(original) _Spectator_. It is, however, addressed to the Editor of
the _Hampshire Independent_, in which journal it appeared the other
day under the title, "Is the Church Free?" The Church therein
particularly referred to is the old parish church of Millbrook,
near Southampton:--
"Sir,--I saw lately in your paper a very pleasing paragraph, asking
for free and open sittings in Parish Churches. Now, as the Bishop
is coming amongst us, will you kindly insert this letter, that he
may know how proper it would be at Millbrook, where the rich
people, who are objecting to a new church nearer to the poor, won't
let a servant of any station sit in the body of the church, and we
are sent upstairs, if the masters or mistresses are agreeable or
not.
We don't blame Mr. Blunt, and we hope the Bishop will ask him about
it, and order free pews in the new church.--I am, Sir, etc.,
"August 17, 1871. A Lady's Maid."
Well said, Mary. Your rich people at Millbrook, some of them, apparently
need to be told that at Service in Church everyone is a Servant, and all
Servants are equal. Perhaps, however, those rich exclusives attend
Church for the same kind of reason as that which makes them go to County
Balls, if they can, or would make them if they could. If their
church-going is merely an airing of their respectability, it is needless
to remind them that a Church is a place where the Presence they are
supposed to enter is no respecter of persons. The Bishop of Winchester
will doubtless, if possible, not disappoint Mary's hope that he will
order free pews, or seats, to be provided in the new Church at
Millbrook. In old Millbrook Church, by Mary's account, existing
accommodation would be improved on principle by another arrangement. The
sittings could be divided into First, Second, and Third-Class Pews.
Class patronage was always obnoxious to _Punch_, but he was quite ready
to admit that the difficulty of getting good servants arose from the
impossibility, in most cases, of the lady of the house adapting herself
to the peculiar disposition of each one of her domestics. The
accompanying advertisement--a remarkably modern achievement for
1865--sounded the note of independence too boldly to suit so moderate a
reformer:--
"Domestic Servant.--A Person about Twenty, with excellent
character, wishes a Situation where not restricted in becoming
dress nor services rendered unnecessarily menial. She would prefer
a small Country Family Situation, away from the noise and hurry of
Birmingham. Should her mistress prove quiet and amiable, a
suitable, respectable, permanent servant would inevitably be
secured. Lowest wages accepted, ten guineas."
The Young Lady's grammar, in "wishing a situation," is somewhat
arbitrary, but it is enough for her purpose that the reader should
know what she means. The restriction in becoming dress probably
alludes to the tyranny of a mistress who objected to her china
ornaments being knocked down by Betty and housemaid's extensive
crinoline. "Services rendered unnecessarily menial" conveys the
idea of the wearer of a crinoline being obliged to clean the
doorsteps, the attitude necessitated by the nature of this
operation being one of supplication so humble, and prostration so
abject, as would never be adopted by any wearer of the steel hoops
who "could see herself as others see her." The Young Lady would
perhaps like to take her quiet tea and beauty sleep in the
drawing-room, about four o'clock of an afternoon, talk over family
matters with her quiet and amiable mistress, or skim her a few
pages of the _Court Circular_. We sincerely trust that the
advertiser has obtained the situation she deserves.
[Illustration: "TRAIN UP A CHILD," &c.
"Mamma, don't you think Pug ought to be vaccinated?"
"What nonsense, dear! They only vaccinate human beings!"
"Why, Lady Fakeaway's had all her _servants_ vaccinated, Mamma!"]
[Sidenote: _Fashions in Christian Names_]
It was in the same spirit that a few years earlier a protest had been
raised against the fashion of decorative names amongst the poorer
classes:--
Our laundress's infants have no great charms,
Yet they have a Eugénie in arms;
While Victor Albert swings on a gate,
And munches his bacon in village state.
'Twould be hard to say there is any blame,
There is no monopoly in a name;
But it strikes one sometimes as rather absurd
That contrast between the child and the word.
And what will it be when years have flown
And these finely-named damsels are women grown?
When Evelyn Ada must polish the grates
While Edith Amelia is washing the plates.
[Illustration: AN AUTHORITY
NURSE: "And to-day was little Cissy's birthday; and Sir John, he gave
her a coral necklace; and Milady, she gave her a boo'ful blue frock; and
as for Mr. James, he took more notice of her nor anybody did, and gave
her a sweet kiss! Heigho! Who wouldn't be little Cissy?"
N.B. Sir John is Cissy's godpapa, and Milady her godmamma, and as for
Mr. James, why----
This is Mr. James!]
It has been reserved for a later generation to witness the appropriation
of the homely names Joan, Betty, Susan, etc., by the social _élite_,
while Gladys, Doris, and so forth, have become common form amongst the
daughters of Labour.
[Sidenote: _The Victorian Governess_]
The month of April, 1872, was marked by two notable meetings of domestic
servants, one at Dundee and one at Leamington, at both of which the
forming of a trade union was unanimously decided on. At Dundee _dux
femina facti_; and Punch celebrated the event in a set of verses in
which the revolt of the "Leamington Flunkeys" is attributed to the
alluring example of the housemaids of "Bonny Dundee." The curious will
find in the _Annual Register_ for 1872 an account of the Dundee meeting.
It had a disastrous sequel in the breakdown of one of the maids who had
taken a prominent part in the agitation. _Punch_ comments unchivalrously
on the fuss which was made in the local Press over "the hysterics of an
ex-servant maid." Modern readers will marvel at the moderation of most
of the demands in regard to hours, privileges, etc., put forward at
Dundee; but the fact that butlers and footmen had followed suit
destroyed any sympathy that _Punch_ might have felt for the movement.
The flunkey, as depicted by Du Maurier, is more elegant and
refined-looking than the Jeames of Leech, but he continues to be treated
with the same implacable ridicule. "Servant-galism" is another matter,
and it stands more and more for a claim to consideration which _Punch_,
in his more serious moments, cannot wholly withstand. As against
pictures of the "what next, indeed!" type, in which excessive demands
are treated with a mild resentment, we have to set _Punch's_
championship of the right to be decently housed, and his reproof of an
advertiser who asked for a servant who could neither read nor write.
The gibbeting of employers who offered governesses starvation wages
continues, but the entries are far less numerous than in the 'fifties.
Still, the evil was not wholly removed. In 1867 _Punch_ expressed
surprise that among the many strikes lately witnessed there had not been
one of governesses. As a rule, he observes, they are extremely
overworked and underpaid, and have really far more cause for striking
than the tailors:--
Still, there seems but little prospect of our seeing them on strike
while we find them putting forward such advertisements as this:--
"A Single Lady, aged 36, with a limited income, offers £20 per
annum and two hours' daily instruction to one or two Children in
English and the rudiments of music and French, in return for her
Board."
We have often known a Governess content with a small salary, but it
is a novelty to hear of one content with less than nothing, and
even offering to pay a yearly premium for her place. An income
which is limited may fail to satisfy the cravings of an appetite
which is not; still, unless this single lady be uncommonly
voracious, she need scarcely, one would fancy, offer £20 a year,
and two hours' teaching daily merely for her board.
The treatment of governesses was one of the blots on the Victorian age.
They lived in what might be called No Woman's Land. Their status was
semi-menial; their salaries were often much lower than those of cooks;
they seldom emerged from the schoolroom; they had little encouragement
to be efficient; if they were young and pretty they were frowned upon as
potential adventuresses; if they were elderly and ill-favoured they were
negligible and neglected. The very term "governess" carried with it a
certain hint of social disparagement; and they were for the most part
the easy victims of snobbery. If proof be required one has only to turn
to the novels of the period, in which very few examples will be found of
governesses who succeeded in overleaping the barriers of caste and
entering the realms of romance. Charlotte Brontë, the pioneer of the
"emancipation novel," was perhaps the first to give the governess a
chance in fiction. In fact there was not much improvement in the
"governess-trade" on the condition described in Jane Austen's _Emma_
half a century earlier, when Jane Fairfax compared it to the
slave-trade, "widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who
carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know
where the difference lies." But then we must remember that class
distinctions were then much more clearly drawn than they are to-day. It
was not until 1870 that the gold tuft on the cap worn by noblemen at
Oxford was discontinued. The dearth of army doctors, on which _Punch_
frequently comments in 1864, was due in his opinion to the snobbery of a
system which relegated the members of a noble profession to an inferior
social status. It was in the same year, to his lasting credit, that
_Punch_ espoused the cause of old ballet-girls, with a view to relieving
the necessities of worn-out columbines, fairies and sylphs. He was
doubtful of the result of his appeal simply because of the
self-protective prudery of polite society:--
I know that most rich people have far too much morality to think of
doing anything for such people as poor ballet-girls, who are
supposed to be descended from some of the Lost Tribes. Of course
Polite Society can never be expected to take anything like an
interest in persons of this sort. Still, although Polite Society
may not feel disposed to help to keep poor ballet-girls alive, I
think Polite Society would not be altogether pleased were
ballet-girls extinct.
[Sidenote: _Society and the Stage_]
The correspondence and controversy which grew out of _Punch's_
intervention is too long to be treated in detail. His statements were
canvassed, and the existence of theatrical funds adequate to meet the
needs of the situation was pointed out. But _Punch_ was not far out when
he declared that as ballet-girls grew old their salaries decreased; it
was only by hard work that they earned their living in the playhouse,
and they barely escaped dying in a workhouse. The episode is creditable
to the humanity of _Punch_. It is also interesting to the student of
manners from the light which it throws on the conventional attitude of
polite society towards the theatrical profession in mid-Victorian days.
It was a survival of the old view expressed by the Prussian sovereign in
an order referring to "singers, actors, and other rubbish." In their
proper place--on the stage--they were amusing people. Socially they were
outside the pale, living in a state of semi-outlawry, and to be given a
wide berth by all self-respecting citizens. _Punch_, from the intimate
connexion of so many of his staff with the drama--Douglas Jerrold, Tom
Taylor and Burnand cover nearly the whole period of our survey--never
subscribed to this view, though he deprecated mummer-worship as
fostering the vanity which was the besetting sin of the actor's calling.
He fully recognized the generosity and charity which successful players
showed to their less fortunate brothers and sisters. But in the days of
which we are now writing _Punch_ did not foresee the swing of the
pendulum which resulted in the invasion of the stage by amateurs and the
conversion of what had been a social stigma into a social asset.
WOMEN
"Feminism," in the modern sense, as was pointed out in the previous
volume, is in English, at any rate, a twentieth century word. Yet the
movement was there long before the name was coined or imported, and in
the period on which we now enter a notable change reveals itself in the
spirit of _Punch's_ dream of womanhood. The change is all the more
remarkable when we recall the fact that the paper was still written
exclusively by men and appealed mainly to male readers. The first woman
contributor with the pen--Miss Betham Edwards--did not appear until
1868. "_Mrs. Punch's_ Letters to her Daughter," however, cannot be said
to strike a new note, being for the most part a replica of _Punch's_ own
views, with a mild undercurrent of irony so carefully disguised as to be
almost invisible. _Mrs. Punch_ disavows all association with committees
or causes. She was "not even a novelist"--apparently a hit at Rhoda
Broughton, who had recently swum into the ken of the astonished Mrs.
Grundy, and whose works are obliquely disparaged under the transparent
_aliases_ of "Unwisely but not too well," and "Cometh up as a Nettle."
Mrs. Lynn Linton's tirades against the Girl of the Period had appeared
in the _Saturday Review_ earlier in the year, and _Mrs. Punch_ follows
mildly in the same path, rebuking the extravagances of fashion;
monstrous chignons, false and dyed hair, the use of Madame Rachel's
cosmetics, and a resort to audacious _décolletage_. In her advice on the
choice and management of husbands _Mrs. Punch_ is purely ironic. There
is no serious effort to dislodge men from their entrenched positions as
lords of creation. The furthest she goes is in a retort on the Young Man
of the Period, whom she boldly pronounces an ass, whether he is of the
tame cat order; or an "æsthetic" with a genius for disparaging
everybody, especially his elders; or a mere conceited ass; or a clerical
despot to whom woman is a ministering slave. Finally she deplores the
precocity of the Young Children of the Period. Indeed, there weren't any
young children at all, only richly-dressed supercilious little men and
women; worldly-wise little satirists and snobs.
[Illustration: TOO BAD
PROFESSOR PUMPER: "May I ask, Miss Blank, why you are making those
little pellets?"
MISS B.: "Well, I don't know. It is a habit I have. I always make bread
pills when I feel bored at dinner!"]
[Sidenote: _A Change of Type_]
But from 1860 onwards one notes an increasing readiness to take women
seriously. They are no longer merely regarded as "dear creatures,"
ornamental and domestic, as when the appearance of _The Angel in the
House_ inspired the comment that the title was one "which might be
bestowed on a meritorious cook." Blue stockings are still the subject of
much acidulated chaff, and "strong-minded" women are almost invariably
represented as flat-chested, ill-dressed slatterns. But within certain
limits women are allowed to cultivate intellect without loss of
angelical charm. The type of feminine good looks portrayed by Leech
remained unchanged to the end of his life. Yet in two directions we note
a change. His charming buxom girls show a tendency to revolt against the
tyranny of their pert schoolboy brothers;[22] they are beginning to
cultivate the faculty of retort even at the expense of learned
professors. And again, in the hunting-field, the superior boldness of
the hard-riding young lady is frequently glorified at the expense of the
more cautious male. In this context it is worthy of record that for many
years after Leech's death the bulk of the hunting pictures were
contributed by the first of _Punch's_ lady artists--Miss G. Bowers.
[Footnote 22: The "tyranny of the younger brother" who is continually
harassing his grown-up sisters was undoubtedly one of the results of the
customary large families of the period. In Leech's pictures, again, the
tender passion is nearly always illustrated by passages between
cousins.]
[Illustration: TERRIBLE RESULT OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN!
Miss Hypatia Jones, Spinster of Arts (on her way to refreshment),
informs Professor Parallax, F.R.S., that "young men do very well to look
at, or to dance with, or even to marry, and all that kind of thing!" but
that "as to enjoying any rational conversation with any man under fifty,
_that_ is _completely_ out of the question!"]
[Sidenote: _Du Maurier's Women_]
Fainting was still fashionable, but women were beginning to compete,
mildly but increasingly, in the domain of sport and pastime. Hunting had
long been their great stand-by; it afforded women the greatest
opportunities for the display of nerve, skill and endurance, and they
were as conspicuous by these qualities in the 'sixties as they are
to-day. But the Amazon is a class apart. Archery--by reason of its
opportunities for showing off a graceful figure as the arrow was "pulled
on the tense string"--was still in its golden prime, and croquet so
widely popular as to warrant the publication of a long poem in several
instalments. Yet the code of mid-Victorian croquet, to judge by
contemporary evidence, was not of a high standard. The ladies were
charged with habitual cheating. It was a standing dish at garden
parties, but, in a phrase of the time, seemed more closely connected
with 'usbandry than 'orticulture. Lawn tennis did not arrive till later,
and then only as a species of "pat-ball." But women were becoming more
active and athletic. We do not speak merely of the professional gymnasts
and performers on the tight-rope and the trapeze who emulated the feats
of Blondin and Léotard, occasionally with tragical results; but rather
of the change in physique and stature of English women. For one can
hardly believe that the Junonian types which Du Maurier was so fond of
drawing were purely imaginary, or that the gentle giantess, married to
the diminutive husband who figures in the domestic record of Mr. Tom
Tit, had no prototype in fact. Leech familiarized us with the Amazon of
the hunting-field, but Du Maurier introduced us to the statuesque
goddesses of the drawing-room, tall and divinely fair. But the debt of
English womankind to his pencil went much further than his consistent
homage to their beauty and gracious demeanour. He was more concerned to
illustrate the taste of their dress than the absurdities of fashion. And
above all he never failed to credit them with wit and subtlety in
conversation. In sheer buxom comeliness Leech's women were never
surpassed, but in elegance and distinction of feature and bearing the
types, or perhaps we should say the type, favoured by Du Maurier raised
the "social cuts" in _Punch_ to a higher level. It was part of the
general movement of the paper from its "Left Centre" position in the
direction of the Right, from its aggressive championship of democratic
principles towards a Liberalism tempered by an increasing disposition to
criticize the working classes. Yet if _Punch_ paid more attention to,
and showed more consideration for Mayfair than in his earlier years, the
follies and extravagance and arrogant exclusiveness of fashionable women
seldom failed to excite his wrath. As he had regarded the decline and
fall of Almack's as inevitable, he betrayed no enthusiasm over its
revival in 1858.[23] The old oligarchical rule had its merits, in so far
as it recognized that money alone was no passport to the revels of the
aristocracy. But towards the end of the old _régime_ the barriers had
been partially broken down, as one may gather from the verses in which
the re-opening of the Assembly Rooms was duly and unsympathetically
recorded:--
Sing for joy, superior classes,
But, of course, in tones subdued,
Do not bellow like the masses,
Bawl not as the multitude;
But your joy should be outpoured,
For behold Almack's restored!
There shall Beauty, in exclusive
Circles, waltz again with Wealth,
Sharing exercise, conducive
More to pleasure than to health,
Whilst the sun ascends the skies,
And the common people rise.
* * * * *
Oh! ye Flunkeys, holloa louder,
Than the rest, for rampant mirth,
In the pride of plush and powder,
You'll attend on Rank and Birth.
How transported you must wax,
Thinking on revived Almack's!
[Footnote 23: Yet Sir Henry Holland, the distinguished physician, states
in his _Reminiscences_ (1872) that he knew of cases, which had defied
medicine, being cured by a ticket for Almack's.]
[Sidenote: _Belgravian Manners and Maxims_]
The jaded belles who appeared in Hyde Park after dancing till 4 a.m. at
Willis's rooms are treated with scant respect, and when Cremorne Gardens
were reserved for the Aristocratic Fête organized by Lord Ingestre, a
certain malicious satisfaction is expressed that the entertainment was
spoilt by the rain. _Punch_ admitted, in "The Cream at Cremorne," that
some hundreds of pounds had been raised for charity, but he disapproved
of the "exclusive" methods adopted.
The craze for toy-dogs was already rampant. _Punch_ was always a lover
of dogs and a good friend of animals, but he detested that form of
feminine sentimentality which exalted caninity at the expense of
humanity, and in 1858 turned one of Tennyson's lyrics to satiric use in
the "Ballad of Poppetina":--
They came and told me where I lay,
Poppetina,
How that my pet had run away,
Poppetina.
With but a feather (as they say)
You might have knocked me down that day,
Poppetina;
I almost fainted right away,
Poppetina.
Amongst the "Belgravian maxims" published in the same year we note two
which have not yet entirely lost their force: "We make our money in
London, but we spend it in Paris. England gives us meat, and France
sends us cooks." Nowadays we still call them "_chefs_" no matter what
their nationality may be. As I write these lines the January sales are
in full swing, and the shops of London "ring to the roar of an angel
onset." It is interesting, by way of comparison, to give the results of
a day's shopping by a middle-class young lady as catalogued in the
winter of 1858:--
A TREMENDOUS BAG
Miss Lucy Smith went out shopping the other day, and brought home
with her a most tremendous bag. It was so heavy that it was as much
as the page could do to bring it into the parlour to be inspected
by the ladies. Upon its contents being emptied on to the
dining-room table, it was found to contain:--a bottle of
Kiss-me-Quick, a pair of white satin shoes, a bulky packet of
gloves (cleaned), a dozen rolls of cotton, a paper of pearl buttons
(to mend Papa's shirts), a box of cough lozenges, a bundle of
violet-powder, a kettle-holder, ten yards of blue ribbon, a pack of
club cards, a pair of American overshoes, a pot of bear's grease, a
pound of jujubes, a velvet necktie, three cambric
pocket-handkerchiefs with "Lucy" embroidered in gay flowers in the
corner, a pair of mittens, a small tin can supposed to contain
acidulated drops, beads and long pins and gold daggers and
imitation coins for the hair, fifteen yards of the best longcloth,
a bundle of brushes and small jars of gum for potichomanie work,
small curling-irons, several small pots containing perfumes and
mysterious volatile essences for the toilette-table, numerous
papers of different varieties of Berlin wool with coloured pattern
of _Brigand_ for the same, two ounces of shot to sew round the
bottom of one's dress, seven yards of edging for night-caps, a set
of doll's tea things, two packages of bird-seed for the canary, a
bath bun, one _Convent Call_ and _Two Fond Hearts_, with _Ten
Thousand a Year_. Besides the above, there was concealed inside the
longcloth a yellow book that looked suspiciously like a French
novel; but as it was hastily snatched up by Miss Lucy, it is
perfectly impossible to mention the name of it. Miss Smith was not
a little pleased with the results of her day's sport, having
brought down every one of the articles enumerated in the bag
herself in the space of little more than four hours and a quarter.
Allowing for the exuberance of the satirist, one may still glean a good
deal of information from this portentous list as to the tastes of the
young person of the period. "Potichomanie" was the fashionable craze for
pseudo-oriental decoration by covering the insides of glass vessels with
designs on paper or sheet gelatine, so as to imitate Japanese porcelain.
_Ten Thousand a Year_ was Sam Warren's once popular novel, one of the
first chronicles of the rise of the "bounder"; _The Convent Call_ and
_Two Fond Hearts_ represent the appeal of propagandist Romanism and
roseate sentimentality. The name of the French novel is withheld; it
might perhaps have been one by Eugène Sue. Major Pendennis said that he
had not read any other novelist for thirty years besides Paul de Kock,
but we can hardly credit Miss Lucy Smith in 1858 with a choice which
would be common form for her grand-daughters. Along with frequent
references to the ignorance, and extravagance, the frivolity and
futility of girls of the upper classes and to the mercenary marriages
made in Society, we find an increasing readiness to recognize and
welcome the competition of women in the sphere of art. The first
Exhibition of Women Artists had been held in 1857; the name of Rosa
Bonheur was already so familiar in England that in the summer of 1858
_Punch_ expressed regret that there was "no picture in the Royal Academy
of Prince Albert's prize pig by Sir Edwin or Rosa." The Female School of
Art and Design at South Kensington is mentioned in 1860, and in 1861
_Punch_ makes a friendly comment on the announcement that a female
sculptor, Miss Susan Durant, had "received a commission to execute one
of the poetical marbles for the Mansion House, being, so far as one can
recollect, the first English lady who has ever obtained a compliment of
this particular kind."
[Sidenote: _Women Artists_]
In music, women, as singers, had long established their claim to the
allegiance of the opera-going world. Their recognition as
instrumentalists came later. _Punch_ had missed the first appearance of
Mlle. Neruda in 1849, but waxes enthusiastic in 1858 over the
performance of Mlle. Humler, a distinguished violinist, "a female
Paganini, who pleases as well as astonishes," and in the same year
extols native talent in the person of Arabella Goddard, the
distinguished pianist who rendered admirable service by introducing the
works of Beethoven to British amateurs:--
MR. PUNCH TO MISS GODDARD
A VALENTINE
My dear Miss Goddard;
A creature foddered
On Liszts and Thalbergs, extolled by Ella,
Perceives creation
Of new sensation
When you strike ivory, Arabella.
You've known, Miss Goddard,
What 'tis to plod hard,
The bee must toil ere he hives the _mella_.
Now, music gushes,
Or leaps, or rushes
To your white fingers, Miss Arabella.
The folks, Miss Goddard,
Who yawn, or nod hard
At tricksters, whack with the umbrella,
When for grand Beethoven
The way is cloven
To English hearts, by my Arabella.
My dear Miss Goddard,
_Punch_ "plies the rod hard
On brass Impostors" (see Swift to Stella),
And for that reason,
Hath praise, in season,
For golden Artists, like Arabella.
[Sidenote: _The Female Blondin_]
Such tributes, however, involved no breach with tradition or abandonment
of prejudice. The position of women as public performers, whether on the
lyric or dramatic stage, or in the circus, was assured and acquiesced in
by the general public, always excepting what may be called the Exeter
Hall Group, which included real benefactors and philanthropists as well
as Chadbands and Jellybys. No objection, however, could be taken to
those who sought to restrain the enterprise of managers who engaged
women gymnasts to perform dangerous feats. The influence and
intervention of the Queen did a great deal in educating public opinion,
and the part played by _Punch_ may be gathered from his comments on the
tragedy which occurred at a fête of the Order of Foresters held at Aston
Park, Birmingham, in July, 1863, at a time when Blondin was drawing
large crowds to the Crystal Palace by his performances on the high
rope:--
The Foresters of Birmingham, copying the example of the Aristocrats
of Sydenham, assembled in a great crowd, on the previous Monday, to
see a woman, named Powell, perform some dangerous feats akin to
those performed by a man named Blondin. The scene was Aston Park, a
place inaugurated by the Queen and Prince Albert, and devoted (as
was supposed in this case and in that of the Crystal Palace) to
rational recreation. M. Blondin has not yet been killed, but Mrs.
Powell's rope broke and she died. She would have been a mother in
three months. How the Aristocrats would act under similar
circumstances remains to be seen. The Foresters continued their
revels, danced, and finished with fireworks. The subject was
brought before Parliament by Lord Malmesbury and Mr. Doulton, and
the answer of Government is, that no doubt such things are very
deplorable, but as the public likes such exhibitions "it is
difficult" to interfere, but the Press (to which it is sometimes
very convenient for great folks to appeal, and which at other times
it is equally convenient to repudiate) is requested to express
itself strongly on the matter. We conceive that we do so by simply
stating the facts, and adding that the plea of the Government is a
most unworthy one. If the very highest idea of a Government is, as
Sydney Smith says, a Stout Constable, even that officer should
prevent demoralizing exhibitions. Sir George Grey himself could
interfere when M. Blondin proposed to carry a child--not
unborn--along the Sydenham rope. Parliament would give him a
prohibition Bill in three days, if he is afraid to act without one.
As Queen Victoria has been a good deal under the microscope of late, the
letter which was written by her command to Mr. C. Sturge, the Mayor of
Birmingham, deserves to be quoted:--
"SIR,--The Queen has commanded me to express to you the pain with
which Her Majesty has read the account of a fatal accident which
has occurred during a fête at Aston Park, Birmingham.
"Her Majesty cannot refrain from making known through you her
personal feelings of horror that one of her subjects--a
female--should have been sacrificed to the gratification of the
demoralizing taste, unfortunately prevalent, for exhibitions
attended with the greatest danger to the performers.
"Were any proof wanting that such exhibitions are demoralizing, I
am commanded to remark that it would be at once found in the
decision arrived at to continue the festivities, the hilarity, and
the sports of the occasion after an event so melancholy.
"The Queen trusts that you, in common with the rest of the
townspeople of Birmingham, will use your influence to prevent in
future the degradation to such exhibitions of the Park which was
gladly opened by Her Majesty and the beloved Prince Consort, in the
hope that it would be made serviceable for the healthy exercise and
rational recreation of the people."
More valuable evidence, however, of the education of the large and
growing _clientèle_ represented by _Punch_ is to be found in the
recognition of woman's invasion of spheres of activity hitherto
restricted to men. In 1859 the telegraph offices are mentioned as
opening a new field of employment for women, and in 1860 the subject is
discussed, not very graciously, under the heading, "Work for Women":--
What are we to do with our young women? is a question which is now
beginning to be seriously asked by the benevolent and by
Paterfamilias. Thanks to the prevalent taste for a profusion of
finery, combined with a rising Income Tax,[24] girls are getting too
dear, that is to say too expensive, creatures, to find husbands.
Under these circumstances there has been formed a Society for the
Employment of Women. It met, the other evening, at 19, Langham
Place, the Earl of Shaftesbury in the Chair. Among various
recommendations and suggestions for the accomplishment of its
gallant and generous object, Mr. Cookson urged law-engrossing as a
suitable occupation for women, described the office established by
the Society, which is at present supported by several solicitors,
and gave an interesting account of the work done there. Mr.
Hastings also spoke of printing as peculiarly well adapted for
women, and read a paper contributed by Miss Emily Faithfull on the
introduction of women into the printing trades.
[Sidenote: _Punch and the "Strong-minded Woman"_]
Miss Faithfull set up her printing establishment for women in the same
year, and the excellence of the work of her "Victoria Press" secured her
appointment as printer and publisher in ordinary to the Queen. _Punch_
cordially supported the efforts of Miss Faithfull to extend the sphere
of labour, still rigorously limited, for working-women, but showed a
good deal of the old leaven of sex-prejudice in his comments on her plan
to assist the emigration of educated women:--
For ourselves, we would sooner send away the uneducated women, and
keep those who were educated in the country. We have not one too
many. If, however, by the term "educated" is meant "Strong-minded,"
we will give our most cordial assent and hearty co-operation to a
scheme at once so useful and beneficent, and one that cannot fail
to be for the benefit of all parties, as well as a great relief to
England. We would advise the _Great Eastern_ being chartered
immediately for this purpose, and we do not mind giving a large
subscription in aid of it, providing the vessel sails at a very
early period. However, we pity the poor colony that receives the
intellectual cargo! The only chance of its escaping this
blue-stocking visitation is, that the Strong-minded Women may
quarrel amongst themselves on the voyage out, of which there is the
most natural probability; so that when the heavily-freighted ship
touches the shore, there may not be one of them alive, and nothing
but their false back-hair, or magazine tales, left behind them. By
all means let so interesting an experiment be carried out, and to
the greatest possible number.
[Footnote 24: The income tax was then only 10d. in the pound over £150.]
[Illustration: LADY PHYSICIANS
Who is this interesting invalid? It is young Reginald de Braces, who has
succeeded in catching a bad cold, in order that he might send for that
rising practitioner, Dr. Arabella Bolus!]
Coming to the professions, we find a great advance on the somewhat
hesitating attitude adopted by _Punch_ in the 'fifties. In the early
'sixties he avowed himself as a convinced supporter of the admission of
women to medical degrees. By 1870 he went so far as to advocate "opening
the door of every secular profession to every woman qualified to enter
it." He trusted their good sense not to attempt the impossible: "only
fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and women, all but very rare
mad women, fear to tread the rough ways they are unfitted for." _Punch_,
along with Disraeli, ranges himself on the side of the angels. This
marks the high-water level of his recognition of women's professional
claims, but as early as 1862 he had registered his protest against the
decision of the Edinburgh College of Physicians, when they refused to
grant women the medical diploma, by a majority of 18 to 16 votes:--
We are glad the minority was so large, for we think it was in the
right. There is no reason why a lady learned in medicine should be
refused a doctor's degree. Nobody would be obliged to employ a
medical woman in preference to a medical man. It is very true that
it is necessary that a practitioner of medicine should be endowed
with reflective faculties; but perhaps reason is not quite
exclusively the prerogative of man. One or two women could be named
whose works exhibit undeniable evidences of some logical faculty
and judgment of causation. A female Harvey or Sydenham, or Hunter,
or Abernethy would possibly turn up if the portals of medicine were
not shut in her face.
[Sidenote: _The Medical Profession_]
The rejection of Miss Elizabeth Garrett and other women candidates by
the Apothecaries and other medical corporations is unsparingly condemned
in the issue of February 22, 1868; but the history of the campaign is
written at length in the _Life of Sophia Jex-Blake_. It may suffice here
to add the most notable, and, allowing for a little pardonable optimism,
the sanest of _Punch's_ contributions to the controversy in the period
under review in this volume. It appeared in March, 1870, in the form of
a letter, but here, as elsewhere, the views are clearly editorial:--
The necessity, Sir, of persevering study will, alone, we may be
sure, suffice to keep all women out of the medical profession, but
a very few. There is therefore no sort of occasion for the
opposition to the movement on behalf of their eligibility to be
members of that profession, offered, conceivably, by no men out of
it but fools, and by none in it but trades unionists. Assuredly,
_Mr. Punch_, rather should every encouragement be given to women
desirous to enter the profession of medicine. Paterfamilias is a
goose if he do not encourage any daughter of his, endowed with
intellect, industry and resolution, who may evince a turn that
way. No daughter can Paterfamilias get so thoroughly off his hands
as a self-supporting one.
The medical science, _Mr. Punch_, acquired by a lady doctor here
and there might prove a leaven which would leaven the whole lump so
to speak, with apology for calling the fair sex a lump. And the
lump sadly wants leavening. When it had got properly leavened there
would soon be an end to advertisements of "corsets," cosmetics and
ways of being made beautiful for ever; also an end of low dresses
in high life and high latitudes. The death rate from bronchitis and
consumption would largely decrease.
There would likewise be an end of Daffy and Dalby, and all manner
of domestic quackery in those upper regions where future men and
women make the noises which pious Æneas heard, the first thing, in
the lower. Moreover, we should hear much less of those noises.
And mark. Whilst the medical profession would be a resource for a
clever girl, who, having to live somehow, would like to live
single, or at any rate, having a soul of her own as well as a
body, would hate to sell herself in the marriage-market, it would
by no means debar such an one, matrimonially disposed, from
matrimony. For what young medical man wanting a partner could do
better than choose a medical lady duly qualified (in every respect)
for partnership? And every non-medical man thinking to take a wife
would find his account in taking a doctress who would know better
than, by continually breaking the natural laws, to let herself in
for everlasting headaches, faintings, hysterics, and other
ailments, rendering herself a perpetual plague to a husband, and
running him up doctor's bills. Finally, the father of a family of
children, whose mamma was a medical gentlewoman, would enjoy the
advantage, instead of suffering the expense, of having a doctor
always in the house.
That the Legislature will compel the Medical Council to grant a
diploma to every lady who can satisfy their examiners is the hope
of
Yours truly, CELSUS EXCELSIOR.
[Illustration: OUR NURSES
EXPERIENCED NIGHT NURSE (sternly): "Come, come, sir! You must stop
that horrid noise. If you keep wheezing and snoring like that all
night, how am I to get to sleep?"]
The question of the admission of women to the Bar had already attracted
serious discussion. In June, 1869, _Punch_, generalizing from a
particular case, expressed mock horror at the prospect:--
THE BAR FEMININE
(Respectfully but remonstratively recommended to the notice of John
Stuart Mill)
Is this, we earnestly ask, in the name of cruelty to legal animals,
what Court and Clients must be prepared for when ladies are
admitted to practice at the Bar?
The Shedden legitimacy case was resumed this morning for the
fifteenth time before the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor
commented upon the extreme prolixity of Miss Shedden's address,
which has now occupied fourteen days, and exhorted her to confine
her remarks to the evidence. Shortly after commencing to address
their Lordships this morning Miss Shedden swooned, and was carried
out. Dr. Bond being sent for, testified that the lady was suffering
from hysteria, brought on by nervous exhaustion. Their Lordships
postponed the case till to-morrow, when, if Miss Shedden should be
unable to proceed, her father will be heard.
Talk of "the Subjection of Women," Mr. Mill! Here's the whole force
of Law Lords in subjection to one woman ... who, after fifteen
days, talks herself into hysteria, and their Lordships into--but
what single word can be found comprehensive enough to describe
their Lordship's state of body and mind, under the _peine forte et
dure_ of this distressingly fluent female. Fancy a Bar of Miss
Sheddens! The masculine legal mind recoils in horror from the idea!
[Sidenote: _The Suffrage Question_]
According to the D.N.B. Miss Shedden conducted her case for thirty days.
But a few months later _Punch_, discussing the "Professions of
Petticoats," approved of the contemplated innovation, and in 1870 wrote:
"Open the Bar, forensic as well as tabernary, only insist on the wig and
gown--the regulation gown--let the law of judicial vision be the same
for female counsel as for male."
The advance in _Punch's_ education in regard to the most controversial
of all woman's claims--that to the vote--is much smaller, but it is an
advance. He began in ribaldry and ridicule; but the persistence, the
ability, and the high character of the advocates of Woman Suffrage
converted him (intermittently) to seriousness, and even respect. The
successive stages of this change are interesting to trace. In 1857 a
Feminist Meeting at Leicester is merely the subject for chaff. We have
noted in the previous volume that Mayfair held severely aloof from the
Women's Rights movement in its earlier days. But in the summer of 1858,
at the same time when Almack's was revived, the Marchioness of
Londonderry and Lady Dysart proclaimed their adherence to Woman
Suffrage. _Punch_, still somewhat democratic, was not moved by this
social portent, and when it was announced that the Ladies' Gallery in
the House of Commons was to be enlarged, unfeelingly suggested that it
must be a concession to crinoline: otherwise there could be no reason
for favouring "a parcel of chattering and giggling women."
In 1859 we find a burlesque account of a woman's meeting, convened to
discuss the Suffrage question. But a slightly altered tone is observable
in the early 'sixties. Women's indirect electoral power is recognized in
the hostile criticism of the _Realm_, a recently-founded Conservative
organ, in the issue of April 23, 1864, and when the question of Woman
Suffrage came up before the Social Science Congress in 1866, it is
significant that _Punch_ abandons ridicule for argument:--
THE WAY TO WOMANHOOD SUFFRAGE
The cause of Womanhood Suffrage was ably pleaded by Madame Barbara
Bodichon at the Social Science Congress, and Madame Bodichon was
gallantly followed on the same line by Dr. Mary Walker. It may
safely be said that if every man is fit to vote, so is every woman;
on conditions. These, of course, are, that if women are to exercise
political functions, like men, they must accept all the obligations
of the sterner sex. For instance, the right of voting would give
women a voice in the organization of the army. This ought not to
exist apart from liability to be drawn for the Militia, or to
become subject to conscription, if that method of recruiting should
come to be adopted in this country. The ladies who sigh for the
suffrage should lose no time in enrolling themselves in regiments
of Amazonian volunteers to signify that whilst they demand the
rights, they are ready to accept the duties of citizenship.
Dr. Mary Walker was the American lady who wore a masculine or
semi-masculine garb; Madame Bodichon was the benefactress who invented
and endowed Girton.
[Sidenote: _J. S. Mill on the Suffrage_]
It was reserved, however, for John Stuart Mill, when, in the debate on
the Reform Bill,[25] he moved that in Clause 4 the word "person" should
be substituted for "man," to come nearest to breaking down _Punch's_
opposition to Woman Suffrage. Mill's speech shook him very badly, as may
be gathered from the full and eulogistic summary in the "Essence of
Parliament":--
And now, Ladies, _Mr. Punch_ does you the justice of believing that
you would like to know what arguments your Friend advanced. You may
be sure that all that could be said was said in the best manner by
Mr. Mill, and that such of you as wish to fight the battle may have
all the weapons, elegantly polished, at hand, _Mr. Punch_--your
devoted slave--lays them before you in the most convenient form.
Mr. Mill urged that at present:-
Neither birth, merit, exertion, intellect, fortune, nor even
accident can enable any woman to have her voice counted in matters
which concern her and hers as nearly as any person in the kingdom.
It is not just to make distinctions between the Queen's subjects,
except for a positive reason.
Are women who manage property, or business, or teach more than most
male electors know, unfit for the function of voting?
Would they be revolutionary?
Taxation and Representation should go together. Women pay taxes.
The real difficulty felt is not a practical one; it is only a
feeling of Strangeness.
That is a thing which wears off. What are the objections?
1. Politics are not women's business.
2. You don't desire the suffrage.
3. You are sufficiently represented by your influence over male
relatives.
4. You have power enough already.
The answers are:--
1. Nor are they man's, unless he is a professional politician. He
has business of his own, which he does not neglect, for the sake of
voting, more than a woman would.
2. But many do, and others would but for fear of being ill thought
of. We are not to suppose that leading questions put to ladies
elicit their real sentiments. None are so well schooled as women in
making a virtue of necessity.
3. Does man apply this argument to rich men and others with
influence?
4. You have great power, but it is under the worst conditions, for
it is indirect, and therefore irresponsible. And he would have you
work by a manly exchange of opinions, and not by cajolery.
There is a feeling which men have, but are ashamed to express--this:
A woman has no right to care about anything but how she may be the most
useful and devoted servant of some man.
Mr. Mill professed such indignation at this idea that he would not argue
about it.
In the old days woman and man lived apart--that is, the wife was a
plaything or an upper servant. His friends were men. This is changed.
The women of the family are the man's habitual society. The wife is his
chief associate, most confidential friend, most trusted counsellor.
Then, should a man wish that such a companion should be studiously kept
inferior to himself, and taught ignorance or indifference about the
subjects among which his highest duties are cast?
The time has come when, if women are not raised to the level of men, men
will be pulled down to theirs.
[Footnote 25: May 20, 1867.]
As to women being sufficiently protected, he would like a return of the
number of women annually beaten or kicked, or trodden to death by their
male protectors--of the cases when the dastardly criminal did not get
off altogether--of the cases in which such brutes received lighter
sentences than are awarded for trifling thefts.
Old educational endowments were for boys and girls alike. The girls have
been shut out, as at Christ's Hospital, where there are 1,100 boys and
26 girls.
The Doctors shut out the ladies.
The painters do the same, excluding them from the associateship of the
Academy, because they were distinguishing themselves too much.
A husband can tear away every shilling of his wife's and spend it in
debauchery, and even then, if she struggles and saves, he can pounce on
her earnings, unless she is judicially separated.
Your Champion, Ladies, wound up with an earnest assurance that when the
time should come, as come it would, for acceding to his motion, we
should never repent of the concession.
And _Punch_ is sure that whether you want votes or not, you will say
that the cheers Mr. Mill gained were well earned.
Mr. E. K. Karslake thought Mr. Mill confounded the distinction between
man and woman.
Mr. Denman supported him, but thought the Bill already conferred the
suffrage.
Mr. Fawcett (a newly married man too) earnestly supported the motion,
and said that the time for chaff on the subject had gone by.
Mr. Laing talked nonsense about the ideal of woman, said that Juliet,
Ophelia and Desdemona had nothing to do with votes--the poets understood
woman better than Mr. Mill.
Sir George Bowyer, like a gallant knight, supported your cause.
Lord Galway said the motion placed admirers of the fair sex in an
awkward position.
Mr. Onslow said that two young ladies had told him they would vote for
the man who gave them the best pair of diamond ear-rings.
Mr. Mill was pleased, as well he might be, at the fearful debility of
his opponents, and took the division, which was,
For the Ladies 73
Against 196
___
Majority 123 for keeping you out, dears.
This speech of Mr. Mill's was the event of the week.
At any rate it cannot be said that _Punch_ failed to do justice to the
debate on its merits. His account is both ampler and fairer than many
reports of important discussions in Parliament which appear in the daily
press of to-day. But this was the day of verbatim reports. _Punch_
mentions one debate which occupied thirty-six columns of closely-printed
small type in _The Times_.
[Illustration: MILL'S LOGIC, OR FRANCHISE FOR FEMALES
"Pray clear the way, there, for these--ah--persons."]
By way of an offset to the admissions made in his Parliamentary report,
_Punch_ published a long, open letter to Mr. Mill. The argument founded
on the derogatory word "person" need not detain us. The letter is signed
"Judy," but the voice is the voice of _Punch_, who would not give women
the vote because he believed they could exercise their political rights
of sovereignty more effectually by proxy. Why should they wish to
exercise power through the franchise when they were already omnipotent
over those who had the franchise? Men were not much the happier or the
better or the wiser for their politics. Mill's proposal to exclude
married women from the franchise is dexterously turned to account as an
admission that female influence was paramount as it was; that it was
unnecessary to give women what they already exercised through their
husbands. In fine, till women were married, they were learning to rule
their husbands. After they were married they had their husbands to rule.
Politics were the natural occupation of the inferior or slavish sex.
When would Mill's logic open his eyes to the fact that, like the
Constitutional Sovereign, _la femme règne et ne gouverne pas_?
Such a letter brought but cold comfort to the Suffragists. It was like
feeding them with the East Wind. But at its worst it was an immense
improvement on the heavy facetiousness of _Punch's_ earlier manner.
In May, 1868, _Punch_ virtually sided with his "dear enemy":--
Mr. Mill presented to the Commons a petition signed by 21,757
women, who asked for the Franchise. The first signature was that of
Mrs. Somerville, Mechanist of the Heavens; the second that of Miss
Florence Nightingale, Healer on Earth. Right or wrong, the request
ought to have been granted to such petitioners.
[Sidenote: _Open Letter to Mrs. Fawcett_]
So when at a meeting in Manchester in December, 1869, it was resolved to
form a guarantee fund of £5,000, _Punch_ declared that if the Suffrage
was to be had for love or money, women would shortly have it, and went
on with characteristic effrontery to claim the credit of being "the
Liberator of the Ladies":--
When ladies, ere many months shall have passed over their heads,
rush to the poll and tender their votes for the men of their
choice, let them not forget to whom they are mainly indebted for
ability to exercise the birthright of a Britoness. It has ever been
the aim of _Mr. Punch_ to elevate Woman as well as Man. To this end
he has directed pen and pencil to the special exposure of the
peculiarities which distinguish silly from sensible women to
derision. The consequence has been a very general relinquishment of
those ludicrous peculiarities, and an awakening the female mind to
logical perception, and a sense of the absurd and the grotesque.
Hence will sooner or later inevitably result Female Emancipation,
for which Female Intellect will have to thank _Mr. Punch_.
These indiscretions, which were apparently only meant in a Pickwickian
sense, obliged _Punch_ to regularize his position in a letter to "Mrs.
Professor Fawcett" in the following April. He congratulates the
Suffragists on dropping the limitation with which they started and going
in for repealing the electoral disabilities of all women--married as
well as single. In revising their claim they were at once logical and
wise in their generation. But on the broad question _Punch_ comes down
on the anti-Suffragist side of the fence:--
Has it never occurred to you that in parcelling out life into two
great fields, the one inside, the other outside the house-doors,
and in creating two beings so distinct in body, mind, and
affections as men and women, the Framer of the Universe must have
meant the two for different functions? Can you deny, or shut your
eyes to the fact that a similar distinction runs through the whole
animal kingdom? Surely, so long as the masculine creature keeps
aloof from the domain of the feminine, and leaves to her the
nursing and rearing and training of the family, and the ordering
and gracing of the home, there lies a tremendously strong
presumption against the wisdom of the feminine entry on the
masculine domain of business and politics.
The conclusion he comes back to is his old argument: Why give women
votes when they have them already?
In a word here is my dilemma, dear Mrs. Professor. Either women
don't care for votes--in which case they will make a bad use of
them; or they do care for them, in which case they have ours.
Look how you rule in that Parliament for the business of which you
do care, and whose budget you control and appropriate. What man
dares call his home his own? What man, that deserves to be called a
man, with a good wife, wishes to be other than her humble servant,
breadwinner, hewer of wood and drawer of water, within the walls of
that sacred sphere, of which the household hearth is the central
sun? Depend upon it, if Nature had meant you for the franchise, you
would have had it long ago. But then, if you had been in our place,
we should have been in yours. Do you think it would be a better
world for the change?
The worldly wisdom and common sense shown in this letter is also to be
found in _Punch's_ review of the whole question of Women's disabilities
in the same year. The facetious, patronizing tone is largely dropped,
and though the cartoon on the "Ugly Rush," inspired by the rejection of
Jacob Bright's Suffrage Bill, clearly approves of the result, it fully
recognizes the seriousness of the onslaught on man's monopoly of the
franchise. The time for chaff on the subject, as Fawcett said, had gone
by.
Short of the vote, however, about which he remained recalcitrant,
_Punch_ supported the claims of women to official employment in
connexion with the Poor Law, Education, Local Government generally. He
bestows a tempered approval on the appointment of Women Parish Officers
in Bucks in 1868, and when the first elections to the London School
Board were held at the close of 1870, unofficially but strenuously
championed the three women candidates--Miss Garrett, M.D., Mrs. Grey and
Miss Davies:--
There are some very good men in the candidature, but they are well
known, and can speak for themselves. _Mr. Punch_ only wishes to
point out that three ladies desire to do Woman's Work, and he hopes
that they will be accredited to the Board. He seldom condescends to
treat of mere political elections, but these Educational Elections
are important, and wise men had better look to them.
[Illustration: AN "UGLY RUSH"! MR. BULL: "Not if I know it!" (_See
Division on the Woman's Vote Bill._)]
[Sidenote: _Mrs. Nassau Senior_]
The appointment of Mrs. Nassau Senior by the President of the Local
Government Board to inspect and report on pauper schools, and her
contribution to the Third Annual Report of that Department, meet with
unqualified approval:--
In the midst of that vast blue-book of seven hundred pages there is
a bit of motherly writing by Mrs. Nassau Senior, which is
delightful to read, and cannot fail to be of immense use. Mrs.
Senior has visited pauper schools, and has traced about seven
hundred girls who had been educated at pauper schools; and her
brief biographies of these poor little waifs are perfect in their
simplicity. She believes that the Poor Law system will, in time,
come to an end through improvement in education. _Mr. Punch_ is not
so sanguine. Mendicity is eternal. But the pauper may be gradually
raised to a higher level; and such an inquiry as Mrs. Senior's is
likely to do great good in this way.
_Mr. Punch_ is delighted when a lady does in this direction what no
man could possibly do. The terse memoirs of these poor little
pauper maids are much more pathetic than anything in modern
fiction. We trace the poor children from place to place--we see
them stunted, sulky, squinting, suffering from ophthalmia, the very
refuse of the world. Mrs. Senior, kind and keen in her
investigations, tells the Guardians of the Poor (who too often deem
themselves mere guardians of the ratepayers) how they may
gradually diminish this evil. Mr. Stansfeld did a wise thing when
he asked her to undertake the inquiry; if the lessons of it are
rightly read, her second contribution to the blue-book will have a
far rosier tinge.
The treatment of the Higher Education of Women follows much the same
course--from ridicule to respect. When a Women's Library was founded in
New York, it is seriously suggested in 1860 that a similar institution
might with advantage be established in London, with Miss Bessie Parkes,
who was an active promoter of the Social Science Association, as
Librarian. But when in the summer of 1862 Mlle. Emma Chenu was admitted
to the degree of Bachelor of Science at the Sorbonne, _Punch_ contents
himself with drawing up a burlesque list of Lady Professors for the
University of Cambridge, most of them popular actresses of the time,
including Marie Wilton, Patty Oliver, Lydia Thompson, etc. By way of
contrast to this carnival of punning facetiousness we may note the
rebuke administered in May, 1863, to the students of University College,
who hissed the proposal to admit women to degrees.
[Sidenote: _Girton College_]
Great capital was made out of "Sweet Girl Graduates" by Du Maurier in
many characteristic variations on the "Princess Ida" theme. But the
movement was rapidly passing beyond the stage in which it could only be
treated sentimentally or in a spirit of ridicule. Huxley was lecturing
to women at South Kensington in 1870, and in 1871 the Ladies' College at
Hitchin (founded in 1869), which owed its origin to the enterprise and
liberality of Madame Bodichon--the friend of George Eliot and the
zealous advocate of the improvement of women's position in the
state--had so far justified itself as to earn _Punch's_ commendation,
under the typically frivolous heading of "The Chignon at Cambridge," a
good example of inept alliteration's artless aid:--
At the examination lately held at Cambridge a number of students
from the Ladies' College at Hitchin passed their "Little-go"; the
first time that such undergraduates ever underwent that ordeal. It
is gratifying to be enabled to add, that out of all those flowers
of loveliness, not one was plucked. Bachelors of Art are likely to
be made look to their laurels by these Spinsters, and Masters must
work hard or they will be eclipsed by Mistresses, more completely
than the Sun was the other day by the Moon. And we may expect that
when such competitors of both sexes come to perform upon the
classical and mathematical Tripos, a Pythoness will be first upon
the former, and another young lady will dance off triumphantly
Senior Wrangler.
[Illustration: SWEET GIRL GRADUATES--AFTERNOON TEA _VERSUS_ WINE]
_Punch's_ prophecy was fulfilled by the exploits of Miss Ramsay
(afterwards Mrs. Montagu Butler) and Miss Philippa Fawcett, daughter of
Henry and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. The College at Hitchin was moved to
Cambridge in 1873, when it entered on a new and prosperous career under
the title of Girton. But _Punch_, reverting to his facetious manner,
availed himself of the opportunity to publish a set of burlesque
regulations and syllabus of lectures for the new College. The same
spirit is betrayed in the comments on the proposed Ladies' Club in
1869:--
A Ladies' Club is said to be in process of formation. How the male
mind shudders at this most tremendous news! What a field for
fearful questions the intelligence suggests! Will there be a Club
Committee? and, if so, at its meetings how many ladies' tongues
will be allowed to speak at once? Will there be a smoking-room?
And, if so, will cigars be suffered to be lighted, or will the fear
of being ill restrain the ladies from indulgence in anything except
the very mildest cigarettes? Will conversation be restricted to the
politics of the nursery and the latest news in bonnets; or what
will be the limits sanctioned to recounters of a thrilling bit of
scandal, or to narrators of a tale of love, or marriage, or
divorce, which has just been set a-wagging in high life? Instead of
billiards we presume the younger members will amuse themselves with
tatting, while the elder are engaged in a fierce battle at
Bézique....
The ladies will, of course, want a title for their Club. Perhaps
"The Femineum" would be a fitting name for it; or would its members
prefer to call themselves "The Chatterers" while the present
fashion lasts? Should the Ladies' Club prove popular, there may
doubtless be some little ducks desirous to belong to it. But we
trust, however silly may be certain of its members, nobody will
ever dream of calling it "The Goose Club."
The promoters might have retorted that such criticisms were worthy of
the members of the "Asineum." But _Punch_ was fairly entitled to make
such capital as he could out of the advertisement quoted in 1874:
"Philosopher wanted, as Secretary to a Ladies' Club."
[Sidenote: _The Economics of Marriage_]
As we have seen, _Punch_ had frankly recognized that matrimony was not
and could not be the be-all and end-all of all women--that there were
some girls who, though they might marry if they chose, did not wish to;
girls who preferred independence to matrimonial servitude; girls, again,
who would make excellent wives, but were not chosen because men were
stupid enough to be governed in their choice by looks and looks alone.
The economics of marriage, again, were becoming an increasingly
important consideration as a result of the raising of the standard of
life and the cost of living. In the 'forties _Punch_ printed a song of
which the refrain was "If I had a thousand a year," which represented a
sum almost beyond the dreams of middle-class avarice, to judge by all
the things the dreamer would do and all the luxuries he would indulge
in, if his income reached four figures. In 1858 _The Times_ started a
serious discussion of the problem "Marriage on £300 a year," which the
same audience nowadays would regard not as practical politics but an act
of insanity. _Punch,_ however, satirized the discussion from the point
of view of an agricultural labourer earning a wage of 10s. a week.
Though in the golden days of Gladstonian finance the income tax came
down to 4d. and even 3d. in the pound, the standard of living rose, and
£500 a year is mentioned in 1867 as a possible basis for matrimony. From
whatever the cause--possibly the prevalence of large families had
something to say to it--the rapidity with which married people of both
sexes grew old, as compared with the juvenile grandparents of to-day, is
strikingly illustrated in the pages of _Punch._ Take for example the two
pictures "Twelve months after Marriage" and "Twenty years after
Marriage" in 1862. When we take into account the earlier age at which
people married sixty years ago, the couple in the picture on p. 265 need
no be more than forty-five; yet they both look at least seventy. One is
reminded of a passage in _Sense and Sensibility_ (though, that, of
course, was fifty years earlier), in which John Dashwood, speaking of
his mother, who is "hardly forty," suggests that "she may live another
fifteen years." The pictures given here represent a happy marriage.
_Punch_ had no panacea for unhappy marriages; but he remained of the
same opinion, so often expressed in his earlier days, that a cheap
Divorce Act was a better cure than the punishment of cruel wife-beaters.
And throughout this period he remained constant in his support of the
campaign for the amendment of the Women's Property Acts, on the lines of
his summary of Lord Brougham's three resolutions moved in the House of
Lords on February 13, 1857. They were "First, that their present rights
were all wrongs. Second, that a woman was entitled to her own property;
and third, that if our ridiculous theory of marriage prevented a woman
from having this justice, at all events a profligate husband should be
restrained from wasting her possessions." Lastly, he remained unshaken
in his adhesion to the cause of marriage with a deceased wife's sister,
or, as he termed it, "the Bill for Emancipation of Sisters-in-Law from
the tyrannical disqualification which prevents their taking the
matrimonial oath when elected by a Briton and a widower."
[Illustration: TWELVE MONTHS AFTER MARRIAGE
"Bobby ought to love his pet for taking such care of his beautiful
whiskers."]
[Illustration: TWENTY YEARS AFTER MARRIAGE
"My dear Bobby, you must let me pull it off your nose; it looks so
ugly."]
[Sidenote: _The English Feminine Type_]
By way of conclusion we may add that if _Punch_ reserved to himself the
right of castigating the follies of his countrywomen, he was valorous in
their defence when they were depreciated or caricatured by foreign
critics or artists. In 1858 he falls foul of a German journalist, under
the head of "British and German Beauty":--
The Berlin _Charivari_ contains the following humorous remarks on
English beauty:--
"Each Nation thinks itself the handsomest in the world. We paint
the devil black; the blacks will have him white. Miss Pastrano
delights in her beard, and every Englishman thinks his red-haired,
crooked-nosed, rabbit-toothed, goggle-eyed, loose-legged, calfless
Dulcinea the very perfection of human beauty."
Not quite that. Not so perfect as the raven-haired, Grecian-nosed,
white-and-sound-toothed, sloe-eyed, neat-legged young Teutonic
lady, with such pretty little feet and ankles at the end of her
legs. Of course the Prussian _Charivari's_ notion of an English
girl is a bit of fun, complimentary irony; and we are sure our fair
countrywomen will feel highly honoured by the mock-depreciation of
our cousin German.
Much later on the French caricaturists, who habitually represented
Englishwomen as lean, gaunt, ill-favoured and ill-dressed, and with long
projecting teeth, roused him to protest with equal vigour against their
gross and unseemly libels.
LITERATURE
There is probably no better means of testing a man's literary sense than
his estimate of poetry other than that written by authors of established
reputation. And as with individuals so is it with papers. _Punch_
deserves no special credit for his devotion to Shakespeare, or for his
ridicule of the Baconians who, in his phrase, sought to make the Swan of
Avon a Goose. It is curious, however, in this context to note that, on
_Punch's_ authority, Lord Palmerston suspended judgment on the question.
In the arm-chair commentary on current events which appeared in 1865
under the heading, "_Punch's_ Table-Talk," we read:--
When Ben Jonson's verses, in laudation of William Shakespeare, were
mentioned to the late Premier, he said, "Oh, these fellows always
stand up for one another. Besides, he may have been deceived like
the rest."
It is only one and a small proof of Shakespeare's "myriad-mindedness"
that _Punch_ throughout his career has drawn more freely from his plays
for subjects for cartoons than from any other source. Shakespeare, as a
modern writer puts it, "has always been there before." It was partly no
doubt due to _Punch's_ distrust of the national capacity to organize and
carry out picturesque demonstrations that led him to treat the
Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebrations in 1864 with scant respect. But an
honourable jealousy for the repute of our greatest writer was enough to
warrant his dissatisfaction. There were wide divergences of opinion and
considerable friction among the members of the National Memorial
Committee, a huge unwieldy body representing all professions and
interests, and containing, along with many great and honoured names, not
a few thrusting notorieties and even nonentities. The festival at
Stratford was a _fiasco_, and the grandiose schemes of the promoters
came to little practical result. One is indeed tempted to draw the
conclusion that it is almost unnecessary to attempt a special
celebration of one who is being celebrated every day and all the time.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE AND THE PIGMIES]
As a critic of letters _Punch_ is subjected to more searching ordeal in
his references to living and rising than to dead or risen authors. His
recognition of James Montgomery--the author of one of the very few fine
modern hymns--has been noticed elsewhere. There was chivalry as well as
appreciation in his defence of Alexander Smith when the charge of
plagiarism was brought against the "City Poems" by the _Athenæum_. The
ridicule of the "Spasmodic" school in Aytoun's brilliant burlesque drama
_Firmilian_ was a much more damaging criticism, but in recognizing
Smith's force and originality _Punch_ ranges himself on the side of
Clough and Matthew Arnold, John Forster, Arthur Helps and G. H.
Lewes--in other words, the most enlightened and best equipped critics of
the time.
Though Tennyson had been Laureate for several years, he was still
regarded--surprising and even painful as it may seem to the neo-Georgian
reader--with a certain amount of suspicion by austere critics bred up in
eighteenth century traditions. Both as regards matter and manner he was
considered to be an innovator. _Punch's_ admiration for Tennyson was
already an old story. He had lent him the hospitality of his pages in
1846 to reply to Bulwer Lytton's defamatory abuse in _The New Timon_.
But in some quarters judgment was still suspended, and Tennyson was not
yet held to have completed the period of probation. So when in 1859 the
bust of the Laureate was denied admission to the Library at Trinity
College, Cambridge, on the ground that the honour was premature, _Punch_
printed a satirical "Fragment of an Idyll" in which the poet's
detractors were rebuked in his own manner.
[Sidenote: _A Wonderful Three-penny-worth_]
_Punch's_ championship of Tennyson never faltered, though he was
reconciled to Bulwer Lytton, who had called the Laureate a
"School-miss," and it dated back to a time when Tennyson's claims to
recognition were vehemently canvassed. Still we are inclined to regard
as a much more remarkable sign of his _flair_ and enlightenment, the
quoting of Meredith's poem, _Modern Love_, in his "Essence of
Parliament," in the year 1865. It is only a scrap--four words; yet when
one remembers how remarkably small Meredith's audience was in the
'sixties, even for his prose, the quotation is a notable sign of grace.
But Shirley Brooks, who distilled the "Essence," was a scholar and
something of a poet into the bargain. There was also a special bond
between _Punch_ and George Meredith. In 1860, under the heading "An
Honest Advertisement," _Punch_ refers to _Once a Week_ as having been
enlarged to thirty-two pages, and speaks of it as "already one of the
most extraordinarily cheap publications in the world when you consider
the brilliancy of the literature and the beauty of the illustrations."
This was admittedly a puff, for the proprietors of _Punch_ and _Once a
Week_ were the same, but it was no more than the truth. _Once a Week_
was the most wonderful three-penny-worth in the whole journalistic
history of the nineteenth century, with Millais, Rossetti, Sandys,
Frederick Walker, G. J. Pinwell and Charles Keene as regular
illustrators. As for the letterpress, it is enough to say that
Meredith's _Evan Harrington_ (illustrated by Charles Keene) appeared in
its pages, as well as many of his and Tennyson's poems. In spite of this
galaxy of talent the magazine was not a commercial success, and after a
few years passed into other hands.
In extending a welcome to Kingsley's[26] _Water Babies_, and later on to
_Alice in Wonderland_, our friend _Punch_ did no more than might have
been expected of him. But his praise of the former story is pitched in a
pretty high key: the author of the "Table Talk" in 1865 declaring that
he "would rather have written the _Water Babies_ than any book in the
last fifty years." In the controversy that raged over _Poems and
Ballads_, in 1866, _Punch_ committed himself truculently to the side of
the angels of decorum. In consequence he writes pungently, that "having
read Mr. Swinburne's defence of his prurient poetics, _Punch_ hereby
gives him his royal licence to change his name to what is evidently its
true form--"Swine-born." Name-twisting, with a view to casting odium on
an antagonist, is an old but dangerous game. The most that can be said
in _Punch's_ defence, which is not much, is that he was not the only
offender. In the acrimonious pamphlet warfare that raged between
Swinburne and Dr. Halliwell Phillipps, the latter called the poet
"Pigsbrook," and the poet retorted by referring to his opponent as
"Hell-P." Apart from this error of taste, _Punch_ had at least the
support of powerful and distinguished allies in his condemnation. But he
overdid his disparagement when four years later he observed that
"certain Songs before Sunrise are promised us ere long, from the pen of
a young poet." Nor was the allusion to Walt Whitman as "an impostor" in
1869 any happier than his previous description of him as a Yankee rough.
[Footnote 26: In 1858 _Punch_ had chaffed Kingsley for his _Ode to the
North-East Wind_ in a parody purporting to be written by a dyspeptic
valetudinarian, who resented the strenuous "muscular Christianity" of
the original.]
[Sidenote: _Martin Tupper_]
Though by no means an infallible or judicial critic, _Punch_ made no
mistakes about bad poets, even though they were popular. Throughout this
period he was the champion of the middle-classes in politics; but his
championship did not extend to their literary preferences. In the
'sixties, Tupper was widely read and, judged by circulation, the most
successful poet of the day. To this generation his name has become a
synonym for platitude; and as an author, he survives, if at all, in the
immortal parody of Calverley. Yet we can never get away from the fact
that he gave pleasure to scores of thousands of decent people by his
blameless banalities. Though his _Proverbial Philosophy_ was the
quintessence of commonplace and orthodoxy, there are passages in it, as
Professor Elton has pointed out, which deviate into something like
poetry. He was, though vain, a kindly, good man, and a patriotic
citizen, who did good service in promoting the Volunteer Movement. He
was not a fool: did he not defeat Mr. Gladstone in the competition for a
prize for a theological essay at Christ Church? The University of Oxford
conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. in 1847. He was also an
inventor in a small way, and patented a screw-top for glass bottles. He
was even a Fellow of the Royal Society! But to _Punch_ he was simply a
bad poet, and as such a subject for ridicule and parody. Thus, _à
propos_ of his _Three Hundred Sonnets_, _Punch_ published in 1860 what
purported to be the three-hundred-and-first on "My Five New Kittens,"
winding up with the couplet:--
O cook, we'll keep the innocents alive,
They're five, consider, and you've fingers five.
The illustration alluding to a girl who writes to her lover with the aid
of "Tupper's poems and a Dictionary," acquires a peculiar point from the
fact, recorded in Spurgeon's Life, that he proposed to the lady who
became his wife by help of a passage from Tupper.
[Illustration: SHE "JESTS AT SCARS----."
AUNT: "And how's Louisa, my dear? Where is she?"
SARCASTIC YOUNGER SISTER (fancy free): "Oh, pretty well, but she won't
be on view these two hours. She's writing to her 'Dear Fred'; at least,
I fancy I saw her come out of the library with Tupper's poems and a
Dictionary!!"]
Owing to heavy financial losses Tupper accepted a Civil List pension of
£120 at the end of 1873, and _Punch_ supported the grant on the ground
that though philosophers might have learned little from _Proverbial
Philosophy_, there could be no doubt that a work read by the million had
either taught or entertained them a good deal. He also hailed it as an
earnest of better times coming for authors in general; for if Tupper had
received £120 a year, how many times that sum should be awarded to
writers of really durable works? This mitigated approval prepares us for
_Punch's_ subsequent malice in publishing a burlesque poem, purporting
to come from Tupper's pen, on a Royal wedding in January, 1874. But the
bestowal of those pensions too often invited direct censure. The
notorious "Poet Close" of Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, who described
himself as "Poet Laureate to the King of Bonny," was patronized by Lord
Palmerston (who indirectly compared him with Burns) and had been put on
the Civil List in 1861, though the pension was afterwards withdrawn. But
when _Punch_ learned in 1863 that the poet was poor in more senses than
one, he promised him an immunity from ridicule, and wished success to
his next work. The promise was hardly fulfilled in the following year
when "English literature was enriched" by Poet Close's _Grand Sensation
Book_ and by _Cithara_--a selection from the Lyrics of Martin Tupper. Of
the latter _Punch_ cruelly remarks: "it contains some new pieces, in
which Mr. Tupper has excelled himself: but _Nemo repente fuit
Tupperrimus_." The two poets are bracketed (as in one of Gilbert's _Bab
Ballads_) in some ironical stanzas, but the conjunction was hardly fair
to Tupper, who at his worst was assuredly a cut above "Poet Close." A
lower depth, however, was sounded by the poet Young, whose pension was a
positive scandal. Tupper is very generously treated in the D.N.B.; "Poet
Close" appears, though more as a curiosity than as a writer of any
literary merit whatsoever, his verses being described as "metrical
balderdash"; but for Young we have to go to _Hansard_ or _Punch_, whose
comment in 1867 runs as follows:--
We had some fun by way of ending an important week. Palmerston had
his Close, and Derby has his Young, only the doggerel of the latter
is not merely vulgar and foolish, but offensive. However, he is
pensioned. Mr. Whalley (probably thinking that Young was author of
the _Night Thoughts_) defended the grant, and said that Young's
sentiments were truly Protestant. Mr. Disraeli said what he could,
which was that Lord Derby had been hoaxed, and that it would be a
warning to himself never to sign or believe in a Memorial.
The vigilance displayed by _Punch_ in this matter no doubt helped
to improve matters, but even as I write, in 1921, the world of
letters has been staggered by the bestowal of a decoration on the
strength of literary achievements of which no record could be
discovered in any publisher's catalogue or library.
[Sidenote: _Thackeray and Dickens_]
One of the great novelists of the Victorian Age, Thackeray, had been for
many years a regular and brilliant contributor to _Punch_, and though he
retired from the staff in 1854, remained a constant member of the
council and sat with them only eight days before his death on Christmas
Eve, 1863. The tribute in the issue of January 2, 1864, pays homage more
to the affectionate and loyal comrade than to the great writer; but in
the following number _Punch_ repels with spirit the charge that
Thackeray was a cynic. Thackeray's contributions to _Punch_ belong to an
earlier period, but the brilliant burlesques of popular novelists, which
he initiated by his travesties of Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, G. P. R.
James and Lever were carried on with great spirit by Burnand in
_Mokeanna_ (suggested by the romances in the _London Journal_), _Chikkin
Hazard_ (founded on Charles Reade's _Foul Play_), and _One and Three_
(after Victor Hugo's _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_). Burnand's burlesques were
not nearly so subtle or artistic as Thackeray's; they relied more upon
farcical quips and ingenious puns; but still they served a useful
purpose in the elevation of parody from mere verbal mimicry into a
genuine function of literary criticism, a process in which _Punch_ has
played an increasingly active and successful part in recent years.
Dickens's intimate relations with the _Punch_ staff have been noted in
the previous volume. There had been friction with the proprietors, but
all was forgotten on his death in June, 1870. The lines which recognize
him as in the same category as Shakespeare, only say what even modernist
critics admit to-day--that he created a new world and peopled it with
creatures of his imagination who are as real as those of real life. In
the same number _Punch_, with some slight reserves, espoused Disraeli's
side when Goldwin Smith had rashly "put on the cap" fitted for him in
_Lothair_, and publicly and vehemently protested against being libelled
as a "social parasite." In some doggerel verses _Punch_ made acid
reference to the professor's bilious temper, intellectual arrogance and
general cantankerousness. If Disraeli's attack was cowardly and
contemptible, why notice it with such passion?
[Illustration: A NOVEL FACT
OLD-FASHIONED PARTY (with old-fashioned prejudices): "Ah! Very clever, I
dare say. But I see it's written by a lady, and _I_ want a book that my
_daughters_ may read. Give me something else!"]
Trollope is genially commended in the "Honest Advertisement" mentioned
above. The popularity of Miss Braddon's _Lady Audley's Secret_ and
_Aurora Floyd_ is attested in 1863; Miss Broughton's novels are barely
referred to, but the reference clearly indicates disapproval of their
audacity. Nor can we find any appreciation of the now unduly neglected
novels of George Eliot, though there is a curious mention in 1859 of an
anonymous sequel to _Adam Bede_ brought out by an obscure publisher
named Newby. It may be recalled that a claim to the authorship of _Adam
Bede_ was set up on behalf of a Mr. Liggins, a gentleman as unscrupulous
as his name was unromantic.
[Sidenote: _Carlyle and Ruskin_]
The imposture caused great annoyance to the real author, and hastened
the divulging of the secret which had hitherto been well kept.
_Punch_ had welcomed Macaulay's peerage, and on his death at the end of
1859 spoke of his as "the noblest name our Golden Book could show." In
spite of occasional sharp divergences of opinion, Carlyle is nearly
always treated with honour and respect. When he was elected Lord Rector
of Edinburgh University in 1866, _Punch_ saluted him in his own peculiar
style as a "brave, wise old man" who in an age of "eternal butter and
testimonial-plasterings of mediocrity," had flagellated windbags,
scourged sham patriotism, spoken words of manly cheer, and in general
shown that the root of the matter was in him. _Punch's_ further salute
in 1874 when "the Prussian Royal Order of Merit was presented to the
English historical biographer of Frederick the Great," is pitched in a
key that jars on modern ears by its eulogy of Bismarck and the Emperor
William; but the last stanzas of "True Thomas and his Order" are worth
quoting:--
Our mother England has no stars
For soldiers of the Pen:
With us such honours spring from wars
Watered with blood of men.
Then let us rather smile than sneer,
When from the Vaterland,
Whose thought to us he has brought near,
There is stretched forth a hand,
To pin the badge of merit fair
On Carlyle's manly breast:
The star can shed no honour there,
'Tis honoured there to rest.
The only other great Victorian literary lion of whom mention is made is
Ruskin, and _Punch's_ attitude towards him is somewhat mixed. In 1871 he
addressed an open letter to Ruskin, _à propos_ of his suggestions for
preventing inundations of the Tiber, the gist of it being that, whatever
he might be as an art critic, he was not infallible as an engineer.
_Punch_ admitted the "mystical and musical" eloquence of Ruskin, whom he
was quite content to regard as an oracle--though not always
intelligible--on Art and Nature, Paintings Old and Modern, Lamps of
Architecture, Crowns of Wild Olive, and so forth, but he refused to take
him seriously as a writer on economics or social problems. He showed
unexpected sympathy with him, however, over the famous road-making
experiment in 1874 at Hincksey, when the not very expert efforts of his
disciples moved Philistine undergraduates to ribald mirth:--
HINCKSEY DIGGINGS
(See recent Correspondence in _Daily News_, and elsewhere)
'Tis well for snarlers analytic,
Who the art of the snarl to the sneer have brought,
To spit their scorn at the eloquent critic,
Leader of undergraduate thought.
Heart of the student it will not harden
If from the bat and the oar he abstain,
To plant the flowers in a cottage garden,
And lay the pipes of a cottage drain.
Pity we have for the man who thinks he
Proves Ruskin fool for work like this.
Why shouldn't young Oxford lend hands to Hincksey,
Though Doctrinaires may take it amiss?
Careless wholly of critic's menace,
Scholars of Ruskin, to him be true;
The truths he has writ in _The Stones of Venice_
May be taught by the Stones of Hincksey too.
Other papers laughed at the "amateur navvies," Oxford caricaturists were
busy, and "to walk over to Hincksey and laugh at the diggers became a
fashionable afternoon amusement." But the road was wanted, and Ruskin,
according to his biographer,[27] saw in it a means of practical protest
against the fetish-worship of athletics, to say nothing of his probable
desire to dissociate himself from the Postlethwaites and Maudles who had
stolen some of their catchwords from Ruskin, but whose creed of "art
for art's sake" he cordially loathed. And perhaps the best vindication
of the experiment was the fact that the undergraduate road-diggers
included Alfred Milner and Arnold Toynbee; and that in encouraging his
disciples in the "gospel of labour" Ruskin formulated principles of
social service on lines which have been faithfully carried out in the
Universities' Settlements in East London and other cities.
[Footnote 27: See the _Life of John Ruskin_, by Sir E. T. Cook.]
[Sidenote: _Punch and American Humorists_]
American humour is not always to English taste. And, conversely, English
humour, as represented by _Punch_, has not always commended itself to
American critics, though nothing could be more generous than the tribute
to _Punch_ paid by New York _Life_ during the late war. At an earlier
date we remember a picture in an American comic journal representing a
room of torture, crowded with thumbscrews and racks and other engines of
malignity, with a pile of volumes of _Punch_ enthroned in the place of
honour. In this context one recalls with satisfaction that _Punch_
extended a cordial welcome to two great American humorists--Artemus Ward
and Mark Twain--in the 'sixties and early 'seventies. Artemus Ward was
in broken health when he visited our shores in 1866, but his lectures at
the Egyptian Hall were an immense success, and elicited the admiration
of such diverse critics as John Bright, Richard Holt Hutton, of the
_Spectator_, who wrote an admirable appreciation of them in his paper,
and _Punch_. Hutton once told the present writer that he was never so
convulsed with laughter in his life as when listening to the lecture. It
may be read in Artemus Ward's collected works, and it is very good
reading in cold print, but the effect was enormously enhanced by the
contrast between the lecturer's cadaverous appearance and melancholy
manner on the one hand, and the extravagant farce of his utterances on
the other. This is well brought out in _Punch's_ notice of "A Ward that
deserves watching":--
_Mr. Punch_ would recommend "funny men" on or off the stage, to
hear Artemus Ward "speak his piece" at the Egyptian Hall, and then,
in so far as in them lies, to go and do likewise....
Oh, if these unhappy abusers of gag, grimace, and emphasis--these
grating, grinding, grinning, over-doing obtruders of themselves in
the wrong place--could take a leaf out of Artemus Ward's "piece,"
and learn to be as quiet, grave, and unconscious in their delivery
of the words set down for them as he is in speaking his own! Unlike
them, Artemus Ward has brains. That is, of course, beyond hope in
their case. But if they could once be made to feel how immensely
true humour is enhanced by the unforced way it drops out of A.W.'s
mouth, they might learn to imitate what, probably, it is hopeless
to expect they could understand.
To be sure, Artemus Ward's delivery of fun is eminently
"un-English." But there are a good many things English one would
like to see un-Englished. Gross overdone low comedy is one of them.
Snobbishness is another. The two go hand in hand. One of the best
of many good points of Artemus Ward's piece is that it is quite
free from all trace of either of these English institutions. And it
is worth noting, that we owe to another native of the States,
Joseph Jefferson, the best example lately set us of unforced and
natural low comedy. His _Rip Van Winkle_ was very un-English, too.
[Sidenote: _Artemus Ward in London_]
But _Punch's_ approval was not confined to applause. He invited Artemus
Ward to contribute to his columns, and the invitation led to a series of
delightful papers--"Artemus Ward in London"--which appeared in 1866.
Some have found in them signs of flagging spirits--Artemus Ward died of
consumption at Southampton on March 6, 1867--but the mixture of
extravagance and "horse-sense" was never better shown than in the visit
to the Tower:--
"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had
somehow detected my denomination.
"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and
improovments, and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America, oh, my
onhappy Country! Thou hast not got no Tower! It is a sweet Boon."
The gates was opened after awhile, and we all purchist tickets, and
went into a waitin-room.
"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is
a sad day."
"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.
"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed
within these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"
"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel
like it; but as for me I decline. The early managers of this
institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes was trooly orful; but
I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If
they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs
over things which occurd durin' the reign of Henry the Three. Let
us be cheerful," I continnerd. "Look at the festive Warders in
their red flannil jackets. They are cheerful, and why should it not
be thusly with us?"
A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the "Trater's Gate,"
the armers and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit
about twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I
couldn't see that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.
Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit class of peple. If
they wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a
country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they
become statesmen and heroes....
[Illustration: THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
ENTHUSIASTIC PEDESTRIAN: "Am I on the right road for
Stratford--Shakspere's town, you know, my man? You've often heard of
Shakspere?"
RUSTIC: "Ees. Be you he?"]
Mark Twain did not visit London until seven years later, and _Punch_
greeted the "distinguished humorist" in the quatrain headed "Welcome to
a Lecturer":--
"'Tis time we Twain did show ourselves." 'Twas said
By Cæsar, when one Mark had lost his head:
By Mark whose head's quite bright, 'tis said again:
"Therefore, go with me, friends, to bless this Twain."
The greeting was renewed a couple of months later, and _Punch's_
admiration, thus early expressed, never wavered in all the years that
elapsed before Mark Twain was entertained by _Punch_ at his table on the
occasion of his last visit to England in 1907, when he came over to
receive the degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of
Oxford.
[Sidenote: _W. S. Gilbert_]
The relations of W. S. Gilbert with _Punch_ were made public property to
a certain extent by Gilbert's statement, in the preface to the collected
edition of the _Bab Ballads_, that the _Cruise of the Nancy Bell_ had
been "offered to the Editor and declined by him on the ground that it
was too cannibalistic to suit the taste of his readers." The _Bab
Ballads_ (so called from the signature "Bab" which Gilbert appended to
his illustrations) appeared in _Fun_, which was founded in 1861, and
were, while they lasted, the chief attraction of that paper. Gilbert was
undoubtedly nettled by Mark Lemon's decision; had it been otherwise, he
might very probably have become a regular contributor to _Punch_. But it
is not strictly correct to say, as the author of the notice of Gilbert
in the _Encyclopædia Britannic_a does, that Gilbert continued to
contribute to _Fun_ because he had failed to gain the _entrée_ into the
pages of _Punch_. As a matter of fact he had frequently contributed,
both with pen and pencil, to _Punch_ in the early 'sixties. In 1865 his
contributions included an amusing illustrated squib on the hydrophobia
scare, the lines to "An Absent Husband," and a long prose piece "A
wonderful Shilling's worth!" on the performances at the Polytechnic. The
last named was Gilbert's final contribution to _Punch_.
_The Nancy Bell_ was offered and rejected early in 1866, and appeared in
_Fun_ of March 3 without illustrations. The nonsense verses, "Sing for
the Garish Eye," which appeared in _Punch_ on April 16, 1873, were from
Gilbert's pen, but the explanation given a fortnight later showed that
they had been printed inadvertently; a "valued contributor" having
forwarded them for _Punch's_ private diversion and not for publication.
They had actually been printed elsewhere ten years earlier. The _amende_
was handsomely made, but Gilbert never contributed again to _Punch_. One
cannot help regretting that he began the _Bab Ballads_ with just the
only one to which exception could have been taken, for it _is_
cannibalistic!
Holding that a Free Press was an advantage to a nation, _Punch_ had
supported the Memorial to Leigh Hunt, who had been sent to prison "for
publishing opinions which _Mr. Punch_ in perfect safety may now put
forth when he pleases, and the fact that _Punch_ can just say what he
likes without a fear of Newgate is owing in great measure to the battles
Leigh Hunt fought," for which _Punch_ was content to overlook Leigh
Hunt's self-indulgent improvidence--so cruelly satirized by Dickens in
Harold Skimpole. But when Charles Knight died in 1873 there was no need
for reservation in the homage paid to that life-long and stalwart
fighter for the repeal of the taxes on learning:--
Oft times the fuel well nigh failed his flame,
And Ruin stood between him and his aim,
But manfully he grappled the grim foe,
Nor ever yielded sword though oft struck low.
And his reward was that he lived to see
Cheap Letters broad-cast sown, and knowledge free!
DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC AND THE FINE ARTS
Before the middle 'fifties critics of the Stage in England--apart from
the extreme Puritans--had three main grounds for complaint: the monopoly
of the patent theatres, the patronage of foreigners by the Court and
fashionable Society, and the popularity of degrading sensational plays;
and up to 1857 the pages of _Punch_ were eloquent on all three counts.
In the period covered by this volume not only was royal patronage more
judiciously and impartially bestowed, but the abolition of the exclusive
privileges of the patent theatres had cut at the root of the evil and
rendered possible such enlightened ventures as those of Phelps and Mrs.
Warner at Sadler's Wells. The immediate result of the Free Trade policy
in plays was to stimulate the legitimate drama, and in particular the
cult of Shakespeare. Phelps's work in this connexion comes in for
repeated approval, especially for his good all-round casts.
Shakespearean actors are prominent throughout. The announcement of the
death of Scribe in 1861 inspires the comment that the Members of the
Dramatic Authors' Association are as well as can be expected. _Punch_
had no love for endless _réchauffés_ of French plays, but he was no
bigot where foreign actors of merit were concerned, and cordially
welcomed Fechter as Hamlet in 1861, while deprecating the preliminary
puffing of his manager. It was not needed, for while admitting that
Fechter's accent was disconcerting, _Punch_ had nothing but praise for
his admirable play of feature, his graceful ease of attitude and gesture
and his intelligent conception of the character. As for the
interpretation as a whole, foreigners were entitled to read Shakespeare
for themselves: _Punch_ held no brief for the Protection of British
Stage Traditions, but believed in free trade in intellect as well as in
cotton.
[Sidenote: _Fechter and Ristori_]
At the foot of the notice there is a picture of a stout, shabby
tragedian exclaiming "Fechter! Pah! Hamlet with light hair and no
points. Pah! The drama's gone." This professional jealousy is again
ridiculed in "The Groan of a True Briton" a month later. The "boom" in
Shakespeare this winter was quite remarkable, with _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_ at Sadler's Wells, Booth in _The Merchant of Venice_ and _King
Richard II_, Brooke at Drury Lane, and Fechter at the Princess's.
Othello's occupation (on the stage) was extremely popular. We read in
the issue of November 9, under the heading "Great Fall of Blacks":--
Five Othellos are stabbing themselves regularly, just now, and
there will soon be a sixth, Mr. Charles Kean having ordered the
largest pot of blacking Messrs. Day and Martin supply, and having
announced that he is cubbing dext.
The vendetta against Charles Kean, it will thus be seen, was so
implacable that _Punch_ could not resist the temptation of dragging him
in without any provocation.
Another and a greater foreigner dominated the scene in 1863. Of Adelaide
Ristori, "the greatest of living actresses" in his opinion, _Punch_
confessed that her genius beggared description. When she appeared at Her
Majesty's in the summer of 1863 he declared that "in no English or
American dictionary could be found words of sufficient strength" to
express his admiration of Adelaide Ristori, or "his compassion for the
unhappy person who does not go and behold one or two of her
performances. This is a debilitated under-statement of the case.... What
a magnificent voice hers is, and how artistically managed. The _vox
humana_ is the first musical instrument in the world, but then so few
can perform upon it. Our Adelaide is one of the few." Here, at least,
_Punch's_ estimate never varied, and was only heightened by further
familiarity. When Ristori played Lady Macbeth in English ten years
later, _Punch_ owned to some misgivings as to her accent,[28] but on the
second performance he only noticed it twice. Otherwise "there was not,
from first to last, one single fault to be found with this remarkable
performance."
[Footnote 28: The present writer saw and heard Ristori in the
sleep-walking scene at Manchester in the early 'eighties, and her
foreign accent was undoubtedly most pronounced. Her first words provoked
laughter from the gallery, drowned immediately in a storm of cheering,
renewed at the end of an impersonation so powerful and even terrifying
that one entirely forgot the accent. The episode had an amusing sequel.
An old theatre-goer wrote to a Manchester paper to express indignation
at Ristori's reception by the gallery. The laughers could not be
Manchester men: they must have been boors from Chowbent. A couple of
days later a letter appeared from an equally indignant resident at
Chowbent repelling the aspersion on a community so civilized that it
possessed a Town Hall!]
[Sidenote: _The Drama in Russia_]
Foreign actors and actresses were in the main treated handsomely and on
their merits by _Punch_. Bandmann, the German-American actor, was highly
commended in 1868 and advised to act Shakespeare. The visit of the
audacious Schneider belongs to another phase of the drama, but the
condemnation of French acting as a mere "swindle" put into the mouth of
"Opie Wing," a "British Veteran--legitimate lead and blank verse
heavies," is purely ironical. The methods of the Comédie Française
troupe visiting London in 1871 are attacked precisely for the qualities
which were their greatest distinction--their refusal to force the note
or play to the gallery, their delicacy and self-effacement in the
interests of ensemble, as when Delaunay came on in livery just to give a
message. _Punch's_ readiness to admit that fruitful suggestions for the
improvement of the British Stage might come from the most unexpected
foreign quarters receives a curious and even prophetic illustration in
his remarks on "The Theatre for the People":--
Russia may well be described as a benighted country! But of all the
queer notions ever bred of barbarism, commend us to one in the
_Pall Mall's_ latest "Notes from Russia." Conceive a Commission
appointed to examine the question of the establishment of a
"Theatre for the People"! And more; imagine the Commission
reporting strongly that such a theatre should be constructed! A
theatre with a moral object! A theatre meant "to divert the people
from foolish, vulgar and gross amusements, by providing them with
healthy and elevating spectacular entertainments at a cheap rate"!
A theatre to contain seats for 2,350 people--say something between
Drury Lane and the Lyceum--with 1,300 of the seats at prices
varying from 2d. to 4d., and the others from 4d. to 3s. 2d.! This
infatuated Committee further report that such a theatre might be
made to bring in a profit of £5,000 a year--or ten per cent, on
the capital employed. They recommend that the management should be
entrusted to a competent private person, of experience, taste and
refinement, and have prepared a repertory of 140 pieces in the
Russian language, original and translated, calculated, they think,
to forward their object of entertaining and elevating.
They further recommend that lotteries, masked balls, and the sale
of spirituous liquors be forbidden in the "Theatre of the People."
Hear that, ye stunning sons of the music-halls--hear that,
frequenters of our splendid saloons and brilliant bars! Contrast
this barbaric dream of a Russian Blue Book, with the civilized
reality of London, where Free Trade in theatres does its work, and
the demand is allowed to create the supply of theatrical pabulum
for the people, from the Victoria[29] to the penny gaff! The idea of
the people being condemned to "healthy and elevating"
entertainment; when their betters can revel in the Schneider, the
Menken, the Cancan and the Opera Bouffe, the indecent burlesque,
the breakdown, and the sensational drama!
[Footnote 29: The "Old Vic," now reclaimed very much on the lines of the
Russian ideal.]
[Illustration: "FRENCH WITHOUT A MASTER"
MATRON IN STALLS (reads from programme): "'Overture to L'Onfong
Prod-eeg.' What does that mean? The prodigious child, eh?"
ACCOMPLISHED DAUGHTER (shocked): "Mamma, dear! No--'L'Enfant
Prodigue'--it means the Infant Prodigy!!"]
The historic invasion of the Russians did not occur till about forty
years later. Of the famous French players who delighted English
audiences between 1857 and 1874 the last and not the least fascinating
was Aimée Desclée, who, after an arduous apprenticeship to her art and
ten years of weary waiting, had been discovered by Alexandre Dumas
_fils_, and leapt into fame in _La Femme de Claude_, _Diane de Lys_,
_Princesse Georges,_ and, above all, as the original Frou-Frou in the
play of that name. Of her it was well said by a French critic that "she
had a strange, wandering, unbalanced look that revealed the troubled
depths of her soul. Her voice had a most peculiar _timbre_, and her
abrupt utterances, every word of which stung like the strokes of a whip,
fell upon a spellbound audience that hung on every word." After
fulfilling a brilliant engagement at the Princess's Theatre in 1873 she
returned to Paris to die at the age of thirty-seven. The tragedy of her
brief success and the exacting temper of the Parisian public are well
summed up in _Punch's_ memorial tribute:--
But too late came the harvest of her pains;
The roots of Death had struck deep in her heart;
And what cares Death for glory or for gains,
Guerdon of that short life, so spent for Art?
And she was dying, with the pitiless cry
Of box and pit and gallery in her ear,
"Give us thy life, but act, and, after, die;
It is to live with thy life we are here."