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diff --git a/old/44267.txt b/old/44267.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4fab3d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/44267.txt @@ -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. 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