Heresy's seed is rank! Shall Jowett sow it?

Tell me not, sciolists, Greek's not theology:

As if there's not a heterodox philology

That can be wrapped up cunningly in articles,

Impregnate accents, propositions, particles,

Poisoning texts as strychnine poisons wheat.

The silly crows, no doubt, scoff at alarming;

"What's toxicology to do with farming?"

And peck, and peck and drop dead as they eat.

E'en so Greek roots poisoned may be by Jowett,

And who's to know it.

When the proposed statute to give Jowett a decent remuneration for his

services was rejected, _Punch_ suggested that the Crown might make

suitable amends for their persecution of the Regius Professor by making

him a Bishop (March 26, 1864). The question of the salary was

satisfactorily settled in 1865. The suggestion of the Bishopric was well

meant rather than wise: a far more suitable sphere of activity and

influence awaited him as Master of Balliol (1879-1893).

The famous case of Bishop Colenso, which synchronized with the Oxford

heresy-hunt of Jowett and other contributors to _Essays and Reviews_, is

dealt with very much in the same spirit. By way of introducing the

subject to a generation who do not know Colenso as an arithmetician and

take for granted the method of applying scientific criticism to

scripture history, which he was the first English Bishop to adopt, it

may be as well to state that while Bishop of Natal he had incurred the

displeasure of his metropolitan, Dr. Gray, the Bishop of Cape Town, by

the publication of his critical studies of the Pentateuch. Dr. Gray

claimed the right to try and depose Colenso for heresy, and did so.

Colenso protested against Gray's jurisdiction and appealed to the Crown,

with the result that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

pronounced the whole of the proceedings null and void. The episode

created a stir by the side of which the Kikuyu controversy is reduced to

insignificance. Colenso's searching historical criticisms did not merely

alarm orthodox theologians; they estranged his friend, the broad-minded

F. D. Maurice. _Punch_ was with Colenso in his refusal to acquiesce in

Dr. Gray's claim to override the secular courts; he respected Colenso's

fearless courage and honesty; but for the rest he declined to enter into

the theological issues involved and hovered on the outskirts of the

dispute:--

COLENSO AND CONVOCATION

Truth is great; must prevail;

Reason, Parsons, don't rail;

You will hinder, not help, her defence so.

But confute the man's sums;

You may then snap your thumbs

And make faces at Bishop Colenso.

Much neater and better, however, is the summary of the correspondence

between the Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury given three weeks

later:--

THE NATAL CORRESPONDENCE

I

My dear Colenso,

With regret,

We hierarchs, in conclave met,

Beg you, you most disturbing writer,

To take off your colonial mitre.

This course we press upon you strongly:

Believe me,

Yours most truly,

LONGLEY.

Lambeth.

II

My dear Archbishop,

To resign

That Zulu diocese of mine,

And own myself a heathen dark

Because I've doubts of Noah's Ark,

And feel it right to tell all men so,

Is _not_ the course for

Yours,

COLENSO.

Kensington.

[Sidenote: _Dean Stanley and Père Hyacinthe_]

Stanley was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster in 1863, and the

lamentations of the _Record_, the organ of ultra-orthodox

Evangelicalism, gave _Punch_ his opportunity:--

That the wisdom and justice of the appointment of Canon Stanley to

the Deanery of Westminster might be clear to everybody, the

_Record_ gives its certificate that such appointment is "a

melancholy fact." Disapprobation by the _Record_ having been thus

signified, of course every sensible person must now be convinced

that the Dean is the right man in the right place.

Comments of this sort add to the liveliness of newspaper controversy,

but they do not conduce to the popularity of those who indulge in them.

But at any rate they are an improvement on _Punch's_ references to the

"viperine expectorations" of the editor of the _Tablet_ in earlier

years.

The welcome extended to Père Hyacinthe in 1869 showed that _Punch_ was

not restricted in his sympathies to Protestant heretics only. But we

fear that his welcome was not entirely disinterested. In his verses on

"Hyacinthus Redivivus," _Punch_ attacks Pius IX for favouring Père

Hyacinthe as long as he was a winning card, and then rending him as a

heretic. The lines are friendly, but reading between them one can detect

a warning to M. Loyson to shun the dangers that beset the fashionable

preacher in New York, whither he was then bound. We cannot resist the

feeling that _Punch_ was more pleased by the Pope's embarrassment in

dealing with this modernist than anxious to see Romanism reformed from

within.

In the high affairs of Church and State the year 1868 was a great

landmark. After a long debate Gladstone's Resolutions on Irish

Disestablishment were carried against the Government on April 5. The

discussions were followed closely in _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament,"

and two interesting points are brought out. Disraeli maintained that the

House had no mandate, as we now say, to deal with the Irish Church. They

ought not to be asked at eight days' notice to repeal the Union. On the

other hand, Gladstone argued that it would be ultra-democratic, if not

anarchic, to say that Parliament could not act without appeal to the

constituencies. The Government were beaten by 328 votes to 272, but

remained in office till the autumn, when they appealed to the country.

By the return of a Liberal majority Gladstone was left free to introduce

the first instalment of his scheme for pacifying Ireland. This view is

clearly set forth in _Punch's_ doggerel stanzas headed, "Out and In":--

Gone is Dizzy,

From the busy

Cares of State repose he can.

In comes Gladdy

Who of Paddy

Means to make a loyal man.

_Punch_ acquiesced in the measure, but showed some anxiety lest it

should be interpreted as a concession to Fenian intimidation. His

cartoon, which bore the inscription "Justice to Ireland," shows the

figure of Justice blindfolded, with sword and scales, enthroned in the

background. In front and at her feet Gladstone, laying the Irish Church

on a flaming altar, says: "This is a sacrifice to Justice, not to

Papists or Assassins. And if they----" Turning their backs on him are a

sulky-looking priest and a Fenian desperado levelling a gun. The Bill

for Disestablishing and Disendowing the Irish Church was introduced by

Gladstone on March 1, 1869. A month later _Punch_ published another

cartoon entitled, "Disendowment and Disarmament." Here a Fenian says to

a priest: "Be jabers, your Riv'rence, it's spoilin' our thrade they are

entirely"; and his Riv'rence replies: "Thrue for you, me boy." During

the course of the debates the "Essence of Parliament" contains an entry

with an unpleasantly familiar ring:--

_Thursday_ (_April 29_). Another and another Irish murder. The

desire of Members to know that the Government is doing something

cannot be blamed. The Irish Secretary stated that the Executive

would proceed with the utmost vigour, but deprecated the entering

into details. There is a Ruffian called the Mayor of Cork, who has

presided at a dinner to two of the released Fenian convicts, and

who eulogized O'Farrell, who wounded the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr.

Gladstone said that the fellow's language could not be too severely

condemned.

[Illustration: A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

GHOST OF QUEEN ELIZABETH: "Agreed, have they? Ods boddikins! Gads my

life, and marry come up, sweetheart! In _my_ time I'd have knocked all

their addlepates together till they _had_ agreed!"]

John Bright, who had joined the administration as President of the Board

of Trade, donned a court uniform and (if _Punch_ is to be believed)

actually danced a quadrille at a Court Ball with the Princess of Wales

as partner, is applauded for his eloquence in the House and rebuked for

his unbridled vehemence outside it. Ministers mustn't bully, but think

of their colleagues. They must, in short, wear a muzzle, and if Bright

could not bear to wear one, he certainly had no right, _Punch_ argued,

to be where he was. The debates in the Commons were fiery and

protracted, and those who regarded the measure as one of confiscation

secured important concessions, but the battle was really joined in the

Upper House. Lord Derby maintained a _non possumus_ attitude, but the

eloquence of Magee (then Bishop of Peterborough) and the arguments of

Cairns did not avail to prevent thirty-six Conservative Peers from

voting with the Government. But, even so, the Lords' amendments

threatened a constitutional crisis, only averted by the compromise

arrived at by Granville and Cairns in July, 1869. The Bill became law

and was put into operation on January 1, 1871. That _Punch_ entertained

misgivings as to its effect in encouraging intimidation may be gathered

from his cartoon, "How not to do it," in which "Pat" threatens Britannia

with unspeakable things if she does not release those noble patriots,

the Fenian prisoners.

[Sidenote: "_Mr. Disraeli's Religion_"]

The prevalence of religious cant and snobbery and sensationalism is

frequently chastised in the 'sixties and 'seventies. In the spring of

1866 _Punch_ copies an advertisement in which a young man wished "to

find a home with a pious family, where his Christian example would be

considered sufficient remuneration for his board and lodging." And in

January, 1870, he pilloried an even more glaring example of complacent

and well-connected religiosity: "A Gentleman, born and bred, kinsman of

an Earl ... will preach Christ." The infection of the pulpit by

sensation is deplored in 1867 _à propos_ of an announcement in the

_Islington Gazette_:--

"Caledonian Road Chapel.--Next Sunday Sermons will be preached,

afternoon, by Mr. Geo. B. Clarke, a Black Brother, from Jamaica,

Son-in-law of the late excellent Paul Bogle. Evening, by Mr. Henry

Varley the Butcher, from Notting Hill, whose 'words sink, like

flame-tipped darts, into the souls of his hearers.'"

It is easy to make too much of isolated instances of self-conscious and

self-advertising rectitude. There is far greater justification for the

animated protest which _Punch_ registered against the attempts made to

discredit Disraeli at the time of his first Premiership on the score of

his religion or irreligion. Disraeli had to some extent anticipated this

criticism when in his first speech as Premier, on March 5, 1868, he said

that he knew that in his position there were personal and peculiar

reasons which would aggravate the burden and augment the difficulties.

On this _Punch_ made the following comment:--

People can interpret these words as they please. Those who give

them a significance connected with birth, and who have intelligence

enough to take a large view of pedigree, may note that they were

uttered by a man descended from one of the Hebrew families expelled

from Spain by the Inquisition, and who settled in Venice as

merchants.

The campaign of curiosity met with no encouragement from _Punch_, who

returned to the subject a few weeks later under the heading, "The Modern

Inquisition":--

Perhaps the Premier, who has now got to make a Bishop of Hereford,

will write one more letter and satisfy the British Booby on the

subject of "Mr. Disraeli's Religion," which appears to afflict

divers. Scarcely a day passes but some new conjectural

impertinence, or some particularly unnecessary information is

tossed out. Mr. Disraeli knows that _Punch_ has not refrained from

a great lot of good-natured allusions to the nationality of which

the former is so justly proud; and it is possible that we may have

many another cartoon of which he will be the smiling or scowling

hero. But we protest--and we are as good a Protestant as Mr.

Hardy--against sneaking into a gentleman's study, and taking notes

as to whether Prayer Book, Missal, Watts's Hymns, Koran, or

Shaster, be most thumbed, and publishing inferences. We do not see

whose business it was to announce that Mr. Disraeli had no

particular religion until he was five, and that he was then taken

by Samuel Rogers to Hackney Church, especially as we believe the

latter statement to be false, Mr. Rogers and his father having been

regular attendants at the Unitarian Chapel at Hackney, of which the

celebrated Dr. Price was, in older days, Minister. Nor do we see

why the pastor of Hughenden should gratify vulgar curiosity by

proclaiming that the Premier has been a regular Church-goer for

seventeen years, and was a Communicant at Easter. Is this England

or America? We do not habitually admire French legislation, but the

late edict against ransacking Private Life is not without its

merits. Somebody will be asking about our religion next, and will

need all his own to bear the consequences.

In earlier years _Punch_, as we know, had overlooked Lord Shaftesbury's

great services as a practical philanthropist in view of his

Sabbatarianism. But he had learned to dissociate Lord Shaftesbury from

the "snuffling sect" of Puritan killjoys, and in 1868 indulges in a

eulogy of his Protestant zeal against Popery and Ritualism. The ballad

on the insurrection in Spain, in the early winter of that year, shows no

abatement of _Punch's_ distrust of Romanism. The end of the Temporal

Power in 1870 was welcomed as the logical, inevitable, and desirable

consummation of Italian unity: it made Italy, not the Vatican, mistress

of Rome, and it was in keeping with the consistent policy of the paper

that the Pope's pretensions as a peace-maker in 1871 should be roughly

disputed. England, it is claimed, was the true pacificator of Europe,

and Professor (afterwards Sir John) Seeley's observations in "How to

keep the Peace" suggest the possibility of a League of Nations.

The end of this period was marked by the passing of a great divine, a

famous bishop and the greatest of missionaries. In the memorial verses

printed on April 13, 1872, _Punch_ recognized the true saintliness, the

love of truth, the nobly righteous indignation of F. D. Maurice:--

The life of love he lived, the truth he spoke,

The seeds of good he sowed on earth remain.

In many brave hearts, eased from Evil's yoke,

The fruitful soul of Maurice lives again.

Incidentally it is noted that Maurice never received any preferment,

bishopric, canonry, or deanery.

[Sidenote: _Wilberforce and Livingstone_]

The lines given below on Wilberforce, who is coupled with Lord Westbury,

are largely inspired by the _de mortuis_ note. The writer begins by

recording the worst that had been said of both--the slyness of the

sleek priest, the sneers and scorn and mincing tones of the bitter

lawyer. But now we know better, and recognize that the dove was blended

with the serpent in both:--

And so, Life's judgment set to right by Death's,

Lay busy Bishop and keen Judge to rest;

And, by their coffins, think with bated breaths,

How good the worst of us, how bad the best.

[Illustration: A PAN-ANGLICAN WASHING DAY

CHORUS OF OLD WASHERWOMEN: "There! Take'em away--we can't be worrited

with them things."

"If the seventy-five members of the Pan-Anglican Synod have not a single

word to say upon any of the great questions, theoretical or practical,

which concern the very existence of the Church of England, their

impotent caution and misplaced decency will do more to endanger it than

any external attack with which it is at present threatened."--_Pall Mall

Gazette._]

Writing of Livingstone, always one of his heroes, _Punch_ does not agree

with the view that his was a wasted life, or that a greater work of

reclamation was to be done at home, and applauds the unselfishness,

fearlessness, and vision of one who died in sight of evening rest and

honours fairly won:--

By their own scale great souls gauge things and men;

Their ways and weights are not our weights and ways;

Only their vision goes beyond our ken,

Reaching to larger lights--diviner days.

It was in this larger vision that _Punch_ found the Church of England

wanting, and when the first Pan-Anglican Synod met in 1867, he took as

the text of his cartoon the acid comment of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ just

quoted.

The question of Public Worship Regulation was already in the air, though

it did not lead to legislation until the return of the Conservatives to

power. On July 12, 1873, _Punch_ published a cartoon _à propos_ of the

protest against Ritualism and the Confessional. Mr. Miall, M.P., a

leader of the Liberation Society, is shown with two archbishops

expressing his delight to find them so earnestly co-operating with him

for the destruction of the State Church. A fortnight later _Punch_

complained that Dr. Thomson (the Archbishop of York) had misread the

cartoon. What _Punch_ really meant was to suggest that by neglecting the

representations of real Churchmen, and by tolerating the antics of

Ritualism, the hierarchy were playing into the hands of the Church's

enemies. But he still hoped that the Archbishops would stiffen their

backs and carry out the spirit of Tait's threat against those who

brought their toys to church. So when Archdeacon Denison, who

supported the Confessional, denounced certain Bishops for their

ultra-Protestantism, _Punch_ suggested that Denison's friends should

present him with a triple cap (with bells).

EDUCATION

The worst of education, as Peacock remarks, is that there is no

beginning and no end to it. But the subject is set about with other

pitfalls and difficulties. It is one of the most important things in

life; its annals have been adorned by great and even heroic names; yet

the calling has never been free from gibes at the dominie and the

gerund-grinder. And again, by the irony of fate it has been responsible

for an unconscionable amount of dull and pedantic and cranky literature.

There is no greater benefactor than a good schoolmaster; there is no

greater bore than the "Educationist." _Punch_, though a comic journal,

has not escaped the infection in dealing with the subject, but it is to

his credit that on the whole he has resisted the temptation to indulge

in untimely facetiousness, and has not been afraid to be serious when

the occasion demanded.

Contending zealots, assisted by Parliamentary apathy, had effectually

barred the progress of national education throughout the period treated

in the previous volume. But the awakening had begun in 1858, though more

than twenty years were to pass before Forster's Act was placed on the

Statute Book. The debate on the Paper Duty in June, 1858, showed, at any

rate, that all parties were at one in condemning this tax. Disraeli,

then Chancellor of the Exchequer, could not afford to remit it, but

_Punch_ read the signs of the times aright in his comment: "The House

voted £563,435 for Educational purposes in order to qualify the people

to read the books which the removal of the paper duty will place in

their hands." It was reserved for Mr. Gladstone to make good this

forecast. His famous series of Free Trade Budgets between 1859 and 1865

were quite as much the effect as the cause of national prosperity, but

in 1865 "no one ventured to doubt Gladstone's financial omniscience.

Everyone who paid less for his pound of tea or his newspaper could look

upon him as a personal benefactor."[9]

[Footnote 9: Oman's _England in the Nineteenth Century_, p. 155.]

The judicious use of opportunity rather than genius may have been the

secret of Gladstonian finance; but no such reserves are called for in

appraising the merits of the series of Acts dealing with national

education passed during his first Premiership. If one needs a practical

illustration of the immense advance made in education in ten years, one

need only compare the provisions of the Act of 1870 with the account of

what _Punch_ calls an "anti-educational demonstration" in the Commons in

July, 1860, when Palmerston was Prime Minister:--

There was a Bill for making it compulsory on the employers of the

labour of children under twelve years old, to have a certificate

that the child was learning to read and write, and had twenty hours

of teaching per month-nothing like an hour a day. But so monstrous

an Innovation frightened the House. Mr. Henley was pious, and said

that people were not to eat unless they worked, but were not

commanded to read and write; Mr. Buxton was humane, and said there

were thousands of children too idle, wicked or stupid to learn, and

their vested rights were not to be interfered with; Mr. Hardy took

the old Tory view, and said that the children of the poor were

taught quite enough to enable them to do the duties they were

intended for; and Mr. Baynes, as a Dissenter, declared the Bill to

be needless, and that the work of education was going on admirably.

Yielding to these irresistible arguments, the Bill was thrown out,

a majority of 122 to 51 deciding that the children of the English

poor want no assistance in the battle with the World, the Flesh and

the First Whig.

It was this debate, by the way, that prompted _Punch_ to recall the

derivation of Parliament by a French etymologist from the two verbs

_parler_ and _mentir_.

[Sidenote: _Education Act of 1870_]

A good beginning had been made with the Act providing efficient

inspection of endowed and Grammar Schools in 1869, but the Elementary

Education Act of 1870 was a measure of first-rate importance, which has

affected our national life more vitally than any other passed in the

last fifty years, unless we except the People's Representation Act of

1918. From the moment of its introduction _Punch_ realized its

far-reaching influence. On March 26, 1870, he published the cartoon,

"The Three R's, or Better Late than Never." Here we see Forster

addressing a group of small school children, town and country types:

"Well, my little people, we have been gravely and earnestly considering

whether you may learn to read. I am happy to say that, subject to a

variety of restrictions, conscience clauses, and the consent of your

vestries--you may!" The conflict that led to the final compromise is

indicated by two groups in the background: one amicably gathered round

John Bull; the other including a bishop, a coronetted peer, a

sour-visaged minister of the Chadband type, and an austere female.

[Illustration: INCORRIGIBLE

CLERICAL EXAMINER: "What is your name?"

INCORRIGIBLE: "Biler, sir."

CLERICAL EXAMINER: "Who gave you that name?"

INCORRIGIBLE: "The _boys in our Court_, sir."]

The issues involved are set forth in a "long and grave letter" addressed

by _Punch_ to "Master Gutterblood" in town, and "Master Chawbacon" in

the country. Writing as their friend and well-wisher, sincerely anxious

to see them properly taught, he deplores the obstacles hitherto put in

their way by the "black-coats"--Parson, Priest and Nonconformist

Minister. He applauds Forster's plan, and specially condemns the action

of the secularizing party who would exclude all religion from schools,

since the bulk of English people were in favour of some simple religious

teaching:--

Those who are _now_ barring your road to school are not the

Churches, but those who insist that no Church at all shall have a

hand in your teaching when you have got there. I have been

accustomed to think that it was the Established Church's jealousy

of the Dissenters that kept you ignorant, now it looks as if you

were to be kept in the dark by the Dissenters' jealousy of the

Established Church, working with those who distrust and dislike

equally Church and Dissent, and all forms of religious Creed.

[Illustration: "OBSTRUCTIVES"

MR. PUNCH (to Bull A.1): "Yes, it's all very well to say 'Go to school!'

How are they to go to school with those people quarrelling in the

doorway? Why don't you make 'em 'move on'?"]

It was a fair summary of the opposing interests which clashed during the

progress of the Bill through the House. _Punch's_ impatience is shown in

the further cartoon "Obstructives." "Those people" are a group of

clerics of various Churches blocking the school doorway. A fortnight

later _Punch_ was able to announce in his "Essence of Parliament" that

the very qualified compulsion proposed by Parliament had been approved

by large majorities, and to publish his third cartoon on the solving of

the problem. Master Forster (with his slate) is saying to Britannia, the

Schoolmistress, "Please, M'm, I've done it, M'm." And when Britannia

asks, "And _how_ have you done it, William?" he replies, "Please, M'm,

I've reduced all the fractions to the lowest common denomination." To

this is added the stage direction "The good Boy enters the Cabinet." The

Bill passed through both Houses, and when Parliament rose on August 10

and the Queen's Speech made special reference thereto, _Punch_ comments,

"Excuse us, your Majesty, but permit us to say 'Hooray!' and to add a

cheer for Mr. Forster." He welcomed a measure which affirmed the

principle that the State was bound to provide gratuitous instruction for

all the children in the realm, but resented the educational luxuries

which leading "Educationalists" were anxious to introduce. So we find a

burlesque list of these fancy subjects, including hieroglyphics,

croquet, bézique, etiquette, given in the following year with the

remark: "There are people old-fashioned enough to think that it might be

as well to give our poor neglected children only plain joints at

first--the 3 R's--and let the _entrées_ stand over for the present." The

introduction of the "Fourth R"--Religion--prompted the "Educational

Epigram" a year later:--

Milk is for babes, wrote one that knew.

Sectarian Educators, you

Who dogmas teach which Doctors question,

Are you not giving babes strong meat,

So much too tough for them to eat

The upshot must be indigestion?

[Illustration: THE CONSCIENCE CLAUSE

RECTOR'S WIFE: "And what's your father, my boy?"

BOY: "My father's a 'Hagitator,' an' he says he won't have me learnt no

catechism, 'r else you'll all of yer 'ear of it!"]

In the following summer we have a picture by Charles Keene of a beery

working man protesting against temperance propagandism at schools, and

resolving to withdraw his small son from the reach of these subversive

doctrines, while humorous capital is made out of the "Conscience Clause"

at the expense of the "agitator." The provision of gratuitous meals to

elementary school children was not yet even mooted, but _Punch_ strongly

supported the philanthropists who in 1867 gave weekly dinner parties in

Marylebone to seven or eight hundred children, following the example set

by Victor Hugo during his sojourn in Guernsey.

[Illustration: SCENE--TOY-SHOP. (Enter highly educated Youth of

Twelve).--"Oh, I want some toy, or conjuring trick, or something that

would do for an old gentleman of fifty or thereabouts; my grandfather,

in point of fact,--you know the kind of thing. I dessay."]

[Sidenote: _Children and their Tormentors_]

Turning to preparatory or boarding schools, we have to note that

academies of the type of "Dotheboys Hall" had not altogether

disappeared, to judge by the advertisement which _Punch_ pilloried under

the heading of "Children and their Tormentors":--

"BOARDING SCHOOLS wanted, in London, for a boy, nine years, and two

girls, six and seven years old, requiring firm discipline, having

become wild and unruly, through neglect occasioned by family

misfortunes. No holiday could be given, as holidays destroy any

good effected at school. The father, quite a gentleman, can only

pay 20 guineas each. This advertisement is only intended for

schools of pre-eminent efficiency for such cases, and prosperous

enough to be able and willing to accept such terms, and undertake

the needed task of reformation for the sake of the schools' own

additional credit of success. Particulars and references, by letter

only."

As for its conducing to the "credit" of a school to help unnatural

fathers thus to get rid of their children, surely no one but a

squeers could indulge in such a thought. If through neglect at

home, a child becomes unruly and requires to be "reformed," it is

right that at a proper age it should be sent to school, if proper

means are wanting for teaching it at home. But a girl of six years

old can scarcely be so "wild" as to require, for her taming, utter

banishment from home: nor can she be much bettered by being badly

fed for twenty pounds a year, and, worse still, taught to grow up

without knowing what "home" means.

The name of "gentleman" had been strangely taken in vain a year earlier,

as we gather from an extract which sounds like an echo from _The

Fairchild Family_:--

THE GAME OF JACK KETCH

On Saturday last a man named Thomas Edwards was hanged for murder

at Liverpool, when, according to a report of the execution which

appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_:--

"To the discredit of some person, a drag, containing gentlemen's

children, was brought near the gallows."

Fine fun for gentlemen's children during the Christmas holidays, to

see a man hanged. Just the spectacle to amuse little boys--but

perhaps there were some little girls too among these gentlemen's

children. Well, in that case, the gentlemen have taken a good step

towards getting their girls, as well as their boys, off their

hands. Nothing is more likely than that the juvenile spectators of

Thomas Edwards' death-struggles will get to play at hanging, and

effectually hang one another.

In 1868 _Punch_ was exercised in mind by the pernicious influence on the

ingenuous youth of "penny dreadfuls," and the activities of educational

faddists. Precocious pedantry, as we show on the previous page, is

satirized in 1863. There is a curious foreshadowing of Madame

Montessori's hostility to fairy tales in Du Maurier's "Little Christmas

Dream." Du Maurier had a genius for the delineation of nightmares, and

in this picture he quite excelled himself. Earlier in the same year

_Punch_ made excellent capital, again with the aid of Du Maurier's

pencil, out of Lord Malmesbury's statement that it was useless to teach

modern languages at the public schools, "as parents can easily procure

such instruction for their children by hiring foreign nurses." The

artist depicts four disgusted Harrow boys, who have returned for the

holidays, taking an educational walk with their German and French

instructresses, while a young and untutored yokel looks on with grim

amusement.

[Illustration: A LITTLE CHRISTMAS DREAM

Mr. L. Figuier, in the Thesis which precedes his interesting work on the

World before the Flood, condemns the practice of awakening the youthful

mind to admiration by means of fables and fairy tales, and recommends,

in lieu thereof, the study of the Nature History of the World in which

we live. Fired by this advice, we have tried the experiment on our

eldest, an imaginative boy of six. We have cut off his "Cinderella" and

his "Puss in Boots," and introduced him to some of the more peaceful

Fauna of the pre-Adamite world, as they appear restored in Mr. Figuier's

book. The poor boy has not had a decent nights rest ever since!]

[Illustration: MALMESBURY NURSES

Lord Malmesbury considers that it is useless to teach modern languages

at the Public Schools, "as parents can easily procure such instruction

for their children by hiring foreign nurses." Observe the delight of

four young gentlemen who have returned from Harrow for the holidays, and

discover that their parents have procured French and German instruction

for them. Also observe the envy of the young and untutored clown.]

A notable landmark in the annals of preparatory and public school

education is reached in 1869, when _Punch_ quoted the following

epoch-marking advertisement:--

"Grammar School, W---- R---- Wanted immediately, a Second Assistant

Master, to teach thoroughly writing and arithmetic, also junior

English subjects. Must be a good cricketer and round-arm bowler.

Character to bear the strictest investigation. Salary £40,

increasing to £60."

[Sidenote: _Punch on Co-Education_]

The resounding fame of W. G. Grace, who began his great career in

first-class cricket in 1863, at the age of 15, and had just reached his

majority, was doubtless responsible for this new educational departure.

The salary was certainly not exorbitant, but the advent of the

cricket-master moves no sympathy in _Punch_. He admits the force of the

proverb that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," but asks

"does not Jack at some schools play a little to excess?" and speculates

on the amazement which the schoolmaster abroad would feel in reading

this announcement. On the other hand, over-pressure and "cramming" were

equally distasteful to _Punch_, who was seriously perturbed by the

sensational accounts given in 1870 of the breakdown of Woolwich

candidates.

[Illustration: REAL EDUCATION

MR. PUNCH is of opinion that a polite and easy bearing towards the

opposite sex (tempered, of course, with propriety and discretion) cannot

be inculcated at too early an age. He therefore recommends that whenever

an Institute for Young Ladies happens to meet an Academy for Young

Gentlemen, they should all be formally introduced to each other, and

allowed to take their walks abroad in company.]

Co-education had not yet emerged on the horizon of practical educational

politics, and the plea put forward in a picture by Du Maurier for a

mixed "crocodile" cannot be seriously entertained. The artist suggests

that whenever an Institute for Young Ladies happens to meet an Academy

for Young Gentlemen they should all be formally introduced to one

another and allowed to take their walks abroad in company. The question

of corporal punishment was raised by a lively correspondence in _The

Times_, towards the close of 1872, on the Winchester practice of

"tunding" with a ground-ash or cricket-stump. The action was general,

the father of the boy whose punishment by a prefect had started the

correspondence, the headmaster, Dr. Ridding, "in English less classical

than queer," and sundry old Wykehamists all joining in. _Punch_ was at

first scandalized by the brutality with which the prefects exercised

their disciplinary powers, but the spirit and good sense showed by the

victim caused him to modify his view:--

His punishment, while he feels it unjust

He takes without blather or ban:

Yes, out of the lot who've kicked up a dust,

The boy is the Man.

At the beginning of the same year the invasion of the public schools by

the new plutocracy, as described by a correspondent in the _Morning

Post_, who assumed the unfortunate pseudonym of "Pavidus," impelled

_Punch_ to some outspoken comment. "Pavidus" complained that the

standard in tips and pocket-money had been unduly raised by the young

cotton-lords--boys who came back with £5 as a minimum. _Punch_ finds the

root of the evil in the perversion of the public schools from their

original intention--to educate the sons of poor gentlemen--and suggests

that if the "nobs" don't like their sons associating with young

plutocrats, they should get up poor schools of their own and keep the

high-bred paupers select. A similar situation has arisen since the war,

but the difficulty has been solved without snobbery or squealing.

Parents who cannot afford to send their sons to schools with which their

families have been associated for generations, send them elsewhere, but

they do not "make a song about it."

[Illustration: HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

ARTHUR (on pony): "Hollo! What have you got on your heads?"

JUVENILE SWELL: "Why, you see, every snob wears a cap or a wide-awake

now; so the men of our school have returned to the old Chimney Pot!"

(As paterfamilias we are sorry to say that we have observed this

monstrosity many times this Christmas.)]

[Sidenote: _University Reform_]

There remain the Universities, the apex of the educational pyramid. The

Universities Commission was not appointed till 1872. Its report on the

income and property of Oxford and Cambridge was not published till

October 1874, and the Universities' Act was not passed till 1877.

_Punch's_ contributions to the discussions which arose over University

Reform nearly always take the form of hostile criticism of the champions

of "no change," and he devotes by far the greater amount of space to the

castigation of Oxford conservatives and non-resident reactionaries. The

vote on the institution of the non-Collegiate or "unattached" system in

1868 furnished _Punch_ with the materials for a comprehensive indictment

of all his pet Oxford aversions. In the wail of the Mediævalists, headed

"An Oxford _Miserere_," _Punch_ ranges himself on the side of the

reformers; Sir John, afterwards Lord Coleridge, who had taken an active

part in the successful movement for the abolition of religious tests in

the Universities; Conington, the distinguished Latinist and editor of

Virgil; Raper, the well-known Fellow of Trinity College, who, under more

than one President, was the power behind the throne; and Jowett, who

with Stanley and Maurice, had always been supported by _Punch_ in his

espousal of "modernist" views.

When Mr. Meyrick, an Oxford Don, expressed his satisfaction that our

Educational System was not that of the Germans, _Punch_ was unable to

echo his complacency, and went so far as to wish that "our Dons and

Fellows were but as these Germans"; but it may be pleaded in extenuation

of his offence that the doctrine of "Kultur" was less vocal in the

'sixties, and that German professors and teachers were not then so

firmly harnessed to the car of "Machtpolitik." _Punch_ little thought

that some fifty years later Admiral Tirpitz would admit that the most

formidable opponent of Germany was the "polo-playing Englishman." The

notion that pastime was overdone finds vent in the "Chant for College

Athletes":--

How doth the busy Undergrad

Improve each shining hour,

Loving each new athletic "fad"

To show his muscles' power!

* * * * *

In feats of strength and games of skill

His time must all be passed,

Heedless that, 'spite of cram, he will

Be sorely plucked at last.

[Sidenote: _Affluent College Servants_]

Over-athleticism, however, was not the only ground of complaint against

education at the older Universities in the 'sixties. The high cost of

living for undergraduates, owing to the extortion of local tradesmen and

the perquisites of college servants, provoked a correspondence in _The

Times_ in the winter of 1865. _Punch_ ironically affected to defend the

retail "profiteers." His College butler in "The Undergraduates'

Rebellion" associates himself with the College Dean as the victim of a

mutiny of meanness, and the accompanying cartoon rubs in the point, a

stout butcher addressing an equally stout Don, engaged in cutting a

loaf, with the words, "Wery low them letters in the papers, Mr. Dean!

Wery 'ard on both of us, Sir--my beef and your bread-an'-butter!"

_Punch's_ satire was justified by the fortunes notoriously made at the

time and for many years afterwards by College cooks and butlers, whose

incomes sometimes exceeded those of the Heads of Houses. More than ten

years later a Christ Church "Scout" bitterly complained of the passing

of the good old times. As he put it, "Instead of taking food home out of

College, I has to bring it in."

INVENTIONS, NOVELTIES AND FORECASTS

Railways, their dangers and inconveniences, continue throughout this

period to furnish _Punch_ with a never-ending theme of criticism and

complaint; nor need we altogether wonder when it is remembered that it

was not until 1861 that communication between guard and engine driver

was established on the Eastern Counties Railway, and then at first only

on express and fast trains;[10] and again, that it was not until 1873

that sleeping carriages were first introduced. The murder of Mr. Briggs

by Müller on the North London line on July 9, 1864, created a scare

amongst nervous passengers, which even the introduction of the corridor

carriage has not altogether allayed. But, from the point of view of a

Londoner, the most notable feature in railway development was the

extension of intra-urban facilities which grew out of the Act of 1853,

though the construction of the Underground did not begin till the spring

of 1860, and it was not opened for traffic, in its original and limited

range, till January, 1863. The completion of the Inner and the addition

of the Outer Circle followed; the Swiss Cottage extension was not opened

till 1868; but Highgate and many other suburbs remained isolated until

the coming of the tubes.

The "Tuppenny Tube" was not opened till June, 1900, but nearly forty

years earlier we read in _Punch_ that "amongst the new railway projects,

it seems there is to be a tubular underground from Regent's Circus to

the Bank." The plea for cheap workmen's trains to the suburbs in the

spring of 1870 only surprises us now by its having waited so long to be

granted.

[Footnote 10: In January, 1868, reference is made to carriages with

circular holes between the compartments in order to facilitate

communication.]

In the realm of imaginative forecast, one may note Du Maurier's

nightmare picture of aerial trains to Paris in 1870, and the burlesque

charter for an aerial railway company in 1872. But the project of a

Channel tunnel had long been seriously considered, though the

experimental borings were not made till 1876.[11] Ten years earlier

_Punch_ had indulged in some fantastic speculations on the result of the

preliminary trials conducted by French and English engineers, with Sir

John Hawkshaw at the head of the latter.

[Footnote 11: The scheme was originally proposed by a French engineer

named Mathieu in the very beginning of the century, and taken up in 1833

by Thomé de Gamond, who worked at it for more than twenty years until an

International Committee was formed. Operations were interrupted by the

Franco-Prussian War, but resumed in earnest in 1872. M. de Gamond died

in poverty in 1876.]

THE RANTOONE

[Illustration: The Cover Side. 10.45 a.m. Spriggins comes up with the

Hunt on his favourite "Rantoone."]

[Illustration: 10.50. "For'ard Away!" Spriggins gets along famously.]

[Illustration: 10.55. "Tally-Ho!" Spriggins realizes the sensation of

being "run away with."]

[Illustration: 10.56. "Yoicks!" Spriggins learns what a "cropper"

means.]

[Illustration: 11.56. Five miles from everywhere.]

A patent for pneumatic tyres had been taken out in the 'forties;

bicycles and tricycles came in at the end of the 'sixties; but twenty

years were to elapse before the boneshaker and the "ordinary"--that

wonderful and perilous machine--gave place to the "safety." In 1868 and

1869 references abound to velocipedes--the word "bicycle" had not yet

established itself--and in the Almanack for 1869 there is a picture of a

strange mechanism called the "Rantoone," a tricycle with two large

wheels behind and a small guiding wheel in front. It is also mentioned

in Henry Kingsley's _Boy in Grey_, and Crawley's _Manly Games for Boys_.

But the bicycle, as we know it, the most momentous addition to the

resources of locomotion between the coming of the steam engine and the

advent of the petrol-driven motor, was only looming in the future; it

was little more than a plaything in the period under review.

Telegraph wires first began to spread their overhead network in London

in 1859; the District Telegraph Company was started in 1860. Ten years

later _Punch_ celebrates the reduction of the fee for a twenty-word

telegram to one shilling. Of the use of telegraphy in war he expressed

considerable scepticism, on the ground that it would lead to endless

contradictory rumours.

[Illustration: AWFUL SUMMUT

That Tummas met as he was a-comin' whoam--"Ta looked like a man a ridin'

'pon nawthin'!"]

[Sidenote: _The Atlantic Cable_]

The most notable advance in telegraphy, however, was that of the

long-distance cables. The year 1858 abounds in references to the second

and third attempts to span the Atlantic. Frequent failures delayed the

achievement of the enterprise for several years. In 1865 _Punch_

published a series of reports purporting to come from the _Great

Eastern_, then engaged in laying the cable, but it was not until the

summer of 1866 that he was able to record the completion of the task:--

A Parliamentary week never ended with a more gratifying incident. A

Minister, Mr. Hunt, stated that the Atlantic Telegraph had been

laid to America, an ex-Minister, Mr. Childers, confirmed the fact,

and an Honourable Member held in his hand a signal that had just

arrived. _Mr. Punch_ instantly sent Mr. Johnson a peremptory signal

to liquor severely.

Undoubtedly the record of the marvels of applied science kept by

_Punch_, and the forecasts of further extension in which he indulged,

come home to us more closely in connexion with inventions for use in

warfare. The unrealized projects of Captain Warner have been described

in the previous volume. A liquid-fire bomb or incendiary shell, and an

incendiary rifle-bullet attracted attention early in 1859. But the

lessons of the American War of 1861-1865 gave _Punch_ occasion to think

sometimes seriously, and even with flashes of remarkable insight, on

the possibilities of future warfare. His old distrust of armoured ships

as "ferreous freaks" was not entirely dispelled by the triumph of the

monitor; he gives us a picture of a new iron-clad mistaken for a Noah's

Ark, and speaks of the new types as flat-irons. He admits that the

action between the _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_ conclusively proves that

one iron-clad ship is a match for several wooden ships carrying more and

heavier guns; but if there are to be no ships of war but iron ships, and

iron ships are mutually shot-proof, he is impelled to the further

conclusion that naval war in the future may end in an inconclusive

stalemate:--

Ships being rendered practically invulnerable, any two vessels of

war belonging to hostile nations will, hereafter, meeting on the

high seas, each find itself unable to injure the other and

therefore be obliged to part in peace, the result of their

collision having been as nearly as possible the opposite to that of

the conflict between the Kilkenny Cats.

From such a prospect _Punch_ professes to derive hope; but there is more

sagacity in the "Farewell to the Fleet" which followed three weeks

later, a valediction which in its last stanza crudely anticipates the

pre-and post-war warnings of Admiral Sir Percy Scott:--

Now farewell, my trim three-decker,

Sails and spars and all farewell;

Iron's proved of wood a wrecker,

Where 'twill steer us who can tell?

In glorious Nelson's days, d'ye mind them,

Our tars were sailors every inch:

Stout hearts, with pigtails stout behind them,

And ne'er a man to skulk or flinch.

But now--my dear eyes! British sailors

Half soldiers and half stokers are;

And if we manned the fleet with tailors,

'Twould in a month be fit for war.

* * * * *

Bomb-proof, hull-sunk, iron-roofed, we steam on,

Nor ball nor boarder fear we now;

And when our foe we run abeam on,

He sinks at once beneath our prow.

Them Yankee swabs, from shot a-shrinking:

Fight under water, so they tells;

Dear eyes! our Navy soon, I'm thinking,

Will be a fleet of diving bells.

[Illustration: THE "BRITISH TAR" OF THE FUTURE]

[Sidenote: _The Navy of the Future_]

But by far the best illustration of the way in which the course of the

war caused _Mr. Punch_ to think furiously, fantastically, but by no

means foolishly, is to be found in the fantasy headed, "A Flying Island

wanted":--

Will somebody please invent for us an Island of Laputa?

It would save a mint of money in plated ships, and Armstrong guns,

and Shoeburyness experiments. Although we are at peace, a most

expensive war is raging between gunmakers and shipbuilders, and so

far as one can learn, there seem but little hopes of stopping it.

First the guns will gain the day, and then the ships will be built

stronger until they are ball-proof, then bigger guns will come, and

then still stronger ships; and so the battle will go on, and

victories alternately be won by either side, and the Queen's powder

be burnt at a most tremendous rate, so long as Mr. Bull agrees to

stand the shot.

If the Invention War goes on much longer than it has done, we quite

expect to hear of the construction of a cannon that shall throw a

ball as big as the Ball upon St. Paul's, and of a mortar that shall

pitch a shell as large round as the dome. Indeed, we fancy that in

course of time conical shot will equal the Big Pyramid of Egypt,

and that guns will be invented of sufficient power to throw such

shot across from Brighton to Boulogne.

Now, if somebody would just invent a Flying Island, and present us

with the patent, this costly fight between artillerists and

shield-makers would probably soon cease. There would be no need

then of our Army and our Navy, our big guns and our block ships,

our field pieces and forts. Whenever any nation dared to pick a

quarrel with us, all that we should have to do would be to let our

Flying Island drop upon their heads, and squash their fleets and

forces flat at one fell swoop.

The development of long-range artillery has fulfilled _Punch's_ fancy.

And we have become a flying island; but, unfortunately, the power of

swooping from the skies is shared by other countries. As for ascents

into the upper air, it was in the same year (1862) that the long

unbroken record in altitude was made by Coxwell and Glaisher in the

old-fashioned balloon. There is a reference to the Aeronautical

Exhibition held at the Crystal Palace in 1868; but the disaster which

befell the Belgian, de Groof, in July, 1874, while attempting to descend

from a balloon in a newly invented parachute, elicited a decidedly

obscurantist comment:--

DE GROOF

(Killed in attempting to Fly, July 9, 1874)

He who provides for all beneath the sky,

Made men to walk, as He made birds to fly;

Then let man stick to earth, and have the sense

Not to fly in the face of Providence!

[Sidenote: _The Coming of the Typewriter_]

Cigarettes had come in with the Crimean War. In 1858 _Punch_ suggested

an improved passport with a photograph. To the same year belong the

introduction of the word "dipsomaniac," spirit-drawing (a forerunner of

spirit-photographs), _Punch's_ first mention of Schweppe's soda water

and of synthetic substitutes for food, and his prediction of the

formation of a Camel Corps. Aerated bread, and the magnetic hair

brush--supposed to restore the pigment to grey hair by drawing out the

iron in the blood--were among the novelties of 1860; hair-brushing by

machinery was introduced in 1864, and the sewing machine makes its debut

in _Punch_ in 1866. An even more epoch-making invention, which ranks

among the most momentous products of the age in its far-reaching results

on commerce, journalism, literature and the whole social system, was the

type-writer, exhibited in London in 1867:--

GOOD NEWS FOR BAD WRITERS

It is surprising what discoveries are made in the dead season. Here

is one, for instance, the account of which has recently been

snipped out by the scissors of many a sub-editor:--

"Writing superseded. Mr. Pratt, of Alabama, is the inventor of a

typewriting machine, lately exhibited to the London Society of

Arts, which is said to print a man's thoughts twice as fast as he

can write them with the present process. By a sort of piano

arrangement the letters are brought in contact with carbonized

paper, which is moved by the same manipulation."

Every author his own printer! What a happy state of things! No more

struggles to write legibly with nibless tavern-pens; no more labour

in deciphering the hieroglyphs of hasty writers. Literary work will

be in future merely play--on the piano. The future Locke may write

his essays by a touch upon the keys.

In this inventive age there really is no saying where discovery

will stop. Now that authors are to put their thoughts in print with

twice the pace that they can write them, perhaps ere long they will

be able to put their works in type without so much as taking the

trouble to compose them. A thought-hatching easy chair may very

likely be invented, by the help of which an author may sit down at

his ease before his thought-printing piano, and play away _ad

libitum_ whatever may occur to him. Different cushions may be used

for different kinds of composition, some stuffed with serious

thoughts, fit for sermons or reviews, and others with light

fancies, fit for works of fiction, poetry, or fun. By a judicious

choice of cushions an author will be able to sit down to his piano,

and play a novel in three volumes twice or thrice a week, besides

knocking off a leader every morning for a newspaper, and issuing

every fortnight a bulky epic poem, or a whole encyclopædia complete

within a month.

On the whole, this is not a bad though fantastic summary of the

possibilities of a machine which, whatever its influence on the

manufacture of novels, the multiplication of unnecessary books, and the

art of letter-writing, has at least proved a wonderful time-saver and

revolutionized the prospects of the "superfluous woman." In spite of its

terrible ticking, it has proved a great lubricator of life; and, _à

propos_ of lubricants, we have to note the advent in the early

'seventies of synthetic butter, under its modern name:--

There are probably very few members of that generally

bread-and-butter-eating community, the British Public, who have not

frequently partaken, without knowing it, of the article described

in the following extract from a letter of the _Morning Post's_

Correspondent at Paris:--

"Butter, like all alimentary substances, has vastly increased in

price. An enterprising merchant exhibits what he calls 'Produit

nouveau, Margarine Mouriès, remplaçant le beurre pour la cuisine.

Economie incontestable sur le beurre; il coûte moitié moins cher,

et on en use moitié moins.' This butter is made from the fat of

beef, and costs 10d. per pound."

In merry England, however, this article does not merely replace

Butter for the kitchen, but also for the breakfast-parlour, where

it is eaten, not under the name of Margarine, in

bread-and-margarine, but that of Butter, in bread-and-butter. It is

bought for Butter, and it is sold for Butter; only the buyer

believes it to be what it is sold for, whereas the seller well

knows that it is a product of beef-suet; and he serves his customer

with the latter commodity at the price of the former. The

"enterprising merchant" of Paris, who sells Margarine as a

substitute for Butter, and does not sell his customers by selling

it as Butter, and at Butter's value, has very likely found honesty

to be the best policy. That policy might, perhaps, be adopted with

advantage by an enterprising British Cheesemonger.

Beef-fat is, we fear, a euphemism for the principal ingredient in the

synthesis of margarine as originally compounded, and it was a

consciousness of this fact that more than anything else prompted the

dishonesty of the British cheesemonger.

The list of useful novelties may be completed with postcards, which

date from the year 1870. _Punch_ recognized their drawbacks, and

recommended people who used them to write in cypher or in Greek

characters, which was less a counsel of perfection fifty years ago than

it would be to-day.

England's debt to America in the domain of invention was not confined to

mechanical labour-saving appliances. The inventiveness of the American

journalist repeatedly extorts the reluctant admiration of _Punch_ from

1857 onwards. In the summer of 1858 he culls a gorgeous example of the

high art of sensational reporting from a New York paper in which it was

stated that six people were butchered by a man who blew his brains out,

yet "at the latest date all the sufferers were in a fair way of

recovery." Yet in their own way the English penny-a-liners were capable

of fine work. In December of the same year _Punch_ quotes the following

from the account of an agricultural show in a daily paper:--

"Yesterday the gold medal pen of pigs was denuded of one of its

finest specimens, one of those most extraordinary animals having

expired from its obesity during the previous night. There were

other demises from apoplexy amongst the porcine confraternity

during the show."

[Sidenote: _The Press Surpasses Itself_]

It was in the Victorian age, again--though unknown to _Punch_--that the

reporter of an Irish paper concluded his description of a burglary with

the words, "after a fruitless search, all the money was recovered except

one pair of boots." But the supremacy of the New World in this field was

conclusively established in the year 1869, the _annus mirabilis_ for

ever memorable by its association with the greatest of all American

advertisements. Fragments of this classic are familiar even to the

present generation, but we are, thanks to _Punch_, able to give the

original text in its entirety:--

Among those of our institutions that are especially getting

Americanized is a part of our Press, professing to afford us

information which it calls "reliable" and also abounding in

announcements on which we may rely if their phraseology strikes us

as the language of truth and honesty. Some of these notifications

are formed on models, whereof a contemporary quotes an example:--

"A wonderful Medicine. The following advertisement is from a recent

issue of a New York paper:--'If you want a really pure

unsophisticated "family pill," buy Dr. R----'s liver-encouraging,

kidney-persuading, silent perambulator--twenty-seven in a box. This

pill is as mild as a pet-lamb, and as searching as a small

tooth-comb. It don't go fooling about, but strictly attends to

business, and is as certain as an alarm clock.'"

Puffery, resembling, if not quite equalling, that above instanced,

in wit and humour, is fast gaining ground among us. America has

taught us how to advertise. Thank Barnum. We have been, and are

continuing to be, Americanized. We are progressing.

[Illustration: SCIENCE APPLIED TO ART

Angelina Squills (the doctor's daughter) by a judicious use of her

father's stethoscope, is able to detect and enjoy the delicate tenor

voice of the interesting young curate who lodges next door.]

One is glad that _Punch_ recognized the "wit and humour" of this unique

document, though he says nothing of its magical choice of words. Dr.

R---- was Dr. Rumbold. But whether or no he composed the advertisement I

have not been able to discover--or, indeed, anything about him. Perhaps

it was his swan-song; like the Old Masters, who according to Artemus

Ward executed the execrable paintings exhibited at his lecture as their

crowning and final achievement: "they did them and then they died."

[Sidenote: _The Next Generation_]

Sufficient materials have already been accumulated to enable the reader

to form an estimate of _Punch's_ credentials as a prophet or

"intelligent anticipator." They would not, however, be complete without

the "Forecast of the Next Generation" which appeared in 1872, and which

is interesting not so much from its prophecies as from its comprehensive

catalogue of Victorian shortcomings, failings and abuses:--

The next generation will possess an army properly clothed.

The next generation will all be able to read and write.

The next generation will wear light clothes in summer.

The next generation will remove some of the public-statues and

edifices which their predecessors have erected.

The next generation will find life supportable without so many

Vestries.

The next generation will not make calls.

The next generation will ride to and fro in decent cabs.

The next generation will have other sorts of fish in daily

consumption besides red herrings.

The next generation will speak French and German, and, possibly,

know something of their own language and literature.

The next generation will not wear high black hats in the month of

July.

The next generation will see the officers of the army walking about

the streets in uniform.

The next generation will have other public places of amusement open

to them on Sundays, besides public-houses.

The next generation will be better cooks.

The next generation will have no theatres with fees.

The next generation will leave the table with the ladies.

The next generation will not avoid Hotels.

The next generation will find they can get on pretty comfortably

without the Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Duchy of

Lancaster, the Judge Advocate General, etc.

The next generation will not be ashamed of Leicester Square.

The next generation will be able to cross the Channel with less

bodily discomfort.

The next generation will journey by railway more safely and more

punctually.

The next generation will still have the National Debt, duns,

dentists, domestics, humbugs, quacks, impostors, absurd fashions,

adulteration, swindlers, and the Income Tax.

LONDON

[Sidenote: _Foul State of the Thames_]

Though nothing comparable to the Hausmannizing of Paris by systematized

and uniform reconstruction was accomplished in London in the

mid-Victorian period, great changes and improvements were introduced.

Bridges were built, the river was partially purified and the Thames

Embankment carried out. The state of the "ancient river, shining as he

goes, mail-clad in morning to the ancient sea" of Henley's phrase, was a

hideous scandal in the 'fifties. Father Thames may on occasion have

appealed to the eye, but he continually affronted the nose. In 1858 the

growth of London was estimated to reach 5,816,900 by 1901. Yes, says

_Punch_, but what if the Thames is not purified? In June of that year

the nuisance, aggravated by a dry summer, was painfully brought home to

legislators in session at Westminster. Constant protests were raised in

both Houses, and when Lord John Manners asserted that the Central Board

of Works stopped the way, _Punch_ would have liked to see Thwaites--the

chairman--and his "gabbling colleagues" committed to prison until they

had purged their contempt for our river.

A month later the drought and the bad drainage produced a regular panic,

and on July 15 Disraeli introduced a Bill authorizing the cleansing of

the Thames and giving the Board of Works power to raise a special rate

(which _Punch_ called the Stinking Fund) and a free hand in

construction. The stench of the river continued to inspire a succession

of poems, paragraphs and articles throughout the rest of the year,

including an address to the Thames (after Tennyson), and beginning,

Bake, bake, bake,

O Thames, on thy way to the sea!

And I would that thy stink could poison

A Bishop, Peer or M.P.

The subsequent discontinuance of these tirades is a tolerably safe

indication that the nuisance was being seriously grappled with. Eight

years later, in the autumn of 1866, Father Thames, though still a

disreputable figure, is allowed by _Punch_ to use the _tu quoque_

argument against a Parliamentary critic at a time when electoral

corruption was calling loudly for reform.

[Illustration: BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

HON. MEMBER (on Terrace of Parliament Palace): "O, you horrid, dirty old

river!"

FATHER THAMES: "Don't _you_ talk, Mister Whatsyername! Which of us has

the cleaner hands, I wonder?"]

The new suspension bridge in St. James's Park is attacked in 1857 for

its ugliness. "We can't make a monument, and now it seems we can't make

a bridge." The new erection is described as a grotesque failure, but at

least the ornamental water had been purified. _Punch_ was more hopeful

of the new Blackfriars Bridge, built by Cubitt, when he attended the

ceremony of laying the foundation-stone in July, 1865, and when it was

opened in November, 1869--just a hundred years after the opening of

Mylne's bridge--he celebrated the event in an imaginary dialogue between

the Queen, Mr. Cubitt and Dr. Johnson. The introduction of Johnson was

thoroughly appropriate, for the doctor had attacked Mylne's bridge, or

the "Pitt Bridge," as it was originally called, as contravening sound

principles of engineering, and events proved that he was right. Over the

new Westminster Bridge, begun in May, 1854, and opened at 4 a.m. on the

morning of May 24, 1862--the day and hour on which Queen Victoria was

born--_Punch_ abandoned his pessimism, pronounced Page's design

beautiful, and scouted the suggestion of a fussy M.P. who wished to have

palisades erected to prevent would-be suicides from jumping over. It was

this bridge to which another M.P., Sir W. Fraser, was anxious that the

name Sebastopol should be attached.

[Sidenote: _London Statues_]

Statues are a subject of mixed comment, mostly unflattering. But a good

point was scored in 1858 at the expense of Tom Duncombe, the eccentric

Radical M.P. and man of fashion, who was incensed at the erection of a

statue to Jenner in Trafalgar Square, and sneered in the House at the

"Berkeley cow-pox-doctor":--

_Mr. Punch_ cannot conceive what the veteran dandy Tom was thinking

about. Could he be aware that the discovery of vaccination, which

has saved myriads on myriads of lives, and which Parliament

rewarded, in 1802 and 1807, with grants of £10,000 and £20,000, has

the still higher merit of preserving a face from ravages very

inimical to lady-killing?

The Guards' Memorial, unveiled in February, 1861, is only faintly

praised:--

It is no worse and perhaps it is a trifle better than the many

statuesque caricatures that, in the name of Art, are supposed to

adorn our much-abused London. The truth is, that the English

sculptors have already displayed such a cruel affection for the

Metropolis, that it has been quite a spoiled child with them.

When a fine memorial was made, we were not able to keep it; and _Punch_

greatly regrets in 1873 that Foley's statue of Outram, temporarily

erected in Waterloo Place before its removal to India, was not allowed

to remain there, as it was "the finest statue, the only fine statue ever

erected in London." _Punch_, however, had forgotten that ten years

earlier he had applied the epithet "fine" to Joseph Durham's statue of

the Prince Consort in the Royal Horticultural Society's garden.

But of all London statues the most unfortunate and the most

ignominiously treated was that of George I in Leicester Square. The

Square throughout the 'sixties was a standing eyesore; an unkempt

wilderness, where garbage of every kind was shot. The dilapidated

condition of the statue in 1865 harmonized with its dingy surroundings

and prompted a parody of Cowper:--

I am Monarch of all I survey,

My right leg is minus a foot,

My left has been taken away,

And another they haven't yet put.

In the "Lay of Leicester Square" _Punch_, after a survey of the great

days of Leicester House, where "Prince Fred 'gainst Bubb Dodington once

held the stakes," describes its lamentable condition at the moment he

wrote:--

In dirt and neglect Soho's Slums I outvie

Than my seediest foreigner seedier am I.

Things had come to such a pass that "well bred spectres" no longer could

haunt Leicester Square:--

I, Leicester Square garden, so called from the days

When my beds were made, shrubs pruned, and grass duly mown,

In my dirt and disorder maintain the old ways--

While my leg-less lead King, from his war-horse o'erthrown,

Proclaims in his downfall that highest of laws,

"Vested rights are still rights, whate'er nuisance they cause."

Later on in the year there is a cartoon aimed at Ayrton, the unpopular

Chief Commissioner of Works in which "Ayrton the (B)Ædile" is shown

pointing to the battered statue from which the figure of the rider had

been removed, and saying "Ha! Now that's a style of Art I flatter myself

I really do understand."

From this derelict condition Leicester Square was rescued by the

enterprise and munificence of Baron Albert Grant, whose chequered career

was largely redeemed by an act which gave us the Square as we know it.

Under the heading, "Grant in Aid and a Check that wants Crossing,"

_Punch_ gratefully records his intervention and the difficulties which

delayed the execution of the scheme.

The greatest of all the improvements that belong to this period was the

Thames Embankment, which had formed part of Wren's scheme for the

rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. Not until nearly two hundred

years had elapsed was Parliamentary sanction obtained for carrying out

the plan. It was vigorously opposed in the House of Lords by the Duke of

Buccleuch, and _Punch_, on July 5, 1862, published a cartoon with the

heading, "Sawney stops the way." John Bull, driving a bus labelled

"Embankment," is confronted by a fully armed and kilted Scottish

chieftain waving a banner inscribed, "Buccleuch and No Thoroughfare,"

while _Punch_ as conductor remarks, "Drive on, John; never mind the

Scotchman." John Bull drove on, and early in August, 1868, _Punch_

celebrated (though somewhat ironically) the completion of the footway

opening of the Embankment from Westminster to Essex Street. As Sir

Joseph Bazalgette, who was responsible for the plans and their

execution, was engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works, _Punch_

could not resist the opportunity for ridiculing his old _bête noire_ Sir

John Thwaites, the chairman, and his colleagues, the _feu de joie_

loosed off by a sergeant and two bombardiers R.A., and the subsequent

junketings at Woolwich. The Victoria Embankment from Blackfriars to

Westminster was not opened to the public till 1870, the Albert

Embankment on the south side from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall in the

same year; while the Chelsea Embankment from Battersea Bridge to

Chelsea Bridge was finished in 1874. Taken together they constitute the

greatest addition to the amenities of London made in our time, to say

nothing of the reclamation of swamp and slime from the river and their

conversion into what is perhaps the finest roadway in London.

Cleopatra's Needle was originally presented to England by Mehemet Ali in

1819. Engineering difficulties stood in the way of its removal from

Egypt for nearly sixty years. The question is discussed by _Punch_ in

1869, but it was not till 1877 that the munificence of Sir Erasmus

Wilson and the skill of John Dixon solved the problem of its

transportation to its present site.

[Illustration: UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

OLD LADY: "Well, I'm sure no woman with the least sense of decency would

think of going down _that_ way to it."]

[Sidenote: _London Railways_]

_Punch_ had no regrets when the old Hungerford Market (built in 1680,

rebuilt in 1831), an unsuccessful rival to Covent Garden, was swept away

in 1862 to make room for the new Charing Cross Terminus. But he was at

best a lukewarm supporter of the extension of London railways,

underground and suburban. The progress of the excavations and the

"horrible mess" in the New Road, elicited a growl at the "Underground"

and the delays in the construction of the "Sewer Railway." It was

suggested that Dr. Cumming had found out that the opening of the line

would bring on the end of the world before the date he had fixed for

that catastrophe; that garrotters had found the excavations a convenient

hiding-place, and so forth. Blundering, jobbing, squabbling, and

litigation are also assigned as reasons for delay. In the following

year, 1863, protests against further extensions of the underground

trains reach a climax, and _Punch_ denounces the vandals who want to

ravage Sloane Square and Regent Street. In particular the viaduct

crossing Ludgate Hill roused his indignation, and the anti-utilitarian

point of view is maintained in the illustration of the "Highly

ornamental tank" with which the railway company proposed to block out

the view of St. Paul's, while the issue of Stanford's Railway Map of

London is made the occasion of a vehement tirade against the devastation

of London: "The railway man shall not be monarch of all he surveys."

_Punch_, we may add, admitted the decrease in railway accidents, but

attributed it to the pressure of public opinion and the penalties

exacted from companies for negligence in safeguarding passengers from

loss of life and limb.

[Sidenote: _Eheu Fugaces!_]

The pulling down of historic buildings or the removal of historic

landmarks invariably moved _Punch_ to regret or indignation. He

cordially approved, it is true, of the relief of the Park Lane block in

1864 by the cutting of Hamilton Place, and the removal of the narrowest

and most dangerous bottle-neck in the streets of London. And he

acquiesced in the removal of Charterhouse School to the country in the

interests of the boys, publishing, without fully endorsing, the

arguments of those who prophesied that in its new surroundings the

school would come to be known as Magna Charterhouse. But in general he

lamented the demolitions and destructions which accompanied the

triumphal march of commerce. Even the dismantling of the Colosseum in

Regent's Park in 1868 evoked a melodious lament:--

I remember, I remember,

When I was a little boy,

How I came home in December

My fond parents to annoy.

But my pretty maiden Aunty

Was kind and gave to me

A sort of show galanty

A funny thing to see.

I remember, I was taken

By my Aunt's peculiar cabby,

For to hear the rafters shaken

By the Choir in the Abbey.

Nor the service, nor Te Deum

Nor the sights of Christmas time,

Could approach the Colosseum,

Save, perhaps, the Pantomime.

I remember, I remember,

All those Ruins in the grounds,

And the classic broken pillars

(Sold for something like three pounds.)

And the statues! One of Jason

Was a noble work of art;

They were knocked down to a mason,

Who removed them in his cart.

A little less than a year later a similar note is sounded when an

announcement appeared advertising the sale of the "Supper Colonnade" at

Vauxhall "to be sold cheap, a remnant of the past which has witnessed

many a scene of merriment with lords and ladies of high degree." The

disposal of relics, even dignified relics, has often been a problem to

administrators. Parliament debated in 1860 what was to be done with the

Duke of Wellington's funeral car, and it was ultimately stowed away in

the crypt of St. Paul's. The old "Star and Garter" at Richmond was

burned down in January, 1870, and _Punch_ was moved to a poetic

valediction in the name of the old frequenters who associated it with

the days of their courtship. The doom of Temple Bar was pronounced in

the same year, but _Punch_ admits that those who lamented its doom were

in "a small and mouldy minority." But there are no reserves in the

protest uttered in 1871 against the pulling down of the City churches

registered under the heading of "The Pick-axe Age":--

Go ahead, Gentlemen Governors. Pull down any secular building that

seems to be in the way, and, as Sir Epicure Mammon says,

"Now and then a Church."

Temple Bar is doomed. Now Mr. Lowe wants to destroy the Church of

St. Clement Danes, where Dr. Johnson used to worship. All right.

St. Mary-le-Strand is an obstruction to vans and drays. Let us

erase that. More room is wanted in Trafalgar Square, especially as

Mr. Bruce hands it over to legislators of the rough kind; down with

St. Martin. Then, though St. Margaret's has historical

reminiscences, especially of Commonwealth days, and gives scale to

the Abbey, there would be room for a large grass-plot for the

people, with Ayrton-statues, were St. Margaret's invited to remove.

The Abbey itself suggests an extinct superstition, and its

architecture insults that of the Houses; do we want the Abbey?

Then, what a splendid sweep for the carriages of the "self-made men

of the City," civic knights, and the like, if St. Paul's Cathedral

no longer blocked the road from Cheapside to Ludgate Hill! Go

ahead, Gentlemen Governors. We can't do much in the way of building

up fine things, but we are out-and-outers at knocking them down.

[Sidenote: _Historic Landmarks_]

And he returns to the charge a few months later in an ironical plea for

the destruction of Wren's churches--St. Mildred's, Poultry; St. Dionis,

Backchurch; St. James's, Aldgate; St. Martin's, Outwich, and St.

Antholin's, Sise Lane. "Sir Christopher's Cathedral, as it is also a

mausoleum, will probably be spared until some railway or tramway shall

want the site." When the destruction of Northumberland House was

projected in 1873 _Punch_, in a fit of feudal enthusiasm, deplored the

vandalism and commercialism of the Philistine Board of Works, and

pointed out that there was still time to save the time-honoured house of

the Percys. When the demolition was carried out in the following year,

and the lion was removed to Syon House, he was consoled by the

reflection that it would be at least out of the reach of ignoble and

mean-minded vandals. On the other hand, he had rejoiced greatly when in

1866, as the result of a deputation headed by Lord Stanhope and Dean

Stanley, Parliament voted a sum of £7,000 for the restoration of

Westminster Chapter House. In 1873 St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, an inn

which had been a favourite resort of Johnson, Garrick and "Sylvanus

Urban," was taken over by the order of St. John of Jerusalem, and

_Punch_ compares the public spirit of these Templars favourably with the

zeal of the "good Templars" whom he regarded as fussy fanatics. There

was no controversial acrimony, however, in his plea for the preservation

of the Tabard Inn, Southwark, and the poem "For the Tabard" was written

by one who had not merely read but loved his Chaucer.

[Illustration: THE SMALL BORE MAN. WIMBLEDON, 1863

BOISTEROUS RELATIVE: "Hullo! Gus, my hearty, why I haven't seen you for

ages! How are you? Give us your hand, my----"

GUS (alarmed): "Hoy! Keep off! Keep back, stand o' one side! Don't come

near me----How d'e do. Glad 'see you, but keep off at present, will

you----I've just adjusted my sights!"]

The preservation of the amenities of London and the suburbs found a

strong champion in _Punch_. We note a change of temper in 1864 in his

comment on the rowdy behaviour of members of the "lower classes" who

frequented St. James's Park, and the suggestion that it should be

renamed "St. Giles's." In earlier days _Punch_ had warmly resented the

exclusion of working-men in fustian from this same park. But no class

prejudice impairs his satisfaction in November, 1864, when Wimbledon

Common was preserved for the nation and the "small bore man" by the good

offices of Lord Spencer:--

WIMBLEDON PRESERVED

There is for us, and shall be, one retreat,

If but that only one, saved stucco-free,

Wimbledon, evermore for pilgrims' feet

Kept sacred, noble Spencer, thanks to thee!

Thy generous charter gives us scope to flee

Still thither from the hubbub and the heat.

In the following year he appeals to other Commons--Wandsworth, Barnes

and Streatham--to follow the lead of Wimbledon, and when in 1866

Victoria Park was threatened with the erection of the Imperial Gas

Company's works, _Punch_ wrote:--

Let Companies shape their projects to scrape

Up wealth, and dividends share,

But dim their eyes if ever they tries

To rob a poor man of fresh air.

[Sidenote: _Alexandra Palace Destroyed_]

When the Alexandra Palace on Muswell Hill was opened in the summer of

1873, its gardens, statues and catering were praised in a welcome to

"Alexandra" after the manner of the Laureate. Two days after this

welcome appeared, the new Palace was destroyed by fire, and on July 5,

1873, _Punch_ rather cruelly published a review of a poem composed on

the event by Joseph Gwyer, potato-salesman of Penge. A few of the

stanzas are worth rescuing from oblivion if only for their artless

simplicity:--

On Muswell Hill there lately stood,

The Alexandra Palace great and good,

Both to our own and foreign land,

It claimed from each a prestige grand.

With works of art it did abound,

Which were wont the ignorant to astound,

The sightly dome for miles was seen

Surrounded by the pastures green.

But on the 9th of June the palace caught on fire,

Each moment seemed to send the flames much higher,

Flinging around with consternation spell

Such sad results as no mortal could foretell.

The shouts of alarm at this dread afray

Many were stricken and did prostrate lay,

As if they'd been wounded by some deadly foe,

So painful was the unexpected great blow.

While some were witnessing this awful view,

Others were anxious as to what they should do,

Some it was seen appeared quite romantic,

While the poor stall-girls seemed nearly frantic.

* * * * *

In two short hours it was a blaze

Which took some years to build and raise

Grand Alexandra's noble Dome,

Alas! all vanished the Ninth of June.

The Pantheon, mentioned in the previous volume, though shorn of its

early glories, was still a feature of London in the 'sixties, and "Jack

Easel," in January, 1862, describes a visit to the Pantheon, "once

dedicated to the Tragic Muse, now a temple of all the gods," combining a

bazaar, an aviary and a picture gallery, chiefly frequented by

ladies--"Belindas in Balmorals." The pictures were a very mixed lot,

including King Alfred and the Cakes, Actæon, and the Dead Body of King

Harold. But the Pantheon in its last days was chiefly remarkable for an

assemblage of wondrous knick-knacks, cheap bijouterie, antique vases,

antimacassars, Buhl caskets, _bonbonnières_, china candlesticks,

cheese-cakes, daguerreotypes, decanters, Gothic go-carts, German glass,

rag dolls and ratafia.

[Sidenote: _Tattersall's_]

Of more robust interest is the elegy in April, 1865, on the "Transit of

Tattersall's," when the old mart for selling horses in Grosvenor Place

at the side of St. George's Hospital, founded by "Old Tatt," was pulled

down and a move made to Knightsbridge Green. "Old Tatt," originally

studgroom to the Duke of Kingston, leased the premises at Hyde Park

Corner from the Earl of Grosvenor in 1766, set up as a horse auctioneer,

and founded his fortunes by the purchase for £2,500 of the famous racer

Highflyer from Lord Bolingbroke:--

Good bye, old Corner, where so long

Turf swells have loved to band,

Since first old Tatt his broad-brimmed hat

Showed in the well-known stand.

Where, ninety years of hopes and fears,

And nine to back of that,

The sporting swell with nags to sell

Still found a Tit for Tatt.

* * * * *

If walls have ears, what startling tales,

Those old rooms must have heard:

What sermons they might preach, the stones

That paved that old court-yard!

* * * * *

By those oak-pales the first Oaks' stakes

Were put down long ago:

Germ of that Epsom growth that now

All ring-fence doth outgrow.

There the first Derby favourite

Was measured by the yard:

And there a century's Sellengers[12]

Fortunes have made or marred.

Till the world grew so fond of "books,"

So giv'n to make the same,

That the old ground too small was found,

For the Turf's "little game";

As from _his_ Grosvenor Place old Tatt

Started to win life's race,

Young Tatt, on fortune bent, again

Takes flight from Grosvenor Place.

At Knightsbridge, lo, a fair glass roof

Stands for the dark old sheds:

We've tiles as shiny 'neath our feet,

As those upon our heads:

But still we love the haunts where first

The Turf's keen breath we drew:

And what recalls those ancient halls

We best love in the new--

The old brown fox, that from his box

Still peers with artful face,

A hint that to the sharp as well

As swift, is given the race.

We miss the verdant lawn, where paced

Crowds of green men and still:

The gravelled walk, which losers oft

More gravelled, used to fill:

And sadder loss than all--no more

The old cow crops the lawn:

Meek monitor of draughts to come

From milch-cows yet undrawn!

Good bye, old yard, and may the new

As long its honours wear;

And though they leave the Corner still,

May Tatts be on the Square!

[Footnote 12: St. Legers.]

Even so small an event as the giving up in 1865 of his business by

Farrance, the confectioner's at Charing Cross, was not allowed to pass

without due homage:--

Other Farrances may rise,

Quite as bilious as before,

But the old familiar pies

(Veal and Ham) will glad our eyes

Nevermore, O nevermore!

Towards new or projected buildings _Punch_ was seldom benevolent. When

it was announced that a new National Gallery was to be erected on the

site spoiled by the old, he was sceptical of the result, but he greeted

the tardy appearance of the lions in Trafalgar Square in 1867, and

welcomed the opening of the Albert Hall on March 28, 1871, as providing

a building unrivalled for space, sound and light--a eulogy hardly

fulfilled as far as acoustics are concerned. But it has a splendid echo,

it can hold 10,000 people, and as a scene for the activities of massed

brass bands there is nothing to touch it, in London at any rate. Over

the Holborn Restaurant, which in 1874 replaced an institution contrived

to pay a double debt to bathing and dancing, _Punch_ waxed positively

fulsome, but his praise was chiefly inspired by the _cuisine_; in those

days good restaurants for the middle classes were few and far between.

The buildings for the International Exhibition of 1862, planned by

Captain Francis Fowke, R.E., did not altogether commend themselves to

_Punch_, who was inclined to cavil at the bad arrangements, and to

compare the structure unfavourably with the Crystal Palace, but Fowke's

plans had been scamped owing to lack of funds, and he was not

responsible for the artistic shortcomings of the building. _Punch's_

comments are chiefly remarkable for his prophetic observations on our

choice of executive officials:--

We are certainly a wonderful people, and work, as perhaps our

foreign friends will think, in a paradoxical sort of way. It was a

gardener who planned our Crystal Palace for '51, and eleven years

later we are indebted for the design of another Exhibition to a

soldier. A barrister superintends the casting of our great bells,

and we have an architect who is an authority on fortification.

Well, perhaps when our coasts are invaded a bishop may be a

Secretary at War, and a physician presiding at the Admiralty.

[Illustration: THE LIONS AT LAST

"Thank you, Sir Edwin. England at last has 'done her duty.'"]

The somewhat chequered career of "Big Ben" is followed with sympathy and

interest throughout this period by _Punch_, who claimed to have given

him his name. Those who lived in London during the years when his voice

was hushed, and welcomed the breaking of his war silence on Armistice

Day, will read, not without emotion, the lines which appeared on

November 29, 1873:--

BIG BEN

"The great clock of the Houses of Parliament is stopped for a day

or two, in order that the 'going train' may be cleaned by Messrs.

Dent. During the present month its accumulated error has on no

occasion exceeded a second."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.

Big Ben, that beats from Barry's Tower

The march of time and tide,

To Britain's Commons, and the world

Of London far and wide,

Stops--and the town that marked the hush

Of his deep voice with pain,

Is glad to hear 'tis but a halt,

To clean his "going train."

* * * * *

O, brave Big Ben, that keep'st true step

Thus with the tide of time,

Long may'st thou to the Commons set

Example so sublime;

That England, both of House below

And Clock above, may say,

'Tis no vain boast that to the world

She shows the time of day!

May headlong Wits, that on the seats

Under the Clock may show,

Learn by its even beat above

To tune hot brains below.

And never hold up hands unless

The voice of truth to swell;

Nor strike, except at the right hour,

And then strike strokes that tell.

[Sidenote: _Cabs v. Omnibuses_]

Complaints against the public vehicles of London and their drivers

continue, but are hardly pitched in so strident a tone as in earlier

years. Still the brigandage of competitive 'buses is severely denounced

in 1858; the extent of the evil may be gauged from the drastic

regulations issued in the autumn of 1860, so drastic as to excite

compassion for the conductor who faithfully carried them out.

_Punch's_ hostility to the "growler" and its bibulous and rapacious

driver as the first of all London nuisances remained implacable. A

report was circulated at the close of 1869 that their final

disappearance was imminent; it was nearly fifty years too "previous,"

but the wish being father to the thought, _Punch_ indulged in a

premature farewell to this "unseemly vehicle". With the advent of "clean

cabs and civil drivers" he anticipated that no one would ever think of

entering an omnibus, little thinking that a time would come when, with

clean and swift 'buses, only the affluent would think of entering a

taxi-cab.

[Illustration: SWELL (to corpulent cabman): "Haw, here's sixpence--get

yourself--glass--beer."

CABBY: "Thank you, sir, all the same; but I never take it. I'm a

follerin' Mr. Bantin's adwice for corpulence, sir. He says, I may take

two or three glasses o' good claret, or a glass or two of sherry wine,

or red port, or medeiry, any sort o' sperits--"

(_Swell, deeply touched, makes the sixpence half-a-crown._)]

The placidity which one associates with mid-Victorian life was rudely

disturbed in London by the garrotting scare in the 'sixties. Complaints

of the inefficiency of the police and attacks on the Commissioner are

frequent in those years. Yet street accidents were far fewer, and, on

the whole, it cannot be maintained that London has become safer to live

in. The mention of the police reminds one that the tall hat was

discarded in 1865 for the helmet, a sensible change which was at first

met with undeserved ridicule. The possibility of a strike of policemen

at the end of 1872 seemed to _Punch_ so incredible that he declined to

treat it seriously.

[Illustration: TO GARROTTERS--"CAVE TOMKINS"

TOMKINS (loq.): "Let 'em try it on again, that's all."]