+sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir
+James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We
+propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call
+himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself
+what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title
+of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of
+the blackest of all <em>Punch's</em> <em>bêtes noires</em>&mdash;in consequence of the
+postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not
+the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's
+Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of
+<em>Punch</em>. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of
+the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in
+the last seventy years goes far to justify <em>Punch's</em> scepticism. But his
+censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who
+exploited and traded on <em>malades imaginaires</em>, and more than once
+exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any
+definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in
+1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige
+doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> labels
+on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip
+medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended
+that <em>Punch</em>, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and
+gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to
+moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism,
+which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under
+the heading, "Greens for the Green."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_251.png">
+<img src="images/i_251.png" width="400" alt="Portly boy talking to shop assistant." /></a>
+<p class="center">SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Pastrycook</span>: "What have you had, Sir?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Boy</span>: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of
+those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes&mdash;and a
+bottle of ginger beer."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Medical Students</em></div>
+
+<p>By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are
+concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if
+corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which
+has been drawn in <em>Pickwick</em>, the pages of <em>Punch</em> supply it in
+distressing abundance. The counterparts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin
+Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of
+articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_252.png">
+<img src="images/i_252.png" width="400" alt="Man drinking beer." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE MEDICAL STUDENT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may
+be thus enumerated:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">Guy's</td><td align="left">Half-and-half, anatomical <em>fracas</em>,and billiards.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">St. Thomas's</td><td align="center">Ditto</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">St. George's</td><td align="left">Doings at Tattersall's.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">London</td><td align="left">Too remote to be ascertained.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">University</td><td align="left">Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Bartholomew's</td><td align="left">State of Smithfield Markets.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Middlesex</td><td align="left">Convivial harmony.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Charing Cross</td><td align="left">Dancing at the Lowther-rooms.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">King's College</td><td align="left">Has not yet acquired any peculiarity.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Westminster</td><td align="left">Dashes of all the others combined.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the
+satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment,
+and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the
+medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on
+occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate
+episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded,
+we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the
+great majority regretted and reprobated.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> On the occasion of <em>Punch's</em> Jubilee, in 1891, <em>The Times</em>
+remarked: "May we be excused for noting the fact that he (<em>Punch</em>) has
+generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from <em>The Times</em>?"
+That was substantially true of <em>The Times</em> under the old <em>régime</em> when
+Delane was editor. Mr. Herbert Paul, himself a strong Liberal, writes in
+his <em>History of Modern England</em> that "Delane's chief quality was his
+independence." Mr. Dasent, in his biography, gives good grounds for his
+assertion that Delane was at no time what could be called a party man,
+though his instincts were essentially Liberal, and notes that "if
+charged with inconsistency, Delane would merely remind his critics that
+<em>The Times</em> was the organ of no party, and that every issue was complete
+in itself."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <em>Delane of "The Times,"</em> by Sir Edward Cook, p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES" id="WOMEN_IN_THE_FORTIES_AND_FIFTIES"></a>WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES</h2>
+
+<p>On the position and influence of women in society <em>Punch</em>, as we have
+already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary.
+Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with.
+There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing
+that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the
+fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is
+ridiculed, and <em>Punch</em> ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord
+Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in <em>The Times</em> against Mayfair
+matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing
+wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years
+earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously
+discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by <em>Punch</em> in a
+stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the
+"Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the
+winter of 1846:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w24"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">I idolize the ladies. They are fairies</p>
+<p class="i0">That spiritualize this earth of ours;</p>
+<p class="i0">From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,</p>
+<p class="i0">Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.</p>
+<p class="i0">But learning in its barbarous seminaries,</p>
+<p class="i0">Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,</p>
+<p class="i0">And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers</p>
+<p class="i0">Science with all its horrid accessaries.</p>
+<p class="i0">Now, seriously, the only things, I think,</p>
+<p class="i0">In which young ladies should instructed be,</p>
+<p class="i0">Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Accomplishments that very soon will sink,</p>
+<p class="i0">Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation,</p>
+<p class="i0">Always form part of female education.</p>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_255.png">
+<img src="images/i_255.png" width="300" alt="Two ladies talking." /></a>
+<p class="center">SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Flora</span>: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Emily</span>: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of
+town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe.
+Isn't it kind?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Victorian Damsels</em></div>
+
+<p>But even within the ranks of the social <em>élite</em> signs of a desire for
+equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the
+direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we
+read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is
+mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the
+mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty
+frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held
+responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards
+we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine
+ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured
+to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode
+of existence met with little commendation from <em>Punch</em>. He was a strong
+advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of
+"Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female
+only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency
+he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless
+"unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming
+Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait
+is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty
+or plain spoken&mdash;even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy
+brothers. But we know&mdash;even from the pages of <em>Punch</em>&mdash;that Victorian
+women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is
+to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able
+to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from
+sentimentality and intellectualism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Model Fast Lady</em></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in
+kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap
+over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If
+she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and
+if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time
+by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into
+Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is
+a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was
+a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and
+"chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other
+cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud
+conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously
+thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you;
+but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but
+"Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"</p>
+
+<p>The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She
+waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred
+and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed
+over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop,
+but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."</p>
+
+<p>By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score&mdash;rather a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+long one&mdash;of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned,
+however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts.
+She would sell her <em>Black Bess</em> sooner than levant.</p>
+
+<p>THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of
+the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment
+"namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has
+no idea of being made a fool of.</p>
+
+<p>At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll
+take Champagne with you&mdash;that is to say, if you're not too proud.
+You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated.
+Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of
+her parasol into your side.</p>
+
+<p>She dislikes smoking? Not <em>she</em> indeed; she's rather fond of it. In
+fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you,
+will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked,
+and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> faddle. She has
+a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can
+play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.</p>
+
+<p>Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to
+state she reads <em>Bell's Life</em>, and has a few volumes in her bedroom
+of the <em>Sporting Magazine</em>. She knows there was a horse of the name
+of <em>Byron</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her
+hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm
+afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to
+that of her own sex.</p>
+
+<p>Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is
+always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to
+change their dress.</p>
+
+<p>Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand
+and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not
+exchange places with the Queen herself.</p>
+
+<p>With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the
+FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of
+what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be
+included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and
+increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and,
+like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent
+daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she
+likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she
+is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor
+people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and
+unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having
+more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with.
+The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is
+the godmother to half the children in the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of
+feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but
+then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature
+may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but
+imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward
+gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the
+highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less
+effectively if they had only as good a heart&mdash;even with the
+trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped&mdash;as the
+MODEL FAST LADY.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_257.png">
+<img src="images/i_257.png" width="400" alt="Man and woman in railway carriage." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Fast Young Lady</span> (to Old Gent): "Have you such a
+thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at
+home."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have
+seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating <em>rôles</em> of which the leading
+traits were, in essentials, identical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> with those of the Model Fast
+Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the
+writers and artists of <em>Punch</em>, was feminine, kindly, but colourless,
+though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked&mdash;the
+lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the
+social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical
+high-priestesses of the marriage market.</p>
+
+<p>When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude
+assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. <em>Punch</em> refused to take it
+seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in
+which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music,
+drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form
+the regular <em>curriculum</em>. A minor examination on these subjects, or
+a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts
+can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in
+"Télémaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play
+a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin
+wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.</p>
+
+<p>For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in
+various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others;
+also in the <em>libretto</em> of the last new opera. She shall be able to
+play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and
+shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini,
+Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in
+a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a
+wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with
+correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman
+who may be selected for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an
+annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a
+familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the
+Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny,
+and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in
+preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.</p>
+
+<p>These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the
+Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has
+not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction
+shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple
+Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and
+finally those who barely get their degree.</p>
+
+<p>The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall
+be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphées;
+and lastly, as before, the merely passable.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/i_260.png">
+<img src="images/i_260.png" width="200" alt="Cartoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Women and Politics</em></div>
+
+<p>This article is fairly typical of the attitude of <em>Punch</em> towards what
+we now call "Feminism"&mdash;a term so new that in the <em>New English
+Dictionary</em> it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning
+"the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901.
+Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political
+emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions.
+References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we
+find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss
+Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were
+admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then,
+carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an
+Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The
+possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never
+seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the
+"ladies of creation" in the <em>Almanack</em> for 1852 is modelled on Mrs.
+Jellyby&mdash;<em>Bleak House</em> had been coming out serially from March, 1852,
+onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from
+America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> of Boston,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> is mentioned in
+1848, and in the following year <em>Punch</em> welcomed the innovation in
+verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">AN M.D. IN A GOWN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Young ladies all, of every clime,</p>
+<p class="i2">Especially of Britain,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who wholly occupy your time</p>
+<p class="i2">In novels or in knitting,</p>
+<p class="i0">Whose highest skill is but to play,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sing, dance, or French to clack well,</p>
+<p class="i0">Reflect on the example, pray,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of excellent Miss Blackwell!</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">For Doctrix Blackwell&mdash;that's the way</p>
+<p class="i2">To dub in rightful gender&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">In her profession, ever may</p>
+<p class="i2">Prosperity attend her!</p>
+<p class="i0"><em>Punch</em>, a gold-handled parasol</p>
+<p class="i2">Suggests for presentation,</p>
+<p class="i0">To one so well deserving all</p>
+<p class="i2">Esteem and admiration.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bloomer Craze</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_262.png">
+<img src="images/i_262.png" width="600" alt="People deriding women wearing bloomers" /></a>
+<p class="center"> BLOOMERISM&mdash;AN AMERICAN CUSTOM</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza.
+But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852
+merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the
+hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been
+urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; <em>Punch</em> appreciated the
+gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her
+as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a
+strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the
+unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights.
+The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance
+reformer, but <em>Punch</em> was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+"trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime
+librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was
+actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress
+for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years
+later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief
+advocate. <em>Punch</em> is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He
+makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess
+Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new
+departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of
+women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a
+whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at
+the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at
+the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857.
+<em>Punch's</em> anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted
+not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a
+means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another
+piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as
+being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers
+from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while
+<em>Punch</em> was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm
+supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was&mdash;as we
+have shown in other sections of this survey&mdash;at least a persistent
+advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws&mdash;and unwearied in his
+exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses,
+sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on
+women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He
+was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of
+some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to
+indignation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">THE CRY OF THE WOMEN<br /></p>
+
+<p>Now, this petition or lamentation&mdash;in which <em>Mr. Punch</em> gives
+willing ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering&mdash;has been
+rebuked, pooh-poohed, pished and fiddle-de-dee'd; but in these
+scoffings <em>Mr. Punch</em> joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him,
+say, with certain editorial porcupines of the male gender, "Of what
+avail these lamentations of lamenting women, whose cries are
+foolishness? Wherefore should women at any time lift up their
+voices; when is it not manifest from the beginning that women were
+created to sing small? And finally, if women be beaten by savages,
+and robbed by sots, what of it? It is better that women should be
+beaten and crouch in the dust&mdash;it is better they should be robbed
+and sit at home, than go and petition Parliament."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" Champions Horatia</em></div>
+
+<p>He espoused the cause of humble heroines, of the neglected widows or
+orphans of heroes and benefactors like a true knight errant. Elsewhere
+we have told of his exertions on behalf of Mother Seacole, the brave old
+sutler in the Crimea, for whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> benefit he started a special fund. The
+scurvy treatment of the widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the pioneer of the
+Overland Route, who wore himself out in a work of national importance,
+moved him to righteous indignation. She was given a pension of £25,
+afterwards increased to £40.</p>
+
+<p>But none of these palpable wrongs to women stirred <em>Punch</em> so deeply in
+these years as the tardy and meagre discharge of the nation's debt to
+Nelson in respect of his daughter Horatia. To this particular bit of
+narrow-mindedness he recurs again and again in the years 1849 to 1855,
+when he sums up what had been done to liquidate the debt:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">NELSON'S DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN</p>
+
+<p>An advertisement in <em>The Times</em> tells the world that the eight
+children of Nelson's daughter Horatia&mdash;Nelson's grandchildren&mdash;are
+"more or less provided for." Perhaps a little less than more; but
+let that pass. At length a long, long standing debt has been paid,
+or rather compounded, at something less than nineteen shillings in
+the pound. The Government, as the Government, has done nothing. The
+stiff, whalebone virtue that set up the back of Queen Charlotte
+against Nelson's daughter&mdash;George the Third thought Nelson's
+funeral had too much state in it for a mere subject; such pomp "was
+for kings"&mdash;still kept the Government aloof from all help of
+Horatia and her children. At length, however, the press spoke out.
+The "ribald press" for a time laid aside its ribaldry, and
+condescended to champion the claims of Nelson's daughter upon
+Nelson's fellow-countrymen. Well, something has been done; and thus
+much in explanation we take from the advertisement in question:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The eight children of Horatia, Mrs. Ward, are all now, more or
+less, provided for. Her eldest son has been presented to the living
+of Radstock by the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave; the second son
+had been previously appointed by Sir W. Burnett Assistant-Surgeon
+in the Navy; to the third, Lord Chancellor Cranworth has given a
+clerkship in the Registry-Office; the fourth son received a Cadetcy
+from Captain Shepherd; His Royal Highness Prince Albert conferred a
+similar appointment on the youngest son; and Her Majesty has been
+graciously pleased to settle upon the three daughters a pension of
+£300 per annum. To this last result the exertions of the late Mr.
+Hume, M.P., mainly contributed. Messrs. Green,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> of Blackwall, and
+Messrs. Smith, of Newcastle, conveyed the two Cadets to India free
+of expense."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this may be added a "small cash balance" paid to Mrs. Ward, "after
+investing £400 in the funds." Altogether some £1,427 have been
+subscribed in the cause of Nelson's daughter. We state the sum, and will
+not pause to calculate whether the amount be the tenth of a farthing or
+even a whole farthing in the pound, for which England is Nelson's
+debtor. Let us anyway thank those who have helped Horatia's children.
+They have all done well, from the Dowager Countess to the Queen, ending
+with the prince ship-owners of Blackwall and Newcastle. Their ships will
+not have the worst fortune of wreck or storm for having borne,
+passage-free, the grandsons of Nelson to their Indian work. Let us, too,
+pause to thank the shade of Joseph Hume&mdash;the strong, sound, kind old
+heart! Joseph, who "mainly contributed," with those earnest, honest
+fingers of his to undraw the royal purse-strings, so that the three
+grand-daughters may now keep the wolf from the door, as their immortal
+grandfather kept the foe from the "silver-girt isle."</p>
+
+<p>We omit the bitter words in which <em>Punch</em> heaps scorn on Nelson's
+brother, "the first parson Lord Nelson," because the odious charges
+there made cannot be substantiated. This was not the only occasion on
+which <em>Punch's</em> zeal was disfigured by the vehemence of his
+partisanship. But we cannot blame him for his jubilation over the
+thrashing of General Haynau, the woman-flogger, by the draymen and
+labourers at Barclay's Brewery on the occasion of his visit to London in
+1850, or for the vigour with which he scarified the papers who found
+excuses and parallels for Haynau's ferocity in the military exigencies
+of the Peninsular War.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Slavery in America&mdash;and England</em></div>
+
+<p>Foremost amongst <em>Punch's</em> heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were
+Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of
+these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of
+notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of
+<em>Punch</em>. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett
+Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem,
+Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is
+shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling
+Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> adventuress, Lola
+Montez,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards
+in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous
+Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> author of <em>Uncle Tom's Cabin</em>, whose sojourn in
+England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social
+prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address,"
+initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The
+appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many
+thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the
+degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do
+not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern
+planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation
+at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, <em>Punch</em> did not fail
+to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In
+the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman
+who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a
+man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical
+disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had
+begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To
+what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and <em>Punch's</em> belief in
+it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Cynical View</em>:&mdash;Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to
+be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
+saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of
+females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and
+baggage, and start them away.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>The Alarmist View</em>:&mdash;If the surplus female population with which
+we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with
+women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse
+nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend
+with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to
+that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government.</p>
+
+<p><em>Our Own View</em>:&mdash;It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
+should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only
+not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and
+solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they
+would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches&mdash;if only they had
+the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country
+to find them wings.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Worm Turns</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not
+untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years&mdash;with rare
+exceptions&mdash;he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman
+could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently
+represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without
+apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this
+defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly
+pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in
+moments of generous expansion <em>Punch</em> was capable of crediting them with
+extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water
+mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be
+found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my
+Mind":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the
+civilized!&mdash;for, after all, the savages are really and truly more
+of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to
+it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and
+angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were
+weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized
+nations&mdash;as I fling it at Mouser&mdash;they all of 'em make women the
+sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the
+dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty,
+Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely
+as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> obliged to come
+to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You
+paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then&mdash;but it's so like
+you&mdash;then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take
+her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"&mdash;for I would be
+heard&mdash;"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again.
+There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of
+public-house sign for law, but&mdash;is a poor woman allowed to wear
+false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once
+open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine
+on herself&mdash;may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can
+paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor
+thing say a syllable."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_268.png">
+<img src="images/i_268.png" width="350" alt="Man and woman talking." /></a>
+<p>"Are you going?"</p>
+<p>"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so
+infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."</p>
+<p>"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and
+not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an <em>In Memoriam</em> notice
+in <em>The Times</em>, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at
+Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there
+described as "the first woman doctor."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert,
+daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite
+of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer,
+who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See the <em>Examiner</em> and <em>Punch</em>. The following
+advertisement in the <em>Examiner</em> will be read with interest:&mdash;"The
+arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all
+Stephen Glover's compositions connected with <em>Uncle Tom</em>: 'The Sea of
+Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and
+Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="FASHION_IN_DRESS" id="FASHION_IN_DRESS"></a>FASHION IN DRESS</h2>
+
+<p>It is a noteworthy sign of the times that between 1841 and 1857 the
+specific references to the dress of men in the text of <em>Punch</em> are much
+more numerous than those dealing with the vagaries of female attire. The
+balance inclines in the contrary direction in the pictures which, when
+tested by old daguerreotypes and the contents of family albums, form a
+substantially correct and illuminating commentary on the evolution of
+fashion in women's dress. So we begin with the ladies, with the double
+proviso that Leech and Doyle and their brother artists on <em>Punch</em> were
+not fashion-plate designers, and that the charms and extravagances of
+the modish world which they depicted were drawn mainly from the
+Metropolis. <em>Punch</em> was a Londoner, even a Cockney, and throws little
+light on the social life of the provinces.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Breadth of the Fashion</em></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_270.png">
+<img src="images/i_270.png" width="400" alt="Woman in crinoline dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">EASIER SAID THAN DONE</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Master of the House</span>: "Oh, Fred, my boy&mdash;when dinner is ready, you take
+Mrs. Furbelow downstairs!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_271a.png">
+<img src="images/i_271a.png" width="600" alt="Men pushed aside by women with baby carriages" /></a>
+<p class="center">GRAND CHARGE OF PERAMBULATORS&mdash;AND DEFEAT OF SWELLS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_271b.png">
+<img src="images/i_271b.png" width="600" alt="Man reaching to a woman  who is wearing a crinoline dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Aids to Beauty</em></div>
+
+<p>To speak roughly, fashion in women's dress is subject to two great
+alternating influences&mdash;in the direction of elongation or of lateral
+extension. In the 'forties and 'fifties the tendency was steadily in the
+second direction and away from the slim elegance which has been the aim
+of the modistes of recent years. Long, "mud-bedraggled" dresses are, it
+is true, condemned in 1844, but width rather than length was the
+prevailing feature. It was the age of flounces, and this expansive
+tendency culminated, in the mid-'fifties, in the reign of the crinoline,
+against which <em>Punch</em> waged for many years a truceless but, as he
+himself admitted, a wholly ineffectual warfare. The first indication of
+the coming portent is to be found in the <em>annus mirabilis</em> of 1848, when
+an "air-tube dress extender" is shown in a picture. This, however, was a
+single hoop and comparatively modest in its circumference. The
+crinoline, in its full amplitude, did not invade London until 1856.
+Thenceforward, hardly a number is free from satire and caricature of
+this exuberant monstrosity, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> the inconvenience caused in theatres,
+drawing-rooms, in the parks and public vehicles, and in the streets.
+What with the bath-chairs of invalids, the ladies' dresses, and the
+children's perambulators, we read in 1856, that "it amounts almost to an
+impossibility nowadays to walk on the pavements." People were now
+dressed "not in the height, but the full breadth of the fashion." The
+structure of the machine, with its whalebone ribs and inflated tubes,
+was revealed in all its mammoth dimensions. It was denounced alike as an
+absurdity and as a danger, but satire and warnings were equally
+powerless to abate the nuisance. But the crinoline was only the most
+conspicuous and culminating example of a tendency to superfluous
+clothing and a semi-Oriental muffling-up of the female form, against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+which <em>Punch</em> has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A
+sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against
+the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on
+the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was
+far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the
+projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The
+resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather
+than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find <em>Punch</em> in 1855
+describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A
+huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly"
+of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round
+hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often
+dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But
+extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats&mdash;big enough to
+be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger
+brothers&mdash;small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols
+were in vogue in 1853. A certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> masculinity of attire was affected by
+young ladies of sporting tastes&mdash;in the way of waistcoats and ties for
+example&mdash;but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against
+anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the
+earliest instances in <em>Punch</em> of the use of the word "æsthetic" in
+connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a
+strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary,
+economical, æsthetic."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these
+aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the
+fashionable world.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_272.png">
+<img src="images/i_272.png" width="600" alt="Men, carrying a selection of bonnets, following women." /></a>
+<p class="center">WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 100px;">
+<a href="images/i_273a.png">
+<img src="images/i_273a.png" width="100" alt="Female head." /></a>
+<p class="center">PLAIN</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;">
+<a href="images/i_273b.png">
+<img src="images/i_273b.png" width="150" alt="Female head with ringlets." /></a>
+<p class="center">RINGLETS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of
+ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian
+<em>coiffure</em>, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full
+dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find
+it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech
+illustrated Surtees's novel <em>Plain or Ringlets?</em> in 1860. Of the "plain"
+variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in <em>Punch</em>,
+notably the head given above, with which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> we couple the ringleted belle
+illustrated at the foot of the same page.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_274.png">
+<img src="images/i_274.png" width="400" alt="Wife talking to husband." /></a>
+<p class="center">ÆSTHETIC PIONEERS</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Turtledove</span>: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have
+for dinner?"</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Turtledove</span>: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday&mdash;suppose
+we have a roast butterfly to-day."</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Coiffures in the Fifties</div>
+
+<p>In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to
+wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed <em>à
+l'impératrice</em> in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and <em>Punch</em>
+satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a <em>coiffure</em> unsuited
+to people of certain ages, features, and positions&mdash;a wide scope for his
+wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the
+time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if
+they had, they escaped <em>Punch's</em> vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on
+whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist
+of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing,
+walking or doing nothing, the young women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> he drew were almost
+invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of
+sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the
+awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the
+rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture
+below.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_276.png">
+<img src="images/i_276.png" width="500" alt="Woman persuading child to bathe." /></a>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Bathing Woman</span>: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!&mdash;He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_275.png">
+<img src="images/i_275.png" width="600" alt="Female bathers'." /></a>
+<p class="center">MERMAIDS AT PLAY</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Fashions for Men</em></div>
+
+<p>Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's dress as we know
+it was already established, though in regard to colour, details, and
+decoration the influence of the Regency period still made itself felt.
+Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see Parkes's
+<em>Hygiene</em>) at the time of the Peninsular War, but pantaloons&mdash;the
+tight-fitting nether garments which superseded knee-breeches late in the
+eighteenth century, and were secured at the ankles with ribbons and
+straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You will see no trousers, as
+we know them to-day, in the illustrations to <em>Pickwick</em>, and in the
+early 'forties pantaloons appear in <em>Punch's</em> illustrations of
+fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the "claw-hammer" dress-coat does
+not differ from that of to-day, but it was often of blue cloth with
+brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and waistcoats of gold-sprigged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling that worn by nigger minstrels.
+"Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive till the late 'forties&mdash;they are
+mentioned in Thackeray's <em>Book of Snobs</em>, and gentlemen always carried
+their tall hats in their hands at evening parties, and habitually wore
+them at clubs. For morning wear blue frock-coats, with white drill
+trousers and straps, were fashionable in 1844. Stocks and cravats and
+neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties. The <em>dégagé</em> loose neck-cloth
+of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by <em>Punch</em>, who traces its origin
+to the neck-wear&mdash;as modern hosiers say&mdash;of the British dustman. Amongst
+overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like garment, called after the famous
+dancer, is most frequently mentioned; the Petersham, a heavy overcoat
+named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of the Waterloo period, still held
+its own. The Crimea brought Alma overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and
+Crimea cloaks, and about the same time <em>Punch</em> caricatures a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> long
+garment reaching nearly to the heels, which gave the wearer the
+appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark. There is a mention of the
+"Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One Stultz was the
+fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however (according to
+<em>Punch</em>), was Prince Albert, whose continual and unfortunate experiments
+with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere. <em>Punch</em> speaks of his
+obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from calling him "the mad
+hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet emerged from the
+brain of Lewis Carroll. But <em>Punch</em> himself was much preoccupied with
+hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall beaver hat which
+tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid "chimney-pot" or
+cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European head-dresses, with its
+flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by 1850. <em>Punch</em> warred
+against it almost as vigorously and as ineffectually as against the
+crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to the length of suggesting the
+form and materials suitable for an ideal hat:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Ideal Hat</em></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer
+confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into
+breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a
+waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and
+well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics
+that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert
+fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible <em>sombrero</em> of grey, or
+brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a
+dress at once becoming and congruous.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_277.png">
+<img src="images/i_277.png" width="600" alt="Child remarking on mens' dress." /></a>
+<p class="center">WHY, INDEED!</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Perceptive Child</span>: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves
+like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_278.png">
+<img src="images/i_278.png" width="500" alt="Group of smartly dressed men." /></a>
+<p class="center">A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to
+enable <em>Punch</em> to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the
+"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars
+are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but
+the "all round collar" of which <em>Punch</em> has a picture in 1854
+approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when
+a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> uncommon; but the
+caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of <em>Punch's</em> favourite butts, shows
+that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the
+emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the
+grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of
+little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe
+<em>Mr. Punch</em>, caricature was unnecessary.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 50px;">
+<a href="images/i_279.png">
+<img src="images/i_279.png" width="50" alt="Caricature in the form  of a spoon." /></a>
+<p class="center">"SIBBY"&mdash;<br />1843</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,
+short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord
+Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all
+wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit
+immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his
+whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and
+occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"
+<em>Punch</em>, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on
+the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the
+Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to
+which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls
+the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired
+by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.
+The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854
+and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and
+ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_280.png">
+<img src="images/i_280.png" width="400" alt="Man addressing a strangely dressed student." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Proctor</span> (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so
+good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a
+Scotch terrier?"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Uncomfortable Uniforms</em></div>
+
+<p>The vagaries of military uniforms&mdash;apart from the intrusions of Prince
+Albert&mdash;call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy
+shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from
+stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is
+guyed in 1851. In 1854 <em>Punch</em> throws himself with great energy into the
+movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more
+rational and comfortable clothing&mdash;witness the verses, "Valour under
+difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;
+the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private
+Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his
+stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged
+tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued
+by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and
+shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by
+soldiers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.
+But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by
+contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but
+to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some
+measure in the Great War?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_281.png">
+<img src="images/i_281.png" width="400" alt="Man in wide shouldered cape." /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">Rude Boy</span>: "O, look 'ere, Jim!&mdash;If 'ere ain't a Lobster
+bin and out-growed his cloak!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> "Æsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at <em>New
+Curiosities of Literature</em>, and in 1853 we read of an "æsthetic tea," at
+which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass,
+brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism
+and theology."</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS" id="THE_DRAMA_OPERA_MUSIC_AND_THE_FINE_ARTS"></a>THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS</h2>
+
+<p>One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical
+survey of the drama in the pages of <em>Punch</em>. Most of his staff had
+dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,
+and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped
+a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen
+out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its
+influence on <em>Punch's</em> persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when
+all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous
+tone which they occasionally inspired, <em>Punch</em> may fairly claim to have
+rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was
+sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and
+loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great
+difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances
+of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on
+"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native
+or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic
+<em>clichés</em>, and solecisms in pronunciation.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> He was also a reformer in
+his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the
+play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as
+we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'
+vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and
+pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and
+British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first
+ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> years of <em>Punch</em> with little intermission and was largely
+justified. <em>Punch</em> was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing
+to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in
+1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and
+freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The
+balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance&mdash;the
+dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays
+as set forth in the following extract&mdash;has been largely remedied, though
+the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is
+by some critics considered worse than the disease:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Galignani's Messenger</em> says of the French theatre:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,
+191 new pieces."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> says of the English theatre:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London
+about <em>ten</em> new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,
+devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen
+from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of
+the Newgate drama&mdash;<em>Jack Sheppard</em> and <em>Madame Lafarge</em>.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Of the
+latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and
+filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with <em>The
+Beggar's Opera</em>, which is defended as being "real satire and not
+wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy <em>Martinuzzi</em> comes in for
+frequent ridicule, though the chief <em>rôles</em> were taken by Phelps and
+Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what
+grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his
+dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's
+"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met
+with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> <em>Punch's</em> support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the
+bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor
+theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they
+were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his
+signature of "Q" then develops the argument:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are
+only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,
+the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere
+they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.
+There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.
+The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and
+laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their <em>Jack
+Sheppards</em>, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced
+frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of
+knowing that their <em>Jack Sheppard</em> has been licensed by a Deputy,
+for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of
+Tyburn are exhibited with a <em>cum privilegio</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this
+wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We <em>hope</em>
+it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm
+of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the
+playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate
+what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should
+have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves
+the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of
+the English stage.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Lord Mahon's Petition</em></div>
+
+<p><em>Punch's</em> pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in
+the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the
+patent theatres&mdash;which for more than a hundred years had confined the
+legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket&mdash;and
+thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.</p>
+
+<p>Déjazet's London <em>début</em> in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a
+later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as
+broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth
+in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only
+way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the
+dialogue and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> give the <em>rôle</em> of heroine to a <em>première danseuse</em>. As a
+matter of fact Taglioni appeared in <em>Electra</em> in 1845.</p>
+
+<p>In 1844 <em>Punch</em> took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French
+dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized
+at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of
+a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write
+tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"&mdash;a
+boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.
+A Greek play, the <em>Antigone</em>, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an
+early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the
+'seventies. <em>Punch's</em> spirits, however, had already revived somewhat
+when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden
+found the snuggest asylum near the New River"&mdash;at Sadler's Wells under
+the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,
+and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from
+England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the
+person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,
+according to <em>Punch</em>, confined to "elegant extracts."</p>
+
+<p>A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical
+programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the
+passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a
+description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic
+affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price
+came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially
+Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by
+four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets
+were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise
+has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not
+always popular, and when <em>Monte Cristo</em> was produced at Drury Lane in
+1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile
+demonstration.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Passing of Pantomimes</em></div>
+
+<p>Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are
+charged with extortion in demanding £60 a week, but it must be
+remembered that £60 was exactly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out
+of his most popular and successful play&mdash;<em>Black Eyed Susan</em>. Those
+simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be
+comforted to learn that as early as 1843 <em>Punch</em> deplores the triumph of
+scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he
+returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to
+be":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Pantomime's quite on the wane,</p>
+<p class="i2">Though vainly they try to enrich it,</p>
+<p class="i0">By calling, again and again,</p>
+<p class="i2">For "<em>Hot Codlins</em>" and "<em>Tippetywitchet</em>."</p>
+<p class="i0">The stealing of poultry by clown</p>
+<p class="i2">Has ceased irresistible sport to be,</p>
+<p class="i0">If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;</p>
+<p class="i2">Christmas is not what it ought to be.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long
+time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,
+have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The
+present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for
+harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque
+lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which
+it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in
+1852 led <em>Punch</em> to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the
+ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism
+or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved
+satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed
+to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was
+suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give
+entertainments. We may note that in 1853 <em>Punch</em> suggested that
+theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.
+is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted
+Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are
+constantly mentioned and in the main with good will.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> The feud with
+Charles Kean was kept up to the end; <em>Punch</em> speaks of his "touchiness,"
+and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was
+made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials
+stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,
+that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the
+father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful
+opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings
+from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his
+death in 1854, <em>Punch</em> paid him this graceful tribute:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He linked us with a past of scenic art,</p>
+<p class="i2">Larger and loftier than now is known;</p>
+<p class="i2">Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,</p>
+<p class="i0">Than when he played his part.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">But where shall we now find, upon our scene,</p>
+<p class="i2">The Gentleman in action, look and word,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,</p>
+<p class="i0">As polished and as keen?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:</p>
+<p class="i2">Look your last look: cover the brave old face:</p>
+<p class="i2">Kindly and gently bear him to his place&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Charles Kemble, fare thee well!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/i_288.png">
+<img src="images/i_288.png" width="300" alt="Caricature  of Italian tenor." /></a>
+<p class="center">LABLACHE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Reign of Italian Opera</em></div>
+
+<p>A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the
+absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,
+applauded, and criticized in the columns of <em>Punch</em>. We say Italian
+opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers
+and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,
+it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe
+in his <em>Reminiscences</em> mentions the visit of a German operatic company
+in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-<em>rôle</em> in Mendelssohn's
+<em>Elijah</em> when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by
+<em>Punch</em> as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's <em>Der Freischütz</em>
+was given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater
+lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable
+patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric
+Malibran&mdash;Spanish by race but Italian in training&mdash;died suddenly and
+tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage
+shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is
+mentioned in <em>Punch's</em> first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by
+that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple
+endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared
+by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these
+two decades were either Italians by birth&mdash;e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom
+<em>Punch</em> likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and
+Piccolomini&mdash;or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their
+association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez
+the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of
+Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty
+of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic
+basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,
+Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom <em>Punch</em> in 1852
+irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.
+<em>Punch</em> cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of
+<em>Nabucco</em> and the hectic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> sentimentality of <em>Traviata</em> and <em>Trovatore</em>
+possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with
+<em>Aïda</em> and culminated in <em>Otello</em> and <em>Falstaff</em>. Michael Costa was the
+conductor <em>par excellence</em>, who took outrageous liberties with scores,
+but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our
+debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed&mdash;though not by <em>Punch</em>&mdash;in the
+Latin tag: <em>Costam subduximus Apennino</em>. Balfe, it is true, had scored a
+resounding success in 1843 with <em>The Bohemian Girl</em>, which still holds
+the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The
+Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was
+at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. <em>Punch</em>
+supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that
+Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have
+made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane
+in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.
+The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted
+was the badness of the <em>libretti</em>. Italian opera <em>libretti</em> were often
+satirized by <em>Punch</em>, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the
+social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.
+The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for
+many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article
+which <em>Punch</em> reproduced from the <em>Morning Post</em> in 1843 with italics
+and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, <em>de
+facto</em>, as well as <em>de jure</em>, are, in their several different
+spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear
+an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the
+distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence
+<em>literary and artistical</em> (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and
+fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair
+tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits
+which do not consist in the delivery of a <em>piece of engraved
+postcard to a servant</em>. Charming <em>causeries</em> are constantly
+proceeding <em>sotto voce</em> (of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Jenkins listens), the music
+filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is
+interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers&mdash;with the more
+zest and piquancy <em>it is resumed</em>. We, whose office it is to record
+daily events&mdash;things as they are&mdash;and hold the <em>glass up to
+fashion</em> (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to
+imitate this course of things&mdash;and we do so with only one
+regret&mdash;that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the
+general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which
+have most piquancy."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Jenkins" as Musical Critic</em></div>
+
+<p>For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and
+unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,
+as may be gleaned from his notice of <em>Semiramide</em> in English in the
+winter of 1842:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of
+<em>Semiramide</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct
+attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way
+of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her
+sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and
+whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates
+the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the
+contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss
+Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!
+Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as
+Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of
+Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half
+are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and
+refined order."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also
+expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled
+under the heading "Persiani at Sea":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani&mdash;to cry
+<em>brava</em>&mdash;to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to
+receive the honeyed voice of a <em>prima donna</em>, and Doctor Wardrop
+throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth
+of our metaphor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Persiani continues to <em>suffer so severely from the effects<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching</em>, that it is
+impossible for her to appear this evening.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+"<span class="smcap">James Wardrop</span>, M.D."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>On this, says <em>The Times</em>, "the audience were at first disposed to
+grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming
+very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and
+had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,
+have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,
+in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_291.png">
+<img src="images/i_291.png" width="500" alt="Ballet chorus." /></a>
+<p class="center">THE SKATING BALLET</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the
+opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose
+engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to
+general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding
+attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this
+"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a
+slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were
+Taglioni&mdash;whose skirts were quite long&mdash;Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and
+Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the <em>prima donna</em>, a wonderful quartet on
+whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory
+epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in <em>Le
+Prophète</em>, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch
+in <em>Punch</em>, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance
+of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished
+and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all
+nineteenth century <em>prime donne</em>. Henriette Sontag, however, was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still
+handsome, though no longer in her first youth,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> a perfect singer, an
+incomparable <em>Susanna</em> (as <em>Punch</em> admitted), though lacking dramatic
+force&mdash;Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her
+<em>genre</em>, but that her <em>genre</em> was not the first.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Jenny Lind</div>
+
+<p>Great singers came and went but <em>Punch</em> never wavered in his allegiance
+to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is
+more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,
+and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,</p>
+<p class="i0">Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,</p>
+<p class="i0">For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,</p>
+<p class="i0">The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind&mdash;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,</p>
+<p class="i0">Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,</p>
+<p class="i0">In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,</p>
+<p class="i0">Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;</p>
+<p class="i0">And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,</p>
+<p class="i0">Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When her retirement was rumoured <em>Punch</em> declared that the Bishop of
+Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,
+because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris
+prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed
+there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was
+of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist
+Lumley, the unlucky <em>impresario</em>, then in difficulties, in response to
+appeals which were especially vehement in <em>Punch</em>. He asserted that her
+secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without
+making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary
+address from the composer of <em>Don Giovanni</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_293.png">
+<img src="images/i_293.png" width="400" alt="The singer with admiring fans'" /></a>
+<p class="center">TO JENNY LIND<br />
+FROM PUNCH<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,
+but Jenny Lind, in spite of <em>Punch's</em> repeated appeals, adhered to her
+decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 <em>Punch</em> still hoped she
+would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall
+in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if
+any sweetening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> process could purify the building it would be such
+singing as hers."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Popular Favourites in 1844</em></div>
+
+<p>In the early 'forties <em>Norma</em> was the opera most frequently mentioned.
+<em>Punch</em> published the stories of several of the most popular operas in
+verse. A fragment from <em>Linda di Chamouni</em> may suffice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar</p>
+<p class="i0">About the revenge of his cruel mamma,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,</p>
+<p class="i0">Resolves to another to get him united:</p>
+<p class="i0">He curses his fate in a charming <em>falsetto</em>,</p>
+<p class="i0">Gives way to despair in a <em>voce di petto</em>.</p>
+<p class="i0">And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,</p>
+<p class="i0">He calls out for death in a <em>voce di testa</em>:</p>
+<p class="i0">Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,</p>
+<p class="i0">And gives on <em>addio</em> a delicate shake.</p>
+<p class="i0">The passage is managed with exquisite skill;</p>
+<p class="i0">And Linda&mdash;acquainted with Mario's trill&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,</p>
+<p class="i0">Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Opera singers were great public favourites, but if <em>Punch</em> is to be
+believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of
+the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by
+Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway
+Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities
+of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the
+Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find
+Lablache&mdash;Stentor and male Siren in one&mdash;put first as a bird unrivalled
+for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can
+sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."
+<em>Punch</em> alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in
+undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to
+mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom
+Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into
+Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> the visitor explained
+"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am
+at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and
+elsewhere <em>Punch</em> happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:
+<em>ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat</em>. The notices of Grisi and
+Mario are worth transcribing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">"THE GRISI"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say
+the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for
+its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from
+what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be
+those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy
+its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or
+not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;
+for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even
+the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a
+kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but
+we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The
+kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is
+to be obtained at M. Verrey's.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">"THE MARIO"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient
+substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of
+quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter
+bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has
+acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"
+which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to
+such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him
+deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in
+the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our
+knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian
+singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty
+pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be
+required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.
+Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay
+so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as
+much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to
+music and sung at the Italian opera.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Musical Grab</em></div>
+
+<p>The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an
+earlier volume:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by
+Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the <em>Gazette Musicale</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and
+German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose
+of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over
+everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen
+on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they
+all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in
+England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much
+<em>ennui</em>."</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious
+mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will
+mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian
+<em>ennuyés</em>&mdash;and dispense for the future with their services.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a
+musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;
+Hungarian, French and other foreign <em>prime donne</em>; Strauss's band and
+Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a
+curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name
+Wagner to <em>Punch's</em> readers and indeed to the British public. It was not
+the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of
+considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously
+accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to
+protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say
+that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and <em>Punch</em> in
+his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to
+express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their
+contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as <em>Punch</em>
+called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing
+at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of
+the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left <em>Punch</em> not merely cold but
+pugnaciously antagonistic.</p>
+
+<p>The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared
+musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice
+headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in
+conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the
+music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as
+a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing
+gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "<em>allegro</em>"
+to "<em>moderato</em>"; "<em>andante</em>" to "<em>adagio</em>"; "<em>allegretto</em>" to
+"<em>andante</em>"; and "<em>allegro</em>" again to "<em>prestissimo</em>." Wagner would
+seem strongly to resemble his namesake in <em>Faust</em>, in the
+particular wherein that <em>Wagner</em> differs from his master&mdash;that is,
+in the circumstance of being no conjuror.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery
+Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is
+duly chronicled in <em>Punch</em>. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,
+a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great
+popularity in the <em>rôle</em> of the consumptive heroine of <em>La Traviata</em>,
+and <em>Punch</em> celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in
+the following travesty:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Art is long and time is fleeting,</p>
+<p class="i2">But of genius the soul,</p>
+<p class="i0">Ordinary talent beating,</p>
+<p class="i2">Reaches at one stride the goal.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">In the operatic battle,</p>
+<p class="i2">In the <em>Prima Donna's</em> life</p>
+<p class="i0">Quit the herd&mdash;the vocal cattle,</p>
+<p class="i2">Be a Grisi in the strife.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,</p>
+<p class="i2">Not who may be, but who are;</p>
+<p class="i0">Piccolomini at present,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is the bright particular star.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_298.png">
+<img src="images/i_298.png" width="250" alt="caricature of Jullien." /></a>
+<p class="center">JULLIEN'S DESPAIR</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jullien</em></div>
+
+<p>Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this
+volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as <em>Punch</em> is
+concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of
+<em>Punch</em>. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and
+generous recognition. And <em>Punch</em> was right, for underneath all his
+superficial buffooneries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The
+present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir
+Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's
+flamboyant attire&mdash;on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered
+with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree&mdash;and his
+habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging
+himself with a <em>beau geste</em> of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered
+armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said
+to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great
+genius like <em>you</em>, or a great charlatan like <em>me</em>." Now Jullien had been
+a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire&mdash;but so had Verdi at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he
+was "a <em>ci-devant</em> waiter of a <em>quarante-sous traiteur</em>." Of the
+charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote
+Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," <em>Punch</em> gives a
+graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first
+number:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">MONSIEUR JULLIEN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">"One!"&mdash;crash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Two!"&mdash;clash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Three!"&mdash;dash!</p>
+<p class="i8">"Four!"&mdash;smash!</p>
+<p class="i8">Diminuendo,</p>
+<p class="i8">Now crescendo:&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Thus play the furious band,</p>
+<p class="i0">Led by the kid-gloved hand</p>
+<p class="i0">Of Jullien&mdash;that Napoleon of quadrille,</p>
+<p class="i0">Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;</p>
+<p class="i8">Perspiring raver</p>
+<p class="i8">Over a semi-quaver;</p>
+<p class="i0">Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that</p>
+<p class="i0">The natural key of Johnny Bull's&mdash;A flat.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Arch-impudent <em>improver</em> of Beethoven&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Tricksy Professor of <em>charlatanerie</em>&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Inventor of musical artillery&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Barbarous rain and thunder maker&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Unconscionable money taker&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Travelling about both near and far,</p>
+<p class="i0">Toll to exact at every <em>bar</em>,</p>
+<p class="i2">What brings thee here again</p>
+<p class="i2">To desecrate old Drury's fane?</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">Egregious attitudiniser!</p>
+<p class="i2">Antic fifer! com'st to advise her</p>
+<p class="i0">'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?</p>
+<p class="i2">To raze her benches,</p>
+<p class="i2">That Gallic wenches</p>
+<p class="i0">Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_300.png">
+<img src="images/i_300.png" width="500" alt="Men in tall hats obstructing the view  for other patrons." /></a>
+<p class="center">"GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Early Promenade Concerts</em></div>
+
+<p>But when <em>Punch</em> assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and
+meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily
+serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> your hat on,
+<em>coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va</em>!!!"&mdash;<em>Punch</em> was both rude and ungenerous.
+From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade
+Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public
+waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also
+sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his
+musical <em>menu</em>. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing
+out <em>Stabat Mater</em> waltzes&mdash;by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's
+work&mdash;and a <em>Dead March</em> gallopade, we must never forget that he was the
+first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the
+authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at
+the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music
+strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of
+reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and <em>Punch</em>
+suggests in 1849 that his <em>Concerts Monstres</em> should be held on
+Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His
+<em>chevelure</em>, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to
+escape <em>Punch's</em> vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it
+should be so, for he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> master of the art of <em>réclame</em>. He is
+habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for
+"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The
+excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of
+the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of
+the notice of Jullien<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when
+he speaks of <em>Punch</em> as only ridiculing Jullien. Already <em>Punch</em> had
+learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his
+extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to
+his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"
+are in the main friendly. The <em>Almanack</em> for 1852 speaks of the "Julian
+(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera <em>Peter the Great</em> is tenderly
+handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his
+tour in the States, <em>Punch</em> sped the parting minstrel in some verses
+which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical
+education in England:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">FAREWELL TO JULLIEN</p>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Composer of <em>Peter the Great</em>,</p>
+<p class="i2">Ere over Atlantic's broad swell</p>
+<p class="i0">The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,</p>
+<p class="i2">Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs</p>
+<p class="i2">At first thou didst wisely begin,</p>
+<p class="i0">And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,</p>
+<p class="i2">As though 'twere to beat music in.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">With national measures of France,</p>
+<p class="i2">With polka, with waltz, and with jig,</p>
+<p class="i0">The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,</p>
+<p class="i2">As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Then, leading them on, by degrees,</p>
+<p class="i2">To a feeling for Genius and Art,</p>
+<p class="i0">Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,</p>
+<p class="i2">And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>John Hullah</em></div>
+
+<p>The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay
+aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he
+was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money
+difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856
+he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous
+venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no
+"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of
+1857, when <em>Punch</em> describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose
+eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I
+have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But
+things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien
+died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the
+age of forty-eight.</p>
+
+<p>Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom <em>Punch</em>
+recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at
+Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a
+fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no
+value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of
+"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of
+Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,
+who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well
+deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through
+his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in
+vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: <em>Punch</em> satirizes the
+prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title
+"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note
+the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and
+monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special
+effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes
+on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a
+fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads
+were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The
+concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the
+remarkable performances of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Italian <em>virtuoso</em> Giulio Regondi, but
+is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that
+the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.
+Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry
+out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark <em>nobilmente</em> on the
+concertina. With regard to fashionable music <em>Punch</em> complains in 1849
+that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only
+anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.</p><br /><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_303.png">
+<img src="images/i_303.png" width="500" alt="A crowded concert room." /></a>
+<p class="center">MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849<br />
+A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_304.png">
+<img src="images/i_304.png" width="500" alt="Male singer with female pianist." /></a>
+<p class="center">TASTE IN 1854&mdash;VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE
+DRAWING-ROOM</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Lady</span> (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low
+enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Taste in Music</em></div>
+
+<p>Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under
+the head of opera. <em>Punch</em> had the root of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> matter in him but was
+lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a
+critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable <em>portamento</em>." He
+was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling
+Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in
+1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the
+<em>Eroica</em> Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his
+censure, as the <em>Eroica</em> and C minor Symphonies were performed without
+being cut in two. <em>Punch</em> had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but
+he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of
+Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> names
+of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of <em>Punch</em> in
+this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the
+fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of
+Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the
+most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most
+fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.
+<em>Punch</em> does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the
+greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of
+a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of
+waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese
+waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss
+has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an
+enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable
+Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that
+conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of
+the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an
+autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the
+public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since
+been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no
+reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or
+official recognition.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Turner as Painter and Poet</em></div>
+
+<p>The low opinion which <em>Punch</em> entertained of contemporary architects and
+sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a
+monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.
+He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have
+recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in
+advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for
+the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the
+adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the
+execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the
+position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a
+judge of painting and painters <em>Punch</em> showed greater independence,
+intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references
+to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> of
+established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the
+autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's
+"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and
+avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his
+representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his
+"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find
+the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.
+<em>Punch</em>, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet
+might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we
+read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>No. 77 is called <em>Whalers</em>, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies
+one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster
+salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his
+pictures <em>Whalers</em>, or <em>Venice</em>, or <em>Morning</em>, or <em>Noon</em>, or
+<em>Night</em>, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it
+one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated
+artist.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/i_306b.png">
+<img src="images/i_306b.png" width="350" alt="Signed sketch by J. M. W. Turner, R.A." /></a>
+<p class="center">VENICE BY GASLIGHT  GOING TO THE BALL</p>
+<p class="center">MS. "Fallacies of Hope"<br /> (An Unpublished Poem).&mdash;<span class="smcap">Turner.</span></p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/i_306a.png">
+<img src="images/i_306a.png" width="350" alt="Signed sketch by J. M. W. Turner, R.A." /></a>
+<p class="center">VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,&mdash;RETURNING FROM THE BALL</p>
+<p class="center">MS. "Fallacies of Hope"<br /> (An Unpublished Poem).&mdash;<span class="smcap">Turner.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his
+celebrated MS. poem, the <em>Fallacies of Hope</em>, to which he
+constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he
+has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without
+troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to
+his <em>Morning&mdash;returning from the Ball</em>, which really seems to need
+a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the
+<em>Fallacies of Hope</em>, we will quote it for him:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem w30"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">"Oh! what a scene!&mdash;Can this be Venice? No.</p>
+<p class="i0">And yet methinks it is&mdash;because I see</p>
+<p class="i0">Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,</p>
+<p class="i0">Something which looks like a Venetian spire.</p>
+<p class="i0">That dash of orange in the background there</p>
+<p class="i0">Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat</p>
+<p class="i0">(Almost the colour of tomato sauce)</p>
+<p class="i0">Proclaims them now returning from the ball!</p>
+<p class="i0">This in my picture, I would fain convey,</p>
+<p class="i0">I hope I do. Alas! <em>what</em> FALLACY!"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an
+article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">GENERAL MAXIMS</p>
+
+<p>I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous
+education.</p>
+
+<p>II. The critic is greater than the artist.</p>
+
+<p>III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is
+to inform him of it.</p>
+
+<p>IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,
+like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the
+vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the
+rules of which it does not recognise.</p>
+
+<p>V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in
+preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity
+must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good
+or bad.</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Rules for Art Critics</em></div>
+
+<p>1. <em>To criticise a Picture by Turner.</em>&mdash;Begin by protesting against
+his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such
+phrases as "<em>bathed in sunlight</em>," "<em>flooded with summer glories</em>,"
+"<em>mellow distance</em>," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and
+wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.</p>
+
+<p>2. <em>To criticise a Picture by Stanfield.</em>&mdash;Begin by unqualified
+praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "<em>sharp,
+hard outline</em>"; then of "<em>leathery texture</em>"; then of "<em>scenic
+effect of the figures</em>"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a
+scene painter.</p>
+
+<p>3. <em>To criticise a Picture by Etty.</em>&mdash;Begin by delirious
+satisfaction with his "<em>delicious carnations</em>" and "<em>mellow
+flesh-tones</em>." Remark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> on the skilful arrangement of colour and
+admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should
+content himself with merely painting from "<em>the nude Academy
+model</em>," without troubling himself with that for which you had just
+before praised him.&mdash;N.B. Never mind the contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>4. <em>To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer.</em>&mdash;Here you are bound to
+unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or
+the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is
+expected.</p>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar
+directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.</p>
+
+<p>He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The "<em>facile princeps</em>" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)
+has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's <em>Gregory and
+Choristers</em>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is a want of <em>modulative melody</em> in its colours and
+mellowness in <em>its hand</em> (whose?), pushed to an <em>outré</em> simplicity
+in <em>the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> plainness and ungrammatical development of its general
+effect</em>. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery
+occasionally too square and inflexible."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_308.png">
+<img src="images/i_308.png" width="400" alt="Scene in an art gallery" /></a>
+<p class="center">MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF Y<sup>E</sup> ENGLYSHE IN 1849<br />
+Y<sup>E</sup> EXHYBITYON. AT Y<sup>E</sup> ROYAL ACADEMYE.</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,
+where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a
+frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period&mdash;note for
+example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense
+contemporary pictures were roughly handled by <em>Punch</em>. Thus in 1849 he
+puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old
+Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of
+clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.
+Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling
+one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few
+cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and
+the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too
+plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same complaint recurs in the following year, when <em>Punch</em> is moved,
+as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain
+questions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Is painting a living art in England at this moment?</p>
+
+<p>Is there a nineteenth century?</p>
+
+<p>Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?</p>
+
+<p>Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,
+their actions, passions and sufferings?</p>
+
+<p>If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living
+events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so
+unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and
+beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the
+Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the
+Third, or George the Second?</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_310.png">
+<img src="images/i_310.png" width="300" alt="Standing nun." /></a>
+<p class="center">CONVENT THOUGHTS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The P.R.B.</em></div>
+
+<p>But much more interesting than these generalities&mdash;sound and sensible
+though they are&mdash;is the first reference to "certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> young friends of
+mine, calling themselves&mdash;the dear silly boys&mdash;Pre-Raphaelites" in the
+same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier
+criticisms of the P.R.B.'s <em>Mr. Punch</em> managed to dissemble his
+affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of
+1851 is largely discounted by what follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve
+especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to
+tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.
+Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against <em>The Times</em>
+on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. <em>are</em> true, and that's
+the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of
+Collins's representation of the <em>Alisma Plantago</em>, <em>except</em> the
+unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size
+of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of
+brains&mdash;while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,
+he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a
+figure in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Millais's "<em>Mariana</em> in the moated Grange" is obviously meant
+to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't
+come&mdash;and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's
+description:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0"><em>then said she, "I am very dreary."</em></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet
+robe, it is impossible to conceive.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_311.png">
+<img src="images/i_311.png" width="300" alt="Lady standing before a window." /></a>
+<p class="center">MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>But Punch <em>makes</em> the <em>amende</em> most handsomely in 1852:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Commercialism in Art</em></div>
+
+<p>Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour
+that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> those
+two pictures [<em>Ophelia</em> and <em>The Huguenot</em>] I find more loving
+observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her
+forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest
+poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a
+point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate
+expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of
+canvas put together.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1852 <em>Punch</em> singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes
+and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous
+chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had
+no other name than <em>bottega</em>&mdash;in English, shop; and moreover, it is
+an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one
+demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a
+trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims&mdash;with
+vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and
+frivolity&mdash;no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with
+the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the
+perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of
+great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the
+beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in
+ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display
+of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many
+is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,
+is sure to please."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of
+Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of
+<em>Punch's</em> altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his
+palinode in 1853:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my
+honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young
+gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and
+deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.
+Millais's historical romance of <em>The Huguenot</em>, last year? I am
+sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly
+papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be
+breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in <em>The Times</em>,
+and the <em>Morning Post</em>, and the <em>Examiner</em>. But I am a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is
+serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no
+character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly&mdash;not forgetting Edwin
+Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, <em>Night and
+Morning by the Lochside</em>, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the
+Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with
+his ship for bier&mdash;not forgetting these and other picture-books
+well worth reading&mdash;I tell you that Hunt's <em>Claudio and Isabella</em>
+is to me <em>the</em> book of the collection, though it records in colours
+what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all
+after it, comes Millais's <em>Order of Release</em>, and then the <em>Strayed
+Sheep</em> and <em>Proscribed Royalist</em> of the same authors. I do not mean
+to put either after the other, so I bracket them."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s <em>Punch</em> shows all the zeal
+of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse
+published shortly afterwards:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it
+has to reflect.</p>
+
+<p>See what follows.</p>
+
+<p>If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public
+halls and palaces, they must be small.</p>
+
+<p>Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close
+eye, must be highly finished.</p>
+
+<p>These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect
+the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the
+Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for
+which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely
+recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>What have they recognised besides?</p>
+
+<p>That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must
+be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of
+earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be
+rendered&mdash;the more truthfully the better&mdash;and that the most
+accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning
+work&mdash;the creation of the central interest which sums itself in
+human expression.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the
+possibility of combining these two things&mdash;human expression and
+accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young
+men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this&mdash;at
+least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,
+and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling
+and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+further than might be expected from such beardless champions&mdash;it
+has already succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they
+have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have
+still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father
+before them went through&mdash;devils of their own creating to hurl
+their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and
+confute, and put to shame&mdash;by trust in their gospel truth that
+Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enthusiasm of a Convert</div>
+
+<p>It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English
+artists in 1855, <em>Punch</em> complained that the newer school, i.e. the
+P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as
+Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of <em>Punch's</em> artistic and
+aesthetic <em>flair</em> and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he
+had expressed high praise for Frith's <em>Ramsgate Sands</em> (which was bought
+by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him
+for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait
+Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile
+"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of
+"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern
+and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the
+musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.</p>
+
+<p>With all deductions and limitations <em>Punch's</em> record as a critic of the
+fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"
+"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister
+immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one
+of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).
+After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died
+in 1852.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and
+was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the
+Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these
+great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's
+genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more
+than a passing word of grateful recognition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,
+though he appears in Larousse.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PERSONALITIES" id="PERSONALITIES"></a>PERSONALITIES</h2>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, <em>Punch</em>
+enumerates his special <em>bêtes noires</em> as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy
+and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list
+would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,
+notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is
+much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen
+and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in
+the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who
+sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,
+all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar
+Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord
+Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all
+City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi
+(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was
+Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,
+together with Railway Directors, Hom&oelig;opathists and Protectionists.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_316.png">
+<img src="images/i_316.png" width="300" alt="As caption." /></a>
+<p class="center">PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity
+may be noted <em>Punch's</em> list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious
+suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the
+misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.
+Of some of <em>Punch's</em> butts it may be said that they were rescued from
+oblivion by his satire and caricature&mdash;Sibthorp for example, though he
+was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in <em>Punch</em>.
+He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of
+Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was
+frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> witty, and as truculently courageous as <em>Punch</em> himself. Sir
+Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to <em>Punch</em> for
+all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City
+administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter
+throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social
+advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But
+the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.
+<em>Punch</em> was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or
+discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that
+he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard
+to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already
+<em>Punch</em> had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in
+politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton
+as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,
+ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work
+again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,
+but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was
+so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,
+<em>Punch</em> was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a
+really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal
+throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and
+grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six
+months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, <em>Punch</em> only
+jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real
+"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude
+towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and
+his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence
+imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later
+'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above
+in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from
+their pinnacles when <em>Punch</em> the peace-loving Free Trader developed in
+the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the
+contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry
+reparation for continual abuse of the living, and <em>Punch's</em> treatment of
+Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In <em>Punch's</em> early
+volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the
+Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of
+Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and
+there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,
+in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of
+temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_318.png">
+<img src="images/i_318.png" width="400" alt="Caricature" /></a>
+<p class="center">THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch's" Injustice to Peel</em></div>
+
+<p>If "Jenkins" was <em>Punch's</em> "chief butler"&mdash;in the sense of the supreme
+flunkey&mdash;Lord Brougham was his chief butt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> throughout these years. And
+certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played
+better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal
+sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as
+regularly in <em>Punch's</em> portraits as the straw in Palmerston's
+mouth&mdash;which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"
+acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from
+his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been
+Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in <em>Punch</em> appears in the
+composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors
+ascribes to <em>Punch</em> his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for
+"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the
+moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and
+furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements
+of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed
+trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to
+the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,
+with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,
+craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the
+Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings
+for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word
+Competition) we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem w26"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">If people may, without rebuke,</p>
+<p class="i0">Call Wellington the "Iron&mdash;&mdash;,"</p>
+<p class="i0">Why then we safely may presume</p>
+<p class="i0">The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_320.png">
+<img src="images/i_320.png" width="600" alt="Caricature with Mr. Punch and politicians." /></a>
+<p class="center">QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS</p><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in
+his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic <em>Punch</em>, who in 1849
+was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky
+and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But <em>Punch's</em>
+hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which
+represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago
+of inconsistencies which composed the mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> of one who was at once a
+charlatan and encyclopædist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year
+<em>Punch</em> suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of
+the erotic and learned lord,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem w36"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of
+1851 excited <em>Punch's</em> wrath, when he himself had become converted to
+the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the
+turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America
+in 1850, when <em>Punch</em> printed the following unofficial letter of
+introduction to the President of the United States:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>To General Taylor, President of the United States,</p>
+
+<p>Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Taylor,</p>
+
+<p>"I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend
+<em>Brougham</em>&mdash;the <em>Brougham</em> whose fame is <em>not</em> European but
+world-wide&mdash;personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,
+he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked
+like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has
+cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp
+attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look
+around every attorney's office; and you will <em>not</em> see Brougham's
+picture."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Punch</em> had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian
+cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the
+following graceful verses printed in 1851:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">A PALINODE<br />
+From <em>Punch</em> to Henry Brougham<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Palinode to Brougham</em></div>
+
+<p>"During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost
+difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,
+attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten
+days the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the
+hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his
+life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found
+he could struggle no more."&mdash;<em>Lord Brougham's last speech on Law
+Reform in the House of Lords.</em></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem w32"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?</p>
+<p class="i2">Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?</p>
+<p class="i0">Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,</p>
+<p class="i2">Our ten long years of all but weekly war,</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Let <em>Punch</em> hold out to you a friendly hand,</p>
+<p class="i2">And speak what haply he had left unspoken</p>
+<p class="i0">Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,</p>
+<p class="i2">That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Forgot the changes of thy later years,</p>
+<p class="i2">No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,</p>
+<p class="i0">Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue</p>
+<p class="i2">Lashed into infamy and endless scorn</p>
+<p class="i0">The wretches who their blackening scandal flung</p>
+<p class="i2">Upon a Queen&mdash;of women most forlorn.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">He knows the lover of his kind, who stood</p>
+<p class="i2">Chief of the banded few who dared to brave</p>
+<p class="i0">The accursed traffickers in negro blood,</p>
+<p class="i2">And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Statesman who, in a less happy hour</p>
+<p class="i2">Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,</p>
+<p class="i0">And gave the keys of knowledge and of power</p>
+<p class="i2">With equal hand alike to high and low;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,</p>
+<p class="i2">Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:</p>
+<p class="i0">The Chancellor who settled century's claims,</p>
+<p class="i2">And swept an age's dense arrears away;</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">The man whose name men read even as they run,</p>
+<p class="i2">On every landmark the world's course along,</p>
+<p class="i0">That speaks to us of a great battle won</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+<p class="i2">Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">Remembering this, full sad I am to hear</p>
+<p class="i2">That voice which loudest in the combat rung</p>
+<p class="i0">Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,</p>
+<p class="i2">To see that arm of battle all unstrung.</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i0">And so, even as a warrior after fight</p>
+<p class="i2">Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,</p>
+<p class="i0">I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,</p>
+<p class="i2">And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,
+the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal
+reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his
+disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown
+and lived for seventeen years longer&mdash;years crowded with multifarious
+activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique
+figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors
+are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to
+avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,
+vituperation, and vulgarity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in
+respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first
+place amongst <em>Punch's</em> pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up
+any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive
+picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was
+"always in trouble." The predominating cause of <em>Punch's</em> resentment was
+the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably
+that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in
+<em>Punch's</em> view: <em>nihil tetigit quod non f&oelig;davit</em>. Peter Borthwick,
+the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,
+and editor of the <em>Morning Post</em> from 1850 till his death in 1852, was
+no favourite of <em>Punch</em>. He was, however, as the date shows, not
+editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick
+clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married
+couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when
+they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+heresies that <em>Punch</em> granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for
+this good act." <em>Punch's</em> antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they
+were united in their Russophobia. But <em>Punch</em> was often intolerant of
+competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i_324.png">
+<img src="images/i_324.png" width="300" alt="MIiss Nightgale with wounded soldier." /></a>
+<p class="center">MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>"Punch" Designs a Statue</em></div>
+
+<p>If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and
+favourites, <em>Punch</em> emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most
+of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> and the list<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>
+might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of
+Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;
+Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William
+Russell, of whose lectures <em>Punch</em> wrote an enthusiastic and
+well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of
+Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative
+classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on
+William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made
+a K.C.B. in 1860.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume.</em><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Printed by<br />
+Cassell &amp; Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,<br />
+London, E.C.4</span><br />
+<br />
+F.100.521<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England,
+Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10188 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol.
+I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857
+
+Author: Charles L. Graves
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2013 [EBook #44267]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Neville Allen, Chris Curnow and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
+been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
+underscores: _italics_.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE RECONCILIATION:
+
+OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE
+
+Reproduced from the cartoon in _Punch_, 15th March, 1845.]
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+By
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES
+
+IN FOUR VOLUMES
+
+VOL. I.--1841-1857
+
+  CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
+  London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
+  1921
+
+_Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
+limitations. The files of _Punch_ have been generally admitted to be a
+valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
+the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
+use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that _Punch_ has always
+been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
+his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
+especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
+second. For pictures of provincial society--such, for example, as that
+given in _Cranford_ or in the novels of Trollope--or of life in
+Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
+outside _Punch_. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
+part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
+his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
+is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
+subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
+_Punch_, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
+to Victorian writers in general by a writer in _Blackwood_ holds good:
+"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
+voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
+was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
+They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
+self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
+at all costs." In the 'forties _Punch_ doubled the roles of jester and
+political pamphleteer, and in the latter capacity indulged in a great
+deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
+moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
+Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
+somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
+volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
+with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
+any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
+views expressed in _Punch_.
+
+My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
+altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
+after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
+honourable phase of _Punch's_ history, his championship of the poor and
+oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
+Nations"--the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
+of Disraeli's _Sybil_, and which I have chosen as the title for the
+first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
+at any time without reference to the political background would be
+difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on _Punch_
+in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
+redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of _Punch's_
+London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
+contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
+slums on the other.
+
+No attempt has been made to represent _Punch_ as infallible whether as a
+recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
+cruel--notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
+the "No Popery" crusade--though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
+the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
+majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous tributes. As
+for the gradual cooling of _Punch's_ democratic ardour, that may be
+attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
+and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
+follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
+grow older. The great value of _Punch_ resides in the fact that it
+provides us with a history of the Victorians _written by themselves_.
+This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
+painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
+hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
+mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
+mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
+has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
+or correct the statements or judgments recorded in _Punch_.
+Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
+the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
+the _Dictionary of National Biography_; to the _New English Dictionary_;
+to _The Political History of England_, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
+Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_;
+and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
+Mr. M. H. Spielmann's _History of Punch_.
+
+The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
+encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
+director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
+Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
+research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
+assistant librarian of the Athenaeum Club.
+
+CHARLES L. GRAVES.
+
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+CHARTISM
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+EDUCATION
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+THE COURT
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+SOCIETY-EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+THE TWO NATIONS
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
+
+    O! fair and fresh the early spring
+      Her budding wreath displays,
+    To all the wide earth promising
+      The joy of harvest days;
+    Yet many a waste of wavy gold
+      Hath bent above the dead;
+    Then let the living share it too--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+    Of old a nation's cry shook down
+      The sword-defying wall,
+    And ours may reach the mercy-seat,
+      Though not the lordly hall.
+    God of the Corn! shall man restrain
+      Thy blessings freely shed?
+    O! look upon the isles at last--
+      Give us our daily bread.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Founders of "Punch"_]
+
+It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the
+Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of _Punch_, should
+begin with the People. For _Punch_ began as a radical and democratic
+paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,
+and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry
+'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of
+jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts us on every page
+was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and
+wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be
+said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry
+Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was
+"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which
+takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the
+_Morning Chronicle_ and his elaborate work on _London Labour and the
+London Poor_, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of
+twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His
+versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the
+_Athenaeum_ observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a
+scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an
+outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the
+original staff was Gilbert a Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary
+amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on _The Times_,
+comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan
+Magistrate. It was a Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the
+Andover Union--pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of
+the best ever presented to Parliament--that led to important alterations
+in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,
+his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's
+references to "a Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on
+his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the
+journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert
+a Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a
+daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the
+highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness
+of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who
+died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and
+impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is
+chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and
+ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist
+and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long
+champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert a Beckett and Henry
+Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.
+Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education
+was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the
+Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of
+the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh
+discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either
+Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,
+and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to
+militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King
+business" generally--always excepting Constitutional Monarchy--was so
+pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him
+into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from
+the temper of _Punch_ in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness
+as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter
+criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden
+and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties
+Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of
+enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade
+movement, and they had been supported by _Punch_ in the campaign against
+the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of _Punch's_ attacks
+on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,
+the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He
+might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of
+the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed
+"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,
+the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are
+as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs
+should not have the best of it.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND
+
+(The Hungry 'Forties)]
+
+Biographies of the _Punch_ staff do not fall within the scope of this
+chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the
+men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential
+to a proper understanding of its influence on public opinion. They were
+humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had
+abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke
+of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the
+only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was
+quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a
+heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the
+ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up
+their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered
+by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later
+Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the
+present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the
+manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make
+instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise
+means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until
+such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory
+morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last
+few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of
+every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this
+vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday
+night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful
+imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the
+well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the
+instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a
+full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a
+year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly
+ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which
+prompted _Punch_ to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,
+and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer
+in the _Examiner_ so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the
+sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,
+according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and
+make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is an old story; as
+old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate
+clothed with sackcloth." _Punch_ never wearied of bringing home to his
+readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were
+crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the
+Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The
+amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than
+three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the
+poor. _The Times_ of December 2, 1841, quoted from the _Sporting
+Magazine_ an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince
+Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs--sleeping beds, compartments
+paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;
+and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the
+building--and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron
+and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was
+small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one
+time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut
+out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six
+young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the
+same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they
+complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they
+would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the
+latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic
+journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month
+after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same
+issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the
+Lord Mayor's dinner:--
+
+    Oh, men of Paisley--good folks of Bolton--what promise for ye is
+    here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,
+    Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,
+    brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches
+    at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in
+    the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that
+    Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord
+    Mayor's table!
+
+[Sidenote: _Fleshpots and Famine_]
+
+When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, _Punch_
+boldly suggested Lazarus:--
+
+    Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit
+    upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall
+    heal the wounds of wretchedness--shall gather bloodless laurels in
+    the hospital and workhouse--his ermine and purple shall make
+    fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey--he shall be a king enthroned
+    and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!
+
+    LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the
+    wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very
+    syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,
+    there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the
+    beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed--tatters are
+    invested with regality--man in his most abject and hopeless
+    condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the
+    earth--royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the
+    embrace of fraternity.
+
+    O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and
+    cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you
+    can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"
+
+In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in _Punch_, in which the cry
+of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from
+"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short
+poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the
+lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:--
+
+    Disease and want are sitting by my hearth--
+      The world hath left me nothing of its good!
+    The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,
+      And yet I am alone and wanting food.
+    The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth
+      Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE
+    Who gave the mighty universe its birth
+      Would never love the wild bird more than me.
+
+_Punch_ had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,
+as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great
+Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who
+offered evil counsel, but the Chartists themselves had a degree of
+intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of
+public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of
+dissentients:--
+
+    There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians--men keenly
+    alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to
+    the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to
+    Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances--that it
+    prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary
+    measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a
+    little it is necessary to ask a great deal?
+
+    We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its
+    army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the
+    Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and
+    spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has
+    been added--and well added--that property has also its duties. To
+    these let us subjoin--property has also its cowardice.
+
+Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural
+labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many
+disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of
+the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence
+of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:--
+
+    I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and
+    keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost
+    destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for
+    a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with
+    the wife hungry--almost crying with hunger--and in rags, _yet the
+    floor was perfectly clean_. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on
+    the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,
+    but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his
+    wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the
+    room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William
+    Benton--"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't
+    know justly--mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;
+    can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is
+    of the Baptist school religion, _whatever that is_. Never heard of
+    Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who
+    Jesus Christ was--he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to
+    school if he could...."
+
+    You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen
+    a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a
+    violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea
+    of a green field was derived from _having been stung by a nettle_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Song of the Shirt_]
+
+The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions
+of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England
+suggested to _Punch_ an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of
+the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,
+etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined
+being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the
+cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and
+_Punch_ was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor
+widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up
+for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a
+week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which
+paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest
+poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of
+Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all
+the other contributions to insignificance:--
+
+THE SONG OF THE SHIRT
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
+      She sang the "Song of the Shirt."
+
+    "Work! work! work!
+      While the cock is crowing aloof!
+    And work--work--work,
+      Till the stars shine through the roof!
+    It's O! to be a slave
+      Along with the barbarous Turk,
+    Where woman has never a soul to save,
+      If this is Christian work!
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      Till the brain begins to swim;
+    Work--work--work
+      Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
+    Seam and gusset and band,
+      Band and gusset and seam,
+    Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
+      And sew them on in a dream!
+
+    "O men, with sisters dear!
+      O men, with mothers and wives!
+    It is not linen you're wearing out,
+      But human creatures' lives!
+    Stitch--stitch--stitch,
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    Sewing at once, with a double thread,
+      A shroud as well as a shirt.
+
+    "But why do I talk of Death,
+      That phantom of grisly bone?
+    I hardly fear his terrible shape,
+      It seems so like my own--
+      It seems so like my own,
+      Because of the fasts I keep;
+    Oh God, that bread should be so dear,
+      And flesh and blood so cheap!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      My labour never flags;
+    And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
+      A crust of bread--and rags.
+    That shatter'd roof--and this naked floor--
+      A table--a broken chair--
+    And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
+    For sometimes falling there!
+
+    "Work--work--work!
+      From weary chime to chime,
+    Work--work--work--
+      As prisoners work for crime!
+    Band and gusset and seam,
+      Seam and gusset and band,
+    Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,
+      As well as the weary hand.
+
+    "Work--work--work
+      In the dull December light,
+    And work--work--work
+      When the weather is warm and bright;
+    While underneath the eaves
+      The brooding swallows cling
+    As if to show me their sunny backs
+      And twit me with the spring.
+
+    "Oh! but to breathe the breath
+      Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--
+    With the sky above my head,
+      And the grass beneath my feet;
+    For only one short hour
+      To feel as I used to feel,
+    Before I knew the woes of want
+      And the walk that costs a meal!
+
+    "Oh, but for one short hour!
+      A respite however brief;
+    No blessed leisure for love or hope,
+      But only time for grief!
+    A little weeping would ease my heart,
+      But in their briny bed
+    My tears must stop, for every drop
+     Hinders needle and thread!"
+
+    With fingers weary and worn,
+      With eyelids heavy and red,
+    A woman sat in unwomanly rags
+      Plying her needle and thread--
+    Stitch! stitch! stitch!
+      In poverty, hunger and dirt,
+    And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
+      Would that its tone could reach the rich!
+    She sang this "Song of the Shirt."
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir Robert Peel and Hood_]
+
+[Illustration: PIN MONEY]
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLE MONEY]
+
+The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann
+in his _History of "Punch"._ Mark Lemon proved himself a great editor
+by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his
+colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by
+his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the
+poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's
+correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,
+received scant justice from _Punch_. Though the impact of Hood's burning
+verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year
+later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel
+wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him
+a pension. "I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am
+fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the
+disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in
+recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked
+in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his
+personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's
+health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt
+assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel
+sent the L100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with
+all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.
+He could write no more, though he had wished to write one more paper.
+Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were
+seventy-five years ago:--
+
+    Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far
+    asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer
+    by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and
+    place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one
+    side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the
+    last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not
+    a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for
+    the benefit of my beloved country.
+
+Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than
+seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and _Punch_ was
+moved to ask:--
+
+    If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,
+      If monuments adorn his place of sleep
+    Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,
+      And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,
+
+    Did _he_ not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?
+      Was not _his_ voice loud for the worker's right?
+    Was _he_ not potent to arrest the slaughters
+      Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?
+
+Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song
+of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her
+death a year later. A sum of L800, collected by public subscription, was
+all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then
+Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their
+benefit, at a time when, as _Punch_ reminded him, the Duchess of
+Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of L1,000
+a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not
+end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year _Punch_ was
+moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for
+embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning
+the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap Shirt
+Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid
+2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 21/2d. apiece, and on these
+earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As
+late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.
+a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage
+gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers
+here were "out of place," _Punch_ retorted with the bitter jibe: "What
+has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"
+
+[Sidenote: _The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea_]
+
+No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant
+feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate
+who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge
+brought against a man earning 7s. a week--the common rate at the time
+for agricultural labourers--stated from the Bench that he knew of good
+hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.
+Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and
+salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of
+Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre
+fare by the use of curry powder,[1] a suggestion that recalls the
+historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on
+hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"
+_Punch_ dealt faithfully with this ducal _gaffe_ under the heading, "A
+Real Blessing to Landlords":--
+
+    The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by
+    the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for
+    bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the
+    empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to
+    relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from
+    living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede
+    potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of
+    gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal
+    to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their
+    rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile
+    labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost
+    entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.
+    Agricultural societies supplied.
+
+    N.B.--A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.
+
+[Footnote 1: For the actual speech of the Duke see the _Examiner_ for
+1845, p. 786.]
+
+In these years the Dukes were constantly in _Mr. Punch's_ pillory; the
+Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in
+connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham
+for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for
+killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for
+prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;
+the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules
+enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into
+sheep-walks, which suggested to _Punch_ that he should be dignified with
+the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that
+agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking
+the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen
+Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and
+censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch
+with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words
+reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845
+_Punch_ made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had
+arrived:--
+
+    _The Times_ says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go
+    and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for
+    governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great
+    thoroughfare of civilisation--he should be quietly and respectfully
+    eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him--in
+    history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Harsh Sentences on Children_]
+
+Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the
+Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the
+treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to _Punch's_
+reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from _The Times_ and many
+provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing
+a leveret; the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a
+faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and
+twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field
+through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol
+for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;
+a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.
+6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,
+had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday--which
+reminds _Punch_ of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in
+Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man
+"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,
+because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the
+case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not
+solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,
+sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing 1/2lb. of
+butter. Small wonder is it that _Punch_ was a fervent and convinced
+anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble
+itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools
+for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine
+or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went
+to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were
+punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;
+fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by
+a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the
+penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find _Punch_
+tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping
+wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick
+Burner." _Facit indignatio versum_: here is the picture of "The Fine Old
+English Gentleman of the Present Time"--in the middle of the Hungry
+'Forties:--
+
+    I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,
+    Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,
+    But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.
+    Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,
+      Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,
+    And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,
+    He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;
+    For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,
+      Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.
+
+Here is the portrait of the pauper:--
+
+    Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,
+      A ragged wretch am I!
+    And how, and when, and where I can,
+      I feed, and lodge, and lie.
+    And I must to the workhouse go,
+      _If_ better may not be;
+    Ay, _if_, indeed! The workhouse! No!
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There shall I get the larger crust,
+      The warmer house-room there;
+    And choose a prison since I must,
+      I'll choose it for its fare.
+    The dog will snatch the biggest bone,
+      So much the wiser he:
+    Call me a dog--the name I'll own--
+      The gaol--the gaol for me.
+
+The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in
+Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well
+justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the
+Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,
+and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were
+returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the
+humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich
+workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved _Punch_ to
+indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough
+to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the
+management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates were fed
+at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were
+not allowed to see the pantomime _Jack and the Beanstalk_. Owing to the
+intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were
+actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a
+Bath-brick" _Punch_ dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best
+style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of
+the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the
+workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the
+ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":--
+
+    A fig for honest occupation,
+      Beggary's an easier trade;
+    Industry is mere starvation,
+      Mendicancy's better paid.
+
+[Sidenote: _Bigamy or Divorce?_]
+
+In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws _Punch_ never
+ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better
+remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice
+Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, _Punch_ hardly rendered
+justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:--
+
+WAGGERY OF THE BENCH
+
+    One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a
+    bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one
+    of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for
+    such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice
+    Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his
+    pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a
+    gravity of face worthy of the original _Billy Lackaday_, "that the
+    law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was _equally
+    open for him_, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way
+    that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if
+    Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have
+    both the same papillary organs--a dignifying truth for the outcast
+    wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his
+    pleasantry:
+
+    "He (Rollins) _should have brought an action_ against the man who
+    was living in the way stated with his wife, and _he should have
+    obtained damages_, and then _should have gone to the Ecclesiastical
+    Court_ and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to
+    have been done already, _and then he should have gone to the House
+    of Lords_, and, proving all his case and the preliminary
+    proceedings, _have obtained a full and complete divorce_; after
+    which he might, if he liked it, have married again."
+
+There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,
+earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the
+pauper from court to court--tarry with him awhile in the House of
+Lords--and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a
+sustained spirit of drollery, observes:
+
+    "The prisoner _might perhaps object to this_, that he had not the
+    money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about L500 or
+    L600--_perhaps he had not so many pence_--but this did not exempt
+    him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he
+    had been convicted."
+
+Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for
+marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about L500 or
+L600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.
+In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.
+Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom
+God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these
+words, "_Unless paid about L500 or L600 to separate them_."
+
+_Punch_, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to
+resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by
+those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted
+to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.
+But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that _Punch_
+recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a
+sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."
+
+Against the Game Laws and their administration _Punch_ waged a
+continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by
+game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the
+expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and
+amongst his idols were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold
+peasantry" as their constant victims.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Labourer_]
+
+The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet
+in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly
+handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps
+the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to
+be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer
+of 1848:--
+
+    He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from
+    twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he
+    calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has
+    only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church
+    regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits
+    outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,
+    or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer
+    and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas
+    or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,
+    by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work
+    by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him
+    discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He
+    believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest
+    Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them
+    the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad
+    seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn
+    Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for
+    rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his
+    cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by
+    some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows
+    absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not
+    trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his
+    landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"
+    wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any
+    farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial
+    Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy
+    tenants, shouts, sings, dances--any mockery or absurdity, to please
+    his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his
+    greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.
+    His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his
+    wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual
+    Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his
+    master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles
+    on, existing rather than living, infinitely worse fed than the
+    beasts he gets up for the exhibitions--much less cared about than
+    the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,
+    autumn and winter, his wages never higher--frequently less--and
+    perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all
+    that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of
+    six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on
+    his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up
+    ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is
+    the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he
+    is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin
+    for himself to be buried in!
+
+This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are
+heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be
+found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in
+1843, quoted by _Punch_ on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire
+village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with
+political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the
+exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and
+industrious poor, _Punch_ was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this
+parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented
+a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned
+for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of
+L1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the
+shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show
+where the prize pig is awarded L3 3s. and the prize peasant L2 2s. When
+baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn
+with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with
+the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve
+his condition." _Punch's_ democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies
+Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young
+England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that
+Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the
+fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell
+an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the _Daily
+Telegraph_ called _Punch_ in later years), when in "England's Trust and
+other Poems" was penned the memorable _cri de coeur_:--
+
+    Though I could bear to view our crowded towns
+    Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;
+    Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
+    But leave us still our old nobility.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Shaftesbury_]
+
+But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof
+one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts
+which _Punch_ unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to
+the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the
+industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some
+of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,
+afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if
+there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had
+opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic
+Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that
+the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an
+aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced
+Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by _Punch_. Yet as
+early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the
+passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the
+hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.
+In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,
+shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a
+Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this
+humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to
+regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group
+supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to
+concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and
+most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of
+the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most
+of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18
+years of age, and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a
+day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and
+children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation
+placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its
+provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a
+101/2 hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But
+Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this
+compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as
+a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of
+Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The
+Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects
+of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's
+speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of _Sybil_"--his
+finest and best constructed novel. _Sybil_ was published in 1845, and
+though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the
+aims of _Punch_, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a
+Jew. Now _Punch_ consistently supported the removal of Jewish
+disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall
+philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for
+neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,
+Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert
+the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own
+poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity
+make converts of the Hebrews." But _Punch_ was no lover of Jews, and
+least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great
+Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the
+main, however, _Punch_ regarded him at this stage of his career as a
+brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an
+untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet
+_Sybil_ in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social
+and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed
+largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was
+never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue
+between Egremont and the stranger. The stranger, after observing that
+while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
+modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in
+its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Two Nations_]
+
+    "Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our
+    Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which
+    nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The
+    stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.
+    "Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two
+    nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who
+    are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if
+    they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
+    planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a
+    different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not
+    governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont
+    hesitatingly,--"THE RICH AND THE POOR."
+
+Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of
+burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in _Sybil_, though one must not
+forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it
+bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and
+industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the
+evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly
+painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in _Sybil_. The details
+are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.
+R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green
+and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of
+artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a
+systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his
+campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but
+here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it
+that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all
+on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the
+humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference
+by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the
+existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving
+hand-loom weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de
+Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in
+smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a
+real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's
+phrase. But for reasons already given _Punch_ was not prepared to accept
+Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and
+ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to _Punch's_
+eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to _Punch_ it must be
+admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal
+of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and
+damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the
+"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the
+distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his
+view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the
+leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their
+responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and
+privileges. _Punch_ was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law
+Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of
+Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to
+hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; _Punch_
+refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group
+were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were
+not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than
+specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate
+action did not appeal to _Punch_. Though often a petulant and intolerant
+critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,
+legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the
+decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be
+demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there _are_ sermons in stones, and if
+Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and
+wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more
+suggestive text than is written--written in tears--on every stone of the
+Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the
+poor he was an impassioned advocate from the very first. When a police
+magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate
+to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,
+magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later _Punch_
+vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a
+"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and
+welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder
+at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of
+twelve to prison for stealing L4 12s. from his master "because if he
+went to prison he might become an expert thief."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Plot Against Prisons_]
+
+In the year 1853 _Punch_ discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot
+against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him
+to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy
+organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and
+initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:--
+
+    The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an
+    establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,
+    and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,
+    who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a
+    place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and
+    seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this
+    end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,
+    by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular
+    branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,
+    their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says
+    in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:
+
+    "I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I
+    used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,
+    their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves
+    generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in
+    harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed
+    them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society
+    together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that
+    my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great
+    effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them
+    clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I
+    possibly could."
+
+    The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also
+    succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to
+    establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will
+    most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent
+    edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such
+    vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,
+    Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which
+    will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which
+    all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of
+    his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by
+    substituting prevention for cure--superseding prison discipline by
+    reformation.
+
+[Sidenote: _High Life Below Stairs_]
+
+[Illustration: SERVANTGALISM
+
+COOK: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked
+at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"]
+
+[Illustration: COACHMAN: "Why--what's the matter, John Thomas?"
+
+FOOTMAN: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice
+because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat
+down in a week!"]
+
+The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending
+theme in the pages of _Punch_. His attitude was governed by the broad
+principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who
+offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.
+But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the
+flunkey, holding that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its
+prevalence amongst highly paid servants. _Punch_ was the champion of the
+"slavey"--immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"--even of the
+much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and
+powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of
+the old regime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and
+furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when
+advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages L3 a year," appeared in a
+fashionable paper and earned _Punch's_ satire. Contrariwise, he never
+spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the
+housemaid." In this spirit _Punch_ makes game of a school for servants
+at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant
+girls and nurses were neglectful of their duties and their infant
+charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and
+disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in
+_Punch's_ quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns
+of _The Times_ the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with
+broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the
+North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type
+insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable
+neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting
+from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of
+_Punch_, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his
+collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These
+gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected
+to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be
+seen nor heard," as _Punch_ put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not
+allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was
+made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real
+aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a
+mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the
+real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which _Punch_
+impersonated in "Jenkins" of the _Morning Post_ (or _Morning Plush_, as
+he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to
+ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may
+suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera
+which appeared in the _Morning Post_:
+
+    It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor
+    should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of
+    titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the
+    State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those
+    luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the
+    industrious.
+
+And again--the italics and capitals are _Punch's_:--
+
+    Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites
+    of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has
+    become a ruling passion--it is the quintessence of all civilized
+    pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their
+    standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the
+    most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society
+    assemble.
+
+    These _ornaments of society_ are in general absent at the too early
+    opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed
+    the house previous to the overture, most of those who _constitute
+    society_ in England--those whom we _respect, esteem or
+    love_--rapidly filled the house.
+
+    Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if _those
+    objectionable spectators were there_--those gentlemen of ambiguous
+    gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, _tailors_ and
+    _shoemakers_, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of
+    knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot--_they and
+    their frowsy dames_ were so nailed _to their benches as not to
+    offend the eye_.
+
+These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the
+divinity of kings and coronets, prompted _Punch_ to adorn "Jenkins" with
+the _alias_ of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but _Punch_ might
+have retorted _tachez de ne pas le meriter_.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Underpaid Governess_]
+
+From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too
+easy. _Punch's_ study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave
+market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write
+the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still
+open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement
+in _The Times_, in which "S. S." offered a salary of L2 a month to "a
+morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young
+female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with
+French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"
+_Punch_ observes:--
+
+    How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of
+    offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,
+    "It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the
+    saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen
+    indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,
+    and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to
+    other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such
+    offers as those of S.S.?
+
+[Illustration: Thomas gives warning because his master has given up
+reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a
+governess."]
+
+The terms of L2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those
+offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was
+expected to teach English, French and music for L1 a quarter, while not
+at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an
+excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the
+problem of these "Sisters of Misery," _Punch_ waxes ironical on the
+results of their improvidence:--
+
+    If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty
+    pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep
+    company with the children, the governess has not saved a
+    sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know
+    that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And
+    yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such
+    indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature
+    who, as I have heard, in her prime--that is, for the ten
+    years--lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.
+    Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank
+    lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely
+    taught French, Italian, and the harp to the daughters of small
+    tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got
+    too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though
+    sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of
+    the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she
+    continues to eke out a miserable existence--a sad example, if they
+    would only be warned, to improvident governesses.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Real Dotheboys Hall_]
+
+_Punch's_ attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
+advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
+of them extracted from _The Times_ appears in the issue of August 14,
+1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
+governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
+houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
+Already, some three weeks earlier, _Punch_ had quoted from _The Times_
+the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
+Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
+instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
+and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
+"Dotheboys Hall" in real life _Punch_ observes that while such a price
+for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
+of miracles has passed, and especially--after the publication of
+_Nicholas Nickleby_--of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
+a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
+least forty years after _Punch's_ protest, as the present writer can
+testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
+"Penny Post Medal" _Punch_ endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
+Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
+treatment:--
+
+    Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
+    _Punch_, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
+    missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
+    Postman is the soldier of peace--the humanizing, benevolent
+    distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
+    associations. He is the philanthropic go-between--the cheap and
+    constant communicant betwixt man and man.
+
+[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ST.
+MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rowland Hill's Reward_]
+
+    In the Penny Post Medal _Punch_ has endeavoured to show the triumph
+    of Rowland Hill--no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great--carried
+    in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
+    If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
+    shouts--he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
+    for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
+    knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.
+
+    Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
+    ingratitude of man--old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
+    Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
+    services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
+    or as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
+    with--the sack.
+
+    After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
+    Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
+    owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!
+
+[Illustration: BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK]
+
+But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long
+and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it
+is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or
+thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For
+this his salary is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post
+Office robberies were frequent, _Punch_, without excusing theft,
+regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.
+Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in
+1848 we have _Punch's_ assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of
+all Government employees.
+
+The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for
+reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in _Punch_ from
+his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy
+with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4
+instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop
+assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'
+establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy
+took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at
+Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite
+spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an
+association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight
+a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,
+provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund
+to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been
+realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like
+counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But
+_Punch's_ irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and
+Business _versus_ Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"
+not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature
+has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. _Punch_ was
+moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared
+to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly
+advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who
+kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other
+hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at
+eight--for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.
+But _Punch_ was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a
+revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch
+an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _Syndicalism in the 'Forties_]
+
+    Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any
+    reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,
+    according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'
+    Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the
+    public for L150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a
+    model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own
+    masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize
+    "every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and
+    reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that
+    the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If
+    a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and
+    happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but
+    it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.
+
+Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"
+_Punch_, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free
+and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in
+putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers
+formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.
+
+[Illustration: A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the
+Exhibition of Industry.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO
+BE IMPROVED IN 1851)]
+
+In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only
+holiday of the working classes. _Punch's_ views on their recreations,
+therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,
+Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the
+outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for
+keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other
+restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and
+recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have
+seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or
+children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of
+museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,
+in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments
+on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National
+Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are
+left for the people--the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."
+_Punch_ vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working
+men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the
+Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a
+"Fellow's order," _plus_ a shilling. But of all the movements which
+inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects
+than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the
+name of the "Crystal Palace." _Punch_ had some misgivings as to the
+encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly
+espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held
+possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was
+alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall
+was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,
+but, largely owing to _Punch's_ intervention, was assisted to emigrate
+to Australia. And _Punch_ was indignant at the suggested exclusion of
+the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the
+Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening
+of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of
+criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes
+justified, but often malicious, which _Punch_ had conducted against
+the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the
+_amende_ handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great
+Exhibition":--
+
+    At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,
+    announce the arrival of the Queen--and the Prince, who, by the idea
+    of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,
+    rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a
+    position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the
+    insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,
+    and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness
+    of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it
+    recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident
+    of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by
+    the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower
+    range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for
+    foreigners--and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot
+    stir abroad without an armed escort--to see how securely and
+    confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in
+    the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost
+    everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no
+    class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a
+    qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a
+    splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect
+    security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional
+    monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the
+    world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,
+    executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's
+    throats in the name of liberty.
+
+    The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the
+    unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,
+    the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord
+    Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,
+    but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the
+    progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant
+    when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a
+    wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to
+    perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward
+    evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can
+    redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the
+    mountebank.
+
+_Punch_ could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but
+he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and
+especially for their practice of visiting the Exhibition on the
+"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:--
+
+    Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,
+      And with it blends a sunshine brighter still--
+    The loyal love of a great people, knowing
+    That building up is better than o'erthrowing;
+      That freedom lies in taming of self-will.
+
+_Punch's_ loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget
+the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given
+to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,
+_Punch_ agreed with the _Examiner_ that a knighthood was not a
+sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be
+given a share of the profits. But _Punch_ was from the first concerned
+with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming
+it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to
+become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying
+"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare
+flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, _Punch_ voted the suggestion
+of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,
+on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in
+anything he undertook." Nay, _Punch_ went so far as to depict, in a
+cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The
+scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 _Punch_ was indignant at the
+imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs
+and snobs" who despised the masses:--
+
+THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE
+
+    The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:
+    The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;
+    Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,
+    They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.
+
+    They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,
+    A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;
+    The slams is the place faw a popula show;
+    Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.
+
+    It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue
+    So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,
+    As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,
+    Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.
+
+The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with
+the desire to keep up the Palace; _Punch_ threw all his weight on the
+side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in
+June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a
+great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in
+August, and furnished _Punch_ with an opportunity for answering the
+reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":--
+
+    The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on
+    Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the
+    greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who
+    had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts
+    and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their
+    blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not
+    more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and
+    promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new
+    principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships
+    to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but
+    too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state
+    to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,
+    gave the cause their best wishes--and these were deposited with the
+    coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new
+    building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation
+    before!
+
+    If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its
+    christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace
+    ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have
+    built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they
+    built one for themselves.
+
+    And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if
+    Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so
+    few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at
+    present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new
+    playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in
+    the world.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sabbatarian Solicitude_]
+
+    _Punch's_ generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled
+    with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous for the
+    souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the
+    Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and
+    the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in
+    order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting
+    measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being
+    opened to the public on Sundays." _Punch_ is bitterly sarcastic
+    against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and
+    prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,
+    snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not
+    only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but
+    also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel
+    flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior
+    classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown
+    otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment--in
+    great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small
+    consideration for their perishable lungs.
+
+But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The _Morning
+Herald_ scented revolution in the proposal, and _Punch_ was moved to
+address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:--
+
+    A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed
+    treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be
+    droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.
+    Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.
+
+    Do you ever see the _Morning Herald_? We thought so. Somehow, you
+    look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A
+    leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous
+    projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read
+    you--when we can get a good mouthful of breath--a few of the lines:
+    the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays
+    after one o'clock. In that fact the _Herald_ sees revolution,
+    anarchy, and perhaps--a future republic with John Cromwell Bright
+    in Buckingham Palace! Listen:
+
+    "'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's
+    command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is
+    the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to
+    say, of Berlin also. And, as _one natural result_, a single month,
+    in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of
+    Berlin _fugitives before their rebellious subjects_. The people of
+    England remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal
+    to their Queen, _because_ they feared their God!"
+
+    You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace
+    existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone
+    to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to
+    reign _because_ there has been no People's Palace!
+
+    We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.
+
+    "The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the
+    Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will
+    be said, and _then_ they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk
+    in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can _that_ do? Just all the
+    harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most
+    persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin
+    myriads!"
+
+_Punch_, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of
+Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting
+provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday
+School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him
+printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the
+Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning
+service.
+
+_Punch's_ views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that
+in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin
+Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of
+Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of
+Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.
+Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of
+his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be
+found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those
+ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the
+new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful
+refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable
+hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals
+against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if
+gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with
+affluence, and, therefore, belonging to the better classes, continue to
+legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the
+rest of the worse--that is the worse off."
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch at the Palace_]
+
+Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,
+June 10, 1854. _Punch_ describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few
+days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the
+Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the
+opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph
+Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the
+inaugural ceremony:--
+
+    He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and
+    conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should
+    leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the
+    day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly
+    undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the
+    Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the
+    Palace on Sundays.
+
+Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his
+optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it
+characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal
+Palace, which appeared in the pages of _Punch_ in the following months.
+But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the
+chairman, a very good summary of his own views:--
+
+    On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the
+    crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves--all mutually
+    sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the
+    decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace--than
+    that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in
+    the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.
+
+The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled _Punch's_
+sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and
+school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational
+institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than
+those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported
+by the patronage of the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on
+the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered
+seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's
+Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember
+visits in his school days in the early 'seventies--recurrent Handel
+festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her
+golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the
+rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above
+all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some
+forty years--such a one, and there must be many like him, will always
+look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in
+reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August
+Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize
+_Punch's_ ideal.
+
+
+
+
+CHARTISM
+
+
+[Sidenote: _The Fight for Cheap Bread_]
+
+[Illustration: NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?
+
+JOHN: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her
+creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be
+properly attended to."]
+
+We have seen that _Punch_ did not belittle the Chartist movement, but
+admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it
+sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see
+_Sybil_), but _Punch_ ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch
+alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who
+denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers
+and superiors.
+
+_Punch_, too, did a good deal in this line. But
+while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he
+distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely
+justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the
+advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very
+beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the
+leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,
+or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the
+People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded--No Property
+Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members--and we have come
+very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal
+Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains
+unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in
+1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged
+from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in
+his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,
+and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the
+years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the
+rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,
+with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to
+control. Feargus O'Connor was one of the exceptions, but his success in
+inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and
+the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many
+of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew
+from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote
+all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily
+lived long enough to see it abolished. _Punch_, who had pronounced its
+dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged
+34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn
+Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry
+to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer
+of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait
+awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";
+and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge
+any virtue in it. When _Punch_ was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of
+the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: _he_ at least
+had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must
+have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman
+"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience
+in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in
+1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:--
+
+    The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to
+    themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man
+    whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,
+    Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
+    though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only
+    worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with
+    hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject--as the blacksmith
+    strikes from the red iron--sparkles[2] of burning light; and where
+    they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the
+    intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made
+    resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man
+    had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple
+    and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the
+    mean.
+
+    The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest
+    utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate
+    suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning
+    to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine
+    mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.
+
+    Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by
+    the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott
+    was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek
+    to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of
+    modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.
+
+[Footnote 2: Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until
+they have become _cold_--short, and are apt to snap and fly off in
+sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).]
+
+Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,
+and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which
+antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at
+every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching
+steadily to disintegration. _Punch's_ distrust of the professional
+agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of
+1848:--
+
+THE MODEL AGITATOR
+
+[Sidenote: _The Professional Agitator_]
+
+    The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for
+    them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,
+    feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,
+    for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered
+    in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not
+    pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a
+    mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,
+    and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is
+    suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for
+    the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a
+    testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the
+    Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as
+    a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,
+    and sends agents--patriotic bagmen--round the country to sell his
+    praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for
+    everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is
+    publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the
+    hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance
+    is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the
+    Agitator leading off and shouting the loudest. The grievance is
+    run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there
+    is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,
+    and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last
+    person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves
+    for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is
+    incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no
+    explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a
+    chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and
+    yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to
+    burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on
+    the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.
+
+    A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain
+    [the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly
+    unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a
+    prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out
+    to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets
+    quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.
+    He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment
+    he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.
+
+    The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he
+    bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich
+    legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must
+    buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the
+    dearest."
+
+[Illustration: PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL]
+
+The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer[3] puts it, "was
+the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of
+Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the
+revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The _annus mirabilis_
+which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of
+Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus
+O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,
+largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as
+Commander-in-Chief--the swearing in of 170,000 special constables
+(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as
+far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that
+_Punch_ was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"
+position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,
+1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most
+Excellent Majesty":--
+
+MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY--
+
+    WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free
+    from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,
+    foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and
+    blunderbuss--
+
+    _Punch_ humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of
+    political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give
+    orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better
+    instructed for the future--and thereupon pardon and set free
+    William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such
+    offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty
+    of the English people.
+
+    And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray--
+
+  PUNCH.
+
+[Footnote 3: C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 166.]
+
+[Illustration: SPECIAL'S WIFE: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!
+Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot
+brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for
+anything."]
+
+[Sidenote: "_Little Cuffey_"]
+
+Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,
+and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom _Punch_ always had a
+soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had
+been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the
+declaration of peace after the Crimean War, _Punch_ expressed his
+satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal
+frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater
+importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of
+June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of
+_Punch's_ political and social creed in a time of transition. The
+occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to
+entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may
+be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the
+Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take part in further
+measures of electoral reform. _Punch_ held that the collapse of the
+physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence
+in the existing regime, ought to stir men of good will to further
+efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:--
+
+THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
+
+    My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;
+    I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;
+    Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,
+    Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.
+
+    At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,
+    But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?
+    I _am_ all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;
+    All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.
+
+    I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,
+    Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.
+    'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot--
+    Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.
+
+    I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,
+    The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;
+    Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;
+    That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.
+
+    "Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,
+    Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:
+    Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;
+    Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!
+
+    But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,
+    As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,
+    A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,
+    And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.
+
+    Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague
+      and sin;
+    Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;
+    Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;
+    The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.
+
+    Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,
+    That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,
+    Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,
+    And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.
+
+    Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,
+    The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;
+    Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,
+    That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.
+
+    Nations or men, we may not rest--look round on Europe's thrones
+    Shattered or shaken--hearken to her convulsive groans--
+    Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,
+    Think 'tis _the Tenth_ of April you invoke, and not _the First_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reform or Revolution?_]
+
+This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political
+philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and
+nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,
+and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South
+Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present
+generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment
+against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the
+proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in
+_Genesis_ (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that
+her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there
+were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and _Punch_ declared that
+Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their
+passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At
+all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three
+miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or
+three times."
+
+Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including _Punch_, as a
+remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here
+and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos
+Bound?" _Punch_ gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in
+mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers
+to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little time later the
+Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical
+philanthropists, furnished _Punch_ with a text for his oft-repeated
+sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the
+departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station
+for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,
+their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of
+self-reproach:--
+
+    What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to
+    make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the
+    _Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, and reports upon the state of our
+    poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all
+    kinds--and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,
+    so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that
+    readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and
+    that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed
+    anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and
+    terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a
+    door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for
+    ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they
+    not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have
+    our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity
+    very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such
+    wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no
+    idea. No. How should you? You and I--we are of the upper classes;
+    we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a
+    word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend
+    to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance--mind, of
+    course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they
+    dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them
+    counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know
+    nothing--how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and
+    die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet
+    like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful _Song of the Shirt_; some
+    prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted
+    energetic man like the writer of the _Chronicle_ travels into the
+    poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror
+    and wonder.
+
+    Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then
+    eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few
+    more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in
+    their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed--for those who (with
+    the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country
+    and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for
+    those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in
+    their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,
+    and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new
+    country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good
+    mercy speed them.
+
+Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end
+the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far
+more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of
+Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision
+from _Punch_, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he
+was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any
+recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous
+report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the
+doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were
+repugnant to _Punch_. There is really not much to choose between his
+criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or
+"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of
+harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the
+Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was
+followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis
+of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was
+not the sole cause of this improvement.[4] The demand for labour in the
+rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was
+an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries
+equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense
+the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London
+owing to extortionate tolls caused _Punch_ to denounce him as "Cruel
+King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.
+
+[Footnote 4: See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"
+p. 204.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Beginning of Better Times_]
+
+The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought
+with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The
+year 1853 was so notable for strikes that _Punch_, who had already
+applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to
+poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:--
+
+    Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid
+    intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania--a very
+    dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not
+    attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking
+    mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now
+    it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and
+    thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become
+    machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all
+    striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking
+    become what might be called the order, but that it will be the
+    disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except
+    the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking
+    though, we had better take care that we are not floored.
+
+As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, _Punch's_ view is
+summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's
+wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"
+
+
+
+
+MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
+
+
+In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and
+invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching
+influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The
+views on the new order expressed in _Punch_ reflect, with certain
+variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the
+spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or
+accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as
+a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions
+he assumes the role of philosopher and prophet. The first was in
+January, 1842, _a propos_ of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that
+increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:--
+
+    Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of
+    terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.
+    But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and
+    philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the
+    morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied--as it will be--a
+    thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made
+    idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively
+    speaking, there shall be _no_ labour for man? Will the multitude
+    lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not--we are sure not. Then
+    will rise--and already we hear the murmur--a cry, a shout for an
+    adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike
+    upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.
+
+    We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man
+    were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the
+    possession of some thousand individuals--what would be the cry of
+    the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?
+
+    The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry
+    statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend
+    to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.
+
+[Illustration: Proposed lines....
+
+RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Impudence of Steam_]
+
+On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last
+sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day
+of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and
+foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put
+into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated
+good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality
+and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part _Punch_ is
+concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of
+locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway
+directors were to him anathema. In his first volume _Punch_ sturdily
+declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would
+be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons
+perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting
+on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The
+"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet
+of which is still often quoted:--
+
+    "Ease her, stop her!"
+    "Any gentleman for Joppa?"
+    "'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."
+    "Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"
+    "Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"
+    "Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"
+    "Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"
+    "Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"
+    "Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"
+    "What gent or lady's for the Nile,"
+    "Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"
+    "Now, where's that party for Engedi?"
+
+    Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,
+      Had ye e'er the least idea,
+    Even in your wildest flights,
+      Of a steam trip to Judea?
+    What next marvel Time will show
+      It is difficult to say,
+    "'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,
+      "Only sixpence all the way."
+    Cabs in Solyma may fly;
+      'Tis a not unlikely tale:
+    And from Dan the tourist hie
+      Unto Beersheba by "rail."
+
+But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far
+more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was
+endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with
+overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.
+Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither
+punctuality nor civility was to be expected.
+
+In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute--a "universal epidemic." George
+Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and _Punch_
+expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation
+which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.
+Burlesques of various railway projects--centrifugal and
+atmospheric--abound. _Punch_ ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle
+of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."
+The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves
+him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway
+Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the
+Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering
+witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the
+infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The
+Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and _Punch_ asserts that the
+largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the
+casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of
+railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is
+submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.
+The protests of fox-hunters, noted by _Punch_, recall the verses of the
+Cheshire poet:--
+
+    Let the steam pot
+    Hiss till it's hot,
+    But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.
+
+[Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845]
+
+The mania was not confined to men: _Punch_ satirizes the ladies who were
+"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a
+Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all
+these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel
+Court," a parody which begins:--
+
+    All the world are stags!
+    Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers--
+
+and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:--
+
+    Last scene of all,
+    That ends this sad but common history,
+    Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:
+    Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.
+
+Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with
+King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace
+at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull--on whom "the sweet
+simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall--with humbugging
+promoters is hit off in the stanza:--
+
+    Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,
+    I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;
+    And don't get enough by my paltry rents"--
+    So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."
+
+[Illustration: KING HUDSON'S LEVEE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rules for Railways_]
+
+In his anti-Puseyite zeal _Punch_ mendaciously declares that a railway
+from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In
+fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley
+Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the
+Board of Trade, when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,
+is described in humorous detail in a _Punch_ ballad. Padded suits are
+suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the
+best summary--with all its exaggerations--of the discomforts of railway
+travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and
+Regulations for Railways":--
+
+    The French Government has published a royal _ordonnance_, fixing
+    the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway
+    companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things
+    should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations
+    for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he
+    likes.
+
+    Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to
+    carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the
+    train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark
+    quite long enough.
+
+    No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be
+    ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
+
+    Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,
+    as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not
+    mix sociably together.
+
+    No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.
+
+    No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be
+    divided oftener than once a month.
+
+    No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.
+
+    No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of
+    water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming
+    belts should always be kept in open carriages.
+
+    The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.
+
+    Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.
+
+    Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or
+    refreshment.[5]
+
+    One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be
+    allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or
+    third class--whichever of the two he prefers.
+
+    Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in
+    attendance at every station.
+
+    There must be some communication between every carriage and the
+    stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a
+    portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some
+    means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or
+    falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken
+    loose.
+
+There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are
+noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,
+but in the same year to _Punch_ belongs the credit of suggesting
+refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground
+railways.
+
+[Footnote 5: _Punch_ was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for
+scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.]
+
+[Illustration: A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS]
+
+The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as
+a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on
+the L. & N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the
+temper of the speculating public had changed, and _Punch_ is a faithful
+index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the
+over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New
+World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The
+papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The
+Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in
+_Punch_ as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at
+Madame Tussaud's. For a while _Punch_ was inclined to extend to him a
+certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he
+draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's
+high priest by his greedy and discontented worshippers. But the mood of
+compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of
+Cowper's poem, _The Loss of the Royal George_:--
+
+    Toll for a knave!
+      A knave whose day is o'er!
+    All sunk--with those who gave
+      Their cash, till they'd no more!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The _Royal George_ is gone,
+      His iron rule is o'er--
+    And he and his directors
+      Shall break the lines no more!
+
+[Sidenote: _King Hudson's Downfall_]
+
+In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"
+on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the
+Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of
+the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of
+_voyages de luxe_.
+
+But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,
+danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are
+rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 _Punch_ ironically
+comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in
+railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,
+only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests
+from correspondents of _The Times_ with the remark:--
+
+    Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the
+    staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and
+    directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and
+    brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and
+    morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with
+    passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive
+    expostulation.
+
+[Illustration: RAILWAY UNDERTAKING
+
+TOUTER: "Going by this train, Sir?"
+
+PASSENGER: "'M? Eh? Yes."
+
+TOUTER: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."]
+
+The directors of the L. & N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking
+their engine drivers, _a propos_ of a well-authenticated case of a man
+who had been on duty for thirty hours without relief or opportunity to
+rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the
+employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done
+for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and
+_Punch_ accordingly suggests that the directors should provide
+themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.
+Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under
+review, and in 1856 _Punch_ is still of opinion that we might take a
+leaf out of the book of the Russians, who carry surgeons on their
+trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal
+equipment of expresses.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Bradshaw: A Mystery"_]
+
+A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing _Bradshaw_
+with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's _Railway Time
+Tables_ were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from
+December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that _Punch_ began to
+realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and
+utilized them in a little play called _Bradshaw: A Mystery_, describing
+the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.
+Love may laugh at locksmiths, but _Bradshaw_ is another matter. Here is
+the happy ending of this romantic libel:--
+
+      _Leonora._ Oh, don't talk of _Bradshaw_!
+    _Bradshaw_ has nearly maddened me.
+    _Orlando_. And me.
+    He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;
+    Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;
+    Of junctions where no union is effected;
+    Of coaches meeting trains that never come;
+    Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;
+    Of trains that start after they have arrived;
+    Of trains arriving long before they leave.
+    He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;
+    Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote
+    From those we seek to reach! By _Bradshaw's_ aid
+    You've tried to get to London--I attempted
+    To get to Liverpool--and here we are,
+    At Chester--'Tis a junction--I'm content
+    Our union--at this junction--to cement.
+    And let us hope, nor you nor I again
+    May be attacked with _Bradshaw_ on the brain.
+      _Leonora._ I'm happy now! My husband!
+      _Orlando._ Ah, my bride!
+    Henceforth take me--not _Bradshaw_--for your guide.
+                    _The curtain falls._
+
+"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of _Bradshaw_ as
+analysed in _Punch's_ "Comic Guide" some years later.
+
+From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. _Punch_ notes the
+adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western
+Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to
+fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to
+Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years
+afterwards, when _Punch_ hailed the completion of the scheme as a new
+link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a
+sonnet.
+
+Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been
+foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated
+responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England _Punch_ rudely
+described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless
+diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the
+embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the
+central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service
+on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake
+shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,
+_Punch_ notes that a writer in the _Limerick Chronicle_ attributed it to
+the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an
+illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;
+and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the
+transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,
+but _Punch's_ compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the
+following lines:--
+
+AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE
+
+    It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,
+    About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,
+    On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;
+    Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,
+    For then t'other side would have nothing to do.
+
+_Punch's_ interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,
+though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing. Designs
+of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too
+bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.
+
+[Illustration: AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aviation Forecasts_]
+
+In 1845 there was actually a periodical called _The Balloon_, though
+_Punch_ is jocular at the expense of its very limited _clientele_.
+Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise
+attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents
+between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to
+Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. _Punch_, to his credit,
+inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic
+acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less
+fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a
+"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years
+later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:--
+
+    Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to
+    have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful
+    and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means
+    of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,
+    nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a
+    suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of
+    Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is
+    correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran
+    Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.
+
+    One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his
+    balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,
+    who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an
+    argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut
+    proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and
+    take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing
+    shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.
+    The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself
+    the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the
+    medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the
+    enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of
+    course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all
+    directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus
+    the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut
+    also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by
+    taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible
+    to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's
+    invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,
+    "went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."
+
+    "And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your
+    missiles?"
+
+    "Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or
+    an electric communication, or by _another contrivance_ which you
+    must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it _a
+    secret_."
+
+    This "_secret_" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all
+    events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to
+    call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up
+    the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air
+    the basis of military operations.
+
+Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a
+certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both
+"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by
+his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions--the
+long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon--to the committee
+appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of
+L200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,
+of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines
+of modern warfare. _Punch_ at first lent Warner a certain measure of
+support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy
+and intractable.
+
+[Illustration: EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD
+WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE]
+
+[Illustration: Ye Wild Goose Chase after Ye Golden Calfe.
+
+THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849]
+
+The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble
+minds--the desire to "get rich quick"--and cupidity, balked of its
+expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its
+longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there
+is hardly a number of _Punch_ in this year which does not refer to the
+stampede from Europe to the diggings--"the wild-goose chase after the
+golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than
+one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the
+cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not
+likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with _Punch_ as the
+apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and
+Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.
+
+In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state
+of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the
+goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration
+from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the _auri sacra
+fames_ does not escape _Punch's_ notice, though no mention is made of
+the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was
+Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the
+evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we
+find frequent references to the growth of gambling. In 1852 _Punch's_
+pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting
+mania--to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in
+the Crimean War, and _Punch_ is eloquent in his denunciation of the
+contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the
+aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of
+discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and
+enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of
+bank smashes and absconding directors--those of the Royal British Bank
+coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out
+by _Punch_ as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the
+burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The
+brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in
+1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,
+who was the original of Mr. Merdle in _Little Dorrit_, and was described
+in _The Times_ after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped
+punishment by suicide.
+
+[Sidenote: _Novelties and Anticipations_]
+
+As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations
+mentioned in the pages of _Punch_, we are tempted to exclaim, in the
+hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A
+"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.
+"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor
+Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be
+regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index
+cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,
+but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. _Punch's_ account of
+"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece
+of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily
+hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being
+rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the
+perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to
+us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of
+anaesthetics is lightly passed over in _Punch's_ earlier references to
+this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to
+politicians or its use by hen-pecked husbands. Here only ether is
+mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months
+later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and
+phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.
+Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish _Punch_ with food for mirth in
+1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to
+take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more
+justifiable than that shown by _Punch_ towards ironclads in 1850. In
+1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," _i.e._ hypnotism;
+shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,[6] invented by Palmer, an
+American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853
+suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken
+out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves
+for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession
+in 1853 and 1854. _Punch's_ ironical suggestions in the latter year for
+the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of
+Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one
+generation becomes the fact of its successor.
+
+The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their
+colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the
+scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put
+forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by
+kneading and pressing, vide _Punch_, 1856, but he, however, was not
+solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous
+"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret
+Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it
+"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the
+inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty
+and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the
+score of its inhumanity, though _Punch_ welcomed the plan, without
+knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away
+scruples and use _anything_ against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever
+may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a
+nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of
+applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,
+notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for
+"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in
+1855 (see the _Panmure Papers_) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men
+of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,
+the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want
+it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,
+as _Punch_ notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for
+once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.
+
+[Footnote 6: Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument
+maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the
+Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).]
+
+[Sidenote: _Telegram or Telegrapheme?_]
+
+In general, _Punch_, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the
+contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed
+in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced
+academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as
+a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the
+popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of
+enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions--while reserving to himself
+the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the
+pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one
+with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but
+he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in
+high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already
+won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere
+halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound
+doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years
+ago:--
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?
+    Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,
+      But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!
+    Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,
+      Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,
+    Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy
+      Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Persons not uneducated--very highly dressed--
+    Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,
+      To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.
+    Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,
+      Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,
+    Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions
+      Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.
+
+    Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!
+      Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,
+    You naturally stare, seeing that so many are
+      Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.
+    Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,
+      Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;
+    Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,
+      Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.
+
+
+
+
+EDUCATION
+
+
+Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.
+Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory
+of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.
+Money was doled out in homoeopathic doses. In 1841 the sum of L10,000
+was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which
+L70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which
+_Punch_ had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between
+ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane
+magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared
+that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor
+children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of
+thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth
+in habits and practices of idleness and vice," _Punch_ found himself in
+the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary
+who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points
+out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,
+taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary
+legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the
+transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they
+were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of
+their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in
+1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful
+boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though _Punch_ supported the
+establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply
+of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the
+Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy
+remained, and it was due in the country districts, in _Punch's_ view, to
+the fact that "contending zealots cannot agree with what theological
+mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the
+schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."
+
+[Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION]
+
+[Sidenote: _Abysmal Ignorance_]
+
+In 1850 the following dialogue was given in _The Times_ police report of
+Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in _Punch_:--
+
+    George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and
+    the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished
+    upon taking hold of the book.
+
+    _Ald. Humphrey._ Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know
+    what an oath is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what a Testament is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Can you read?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald._ H. Do you ever say your prayers?
+
+    _Boy._ No, never.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what prayers are?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald. H._ Do you know what God is?
+
+    _Boy._ No.
+
+    _Ald H._ Do you know what the devil is?
+
+    _Boy._ I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.
+
+    _Ald. H._ What do you know, my poor boy?
+
+    _Boy._ I knows how to sweep the crossing.
+
+    _Ald. H._ And that's all?
+
+    _Boy._ That's all. I sweeps the crossing.
+
+    The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a
+    creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the
+    truth.
+
+It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools
+movement had been started several years before. From the first _Punch_
+lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was
+unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at
+the aristocracy:--
+
+    WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO
+
+    It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of
+    Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak
+    advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is
+    not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful
+    mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,
+    taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and
+    misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our
+    views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,
+    and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to
+    the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes
+    generally.
+
+    When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of
+    poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our
+    other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we
+    may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,
+    originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the
+    tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions
+    for the education of the children of the aristocracy.
+
+Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted
+his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as
+all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is
+mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at
+Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ could not
+forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to
+_Punch_ meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of
+laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a
+fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel
+had to die before _Punch_ did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more
+fortunate, for thirty years before he died _Punch_ made the _amende_ in
+"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Distressed Author_]
+
+"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the
+'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian
+reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not
+yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to
+the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of
+the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,
+1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination
+paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the
+works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the
+Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few
+exceptions--such as Thackeray and Macaulay--were generally impecunious,
+and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a
+life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.
+There were no royalties in those days, and for _Black-Eyed Susan_, which
+brought tens of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular
+actors, he received from first to last the sum of L60. _Punch_ was the
+constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as
+Joseph Haydn of the _Dictionary of Dates_, who was granted a Civil List
+pension of L25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,
+1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green
+'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)
+tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund
+dinner in 1856, when a sum of L100 was sent from the proceeds of the
+first portion of the _Peel Papers_:--
+
+[Illustration: NEWSVENDOR: "Now, my man, what is it?"
+
+BOY: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a
+likeness in it."]
+
+    From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the
+    flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter
+    satire of _Punch_ himself], still beneficently thought of the wants
+    of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed
+    the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.
+
+The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph
+Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they
+were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, _Punch_, who
+had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while
+applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting
+homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from
+poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and
+his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and
+State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower
+orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords _Punch_
+suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an
+examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.
+Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to
+Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on
+the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
+Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in _Punch_, who suggested
+the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently
+as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was
+reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was
+meant by those "damned dots."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Education Bill of 1856_]
+
+Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on
+its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from _Punch's_
+"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:--
+
+    _Thursday_, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a
+    series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards
+    withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a
+    matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he
+    threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,
+    comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether
+    voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of
+    four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of
+    age, two millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while
+    a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most
+    miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed
+    House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the
+    children _should_ be taught, that the nation should pay for their
+    teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work
+    should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked
+    commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting
+    Attorney called Hadfield[7] said that the people were taught as
+    well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they
+    wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further
+    interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the
+    House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on
+    the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.
+
+    _Thursday_, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during
+    this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's
+    Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by
+    representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester
+    school: the first think that their religion only should be taught
+    by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,
+    but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be
+    taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no
+    practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people
+    contrived to get the worst in the fray.
+
+[Footnote 7: _Punch_ is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield
+from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal
+who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered
+valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.]
+
+[Illustration: AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.
+
+PRODIGY: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"]
+
+In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England
+and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.
+As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful
+reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a
+Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of
+the Committee of the Council of Education. But _Punch_, in these years
+at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,
+and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediaevalism, obscurantism,
+and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and
+State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic
+authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost
+causes" made no appeal to his practical mind. Yet of classical
+scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.
+Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he
+even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the
+education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of
+1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years--until the
+notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was
+introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as
+early as 1848 _Punch_ avowed his belief in the value of making lessons
+interesting to children:--
+
+    The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because
+    they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books
+    should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,
+    but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature
+    which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought
+    before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study
+    should be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and
+    children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness
+    they rush now into the playground.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson_]
+
+[Illustration: HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]
+
+Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which
+so much controversy rages to-day. _Punch_ has always been a lover of
+children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of
+the _enfant terrible_ and of juvenile precocity. One of the most
+delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine
+epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:--
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,
+
+    "we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of
+    Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says
+    you allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as
+    me and charley read in the illusterated London [_News_] that Mr.
+    Hans Christian anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England
+    And We shold like to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with
+    is Betiful storys the ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen
+    the Red shoes the Storks little ida the Constant tinsoldier great
+    claws and Little Claws the darning Neddle and All the rest of Them
+    and it says in the illustat [_several attempts, a smear, and the
+    spelling evaded_] Paper the children shold Meet him in the
+    Crys-pallace and we shold Like to Go and tell him how much We Love
+    him for his betiful stores do you know the tinder box and tommelise
+    and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope you will Excuse bad
+    riting and i Am
+
+    "Yours affectionate
+
+    "NELLY.
+
+    charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you
+    put In  punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how
+    Glad we are He is Coming."
+
+We hope that Hans Andersen--who, by the way, as a writer of fairy
+stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori--saw this
+letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of
+_Punch's_ aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day
+conditions. In the year 1844 the _Comic Blackstone_ reads: "Children owe
+their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must
+support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other
+wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's
+Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out
+the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will
+remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children
+of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.
+
+
+
+
+RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
+
+
+_Punch's_ efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,
+exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the _English
+Journal of Education_ declared that _Punch_ was not suitable reading for
+Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But _Punch_ gave as good
+as he got. When the _Record_ attacked the Queen for having a band at
+Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,
+_Punch_ unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced _Mawworm_."[8]
+The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery
+on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
+but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to _Punch's_ great disgust. He
+advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant
+Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of
+Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,
+or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a
+hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent
+electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and
+in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, _Punch_
+summarizes the debate:--
+
+    The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small
+    calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully
+    stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in
+    seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the
+    Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a
+    divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord
+    Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these
+    exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in
+    defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.
+    This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited
+    to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376--add four
+    who were "shut out" and say 380--gentlemen in comfortable
+    circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,
+    decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has
+    left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid
+    house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.
+
+[Footnote 8: Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in
+Bickerstaffe's play _The Hypocrite_.]
+
+This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the
+matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which
+_Punch_ liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to
+call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question
+throughout the year _Punch_ gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of
+Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.
+For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and _Punch_
+celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in
+an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."
+
+But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was
+"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while
+retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday
+music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to
+him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were
+jubilant, as may be gathered from _Punch's_ reference to the _Record_ in
+his issue of August 16:--
+
+    We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call
+    the _Record_ our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by
+    the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:--
+
+    "We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our
+    affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it
+    almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the
+    moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to
+    make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a
+    great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord
+    Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a
+    majority still more overwhelming."
+
+    We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,
+    writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,
+    perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot
+    well conceive any other person guilty thereof.
+
+[Sidenote: Goldsmith Bowdlerized]
+
+[Illustration: SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT]
+
+_Punch_ could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a
+charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin
+Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing
+on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but
+evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an
+edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and
+the lines:--
+
+    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+    For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made--
+
+were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring
+lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, _Punch_
+castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he
+is a noisome fellow, Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he
+is a dunce."
+
+_Punch's_ hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and
+other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal
+Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,
+which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of
+Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:--
+
+    It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and
+    easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet
+    sofa--it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,
+    talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa
+    to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to
+    die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having
+    voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own
+    comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated
+    their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and--taking
+    care of themselves.
+
+In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the
+Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the
+poor at home--multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the
+housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and
+wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with
+Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,
+but _Punch_ could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday
+observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs
+and Chadbands.
+
+His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and
+archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As _The
+Times_ wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of
+England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." _Punch_
+re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic
+comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But
+he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young
+England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church--to
+make it the friend, comforter and protector of the people. "Young
+England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were
+almost as great _betes noires_ to _Punch_ as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy
+Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,
+the Bishop of London.
+
+[Illustration: SERIOUS FLUNKEY: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a
+year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,
+and piety hindispensable."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Clerical Bugbears_]
+
+The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great
+prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.
+_Punch_ was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to
+the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife
+to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The
+Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on the
+subject, but one extract from _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" may
+suffice to illustrate his _nolo episcopari_ attitude:--
+
+    _Thursday_, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
+    their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
+    present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
+    deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
+    acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
+    actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
+    more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
+    divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
+    with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
+    bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
+    gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (_Mr.
+    Punch_ does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
+    the _Standard_, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
+    speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
+    "The lower classes did not demand the _privilegia_ afforded to the
+    higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
+    with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
+    Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
+    and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
+    and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
+    postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
+    "amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
+    Priests.
+
+It may be added that _Punch_ was also a supporter of marriage with a
+deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope
+for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'
+Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, _Punch_ notes that the
+result was chiefly due to "four priests"--the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,
+St. David's and Exeter--and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes
+of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."
+Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the
+opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable
+to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence
+for the Common Prayer-book." _Punch's_ own reasons for supporting the
+change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from
+relief, when he remarries takes on a _second_ mother-in-law.
+
+[Illustration: AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND: "Come, Polly--if I _am_ a little
+irritable, it's over in a minute."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Destitute Clergy_]
+
+But _Punch's_ chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in
+the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the
+wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch
+with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect
+of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted
+_Punch's_ attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred
+to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the
+Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic
+inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact
+that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on
+their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to
+2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends _under_ L100 a year, and as many
+as 173 _less_ than L50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this
+modern clerical instance of Dives and Lazarus is to be found in an
+article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":--
+
+    A curate--"an Agueish curate"--wishes to know of _The Times_ if
+    curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
+    and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
+    disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
+    twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
+    by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
+    atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
+    bishop and curate as below:--
+
+    "To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
+    give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity--a palace and L6,000
+    per annum.
+
+    "To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
+    before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
+    from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
+    inability to be any longer faithful in his calling--the workhouse."
+
+    And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on L100 a year,
+    and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
+    the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
+    Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
+    bishop, with L22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
+    fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
+    the volume to which we have reverently alluded.
+
+It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been
+introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to
+resign, and making provision for them:--
+
+    The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is L10,000 a year, and he has
+    enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
+    at Chester with L1,000 a year; total receipt, L284,000. And the
+    annual income of Dr. Maltby is L24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
+    twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
+    L4,000 a year; total receipt, L500,000.
+
+The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
+departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
+scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
+remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find
+it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
+Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
+expenditure.
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]
+
+In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is
+somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
+Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
+followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
+"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
+but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
+Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
+Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
+Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
+Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
+Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
+violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
+welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
+opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed
+a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
+of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
+masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
+were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
+the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
+the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
+secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
+is ortho-."
+
+Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
+Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
+declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
+Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
+"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
+Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
+bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham
+case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
+for toleration:--
+
+    O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
+    you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
+    these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
+    mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
+    The people in this country _will_ learn to read and write; they
+    will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
+    lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
+    outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
+    long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
+    Jumbo.
+
+Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No
+Popery" movement a few months later. _Punch_, in a poem on "Consolation
+amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:--
+
+    We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,
+    But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!
+    No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,
+    But only just a little jawing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,
+    People beheading, throttling, frying.
+    _Punch_, and he says it without boasting,
+    Does all the cutting up and roasting.
+
+As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one
+subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,
+of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The
+Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"
+we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord
+Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement
+that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new
+Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put
+forward on behalf of other creeds--Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.
+
+[Illustration: THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
+
+Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church]
+
+[Sidenote: _Cardinal Wiseman_]
+
+On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter
+to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely
+whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal
+claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our
+bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as
+asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,
+that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than
+by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most
+forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the
+precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of
+England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with
+contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the
+glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."
+_Punch_ lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of
+November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way
+with the Pope's Puppets." _Punch_ had no desire, he declares, to bring
+back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the
+quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called
+upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all
+spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him
+for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the
+Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"
+appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging
+its way through _Punch's_ columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and
+pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that
+_Punch_ was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting
+the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in
+addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.
+Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that
+the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular
+administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the
+request of English communicants," left _Punch_ cold and derisive. He
+suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed
+to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in
+"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive
+Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist--very much to the advantage
+of the latter--in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of
+history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,
+_Punch_ continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was
+more than a little wrathful with the _Morning Chronicle_ for asserting
+that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."
+But the _Morning Chronicle_ was not far out, and it is noteworthy that
+from this point onwards _Punch's_ attacks were chiefly directed against
+Puseyites and Ritualists--such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico--and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:--
+
+    Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,
+    For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.
+
+Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously
+on _Punch_ in the _Dublin Review_, denouncing his opponent as once
+facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old
+street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented
+him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting
+the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere
+transportation for life. _Punch_ promptly hit back, but he did not get
+the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he
+was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable
+Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and
+literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in
+_Punch's_ pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he
+is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,
+as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop
+Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is
+certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying
+which probably represented the Cardinal's view of _Punch_ accurately in
+the verse:--
+
+    You, for example, clever to a fault,
+    The rough and ready man, who write apace,
+    Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
+
+Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were
+revealed--illustrated, to take only one instance, by _Punch's_ satirical
+picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the
+controversy _Punch_ showed refreshing signs of good sense and good
+feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who
+made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a
+mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on
+behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and
+Wiseman remained the targets of _Punch's_ obloquy for several years.
+Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is
+tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:--
+
+    Roman dictation is my vexation;
+      Oxford is just as bad;
+    Papal aggression is my obsession,
+      And Pusey drives me mad.
+
+In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at
+Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the _Tablet_ attributed
+the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation
+"against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic
+religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and
+described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document,"
+_Punch_ replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look
+upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A
+bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections
+followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than
+the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar
+of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew L13,000 a year,
+according to _Punch_, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died
+down during the Crimean War, and then, four years elapsing, the Clapham
+Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified
+slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.
+
+[Sidenote: _A More Tolerant Spirit_]
+
+[Illustration: THE PET PARSON]
+
+For the rest of the period under review in this volume _Punch_ shows a
+slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who
+strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they
+considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently
+rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, _a propos_
+of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of
+all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the
+most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the
+British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact
+that the honorary secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr.
+Samuel Pope, and _Punch_, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is
+"one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that
+of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the
+former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the
+close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon--by no
+means complimentary. _Punch_, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame
+Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist
+preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere
+self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of
+tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." _Punch_, as
+will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose
+portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than
+those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the
+stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these
+aids to popularity.
+
+To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large
+body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the
+man in the street, is reflected in the pages of _Punch_. Where doctrinal
+controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the
+sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We
+find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of
+Exeter," who was prepared to spend--and lose--scores of thousands of
+pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration.
+We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediaevalism,
+Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ made no effort to
+disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of
+their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious
+financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts.
+"How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of
+others who have so little of it themselves?"
+
+[Illustration: THE POLITICAL TOPSY
+
+"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."--_Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin._]
+
+On April 26 of this same year of 1845 _Punch_ castigated the violence of
+the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of
+the Maynooth Grant Bill, notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith,
+who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest
+again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of
+"at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the
+House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If _Punch_ showed
+himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant
+gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the
+British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded
+the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an _imperium in imperio_.
+Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter.
+His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his
+honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same
+insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look
+with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged,
+to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his
+early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at,
+in view of the admissions of his biographers:--
+
+    The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
+    accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
+    development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
+    interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
+    which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
+    throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
+    served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
+    of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
+    as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
+    "could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
+    he was in the presence of a foreigner."[9]
+
+Now _Punch_ was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery"
+in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen
+as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic
+tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates
+this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to _Punch_, than the
+part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long
+and chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A
+manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong
+prejudice. As we have seen, _Punch_ frankly admitted the Jews' great
+virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the
+"Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the
+same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the
+cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses & Co." in
+1844.
+
+[Footnote 9: _Life of Disraeli_ (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p.
+635.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch and the Jews_]
+
+_Punch's_ jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable
+as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes
+purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at
+Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when
+the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him
+the honorary degree of D.C.L., _Punch_ was prompted to remark that the
+initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in
+Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the role of
+world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed
+Jewish Protocol, did not escape _Punch's_ notice, and his comment is
+characteristic:--
+
+    Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
+    _They_ join Secret Societies. _They_ (for the evils complained of
+    by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
+    nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
+    picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
+    Sheriff's Officer! "_All is race._" What a picture of cool
+    malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
+    luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
+    luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
+    him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
+    sherry.
+
+Was _Punch_ an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering,
+if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild
+in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.
+
+Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding
+relief recalled to _Punch_ Martin Luther's saying of the Jews: "They
+sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government."
+This, adds _Punch_, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the
+wheelbarrow still.
+
+[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES
+
+LORD JOHN: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little
+matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Jewish Disabilities_]
+
+Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and
+re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused
+permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed
+to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of
+strangers. In all, _nine_ Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed
+by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by the Lords, before the tenth,
+and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise
+under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the
+oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron
+Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the
+oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John
+Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and
+abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly _Punch_ lent him valuable
+free-lance help throughout.
+
+
+
+
+FROM PEACE TO WAR
+
+
+In the 'forties _Punch_, as we have already noted, stood in with "the
+group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in
+Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first
+strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by
+_Punch_. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly
+pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean
+War, it was not due to any change of _personnel_. The gentle Doyle
+resigned because of _Punch's_ "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed
+his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the
+Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy
+of _Punch_ in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most
+bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was
+responsible for "General Fevrier" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons.
+Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert a Beckett were
+his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a
+conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did
+it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the
+underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything
+savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his
+criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, _Punch_ gave "the
+judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his
+stiffness. _Punch_ supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the
+Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of
+the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of
+Labour--witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of
+1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who
+invariably sided against his country.
+
+[Illustration: "GENERAL FEVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR
+
+"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide--Generals Janvier and
+Fevrier."--_Speech of the late Emperor of Russia._]
+
+With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic
+tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless
+pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. _Punch's_
+campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never
+recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare
+even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting
+with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the
+principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant
+letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring
+in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General
+for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell
+trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of
+Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel,
+this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by
+this vitriolic comment:--
+
+    If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
+    Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
+    the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
+    widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
+    noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
+    to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
+    of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
+    Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
+    duelling-pistol!
+
+_Punch's_ remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go
+free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Punch as Pacifist_]
+
+The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series
+named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin
+Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a
+gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and
+pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish,
+blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville,
+Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying
+Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose pamphleteering; but
+_Punch_ was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in
+the _Morning Post_, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall,
+who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain.
+_Punch_, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his
+comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides
+with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with
+France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the
+ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London,
+who would have to flee in case of war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the
+same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which _Punch_
+assumes the role of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French
+editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter.
+_Punch_ had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the
+eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range
+invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of
+ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on
+the "Science of Warfare," _a propos_ of the benevolent object of some
+inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by
+making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the
+Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very
+ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the
+sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization
+or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical
+references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer--Brook Green being "one
+of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to
+the metropolis on the western side. _Punch_ at this time was a bitter
+critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal
+reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at
+Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the
+clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of
+Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of
+August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish
+flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to
+the Queen":--
+
+    Let thy queenly voice be heard--
+      Who shall dare to disobey?--
+    It but costs thy Royal word,
+      And the lash is cast away.
+    With thyself it rests to scour
+      From our arms the loathsome stain;
+    Then of mercy show thy power,
+      And immortal be thy reign!
+
+This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and
+passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.
+
+[Illustration: A SILLY TRICK
+
+JOHN BULL: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be
+frightened by such a turnip as that!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Invasion Scare_]
+
+In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but _Punch_
+maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the
+alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to _The Times_, and by the letter
+of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by _Punch_ as a
+letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized
+by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have
+contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect,
+may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the
+formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on
+Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls."
+The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the
+violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a
+frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.
+
+England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden
+in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with _Punch_ as the "cleverest Cob"
+in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His
+Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with _Punch's_ cordial
+approval:--
+
+    PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT
+
+    Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
+    practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
+    goodwill--could more be expected?--of the Prime Minister and the
+    Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
+    position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
+    ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
+    themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
+    more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
+    are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
+    as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
+    to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
+    music.
+
+    The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
+    Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
+    cedar in the gardens at Paris--a cedar of hugest girth and widest
+    shape--that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
+    of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
+    Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
+    and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
+    to all nations.
+
+In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in
+Paris:--
+
+    THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS
+
+    Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
+    reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
+    of the tomb of the great peace-breaker--who turned kingdoms into
+    graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
+    human freedom--even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
+    his violet robe--beset with golden bees--the bees that, as in the
+    lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases--Napoleon, with his
+    Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
+    portentous, glistering evil--contrasted with our Quaker friend
+    [Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
+    aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
+    in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
+    his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
+    brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
+    thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.
+
+So, again, _Punch_ breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in
+the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims?
+All great reformers, idealists and benefactors--Harvey, Jenner,
+Stephenson--had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative
+critics:--
+
+    TO THE LAUGHERS
+
+    The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
+    fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
+    All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
+    it--paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
+    it--arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
+    sides.
+
+    "Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
+    supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
+    "Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
+    instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!
+
+    "Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the _Economist_.
+
+    "It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
+    _Statist_; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
+    Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
+    declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
+    growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
+    rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
+    of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
+    Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.
+
+    But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
+    there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
+    this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
+    tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be
+    ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
+    declares that its heart contains the Oak.
+
+The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington
+publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the
+Army, on which _Punch_ remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases,
+how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while
+condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National
+Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when
+L158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea."
+On naval matters _Punch_ foretold many things, but he did not foresee
+the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the
+truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of
+ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in
+foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when
+he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the
+Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and
+proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the
+arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status
+and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his
+heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be
+written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."
+
+The turning point at which _Punch's_ pacificist zeal began to cool was
+reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with
+Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to
+Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his
+colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in
+refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any
+responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by
+_Punch_, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 _Punch_
+waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in
+which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with
+the greatest ease. The _coup d'etat_ of 1851, and suspicion of the aims
+of Louis Napoleon, whom _Punch_ described as a "perjured homicide,"
+converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and
+needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill,
+Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the
+title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an
+Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for
+exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private
+approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this _Punch_
+regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852
+opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on
+"Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the
+anxious vigil of England.
+
+[Illustration: THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING
+
+"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your
+fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you
+must go, of course."]
+
+"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr.
+Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into
+bitter antagonism:--
+
+    Armaments useless our money to spend on,
+      Certainly we should be acting like geese;
+    _But_ have we any sure ground to depend on,
+      In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?
+                                  Speak, Mr. Cobden!
+
+The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government,
+and _Punch_ (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford
+University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim
+to have been the inventor of _camouflage_ on the strength of the
+following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety
+Uniforms" the reader finds:--
+
+    In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
+    distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
+    provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
+    which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
+    objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
+    possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
+    corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
+    mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
+    manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
+    house-top service amongst the chimney pots, of bright green with
+    mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
+    fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
+    daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
+    brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
+    were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
+    splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
+    the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
+    midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
+    bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
+    uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
+    rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
+    Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
+    Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
+    article and good cut.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of "The Duke"_]
+
+The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct
+attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave
+_Punch_ a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.
+
+RENDERING UP THE SWORD
+
+    Our Arthur sleeps--our Arthur is not dead.
+      Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,
+    Should e'er invading foot this England tread--
+      Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.
+
+    Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn
+      Through all our veins--until the foeman say,
+    "Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"
+      And awestruck from the onset shrink away.
+
+Moreover, _Punch_ defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at
+this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental
+despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism;
+that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the
+spirit of valour."
+
+[Illustration: ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE]
+
+[Illustration: ITINERANT NEWSMAN, No. 1: "I say, Bill, what are you
+givin' 'em?"
+
+DITTO, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of
+the British Troops."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Outbreak of War_]
+
+Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady _crescendo_ of hostility in
+the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this,
+both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in
+the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the
+Russo-Turkish quarrel _Punch's_ long and consistent distrust--to put it
+mildly--of the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined
+him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in
+Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled
+him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his _bete noire_, the
+Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the
+predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and
+Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the
+interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey
+from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, _Punch_ threw
+all his weight into the balance with the War party in the Cabinet, and
+bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen.
+These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown
+with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably
+indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's
+boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The
+Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from
+the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the
+war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness
+of our cause did not blind _Punch_ to the negligence and worse of those
+charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our
+forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to
+preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of
+organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the
+debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank and file of our fighting
+men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this
+excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":--
+
+    It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in _The Times_,
+    will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
+    wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
+    on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
+    the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
+    it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
+    value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
+    children. The girl--and, maybe, the little girls and boys--left by
+    him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
+    the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
+    that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
+    with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
+    and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
+    beadle's.
+
+The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and
+children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there
+were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat
+of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each
+letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."
+
+[Sidenote: _Song of the Nightingale_]
+
+[Illustration: WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND NIGHTINGALES]
+
+But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the
+hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of
+_The Times_, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert
+and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country
+deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence
+Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was _Punch's_
+chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the
+publication of "The Nightingale's Song":--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER
+
+    Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,
+      'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,
+    Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,
+      With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.
+
+    Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,
+      Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,
+    And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,
+      With alacrity and promptitude of motion.
+
+    Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands
+      How to manage every sort of application,
+    From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach
+      The way to make a poppy fomentation.
+
+    Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,
+      By the readiness of feminine invention;
+    Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,
+      With a careful and considerate attention.
+
+    Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,
+      Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,
+    'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
+      To carry out so gallant an idea.
+
+This is only one of a whole series of poems--notably one written at the
+time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855--inspired by the "Lady of the
+Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded
+common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their
+nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement
+of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily
+expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people
+of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale--nor
+can we forget mismanagement."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, Jack, here's good news from home. We're to have a
+medal."
+
+"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it
+on."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Familiar Grievances_]
+
+Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her
+an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition
+was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was
+given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, _Punch_ laboured in
+season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his
+humanity and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and
+was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a
+great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a
+picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example,
+the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the
+winter of 1854:--
+
+    How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,
+    From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!
+    And that's how we pension our officer-foes,
+    For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.
+
+    The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays
+    The wages of postmen will probably raise,
+    And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all
+    The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.
+
+Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of
+bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding
+Officer," early in 1855:--
+
+    Oh! no, we never mention them,
+      Their names must not be heard,
+    My hand Routine forbids to trace
+      Of their exploits one word.
+    Most glorious though their deeds may be,
+      To say it I regret,
+    When they expect a word from me,
+      They find that I forget.
+
+    You say that they are happy now,
+      The bravest of the brave,
+    A "special" pen recording how
+      Mere Grenadiers behave.
+    Of "special" pens I disapprove,
+      An inconvenient set,
+    Who oftentimes the veil remove,
+      And print what we forget.
+
+The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among
+those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring.
+Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were too old; or they were
+"blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or
+inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous
+gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given L5 by the Prince Consort;
+or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed
+by the Queen. Why, asks _Punch_, was he not made an ensign? Of a review
+of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been
+more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the
+invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is
+the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":--
+
+    _Flunkey_ (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
+    Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
+    dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
+    inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."
+
+    _Flunkey_ (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
+    think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
+    Sufficient!'"
+
+[Illustration: A DISTRESSED AGRICULTURIST
+
+LANDLORD: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems
+to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."
+
+TENANT (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why,
+you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Combatants and Non-Combatants_]
+
+The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten
+by _Punch_. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their
+commanders,
+
+    As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,
+    Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.
+    These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand
+    As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.
+
+The Charge of the Light Brigade[10] prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump
+Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, _Punch_, throughout the
+war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of
+unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to
+the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the
+cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive
+bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the
+commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have
+leave to go home on urgent _Private_ affairs?"
+
+The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive
+criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even
+more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:--
+
+    Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,
+      And merrily danced that Quaker,
+    When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,
+      And Mouravieff meant to take her.
+    He said he knew it was wrong to fight,
+      He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,
+    But to see that the battle was going right,
+      O! merrily danced the Quaker.
+
+[Footnote 10: _Punch_ welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally
+appeared in the _Examiner_, but could not agree with the view expressed
+in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be
+the only way--as at the moment--to secure it.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BRITISH LION SMELLS A RAT]
+
+[Sidenote: _Paying the Bill_]
+
+The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation,
+when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and
+devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of
+"frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are
+mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his
+pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace
+came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism,
+dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on
+generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses,
+and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had
+appeared--a painful document with "delay," "want of----" and
+"unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the
+Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts _Punch_ to mitigated "joy and
+satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise
+Lord Malmesbury--no favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as
+crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to
+express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of
+Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his
+ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the
+Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks
+to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and
+those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were
+appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain
+figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two
+years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but
+3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the
+demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her
+attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, _Punch_
+strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His
+general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":--
+
+    Thank Heaven the War is ended!
+      That is the general voice,
+    But let us feign no splendid
+      Endeavours to rejoice.
+    To cease from lamentation
+      We may contrive--but--pooh!
+    Can't rise to exultation,
+      And cock-a-doodle-doo!
+
+    We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,
+      Like supernumeraries on the stage,
+      To smiling happiness from settled rage;
+    We look before and after.
+    Before, to all those skeletons and corses
+    Of gallant men and noble horses;
+      After--though sordid the consideration--
+    Unto a certain bill to pay,
+    Which we shall have for many a day,
+      By unrepealable taxation.
+
+    Yet never fought we in a better cause,
+      Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.
+    We stood in battle for the eternal laws;
+      'Twas an affair of high Police,
+    Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;
+    And now remains--the Rate.
+
+Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington
+led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the
+gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what
+it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the
+Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the
+cause of Italian liberty, _a propos_ of the advance of a million pounds
+to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest
+a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a
+trade offer." _Punch_, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney
+Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and
+establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he
+was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the
+barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every
+prisoner in our gaols costs us L150 a year, "the soldier was the
+worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."
+
+Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856--in the
+recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in
+wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque
+in the shape of an imaginary article from the _Morning Herald_ on the
+execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over
+"Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead.
+Here, as so often time has proved, _Punch_ was a prophet as well as a
+critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the
+Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France;
+wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary
+expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced
+_Punch_ to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the
+price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in
+July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:--
+
+    Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;
+    Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;
+    And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,
+    To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.
+
+    So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,
+    With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,
+    To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,
+    Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.
+
+    When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,
+    'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.
+    What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?
+    What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?
+
+[Sidenote: _Incapable Commanders_]
+
+Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex
+of incapacity," but _Punch_ spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the
+Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except
+when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great
+people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement
+we may bracket a useful _obiter dictum_ on appointments generally: "Too
+much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places
+generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing
+report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against
+Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with
+"aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea
+Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."
+
+Evidently _Punch_ is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a
+month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's
+son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at L200 a year for four years, with
+a grant of L500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without
+purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a
+marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money
+to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for
+severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service
+is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was
+a stern critic of extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, _Punch_
+recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State
+to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of
+criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier
+notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a
+comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in
+its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of
+February 23, 1856:--
+
+    Till now the stars and garters
+      Were for birth or fortune's son,
+    And as oft in snug home-quarters
+      As in fields of fight were won.
+    But at length a star arises,
+      Which as glorious will shine
+    On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast
+      Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.
+
+    Too long mere food for powder
+      We've deemed our rank and file,
+    Now higher hopes and prouder
+      Upon the soldier smile.
+    And if no Marshal's baton
+      Private Smith in his knapsack bears,
+    At least in the War, the chance of the star
+      With his General he shares.
+
+The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until
+June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity _Punch_
+strove to render justice to the occasion:--
+
+THE STAR OF VALOUR
+
+Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.
+
+    The fount of Honour, sealed till now
+      To all save claims of rank and birth,
+    Makes green the laurel on the brow
+      Ennobled but by soldier's worth.
+
+    Of these the bravest and the best
+      Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,
+    England doth, by her Queen, invest
+      With Valour's Cross--their great reward!
+
+    Marking her sense of something still,
+      A central nobleness, that lies
+    Deeper than rank which royal will,
+      Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.
+
+    Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,
+      Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;
+    That knighthood this bronze cross imparts--
+      Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Victoria Cross_]
+
+The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression
+was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:--
+
+    Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,
+      Though rather ugly--take it,
+    John Bull a medal can deserve,
+      But can't contrive to make it.
+
+But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction.
+_Punch_ was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were
+well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts
+of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not
+instituted till 1866. _Punch's_ democratic bias is also agreeably shown
+in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the
+dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were
+thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for
+help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would
+help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in
+fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with
+this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on
+State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on
+Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all
+soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public
+subscription, largely due to the appeal in _Punch's_ columns. Lastly,
+and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the
+timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in
+which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and
+ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would
+probably mean promotion by influence--an equally vicious system. To
+alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered
+the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it
+was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"--not the only reference in
+_Punch_ to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on
+behalf of his protege and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.
+
+
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of _Punch_ seventy and
+eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that
+was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the
+streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot
+be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the
+streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to
+_Punch_ they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy,
+while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured
+localities--the Poultry and Lombard Street--was a constant source of
+danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in
+recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is
+noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the
+patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which
+Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now
+relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully
+established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To
+those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel
+came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled
+against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted
+so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle,
+and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give
+a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or
+"growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but
+_Punch_, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for
+his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old
+bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The
+one-day cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at
+6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to
+mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the
+matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having
+five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public
+sympathy, fostered by the _Examiner_, was enlisted on behalf of the
+cabman, but _Punch_ was rigidly on the side of the public as against the
+proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and
+rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered
+from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which
+appeared in _The Times_. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor
+to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because
+he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also
+require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen
+were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an
+improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to
+elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of
+cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard
+of taxi-drivers.
+
+[Illustration: CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN THE WRONG
+TURNING--THAT'S ALL]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ancient Omnibus_]
+
+[Illustration: AMY (to Rose): "Good gracious, Rose, I'm afraid from the
+way the man talks that he is intoxicated!"
+
+CABBY (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic)
+intossi--intossi-cated (hic)--itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in
+speesh, Miss!"]
+
+Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their
+dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw on the floors, and the
+perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope
+ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to
+sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of
+the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside
+passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after
+1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a
+journey to the remoter suburbs, if _Punch_ is to be believed, took
+almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar
+inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially
+on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded
+interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are
+vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were
+introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the
+conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a
+superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period
+complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort,
+cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of
+1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a
+good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts,
+stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and
+driver. In one respect only, London was better served--on its waterway.
+The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that
+they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was
+habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in
+general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and
+ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for
+over-population.
+
+[Illustration: FEMALE 'BUSES (A Prophecy)]
+
+From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were
+charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by
+the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has
+frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new
+policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of
+1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of
+_Punch_ in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be
+gauged by his greeting the threat of their strike with the remark that
+he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with
+cooks--a fruitful source of satire--began to be a theme of ridicule in
+the late 'forties, and inspired in _Punch_ "The Loves of the New
+Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post
+owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.
+
+[Sidenote: _The New Police Force_]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLICE]
+
+We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students
+of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.
+
+As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means
+universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844;
+the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was
+foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest
+illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock
+in _The Ogilvies_ speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too
+bright," and _Punch_ is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility
+of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become
+obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter has no longer
+need to climb and never runs. In 1844 _Punch_ speaks of the Lucifer
+having replaced the Congreve--or "Congry" as it was vulgarly
+called--friction match; but the change of name was later, according to
+Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer
+matches as "a triumph of science."
+
+[Illustration: SIR JAMES GRAHAM HOLDS A REVIEW OF THE LONDON POSTMEN]
+
+[Sidenote: _Municipal Apathy_]
+
+The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the
+'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached
+villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from
+Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way
+House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of
+bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea
+Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric
+license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the
+'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year
+1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces
+or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as _Punch_
+called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there
+were wildernesses even in central London, notably Leicester Square and
+Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of
+Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the _terra
+incognita_ of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only
+differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked
+eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the
+region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests
+in _Punch_, belong to an unregretted past. _Punch_ was a great Londoner.
+We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him
+to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For
+years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in
+the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square,
+the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin
+in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven
+years later we read:--
+
+    In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
+    is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
+    on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
+    celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
+    particulars:
+
+    To erect a Simple Column            It takes in England 12 years.
+    Ditto, with Lions, everything
+      complete                             "          "     24   "
+    To build a Common Bridge               "          "     15   "
+    Ditto a Suspension Bridge              "          "     25   "
+    Ditto Houses of Parliament              A trifle under 100   "
+
+    With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
+    curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
+    one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
+    celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
+    Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
+    supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
+    to make his appearance.
+
+"Britannia," _Punch_ makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal
+happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate their memory."
+And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not
+ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it
+likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same
+spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on
+"The Nation and Its Monuments":--
+
+    The National Gallery holds its place
+      In Trafalgar's noble Square,
+    And being a national disgrace,
+      Will remain for ever there.
+
+    The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite
+      Of all that the world could say;
+    And because he stands on an awkward site,
+      We, of course, shall let him stay.
+
+    The Palace of Glass is so much admired,
+      Both in Country and in Town,
+    That its maintenance is by all desired:
+      So we mean to pull it down.
+
+[Sidenote: _London Changes and Improvements_]
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which
+we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British
+Museum Library--_Punch_ was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the
+Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of
+Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can
+walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk.
+The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of
+Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. _Punch_ began by
+objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the
+expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters'
+gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of
+the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge--begun
+in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous,
+and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to
+frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham
+Palace to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of
+removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of
+Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to
+cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road
+past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their
+sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received
+a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.
+
+The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and
+"improvements" kept by _Punch_ is not complete, but it serves to
+illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The
+Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean
+engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of
+London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen
+opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q"
+(Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a
+hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The
+reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an
+apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of
+which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray
+has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the
+pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a
+central octagon room. In view of _Punch's_ persistent attacks on the
+Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task
+of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was
+entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and
+Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from
+Milton's _Comus_. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of
+Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by
+Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, _Punch_ heaped unstinted
+ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms
+on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron
+Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as
+"Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French Ambassador
+as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."
+
+The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some
+jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the
+Billingsgate dialect.
+
+But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E
+natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock
+Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable
+is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as,
+without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The
+announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to
+an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so _Punch_ was
+able to have it both ways:--
+
+    Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;
+      Small Ben is sane, past disputation;
+    Yet we should like to know whose tone
+      Is most offensive to the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Filthy Thames_]
+
+The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work
+on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible
+description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no
+mention of _Punch's_ services in the cause of London sanitation. They
+certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to
+bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports
+the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as
+the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated
+pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:--
+
+    Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
+    the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
+    up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
+    mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
+    the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
+    of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross--and is, by means
+    of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent ingredients
+    of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
+    surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
+    slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
+    contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
+    Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
+    into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
+    side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
+    allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
+    situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
+    (which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
+    perfection.
+
+[Illustration: THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN]
+
+The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is,
+perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The
+noisome state of the Serpentine--"a lake of mere manure"--constantly
+affronted _Punch's_ sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid
+Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties
+onward. But it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus
+visitation, that his crusade against London filth--"Plague, Pestilence
+and Co."--began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of
+bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked
+pollution of the river. _Punch_ salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of
+"Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in
+endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts
+savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and
+extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse.
+He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an
+epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that
+John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard;
+and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in
+accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of
+dirt.
+
+Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington,
+_Punch_ confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary
+Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a
+fetid Dead Sea." Yet _Punch_ refused to lay the blame at the door of
+Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the
+_Morning Herald_ for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London.
+The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and
+cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of
+influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:--
+
+    For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,
+    For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;
+    Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,
+    But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.
+
+    Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;
+    Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and
+      doom;
+    Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;
+    Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.
+
+[Illustration: THE POOR CHILD'S NURSE]
+
+[Sidenote: _King Cholera's Friends_]
+
+The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed
+reform, and furnished _Punch_ with an occasion for free-spoken
+denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other
+obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the
+great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is
+generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as
+in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":--
+
+    What is it to _me_ that fever is never absent from these
+    places--that infants do not rear, and men die before their
+    time--that sickness engenders pauperism--that filth breeds
+    depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
+    telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
+    every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181, in St. Saviour's its 153, in
+    Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
+    Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
+    same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
+    their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
+    slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
+    and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
+    triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.
+
+    It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
+    case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
+    Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
+    still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
+    self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
+    again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
+    1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, _he_, too, is
+    at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."
+
+[Illustration: THE END OF GOG AND MAGOG; OR, THINGS VERY BAD IN THE
+CITY]
+
+_Punch_ naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in
+1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would have preferred a
+more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the
+dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.
+
+[Sidenote: _London's Vanished Glories_]
+
+Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet
+Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and
+unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by _Punch_ on the
+occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell
+Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of
+London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall
+Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with
+its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery,
+was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil
+days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of
+auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties,
+_Punch_ forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of _Bon
+Gaultier_. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was
+going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is
+attributed by _Punch_ to disgust at the failure of Imperialism.
+Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of
+_Punch's_ pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning,
+who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and
+sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B.
+Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and
+only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a
+place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving
+bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in
+their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by _Punch_ along
+with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron
+Nathan, one of the irregular _impresario_ peers who do not appear in
+"Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron
+Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he
+appealed to a fashionable _clientele_. When Burnand wrote the libretto
+of _Cox and Box_ in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City
+clerk, witness Cox's song,
+
+    My aged employer, his whole physiognomy
+    Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,
+    Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me
+    If you will take this as your holiday!"
+    Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville--
+    Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.
+
+Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume
+of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents
+as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the
+democratic _Punch_ denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in
+1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on,
+however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of
+the Semitic invaders.
+
+[Sidenote: _Burlington Arcadia_]
+
+The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre
+Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her _debut_ on the
+stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture
+gallery. _Punch_ describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery
+combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a
+pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough
+Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the
+building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular
+attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various
+vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine
+warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street,
+was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it
+in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin
+trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has
+disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of
+"The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," _Punch_ gives a detailed
+account of its attractions in 1842:--
+
+    The covered passage through which the overland journey from
+    Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
+    in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
+    happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
+    whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
+    of security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
+    regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows--from
+    Gavarni's _Charivari_ sketches, which have been there as far as the
+    memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll _Diableries_,
+    and the _Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age_, who rushed
+    into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
+    he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
+    perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
+    saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
+    water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
+    neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
+    impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
+    young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
+    attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
+    portraits of mortal angels in _very_ low dresses, one of whom is
+    asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
+    at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
+    what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
+    tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
+    and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
+    himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
+    popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
+    ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
+    which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
+    arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.
+
+Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of
+its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in
+1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic _bal masque_
+organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the
+time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during
+Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in _Punch_
+representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the
+scenes of his many triumphs--an ingenious adaptation of the episode of
+Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. _Punch_ was no
+lover of _bals masques_, reckoning them among the things which they
+manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud,
+modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the
+present building in 1884. _Punch_ owned that admission to her show was a
+test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as
+ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared Madame Tussaud in
+1849--the year before her death--to the witches who made wax models of
+those whom they wished to injure.
+
+[Illustration: THE HAPPY FAMILY]
+
+Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in _London Past
+and Present_ that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original
+Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its
+memories linger in the early volumes of _Punch_. There is a good series
+entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The
+Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well
+remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at
+the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats,
+mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in _Punch's_
+picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one
+sees now and again. A charge of twopence was made for admission to St.
+Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which
+_Punch_ bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with
+Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on
+Cremorne Gardens--which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge--have
+been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a
+scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions--"The Siege of
+Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851--were not closed till
+1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon,
+and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was
+pulled down and the grounds built over.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Dominion of Din_]
+
+_Punch_ had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings
+so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the
+great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the
+tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games
+which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional
+mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on
+Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well
+as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary
+din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin
+note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the
+sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his
+antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who
+brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's
+fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual
+visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take
+an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know
+that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The
+Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's
+"Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably
+representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera,
+and patriotism.
+
+[Illustration: TASTE
+
+SHOP GIRL (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's
+Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the
+'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements_]
+
+The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most
+popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time almost rivalling "General"
+Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who
+was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime
+favourite with _Punch_, and is never mentioned without a friendly word.
+But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none
+stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone
+from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the
+Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to
+1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and
+introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by _Punch_ in prose and
+verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better
+management of the Metropolis in March, 1855, and _Punch_ more than once
+applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan
+Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused _Punch's_
+special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who
+combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges
+once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were
+conspicuous. _Punch_ devotes a special article to those of the
+Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but
+these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold,
+are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the
+broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials
+bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the
+Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and
+'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which _Punch_ noted
+as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been
+worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the
+close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute
+because entirely unregulated. _Punch_ defended the intermission of
+postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed
+dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to
+record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising _Punch_ is
+a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed
+an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage
+occurs:--
+
+    The _Kentish Herald_ lately contained the following notice:
+    "Ranelagh Gardens, Margate--last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
+    consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
+    tragical enough; but _The Times_ outdoes it in horror by informing
+    us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for _general_ interment";
+    and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
+    General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
+    Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
+    "Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
+    satisfaction."
+
+In 1847 _Punch_ recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing the
+activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to
+restrain the excesses of the advertiser:--
+
+    Advertisements are spreading all over England--they have crept
+    under the bridges--have planted themselves right in the middle of
+    the Thames--have usurped the greatest thoroughfares--and are now
+    just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
+    certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
+    stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
+    nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
+    calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
+    vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
+    most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
+    such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
+    and stuffed with nothing else.
+
+We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus.
+It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the
+fastidious of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SOCIAL FABRIC
+
+
+
+
+THE COURT
+
+
+At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache,
+the famous French artist--perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar
+_genre_ that our age has produced--published a wonderful design in which
+the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's
+reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain
+was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a
+girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King,
+Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic.
+The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have
+been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is
+rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and
+limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the
+personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in
+temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell,
+Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted
+for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from
+which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment
+created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was
+summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the
+throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over
+the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena
+of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound
+and constitutional--that these appointments should not be made or
+maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences
+hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of
+a certain obstinacy in the assertion of her rights. But the cry that
+the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange
+cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate
+outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the
+ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the
+Queen's relations with Whig Ministers--always excepting Lord
+Palmerston--were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no
+guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are
+familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it
+was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but
+whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the
+Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement
+when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less
+effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of
+affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent
+qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he
+was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not
+in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in
+affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit
+for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to
+that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and
+geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and
+occasionally _gauche_. His notions of sport were not those of an English
+sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To
+put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the
+unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to
+everything foreign--language, art, music, letters--and consistently
+declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal
+patronage of foreigners begin in _Punch's_ first volume. "Ride-a-cock
+horse" is turned into a florid Italian _cavatina_, and the words
+translated into Italian--"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"--for the
+benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as
+"a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an
+utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series
+of complaints which re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn
+to _Punch's_ extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a
+burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal
+nursery, _a propos_ of the birth of the Prince of Wales:--
+
+THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN
+
+By the Correspondent of the _Observer_
+
+    The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
+    agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
+    a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
+    expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.
+
+    According to rumour, the baby--we beg pardon, the scion of the
+    House of Brunswick--was to have been born--we must apologize again,
+    we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
+    the reigning family of Great Britain--some day last month, and of
+    course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
+    that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
+    confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
+    anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
+    Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
+    London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
+    smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
+    rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
+    because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
+    the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
+    opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
+    that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
+    of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
+    conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
+    pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
+    that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
+    heart of the Royal Household.[11] But we hope, for the honour of
+    all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
+    matter of political arrangement.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued_]
+
+[Footnote 11: The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been
+settled in 1840. But Scribe's _Verre d'Eau_, under the title of _The
+Maid of Honour_, with the real incident turned into farce, had been
+adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.]
+
+This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment
+from the same fictitious correspondent:--
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
+
+(By the _Observer's_ own Correspondent)
+
+    It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
+    probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
+    impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
+    positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
+    of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
+    Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
+    title of the _Prince of Wales_, which it is generally understood he
+    will enjoy--at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
+    anything of the kind--until an event shall happen which we hope
+    will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
+    Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
+    whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
+    Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
+    circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to _at present_, nor
+    do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.
+
+    Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
+    Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
+    to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
+    having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
+    have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
+    Mayors of London and Dublin.
+
+[Illustration: A ROYAL NURSERY RHYME FOR 1860
+
+    "There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do."]
+
+This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of
+the infant Prince. _Punch's_ serious views as to the Prince's future are
+to be found in his "Paean to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by
+the Royal Christening in February, 1842:--
+
+_PUNCH_ AND THE PRINCELET
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The little Prince _must_ love the poor,
+      And he will heed the cry
+    Of the pauper mother, when she finds
+      Her infant's fountains dry.
+    He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,
+      To make those founts o'erflow,
+    For they have vow'd our little Prince
+      No "vanities" shall know.
+    And we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+    And death's dark bones will then become
+      Like iv'ry pure and white!
+    His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,
+      And his garments be as light;
+    For man will slaughter man no more
+      For wrong begot by wrongs,
+    For our little Prince will say--"To me
+      Nor life nor death belongs."
+    So we will rattle our little bell,
+    And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
+        Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
+        Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!
+
+But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, _Punch_ could not
+emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could
+not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not
+exempt, save on their knees:--
+
+    It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
+    Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
+    Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
+    has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
+    Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
+    Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
+    within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
+    Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
+    Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
+    subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
+    Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
+    that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
+    was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
+    receiving it.
+
+When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some
+apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be
+affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that
+there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at
+present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of
+concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the
+noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:--
+
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E andato al mercato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      E a casa restato.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.
+    Questo piccolo porco
+      Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.
+
+These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from
+the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained
+campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and
+sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on
+uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this
+hereditary failing. A concise biography in the _Almanack_ for 1842
+states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a
+shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put
+her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and
+malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons.
+He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the _Morning Post_),
+for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Tailor_]
+
+In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his
+sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment
+is associated with the cartoon:--
+
+    Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
+    of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
+    ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
+    trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
+    to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
+    regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
+    do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
+    bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
+    and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
+    whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
+    the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
+    between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then _Punch_ was
+    compelled to interfere, for the honour of the English army. The
+    result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
+    an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
+    Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAILOR'S GOOSE--THE TERROR OF THE ARMY]
+
+[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Sportsman_]
+
+The campaign reached its height in 1845 when _Punch_ was given an
+irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained
+by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, _Punch_ averred, was a born tailor,
+the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the
+British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming
+rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse
+his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and
+might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this outburst of
+derision _Punch_ gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the
+running--or baiting--with renewed energy against his sportmanship.
+_Punch_, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field
+sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once
+protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for
+a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to
+support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument
+was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was
+more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his
+crime. _Punch_ was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the
+influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of
+game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the
+Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.
+
+The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were
+the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the
+Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles
+and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony
+phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:--
+
+    Six hares alive were taken out
+      Each in its canvas sack;
+    And five as dead as mutton, in
+      The same were carried back.
+
+The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of
+Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad
+modelled on _John Gilpin_, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting
+down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to
+this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in
+September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and
+pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the
+bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria;
+and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by
+Prince Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":--
+
+    Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear
+      In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)
+    Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,
+      By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.
+    Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;
+      Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;
+    Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,
+      Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.
+    Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,
+      This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,
+    Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court
+      And make a massyker of English Staggs.[12]
+    Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,
+      What avoc he _would_ make and what a trimenjus battu!
+
+    JEAMS.
+
+[Footnote 12: In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway
+speculation.]
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stag Slaughter at Gotha_]
+
+[Illustration: VICTORIA]
+
+Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment
+of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the _Standard_:--
+
+TEARS AT GOTHA
+
+    The _Standard_ gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
+    to a gentleman in London:--
+
+    "This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept _I saw
+    large tears in her eyes_: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
+    difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
+    the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she _naturally felt_ at
+    the death of the animal was _counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
+    propensities_, so that it is almost as meritorious _to destroy an
+    otter as it is a snake_; but this was a totally different case; nor
+    is Her Majesty yet recovered. _For the Prince_, the deer were too
+    numerous, and _must_ be killed. _This_ was the German method; and
+    no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
+    will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."
+
+[Illustration: THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+
+"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have _you_ any Railway Shares?"]
+
+This incident marked the high-water level of _Punch's_
+anti-Albertianism--at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an
+address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting
+season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the
+Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of
+dissatisfaction. What infuriated _Punch_ even more than the ineptitudes
+of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the _Lickspittle-offs_ of the
+Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The
+amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing,"
+_Punch_ frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing
+than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment
+of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its
+discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an
+immense gulf, and _Punch_ was never weary of gibbeting those writers in
+and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning
+spirit of the time--questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges
+the throne--by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone
+age." Assuredly, the absolute _reductio ad absurdum_ of this
+courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any
+reasonable woman would:--
+
+    The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
+    compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
+    dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
+    aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
+    idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars--"what
+    condescension!" If it display the influence of affections, he
+    screams--"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
+    Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
+    says _The Atlas_--"The woman and the mother _for a moment_
+    proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
+    and the _splendour of a diadem_!"
+
+    What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"--but then, we
+    presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
+    in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?
+
+The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for
+deprecating royal excursions by railway:--
+
+    _The Atlas_ thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":--
+
+    "We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
+    managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
+    of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
+    and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
+    regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
+    that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
+    royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
+    abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."
+
+    There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says _The Atlas_,
+    the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
+    chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
+    "take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may _occasionally_
+    take a chance!"
+
+_Punch_, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious
+view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of
+maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf
+fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.
+
+[Sidenote: _Syncophancy Rebuked_]
+
+Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the
+other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well
+rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with
+the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed
+that here, as on so many occasions, _Punch_ adopted the device of
+assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:--
+
+    Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which _Punch_ has
+    been favoured with an early copy.
+
+    WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
+    is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
+    correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
+    write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
+    touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies--it is Our
+    Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
+    really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
+    and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
+    shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
+    all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
+    Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
+    be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
+    shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
+    FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
+    him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
+    without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
+    FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
+    permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
+    exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
+    familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.
+
+    BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
+    FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
+    vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.
+
+  VICTORIA REGINA.
+
+  Given at Blair Athol,
+  September 16, 1844.
+
+In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the _Court
+Circular_--the ironical suggestions that it should be published in
+French or Italian,[13] and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel
+Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile
+nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's.
+
+[Footnote 13: ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person
+puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he
+means."]
+
+Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted
+by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new
+occupant of the post:--
+
+     ... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
+    there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are of
+    too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
+    the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
+    shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
+    would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
+    poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
+    the _Court Circular_, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
+    Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
+    privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
+    following specimen:--
+
+    This morning at an early hour,
+      In Osborne's peaceful grounds,
+    The Queen and Prince--'spite of a shower--
+      Took their accustomed rounds.
+    With them, to bear them company,
+      Prince Leiningen he went,
+    And with the other royal three,
+      The Duchess, eke, of Kent.
+
+    His Royal Highness Prince of Wales
+      Went forth to take the air;
+    The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails
+      His exercise to share.
+    On the young members of the flock
+      Was tenderest care bestowed,
+    For two long hours by the clock
+      They walked--they ran--they rode.
+
+    Calmly away the hours wear
+      In Osborne's tranquil shade,
+    And to the dinner-party there
+      Was no addition made.
+    Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas
+      Having returned to town,
+    The Royal family circle has
+      Settled serenely down.
+
+It is not too much to assume that _Punch's_ ridicule assisted in
+eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record
+of life at Court.
+
+We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his
+prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in
+October, 1843, is treated with acidulated satire, and in his imaginary
+speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new
+academic cap (_novus pileus academicus_) of his own designing. A month
+later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of
+Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato--on the eve
+of the Irish famine--is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but
+then Princes are such wags," adds _Punch_. The much-canvassed
+appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847
+led to sardonic comment:--
+
+    Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
+    this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
+    begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
+    most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
+    feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.
+
+[Sidenote: The Prince of Bricklayers]
+
+But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a
+friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince
+"Al." _Punch_, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the
+hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes,
+and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of
+social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of
+Bricklayers:--
+
+    His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
+    some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
+    Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and _Punch_, in order
+    to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
+    with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
+    be coming out like a regular brick.
+
+But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which,
+more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and
+popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea--and the Prince was its
+only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the
+significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the
+world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in _The Times_, and other
+utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in _The Idea
+of Progress_, that "the Exhibition was, at the time, optimistically
+regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical
+progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to
+a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of
+which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's
+'Federation of the World.'" _Punch_ never failed to give the Prince the
+credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it
+his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the
+Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which
+appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the
+suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde
+Park:--
+
+PRINCE _PUNCH_ TO PRINCE ALBERT
+
+    Illustrious and excellent brother,
+      Don't consider me rude or unkind,
+    If, as from one Prince to another,
+      I give you a bit of my mind--
+    And I do so with all the more roundness,
+      As your conduct amongst us has shown
+    A propriety, judgment and soundness
+      Of taste, not surpassed by my own.
+
+    You've respected John Bull's little oddities,
+      Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
+    Chose his pictures and statues--commodities
+      Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
+    And if you're a leetle more German
+      In these than I'd have you--what is't
+    Beyond what a critic may term an
+      Educational bias or twist?
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    You have never pressed forward unbidden;
+      When called on you've never shown shame,
+    Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
+      Your person, your purse, or your name;
+    You've lent no man occasion to call you
+      Intruder, intriguer, or fool;
+    Even I've not had often to haul you
+      O'er the coals, or to take you to school.
+
+    All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness--
+      Which, _au reste_, our positions allow--
+    For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
+      After all I have written just now):
+    Which is to put down certain flunkies,
+      Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
+    Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
+      Tars throw stones--to get nuts in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then silence your civic applauders,
+      Lest better men cease from applause.
+    He who tribute accepts of marauders,
+      Is held to be pledged to their cause.
+    Let no Corporate magnates of London
+      An honour presume to award:
+    Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,
+      Little honour to spare can afford!
+
+[Sidenote: Prince Punch to Prince Albert]
+
+A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, _Punch_ was evidently
+impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of
+State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on
+thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs--Very Dangerous," and _Mr. Punch_
+shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis"
+warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the _role_ of
+an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt
+it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of
+the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the
+charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards,
+but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that
+he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army
+was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the
+Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond
+all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never
+uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the
+honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion
+was not wholly appeased, and _Punch's_ references to the Prince during
+the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the
+intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's baton and pay, as
+a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry
+for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year
+his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic
+remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told,
+the intention and the desire were both inventions of _Punch_, who was
+playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves
+and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to
+make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have
+criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the
+picture of _Punch_ regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the
+Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself,
+"What sanguinary engagement can it be?" _Punch_ cannot be acquitted of
+treating the Prince Consort--as he only now began to be generally
+called--with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate
+position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to
+meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent
+him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with
+this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted,
+that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused;
+that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and
+self-protective. It was not the first time _Punch_ had been unjust to
+the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the
+campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged
+that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the
+Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in _Punch_--and the
+public--did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince
+Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRASSHOPPERS' FEAST: A PROPHETIC VISION.
+
+Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper--Monday, October 28, 1844.]
+
+As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause
+of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we
+have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the
+influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the
+Queen was by no means exempt from direct censure, remonstrance, and
+exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was
+treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days
+_Punch_ never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are
+always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her
+visit to the City in 1844. Though _Punch's_ pen was sharp his pencil was
+kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon
+published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860[14]":--
+
+    There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
+    She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
+
+[Footnote 14: See Illustration.]
+
+As early as the Christmas number of 1842 _Punch_ had given "the
+arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names
+and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he
+comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax.
+More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion,
+against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.--
+
+    TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY
+
+    _Punch_ has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
+    the columns of _The Times_. Whether _Punch's_ friend, the Attorney
+    General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
+    immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
+    _Punch_ knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
+    law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
+    future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
+    sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
+    Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
+    of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
+    writes as follows:--
+
+    "Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
+    residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
+    as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
+    that royalty, like property, has its _duties_ as well as its
+    _rights_. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
+    kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
+    essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
+    sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
+    entertainments that deserve to be encouraged by attending such
+    places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
+    arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
+    approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
+    too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
+    these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
+    how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
+    distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
+    lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
+    acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
+    it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
+    constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
+    personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
+    that is likely to accrue from such neglect."
+
+In these years, and for a good many years to come, _Punch_ hunted in
+couples with _The Times_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Neglect of Native Talent_]
+
+The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists,
+musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for
+year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes
+oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court:
+Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity
+was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the
+funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, _Punch_ exclaims, "imagine for
+a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The
+often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him
+very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated
+Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of
+Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang
+several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as _Punch_ notes, of
+the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But _Punch_ had
+his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in
+dwarfs--Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her
+staff--by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results
+that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped
+growing at the age of five months:--
+
+    How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
+    lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
+    merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
+    majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
+    was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!
+
+The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of _Punch_, nor was
+this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of
+Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. _Punch_ considered
+that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the
+latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on
+the Four Georges:--
+
+GEORGIUS ULTIMUS
+
+        He left an example for age and for youth
+                      To avoid.
+        He never acted well by Man or Woman,
+      And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.
+        He deserted his Friends and his Principles.
+      He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;
+        But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,
+          And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.
+    He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,
+        And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,
+                  An admiring Aristocracy
+    Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."
+        Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,
+        And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.
+
+In the same year _Punch_, with malicious inventiveness, represented
+Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on
+Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the
+Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these
+agilities _The Times_ again proved a useful ally, for in the same number
+we find the following:--
+
+HIGH TREASON
+
+A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in _The Times_, writes
+thus:--
+
+    "It is no use to conceal the fact--British high art _is hated at
+    Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy_. They don't want it; they
+    can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
+    vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"
+
+    We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
+    to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.
+
+[Illustration: TRAINING SCHOOL FOR LADIES ABOUT TO APPEAR AT COURT]
+
+It was a letter in _The Times_ that again prompted _Punch's_
+remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French
+milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the
+imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of
+the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:--
+
+THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY
+
+    There was a new Singer of Italy
+    Who went through his part very prettily;
+      "Mamma tinks him so fine,
+      We must have him to dine!"
+    Papa remarked slily and wittily.
+
+THE OLD SINGER OF AVON
+
+    There was an old Singer of Avon,
+    Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;
+      But Mamma doesn't care
+      For this stupid swan's air,
+    Any more than the croak of a raven.
+
+[Sidenote: _Royal Visits and Visitors_]
+
+[Illustration: CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES
+
+Calypso, Q----n V----a; Ulysses, K--g of the F----h.]
+
+The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's
+"bal poudre" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of
+_Punch's_ frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone
+as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid
+sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but _Punch_ was no
+advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely
+criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the
+remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of
+an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal levees is
+a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; _Punch_ is happy
+in pillorying the _Morning Post_ for the use of the phrase, "the dense
+mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions;
+while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early
+juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were
+carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal
+tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is
+represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty.
+_Punch_ was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe--whom, by the way,
+he once represented as Fagin--and the impending visit of the French
+Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in
+proscribing and impounding _Punch_, followed up by a burlesque account
+of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission
+of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the
+invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, _Punch_
+burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. _Punch_,
+like the _Skibbereen Eagle_, always kept his eye on the Tsar of
+Russia--and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas
+stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks
+began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to
+England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter
+hostility. Readers of _Punch_ are advised to carry every penny of the
+largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid
+any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of
+harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is
+shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the
+Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for
+the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of
+savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to
+the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short,
+was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a
+diamond ring in it. Nor has _Punch_ a single good word to say for the
+King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year,
+"to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with
+anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844,
+_Punch_ profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited
+Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners'
+ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee
+Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout
+the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from
+his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even
+worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit
+in June, 1843:--
+
+TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER
+
+    The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
+    of six years--intensely painful to all parties--the monarch returns
+    to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
+    name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
+    perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
+    marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
+    who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
+    thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
+    the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
+    Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
+    said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
+    medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
+    Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
+    fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
+    evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
+    was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
+    with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
+    the King of Hanover) has L23,000 a year from the sweat of
+    Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
+    taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
+    he not practically teach them the beauty of humility--of long
+    suffering--of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
+    continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
+    who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
+    will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
+    Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
+    expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
+    creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
+    pride and height of their intelligence, allow L23,000 to the King
+    of Hanover.
+
+[Sidenote: Royal Parasites]
+
+The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge,
+to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful
+explosion in the _Morning Post_:--
+
+    Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
+    the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
+    _bouquet_, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
+    proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely premising that
+    we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
+    elated and deeply moved." He says:
+
+    "We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
+    ceremony as _in turn_ we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
+    to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
+    and beauty, _through which is ever discernible the eagle glance_
+    and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
+    Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, _one of the handsomest
+    Princes of the age_, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
+    tempered by the _judgment and wisdom of age_. The Queen Adelaide,
+    living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
+    private life or on a throne."
+
+    So far the _Morning Post_. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
+    _The Times_?
+
+    "The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
+    in consequence of indisposition."
+
+The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of
+never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous
+after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who
+thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:--
+
+    A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:
+
+    _Minister._ From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
+    of the devil----
+
+    (_Duke._ To be sure; very proper--very proper.)
+
+    _Minister._ From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion----
+
+    (_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.)
+
+    And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
+    However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
+    Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:
+
+    _Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
+    for----
+
+    (_Duke._ No objection--no objection!)
+
+[Sidenote: _A Royal Duke's Household_]
+
+One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the
+less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable
+and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he
+was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and
+the people."
+
+On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked
+the grant of L12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of
+Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and
+Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were
+neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:--
+
+FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS
+
+    What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
+    he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
+    time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
+    these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
+    pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
+    sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
+    Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
+    and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
+    system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
+    have fallen--can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
+    be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
+    which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
+    measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
+    grants to its pensioners--when the allowance is flung at his Royal
+    Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
+    tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN DAMOCLES]
+
+Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the
+mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he
+ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if he did not equal him, as _Punch's_ pet
+aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the
+hostile comment that "empire" meant _empirer_. The _Coup d'Etat_ was the
+signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His
+matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor
+Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in
+France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are
+vehemently denounced. _Punch's_ attacks ceased during the Crimean War,
+but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace
+was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was
+responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in
+_Punch_.
+
+By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William
+Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the
+Empress Eugenie, produced in the four volumes of his _Life of Napoleon
+III_ the chief _apologia_ in English of the Second Empire.
+
+But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst
+_Punch's_ unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his
+reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to
+Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the
+surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to
+Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated
+controversy in 1845 in which _Punch_ ranged himself militantly among the
+partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various
+sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of
+the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a
+burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined
+zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."
+
+[Illustration: SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?]
+
+The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail,
+and in an optimistic vein. _Punch_ never believed in the Repeal
+Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot
+and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father
+Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis,
+or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien,
+an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous
+ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato
+famine had evoked _Punch's_ sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring
+reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of
+Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified _vix paulo ante Diem
+Judicii_--or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's
+visit was hailed as of good omen, though _Punch_ reminds her that she
+had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen--palaces and not
+cabins. "Let Erin _forget_ the days of old" is the burden of his song;
+at least he refrained from quoting--if he ever knew of it--that other
+terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits
+that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her
+traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium.
+Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife,
+paid the costs of her vilifier.
+
+In 1849, also, _Punch_, evidently still in mellower mood, published an
+enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who
+died on December 2. _Punch_ specially refers to her generosity to Mrs.
+Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and
+the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid
+from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton,
+consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest
+charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by
+her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform
+Agitation, and _Punch's_ homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the
+times that _Punch_ begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or
+more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her
+popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties.
+At the close of 1852 _Punch_ ridicules as absurd the rumour of the
+betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
+the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a
+German paper, and proved true. _Punch's_ chief objection was
+sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the
+rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle
+would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the
+domestic graces." Besides, _Punch_ in the summer of 1844 had published
+his own New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by _The Times's_ comment on
+the late Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it
+therefore enacted that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty
+to marry whom or how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or
+pleases."
+
+[Sidenote: _The Princess Royal's Betrothal_]
+
+Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three
+years later:--
+
+ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE
+
+    They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,
+    Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.
+    What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!
+    The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?
+
+    Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd
+    Against her in arms, but his being afraid.
+    His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!
+    Pooh!--the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.
+
+    The Princess is--bless her!--scarce fifteen years old;
+    One summer more even o'er _Dinah_ had roll'd.
+    To marry so early she can't be inclined;
+    A suitable _Villikins_ some day she'll find.
+
+    Moreover, in her case, we know very well,
+    There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,
+    Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,
+    With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."
+
+Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent
+anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856.
+_Punch's_ comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the
+betrothal was celebrated in verse at once ceremonial and friendly.
+References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we
+may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic
+Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, _Punch_
+administered a severe castigation to the offender. _Punch_ did not like
+his monopoly to be infringed.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD NOBILITY
+
+
+Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of _Punch_ and in those
+of the _Morning Post_ in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf.
+As we have seen, _Punch's_ admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped
+a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized
+most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not
+denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and
+the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern
+Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington.
+Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action
+against Napoleon, and here was his reply:--
+
+    "---- wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
+    remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
+    advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
+    that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
+    transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
+    that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
+    appoint an executioner, which would not be me."[15]
+
+The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:--
+
+    The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
+    political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
+    defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
+    Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
+    Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
+    Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
+    the Dwarf?
+
+Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded
+the repeal of the Corn Laws--whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or
+strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.
+
+[Footnote 15: Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's
+Dispatches.]
+
+[Illustration: HENRY MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: A NEW STATUE OF ACHILLES
+
+Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo
+Lane, and Waterloo Place.]
+
+The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in
+connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of
+Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When
+Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel _The
+Tuft-hunter_ were exposed, _Punch_ printed this jingling epigram:--
+
+    A Duke once declared--and most solemnly too--
+    That whatever he liked with his own he would do;
+    But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown
+    He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!
+
+[Sidenote: _Marquesses under the Microscope_]
+
+And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of
+Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very
+first number. The Marquess of Hertford--the original of Thackeray's
+Marquess of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_--is subjected to posthumous obloquy,
+_a propos_ of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were
+compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead
+may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of
+Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner,
+but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical
+Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of
+Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 21/2d. in
+the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait
+for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but
+then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power
+of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:--
+
+THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY
+
+The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with
+the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of
+office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men,
+to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody,
+save the Earl of Malmesbury. _The Times_ says, and most truly:
+
+    "A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
+    century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
+    deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
+    Secretary seemed able to bestow."
+
+Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the
+heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord
+Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true
+strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years
+of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or
+jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst
+the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a
+little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne
+struck at rotten boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest
+sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon
+his doings? So it is!
+
+    Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
+    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
+    A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
+    Those scraps are good deeds past.
+
+But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the
+history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot
+rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the
+true, manly, English brain that beats--(and in the serene happiness of
+honoured age may it long continue to beat!)--beneath it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Educating the House of Lords_]
+
+[Illustration: APPROPRIATE
+
+FIRST CITIZEN: "I say, Bill--I wonder what he calls hisself?"
+
+SECOND DITTO: "Blowed if I know!--but I calls him a Bloated
+Haristocrat."]
+
+As for peers in general, _Punch's_ views may be gathered from his scheme
+for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:--
+
+    It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
+    born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
+    born ass.
+
+    We are not proving that fact--only stating it--_pace_ your
+    word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.
+
+    But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
+    command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
+    not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
+    ears.
+
+    The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
+    asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
+    country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
+    kicking.
+
+    Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
+    son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
+    dose of physic for an old woman.
+
+    But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
+    certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
+    which is absurd.
+
+    Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
+    any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
+    born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.
+
+    Examine him in the Alphabet--there have been Peers who didn't know
+    that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make a
+    Lord--the Mayor of London--count hobnails. In history--for he is to
+    help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
+    and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
+    are _a fortiori_ to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
+    physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
+    medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
+    individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
+    homoeopaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
+    philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
+    ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
+    house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
+    which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
+    In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
+    stand up for the liberty of unlicensed printing, instead of
+    insulting and calumniating the Press.
+
+    This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
+    objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
+    can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
+    has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
+    touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
+    that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
+    had better not shave ourselves.
+
+To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers,
+extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are
+specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant
+mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in
+the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the
+Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and
+all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected
+therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of _Punch's_
+favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St.
+Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the
+"snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the
+appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children
+out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.
+
+Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic
+example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean
+War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care
+of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's.
+Hence the epigram:--
+
+CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COUTE
+
+    "The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"
+    "By not taking," says _Punch_, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."
+
+With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer
+but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he earned the dislike of
+_Punch_, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his
+traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.
+
+[Sidenote: _Thackeray on Great Folks_]
+
+_Punch_ saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the
+bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family
+in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble
+personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than
+friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than
+coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible.
+Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold,
+and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed
+the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town."
+Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he
+says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:--
+
+    The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
+    trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
+    persons do, but take you for what you are--a man kindly and
+    good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
+    good _raconteur_, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
+    and judge of wine--or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
+    ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
+    Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
+    Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
+    leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
+    D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
+    what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
+    quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
+    stage King and Queen.
+
+
+
+
+SOCIETY--EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL
+
+
+For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties
+_Punch_ cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent
+reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the
+_entree_ to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often
+overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and
+diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in
+Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances
+and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its
+public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society,
+which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, _Punch_ subdivides the
+three main strata of Society--High Life, Middle Life, Low Life--into
+various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people
+wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we
+pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to
+the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was
+of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby
+genteel, that _Punch_, in his earliest days, had most first-hand
+knowledge.
+
+[Sidenote: _Almack's_]
+
+The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated
+than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing
+less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from
+Galloway--Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name,
+MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a
+Yorkshire Quaker--who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton,
+and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for
+aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous
+Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James's, where, for more than
+seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the
+twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly
+Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a
+committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who
+distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth
+century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be
+introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly
+Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine
+oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of
+Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the _creme de la
+creme_ of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion
+of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of
+laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least,
+meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."[16]
+Great care was taken that the supply of _debutantes_ should not exceed
+the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the
+accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps,
+the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum
+attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781,
+bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after
+whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely
+departed, but so serious a review as the _Quarterly_ wrote respectfully
+of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in
+England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number
+of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are
+quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of
+their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's
+lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed
+and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly
+exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and
+quadrille--the polka--are described by _Punch_ (after Byron) in the
+lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844.
+The craze for dancing was not so widely diffused as in 1920, but to
+judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all
+strata of Society were affected:--
+
+[Footnote 16: _Vide_ Grantley Berkeley's _Recollections_.]
+
+[Illustration: THE POLKA
+
+1. My Polka before Six Lessons.
+
+2. My Polka after Six Lessons.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Polkamania_]
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+AN "AT HOME". YE POLKA.]
+
+    That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
+    have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
+    analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
+    Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
+    entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
+    name of _Aranea Polkapoietica_. The Polkamania, after raging
+    fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
+    length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
+    Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
+    specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
+    nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
+    corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
+    the whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
+    symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
+    the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
+    movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
+    _cerebellum_. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
+    amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
+    terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
+    subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
+    finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
+    strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
+    propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
+    Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
+    Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
+    things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
+    obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
+    go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
+    committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
+    suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
+    now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
+    less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
+    not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
+    have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
+    yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
+    corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
+    variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
+    be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.
+
+Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of
+to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the
+waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour.
+The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but
+the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of
+figures--La Pastorale, L'Ete, La Trenitz, La Poule, etc.--is dead beyond
+redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good
+ten years.[17] In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the
+art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a
+Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which
+Thackeray joined) for the suppression of the pest, the malady was
+described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued
+phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue
+in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its
+prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers--Taglioni (who gave
+her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin
+of the _prima-donna_; but though there were schools of dancing, and
+_Thes dansants_, which _Punch_ heavily ridiculed, and though the
+fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at
+Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals,
+as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher
+flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young
+lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at
+least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the
+practice of Poonah painting--an early and crude imitation of Oriental
+art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah
+painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The
+fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing
+tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are
+(allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the
+Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of
+conversation at a social gathering:--
+
+[Footnote 17: A correspondent wrote to _The Times_ in 1846 complaining
+that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and
+suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Modish Futilities_]
+
+    It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
+    sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
+    figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
+    fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
+    be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
+    That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
+    converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
+    Answer, without exception, "Yes"--general rule as before; but when
+    the rejoinder comes, "What instrument do you play?" although the
+    reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the
+    mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind
+    of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you
+    will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine
+    players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or
+    Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call Mercadante "grand" or
+    Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a
+    word or two for Alexander Lee.[18]
+
+    It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two
+    queries) a young lady will answer your questions with
+    indifference--almost contempt--in the belief that you are a very
+    commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of
+    romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging
+    over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or
+    Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is
+    most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to
+    do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with
+    meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance,
+    the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with
+    common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter
+    predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be
+    quoted from _Romeo and Juliet_, which will bring in a reflection
+    upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the
+    quotation:
+
+    "I never knew a young gazelle," etc.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Finishing" a Daughter_]
+
+This was written in _Punch_ in July, 1842, but there is not much
+difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years
+later:--
+
+    HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER
+
+    1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.
+
+    2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.
+
+    3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at
+    home.
+
+    4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.
+
+    5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of
+    life.
+
+    6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of
+    house-keeping.
+
+    7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything
+    for herself.
+
+    8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.
+
+    9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to a
+    clerk in the Treasury upon L75 a year, or to an ensign who is going
+    out to India.
+
+    If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished,
+    you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her
+    escape as nothing short of a miracle.
+
+[Footnote 18: George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican
+and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer,
+music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the
+Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular
+in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's
+Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."]
+
+[Illustration: SPORTING MAN (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a
+promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to
+the black-cob-looking man."]
+
+The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of
+Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official
+recognition of learned women and authoresses--Mrs. Somerville and Maria
+Edgeworth--was supported by _Punch_. In his "Letters to a Young Man
+about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of
+good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little
+encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners,
+regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the
+gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only
+substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."
+
+_Punch_ castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their
+fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women
+exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old
+Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to
+the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or
+scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only
+excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women
+the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely
+patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the
+_Ingoldsby Legends_ deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian
+manners, and can be verified from the pages of _Punch_, who tells us
+how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:--
+
+    All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to
+    sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several
+    instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised
+    seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was
+    pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last
+    four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be
+    fifteen pounds.
+
+The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in
+the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion.
+Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left
+to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to
+subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty
+years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the
+accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a
+correspondent to the _Morning Post_, who wrote to describe how, as the
+result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was
+placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."
+
+[Sidenote: _Verrey and Gunter_]
+
+[Illustration: Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe
+
+A FASHIONABLE CLUB--FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.]
+
+The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony
+was ever a male vice, and _Punch_ is constantly running a tilt against
+civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not
+confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera
+and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four
+thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading for
+more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and
+relations--more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did
+not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later
+age.[19] They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few
+expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The
+nearest approach was Verrey's Cafe, which was then a fashionable resort,
+and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for
+mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor
+money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title _Punch_
+satirizes the pretensions of the New Rich), the _entree_ to Almack's.
+For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's
+"Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of
+Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and
+obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of
+to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid
+roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the
+smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have
+borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which
+he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:--
+
+    What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the
+    brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody
+    here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of
+    knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon
+    after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a
+    newspaper. How pleasant this room is--isn't it? with its sober
+    draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes--nothing to
+    interrupt the quiet--only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies
+    asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, _Pendennis_,
+    No. VII.--hum, let us pass on. Have you read _David Copperfield_,
+    by the way? How beautiful it is--how charmingly fresh and simple!
+    In those admirable touches of tender humour--and I should call
+    humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit--who can equal this great
+    genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are
+    like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in
+    the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a
+    writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words
+    go forth to vast congregations of mankind--to grown folks, to their
+    children, and perhaps to their children's children--but must think
+    of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth
+    guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further
+    its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the _Record_ revile him--See,
+    here's Horner waking up--How do you do, Horner?
+
+[Footnote 19: _Who's Who_ first appeared in 1849. In those days it was
+little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not
+until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which
+have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Tobacco Tabooed_]
+
+Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to
+be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and
+Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that
+den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in _some_
+clubs, called the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed
+for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known
+club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate
+pipe-smoking on their precincts. _Punch_ early ranged himself on the
+side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British
+Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with
+hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce
+their small antipathies on the rest of us."
+
+[Illustration: GROUP IN THEATRE BOX]
+
+The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day,
+were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had
+passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness
+Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera,
+was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up,
+during the season of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the
+Superior Classes":--
+
+    Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,
+      Who would not rather gaze
+    On youth and beauty dancing
+      Than one of Shakespeare's plays?
+    Give me the haunt of Fashion,
+      And let the Drama's shrine
+    Engross the vulgar's passion;
+      Fops' Alley, thou art mine.
+
+Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing
+parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the
+manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad
+Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the
+achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in _The Newcomes_, written
+in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the
+"Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his
+son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of
+entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but _Punch_ makes a notable
+exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after
+redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was
+no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of
+the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble
+tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. _Punch's_ only
+adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of
+the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the
+entertainment, whether for mind or body:--
+
+    Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed
+    betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences
+    at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town
+    under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose.
+    To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of
+    Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named
+    institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness--so
+    important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might give
+    it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of
+    his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable
+    amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor--the student of
+    law--of medicine--nay, of divinity--offers an attraction in the
+    right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards
+    the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good
+    singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal
+    harangue and a cup of Twankay.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent
+for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Travellers and Outlaws_]
+
+The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse
+before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always
+the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the
+founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired
+in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing
+generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling
+for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and
+more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to
+appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours"
+was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to
+_Punch_ it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time
+occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long
+been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who
+are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them,
+including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of
+outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in
+poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were
+"the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled
+precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years
+earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of
+fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of
+literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of
+D'Orsay, whom Byron called the _Cupidon dechaine_, handsome, gifted and
+popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the
+only artist congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call
+sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier
+treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him
+to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from _Punch_
+even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of
+Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They
+at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney
+travellers on the Continent in 1845:--
+
+    SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT
+
+    Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to
+    ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the
+    lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the
+    proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will
+    also find to be an endless source of amusement.
+
+    Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so you
+    may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their
+    faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of
+    ladies, at a _table d'hote_. Do not care what you say about the
+    government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show
+    your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of
+    the superiority of England and everything English.
+
+[Illustration: THE OPERA
+
+DOORKEEPER: "Beg your pardon, Sir--but must, indeed, Sir, be in full
+dress."
+
+SNOB (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _The "Gent" Abroad and at Home_]
+
+The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily
+the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to
+observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as
+"'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of _Punch's_ pet aversions
+under the title of "the Gent":--
+
+    Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares,
+    the _Gent_ is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption
+    of style about him--a futile aping of superiority that inspires us
+    with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we
+    contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the
+    thing."
+
+    No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry
+    vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards
+    which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts
+    to ape _gentility_--a bad style of word, we admit, but one
+    peculiarly adapted to our purpose--are to us more painful than
+    ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
+    his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
+    his dreary efforts to assume a style and _tournure_ which he is so
+    utterly incapable of carrying out.
+
+_Punch_ was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When
+foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a
+moment. John Bull, he declared, _a propos_ of the suspicion of the
+French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant
+fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his
+playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen
+on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their
+failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list
+of the things an Englishman likes:--
+
+    An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
+    more to his liking than: To talk largely about Art, and to have
+    the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!
+
+    To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
+    needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
+    cheap shirts and clothes are sold!
+
+    To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
+    not!
+
+    To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
+    operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
+    foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!
+
+    To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
+    yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
+    be seen in company with one!
+
+    To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
+    greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax[21] that was only
+    put on for three years!
+
+    To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
+    to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
+    staring at her!
+
+    To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
+    Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!
+
+    To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
+    the discordant musicians that infest his streets!
+
+    To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
+    instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!
+
+    To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
+    benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!
+
+    And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:
+
+    To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
+    laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
+    national humiliation, paying or being paid--still he must grumble,
+    and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
+    supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
+    great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
+    impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
+    nothing for him to grumble about!
+
+[Footnote 21: The income tax. _Punch_ knew better, and prophesied from
+the very outset that it would never come off.]
+
+_Punch_ certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the
+full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of
+boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and
+persons that should emigrate," he includes "all persons who give
+imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all
+young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear
+ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the
+risk of the _Quis tulerit Gracchos_ retort when he bans "all punsters
+and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of
+education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and
+reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general
+support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a
+chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British
+Association. The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil
+Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than
+44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him
+publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.
+
+[Sidenote: _Desirable Emigrants_]
+
+[Illustration: OFFENDED DIGNITY
+
+SMALL SWELL (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness
+that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with--I
+prefer grown Women of the World!"
+
+(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when
+he went back to school.)]
+
+[Illustration: TWO WORDS TO A BARGAIN
+
+JAPANESE: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall
+remain so."
+
+AMERICAN: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're
+wrong."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Exploiting the Dead_]
+
+Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties;
+the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous
+"medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid
+his first visit to England. From the very first _Punch's_ attitude was
+hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to
+condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and
+expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution.
+Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the
+_Almanack_ for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there
+are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not
+so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot
+see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a
+mesmerist in the _Morning Post_ that he could get into communication
+with Sir John Franklin; this _Punch_ promptly pilloried, as, too, a
+little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated
+by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 _Punch_ solemnly vouches for the
+authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits
+by retail":--
+
+    COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
+    Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
+    Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
+    Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
+    appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
+    Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
+    Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
+    for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
+    and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
+    will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
+    them.
+
+Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but _Punch_
+was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries.
+He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of
+photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging.
+There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many
+years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic
+feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling.
+In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other
+even more menial trades, _Punch_ was not indulging in exaggeration. The
+mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little
+man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio"
+was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was
+clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the
+'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising
+actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it had not begun to
+be thought of as a means of social _reclame_. Apart from politicians and
+public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The
+relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from
+those which prevail to-day. _Punch_ was a great champion of the
+legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful,
+though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had
+written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the
+Court[22] and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter
+comment. But _Punch_ shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official
+recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he
+expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the
+upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of
+mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip
+about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque
+account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions
+when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel
+between Charles Mathews and the _Morning Chronicle_, _Punch_ stood for
+the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based
+on crime, and the cult of monstrosity _Punch_ waged unceasing war, but
+he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were
+sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family
+visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So
+again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a
+performance of _La Dame aux Camelias_ at Exeter Hall in 1857, but
+prohibited an English translation of the words.
+
+[Footnote 22: "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen
+Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of
+Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d.
+each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic
+reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Respect for Decorum_]
+
+Many of the broader aspects of early Victorian social life remain with
+us to-day, though modified or amended. "The broad vein of plush that
+traverses the whole framework of English society," as _Punch_
+flamboyantly gibed, if not wholly obliterated is at least less
+conspicuous. Jeames and Jenkins are dead. If we cannot say the same of
+bullying at schools, "ragging" in the Army, the unnecessary expense of
+uniforms and the costly pageantry of funerals--all of which were
+strenuously condemned by _Punch_--it may at least be contended that
+public opinion is more vigilant in arraigning and bringing to light
+offences against humanity, good taste and common sense. Modern critics
+have not been wanting who charge _Punch_ with prudery and squeamishness,
+but this is not the place to discuss whether the popularity of the paper
+would have been enhanced, or its influence and power fortified by
+following the example of _La Vie Parisienne_ or of _Jugend_. Certainly
+during the period under review reticence and respectability were
+combined on occasion with a remarkable freedom of comment, and the
+tragedy of "The Great Social Evil" was frankly admitted in Leech's
+famous picture. Though an isolated reference it was worth a hundred
+sermons. If _Punch_ preferred to be the champion of domesticity and
+decorum in public and private life, he was reflecting an essential
+feature of the age--a feature which no longer exists. It was an age of
+patriarchal rule and large families. Nothing strikes one more in
+turning over the pages of old numbers of _Punch_ than the swarms of
+young people who figure in the domestic groups so dear to John Leech.
+The numbers, more than the precocity of the rising generation, impress
+the reader. The type represented is mainly drawn from well-to-do
+middle-class households, but all classes were prolific. If one needs
+proof, there is the evidence of Debrett and of the tombstones in our
+country churchyards.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Quiverfull_]
+
+[Illustration: Scene: A Public-house, Bury St. Edmunds, after the Dinner
+given by the Mayor of Bury to the Lord Mayor of London.
+
+COUNTRY FOOTMAN: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of our town? A nice
+place, ain't it?"
+
+LONDON FOOTMAN (condescendingly): "Vell, Joseph, I likes your town well
+enough. It's clean; your streets are hairy; and you've lots of rewins.
+But I don't like your champagne; its all Gewsberry."]
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL
+
+Time: Midnight. A sketch not a hundred miles from the Haymarket.
+
+BELLA: "Ah! Fanny! How long have you been _Gay_?"]
+
+[Illustration: A FRESHENER ON THE DOWNS]
+
+
+
+
+THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS
+
+
+As a mirror of public opinion on the status and importance of the
+learned and liberal professions _Punch_, when due allowance has been
+made for his limitations, his prejudices and even his passions, cannot
+be overlooked by the student of social history. A whole book has been
+written on his attitude towards the Church; in another section of this
+chronicle I have dealt at some length with his hostility to Pluralism,
+Sabbatarianism, Ritualism, and endeavoured to show how a generally
+tolerant and "hang theology" attitude was in the early 'fifties
+exchanged for one of fierce anti-Vaticanism. The "No Popery" drum was
+banged with great fury, and when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
+re-established in England in 1850, _Punch_ supported the Ecclesiastical
+Titles Act which declared the assumption of titles connected with places
+in the realm illegal and imposed heavy penalties on the persons assuming
+them. This Act, passed in 1851, remained a dead letter until 1871, when
+it was repealed. As for the law and lawyers the record of _Punch_ is
+more consistent and creditable, and, as we have seen, he was from the
+first an unflinching advocate of cheap justice and the removal of
+irregularities which pressed hardest on the poor, an unrelenting critic
+of barbarous and oppressive penalties. No one was too great or small to
+escape his legal pillory, or to secure recognition for reforming zeal or
+humane administration--from Lord Brougham and Lord St. Leonards down to
+unpaid magistrates. To what has been said elsewhere it may be added that
+the series of papers written by Gilbert a Beckett, under the heading of
+"The Comic Blackstone," are much better than their title, for they
+contain a good deal of shrewd satire and sound sense. _Punch_ had good
+reason to be proud of his own legal representative, the humane and
+genial Gilbert a Beckett. He welcomed Talfourd's promotion to the Bench
+as an honour to letters, for Talfourd was not only the executor and
+first biographer of Lamb and the author of the highly successful, but
+now forgotten, tragedy of _Ion_, but his services to authors in
+connexion with copyright earned for him the dedication of _Pickwick_. On
+his death in 1854, _Punch's_ elegy fittingly commemorated the character
+and career of one of whom, as an advocate, it was said that the wrong
+side seldom cared to hear him, and who, like Hood, in his last words,
+deplored the mutual estrangement of classes in English society.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bench and the Universities_]
+
+On the other hand, judges who jested on the Bench, indulged in judicial
+clap-trap, or encouraged the public to regard the Courts of Justice as
+substitutes for theatrical entertainments, are severely handled. _Judex
+jocosus odiosus_; but the type is, apparently, impervious to satire.
+Another anticipation of latter-day criticism is to be found in the
+remark made in 1856: "There was once a Parliament--(we do not live in
+such times now!)--in which there were few or no lawyers." Even more
+red-hot in its up-to-dateness is _Punch's_ sarcastic dismissal of the
+cult of "efficiency" sixty-five years ago:--
+
+    _Mr. Punch's_ reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
+    business is not abject. The "practical men," who smile
+    compassionately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who
+    perpetually make the most frightful smashes and blunders. No
+    attorney, for instance, can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a
+    stock-jobber, the supposed incarnation of shrewdness, is the most
+    credulous _gobemouche_ in London.
+
+With University authorities, professors, dons, and academics generally,
+we look in vain for any sign of sympathy, save that _Punch_ condemned
+the rule which then prevented Fellows from marrying. For the rest, he
+looked on the older Universities as the homes of mediaeval obscurantism,
+stubbornly opposed to reforms long overdue. Of the two, Oxford fared the
+worse at his hands on account of the Tractarian movement, Pusey, and
+Newman. This antagonism was based on political and religious
+divergences, not on any hostility to learning or the classical
+curriculum, of which _Punch_ was a supporter, to the extent of printing
+_jeux d'esprit_ in Latin and Greek in his pages. All along he was a
+jealous guardian of the "illustrious order of the goose-quill," a sturdy
+champion of its claims to adequate pay and official recognition, a
+vigilant critic of the "homoeopathic system of rewards" adopted by the
+Crown in the Civil List. References to this undying scandal are
+honourably frequent in the early volumes of _Punch_. It may suffice to
+quote the letter to Lord Palmerston in the summer of 1856:--
+
+    I will not, this hot weather, weary your lordship by specifying
+    every case, but will sum up the account as I find it divided:
+
+    To Science, Literature, and Art             L275
+    To sundries                                  925
+                                              ------
+                                              L1,200
+    Deduct sundries                              925
+                                              ------
+                                                L275
+    Due to Science, Literature, and Art          925
+                                              ------
+                  Total Civil List            L1,200
+
+Equally creditable is the reiterated plea--from 1847 onward--for the
+establishment of International Copyright, to guard English authors from
+the piracy of American publishers, amongst whom Putnam is singled out as
+an honourable exception. It may be fairly claimed for _Punch_ that he
+made very few mistakes in appraising the merits of the authors of his
+time or of the rising stars. He failed to render justice to Disraeli as
+a writer, and he curtly dismissed Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ as "a
+mad book by an American rough." But literary values prove him
+substantially right in his distaste for the flamboyant exuberance of
+Bulwer Lytton, and absolutely sound in his castigation of the
+tripe-and-oniony flavour of Samuel Warren's books, one of which he held
+up to not undeserved obloquy under the ferocious misnomer of "The
+Diarrhoea of a Late Physician." He was a veritable _malleus stultorum_
+in dealing alike with the futilities of incompetent aristocrats and the
+homely puerilities of Martin Tupper and Poet Close. The famous campaign
+against the poet Bunn and his bad librettos goaded the victim into
+reprisals in which he gave as good as he got, but the fact remains that
+Bunn _was_ a bad poet, though _Punch_ quite overdid his persecution. The
+nobility of Wordsworth, though the least humorous of poets, was
+handsomely acknowledged; when the erection of a statue to Peel was
+mooted, _Punch_ put in a claim for a similar honour to the sage of
+Rydal. And though indignant with Carlyle for his defence of slavery,
+_Punch_ was still ready to acknowledge "the monarch in his masquerade."
+Lastly, he not only welcomed Tennyson as a master, but threw open his
+columns to him to retort on his detractors.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" and "The Times"_]
+
+[Illustration: JENKINS AT HOME]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian and Georgian Journalism_]
+
+Dog does not eat dog, but the unwritten etiquette in accordance with
+which one newspaper does not directly attack another was much less
+strictly observed sixty or seventy years ago. Delane, the editor of _The
+Times_, exercised a greater political influence than any other
+journalist before or since, and for a good many years _Punch_ acted as a
+sort of free-lance ally of the great daily,[23] drawing liberally from
+its columns in the way of extracts and illustrations, and, according to
+his habitual practice, underlining its policy while pretending to be
+shocked at it. Several of the men on _Punch_ were contributors to _The
+Times_. Gilbert a Beckett's name stands first in the list of the
+principal contributors and members of the staff of _The Times_ under
+Delane given in Mr. Dasent's biography. Yet I have searched the pages of
+the biography and the index in vain for a single reference to _Punch_.
+None the less the relations of the two papers were close and cordial,
+and "Billy" Russell, the _Times_ war correspondent and unsparing critic
+of mismanagement in the Crimea, had no more enthusiastic trumpeter than
+_Punch_. But the great gulf in prestige and power between _The Times_
+under Delane and the rest of the London Press is indirectly but
+unmistakably shown in _Punch's_ habitual disrespect for most of his
+other contemporaries. In another context, I have quoted examples of his
+flagellation of the _Morning Post_--the only paper, by the way, which
+supported the _Coup d'Etat_; but two masterpieces of malice may be
+added. In 1843, _a propos_ of "Jenkins's" incurably unctuous worship of
+rank, _Punch_ observes: "If the reader be not weeping at this, it is not
+in the power of onions to move him." And again, a little later on in the
+same year, _Punch_ compares the "beastliness" of Jenkins, "the life-long
+toad-eater," with the "beastly fellow" denounced in the _Morning Post_
+for swallowing twelve frogs for a wager! _Punch_ was not content with
+identifying the _Morning Post_ with the imaginary personality of
+Jenkins, the super-flunkey, but was also responsible for re-christening
+the _Morning Herald_ and the _Standard_--Conservative morning and
+evening papers which, until 1857, belonged to the same proprietor--Mrs.
+Gamp and Mrs. Harris. The _Standard_ retaliated by calling _Punch_ the
+"most abject of all the toadies of _The Times_," and accusing it of
+libelling "the young gentlemen of Eton" and the Queen. By an unconscious
+compliment _Punch_ was bracketed with the _Examiner_, the ablest and
+most independent of the weeklies, as _The Times_ was of the dailies, for
+its disloyalty to the Crown. In the war of wits which ensued and was
+carried on for several years, all the honours rested with _Punch_. But
+these controversies belong rather to the domestic history of _Punch_;
+and _Punch's_ friendly relations with the _Daily News_, of which Dickens
+was the first editor, must be somewhat discounted by the facts that
+Douglas Jerrold was an intimate friend of the novelist, who occasionally
+dined with the _Punch_ staff; that Paxton, one of _Punch's_ heroes,
+exerted all his great influence on behalf of the new daily; and finally,
+that Bradbury and Evans were, at the time, the publishers of Dickens, of
+_Punch_, and of the _Daily News_. The journalism of the 'forties and
+'fifties presents curious analogies with and divergences from the
+journalism of to-day. _Punch_ is never weary of girding at the cult of
+monstrosity and sensationalism, the disproportionate amount of space
+devoted to crime and criminals and _causes celebres_, the habit of
+burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to
+statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime.
+Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were
+anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more
+outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and _Punch_ always
+stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an
+Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the _Scotsman_ in the famous case
+brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, _Punch_ compared them to Bomba, and
+congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the _Scotsman's_ costs
+and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict
+which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at
+political apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or
+indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger
+of being brought before a jury." The _Scotsman_ was then edited by
+Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots
+journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated
+the _Scotsman_ as Delane dominated _The Times_. But it was, in the main,
+a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with
+alert curiosity to _The Times_ in Delane's day was that nobody knew
+beforehand which side he would take on any new question." [24] And much
+the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day.
+There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a
+great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men
+like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap
+that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions
+was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their
+names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a
+fortnight. It is to the credit of _Punch_ that he recognized the value
+of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his
+part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but
+could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern
+sycophantic worshipper of success--no matter how achieved. The
+excellence of provincial journalism--not yet exposed to the competition
+of the cheap London press--is attested by _Punch's_ frequent citations,
+but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to
+refresh our leisure.
+
+[Footnote 23: On the occasion of _Punch's_ Jubilee, in 1891, _The Times_
+remarked: "May we be excused for noting the fact that he (_Punch_) has
+generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from _The Times_?"
+That was substantially true of _The Times_ under the old _regime_ when
+Delane was editor. Mr. Herbert Paul, himself a strong Liberal, writes in
+his _History of Modern England_ that "Delane's chief quality was his
+independence." Mr. Dasent, in his biography, gives good grounds for his
+assertion that Delane was at no time what could be called a party man,
+though his instincts were essentially Liberal, and notes that "if
+charged with inconsistency, Delane would merely remind his critics that
+_The Times_ was the organ of no party, and that every issue was complete
+in itself."]
+
+[Footnote 24: _Delane of "The Times,"_ by Sir Edward Cook, p. 281.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Quacks and Doctors_]
+
+But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of
+_Punch_ than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn
+between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it;
+between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and
+Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and
+their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The
+maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons,
+civil, naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and
+during the Crimean War. _Punch's_ tribute to the services of Florence
+Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been
+noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp,
+and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though
+under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:--
+
+    Great outcry has been raised of late, in the _Lancet_ and other
+    journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter
+    themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a
+    personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society
+    to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of
+    the Fools--a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too
+    great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some
+    people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they
+    want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the
+    practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper
+    sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir
+    James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We
+    propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call
+    himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself
+    what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title
+    of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.
+
+This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of
+the blackest of all _Punch's betes noires_--in consequence of the
+postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not
+the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's
+Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of
+_Punch_. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of
+the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in
+the last seventy years goes far to justify _Punch's_ scepticism. But his
+censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who
+exploited and traded on _malades imaginaires_, and more than once
+exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any
+definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in
+1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige
+doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English labels
+on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip
+medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended
+that _Punch_, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and
+gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to
+moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism,
+which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under
+the heading, "Greens for the Green."
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY
+
+PASTRYCOOK: "What have you had, Sir?"
+
+BOY: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of
+those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes--and a
+bottle of ginger beer."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Medical Students_]
+
+By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are
+concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if
+corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which
+has been drawn in _Pickwick_, the pages of _Punch_ supply it in
+distressing abundance. The counterparts of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin
+Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of
+articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDICAL STUDENT]
+
+Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:--
+
+    The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may
+    be thus enumerated:
+
+    Guy's             {Half-and-half, anatomical _fracas_,
+    St. Thomas's      {and billiards.
+    St. George's      Doings at Tattersall's.
+    London            Too remote to be ascertained.
+    University        Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism.
+    Bartholomew's     State of Smithfield Markets.
+    Middlesex         Convivial harmony.
+    Charing Cross     Dancing at the Lowther-rooms.
+    King's College    Has not yet acquired any peculiarity.
+    Westminster       Dashes of all the others combined.
+
+Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the
+satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment,
+and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the
+medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on
+occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate
+episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded,
+we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the
+great majority regretted and reprobated.
+
+
+
+
+WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
+
+
+On the position and influence of women in society _Punch_, as we have
+already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary.
+Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with.
+There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing
+that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the
+fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is
+ridiculed, and _Punch_ ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord
+Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in _The Times_ against Mayfair
+matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing
+wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years
+earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously
+discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by _Punch_ in a
+stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the
+"Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the
+winter of 1846:--
+
+    I idolize the ladies. They are fairies
+    That spiritualize this earth of ours;
+    From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,
+    Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.
+    But learning in its barbarous seminaries,
+    Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,
+    And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers
+    Science with all its horrid accessaries.
+    Now, seriously, the only things, I think,
+    In which young ladies should instructed be,
+    Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery--
+    Accomplishments that very soon will sink,
+    Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation,
+    Always form part of female education.
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER
+
+FLORA: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"
+
+EMILY: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of
+town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe.
+Isn't it kind?"]
+
+[Sidenote: _Victorian Damsels_]
+
+But even within the ranks of the social _elite_ signs of a desire for
+equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the
+direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we
+read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is
+mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the
+mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty
+frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held
+responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards
+we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine
+ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by
+leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured
+to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode
+of existence met with little commendation from _Punch_. He was a strong
+advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of
+"Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female
+only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency
+he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless
+"unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming
+Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait
+is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty
+or plain spoken--even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy
+brothers. But we know--even from the pages of _Punch_--that Victorian
+women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is
+to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able
+to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from
+sentimentality and intellectualism:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The Model Fast Lady_]
+
+    She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in
+    kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap
+    over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If
+    she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and
+    if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time
+    by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into
+    Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is
+    a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was
+    a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and
+    "chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other
+    cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud
+    conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously
+    thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you;
+    but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but
+    "Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"
+
+    The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She
+    waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred
+    and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed
+    over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop,
+    but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."
+
+    By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score--rather a
+    long one--of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned,
+    however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts.
+    She would sell her _Black Bess_ sooner than levant.
+
+    THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of
+    the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment
+    "namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has
+    no idea of being made a fool of.
+
+    At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll
+    take Champagne with you--that is to say, if you're not too proud.
+    You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated.
+    Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of
+    her parasol into your side.
+
+    She dislikes smoking? Not _she_ indeed; she's rather fond of it. In
+    fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you,
+    will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked,
+    and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle faddle. She has
+    a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can
+    play a short tune on the cornet-a-piston.
+
+    Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to
+    state she reads _Bell's Life_, and has a few volumes in her bedroom
+    of the _Sporting Magazine_. She knows there was a horse of the name
+    of _Byron_.
+
+    The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her
+    hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm
+    afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to
+    that of her own sex.
+
+    Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is
+    always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to
+    change their dress.
+
+    Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand
+    and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not
+    exchange places with the Queen herself.
+
+    With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the
+    FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of
+    what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be
+    included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and
+    increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and,
+    like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent
+    daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she
+    likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she
+    is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor
+    people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and
+    unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having
+    more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with.
+    The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is
+    the godmother to half the children in the parish.
+
+    Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of
+    feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but
+    then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature
+    may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but
+    imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward
+    gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the
+    highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less
+    effectively if they had only as good a heart--even with the
+    trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped--as the
+    MODEL FAST LADY.
+
+[Illustration: FAST YOUNG LADY (to Old Gent): "Have you such a
+thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at
+home."]
+
+This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have
+seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating _roles_ of which the leading
+traits were, in essentials, identical with those of the Model Fast
+Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the
+writers and artists of _Punch_, was feminine, kindly, but colourless,
+though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked--the
+lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the
+social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical
+high-priestesses of the marriage market.
+
+When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude
+assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. _Punch_ refused to take it
+seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in
+which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:--
+
+    French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music,
+    drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form
+    the regular _curriculum_. A minor examination on these subjects, or
+    a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts
+    can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in
+    "Telemaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play
+    a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin
+    wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.
+
+    For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in
+    various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others;
+    also in the _libretto_ of the last new opera. She shall be able to
+    play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and
+    shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini,
+    Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in
+    a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a
+    wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with
+    correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman
+    who may be selected for the purpose.
+
+    There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an
+    annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a
+    familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the
+    Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny,
+    and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in
+    preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.
+
+    These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the
+    Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has
+    not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction
+    shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel
+    shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple
+    Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and
+    finally those who barely get their degree.
+
+    The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall
+    be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphees;
+    and lastly, as before, the merely passable.
+
+[Illustration: MISS WALKER: A FEMALE POLITICIAN, 1842]
+
+[Sidenote: _Women and Politics_]
+
+This article is fairly typical of the attitude of _Punch_ towards what
+we now call "Feminism"--a term so new that in the _New English
+Dictionary_ it is dismissed in half a dozen words as a rare word meaning
+"the qualities of females"! That definition, however, was given in 1901.
+Now it would have to be revised to include the movement for political
+emancipation, economic independence, and admission to the professions.
+References to female politicians begin in the third volume, where we
+find the very unsympathetic and even acid sketch here given of Miss
+Walker, "the female Chartist." Eight years elapsed before ladies were
+admitted to the gallery of the House of Commons, though, even then,
+carefully screened from view by the metal work of the "Grille," an
+Orientally obscuring device which lasted till Georgian days. The
+possibility of their appearing on the floor of the House is never
+seriously contemplated; the "Parliamentary female" included amongst the
+"ladies of creation" in the _Almanack_ for 1852 is modelled on Mrs.
+Jellyby--_Bleak House_ had been coming out serially from March, 1852,
+onwards. The pioneers of the invasion of the professions hailed from
+America. Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., of Boston,[25] is mentioned in
+1848, and in the following year _Punch_ welcomed the innovation in
+verse:--
+
+AN M.D. IN A GOWN
+
+    Young ladies all, of every clime,
+      Especially of Britain,
+    Who wholly occupy your time
+      In novels or in knitting,
+    Whose highest skill is but to play,
+      Sing, dance, or French to clack well,
+    Reflect on the example, pray,
+      Of excellent Miss Blackwell!
+
+    For Doctrix Blackwell--that's the way
+      To dub in rightful gender--
+    In her profession, ever may
+      Prosperity attend her!
+    _Punch_, a gold-handled parasol
+      Suggests for presentation,
+    To one so well deserving all
+      Esteem and admiration.
+
+[Footnote 25: Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an _In Memoriam_ notice
+in _The Times_, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at
+Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there
+described as "the first woman doctor."]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bloomer Craze_]
+
+[Illustration: BLOOMERISM--AN AMERICAN CUSTOM]
+
+_Punch's_ commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza.
+But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852
+merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the
+hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been
+urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; _Punch_ appreciated the
+gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her
+as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a
+strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the
+unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights.
+The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance
+reformer, but _Punch_ was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of
+"trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime
+librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was
+actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress
+for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years
+later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief
+advocate. _Punch_ is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He
+makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess
+Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new
+departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of
+women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a
+whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at
+the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at
+the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England.
+The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857.
+_Punch's_ anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted
+not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a
+means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another
+piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as
+being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers
+from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while
+_Punch_ was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm
+supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was--as we
+have shown in other sections of this survey--at least a persistent
+advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws--and unwearied in his
+exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses,
+sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on
+women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He
+was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of
+some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to
+indignation:--
+
+THE CRY OF THE WOMEN
+
+    Now, this petition or lamentation--in which _Mr. Punch_ gives
+    willing ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering--has been
+    rebuked, pooh-poohed, pished and fiddle-de-dee'd; but in these
+    scoffings _Mr. Punch_ joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him,
+    say, with certain editorial porcupines of the male gender, "Of what
+    avail these lamentations of lamenting women, whose cries are
+    foolishness? Wherefore should women at any time lift up their
+    voices; when is it not manifest from the beginning that women were
+    created to sing small? And finally, if women be beaten by savages,
+    and robbed by sots, what of it? It is better that women should be
+    beaten and crouch in the dust--it is better they should be robbed
+    and sit at home, than go and petition Parliament."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Champions Horatia_]
+
+He espoused the cause of humble heroines, of the neglected widows or
+orphans of heroes and benefactors like a true knight errant. Elsewhere
+we have told of his exertions on behalf of Mother Seacole, the brave old
+sutler in the Crimea, for whose benefit he started a special fund. The
+scurvy treatment of the widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the pioneer of the
+Overland Route, who wore himself out in a work of national importance,
+moved him to righteous indignation. She was given a pension of L25,
+afterwards increased to L40.
+
+But none of these palpable wrongs to women stirred _Punch_ so deeply in
+these years as the tardy and meagre discharge of the nation's debt to
+Nelson in respect of his daughter Horatia. To this particular bit of
+narrow-mindedness he recurs again and again in the years 1849 to 1855,
+when he sums up what had been done to liquidate the debt:--
+
+NELSON'S DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN
+
+ An advertisement in _The Times_ tells the world that the eight
+ children of Nelson's daughter Horatia--Nelson's grandchildren--are
+ "more or less provided for." Perhaps a little less than more; but
+ let that pass. At length a long, long standing debt has been paid,
+ or rather compounded, at something less than nineteen shillings in
+ the pound. The Government, as the Government, has done nothing. The
+ stiff, whalebone virtue that set up the back of Queen Charlotte
+ against Nelson's daughter--George the Third thought Nelson's
+ funeral had too much state in it for a mere subject; such pomp "was
+ for kings"--still kept the Government aloof from all help of
+ Horatia and her children. At length, however, the press spoke out.
+ The "ribald press" for a time laid aside its ribaldry, and
+ condescended to champion the claims of Nelson's daughter upon
+ Nelson's fellow-countrymen. Well, something has been done; and thus
+ much in explanation we take from the advertisement in question:--
+
+    "The eight children of Horatia, Mrs. Ward, are all now, more or
+    less, provided for. Her eldest son has been presented to the living
+    of Radstock by the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave; the second son
+    had been previously appointed by Sir W. Burnett Assistant-Surgeon
+    in the Navy; to the third, Lord Chancellor Cranworth has given a
+    clerkship in the Registry-Office; the fourth son received a Cadetcy
+    from Captain Shepherd; His Royal Highness Prince Albert conferred a
+    similar appointment on the youngest son; and Her Majesty has been
+    graciously pleased to settle upon the three daughters a pension of
+    L300 per annum. To this last result the exertions of the late Mr.
+    Hume, M.P., mainly contributed. Messrs. Green, of Blackwall, and
+    Messrs. Smith, of Newcastle, conveyed the two Cadets to India free
+    of expense."
+
+To this may be added a "small cash balance" paid to Mrs. Ward, "after
+investing L400 in the funds." Altogether some L1,427 have been
+subscribed in the cause of Nelson's daughter. We state the sum, and will
+not pause to calculate whether the amount be the tenth of a farthing or
+even a whole farthing in the pound, for which England is Nelson's
+debtor. Let us anyway thank those who have helped Horatia's children.
+They have all done well, from the Dowager Countess to the Queen, ending
+with the prince ship-owners of Blackwall and Newcastle. Their ships will
+not have the worst fortune of wreck or storm for having borne,
+passage-free, the grandsons of Nelson to their Indian work. Let us, too,
+pause to thank the shade of Joseph Hume--the strong, sound, kind old
+heart! Joseph, who "mainly contributed," with those earnest, honest
+fingers of his to undraw the royal purse-strings, so that the three
+grand-daughters may now keep the wolf from the door, as their immortal
+grandfather kept the foe from the "silver-girt isle."
+
+We omit the bitter words in which _Punch_ heaps scorn on Nelson's
+brother, "the first parson Lord Nelson," because the odious charges
+there made cannot be substantiated. This was not the only occasion on
+which _Punch's_ zeal was disfigured by the vehemence of his
+partisanship. But we cannot blame him for his jubilation over the
+thrashing of General Haynau, the woman-flogger, by the draymen and
+labourers at Barclay's Brewery on the occasion of his visit to London in
+1850, or for the vigour with which he scarified the papers who found
+excuses and parallels for Haynau's ferocity in the military exigencies
+of the Peninsular War.
+
+[_Sidenote: Slavery in America--and England_]
+
+Foremost amongst _Punch's_ heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were
+Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of
+these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of
+notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of
+_Punch_. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett
+Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem,
+Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is
+shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling
+Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric adventuress, Lola
+Montez,[26] and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards
+in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous
+Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,[27] author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, whose sojourn in
+England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social
+prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address,"
+initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The
+appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many
+thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the
+degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do
+not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern
+planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation
+at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, _Punch_ did not fail
+to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In
+the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman
+who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a
+man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical
+disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had
+begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To
+what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and _Punch's_ belief in
+it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":--
+
+    _The Cynical View_:--Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to
+    be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
+    saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of
+    females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and
+    baggage, and start them away.
+
+[Footnote 26: The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert,
+daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite
+of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer,
+who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 27: See the _Examiner_ and _Punch_. The following
+advertisement in the _Examiner_ will be read with interest:--"The
+arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all
+Stephen Glover's compositions connected with _Uncle Tom_: 'The Sea of
+Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and
+Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"]
+
+    _The Alarmist View_:--If the surplus female population with which
+    we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with
+    women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse
+    nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend
+    with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to
+    that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government.
+
+    _Our Own View_:--It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
+    should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only
+    not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and
+    solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they
+    would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches--if only they had
+    the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country
+    to find them wings.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Worm Turns_]
+
+_Punch's_ chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not
+untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years--with rare
+exceptions--he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman
+could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently
+represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without
+apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this
+defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly
+pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in
+moments of generous expansion _Punch_ was capable of crediting them with
+extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water
+mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be
+found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my
+Mind":--
+
+     ... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the
+    civilized!--for, after all, the savages are really and truly more
+    of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to
+    it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and
+    angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were
+    weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized
+    nations--as I fling it at Mouser--they all of 'em make women the
+    sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the
+    dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty,
+    Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely
+    as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're obliged to come
+    to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You
+    paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then--but it's so like
+    you--then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take
+    her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"--for I would be
+    heard--"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again.
+    There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of
+    public-house sign for law, but--is a poor woman allowed to wear
+    false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once
+    open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine
+    on herself--may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can
+    paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor
+    thing say a syllable."
+
+[Illustration: "Are you going?"
+
+"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so
+infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."
+
+"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and
+not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."]
+
+
+
+
+FASHION IN DRESS
+
+
+It is a noteworthy sign of the times that between 1841 and 1857 the
+specific references to the dress of men in the text of _Punch_ are much
+more numerous than those dealing with the vagaries of female attire. The
+balance inclines in the contrary direction in the pictures which, when
+tested by old daguerreotypes and the contents of family albums, form a
+substantially correct and illuminating commentary on the evolution of
+fashion in women's dress. So we begin with the ladies, with the double
+proviso that Leech and Doyle and their brother artists on _Punch_ were
+not fashion-plate designers, and that the charms and extravagances of
+the modish world which they depicted were drawn mainly from the
+Metropolis. _Punch_ was a Londoner, even a Cockney, and throws little
+light on the social life of the provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Breadth of the Fashion_]
+
+[Illustration: EASIER SAID THAN DONE
+
+MASTER OF THE HOUSE: "Oh, Fred, my boy--when dinner is ready, you take
+Mrs. Furbelow downstairs!"]
+
+[Illustration: GRAND CHARGE OF PERAMBULATORS--AND DEFEAT OF SWELLS]
+
+[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aids to Beauty_]
+
+To speak roughly, fashion in women's dress is subject to two great
+alternating influences--in the direction of elongation or of lateral
+extension. In the 'forties and 'fifties the tendency was steadily in the
+second direction and away from the slim elegance which has been the aim
+of the modistes of recent years. Long, "mud-bedraggled" dresses are, it
+is true, condemned in 1844, but width rather than length was the
+prevailing feature. It was the age of flounces, and this expansive
+tendency culminated, in the mid-'fifties, in the reign of the crinoline,
+against which _Punch_ waged for many years a truceless but, as he
+himself admitted, a wholly ineffectual warfare. The first indication of
+the coming portent is to be found in the _annus mirabilis_ of 1848, when
+an "air-tube dress extender" is shown in a picture. This, however, was a
+single hoop and comparatively modest in its circumference. The
+crinoline, in its full amplitude, did not invade London until 1856.
+Thenceforward, hardly a number is free from satire and caricature of
+this exuberant monstrosity, and the inconvenience caused in theatres,
+drawing-rooms, in the parks and public vehicles, and in the streets.
+What with the bath-chairs of invalids, the ladies' dresses, and the
+children's perambulators, we read in 1856, that "it amounts almost to an
+impossibility nowadays to walk on the pavements." People were now
+dressed "not in the height, but the full breadth of the fashion." The
+structure of the machine, with its whalebone ribs and inflated tubes,
+was revealed in all its mammoth dimensions. It was denounced alike as an
+absurdity and as a danger, but satire and warnings were equally
+powerless to abate the nuisance. But the crinoline was only the most
+conspicuous and culminating example of a tendency to superfluous
+clothing and a semi-Oriental muffling-up of the female form, against
+which _Punch_ has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A
+sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against
+the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on
+the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was
+far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the
+projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The
+resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather
+than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find _Punch_ in 1855
+describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A
+huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly"
+of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round
+hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often
+dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But
+extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats--big enough to
+be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger
+brothers--small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols
+were in vogue in 1853. A certain masculinity of attire was affected by
+young ladies of sporting tastes--in the way of waistcoats and ties for
+example--but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against
+anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the
+earliest instances in _Punch_ of the use of the word "aesthetic" in
+connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a
+strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary,
+economical, aesthetic."[28] Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these
+aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the
+fashionable world.
+
+[Illustration: WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS]
+
+[Illustration: PLAIN]
+
+[Illustration: RINGLETS]
+
+This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of
+ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian
+_coiffure_, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full
+dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find
+it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech
+illustrated Surtees's novel _Plain or Ringlets?_ in 1860. Of the "plain"
+variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in _Punch_,
+notably the head given above, with which we couple the ringleted belle
+illustrated at the foot of the same page.
+
+[Footnote 28: "AEsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at _New
+Curiosities of Literature_, and in 1853 we read of an "aesthetic tea," at
+which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass,
+brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism
+and theology."]
+
+[Sidenote: Coiffures in the Fifties]
+
+[Illustration: AESTHETIC PIONEERS
+
+MRS. TURTLEDOVE: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have
+for dinner?"
+
+MR. TURTLEDOVE: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday--suppose
+we have a roast butterfly to-day."]
+
+In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to
+wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed _a
+l'imperatrice_ in imitation of the Empress Eugenie, and _Punch_
+satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a _coiffure_ unsuited
+to people of certain ages, features, and positions--a wide scope for his
+wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the
+time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if
+they had, they escaped _Punch's_ vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on
+whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist
+of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing,
+walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost
+invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of
+sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the
+awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the
+rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture
+opposite.
+
+[Sidenote: MERMAIDS AT PLAY]
+
+[Illustration: BATHING WOMAN: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"]
+
+Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's
+dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour,
+details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made
+itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see
+Parkes's _Hygiene_) at the time of the Peninsular War, but
+pantaloons--the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded
+knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the
+ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You
+will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to
+_Pickwick_, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in _Punch's_
+illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the
+"claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was
+often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and
+waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling
+that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive
+till the late 'forties--they are mentioned in Thackeray's _Book of
+Snobs_, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at
+evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear
+blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable
+in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties.
+The _degage_ loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by
+_Punch_, who traces its origin to the neck-wear--as modern hosiers
+say--of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like
+garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned;
+the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of
+the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma
+overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same
+time _Punch_ caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels,
+which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark.
+There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One
+Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however
+(according to _Punch_), was Prince Albert, whose continual and
+unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere.
+_Punch_ speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from
+calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet
+emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But _Punch_ himself was much
+preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall
+beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid
+"chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European
+head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by
+1850. _Punch_ warred against it almost as vigorously and as
+ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to
+the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal
+hat:--
+
+    Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer
+    confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into
+    breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a
+    waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and
+    well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics
+    that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert
+    fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible _sombrero_ of grey, or
+    brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a
+    dress at once becoming and congruous.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fashions for Men_]
+
+[Illustration: WHY, INDEED!
+
+PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves
+like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"]
+
+[Illustration: A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!]
+
+The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to
+enable _Punch_ to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the
+"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars
+are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but
+the "all round collar" of which _Punch_ has a picture in 1854
+approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when
+a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not uncommon; but the
+caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, shows
+that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the
+emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the
+grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of
+little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe
+_Mr. Punch_, caricature was unnecessary.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Ideal Hat_]
+
+[Illustration: "SIBBY"--1843]
+
+If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,
+short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord
+Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all
+wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit
+immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his
+whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and
+occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"
+_Punch_, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on
+the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the
+Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to
+which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls
+the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired
+by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.
+The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854
+and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and
+ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.
+
+[Sidenote: _Uncomfortable Uniforms_]
+
+[Illustration: PROCTOR (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so
+good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a
+Scotch terrier?"]
+
+The vagaries of military uniforms--apart from the intrusions of Prince
+Albert--call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy
+shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from
+stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is
+guyed in 1851. In 1854 _Punch_ throws himself with great energy into the
+movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more
+rational and comfortable clothing--witness the verses, "Valour under
+difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;
+the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private
+Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his
+stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged
+tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued
+by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and
+shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by
+soldiers owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.
+But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by
+contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but
+to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some
+measure in the Great War?
+
+[Illustration: RUDE BOY: "O, look 'ere, Jim!--If 'ere ain't a Lobster
+bin and out-growed his cloak!"]
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS
+
+
+One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical
+survey of the drama in the pages of _Punch_. Most of his staff had
+dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,
+and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped
+a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen
+out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its
+influence on _Punch's_ persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when
+all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous
+tone which they occasionally inspired, _Punch_ may fairly claim to have
+rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was
+sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and
+loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great
+difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances
+of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on
+"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native
+or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic
+_cliches_, and solecisms in pronunciation.[29] He was also a reformer in
+his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the
+play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as
+we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'
+vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and
+pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and
+British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first
+ten years of _Punch_ with little intermission and was largely
+justified. _Punch_ was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing
+to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in
+1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and
+freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The
+balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance--the
+dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays
+as set forth in the following extract--has been largely remedied, though
+the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is
+by some critics considered worse than the disease:--
+
+    _Galignani's Messenger_ says of the French theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,
+    191 new pieces."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Punch_ says of the English theatre:--
+
+    "There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London
+    about _ten_ new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,
+    devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen
+    from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"
+
+[Footnote 29: See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"
+"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."]
+
+Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of
+the Newgate drama--_Jack Sheppard_ and _Madame Lafarge_.[30] Of the
+latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and
+filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with _The
+Beggar's Opera_, which is defended as being "real satire and not
+wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy _Martinuzzi_ comes in for
+frequent ridicule, though the chief _roles_ were taken by Phelps and
+Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what
+grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his
+dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's
+"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met
+with _Punch's_ support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the
+bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor
+theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they
+were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his
+signature of "Q" then develops the argument:--
+
+    Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are
+    only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,
+    the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere
+    they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.
+    There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.
+    The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and
+    laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their _Jack
+    Sheppards_, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced
+    frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of
+    knowing that their _Jack Sheppard_ has been licensed by a Deputy,
+    for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of
+    Tyburn are exhibited with a _cum privilegio_.
+
+    Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this
+    wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We _hope_
+    it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm
+    of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the
+    playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate
+    what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should
+    have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves
+    the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of
+    the English stage.
+
+[Footnote 30: Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister
+immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one
+of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).
+After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died
+in 1852.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Lord Mahon's Petition_]
+
+_Punch's_ pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in
+the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the
+patent theatres--which for more than a hundred years had confined the
+legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket--and
+thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.
+
+Dejazet's London _debut_ in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a
+later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as
+broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth
+in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only
+way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the
+dialogue and give the _role_ of heroine to a _premiere danseuse_. As a
+matter of fact Taglioni appeared in _Electra_ in 1845.
+
+In 1844 _Punch_ took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French
+dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized
+at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of
+a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write
+tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"--a
+boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.
+A Greek play, the _Antigone_, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an
+early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the
+'seventies. _Punch's_ spirits, however, had already revived somewhat
+when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden
+found the snuggest asylum near the New River"--at Sadler's Wells under
+the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,
+and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from
+England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the
+person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,
+according to _Punch_, confined to "elegant extracts."
+
+A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical
+programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the
+passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a
+description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic
+affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price
+came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially
+Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by
+four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets
+were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise
+has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not
+always popular, and when _Monte Cristo_ was produced at Drury Lane in
+1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile
+demonstration.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Passing of Pantomimes_]
+
+Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are
+charged with extortion in demanding L60 a week, but it must be
+remembered that L60 was exactly all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out
+of his most popular and successful play--_Black Eyed Susan_. Those
+simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be
+comforted to learn that as early as 1843 _Punch_ deplores the triumph of
+scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he
+returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to
+be":--
+
+    Pantomime's quite on the wane,
+      Though vainly they try to enrich it,
+    By calling, again and again,
+      For "_Hot Codlins_" and "_Tippetywitchet_."
+    The stealing of poultry by clown
+      Has ceased irresistible sport to be,
+    If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;
+      Christmas is not what it ought to be.
+
+The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long
+time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,
+have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The
+present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for
+harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque
+lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which
+it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in
+1852 led _Punch_ to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the
+ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.
+
+_Punch_ was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism
+or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved
+satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed
+to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was
+suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give
+entertainments. We may note that in 1853 _Punch_ suggested that
+theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.
+is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted
+Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are
+constantly mentioned and in the main with good will. The feud with
+Charles Kean was kept up to the end; _Punch_ speaks of his "touchiness,"
+and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was
+made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials
+stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,
+that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the
+father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful
+opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings
+from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his
+death in 1854, _Punch_ paid him this graceful tribute:--
+
+    He linked us with a past of scenic art,
+      Larger and loftier than now is known;
+      Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,
+    Than when he played his part.
+
+    But where shall we now find, upon our scene,
+      The Gentleman in action, look and word,
+      Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,
+    As polished and as keen?
+
+    Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:
+      Look your last look: cover the brave old face:
+      Kindly and gently bear him to his place--
+    Charles Kemble, fare thee well!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Reign of Italian Opera_]
+
+[Illustration: LABLACHE]
+
+A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the
+absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,
+applauded, and criticized in the columns of _Punch_. We say Italian
+opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers
+and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,
+it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe
+in his _Reminiscences_ mentions the visit of a German operatic company
+in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-_role_ in Mendelssohn's
+_Elijah_ when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by
+_Punch_ as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's _Der Freischuetz_
+was given at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater
+lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable
+patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric
+Malibran--Spanish by race but Italian in training--died suddenly and
+tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage
+shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is
+mentioned in _Punch's_ first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by
+that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple
+endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared
+by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these
+two decades were either Italians by birth--e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom
+_Punch_ likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and
+Piccolomini--or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their
+association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez
+the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of
+Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty
+of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic
+basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,
+Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom _Punch_ in 1852
+irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.
+_Punch_ cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of
+_Nabucco_ and the hectic sentimentality of _Traviata_ and _Trovatore_
+possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with
+_Aida_ and culminated in _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Michael Costa was the
+conductor _par excellence_, who took outrageous liberties with scores,
+but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our
+debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed--though not by _Punch_--in the
+Latin tag: _Costam subduximus Apennino_. Balfe, it is true, had scored a
+resounding success in 1843 with _The Bohemian Girl_, which still holds
+the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The
+Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was
+at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. _Punch_
+supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that
+Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have
+made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane
+in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.
+The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted
+was the badness of the _libretti_. Italian opera _libretti_ were often
+satirized by _Punch_, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,
+worse.
+
+Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the
+social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.
+The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for
+many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article
+which _Punch_ reproduced from the _Morning Post_ in 1843 with italics
+and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":--
+
+    "The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, _de
+    facto_, as well as _de jure_, are, in their several different
+    spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear
+    an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the
+    distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence
+    _literary and artistical_ (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and
+    fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair
+    tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits
+    which do not consist in the delivery of a _piece of engraved
+    postcard to a servant_. Charming _causeries_ are constantly
+    proceeding _sotto voce_ (of course Jenkins listens), the music
+    filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is
+    interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers--with the more
+    zest and piquancy _it is resumed_. We, whose office it is to record
+    daily events--things as they are--and hold the _glass up to
+    fashion_ (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to
+    imitate this course of things--and we do so with only one
+    regret--that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the
+    general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which
+    have most piquancy."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Jenkins" as Musical Critic_]
+
+For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and
+unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,
+as may be gleaned from his notice of _Semiramide_ in English in the
+winter of 1842:--
+
+    We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of
+    _Semiramide_:--
+
+    "Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct
+    attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way
+    of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her
+    sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and
+    whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates
+    the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the
+    contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss
+    Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!
+    Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as
+    Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of
+    Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half
+    are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and
+    refined order."
+
+But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also
+expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled
+under the heading "Persiani at Sea":--
+
+    An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani--to cry
+    _brava_--to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to
+    receive the honeyed voice of a _prima donna_, and Doctor Wardrop
+    throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth
+    of our metaphor:--
+
+    "Madame Persiani continues to _suffer so severely from the effects
+    of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching_, that it is
+    impossible for her to appear this evening.
+
+"JAMES WARDROP, M.D."
+
+    On this, says _The Times_, "the audience were at first disposed to
+    grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."
+
+    The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming
+    very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and
+    had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,
+    have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,
+    in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!
+
+[Illustration: THE SKATING BALLET]
+
+The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the
+opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose
+engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to
+general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding
+attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this
+"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a
+slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were
+Taglioni--whose skirts were quite long--Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and
+Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the _prima donna_, a wonderful quartet on
+whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory
+epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in _Le
+Prophete_, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch
+in _Punch_, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance
+of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished
+and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all
+nineteenth century _prime donne_. Henriette Sontag, however, was the
+popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still
+handsome, though no longer in her first youth,[31] a perfect singer, an
+incomparable _Susanna_ (as _Punch_ admitted), though lacking dramatic
+force--Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her
+_genre_, but that her _genre_ was not the first.
+
+[Sidenote: Jenny Lind]
+
+Great singers came and went but _Punch_ never wavered in his allegiance
+to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is
+more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,
+and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:--
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER
+
+    Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,
+    Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,
+    For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,
+    The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind--
+
+    Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,
+    Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,
+    Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,
+    In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.
+
+    Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,
+    Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;
+    And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,
+    Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.
+
+When her retirement was rumoured _Punch_ declared that the Bishop of
+Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,
+because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris
+prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed
+there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was
+of his female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist
+Lumley, the unlucky _impresario_, then in difficulties, in response to
+appeals which were especially vehement in _Punch_. He asserted that her
+secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without
+making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary
+address from the composer of _Don Giovanni_.
+
+[Footnote 31: She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and
+was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the
+Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these
+great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's
+genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more
+than a passing word of grateful recognition.]
+
+[Illustration: TO JENNY LIND
+
+FROM PUNCH]
+
+The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,
+but Jenny Lind, in spite of _Punch's_ repeated appeals, adhered to her
+decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 _Punch_ still hoped she
+would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall
+in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if
+any sweetening process could purify the building it would be such
+singing as hers."
+
+[Sidenote: _Popular Favourites in 1844_]
+
+In the early 'forties _Norma_ was the opera most frequently mentioned.
+_Punch_ published the stories of several of the most popular operas in
+verse. A fragment from _Linda di Chamouni_ may suffice:--
+
+    Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar
+    About the revenge of his cruel mamma,
+    Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,
+    Resolves to another to get him united:
+    He curses his fate in a charming _falsetto_,
+    Gives way to despair in a _voce di petto_.
+    And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,
+    He calls out for death in a _voce di testa_:
+    Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,
+    And gives on _addio_ a delicate shake.
+    The passage is managed with exquisite skill;
+    And Linda--acquainted with Mario's trill--
+    Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,
+    Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.
+
+Opera singers were great public favourites, but if _Punch_ is to be
+believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of
+the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by
+Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway
+Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities
+of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the
+Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find
+Lablache--Stentor and male Siren in one--put first as a bird unrivalled
+for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can
+sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."
+_Punch_ alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in
+undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to
+mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom
+Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into
+Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate the visitor explained
+"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am
+at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and
+elsewhere _Punch_ happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:
+_ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat_. The notices of Grisi and
+Mario are worth transcribing:--
+
+"THE GRISI"
+
+    Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say
+    the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for
+    its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from
+    what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be
+    those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy
+    its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or
+    not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;
+    for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even
+    the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a
+    kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but
+    we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The
+    kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is
+    to be obtained at M. Verrey's.
+
+"THE MARIO"
+
+    A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient
+    substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of
+    quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter
+    bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has
+    acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"
+    which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to
+    such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him
+    deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in
+    the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our
+    knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian
+    singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty
+    pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be
+    required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.
+    Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay
+    so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as
+    much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to
+    music and sung at the Italian opera.
+
+[Sidenote: _Musical Grab_]
+
+The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an
+earlier volume:--
+
+    The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by
+    Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the _Gazette Musicale_:--
+
+    "Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and
+    German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose
+    of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over
+    everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen
+    on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they
+    all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in
+    England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much
+    _ennui_."
+
+    _Punch_ begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious
+    mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will
+    mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian
+    _ennuyes_--and dispense for the future with their services.
+
+This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a
+musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;
+Hungarian, French and other foreign _prime donne_; Strauss's band and
+Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a
+curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name
+Wagner to _Punch's_ readers and indeed to the British public. It was not
+the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of
+considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously
+accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to
+protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say
+that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and _Punch_ in
+his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to
+express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their
+contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as _Punch_
+called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing
+at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of
+the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left _Punch_ not merely cold but
+pugnaciously antagonistic.
+
+The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared
+musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice
+headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":--
+
+    Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in
+    conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the
+    music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as
+    a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing
+    gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "_allegro_"
+    to "_moderato_"; "_andante_" to "_adagio_"; "_allegretto_" to
+    "_andante_"; and "_allegro_" again to "_prestissimo_." Wagner would
+    seem strongly to resemble his namesake in _Faust_, in the
+    particular wherein that _Wagner_ differs from his master--that is,
+    in the circumstance of being no conjuror.
+
+The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery
+Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is
+duly chronicled in _Punch_. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,
+a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great
+popularity in the _role_ of the consumptive heroine of _La Traviata_,
+and _Punch_ celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in
+the following travesty:--
+
+    Art is long and time is fleeting,
+      But of genius the soul,
+    Ordinary talent beating,
+      Reaches at one stride the goal.
+
+    In the operatic battle,
+      In the _Prima Donna's_ life
+    Quit the herd--the vocal cattle,
+      Be a Grisi in the strife.
+
+    Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,
+      Not who may be, but who are;
+    Piccolomini at present,
+      Is the bright particular star.
+
+[Sidenote: _Jullien_]
+
+[Illustration: JULLIEN'S DESPAIR]
+
+Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this
+volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as _Punch_ is
+concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of
+_Punch_. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and
+generous recognition. And _Punch_ was right, for underneath all his
+superficial buffooneries Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The
+present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir
+Charles Halle in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's
+flamboyant attire--on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered
+with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree--and his
+habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging
+himself with a _beau geste_ of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered
+armchair, Sir Charles Halle went on to recall how Jullien had once said
+to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great
+genius like _you_, or a great charlatan like _me_." Now Jullien had been
+a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire--but so had Verdi at
+Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he
+was "a _ci-devant_ waiter of a _quarante-sous traiteur_." Of the
+charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote
+Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," _Punch_ gives a
+graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first
+number:--
+
+MONSIEUR JULLIEN
+
+            "One!"--crash!
+            "Two!"--clash!
+            "Three!"--dash!
+            "Four!"--smash!
+            Diminuendo,
+            Now crescendo:--
+    Thus play the furious band,
+    Led by the kid-gloved hand
+    Of Jullien--that Napoleon of quadrille,
+    Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;
+            Perspiring raver
+            Over a semi-quaver;
+    Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that
+    The natural key of Johnny Bull's--A flat.
+
+    Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven--
+    Arch-impudent _improver_ of Beethoven--
+    Tricksy Professor of _charlatanerie_--
+    Inventor of musical artillery--
+    Barbarous rain and thunder maker--
+    Unconscionable money taker--
+    Travelling about both near and far,
+    Toll to exact at every _bar_,
+      What brings thee here again
+      To desecrate old Drury's fane?
+
+      Egregious attitudiniser!
+      Antic fifer! com'st to advise her
+    'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?
+      To raze her benches,
+      That Gallic wenches
+    Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?
+
+[Sidenote: _Early Promenade Concerts_]
+
+[Illustration: "GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT]
+
+But when _Punch_ assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and
+meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily
+serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on,
+_coupez votre baton, Bah, Va_!!!"--_Punch_ was both rude and ungenerous.
+From the very first at his Concerts d'Ete and then at the Promenade
+Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public
+waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also
+sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his
+musical _menu_. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing
+out _Stabat Mater_ waltzes--by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's
+work--and a _Dead March_ gallopade, we must never forget that he was the
+first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the
+authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at
+the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music
+strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of
+reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and _Punch_
+suggests in 1849 that his _Concerts Monstres_ should be held on
+Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His
+_chevelure_, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to
+escape _Punch's_ vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it
+should be so, for he was a master of the art of _reclame_. He is
+habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for
+"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The
+excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of
+the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of
+the notice of Jullien[32] in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when
+he speaks of _Punch_ as only ridiculing Jullien. Already _Punch_ had
+learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his
+extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to
+his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"
+are in the main friendly. The _Almanack_ for 1852 speaks of the "Julian
+(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera _Peter the Great_ is tenderly
+handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his
+tour in the States, _Punch_ sped the parting minstrel in some verses
+which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical
+education in England:--
+
+FAREWELL TO JULLIEN
+
+    Composer of _Peter the Great_,
+      Ere over Atlantic's broad swell
+    The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,
+      Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.
+
+    With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs
+      At first thou didst wisely begin,
+    And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,
+      As though 'twere to beat music in.
+
+    With national measures of France,
+      With polka, with waltz, and with jig,
+    The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,
+      As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.
+
+    Then, leading them on, by degrees,
+      To a feeling for Genius and Art,
+    Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,
+      And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.
+
+[Footnote 32: Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,
+though he appears in Larousse.]
+
+[Sidenote: _John Hullah_]
+
+The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay
+aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he
+was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money
+difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856
+he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous
+venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no
+"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of
+1857, when _Punch_ describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose
+eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I
+have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But
+things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien
+died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the
+age of forty-eight.
+
+Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom _Punch_
+recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at
+Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a
+fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no
+value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of
+"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of
+Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,
+who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well
+deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through
+his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in
+vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: _Punch_ satirizes the
+prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title
+"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note
+the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and
+monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special
+effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes
+on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a
+fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads
+were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The
+concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the
+remarkable performances of the Italian _virtuoso_ Giulio Regondi, but
+is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that
+the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.
+Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry
+out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark _nobilmente_ on the
+concertina. With regard to fashionable music _Punch_ complains in 1849
+that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only
+anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:--
+
+    Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones--
+    Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Taste in Music_]
+
+[Illustration: TASTE IN 1854--VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE
+DRAWING-ROOM
+
+YOUNG LADY (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low
+enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"]
+
+Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under
+the head of opera. _Punch_ had the root of the matter in him but was
+lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a
+critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable _portamento_." He
+was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling
+Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in
+1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the
+_Eroica_ Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his
+censure, as the _Eroica_ and C minor Symphonies were performed without
+being cut in two. _Punch_ had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but
+he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of
+Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The names
+of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of _Punch_ in
+this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the
+fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of
+Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the
+most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most
+fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.
+_Punch_ does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the
+greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of
+a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of
+waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese
+waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss
+has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an
+enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable
+Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that
+conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of
+the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an
+autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the
+public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since
+been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no
+reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or
+official recognition.
+
+[Sidenote: _Turner as Painter and Poet_]
+
+The low opinion which _Punch_ entertained of contemporary architects and
+sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a
+monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.
+He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have
+recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in
+advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for
+the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the
+adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the
+execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the
+position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a
+judge of painting and painters _Punch_ showed greater independence,
+intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references
+to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper of
+established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the
+autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's
+"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and
+avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his
+representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his
+"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find
+the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.
+_Punch_, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet
+might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we
+read:--
+
+    No. 77 is called _Whalers_, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies
+    one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster
+    salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his
+    pictures _Whalers_, or _Venice_, or _Morning_, or _Noon_, or
+    _Night_, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it
+    one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated
+    artist.
+
+[Illustration: VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,--RETURNING FROM THE BALL
+
+MS. "Fallacies of Hope" (An Unpublished Poem).--TURNER.]
+
+And again:--
+
+    We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his
+    celebrated MS. poem, the _Fallacies of Hope_, to which he
+    constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he
+    has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without
+    troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to
+    his _Morning--returning from the Ball_, which really seems to need
+    a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the
+    _Fallacies of Hope_, we will quote it for him:
+
+    "Oh! what a scene!--Can this be Venice? No.
+    And yet methinks it is--because I see
+    Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,
+    Something which looks like a Venetian spire.
+    That dash of orange in the background there
+    Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat
+    (Almost the colour of tomato sauce)
+    Proclaims them now returning from the ball!
+    This in my picture, I would fain convey,
+    I hope I do. Alas! _what_ FALLACY!"
+
+But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an
+article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:--
+
+    GENERAL MAXIMS
+
+    I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous
+    education.
+
+    II. The critic is greater than the artist.
+
+    III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is
+    to inform him of it.
+
+    IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,
+    like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the
+    vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the
+    rules of which it does not recognise.
+
+    V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in
+    preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity
+    must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good
+    or bad.
+
+     [Sidenote: _Rules for Art Critics_]
+
+     CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES
+
+    1. _To criticise a Picture by Turner._--Begin by protesting against
+    his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such
+    phrases as "_bathed in sunlight_," "_flooded with summer glories_,"
+    "_mellow distance_," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and
+    wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.
+
+    2. _To criticise a Picture by Stanfield._--Begin by unqualified
+    praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "_sharp,
+    hard outline_"; then of "_leathery texture_"; then of "_scenic
+    effect of the figures_"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a
+    scene painter.
+
+    3. _To criticise a Picture by Etty._--Begin by delirious
+    satisfaction with his "_delicious carnations_" and "_mellow
+    flesh-tones_." Remark on the skilful arrangement of colour and
+    admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should
+    content himself with merely painting from "_the nude Academy
+    model_," without troubling himself with that for which you had just
+    before praised him.--N.B. Never mind the contradiction.
+
+    4. _To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer._--Here you are bound to
+    unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or
+    the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is
+    expected.
+
+    _Punch_ will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar
+    directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.
+
+    He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:--
+
+    The "_facile princeps_" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)
+    has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's _Gregory and
+    Choristers_:--
+
+    "There is a want of _modulative melody_ in its colours and
+    mellowness in _its hand_ (whose?), pushed to an _outre_ simplicity
+    in _the plainness and ungrammatical development of its general
+    effect_. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery
+    occasionally too square and inflexible."
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849
+
+YE EXHYBITYON. AT YE ROYAL ACADEMYE.]
+
+The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,
+where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a
+frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period--note for
+example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense
+contemporary pictures were roughly handled by _Punch_. Thus in 1849 he
+puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old
+Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of
+clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.
+Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:--
+
+    "The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling
+    one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few
+    cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and
+    the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too
+    plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."
+
+The same complaint recurs in the following year, when _Punch_ is moved,
+as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain
+questions:--
+
+    Is painting a living art in England at this moment?
+
+    Is there a nineteenth century?
+
+    Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?
+
+    Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,
+    their actions, passions and sufferings?
+
+    If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living
+    events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so
+    unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and
+    beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the
+    Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the
+    Third, or George the Second?
+
+[Sidenote: _The P.R.B._]
+
+[Illustration: CONVENT THOUGHTS]
+
+But much more interesting than these generalities--sound and sensible
+though they are--is the first reference to "certain young friends of
+mine, calling themselves--the dear silly boys--Pre-Raphaelites" in the
+same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier
+criticisms of the P.R.B.'s _Mr. Punch_ managed to dissemble his
+affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of
+1851 is largely discounted by what follows:--
+
+    Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve
+    especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to
+    tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.
+    Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against _The Times_
+    on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. _are_ true, and that's
+    the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of
+    Collins's representation of the _Alisma Plantago_, _except_ the
+    unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he
+    has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size
+    of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of
+    brains--while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,
+    he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a
+    figure in the world.
+
+    Mr. Millais's "_Mariana_ in the moated Grange" is obviously meant
+    to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't
+    come--and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's
+    description:--
+
+   _then said she, "I am very dreary."_
+
+    Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet
+    robe, it is impossible to conceive.
+
+[Illustration: MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE]
+
+[Sidenote: _Commercialism in Art_]
+
+But Punch _makes_ the _amende_ most handsomely in 1852:--
+
+    Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour
+    that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In those
+    two pictures [_Ophelia_ and _The Huguenot_] I find more loving
+    observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her
+    forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest
+    poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a
+    point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate
+    expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of
+    canvas put together.
+
+In 1852 _Punch_ singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes
+and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous
+chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,
+
+    Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had
+    no other name than _bottega_--in English, shop; and moreover, it is
+    an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one
+    demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a
+    trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims--with
+    vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and
+    frivolity--no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with
+    the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the
+    perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of
+    great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the
+    beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in
+    ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display
+    of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many
+    is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,
+    is sure to please."
+
+As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of
+Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of
+_Punch's_ altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his
+palinode in 1853:--
+
+    Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my
+    honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young
+    gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and
+    deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.
+    Millais's historical romance of _The Huguenot_, last year? I am
+    sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly
+    papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be
+    breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in _The Times_,
+    and the _Morning Post_, and the _Examiner_. But I am a sort of
+    chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is
+    serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no
+    character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly--not forgetting Edwin
+    Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, _Night and
+    Morning by the Lochside_, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the
+    Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with
+    his ship for bier--not forgetting these and other picture-books
+    well worth reading--I tell you that Hunt's _Claudio and Isabella_
+    is to me _the_ book of the collection, though it records in colours
+    what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all
+    after it, comes Millais's _Order of Release_, and then the _Strayed
+    Sheep_ and _Proscribed Royalist_ of the same authors. I do not mean
+    to put either after the other, so I bracket them."
+
+In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s _Punch_ shows all the zeal
+of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse
+published shortly afterwards:--
+
+    Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it
+    has to reflect.
+
+    See what follows.
+
+    If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public
+    halls and palaces, they must be small.
+
+    Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close
+    eye, must be highly finished.
+
+    These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect
+    the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the
+    Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for
+    which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely
+    recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding
+    circumstances.
+
+    What have they recognised besides?
+
+    That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must
+    be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of
+    earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be
+    rendered--the more truthfully the better--and that the most
+    accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning
+    work--the creation of the central interest which sums itself in
+    human expression.
+
+    The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the
+    possibility of combining these two things--human expression and
+    accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young
+    men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this--at
+    least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,
+    and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling
+    and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point--and
+    further than might be expected from such beardless champions--it
+    has already succeeded.
+
+    So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they
+    have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have
+    still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father
+    before them went through--devils of their own creating to hurl
+    their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and
+    confute, and put to shame--by trust in their gospel truth that
+    Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.
+
+[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of a Convert]
+
+It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English
+artists in 1855, _Punch_ complained that the newer school, i.e. the
+P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as
+Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of _Punch's_ artistic and
+aesthetic _flair_ and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he
+had expressed high praise for Frith's _Ramsgate Sands_ (which was bought
+by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him
+for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait
+Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile
+"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of
+"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern
+and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the
+musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.
+
+With all deductions and limitations _Punch's_ record as a critic of the
+fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.
+
+
+
+
+PERSONALITIES
+
+
+Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, _Punch_
+enumerates his special _betes noires_ as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy
+and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list
+would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,
+notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is
+much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen
+and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in
+the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who
+sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,
+all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar
+Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord
+Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all
+City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi
+(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was
+Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,
+together with Railway Directors, Homoeopathists and Protectionists.
+
+[Illustration: PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES]
+
+Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity
+may be noted _Punch's_ list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious
+suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the
+misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.
+Of some of _Punch's_ butts it may be said that they were rescued from
+oblivion by his satire and caricature--Sibthorp for example, though he
+was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in _Punch_.
+He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of
+Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was
+frequently witty, and as truculently courageous as _Punch_ himself. Sir
+Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to _Punch_ for
+all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City
+administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter
+throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social
+advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But
+the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.
+_Punch_ was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or
+discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that
+he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard
+to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already
+_Punch_ had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in
+politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton
+as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,
+ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work
+again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,
+but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was
+so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,
+_Punch_ was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a
+really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal
+throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and
+grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six
+months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, _Punch_ only
+jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real
+"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude
+towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and
+his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence
+imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later
+'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above
+in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from
+their pinnacles when _Punch_ the peace-loving Free Trader developed in
+the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the
+contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was
+grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry
+reparation for continual abuse of the living, and _Punch's_ treatment of
+Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In _Punch's_ early
+volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the
+Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of
+Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and
+there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,
+in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of
+temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Injustice to Peel_]
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD]
+
+If "Jenkins" was _Punch's_ "chief butler"--in the sense of the supreme
+flunkey--Lord Brougham was his chief butt throughout these years. And
+certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played
+better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal
+sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as
+regularly in _Punch's_ portraits as the straw in Palmerston's
+mouth--which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"
+acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from
+his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been
+Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in _Punch_ appears in the
+composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors
+ascribes to _Punch_ his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for
+"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the
+moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and
+furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements
+of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed
+trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to
+the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,
+with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,
+craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the
+Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings
+for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word
+Competition) we read:--
+
+    If people may, without rebuke,
+    Call Wellington the "Iron----,"
+    Why then we safely may presume
+    The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord----.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS]
+
+The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in
+his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic _Punch_, who in 1849
+was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky
+and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But _Punch's_
+hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which
+represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago
+of inconsistencies which composed the mind of one who was at once a
+charlatan and encyclopaedist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year
+_Punch_ suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of
+the erotic and learned lord,"
+
+    Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,
+    Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.
+
+Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of
+1851 excited _Punch's_ wrath, when he himself had become converted to
+the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the
+turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America
+in 1850, when _Punch_ printed the following unofficial letter of
+introduction to the President of the United States:--
+
+    To General Taylor, President of the United States,
+
+    Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.
+
+    "Dear Taylor,
+
+    "I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend
+    _Brougham_--the _Brougham_ whose fame is _not_ European but
+    world-wide--personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,
+    he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked
+    like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has
+    cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp
+    attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look
+    around every attorney's office; and you will _not_ see Brougham's
+    picture."
+
+[Sidenote: _A Palinode to Brougham_]
+
+_Punch_ had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian
+cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the
+following graceful verses printed in 1851:--
+
+      A PALINODE
+
+        From _Punch_ to Henry Brougham
+
+    "During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost
+    difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,
+    attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten
+    days the difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the
+    hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his
+    life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found
+    he could struggle no more."--_Lord Brougham's last speech on Law
+    Reform in the House of Lords._
+
+    And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?
+      Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?
+    Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,
+      Our ten long years of all but weekly war,
+
+    Let _Punch_ hold out to you a friendly hand,
+      And speak what haply he had left unspoken
+    Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,
+      That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.
+
+    Forgot the changes of thy later years,
+      No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,
+    Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers--
+      Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.
+
+    He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue
+      Lashed into infamy and endless scorn
+    The wretches who their blackening scandal flung
+      Upon a Queen--of women most forlorn.
+
+    He knows the lover of his kind, who stood
+      Chief of the banded few who dared to brave
+    The accursed traffickers in negro blood,
+      And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;
+
+    The Statesman who, in a less happy hour
+      Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,
+    And gave the keys of knowledge and of power
+      With equal hand alike to high and low;
+
+    The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,
+      Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:
+    The Chancellor who settled century's claims,
+      And swept an age's dense arrears away;
+
+    The man whose name men read even as they run,
+      On every landmark the world's course along,
+    That speaks to us of a great battle won
+      Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.
+
+    Remembering this, full sad I am to hear
+      That voice which loudest in the combat rung
+    Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,
+      To see that arm of battle all unstrung.
+
+    And so, even as a warrior after fight
+      Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,
+    I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,
+      And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.
+
+This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,
+the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal
+reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his
+disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown
+and lived for seventeen years longer--years crowded with multifarious
+activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique
+figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors
+are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to
+avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,
+vituperation, and vulgarity.
+
+Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in
+respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first
+place amongst _Punch's_ pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up
+any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive
+picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was
+"always in trouble." The predominating cause of _Punch's_ resentment was
+the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably
+that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in
+_Punch's_ view: _nihil tetigit quod non foedavit_. Peter Borthwick,
+the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,
+and editor of the _Morning Post_ from 1850 till his death in 1852, was
+no favourite of _Punch_. He was, however, as the date shows, not
+editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick
+clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married
+couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when
+they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery
+heresies that _Punch_ granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for
+this good act." _Punch's_ antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they
+were united in their Russophobia. But _Punch_ was often intolerant of
+competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Punch" Designs a Statue_]
+
+[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE]
+
+If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and
+favourites, _Punch_ emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most
+of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere, and the list[33]
+might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of
+Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;
+Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William
+Russell, of whose lectures _Punch_ wrote an enthusiastic and
+well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.
+
+[Footnote 33: It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of
+Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative
+classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on
+William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made
+a K.C.B. in 1860.]
+
+_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
+
+                               PRINTED BY
+             CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,
+                             LONDON, E.C.4
+
+                               F.100.521
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England,
+Vol. I (of 4).--1841-1857, by Charles L. Graves
+
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