So high he floated, that he seemed to climb;

The bladder blown by chance was burst by time.

Falsely-earned fame fools bolstered at the urns;

The mob which reared the god the idol burns.

To cling one moment nigh to power's crest,

Then, earthward flung, sink to oblivion's rest

Self-sought, 'midst careless acquiescence, seems

Strange fate, e'en for a thing of schemes and dreams;

But Cæsar's simulacrum, seen by day,

Scarce envious Casca's self would stoop to slay,

And mounting mediocrity, once o'erthrown,

Need fear--or hope--no dagger save its own.

The Kaiser's visit to attend the Naval Review at Spithead is treated

in a somewhat jocular and cavalier spirit in the cartoon, "Visiting

Grandmamma":--

GRANDMA VICTORIA: "Now, Willie dear, you've plenty of

_soldiers_ at home; look at these pretty _ships_--I'm sure you'll be

pleased with _them_!"

[Sidenote: _Mistrust of the Kaiser_]

The Kaiser is shown with a toy spade making sand castles for his

soldiers. Yet these soldiers were giving ground for anxiety--witness

the cartoon in January on the armed peace of Europe with Peace holding

out the olive in one hand, with the other on a sword hilt. The

inevitable verses allude to the "truculent Kaiser" and evince mistrust

of one who comes in such equivocal guise. _Punch_ credited Bismarck

with exerting a restraining influence on the warlike activities of

the Triple Alliance. He showed him in the spring playing Orpheus to

this Cerberus, and lulling it to sleep. But the Kaiser inspired no

such confidence, and at the close of the year he is shown posing as a

peacemaker but preparing for war--fondling the dove on his hand, while

behind is the eagle, with bayonets for feathers, feeding on the Army

estimates.

[Illustration: THE RIVAL PETS; OR, FONDLING AND FEEDING]

Another sovereign whom _Punch_ failed to read with the same

penetration was King Leopold II of the Belgians. On the occasion of

the International Anti-Slavery Congress at Brussels in November, 1889,

_Punch_, while very properly applauding the occasion as tending to the

overthrow of "the demon of the shackle and the scourge," acclaimed

Leopold II as a "magnanimous King." Cecil Rhodes, some years later,

after an interview with the same monarch, said that he felt just as if

he had been spending the morning in the company of the Devil.

_Punch_, like other critics, was happier in dealing with the dead than

the living, and the death of John Bright in March inspired a generous

though discriminating tribute to the memory and achievements of

"Mercy's sworn militant, great Paladin of Peace":--

For Peace, and Freedom, and the People's right,

Based on unshaken Law, he stood and fought;

If not with widest purview, yet with sight

Single, sagacious, unobscured by aught

Of selfish passion or ambitious thought;

Seeing day's promise in the darkest night,

Hope for the weak 'midst menaces of Might:

Careless of clamour as of chance-blown dust,

Stern somewhat, scornful oft, and with the stark

Downright directness of a Roundhead's stroke,

Who drew a Heaven-dedicated sword

Against the foes of Freedom's sacred ark,

The friends of the oppressor's galling yoke,

All fierce assailants of the Army of the Lord.

These memorial verses, however, if I may say so without incurring the

charge of unfilial disrespect--suffer throughout this period from

prolixity. The writer says excellently, but diffusely, in ninety lines

what is summed up in the majestic quatrain of Scott which stands at

their head:--

Now is the stately column broke,

The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,

The trumpet's silver sound is still,

The warder silent on the hill!

[Sidenote: _Dropping the Pilot_]

Mr. Gladstone's golden-wedding day in July furnished the theme for

friendly and affectionate congratulations to a couple who stood for

"Darby and Joan" _in excelsis_. Mr. Gladstone's domestic happiness was

unclouded, but he was subjected to a painful ordeal in 1890 by the

disclosures of the Parnell-O'Shea divorce case and the split in the

Irish Party which followed. _Punch_ supported Gladstone in his breach

with the Irish leader. He is shown in one cartoon refusing to give his

hand to Parnell:--

The hand of Douglas is his own

And never shall in friendly grasp

The hand of such as Marmion clasp.

Gladstone is acquitted of "mere Pharisaic scorn." But an element

bordering on the ridiculous enters into the succeeding cartoon of

Gladstone and Morley as the Babes in the Wood, while Parnell and Healy

as the wicked uncles are seen fighting in the background. The further

developments of the struggle are shown in an adaptation of Meissonier's

famous "La Rixe," in which Parnell is held back by Dillon and O'Brien

from Healy, who is restrained by Justin McCarthy. Parnell's sun was

setting in gloom and storm, but a greater than Parnell was passing

from the stage of high politics in 1890. For this was the year of the

dismissal of Bismarck by the Kaiser, commemorated in the issue of March

29 by Tenniel's famous "Dropping the Pilot" cartoon. _Punch_ saw no

good in the change; he indulges in ominous speculations. Was Bismarck

animated by faith or fear of the future in quitting his post? Would

the new Pilot strike on sunken shoals or "wish on the wild main, the

old Pilot back again"? The Kaiser's gifts are seen to be no solace for

the wound of dismissal. As a matter of fact, Bismarck never used the

ducal title of Lauenburg conferred on him. In little more than a month

the Kaiser is shown as the Enfant Terrible of Europe, "rocking the

boat," while France, Italy, Austria and Spain all appeal to him to be

more careful and not tempt fate. The Kaiser's dabbling in industrial

problems, in the hope of propping his rule by concessions to Socialism,

meets with no sympathy. But a more serious ground for discontent

arose over the cession of Heligoland. _Punch_ waxes indignantly

sarcastic over Lord Salisbury's deal in East Africa by which Germany

gained Heligoland as a bonus. It was "given away with a pound of tea";

Salisbury's weakness was worse than Gladstone's scuttle and surrender,

and _Punch_ ruefully recalls the verses he printed nineteen years

earlier:--

[Sidenote: _The Surrender of Helgoland_]

[Illustration: "GIVEN AWAY WITH A POUND OF TEA!!!"]

TIME THE AVENGER!

On June 24, 1871, _Mr. Punch_ sang, _à propos_ of the Germans desiring

to purchase Heligoland:

Though to rule the waves, we may believe they aspire,

If their Navy grows great, we must let it;

But if one British island they think to acquire,

Bless their hearts, don't they wish they may get it?

And they _have_ got it!

But the fashionable world went on its way unheeding. Du Maurier

satirized this indifference in a picture in which one lady asks

another: "_Where_ is this Heligoland they're all talking so much

about?" and her friend replies, "Oh, I don't know, dear. It's one of

the places lately discovered by Mr. Stanley."

Russia, it may be added, also incurred _Punch's_ censure in 1890, the

legalized persecution of Jews forming the theme of a prophetic cartoon

in August, in which the shade of Pharaoh warns the Tsar, as he stands

with a drawn sword and his foot on a prostrate Hebrew: "Forbear! That

weapon always wounds the hand that wields it."

In 1891 the new "orientations" of the European Powers attract a good

deal of notice. The Franco-Russian _entente_ is symbolized by the Bear

making France dance to the tune of the Russian loan. _Punch's_ distrust

of Russia--semi-Asiatic and half-Tartar--dated from the 'forties. The

tightening of the Franco-Russian Entente in 1891 gave him no pleasure.

He quotes with manifest approval the comment of a daily paper on the

infatuation of France:--

The success of a Russian Loan is not dearly purchased by a little

effusion, which, after all, commits Russia to nothing. French

sentiment is always worth cultivating in that way, because unlike the

British variety, it has a distinct influence upon investments.

The cartoon of President Carnot embracing, and being hugged by, the

Bear was founded on an episode at Aix-les-Bains where he kissed

a little girl in Russian dress who gave him a bouquet, saying:

"J'embrasse la Russie." _Punch's_ verses represent Carnot as fully

conscious of his _blague_, yet with an uneasy consciousness that the

Bear is going to squeeze him. Russia's religious intolerance again

comes in for strong condemnation. The Tsar is shown wielding the knout

on an aged Jew while the Emperor of China greets a Christian priest.

This contrast was based on the issue of a decree in which the Chinese

Government condemned anti-Christian excesses. In another cartoon the

Tsar bids his minions remove another aged Jew on the familiar ground

that Jews were always to the fore in Nihilist plots. The European

Powers, it should be added, were not satisfied by China's official

tolerance. The treatment of foreigners had provoked a collective

protest, from which Russia abstained. So when John Bull, as a sailor,

asks Russia to take a hand in controlling the Chinese Dragon, Russia

replies: "Well, I don't know--you see, he's a sort of relation of mine!"

The admiration which _Punch_ had so often if reluctantly expressed for

Bismarck in office yielded to something like disgust at his undignified

bitterness in retirement, above all at his use of the "reptile press"

as a means of attacking the Imperial policy and Caprivi, his successor

as Chancellor. This feeling animates the "Coriolanus" cartoon in

February, where Bismarck is shown with the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ in

his hand. The death of Moltke a couple of months later is duly recorded

in a versified tribute making all the usual points--on his taciturnity,

composure, foresight and strategy. With his death Bismarck became

the lonely survivor of "the Titanic three, Who led the Eagles on to

Victory." Moltke died full of years and honours. It was otherwise with

Parnell who at forty-five fell,

not as leaders love to fall,

In battle's forefront, loved and mourned by all;

But fiercely fighting, as for his own hand,

With the scant remnant of a broken band;

His chieftainship, well-earned in many a fray,

Rent from him--by himself!

None did betray

This sinister strong fighter to his foes;

He fell by his own action, as he rose.

He had fought all--himself he could not fight,

Nor rise to the clear air of patient right.

[Sidenote: _The Passing of Parnell_]

_Punch_ notes his coldness, his impassive persistence as an agitator,

but says nothing of the ill-concealed contempt he showed for his

followers, and the entire lack of geniality, _bonhomie_, and humour,

which partly explained the mercilessness with which he was pursued

once his power was shaken. As he had never won or tried to win their

affection, he could not expect to find magnanimity in mean souls.

The wheels of the Parliamentary chariot drove heavily over the Land

Purchase Bill. _Punch_ showed Mr. Balfour leading the poor tired little

Bill through a maze of amendments. _A propos_ of its complicated nature

and endless, obscure sub-sections, which aroused much hostile criticism

in _The Times_, Mr. Balfour is made to say:--

_The Times_, too, may gird, and declare 'tis absurd not to know

_one's own Labyrinth_ better;

_The Times_ is my friend, but a trifle too fond of the goad and

the scourge and the fetter.

This, of course, was in the days when _The Times_ was ultra-Unionist.

However, the Bill finally passed through its various stages, and Mr. W.

H. Smith exhibits it with the fruits of the Session in June, 1891, as

a gigantic strawberry. The choice of this particular fruit as a symbol

was dictated by the fact that both he and Lord Salisbury had exhibited

strawberries at the Horticultural Show.

The relations of Canada with England and the United States provoked

much discussion in 1891. _Punch_ expressed confidence in Canada's

loyalty, and simultaneously published a burlesque "Canadian Calendar

(to be hoped not prophetic)," foretelling complete absorption in the

United States. It begins with Reciprocity with the U.S.A., and goes on

with the dying out of trade with and emigration from the old country,

the increase of improvident Irish, the request of Canada to be annexed

to America, and finally her decline into a tenth-rate Yankee state. On

the death of the Canadian premier, Sir John Macdonald, "old To-morrow"

as he was nicknamed from his habit of procrastination, _Punch_

overlooked the thrasonical magniloquence criticized in an earlier poem,

and only dwelt on his long services to the Dominion.

Earlier in the year _Punch_ had typified the Federation of the

Australian Colonies in a boating cartoon, the British Lion from the

bank applauding a racing eight, manned by cubs and coxed by a kangaroo,

and bidding them swing together.

On the death of the old Duke of Devonshire at the close of 1891, and

the accession of Lord Hartington to the title, Mr. Chamberlain became

leader of the Liberal-Unionists in the Commons. Mr. Chamberlain, in

spite of the _rapprochement_ already noted, was still looked upon in

some quarters as a somewhat dangerous Radical, and in January, 1892,

_Punch_ represented the clock-faced _Times_ lecturing him on his

responsibilities. Mr. Balfour succeeded Mr. W. H. Smith on the death of

that unselfish, honest and capable statesman, as Leader of the House of

Commons. The shades of Dizzy and Pam are friendly in the cartoon which

records the promotion; slightly anxious on the score of Mr. Balfour's

youth--he was then forty-four--but on the whole inclined to think

that he will do. Parliament was dissolved in June, the Liberals were

returned at the Elections, and the new House met on the now ominous

date of August 4.

NATIONAL DEFENCE

In the 'seventies _Punch_, as we have seen, was decidedly

non-interventionist. By the middle 'eighties he found it harder

to preserve a middle course between the extremes of Jingoism and

Pacificism, though he bestows impartial ridicule on both "Scuttle and

Grab" in his burlesque forecast of the alternate foreign policies of

the ultra-Imperialists and the ultra-Radicals. This was published early

in 1885, when the Liberals were in power, and though deliberately

fantastical and even farcical, shows how the wildest anticipations are

sometimes verified by fact. Four periods are chosen. In 1890 the Grab

Party inaugurate a forward policy all round by spending fifty millions

upon the Army and Fleet, and are turned out by John Bull when it is

found that their schemes involve

the seizure of sixteen islands, conquest of five native races,

absorption of fifty thousand square miles of--useless--new territory,

seven small wars, two large ones, four massacres, and an Income-tax of

five shillings in the pound.

The Scuttle Party is installed in power in 1895 with a big majority and

bigger promises:--

Finishes off all wars by caving in all round, retiring everywhere

and relinquishing everything. Cuts down Army, and resolves to sell

half the Ironclad Fleet as old metal. Power which buys it immediately

utilizes it against us. Another Fleet has to be ordered at once at

fancy prices in response to Press clamour. Scuttle Party, in cleft

stick, halts between two opinions; in pursuit of peace is found

fighting all over the world, and after frantic efforts at economy,

runs up Income-tax to six shillings in the pound. John Bull turns out

Scuttle Party.

Then we jump to A.D. 2000, but even then the wildest stretch of

_Punch's_ imagination does not exceed the establishment of conscription

and the raising of the Army to a million men. Finally in his last

forecast _Punch_ is reduced to solving the problem by an insurrection

under a popular soap-boiler, the seizure of the leaders of the two

parties, and the banishing of both "Scuttle" and "Grab" from the

political dictionary.

[Sidenote: _Snubbing the Volunteers_]

With the return of the Conservatives to power, we find that _Punch_,

so far from rebuking the Government for their expenditure on bloated

armaments, develops into something like an alarmist on the subject

of national preparedness and the folly of "cheap defences." The

inefficiency of the Army and Navy is a constant theme from 1887

onwards. The bursting of big naval guns, the badness of munitions

and designs for battleships are dealt with in bitter satirical

verses: while the damaging report of the Parliamentary Committee

on Army equipment and stores prompts a series of advertisements of

the "Benevolent Bayonet," the "Blazing Breech-loader," the "Comic

Cartridge," and so on. Dishonest contractors and incompetent officials

are attacked as "the Vultures of Trade" and "the Vermin of Office and

Mart." The persistent discouragement of volunteers by the military

authorities was an old grievance of _Punch's_, and it crops up in this

year in connexion with the removal of the camp from Wimbledon by order

of "George Ranger." Indeed, the bitterness of _Punch's_ attack on the

Duke of Cambridge revives the memories of the 'forties, when a duke,

royal or otherwise, was his favourite cockshy:--

Some prate of patriotism, and some of cheap defence,

But to the high official mind that's all absurd pretence;

For of all the joys of snubbing, there's none to it so dear,

As to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

A patriotic Laureate may bid the Rifles form,

And Citizens may look to them for safety in War's storm;

But Secretaries, Dooks, and such at this delight to jeer,

And to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

A semi-swell he may be, but he may be a mere clerk,

And he's an interloper, and to snub him is a lark.

Sometimes he licks the Regulars, and so our duty's clear,

'Tis to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

He hankers for an increase in his Capitation Grant,

It's like his precious impudence, and have the lift he shan't.

What, make it easier for him to run us close? No fear!

We'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

He has a fad for Wimbledon, but that is just a whim,

And as eviction's all the go, we'll try it upon _him_.

_He's_ not an Irish tenant, so no one will interfere,

When once more we snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

His targets and his tents and things are nuisances all round,

As Jerry-Builders, Dooks, and other Toffs have lately found,

Compared with bricks and mortar and big landlords he's small beer,

So we'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

The Common's vastly handy, there's no doubt, to chaps in town,

And crowds of Cockneys to the butts can quickly hurry down;

But what are _all_ Town's Cockneys to one solitary Peer?

No; let us snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

Your Citizen who wants to play at soldiers need not look

To have his little way as though he were a Royal Dook;

With building-leases--sacred things!--he must not interfere,

So let us snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British

Volunteer!

If he _must_ shoot his annual shoot somewhere, why, let him go

To Pirbright or to Salisbury Plain, or e'en to Jericho.

But out from his loved Wimbledon he'll surely have to clear,

A final snub, snub, snub, snub, snub to the British

Volunteer!

_Punch_ was not generous or just in representing the Duke of Cambridge

as a mere obstructive; and the sequel has not verified his forecast.

Wimbledon Common remains a great playground of the people, and the

annual meetings of the National Rifle Association, held at Wimbledon

from 1860 to 1888, have not suffered in prestige or value since the

move to Bisley in 1890.

References to the inadequate state of the national defences reach their

highest frequency in 1888. We have the duel between Lord Randolph

Churchill preaching retrenchment and Lord Charles Beresford advocating

expenditure on an increased Navy. This is followed up by _Punch's_

"Alarmist Alphabet" dedicated to our naval and military experts, to

whose warnings our rulers attach no particular importance:--

A's the Alarm that the Country's defenceless.

B's the Belief such assertions are senseless.

C's the Commission that sits with regard to them;

D's our Defences--the one topic barred to them!

E's the Expense--it's supposed we shall grudge it!

F is the Fear of increasing the Budget.

G stands for Guns, which we thought we had got.

H is the Howl when we hear we have _not_.

I's the Inquiry, abuses to right meant;

J is the Judgment (a crushing indictment!);

K is the Knot of red tape someone ties on it;

L's Limbo--where no one will ever set eyes on it!

M is the Murmur, too quickly forgotten.

N is our Navy, which some say is rotten.

O's the Official who bungles with _bonhomie_.

P's Party-Government--all for Economy.

Q is the Question engrossing our Statesmen.

R is Retrenchment, which so fascinates men.

S stands for Services, starved (out of Policy).

T is the Time when--too late!--we our folly see.

U is the Uproar of Struggle Titanic;

V is the Vote we shall pass in a panic.

W's War--with the Capture of London.

X our Xplosions of fury, when undone.

Y is the Yoke we shall have to get used to.

Z is the Zero our Empire's reduced to!

[Sidenote: _The Race of Armaments_]

Simultaneously Britannia figures in a cartoon as the "Unprotected

Female" surrounded by a litter of burst guns, broken contracts, broken

blades, unfinished ships, etc. Then we find _Punch_ suddenly appearing

at Downing Street at "the first meeting of the Inner Cabinet," and

shattering the complacent satisfaction of the Premier and the War

Secretary by a peremptory and menacing demand for speeding-up in the

supply of rifles and more energetic recruiting. In July, under the

heading of "_Punch's_ Parallels," the tercentenary of the Armada is

celebrated in a satiric perversion of the famous game of bowls into "a

nice little game of Ducks and Drakes--with the public money," in which

Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is attacked as a

lethargic aristocrat. Another cartoon shows Moltke rebuking the Duke of

Cambridge for persistently discouraging the volunteer movement; while

the enforced expense of life in the regular army is condemned in "The

Pleasant Way of Glory." Commenting on the swamping of the subaltern's

pay by compulsory but unnecessary outlay, _Punch_ remarks that "the

life of the British officer, as thus revealed, seems to resolve itself

into a prolonged struggle to keep up a false position on insufficient

means"; and he regrets that Lord Wolseley seemed to acquiesce in the

evil instead of encouraging British officers to be more frugal. Such

criticisms are not unfamiliar even to-day, for the old traditions die

hard. On the general question of national and especially naval defence,

_Punch_ was not by any means a voice crying in the wilderness. Public

opinion had been worked up by other powerful advocates, amongst whom

_Punch_ rightly mentions Mr. W. T. Stead. The debate on the Address

in the session of 1889 was prolonged and acrimonious. Early in March,

however, Lord George Hamilton moved a resolution, on which the Naval

Defence Bill was founded, authorizing an expenditure of £21,500,000 on

the Navy. The measure, of course, met with some opposition from various

quarters, but public opinion was manifestly in its favour, and it

received the Royal Assent before the end of May.

Throughout this campaign it is interesting to note how the personality

of the German Emperor obtrudes itself as a disquieting factor in the

international race in armaments. At the close of 1891 a lady with

alleged abnormal "magnetic" power was giving performances at the

Alhambra, and _Punch_ adapts the incident in a cartoon suggested by the

Kaiser's _dictum_--inscribed in the Visitors' Book of the City Council

at Munich--_Suprema Lex Regis Voluntas_. The accompanying verses

on "The Little Germania Magnate" are derisive, not to say abusive,

with their references to "Behemoth Billy," "Panjandrum-plus-Cæsar,"

"Thraso" and "Vulcan-Apollo." _Punch_ was evidently inclined to regard

the German Emperor as one of those "impossible people" who, as _The

Times_ had suggested in a happy phrase, ought to "retire into fiction."

Unfortunately he remained a fact, and was not to be killed by _Punch's_

mouth.

MEN AND MASTERS: WORK AND WAGES

In the preceding volume I endeavoured to trace and account for the

waning of _Punch's_ reforming zeal and democratic ardour, and to

illustrate his gradual movement from Left to Right Centre in the

'fifties, 'sixties, and early 'seventies. Many abuses had been

remedied, the barriers of class privilege had been broken down,

the cleavage between the "Two Nations" was less glaring, national

prosperity had increased, the ladder of learning had been set up

by Forster's Education Act. Free Trade and Gladstonian finance had

eased the burden of the working man and the taxpayer. England was

not a Utopia, but she had travelled far from the days of the Hungry

'Forties. In December, 1883, the late Sir Robert Giffen, one of the

most trustworthy and deservedly respected of the much abused tribe of

statisticians, published a comparative table of the consumption of the

agricultural labourer in 1840 and 1881. _Punch's_ comment takes the

form of an imaginary letter from a farm hand under the heading of "Food

and Figures":--

"Sir, Maister _Punch_,

"Look 'ee here, Sir. Squire Giffen, a-spoutin' tother night about I

and we country folk, stuck to it that we wur better fed nowadays than

we wur forty-one year ago; and them as 'eard 'im say that there, they

up and swore as how we wur a grumblin', cantankerous, discontented,

set o' chaps as didn't knaw naught of our own jolly good luck. Now

look 'ee 'ere, Maister _Punch_; 'ere be Squire Giffen's figures. Says

he that forty-one year ago, that be in 1840, I eat this 'ere in the

first column, say in about a couple o' weeks, and that now I gets

through this 'ere, wot he's set down in the second, in the same matter

o' time."

[Sidenote: _Food and Figures_]

The table follows, and then Hodge continues:--

"Now addin' all that there up, that be for 1840, about 69 lbs. of food

for I; while now he says, says he, 'Hodge, you old pig, you swallows

373 lbs.--that be six times as much--just as easy in the same time,

and you grumbles at it too!' Now look 'ee 'ere, Maister _Punch_, if I

does that there--and figures is figures--well ain't it plain that a

feed up like that must give I such a fit o' blues from indigestion,

as sets I hankerin' about franchise and land stealin', and such like

things o' which I knows and cares just naught, and gets I called by

a set o' chaps, as wants nothin' more than to make summat out o' me,

yours all of a puzzle,

"DISCONTENTED HODGE."

[Illustration: THE WAGES QUESTION

(_Overheard at Ironopolis_)

INTELLIGENT WORKING MAN: "Arbitration! Ca' _that_ arbitration!

Why, _they've given it against us_!"]

"Appetite comes with eating"; and here we have a concrete and

"luciferous" example of the somewhat grudging approval which made

_Punch_ acknowledge improved conditions, while at the same time

he expressed his misgivings at the leverage which the improvement

furnished to agitation and unrest. In the 'forties _Punch_ had

recognized that the legitimate grievances of the underfed masses

were a real danger. He now recognized, or at any rate implied, that

when well-fed they might become equally dangerous under the guidance

of extremists. He still believed that there was a great fund of

inert anti-revolutionary sentiment amongst the rank and file of the

people, but long before the days of "direct action," was alive to the

possibilities inherent in the oligarchical rule of Trade Unionism. He

saw that a well-organized minority in a key industry might dislocate

the whole fabric of production, and when in 1877 the miners attempted

to restrict output in order to keep up the price of coal and the rate

of wages, addressed the following remonstrance to Mr. Macdonald, the

mining M.P.:--

THE ARGUMENT A MINORI

So you suggest that they our coals who quarry

Should shorten shifts to raise black diamonds' price?

But, if so, why should other workers tarry,

Each in his craft, to follow your advice?

Till soon, hauled o'er the coals, like spark in stubble,

Over-production's doctrine goes ahead,

And all trades work half time, and come down double

For beef and beer, for house, and clothes, and bread!

Towards the close of the 'seventies industrial distress was so general

that in January, 1879, _Punch_ abandoned his critical attitude

and appealed for united effort and a cessation of party strife to

drive the wolf from the door. The "New Charity" that he recommended

was a voluntary curtailment of the luxuries of the rich--balls,

entertainments, dinners, and theatre parties, the purchase of jewels,

wines, etc.--in order to help in relieving distress. This involved a

surrender of his old argument in favour of the production of luxuries

on the ground that they provided lucrative employment. At the same

time, the terrorism applied to non-Unionists by the "Rebecca" gangs in

Durham moved him to vigorous protest, and in the verses on "blacklegs"

in April he writes:--

Blackleg _versus_ Blackguard be it!

Let's see which shall have their way!

[Illustration: THE TEMPTER

SPIRIT OF ANARCHY: "What! No work! Come and enlist with

me--I'll find work for you!!"]

[Sidenote: _Henry George and Socialism_]

Henry George's _Progress and Poverty_, which attained a wide

circulation in 1883, comes in for a good deal of hostile criticism. It

was an epoch-making book; and though, as water to wine when compared to

the strong drink of modern anti-capitalistic literature, it was thought

worthy of serious attention by _Punch_. In his cartoon in January,

1884, Red Riding Hood is confronted by the Wolf of Socialism, with

Henry George's book peeping out of his pocket. _Punch_, who reminds

us that Mr. Labouchere called the author "George the Fifth," admits

that gross inequalities existed, but saw no remedy in Henry George's

policy, which he regarded as wholesale robbery, and in "St. George and

the Dragon" ranked the American author along with Proudhon, the author

of the saying "Property is Theft." Yet a few weeks later he rebukes the

Duke of Albany, who, in a speech at Liverpool, had recommended that the

poor should be taught cookery. _Punch_ was a great believer in cookery,

but held that your hare must be caught first:--

Prince, you spoke a word in season

'Gainst uncleanly plates and slops,

But the workman cries with reason

"Teach me first to catch my chops."

In 1886 the number of the unemployed rose to a formidable figure.

There was rioting in Pall Mall and Piccadilly on February 8th after a

meeting in Trafalgar Square, and _Punch_, under the heading, "Sneaking

Sedition," indulged in a violent tirade against the "firebrand

fanatics," Messrs. Hyndman, John Burns, and Champion. It is headed by

a picture in which _Punch_ is gleefully stringing up three puppets

whose faces are portraits of the three "blatant trumpeters of sedition

who prated a mixed mob to passion heat, and then discreetly withdrew

whilst that passion found vent in wrecking and ruffianism." The writer

denies with an exuberance of fiery rhetoric that they represented the

unemployed, or anything but "fanatic hatred and shallow conceit--that

is to say, themselves." They were "cowardly Catilines of the gutter,"

recruiting sergeants of the "Army of Anarchy," "Sedition-spouters," who

egged on "the drunken, violent _un_working-Man" to outrage. _Punch_

appealed to all honest working men to repudiate these so-called but

misrepresentative leaders, and "sweep these social democrats for ever

from the land." It is a tremendous tirade, but disfigured by a great

deal of sheer abuse, and the cause of law and order was not assisted

thereby. Sedition cannot be quelled by strong language, and _Punch_

admitted that honest wage-earners were exploited by Capitalists,

Monopolists, and Middlemen; that all must compassionate the workless

working man, and that all should help him by friendly aid at the

moment and hereafter by well-considered reform. In the same number a

strong appeal is made to the opulent to help the Mansion House Fund

for Unemployed, and not to be scared by frothy street sedition. There

had been wild talk at the Trafalgar Square meeting about gallows and

lamp-posts for Ministers and Members of Parliament, and _Punch_, who on

occasion was a true prophet, may be pardoned for his failure to foresee

a time when John Burns would be denounced as a crusted bureaucrat and

Mr. Hyndman publish an enthusiastic eulogy of the Clemenceau whose

motto was "_Je fais la guerre_."

[Illustration: SOWING TARES

(With a thousand apologies to Sir John E. Millais, Bart., R.A.)]

[Illustration: THE TWO VOICES

ONE OF THE REAL "UNEMPLOYED": "How am I to make _my_ voice

heard in this blackguard row!"]

[Sidenote: _Unemployed and Unemployables_]

[Illustration: THE GUINEA-FOWL THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS

(_Æsop slightly altered_)

MR. P.: "Don't lose your head, my man! Who'd suffer most _if

you killed it_?"]

The contrast between the unemployed and the unemployables is repeatedly

emphasized in these years. Works were closed down because the hands

took themselves off to join a procession of unemployed. Wasters refused

work, preferring hymn-singing in the streets and levying doles from

credulous householders. A cartoon in 1887 shows one of the "real

unemployed" exclaiming: "How am I to make my voice heard in this

blackguard row?" Socialism is seen "Sowing Tares"--after Millais's

picture. Anarchy as the tempter prompts unemployment to plunder,

looting, and riot--the wrong way. But _Punch_ was not content with

chastising sedition-mongers, and in another cartoon rebuked callous

complacency as a real danger in a time of serious distress. The

contrasts of splendour and discontent were curiously illustrated in

these years. In the spring of 1886 there was a "scene" at the Opera

when the scene shifters struck work in the middle of the performance,

and appeared on the stage begging for money. In 1887, the year of the

Queen's Jubilee, special constables were sworn in, and Mr. Gladstone

as the "Grand Old Janus" is shown with one face applauding a constable

"downing" an English rough, while the other frowns on an R.I.C. man

standing over a rebellious Irishman. It was in the same year that the

growth and popularity of street processions moved _Punch_ to protest

against the invasion of the Parks by public meetings, which drove away

quiet people who used them for recreation from fear of King Mob and the

rabble rout. The procession habit has long since come to stay, though

it is only of recent years that the presence of children has become a

feature in these demonstrations. As for the Hyde Park stump orators,

the types genially satirized in one of the _Voces Populi_ series in

1889 include the Elderly Faddist, the Irish Patriot, the Reciter, and

the Physical Force Socialist. The Reciter, who dates back to the time

when the Latin satirist spoke of him as a nuisance in the dog-days, has

disappeared from the Parks, though he flourishes in Georgian coteries.

The other types remain with us, together with some new varieties.

But there is little new under the sun. In 1887 the Annual Register

mentions the exploit of a political agitator who chained himself to the

railings in a conspicuous position in Central London, thus depriving

the militant "suffragettes" of the credit of introducing this method of

protest.

[Sidenote: _Praise for Cardinal Manning_]

[Illustration: THE MODERN "BED OF PROCRUSTES"

PROCRUSTES: "Now, then, you fellows; I mean to fit you all to

my little Bed!"

CHORUS: "Oh, Lor-r!"

["It is impossible to establish universal uniformity of hours without

inflicting very serious injury to workers." (_Motion at the recent

Trades Congress._)

]

In the great dock strike of 1889 _Punch_, on the whole, showed a

disposition to side with the men. In his first cartoon in September

the working man appeals to the employer to think less of his luxuries,

more of Labour's needs. A week later _Punch_ appeals to the working

man not to kill the guinea-fowl (Trade), that lays the golden eggs,

by striking. In October, employer and employee are shown at the game

of Beggar-my-Neighbour, the master playing Lock-out against Strike.

_Punch_ pleads for give-and-take. _Both_ will lose by the game they

are playing. The same argument is further developed a few months later

in another cartoon in which the foreign competitor is the _tertius

gaudens_. The foreign Fox goes off with Trade, while the two dogs,

Capital and Labour, are asleep. To return to the dock strike, we may

note that Cardinal Manning's intervention was warmly applauded. _Punch_

thought the Cardinal ought to have been made a Privy Councillor and

Lord Mayor Whitehead a baronet for their services as conciliators.

Praise for a Cardinal and a Lord Mayor is indeed a wonderful change

from the _Punch_ of forty years earlier. The settlement of that "deed

of darkness," the gas strike in 1889, prompted the cartoon showing the

indignation of Bill Sikes and the Artful Dodger over the frustration

of their plans. Industrial troubles were rife in 1890. The Labour May

Day, already instituted, inspires a set of verses after Tennyson, in

which an enthusiastic operative sings,

"Toil's to be Queen of the May, brother, Labour is Queen o' this

May!"

The introduction of an eight hours' day, already vigorously agitated

for, set _Punch_ thinking on what would happen if the principle were

logically applied all round--to the Courts, restaurants, theatres and

the medical profession. He returned to the subject in the following

year, and came to much the same conclusion--that it would turn out a

new bed of Procrustes, on the ground that the universal uniformity

of hours of work could not be established without inflicting serious

injury on the workers. Socialism still continued to preoccupy _Punch_

in 1890. This time it is depicted as a snake attacking an eagle in

mid-air, rather a strange inversion of natural history. The eagle is

_Trade_, the wings are _Labour_ and _Capital_. The prosaic critic

will ask how the snake got there except on the wings of a soaring

imagination. John Burns is still a favourite _bête noire_, and is

severely rebuked for his dictatorial and aggressive speeches at the

Trade Union Congress and his action in connexion with industrial

trouble on the Clyde, the ghost of Robert Burns being invoked to

chastise his namesake in an adaptation of "The Dumfries Volunteer."

At the Congress John Burns had said that he was "in the unfortunate

position of having probably to go to Parliament at the next election,

but he would rather go to prison half a dozen times than to Parliament

once.... He must know on what terms he must do the dirty work of going

to Parliament." This was not a happy utterance, though it hardly

merited _Punch's_ bludgeoning. Burns was "perhaps Boanerges spelt

little": he "laid about him like mules who can kick hard"; "the mustard

had gone to his nose," etc. But in view of the way in which Mr. Burns

sank without a ripple from public notice in August, 1914, there is

point in the caution:--

[Sidenote: _The Coal Strike of 1890_]

Be warned in good time--why there isn't a man, Sir,

Or at most one or two, whom the universe misses;

You strut for a moment, and then, like poor _Anser_,

You vanish, uncared for, with splutter and hisses.

[Illustration: THE NEW "QUEEN OF THE MAY"]

To modern readers, however, the most instructive passages dealing with

industrial unrest in 1890 relate to the Coal Strike. In March of that

year _Punch_ published a prophetic journal of events, looming possibly

somewhere ahead, of life in London after being without coal for sixteen

weeks. It is interesting to compare this forecast with the realities

of 1921. According to the prophet, people have burned their banisters

and bed furniture; a syndicate of noblemen start boring for coal in

Belgrave Square, but are stopped by the sanitary inspector. The wood

pavement is pulled up and riots have broken out. The Archbishop of

Canterbury preaches on the Plague of Darkness in the Abbey by the light

of a farthing candle, which goes out; etc. Even if the recent stoppage

had lasted sixteen instead of thirteen weeks, it is more than doubtful

if _Punch's_ prophecies would have been fulfilled. At best they are

an exercise in burlesque, and lacking in circumstantial imagination.

_Punch_ might have foreseen the scenic possibilities of a long coal

stoppage and its clarifying effect on the atmosphere. And with his

belief in the solid sense of the people he ought to have refrained

from the suggestion of riot. But he may be pardoned for failing to

foresee how oil would come to our rescue. At the close of the same

month _Punch_ addresses a versified remonstrance to the miners. He

admits that pay should be liberal for dangerous underground work, but

deprecates the use of the strike weapon as ruinous to trade and other

industries by the laying up of ships and the closing of factories and

railways. So, just two years later, in a cartoon on "Going on Play,"

he condemns the miners' strike, which aimed openly at creating an

artificial scarcity, and thereby kept up wages. A poor clerk is seen

expostulating with a working man: "It's all very well, but what's play

to you is death to us." In the omnibus strike of 1891 _Punch_ was

decidedly sympathetic towards the overworked drivers and conductors,

just as he backed up the hairdressers in the same year when they

agitated for an early closing day and better and healthier conditions.

The verses on the Democratic Village of the Future, a paradise of

sanitation in which there would be no more "bobbing to their betters,"

and the rule of Squire and parson would cease, are largely ironical,

and the Socialist appropriation of May Day inspires a long warning to

this "new May Day Medusa"--the International--in a "Hymn of Honest

Labour" in May, 1892.

[Sidenote: _Bidding for the Labour Vote_]

Irony predominates, again, in the cynical verses of a year earlier

satirizing the tendency of all parties to bid for the Labour vote:--

STRIKING TIMES

New Version of an Old Street Ballad (By a Labouring Elector)

Cheer up, cheer up, you sons of toil, and listen to my song,

The times should much amuse you; you are up, and going strong.

The Working Men of England at length begin to see

That their parsnips for to butter now the Parties all agree.

Chorus.

It's high time that the Working Men should have it their own way,

And their prospect of obtaining it grows brighter every day!

It isn't "Agitators" now, but Parties and M.P.'s,

Who swear we ought to have our way, and do as we darn please.

Upon my word it's proper fun! A man should love his neighbour,

Yet Whigs hate Tories, Tories Whigs; but oh! they all love Labour!

Chorus--It's high time, etc.

There's artful Joey Chamberlain, he looks as hard as nails,

But when he wants to butter us, the Dorset never fails;

He lays it on so soft and slab, not to say thick and messy,

He couldn't flummerify us more were each of us a Jesse!

Chorus--It's high time, etc.

Then roystering Random takes his turn; his treacle's pretty thick;

He gives the Tories the straight tip--and don't they take it--quick?

And now, by Jove, it's comical!--where will the fashion end?--

There's Parnell ups and poses as the genuine Labourer's Friend!

Chorus--It's high time, etc.

Comrades, it makes me chortle. The Election's drawing nigh,

And Eight Hours' Bills, or anything, they'll promise for to try.

They'll spout and start Commissions; but, O mighty Labouring Host,

Mind your eye, and keep it on them, or they'll have you all on

toast!

Chorus.

It's high time that the Working Men should have it their own way,

They'll strain their throats--you mind your votes, and you may find

it pay!

We have now seen _Punch_ more as the critic than the friend of

organized Labour, and it will be remembered that even in his most

democratic days he evinced a deep-rooted distrust of delegates and

Union officials. But there is another side to the picture, in which

the old championship of the poor and oppressed is as vigorous and

vocal as ever. If _Punch_ was more mistrustful of Trade Unionism, he

was at least as unsparing as in his early days in pillorying examples

of the greed and tyranny of masters and employers who misused their

opportunities of exploiting unorganized or partially organized labour.

In the notes made for this section during this period the very first

relates to the sinking of the _La Plata_ and the burning of the

_Cospatrick_, two emigrant ships, in 1875, and the indignation felt

when it was found that the cargo of the latter vessel was highly

inflammable and the boats inadequate in number. The scandal moved

_Punch_ to rewrite Dibdin, with compliments to Mr. Plimsoll for

his campaign against coffin ships, which had not yet been carried

to its successful legislative conclusion. He also published, in

January, 1875, a mock inquiry--after the manner of Dickens's Bardell

_v._ Pickwick trial--by shipowners into the loss of the emigrant

ship _Crossbones_. The Court exculpates the offenders after finding

that the cargo--containing all sorts of combustible and inflammable

materials--was of the most harmless description, adding as a rider

that the boats should in future be always launched keel upwards. The

old abuse of the "climbing boys" still reared its unsightly head; Lord

Shaftesbury, in the debate on his Chimney Sweepers' Bill, in May,

1875, quoted the remark of a master sweep: "In learning a child you

can't be soft with him; you must use violence," and _Punch_ enlarged

on this text in his best manner. No appeal on behalf of children

left him unmoved. When subscriptions were invited in 1878 to lay out

a children's playground near St. Peter's, London Docks, he suggests

that the fortunate children of the West End should help to give this

playground to their less favoured brothers and sisters of the East.

As a lover of children, _Punch_ was quick to recognize those who had

laboured on their behalf.

[Sidenote: _George Smith of Coalville_]

In the Christmas number of 1879 he tells the life story of George

Smith, of Coalville, who began life as a poor lad in the brickfields;

worked his way up to the post of foreman and manager; and then devoted

his life to calling attention to the cruel overwork and ill-treatment

of the children whose labour he had once shared. In spite of neglect,

opposition, and obloquy, he secured the passing of an Act which brought

these hopeless little outcasts under the eye of Inspectors, limited

their hours of labour, and secured them some measure of teaching.

Though his action gave grievous offence and he lost his job, he set to

work to render a similar service to the children of the bargees, and

was the main agent in passing a law for the registration and inspection

of canal boats. In these labours he sacrificed not only his time, but

his means, and _Punch_ appealed to his readers to contribute to the

support of "this practical preacher of good will to man, this friend

of the friendless, this helper of those who, till he came, had none to

help them."

[Illustration: CRAMMING VERSUS "CLEMMING"!

BOARD-SCHOOL MASTER: "Now then, boys, we must get to work

again!"

ADVANCED SCHOLAR: "Please, Sir--mayn't we have somethin' to

relieve the craving of 'unger fust?"]

In 1881 the hard time of boys in attendance on weighing machines, said

to be on duty for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, aroused _Punch's_

sympathy and ire. Invention, however, rather than philanthropy,

furnished a remedy in the "automatics."

In the same year _Punch's_ appeal for the fund to provide poor children

with country holidays, embodied in "The Children's Cry," enabled him to

forward £280 to the promoters. In 1885 the "almost formidable success"

achieved by the experiment of Poor Children's Play-Rooms, in the parish

of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, delighted his heart. In 1888, _Punch_,

in "Cramming _versus_ 'Clemming'" emphasizes the need of providing free

meals for poor children. At the very end of the period under review in

this volume I have come across a notice of a book purporting to show

up the cruelties practised on young people and animals in training

them for acrobatic performances. The book was poor as literature, but

if true called for searching inquiry. Children have, we may safely

assume, been long safeguarded from the mishandling alleged to have been

possible in 1892; but at the moment of writing these lines--August 11,

1921--an inquiry is being held into the treatment of animals by showmen

and conjurers.

Nor was _Punch_ less concerned with the conditions of women workers. In

his "Dream of Fair Women" suggested by factory inspectors' reports in

1875, he points to lack of combination among women as the incentive to

slave-driving on the part of "foggers". He prefaces a set of verses in

October with a passage from a Report on the Black Country:--

The women are said to take the place of fathers as well as husbands,

while the men are idle and drunken.... At Bromsgrove I heard also of

the growing custom of idle, lazy young lads looking out for skilled

industrious wives, in order to obtain an easy life.

[Sidenote: _Men, Women and Dogs_]

It was, as _Punch_ puts it, an inversion of the old legend of

Penthesilea and the Amazons. Women were unsexed by labour and serfdom.

As for the men:--

_You_ loaf, train your whippets, and guzzle and gorge,

While they sweat at the anvil, and puddle and forge.

So at the time of distress in the mining districts in 1875 the miners

are accused of using charitable relief for the welfare of their

dogs rather than of their families. "How is it," asks a benevolent

directress, "you've brought two cans to-day, Geordie?" And a miner on

strike replies: "The yain's for my mither, marm, and t'uther for the

greyhound."

[Illustration: "TEMPORA MUTANTUR"

FARMER'S DAUGHTER: "I say, Jem, fancy! Mother said to me

to-day I was to help in the Dairy, and might help in the Milking!

Because she did when she was a Girl! I said I'd go for a Gov'ness

first!"]

There is little mention of the hardships of life on the land, though

labourers' wages were still very low; but the rise of the farmer

class to "gentility" is noted in 1885 in the picture of the farmer's

daughter seated at the piano and declaring that she would rather go as

a governess than help in the dairy. _Punch's_ sympathies were more

readily enlisted on behalf of shop and saloon girls. The movement

began in Bristol in 1876, where a number of ladies issued a circular

to employers asking that chairs should be provided for shop girls; the

plan was adopted in Manchester, and, following the lead of Lancashire,

_Punch_ repeatedly urges the plea for more considerate treatment. The

matter was "beyond a joke," and _Punch_ recommended ladies to patronize

shops where they were allowed, and boycott others. The subject was

taken up by the _Lancet_, and the movement spread to Scotland, where

a group of ladies made a personal tour of inspection in Edinburgh to

see which shops provided seats. One of _Punch's_ pictures in this

year shows a considerate customer handing a chair over the counter to

a tired shop-girl, and a set of verses describes a girl driven into

sin by need of rest. As he put it in his plea for "More Seats and

Shorter Hours," "A country where humanity interposes on behalf of an

over-driven cab-horse will surely not go on suffering hard-working,

weak and defenceless girls to be driven to death with impunity."

There was only one other place in which seats are not allowed. "That

is the House of Commons, but there the torture is only inflicted on

one-half of the Members." We hear little nowadays of the hardships of

shop-girls, but the seating accommodation of the House of Commons is

even more inadequate than in 1880. _Punch_, however, discussed Sir John

Lubbock's Shop Hours Bill in 1887 with an impartiality that borders on

inconsistency, showing the other side of the question and the popular

preference in poor districts for shopping in the evening, districts

in which "St. Lubbock" was looked upon as a well-meaning but fussy

philanthropist.

[Sidenote: _"The Cry of the Clerk"_]

As an individualist, a lover of independence, and an opponent of

monopoly, _Punch_ was in a difficult position. Some, at any rate, of

the monster shops led the way in the humane and considerate treatment

of their assistants. But the freezing out of the small shopkeeper

struck him as an undoubted hardship, and in 1886 he published a

prophetic article describing an interview in the "dim and distant

future" between a Stranger and the last shopkeeper in London. It is

an allegory of the tyranny of capitalism and monopoly, of the cult of

bigness and universality, the triumph of ubiquitous caterers. That "dim

and distant future" has not yet arrived, and after thirty-five years

the small shopkeeper is still going almost as strong as in the days

when _Punch_ uttered his dismal prophecy. But his most impassioned plea

in the 'eighties was not uttered on behalf of the working man or woman,

or the small shopkeeper. It was reserved for the victims of State

parsimony, underpaid clerks and Government officials. The campaign

on behalf of these new _protégés_ of his opened with "The Cry of the

Clerk," a long wail, charged with sentiment, uttered by an overworked

and underpaid drudge:--

I don't growl at the working man, be his virtue strict or morality

lax;

He'd strike if they gave him my weekly wage, and they never ask

_him_ for the Income-tax!

They take his little ones out to tea in a curtained van when the

fields are green,

But never a flower, or field or fern in their leafy homes have my

children seen.

The case is different, so they say, for I'm respectable--save

the mark!

He works with the sweat of his manly brow, and I with my body and

brain--poor Clerk!

* * * * *

Why did I marry? In mercy's name, in the form of my brother was I

not born?

Are wife and child to be given to him, and love to be taken from me

with scorn?

It is not for them that I plead, for theirs are the only voices that

break my sorrow,

That lighten my pathway, make me pause 'twixt the sad to-day and the

grim to-morrow.

The Sun and the Sea are not given to me, nor joys like yours as you

flit together

Away to the woods and the downs, and over the endless acres of

purple heather.

But I've love, thank Heaven! and mercy, too; 'tis for justice only I

bid you hark

To the tale of a penniless man like me--to the wounded cry of a

London Clerk!

[Illustration: TAKING THE LAW IN ONE'S OWN HANDS

FAIR BUT CONSIDERATE CUSTOMER: "Pray sit down. You look so

tired. I've been riding all the afternoon in a carriage, and don't

require a chair."]

The verses lack the desperate poignancy of Hood's "Song of the

Shirt," but they made their mark and were quoted in their entirety

in _The Times_. Subsequent articles and verses especially single out

the telegraph clerks as the victims of State slave-driving. _Punch_

declares that there was no rest for the telegraph "operator," and

describes a letter of appointment from the Government to one of this

class as being really a death warrant, offering £65 a year with the

prospect of rising to £160 after twenty years' service. Early in 1881

he writes under the heading, "Wiredrawn Salaries":--

The giggling girls, precocious boys, and half-starved clerks, who

form the Telegraphic Staff of that money-grubbing department of

Government--the Post Office--have petitioned for a slight increase

of pay, and have been officially snubbed for their pains. They have

petitioned for eight years, and for eight years they have received no

answer. The Manchester clerks were too wise to petition. They struck,

and their demands were at once attended to.

[Sidenote: _New Views of the Strike Weapon_]

This is not very polite to the ladies, but the comment is significant,

since it shows that _Punch_ was, on occasion, ready to abandon his old

view of the inefficacy of the strike weapon. In June of the same year

he announced that "The worms have turned":--

The chief art of Government is to do nothing with an air of doing

much. The best administrators are those who have thoroughly mastered

the axiom that zeal is a crime, and who are clever at sitting upon

troublesome questions. Unfortunately there are questions that will

not be sat upon, and the grievance of the Telegraph Clerks is one of

them. The Government have "considered" this grievance so long and so

dreamily, that at last the discontented Clerks have threatened to

strike. They may not at present have the organization and the command

of funds of the "working man," who is always on the verge of striking,

but these will come in the fullness of time. The Government have

roused a spirit of self-reliance in these overworked and underpaid

servants of a money-grubbing department, which no tardy concessions

can destroy. The patronizing, not to say fatherly articles in some

of the newspapers will encourage this spirit, for under the tone of

warning is an ill-concealed fear that skilful telegraphists are not

to be obtained from the fields and gutters. How much better it would

have been to have "considered" less and acted more, and have yielded

gracefully.

The Government were not, however, the only offenders whose parsimony

excited _Punch's_ indignation. In 1878, when the wages of the

railwaymen on the Midland were reduced, he prophesied increased

inefficiency and more accidents. Railway servants were, in his

opinion, overworked and underpaid. Twelve years later, in the autumn

of 1890, Major Marindin, in his report on the collision at Eastleigh,

found that an engine-driver and stoker had failed to keep a proper

look-out, but noted that they had been on duty for sixteen and a

half hours. _Punch's_ comment took the form of the cartoon of "Death

and his brother Sleep" on the engine. The overloaded country postman

had excited _Punch's_ compassion in 1885, and in the same year the

outrageously long hours--sixteen a day and seven days a week--imposed

on tram drivers and conductors had come in for severe censure in

an article which also mentions the sweating of East End tailors'

apprentices. It was this scandal, and the campaign which it provoked,

that led to the appointment of a Royal Commission with Lord Dunraven

as Chairman. _Punch_ joined in the controversy with a whole series of

articles, cartoons, and verses. His first contribution was headed with

a picture of a fat fur-coated contractor raking sovereigns out of the

"sweating furnace," and took for its text Lord Dunraven's statement

that "as regards hours of labour, earnings, and sanitary surroundings,

the condition of these workers is more deplorable than that of any

body of working men in any portion of the civilized or uncivilized

world." A set of ironical advertisements followed of clothes made by

sweated labour, including "The Happy Duchess Jacket--straight from a

fever-stricken home," and "The Churchyard Overcoat," the product of

slave-labour in the East End. Then we have "The modern Venus attired by

the Three Dis-Graces"--a stalwart fashionable lady waited on by three

starveling sempstresses; a mock Ode on the Triumph of Capital, full of

ironic eulogy of Mammon; and, most remarkable of all, a long sardonic

poem, published in September, 1888, under the heading, "Israel and

Egypt; or Turning the Tables," which is at once an indictment of, and

an apology for, the Jew Sweaters.

_Punch_ prefaces the poem with two extracts:--

"The Children of Israel multiplied so as to excite the jealous fears

of the Egyptians.... They were therefore organized into gangs under

taskmasters, as we see in the vivid pictures of the monuments, to

work upon the public edifices. 'And the Egyptians made the Children

of Israel to serve with rigour. And they made their lives bitter with

hard bondage in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in

the field.'"--Smith's _Ancient History_.

"The Sweater is probably a Jew, and, if so, he has the gift

of organization, and an extraordinary power of subordinating

everything--humanity, it may be, included--to the great end of getting

on.... The conditions of life in East London ruin the Christian

labourer, and leave the Jewish labourer unharmed."--_The Spectator_ on

_Sweaters and Jews_.

[Sidenote: _Jews and Gentiles_]

The verses compare the treatment of the Israelites under Pharaoh with

the modern sweating of the Gentile by the Jew middleman:--

Yes, the Gentile once "sweated" the Jew,

But the Hebrew has now turned the tables; Dunraven will tell you

that's true.

[Illustration: ONE EFFECT OF THE SWEATING COMMISSION

SWELL (_at West-End Tailor's, to the Foreman_): "Ah--look

here, Snipson, I've been reading all about this Sweating System,

don'tcherno!--and as I find that the Things I pay you Eight Guineas

for--ah--you get made by the Sweaters for about--ah--Two-and-Six--I've

made up my mind--ah--to do the thing well, without screwing you down.

So--ah--just take my order _for a Seven-and-Sixpenny Dress Suit_."]

The moral is summed up in the last four lines:--

And, behold, though the Sun-God is silent, the Son of the Sun-God

asleep,

Still merciless Mammon is master, the slaves of the Gold-God still

weep;

Be his ministers Hebrew or Gentile, his worship is cruelty still;

Still the worker must sweat 'neath the scourge that the stores of

the tyrant may fill.

Lord Dunraven withdrew from the Commission, and _Punch_ congratulated

him on his retirement, though it "seemed caused by a fad," when the

Report was published in 1890. The recommendations were inadequate, in

_Punch's_ view. He spoke contemptuously of applying the "rose-water

cure" and whitewashing the sweater, whom he depicts as a monster

vampire. Socialism, as we have seen, was a serpent of the boa

constrictor type. The tendency to big combines was typified by an

octopus, labelled Monopoly, controlling cotton, iron, coal, salt and

copper, and threatening a distressful lady (Commerce) perilously

navigating a frail canoe.

Bumbledom was not dead, but its activities were less blatant. _Punch_

gibbets the stinginess of the Lambeth Workhouse when in 1875 the

Guardians decided that Christmas pudding was too rich in good things

and recommended a plainer variety. Fourteen years later, under the

sarcastic heading, "Luxury for Paupers," we encounter the following

elegant extract from the _Standard_ of December 5, 1889:--

"At the Chester Board of Guardians yesterday, a discussion took place

as to whether, in view of the Christmas dinner, it would be advisable

to allow the inmates to have knives to cut their meat. It was

explained that at present the paupers had to tear the meat to pieces

with their fingers and teeth.... The Rev. O. Rawson proposed that they

should buy knives and forks.... Mr. Charmley, farmer, opposed the

proposal.... The motion to hire knives and forks on Christmas Day only

was put, and carried by thirteen votes to ten."

[Sidenote: _Manchester under the Microscope_]

The negligence and delay in administering Parish relief moved

_Punch_ in 1876 to declare that sick paupers were worse treated than

sick cows or horses. As an illustration of "The way we die now,"

there are further exposures of cruelty in lunatic asylums, and the

hard-heartedness of Guardians in harrying "bundles of rags." But

these revelations are fewer than in former years, and dwell more on

mismanagement and extravagance than actual inhumanity. Thus the report

of the committee of inquiry into the administration of the Metropolitan

Asylums Board in 1885 revealed gross waste and extravagant consumption

of wine and stimulants, not by the patients, but by the officials.

_Punch_ was "so long accustomed to hear of the wondrous doings of

'Manchester the Great' and the grand example she set to the rest of

the Kingdom in all that constituted good and pure government and sound

finance," that he could not repress a certain malicious satisfaction

at the result of the audit of the accounts of her Corporation by

the "Citizens' auditor," published in the autumn of 1884. The first

instalment, reviewed in October, is an entertaining document winding

up with an allusion to the pantomime of the _Forty Thieves_, fully

justified by the further revelations summarized by _Punch_ a month

later:--

MANCHESTER'S PLUCKY AUDITOR

This bold Gentleman continues his amusing revelations to the

apparent delight of the ratepayers, and the disgust of the bumptious

Corporation. We can only make room for one or two extracts. This is

the bill for a dinner, at the Queen's Hotel, for the Members of the

Baths and Wash-houses Committee, at which it will be seen that they

drank punch, sherry, hock, champagne, claret, port, gin, whiskey,

brandy, _liqueurs_, and mild ale:--

"To Twenty-one dinners, caviare, turtle, etc., 15s. each, £15 15s.

0d.; sherry, 16s.; hock, 50s.; punch, 7s. 6d.; champagne, 138s. 6d.;

claret, 50s.; port, 25s.; mild ale, 1s.; liqueur, 20s.; coffee, 10s.

6d.; cigars, 64s. 6d.; soda, 22s. 6d.; gin, 2s. 6d.; whiskey, 15s.;

brandy, 27s. 6d.; service, 21s.

"In addition to the above, the Committee had sent up to the Baths

the day before the opening, one dozen bottles of whiskey, 48s.;

one dozen gin, 36s.; half-a-dozen brandy, 84s.; half-a-dozen port,

48s.; half-a-dozen sherry, 48s.; two dozen soda, 4s. 6d.; one dozen

lemonade, 4s. 6d.; one dozen potass, 4s. 6d.; two boxes cigars, 22s.

6d. each; and half-a-dozen bottles of St. Julien, 36s.; making a total

of £52 2s. paid to the proprietors of the Queen's Hotel."

He adds that strenuous efforts have been made to find out the Gentleman

who called for Mild Ale, and, when got, consumed a shilling's-worth of

it.

If there were many such auditors, audits would form a most amusing

portion of our comic literature.

In these circumstances _Punch_ expressed a natural joy that Municipal

Reform was tackled at last in Sir William Harcourt's Bill, while in

his "Bitter Cry of Alderman and Bumble" he showed these two worthies

bursting into tears over the iniquities of "Werdant 'Arcourt."

The housing problem comes up early in 1877 _à propos_ of the late

Sir B. W. Richardson's hygienic theories. _Punch_ admits that he was

probably on the right track, but waxes sarcastic at the expense of

crotchety alarmists, and his own suggestions are more whimsical than

helpful. It was not until 1883 that he began to take the problem

seriously. I deal in another section with the fashionable craze for

"slumming," which _Punch_ ridiculed as insincere and absurd. But

there is genuine indignation in his verses on a judge's remarks at

Manchester, and on the report of an inquest, at which it came out

that a whole family occupied one bed on the floor; in the poem (after

Hood) on the Real Haunted House, comparing slum dwellers with rural

labourers; in the cartoon, "Mammon's Rents," on the text, "Dives, the

owner of property condemned as unfit for habitation, is getting from

50 to 60 per cent. on his money"; and in "The Slum-dweller's Saturday

Night" (after Burns), where _Punch_ drives home his old point of the

futility of foreign missions when we had all this unreclaimed slum

savagery at home. The personal investigations of slum areas undertaken

by Sir Charles Dilke, then President of the Local Government Board,

traced the evil to the greed of grasping landlords.

To this year belong _Punch's_ tirades against the iniquity of unjust

rates. In December he has quite a long article based on the hardships

of shopkeepers, small and large. He quotes two cases. The first is that

of a small shopkeeper. The street in which he lived had been recently

widened. Immediately his landlord raised his rent £30 a year, and his

rates were at once raised from £16 to £30. Another victim carrying

on business in a principal City thoroughfare paid a rental of £800 a

year, his gross profits being £1,500. The street was improved; his

rent was increased to £1,000; and £40 a year were added to his rates

in consequence of an improvement which had already cost him £200 a

year, which the landlord had received without the expenditure of a

single shilling. One does not expect to find precise information on

rating and rentals in a comic journal, but in the 'eighties at any rate

_Punch_ did not shirk such topics.

[Sidenote: _Housing and Health_]

In the issue of December 8, 1883, _Punch_ ventured to remind his

readers that on the 16th of that month, exactly forty years had elapsed

since Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt" appeared in his pages; but

it was perhaps an overstatement to say that the "Bitter Cry" was as

"loud and heart-rending" then as in the 'forties. The handling of the

Housing Commission in 1884 is decidedly irreverent, and the account of

its meetings and the speeches of Lord Salisbury, Mr. Lyulph Stanley

(now Lord Sheffield), and Mr. Jesse Collings borders on the burlesque.

Only towards Cardinal Manning does _Punch_ extend a limited measure

of sympathy. There was, however, no alloy in his praise of Sir Edward

Guinness's gift in 1880 of £250,000 for the better housing of the poor.

When Christ Church Cathedral was restored in Dublin by the liberality

of a wealthy distiller, a poor Irishwoman, as she gazed on the

building, remarked: "Glory be to God! To think that whisky could do all

that!" _Punch_ more discreetly commended "good Edward Guinness" as the

"munificent host of 'The Tankard.'"

This was the year of the Health Exhibition, the second of that

annual series which was a special feature of the 'eighties. On their

recreative aspect I speak elsewhere. It may suffice here to say that

_Punch_ summed up the conflict of aims which they represented in

the phrase "Commerce _v._ Cremorne." His anticipatory notice of the

"Healtheries" abounds in burlesque suggestions for hygienic exhibits;

in the account of the opening praise is largely tempered with irony;

and his "insane-itary guide" shows how largely these Exhibitions

depended on _al fresco_ entertainments, illuminations, and bands.

The growth of the modern mania for amusement was still in its infancy,

but _Punch_ has some instructive remarks on the decline of the many

institutions which had begun with the highest instructional aims and

aspirations:--

The Crystal Palace at Sydenham ... commenced its career with the

highest aspirations. The British Public were to be shown the

architectural glories of the Alhambra and Pompeii, and soon found

themselves watching the evolutions of Léotard and Blondin. In

like manner the Westminster Aquarium was inaugurated by the Duke

of Edinburgh, as a sort of supplement to "the mission of Albert

the Good," but soon had to fall back on Zazel and a "Variety

entertainment."

_Punch_ accordingly prophecies a similar evolution in the character of

the South Kensington Exhibition, and the sequel proved that here, at

any rate, he was a true prophet.

Students of Criminology will find much to interest them in _Punch's_

pages during this period. We have already seen that he had abandoned

his objection to capital punishment in the 'sixties. Commenting on the

debate in June, 1877, _Punch_ defended the maintenance of the gallows

as an _ultima ratio legum_--much on the lines of J. S. Mill, who had,

more than anyone else, converted him from his old view. Later on, when

the abolition was rejected by 263 votes to 64, he writes:--

We keep our gallows for the brute whom no rope weaker than the hempen

halter will bind, and no terror less terrible than Tyburn Tree will

hold in awe. There are such ruffians; and for them the gallows is, and

will be, kept for the present standing.

In 1879 the trial of Peace, the murderer, gave _Punch_ a good opening

for condemning the undue prominence given in the Press to the

personalities and tastes of criminals. He makes a good point against

papers which speak with two voices: filling their news columns with

personal details of murderers and denouncing the cult of the criminal

in their leading articles. Such inconsistencies, however, still

continue to grieve the judicious. In the early 'eighties the urbane

inefficiency of the Police Force, and especially of the detective side,

is a frequent theme of criticism, both burlesque and serious. The most

amusing entry relates to a constable alleged to have reported: "At 1.45

this morning, found an earthquake opposite No. 207." _Punch_ christened

the C.I.D. the "Defective Police," but proved his impartiality by

handsomely admitting the heavy odds against which constables had to

contend--the truncheon was no match for the burglar's revolver.

[Sidenote: _Crime in Whitechapel_]

Frequent allusions to hooliganism and armed burglars occur in 1882.

_Punch_ speaks of a "Mohock Revival," and asks, "Is the Police Force no

remedy, or must we all carry revolvers?" For a while complaints against

the impotence of the police cease, or take a new form, as when _Punch_

turns his attention to the disgraceful conditions prevailing at the

Central Criminal Court, where respectable men and women subpoenaed

as witnesses were exposed to hustling and insults from roughs--and

constables. In 1887 he extended his censure to the shocking condition

of the prisons in which unconvicted prisoners were lodged awaiting

trial. For the conduct of the police during the Jubilee Celebrations he

has nothing but praise, and waxed lyrical in "_Punch_ to the Peelers"

over their humanity and courtesy.

But a far more severe ordeal awaited the police in 1888, the year of

the crime wave in Whitechapel. Sarcastic allusions to the inefficiency

of the Force are renewed. One cartoon represents them blindfolded

and stumbling about amongst jeering criminals. _Punch_ was nearer

the mark in the cartoon headed, "The Nemesis of Neglect"--based on

a letter from "S. G. O." in _The Times_ pointing out that East End

slums invited crime--and in his admissions that the numbers of the

police were inadequate and that their inefficiency was largely due to

the publicity given to the movements of detectives, and the measures

taken by the authorities, by sensational interviewers in the cheap

press. The amateur "crime investigator" unfortunately continued to

flourish in spite of _Punch's_ censure. Hideous picture-posters,

vividly representing sensational scenes of murder, exhibited as the

"great attractions" of certain plays, are also condemned as a blot on

civilization, a disgrace to the Drama, and a suggestion of crime. It

should be added that _Punch_ expressly exempted Sir Charles Warren from

blame, and indignantly dissociated himself from the attacks of those

who joined in making him a scapegoat:--

The Police Force requires strengthening, and Sir Charles is perfectly

alive to the fact. What on earth can it matter if, in number, our

Police compare favourably with the Police Force at Constantinople,

or St. Petersburgh, or Vienna, or Jericho, if we have not sufficient

Police to protect life and property in the Metropolis? Socialistic

sensational Journalists and rowdy demagogues would like to see the

Police Force reduced to one in every two thousand, until they fell to

fighting among themselves, when they would be the first to yell out

"Police!" and scream for the intervention of the enfeebled arm of the

law.

In April, 1889, the proposed flogging of dangerous criminals excited

a good deal of controversy. In _Punch's_ cartoon in April Bill

Sikes protests as an injured innocent against the cat on the ground

that it will make a brute of him. _Punch's_ attitude was strongly

anti-sentimentalist, but he held that the lash should be used with

discretion.

In the summer he renews his demand for increasing the police. The new

Chief Commissioner, Monro, is shown telling John Bull that he can have

any number of policemen _if he likes to pay for them_, while Policeman

X, Junior, declares that the Force is overworked. It is curious to

note that, in the list of police difficulties, besides Whitechapel

murders, _Punch_ includes the control of Salvation Army processions and

obstructions. But in these days even so wise and good a man as Huxley

did not hesitate to label--and libel--Salvationism as "Corybantic

Christianity."

On the everlasting Drink Question _Punch_ sided with the moderate

reformers, disapproved of coercion or Prohibition, and found

confirmation of his views in the testimony of the Howard Association in

1876 that moral persuasion and improvement in the conditions of living

afforded the only real remedy. Recreation, as an alternative to and

distraction from the public-house, he always advocated. When the Sunday

opening of galleries and museums was again rejected in 1879, _Punch's_

cartoon took his familiar line that Sabbatarianism drove men to drink.

"Bung" congratulates Archbishop Tait on the support of the Episcopal

bench in defeating the measure. But in the same month, in "Friend

Bung's Remonstrance," _Punch_ inserted a protest against the notion

that all public-housekeepers would support Sabbatarian legislation.

That he was sensitive to foreign criticism is shown by his skit on M.

Millaud's articles in the _Figaro_ in 1880 in which the drunkenness of

London had been unfavourably commented upon.

[Sidenote: _Licensing Anomalies_]

The "marvellous magisterial licensing system" of the period, which was

"vexatious, inconsistent, and meddlesome," is repeatedly criticized

in the year. In an article on the degeneracy of the Aquarium, _Punch_

gives a full account of its vulgar, inane, and sensational shows, and

alludes to the nocturnal orgies enacted at that place of entertainment.

Music and dancing licences, he declared, would be applied for by the

ten thousand if there were freedom and wisdom, instead of the chaos and

vested interest maintained by "Maw-worm" and "Meddlevex" (Middlesex)

magistrates. The result was that London was "a city of unmitigated

pot-houses." Yet drinking, judged by the test of state finance, was

decreasing. The revenue from intoxicants in 1882 had fallen 2½

millions in seven years, and _Punch_ indulges in ironical comment.

The picture in the spring of 1883 of the "Temperance Budget" shows

the financial conditions of the country as only fairly satisfactory,

and represents John Bull as saying: "I have been too sober--_Nunc est

bibendum_." This was obviously ironical, but it was irony that might

easily be misread. _Punch_ would probably have endorsed Archbishop

Magee's famous dictum: "Better England free than England sober."

Teetotalism was to _Punch_ inextricably associated with cranks,

faddists, and fanatics. He was a robust humanitarian. Cock-fighting was

a barbarous pastime, but he resented the unfair differentiation which

punished working men who indulged in it with a heavy fine, while rich

and aristocratic pigeon-shooters went scot-free. Dr. Carver's shooting

performances at the Crystal Palace in 1879 are specially praised

because he did not exhibit his skill by the slaughter of pigeons. So

in 1876 _Punch_ had supported Mr. Flower's agitation against the use

of bearing-reins for horses. Cruelty to animals he detested; but, on

the burning question of vivisection, firmly upheld the practice, in the

interests of humanity, when guarded by stringent regulations, and sided

with Lister and Paget against Lord Shaftesbury, whose opposition he

deeply regretted.

[Illustration: HAPPY THOUGHT--A "SUNDAY SCHOOL FOR THE UPPER CLASSES"

(_Vide Bishop of Oxford's Speech at the Church Congress_)

ELIZABETH WARING (_Laundress and Charwoman, and Sunday School

Teacher to the U.C._): "And now, my dear little Ladies and Gentlemen,

I trust you will not _desecrate_ this beautiful Sunday Afternoon by

going on the River! You can do that from Monday Morning till Saturday

Night, you know! His Lordship here, who was at Eton and Oxford, will

no doubt _remember how the Oars he had plied so busily all the week,

lay untouched on Sunday_! And you too, my dears, will please to give up

the River, on that one day--to those who have been toiling all the busy

Week long in stifling Offices and grimy Workshops, and suchlike!"]

Wages, as I have remarked above, were still remarkably low, judged by

our post-war standards. In 1880 _Punch_ quotes an advertisement from

the _Lincoln Gazette_ for an "active young town crier and bill-poster

who can live on 1s. 3d. a week." But prices were low also, and by

the mid 'seventies cheap railway fares and excursions had led to a

great increase of travelling among the working classes. The "cheap

tripper" figures largely in _Punch_ throughout these years, and his

(and her) manners and customs lent themselves more readily to satire

than sympathy. _Punch_ was still the friend as well as the critic of

the masses, and when in 1883 the steam launch nuisance on the Thames

was exciting a good deal of inflammatory comment, published his "Sunday

School for the Upper Classes," in which a laundress and charwoman is

seen giving a lesson to young gentlefolk, turning the tables on their

Sabbatarian teaching, and asking them to give up the river on Sunday

to those who worked all the week. But here, as so often, _Punch_

showed his habitual impartiality by simultaneously admitting that the

state of the river was a scandal, and welcoming an official inquiry by

the Thames Conservancy Board. A year later he emphasized Sir Charles

Dilke's statement that the river was "a sort of savage place," with no

real police to enforce the law; _Punch's_ picture of the Thames on Bank

Holiday exhibits a carnival of rowdyism, collisions, and upsets. The

steam launch was no favourite of _Punch_. He had already shown it as an

intruder on the waterways of Venice, crowded with 'Arries and 'Arriets

emitting characteristic comments on the Bridge of Sighs.

[Illustration: THE STEAM LAUNCH IN VENICE

("Sic Transit Gloria Mundi")

'ANDSOME 'ARRIET: "Ow, my! If it 'yn't that bloomin' old

Temple Bar, as they did aw'y with out o' Fleet Street!"

MR. BELLEVILLE (_referring to Guide-book_): "Now it 'yn't!

It's the famous Bridge o' _Sighs_, as _Byron_ went and stood on; 'im as

wrote _Our Boys_, yer know!"

'ANDSOME 'ARRIET: "Well, I _never_! It 'yn't much of a _size_,

any'ow!"

MR. BELLEVILLE: "'Ear! 'Ear! Fustryte!"]

Throughout the 'eighties all the unlovely and odious attributes of

lower middle-class vulgarity were concentrated by _Punch_ in a series

of verses directed against 'Arry, who takes the place of the "snob"

and the "gent" of the 'forties and 'fifties. One sometimes wonders

whether the late Mr. Milliken, the creator of _Punch's_ 'Arry, was not

intoxicated by the exuberance of his own invention, by the deftness

of his patter, and exaggerated the atrocities of the original. For

there is no redeeming feature in 'Arry, or in 'Arriet, who is indeed

the worse of the two." ... Modesty? Meekness? Thrift? Oh, Jiminy!

Ladies of Fashion ain't caught now with no such moral niminy piminy."

Their lingo is extensive, peculiar, and unpleasant, and much of it has

mercifully passed into the limbo of lost words--"rorty," for example,

and (let us hope) "lotion" for drink. 'Arry, as depicted in these

monologues, is always the Cockney; the withers of the provincial are

unwrung in contemplating his excesses. He is sometimes a clerk, though

not of the class whose "Cry" had evoked _Punch's_ sympathy, sometimes a

counter-jumper, but always a cad. He and his partner are always drawn

in such a way as to lend point to the cynical saying that "life would

be endurable but for its amusements." His notion of pleasure is largely

made up of din and destruction. If he takes a holiday in the country,

he disturbs its sylvan seclusion by tearing up ferns and tearing

down branches. But he is in his true element at the seaside--witness

_Punch's_ gruesome adaptation of Southey's lines on Lodore, under the

heading "The Shore."

[Sidenote: _'Arry and 'Arriet_]

[Illustration: A GROUP OF 'ARRIES

In the centre of which may be seen the plain but captivating Mr.

Belleville, who explains to the lovely Miss Eliza Larkins that it's of

no consequence whether a man be handsome or not, "_so long as he looks

like a gentleman_!"]

'Arry figures in a less repulsive mood when visiting the Paris

Exhibition of 1889--"'Arry in Parry." He is very far from belonging to

the submerged classes, and has generally plenty of money to spend on

his amusements and creature comforts. But he is not enamoured of hard

work. The competition of the German clerk in 1886 fills him with fury.

He is disgusted with the "Sossidges" for ousting Englishmen from their

jobs, but is not prepared to emulate the industry of the foreigner:--

Young Yah-Yah 'as nobbled my crib, turns his pink shovel nose up,

old man.

_He_ may live upon lager and langwidges, Charlie; sech isn't

_my_ plan.

Mr. Gladstone had appealed to the Englishman to prove himself the

better man by competing with the German on the ground on which the

latter excelled. The Cockney clerk retorts that it isn't good enough,

and clamours for the expulsion of the industrious aliens who undercut

him.

Mixed up with 'Arry's selfishness, greediness, and general lack of

decency and good feeling there is a certain element of shrewdness, of

practical common sense, but it is always exerted on behalf of Number

One. Taken all round, he is easily the most disagreeable of all the

types created by _Punch_ in a period in which his former complacency

had given place, at best, to a somewhat peevish optimism, sinking at

times, as we note elsewhere, to dismal laments over our decadence.

But, in justice to _Punch_, it is right to add that by far the most

severe denunciations are reserved for the degenerates in high places.

The 'Arry poems do not show _Punch_ in the light of a Jeremiah or a

Juvenal. Taken together, they form a sort of composite photograph of

the mean Cockney who belongs neither to the classes nor the masses, who

lacks the breeding and reticence of the one and the primitive virtues

of the other. Moreover, the unabashed and undefeated complacency of

these monologues, apart from their shrewdness, inspires a certain

grudging admiration for this entirely impenitent "bounder."

[Sidenote: _Punch and the Army_]

But we part from him without regret, and with a feeling that he is

almost too odious to be true to type. He bulks so largely in the pages

of _Punch_ as to obscure the evidences of abiding friendliness to the

true democracy on which 'Arry was a mere excrescence. The manners

of the cheap tripper might offend _Punch_, but he was genuinely

delighted when bands were introduced in the Parks on Sundays to the

discomfiture of Sabbatarians and Pharisees; and we find him contrasting

the activity of the police in suppressing gambling in Bermondsey

with the tolerance extended to certain West End clubs. There was

nothing new in this attitude, but we may note a change in regard to

his views on emigration, which in earlier days _Punch_ had supported

with enthusiasm. In 1877 a curious letter, guaranteed genuine, is

published from a settler in Australia, describing the conditions there,

and strongly deterring emigration to a country where there were no

comforts, and nothing was cheaper than in England save meat.

[Illustration: TECHNICAL

"'Ellow, 'Erry! Why, 'ow _are_ yer?"

"_Eighteen Car-rat_, ole man! 'Ow's yerself?"]

In the earlier volumes of this survey it has been shown how deep-seated

was the prejudice against the Army amongst respectable middle-class

and working people. In his earlier and anti-militarist days _Punch_

had shared this feeling, and even denounced the recruiting-sergeant

as an ogre or worse. From the Crimean War onward this hostility gave

place to the wiser and saner view that the men who served their country

bravely and faithfully should be decently treated, properly fed, and

encouraged in self-respect by the community which they defended.

How far public opinion fell short in this regard may be seen in the

excellent appeal headed "Men Wanted" which _Punch_ issued in January,

1875. The Army was greatly in need of recruits, and the evidence taken

before the Recruiting Commission proved that "the want of respect shown

by civilians to Her Majesty's uniform had a great deal to do with the

Army's loss of popularity." Whereupon _Punch_ proceeds to point out:--

1. That the intellectual training of Soldiers is now a matter of

paramount importance, and that the Privates of many Regiments can

compare favourably with civilians as regards education.

2. That through the exertions of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge,

Recreation Rooms and Libraries have been established in all the

Barracks, with the object (an object that has been attained) of

fostering refinement in the ranks.

3. That, during the recent series of Autumn Manoeuvres, the Armies

in the Field have gained golden opinions from all with whom they have

come in contact.

4. That most Soldiers, when they leave the Service, are found to be

admirably adapted to fill the positions of clerks, railway-guards,

policemen, and other posts of importance and responsibility.

5. That a Colour-Sergeant is a Non-Commissioned Officer in command of

some sixty or a hundred men, who has been promoted after many years'

service in the ranks, in recognition of zeal, cleverness, and good

conduct.

Having made these observations, Field-Marshal _Punch_ is forced to

record his deep regret:--

1. That a Magistrate speaking from the Bench should have thought

proper to inform a Recruit that to join the Army was to take a false

step in life, which might possibly entail the breaking of his parents'

hearts.

2. That a Non-Commissioned Officer should be refused admission

to the best seats in a place of public entertainment because he

(the Non-Commissioned Officer in question) happened at the time of

purchasing his ticket to be wearing the should-be honoured uniform of

Her Majesty the Queen.

Field-Marshal _Punch_ consequently feels it to be his duty to issue the

following orders:--

1. In future, City Aldermen, in their official capacities, will

refrain from making remarks calculated to bring the Army into

ridicule, hatred, or contempt.

2. If any regulation exists preventing soldiers in uniform from

appearing in the better seats of places of entertainment, the rule in

question must be immediately abolished.

In conclusion, Field-Marshal _Punch_ is strongly of opinion that

recruiting will continue to remain slack until the difference existing

between the social conditions of the British Soldier in the present,

and the Negro Slave in the past, is thoroughly understood and admitted

by the public in general, and the people to whom this circular is

addressed in particular. It must be remembered in future that the

Livery of Her Majesty is worn by warriors, and not by flunkeys.

[Sidenote: _Mismanagement at Reviews_]