The remonstrance was well needed, though many years were to elapse

before the second of these orders was acted on. Yet if _Punch_ had

little mercy on those who imagined that _all_ soldiers were "brutal

and licentious," he had no compassion on those who disgraced their

uniform. In the controversy which arose in 1880 between Dr. W. H.

Russell and Sir Garnet Wolseley over alleged breaches of discipline

among our troops during the Zulu campaign, _Punch_ held that the

war correspondent's was a "true bill," and actually advocated the

reintroduction of flogging in the Army for "exceptional cases of

brutality which degrade the soldier to the level of the garrotter or

the wife-beater."

The allusions to the Volunteer Review in the Great Park at Windsor

in July, 1881, dwell chiefly on the habitual neglect and lack of

consideration meted out to the Army on these occasions:--

HOW TO TREAT THE ARMY

Select the hottest day you can possibly find for a perfectly useless

sham fight and send the men out with the heaviest, clumsiest, most

antiquated, and unseasonable headgear. When a few of them perish, as

a matter of course, of sunstroke, express the utmost astonishment

that anybody can die from such a cause in such perfect uniform in a

temperate climate.

HOW TO TREAT THE VOLUNTEERS

Encourage fifty thousand men to attend a Review, and then tell them

coolly that your military organization is quite unequal to the task

of giving them a day's food.... As they are nearly all respectable

middle-class members of Society, give them a shilling apiece to take

care of themselves, and trust to their decency not to abuse such

extraordinary liberality.

_Punch_ gave credit to the Duke of Cambridge for his efforts to improve

the amenities of barrack life, but came down heavily on him for

opposing the introduction, when the late Duke of Devonshire was at the

War Office, of neutral-tinted uniforms on active service. The Duke of

Cambridge thought it a good thing for a soldier that, when in action,

he should be visible, and _Punch_ dealt faithfully with this ducal

ineptitude:--

"THE THIN RED LINE"

(Horse Guards Duo.)

Pro.

Who says a soldier's a thing ready made

Of a suit of grey and a service-spade?--

That there's pluck in picking a 'vantage ground,

Then digging a hole and heaping a mound?

The notion's preposterous, laughable, quizzible!

By Jove, Sir, a soldier--he ought to be visible!

Con.

I grant you all that; but when Six-foot Guards

Like ninepins go down at a thousand yards,

'Tis time to note that, if work's to be done,

A field to be saved, a day to be won,

It won't be by speeches as firework as fizzible,

But by getting well home with movement invisible.

Pro.

Pooh! Stuff, Sir! What served us at Waterloo?

Your neutral tint, or your washed-out blue?

Digging and dodging?--I rather opine

A rush with a cheer of a "thin red line,"

In the midst of a hailstorm of all things whizzible!

Don't talk, Sir, to me of a coat that's not visible!

Con.

No use, my good friend; for though you may bless

The days that departed with Old Brown Bess,

If you make that "red line," that never will yield,

A target for every shot in the field,

Of your foemen you'll stir the faculties risible--

For neither your troops nor your brains will be visible!

[Sidenote: _Heroes, Charlatans and Criminals_]

Nor did _Punch_ in his zeal for the soldier on active service forget

the claims to grateful recognition of the ex-service man. In 1890 we

find an indignant appeal for the survivors of the Balaklava Charge,

showing how they had been forgotten--except in music-hall recitations.

To reinforce the appeal, _Punch_ printed a picture contrasting a

Balaklava survivor, dying in a garret, with the well-remunerated

professional "fasting man," one of whom was much in the public eye just

then. An even more lurid contrast in modern hero-worship is exhibited

in the sardonic description of the fêting and glorifying of criminals.

The verses "I'd be a criminal" show how fashion, pseudo-science,

sensational journalism, and sentimental folly conspired to apotheosize

the murderer.

THE STATUS OF WOMEN

[Sidenote: _Undomestic Daughters_]

The history of modern England as set forth in the files of _Punch_

is largely a record of the education of the average man; and there

are few, if any, aspects of this education during the period under

review in this volume in which greater changes are observable than

in _Punch's_ altered view of the _status_ of women. Even in his

earliest days he had "rounded Cape Turk"; he had never favoured an

Oriental seclusion of his womankind. But an element of condescension

and patronage mingled with his chivalry. Their efforts to emerge

from the sphere of domestic duties met for the most part with amused

ridicule. For the rest the phrase "pretty dears" fairly sums up

_Punch's_ earlier view of the place of women in the universe. This

view had already been largely modified. We have seen how he had been

shaken over the question of the suffrage, how he had been converted to

women's invasion of the medical and other professions, and to their

election to the London School Board. The progress of this recognition

continues throughout this period; the competition of women sometimes

excites chaff, sometimes misgiving, but it is no longer regarded as

futile. Their solid achievements in a variety of spheres of activity

are handsomely acknowledged. We hear less of the "pretty dears" and

"ducks"; they are increasingly credited with the capacity to hold their

own intellectually with the lords of creation. A conspicuous proof

of this altered view is to be found in the texts which accompany the

"social cuts" in the 'eighties and 'nineties. It has been said that

"the ball of repartee cannot be kept up without constant repercussion,"

but in the days of Leech the repercussive quality was denied to the

fair sex. This defect has _now_ been so completely redressed that the

balance inclines rather to the other side, and in Du Maurier's pictures

the "score" is generally given to the women. The day of the domestic

"doormat" was passing, and grown-up girls are no longer at the mercy

of pert or tyrannous schoolboy brothers. True, this self-assertion was

far from complete. The solidarity and cohesion of the family circle was

substantially unimpaired. Bachelor girls and revolting daughters were

a negligible minority; and in the 'eighties the number of professional

women was so small that unmarried aunts still played a considerable

part in the domestic system, and are frequently found in charge of

their small nephews and nieces. It was not until 1890 that _Punch_

included in his series of "Modern Types" that of "The Undomestic

Daughter"; and even then her self-expression is circumscribed by lack

of opportunity and, in the portrait given, can only find vent in

fussy and futile philanthropy. She is a dreary rebel, with a genius

for discomfort, who neglects her family when they need her most,

ultimately contracts an unromantic marriage, and ends up as a domestic

tyrant--a sort of variant on Mrs. Jellyby, but hardly recognizable as a

forerunner of the emancipated daughter of to-day.

[Illustration: MODERN ÆSTHETICS

MATERFAMILIAS: "Where have you been all the morning, girls?"

SOPHRONIA CASSANDRA: "We've been practising old Greek

attitudes at lawn-tennis, mamma!"

PAPA (_who is not æsthetic_): "Ah! hope you like it, I'm sure!"

SOPHRONIA CASSANDRA: "Very much, papa--only we _never hit the

ball_!"]

_Punch_ was already a convert to the higher education of women within

certain limits. His reservations are shown in 1875 in an interview

between Professor _Punch_ and an ideal candidate for the Ladies'

University as it should be. Domestic economy comes first in the

curriculum, the humanities second. A picture in the following year

would seem to indicate that _Punch's_ ideal was inverted, for one

Girton student is shown reading to another a valentine headed with

the famous lines from the _Antigone_ of Sophocles beginning [Greek:

Erôs anikate machan].[3] "How much jollier," she observes, "than

those silly English verses fellows used to send!" Classics were still

the predominant partner, and in 1878 _Punch_ notes and resents the

attempted revival of classical costume inaugurated by a fashionable

poetess. 'Arry's tirade against the higher education of women in 1879,

blaspheming against the whole movement as ridiculous and unnatural, is

heavily ironical, for in the same year _Punch_ has some friendly verses

on the extension of Girton and Newnham, and in 1880 congratulates

Miss Scott on being bracketed eighth Wrangler. _Punch_ simultaneously

congratulated Mrs., afterwards Lady Butler, on being elected an A.R.A.,

and rejoiced that the doors of the Academy had been reopened to the sex

once honoured in the days of Sir Joshua:--

Mrs. Butler, née Elizabeth Thompson, _Punch_ takes off his hat to you

as the first Lady Associate. Your predecessors, Angelica Kauffmann and

Mary Moser, sprang into being full-blown R.A.'s.

This is as it should be. At last _Punch_ may say, and with pride he

says it, the Ladies are looking up--looking up to the high places of

Science and Art, which should never have been held beyond their reach,

and which will be graced by their occupancy.

But when the Academy doors are reopened to the Ladies, let them be

opened to their full width. Let us not hear of any petty restrictions

or exclusions from this or that function or privilege of R.A. What

these letters bring men let them bring to women.

_Punch's_ congratulations were premature. Forty years have elapsed, and

no women have yet been elected Associates.

[Footnote 3: The quotation reminds me that, when I was an undergraduate

at Oxford at this time, the handmaiden at a certain lodgings was called

"Annie Katie" by successive generations of undergraduates. These

were not her baptismal names: they had been bestowed upon her by an

ingenious scholar because her surname was Macan.]

[Sidenote: _A Song of Degrees_]

It was in 1880 again that _Punch_ backed the appeal of Girton for funds

to carry out the extension scheme and supported the petition of women

for university degrees. Here he represents the would-be woman graduate

as Vivien endeavouring to win over the recalcitrant academic Merlin:--

In Arts, if once examiners be ours,

To take degrees we must have equal powers;

The loss of these is as the loss of all.

It is the little rift within the lute,

That soon will leave the Girton lecturer mute;

And, slowly emptying, silence Newnham Hall.

The little rift in academic lute,

The speck of discontent in hard-earned fruit,

That, eating inwards, turns it into gall.

It is not worth the keeping; let it go:

But shall it? Answer fairly, answer no;

And take us all in all or not at all.

The decision of Durham University to grant women the B.A. degree in

1881 is cordially applauded, though the welcome is impaired by the

facetious heading, "'Ducks' at Durham"; and the liberality of Cambridge

in admitting women to the Tripos Examination is contrasted with the

churlishness of Oxford. As I write the tables have been turned and

Oxford is the paradise of the girl graduate.

In his earlier days _Punch_ never wearied of insisting on the

importance of cookery, but a set of verses in 1881 marks an altered

mood towards the old "woman in the kitchen" cry. Here the suggestion

is even made that _men_ would be benefited by a course of lessons in

cooking, and there is obvious irony in the concluding lines:--

This is woman's true position--

In the kitchen's inmost nook;

And a lady's noblest mission

Is to cook.

The two moods are subtly combined in Du Maurier's famous and

unforgettable picture of the cynical widow advising a wife of two

years' standing to "feed the brute."

[Illustration: EXPERIENTIA DOCET

WIFE OF TWO YEARS' STANDING: "Oh yes! I'm sure he's not so

fond of me as at first. He's away so much, neglects me dreadfully, and

he's so cross when he comes home. What _shall_ I do?"

WIDOW: "Feed the brute!"]

[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Misgivings_]

From the 'eighties onward physical culture plays an ever-increasing

part in the education of girls. _Punch_ went astray in assuming in 1883

that bicycling was impossible for women, but in this and the next year

we find him encouraging gymnastics for girls, though there is a touch

of satire in Du Maurier's fashionable mother, who boasts to an eligible

aspirant that every one of her daughters can knock their father down.

The invasion of the domain of pastime and athletics by women and girls

will be noted later on. For the moment I am concerned with their

intellectual rather than their physical development. Little is said of

girls' schools, though an interesting sidelight is shed on the methods

of the old-fashioned boarding-school in the picture of the charming

girl who explains to a Frenchman her fluency in his tongue: "At school

the girl who sat next me at dinner used to eat my fat, and I used to

do her French exercise for her; so I got lots of practice." Girls were

becoming more studious, more highly educated, but they were not all

female Admirable Crichtons. In 1885 _Punch_ chronicles the ingenuous

remark of a young lady to her friend, "Only fancy! _As You Like It_ is

by Shakespeare!" He welcomed the admission of lady graduates to the

Convocation of the University of London in 1884, but misgiving mingles

with admiration in his forecast of the omniscient "Woman of the Future"

in the same year:--

The Woman of the Future! She'll be deeply read, that's certain,

With all the education gained at Newnham or at Girton;

She'll puzzle men in Algebra with horrible quadratics,

Dynamics, and the mysteries of higher mathematics;

Or, if she turns to classic tomes a literary roamer,

She'll give you bits of Horace or sonorous lines from Homer.

You take a maiden in to dine, and find, with consternation,

She scorns the light frivolities of modern conversation;

And not for her the latest bit of fashionable chatter,

Her pretty head is wellnigh full of more important matter;

You talk of Drama or Burlesque, theatric themes pursuing,

She only thinks of what the Dons at Oxford may be doing.

* * * * *

The Woman of the Future may be very learned-looking,

But dare we ask if she'll know aught of housekeeping or cooking?

She'll read far more, and that is well, than empty-headed beauties,

But has she studied with it all a woman's chiefest duties?

We wot she'll ne'er acknowledge, till her heated brain grows cooler,

That Woman, not the Irishman, should be the true home-ruler.

O pedants of these later days, who go on undiscerning

To overload a woman's brain and cram our girls with learning,

You'll make a woman half a man, the souls of parents vexing,

To find that all the gentle sex this process is unsexing.

Leave one or two nice girls before the sex your system smothers,

Or what on earth will poor men do for sweethearts, wives,

and mothers?

Here we find _Punch_ reverting to his earlier attitude. Moreover,

as I have shown elsewhere, in the middle 'eighties he was in a

decidedly pessimistic frame of mind, and inclined, like Porson, to

"damn the scheme of things in general." The dismal mood passed, and

_Punch_ is himself again and obviously rejoicing in his own malice in

the verses on an imaginary episode at Girton, where a breakdown in

health, attributed to the excessive study of Browning, is traced to

over-indulgence in chocolate creams by the members of the Browning

Club. _Punch's_ claim to be regarded as an expert authority where

women's colleges are concerned is seriously invalidated by his

confusing the sites of Newnham and Girton and, worse still, by calling

the former "Nuneham" in the same year. But he redeemed himself

triumphantly in his study of "The Girton Girl" (No. IX, and by far

the best, of his series of "Studies from _Mr. Punch's_ Studio") in

December, 1886. I have the testimony of a distinguished Girton student

of nearly twenty years later that _Punch's_ sketch remained even then

a masterly dissection of the "mentality" of the Girton Girl, and

reveals an inside knowledge, both of generalities and details, which

no mere man could have attained. The Girton Girl of fact is carefully

distinguished from the Girton Girl of superstition. The latter is fast

becoming as extinct as the Dodo:--

[Sidenote: _The Girton Girl in 1886_]

The modern schoolgirl is taking her place, no longer the giggling,

flirting maiden of fiction, but an ascetic and hard-working young

woman. Work has been her lot since the day when she stepped out of

her cradle to combine education and amusement in the arrangement of

alphabet bricks; and she looks back with a wistful incredulity to the

time when the mystic letters, B.A., were to her nothing worse than

the voice of the black sheep in the nursery rhyme. She inclines by

instinct towards æstheticism in dress, affecting the limpest materials

and the strangest hues, and making a compromise in the matter of

collar and cuffs by wearing at neck and wrists a piece of very _écru_

lace, turned down the wrong way. Her boots are the terror of stray

blackbeetles, for a course of lectures on Hygienic clothing early

taught her to view with horror and distrust a slim ankle and a pointed

toe. She has a scholarly touch of shortsightedness, which she corrects

by free use of the tortoiseshell _pince-nez_ that dangles from her

neck.

Her sense of duty is remarkable, and appalling. She virtuously accepts

the onerous office of secretary to innumerable societies. Countless

notices, in her bold and clear handwriting, may be seen day after

day upon the College notice-boards, some of them of a sufficiently

pathetic character. "Will the following members be so very good as to

pay their subscriptions due the _term before last_ to the 'Society

for promoting Masculine Intelligence'?" She does not even resent her

appointment as sub-officer of the Fire Brigade, the duties of which

position involve a constant personal supervision of two or three

repulsively oily little hand-engines, which she tends and lubricates

with loving care, till she has reduced her hands and face to the

colour of the brown holland apron which enshrouds the rest of her

person. Not even the horrors of an alarm practice can daunt her,

though she may just have settled herself to revel for an hour in the

pleasant byways of Professor Sidgwick's _Ethics_, when screams of

"Fire!" rushing footsteps, and an alarm-rattle, such as heralds a

bump in the May races, compel her to leave her books, and fly to the

Hall. Then the canvas buckets must be produced, her corps arranged in

alphabetical order, and marched off to the supposed scene of action.

All this she does in an incredibly short time; and when, at the

discretion of the head captain, the pumping of engines and passing of

buckets is allowed to stop, she returns to her work with fortitude and

resignation past belief.

[Illustration: HONOUR TO AGNETA FRANCES RAMSAY!

(Cambridge, June, 1887)]

Yet in spite of her multifarious and strenuous activities the Girton

Girl is not inhuman or immune to the appeal of her less serious-minded

fellow students, and the sketch ends with a really charming portrait

of a witty, incorrigibly frivolous, generously hospitable and

irresistibly popular member of the college. At once critical, judicial,

and genial, the study is a little masterpiece of its kind. The verses,

published some months earlier, on a young Spanish lady who took her

doctor's degree at Barcelona at the age of nineteen, are appropriately

cast in Swinburne's "Dolores" stanza (as that was her Christian name)

with the refrain, "Our M.D. of Spain," but are not remarkable either

as a parody or an appreciation. Much happier in every way is the

well-known picture of Miss Ramsay (afterwards Mrs. Montagu Butler)

entering a first-class carriage "For Ladies Only" on the occasion

of her being placed Senior Classic in 1887, an exploit which caused

_Punch_ once more to raise his voice on behalf of the bestowal of

degrees on women.

An even more remarkable success was achieved by Miss Philippa Fawcett,

who in 1890 was declared to be "above the Senior Wrangler," and

_Punch_, in "Topping the Tripos, or Something like a Score for the

Sex," while congratulating the daughter, did not forget her father,

always one of his heroes:--

Above the Senior Wrangler! Pheugh!

Where now are male reactionaries

Who flout the feminine, and pooh-pooh

Sweet Mathematic Megs and Maries?

Who says a girl is only fit

To be a dainty, dancing dangler?

Here's girlhood's prompt reply to it:

Miss Fawcett tops the Senior Wrangler!

Would it not have rejoiced the heart

Of her stout sire, the brave Professor?

Agneta Ramsay made good start,

But here's a shining she-successor!

Many a male who failed to pass

Will hear it with flushed face and jaw set,

But _Mr. Punch_ brims high his glass,

And drinks your health, Miss P. G. Fawcett!

[Sidenote: _The Eternal Feminine_]

Yet along with his acknowledgment of these scholastic triumphs, _Punch_

was equally ready to welcome evidences of feminine weakness in the

haunts of austere study. In 1888 Miss Helen Gladstone recalled the fact

that when she was at Newnham, a motion had been brought forward at the

Debating Society that "life without gossip was not worth living" and

carried by a large majority, and _Punch_ alluded to the incident under

the heading, "_Nous_ at Newnham."

To round off _Punch's_ educational record in this period, I may add

that in 1892 he alludes to that irrepressible controversialist, Sir

James Crichton-Browne, the champion of mutton chops, and common sense,

who had condemned the higher education of women from the medical point

of view. _Punch_ professes himself converted by a young Amazon who

reduces him to pulp and humiliation by her prowess at games of all

sorts.

[Illustration: THE OLD, OLD STORY

THE COLONEL: "Yes, _He_ was Senior Wrangler of his Year,

and _She_ took a Mathematical Scholarship at Girton; and now they're

Engaged!"

MRS. JONES: "Dear me, how interesting! And oh, how different

their Conversation must be from the insipid twaddle of Ordinary Lovers!"

THEIR CONVERSATION

HE: "And what would _Dovey_ do if Lovey were to _die_?"

SHE: "Oh, Dovey would die _too_!"]

The entrance of women into existing professions or the creation

by them of new callings is in the main viewed with sympathy and

benevolence. In the controversy that arose in 1875 between Mrs. Nassau

Senior, who had been appointed an inspector of Female Pauper Schools,

and Mr. Tufnell, an official of the L.G.B., _Punch_ espoused the side

of the lady, who, he considers, had the best of it both in temper and

argument. The statement in April of the same year that a lady had been

engaged by a firm of solicitors as consulting counsel at a high salary,

quoted from a Liverpool paper, was probably apocryphal; but it prompted

_Punch_ to observe that the more employments fit for gentlemen that are

opened to ladies the better. Any such calling is better than marriage

accepted merely as a situation.

[Sidenote: _"Jills in Office"_]

Unfortunately some doubt is thrown on the sincerity of this testimonial

by the sketch "Portia in Petticoats" in 1882--a burlesque description

of a solicitor's office where only women clerks are employed. After

a week's absence the head of the firm returns to find that they have

mostly disappeared, eloped or got married. The election of Miss Maude

Stanley, a cousin of the Dean, as a Guardian in 1877 is the subject of

a friendly notice at the expense of Bumble, who regards it as a "most

unporochial innowation." In the same year _Punch_ views with admiration

the beneficent work of the Ladies' Sanitary Association, established

twenty years earlier to inculcate the value of healthy, sensible habits

by means of lectures, tracts and handbooks. The suggestion made by a

Hastings doctor in 1879 that women might be employed as dispensers

is praised, though not without some reserves, in "Girls among the

Gallipots," and the new "Ladies' Association for the Promotion of

Horticulture and Minor Food Production" founded in the same year by

Mrs. Thorne meets with _Punch's_ unqualified approval. This is the

first mention that I have met in _Punch_ of a movement which led to the

establishment of the horticultural schools at Swanley and elsewhere

and the numerous poultry farms run by women all over the country. The

institution of the "Royal Red Cross" decoration for nurses in 1883 is

welcomed in friendly doggerel. As Bumble had condemned women guardians,

so Mrs. Gamp is now represented as very indignant and contemptuous of

the "nursing sisters," their position and recognition. But _Punch_

had no use here for amateurs. There is excellent point in Du Maurier's

picture of the applicant for the post of matron or head nurse to a

hospital who based her claim on being "not trained but gifted." By 1885

the female commercial traveller was apparently already in existence,

but _Punch_ treated this innovation with jocular suspicion:--

I know a Maiden with a bag,

Take care!

She carries samples in a drag,

Beware! beware!

O Draper fond,

She is fooling thee!

She has the true "Commercial" style,

Take care!

To which she addeth woman's guile,

Beware! beware!

O Grocer goose,

She is plucking thee!

And so on with other shopkeepers.

On the efficiency of female clerks _Punch_ speaks with two voices in

1887, under the heading "Jills in Office." First of all we have an

unflattering picture of the rudeness and inattention of the girls in

one of those joint establishments--half shop and half post-office. In

the next number we are given the reverse of the medal; the public are

the offenders, and the girls act up to their names--Miss Goodchild,

Miss Meekin and Miss Mannerly. The announcement in the same year

that ladies were to be allowed to take diplomas in dentistry prompts

_Punch_ to some frigid pleasantries; but this is a subject on which

it has always been difficult to joke with discretion. _Punch_ found a

happier theme in the institution of the "Lady Guide Association" in

1888. He applauds the scheme which aimed at "providing remuneration

and employment for intelligent gentlewomen debarred by the present

overcrowded labour market from earning a livelihood," but he recognized

that the guides would have to be very formidably accomplished persons,

since their duties comprised the giving advice and information to

newcomers on every possible subject. As a "preliminary examination" was

spoken of, _Punch_ supplied a test paper containing, _inter alia_, the

following questions:--

1. A four-wheeled cab, containing five inside passengers, two children

on the box, and seven trunks on the roof, is taken from Liverpool

Street Station to the extreme end of Hammersmith, and the Lady who has

secured your services as guide, after having made the cabman carry the

seven trunks up to the third storey offers him, as his fare, two and

ninepence, which he indignantly refuses. On his subsequently claiming

thirteen and sixpence, and taking off his coat and offering to fight

the gentleman of the party for that amount on the steps of the house

in the presence of a sympathizing crowd, what speedy measures, if any,

should you adopt to effect a compromise?

2. You are engaged to conduct an intelligent, scientific, and

inquiring party of sixteen people over Windsor Castle, the Marylebone

Workhouse, the Thames Tunnel, Hanwell Lunatic Asylum, the National

Gallery, the British Museum, and the London Docks. Do you think that

your thorough knowledge of English history, your acquaintance with the

working of the Poor Laws, your grasp of the progress of European Art,

and your general familiarity with all the great political, commercial,

engineering, economic and other problems of the hour are such as to

warrant you in facing the coming ordeal with a jaunty confidence?

3. You are required by an economical Duke to provide a cheap wedding

for his only daughter, and he has stipulated that the breakfast

shall not, at the outside, cost more than ninepence a head. With a

four-and-sixpenny bridal cake, and a sound champagne that must not

exceed fifteen shillings a dozen, how do you propose to make the thing

go off with _éclat_?

In 1890 the "Dorothy" Restaurant was started for "Ladies Only," but

this condition, though the _raison d'être_ of the venture, was soon

modified: men were admitted from 6.30 to 10 P.M., and _Punch_ was

unchivalrous enough to make humorous capital out of the concession.

In regard to the suffrage and "Women's Rights" _Punch_ remained on

the side of the fence where he had got down after a good deal of

vacillation. In 1879 he publishes what is apparently a _bonâ fide_

letter from "A Lancashire Witch" protesting against Miss Lydia

Becker's claim to represent the general feeling of the district. "I

assure you," she writes, "that Miss Becker's followers are chiefly

ladies of her own pronounced politics, or semi-foreigners, and not

Englishwomen _pur sang_." _Punch_ observes that "no Lancashire

Witch need fear to be mixed up with the Representative Gathering of

vote-claiming Spinsters which Miss Lydia Becker threatens to bring

down on the Free Trade Hall. Witches who know whence comes the real

potency of their charms will certainly not seek to mix voting-powder

in the cauldron." This was not friendly to the Suffragists, but the

tone is preferable to that of 'Arry's views on Women's Rights in 1881

after attending a lecture. There is a certain admixture of shrewd

commonplace in his remarks, but the verses are chiefly remarkable as a

storehouse of cad-slang, fortunately mostly obsolete. Female emigration

comes up for comment in the same year, but, as the object was avowedly

matrimonial, the scheme had no political significance. The picture

of the large, self-indulgent, sultanic brother advising his adoring

sisters, cousins and aunts to assert their rights by learning to be

more independent of men is purely ironical and has no bearing on the

problem of women's economic dependence. The dialogue in two scenes

between Edwin and Angelina in 1883 on the working of the new Married

Women's Property Act is a rather cynical burlesque. The first scene

shows the Act as it is expected to work, to the advantage of women; in

the second we see it as it is sure to work--to the confirmation of the

_status quo_, the woman continuing to leave her money affairs entirely

in her husband's hands.

[Illustration: "THE ANGEL IN 'THE HOUSE'": OR, THE RESULT OF FEMALE

SUFFRAGE

(_A Troubled Dream of the Future_)]

[Sidenote: _Women Jurors_]

Sambourne's prophetic picture of "The Angel in 'the House'" in 1884

is an improvement on _Punch's_ earlier fancy portraits of women

legislators, but it does not render prophetic justice either to Lady

Astor or Mrs. Wintringham. _Punch_ refers more than once in 1885 to

the Parliamentary candidature of Miss Helen Taylor who stood for

Camberwell, but her nomination papers were not accepted. _Punch_ offers

"Helen of Camberwell" his condolences, but they are shorn of all grace

by his previous comparison of her to the Three Tailors of Tooley Street

and other acidulated puns. Du Maurier's picture in 1887 of a Jury of

Women antedates reality by more than thirty years; while the tension of

party feeling in 1888 is illustrated by the genuine advertisement of

a governess seeking work who had been "dismissed from a Conservative

Clergyman's family for her Gladstonian views." Lady canvassers were

already beginning to make their influence felt, and _Punch_ recognizes

their value in a "lay" which gives an entertaining account of their

"unscrupulous, seductive, siren ways." At any rate they could not be

ignored. The temper of "The Political Woman"--one of the "Modern Types"

series--in 1890 is acid and disparaging throughout:--

[Illustration: "A FAIR JURY, AND ALL HOME-RULERS"]

Having left school with an ill-assorted mass of miscellaneous

knowledge, she will show her contempt for ordinary feminine

accomplishments by refusing to attend dances, and by crushing

mild young men whom misfortune may have thrown in her way. Having

discovered from one of these that he imagines the Rebecca Riots to

be an incident of Old Testament History, and has no definite views

upon the currency question, she will observe in a tone of some

bitterness, that "These are our Governors!" and, having left him in a

state of collapse, will scale the ramparts of political discussion,

in company with a Professor, who happens to be unmarried and a

Member of Parliament. After making love for some months, by means of

an interchange of political tracts, these two will be married in a

registrar's office and will spend their honeymoon in investigating the

social requirements of Italian organ-grinders.

Thenceforward she exists chiefly as a member or president of

innumerable committees; she neglects her husband and the son "whom, in

a moment of regrettable absent-mindedness, she bore to the professor

and brings up on Spartan principles and little else." Her home is a

centre of slatternly discomfort:--

She will eventually fail to be elected a member of the School Board,

and having written a strong book on a delicate social question, will

die of the shock of seeing it adversely reviewed in _The Spectator_.

Sir Albert Rollit's Bill for extending the franchise to women was

introduced in the early summer of 1892, and defeated on the second

reading by only twenty-three votes. _Punch_, in his "Essence of

Parliament," refers to an uproarious meeting in St. James's Hall,

and to Mr. Asquith's "merciless logic" in demolishing the Bill. The

Women's Liberal Federation had declared for the suffrage, and _Punch_

illustrated the situation in a picture of two political lady cricketers

appealing to the G.O.M. at the wicket: "A team of our own? I should

think so! If we're good enough to scout [i.e. field] for you, why

shouldn't we take a turn at the bat?"

Women's clubs increased in numbers throughout this period, but met

with little encouragement from _Punch_. In 1877 they are satirized

as enemies to domestic life; as the haunts of semi-detached, smart

women--types which _Punch_ portrayed in his "Dream of Queer Women"

(after Tennyson) in the same year, wherein mention is made of the

"shrieking sisterhood," realistic novelists, "art-beauties," shrewish

suffragists and shady adventuresses. When the project of a Women's

University Club was mooted in 1886, _Punch_ takes a less lurid view of

its possibilities. Smoking, card-playing and billiards are indicated,

but at worst the ladies will only be mild, if sedulous apes of the male

clubman. Gossip will predominate, and _Punch_ suggests that the new

venture should be called "The Blue-Stocking." As for smoking, in 1888

_Punch_ registered a protest under the title, "To a Fair Nicotian,"

in which the Laureate remonstrates with Lady Clara. He likes his own

yard-long Broseley clay pipe, but disapproves even of a cigarette in

the lips of lovely woman.

[Sidenote: _The Athletic Woman_]

[Illustration: AT "LORD'S"

(_It is always well to be well informed_)

CLARA (_pointing to the Umpires_): "Who are the two men in

billycock hats and white coats?"

MATILDA: "Oh, don't you know? Those are the headmasters of

Eton and Harrow!"]

Towards the athletic woman _Punch_ was, on the whole, more benevolent.

In 1883 he pays graceful homage to a woman with the engaging name of

Jessie Ace who had saved a man from drowning. In the same year young

ladies are gently chaffed for beginning to affect a knowledge of the

technicalities of pastime and sport. But if _Punch_ is to be believed,

it was still sketchy. Rugby and Association football are mixed up with

cricket, and the two charming girls at the Eton and Harrow match at

Lord's mistake the two umpires for the two headmasters. The slightly

more serious view taken in 1884, when several cricket matches were

played by women, is noted elsewhere. Fencing and boxing for women,

under male instructors, French and British, are depicted by Du Maurier

as "the last new fad" in 1886. The former, at any rate, came to stay

and deserved to. Ladies had long figured in lawn tennis tournaments,

but in his "Caution to Championesses" in 1887, _Punch_ displayed some

misgiving as to the development of this competition. Nor did he approve

of the novelty of women riding astride in 1890, begging them to do

anything but that, and rewriting the old nursery rhyme for these new

Amazons:--

Ride a cock-horse,

To Banbury Cross

To see a young lady

A-straddle o' course!

The _Almanack_ for the same year gives four types of model middle-class

wives. The French keeps her husband's accounts; the German is the

_Hausfrau_ and cook; the American is an intellectual; the English

plays lawn tennis. The "Manly Maiden" (No. XXII in _Punch's_ "Modern

Types") described in December, 1890, is less closely observed and

far less interesting than _Punch's_ "Model Fast Lady" of forty years

earlier. The sketch is a rather cruel caricature of the persevering

but inefficient sportswoman who is always in the way, and is destined

to "develop from a would-be hard-riding maiden into a genuinely

hard-featured old maid." In agreeable contrast to this acid study

is _Punch's_ homage to the exploits of a Guernsey rifle-woman, Miss

Leale, at Bisley in 1891, and his welcome to Mrs. Sheldon, the American

traveller, on her return from her travels in Africa, in which he

suggests that in time to come Stanley may be known as "the male Mrs.

Sheldon." The exaggeration may be ironical, but the irony is so well

veiled as to be almost imperceptible. In the years that were to come

the achievements of Mary Kingsley and Gertrude Bell were beyond the

reach of the most subtle disparagement.

[Sidenote: _Women Workers_]

[Illustration: A NEW TASTE IN MEN AND WOMEN

SHE: "What a fine-looking man Mr. O'Brien is!"

HE: "H'm--hah--rather rough-hewn, I think. Can't say I admire

that loud-laughing, strong-voiced, robust kind of man. Now that's a

fine-looking woman he's talking to!"

SHE: "Well--er--somewhat _effeminate_, you know. Confess I

don't admire _effeminate_ women!"]

On the subject of women workers _Punch's_ utterances are apparently

but not really irreconcilable. The "Wail of the Male; being a British

workman's view of the cheap female labour question, respectfully

submitted to the Trade Union Congress" in 1887, is a protest against

women undercutting men in the labour market. But the voice is the

voice of 'Arry, not of _Punch_--shrewd, glib and entirely selfish.

The speaker has just got the "bullet"--having been sacked without

notice--and speculates on further possibilities:--

Look here, Bill! If they shunt

You and me, and our like, as they're doing all round,

Because Women are cheap, and there's heaps to be found,

Won't it come to this, sooner or later, my boy,

That the most of us chaps will be out of employ,

Whilst the Women will do all the work there's to do,

And keep us, and the kids, on about half our "screw"?

Who's a-going to gain by that there but the boss?

And for everyone else it is bound to be loss.

A nice pooty look-out! Oh, I know what they say--

That the women work better than us for less pay,

And are much less the slaves of the pint and the pot,

What's that got to do with it? All tommy rot!

We have all got to live, and if women-folk choose

To collar our cribs or to cut down our screws,

_They_ will have to be bread-winners, leaving us chaps

To darn stockings at home with the kids on our laps.

Well, I hope as they'll like it. I tell you what, neighbour,

The world's being ruined by petticoat labour.

Besides, Mate, in spite of this Woman's Rights fuss,

Work don't make 'em better _as_ women, but wuss.

It mucks 'em for marriage, and spiles 'em for home,

'Cos their notion of life is to racket and roam.

Just look at that work-girl there, her with the fringe!

She's a nice pooty specimen! Makes a chap cringe

To think of that flashy young chit as a wife.

That's what cheap woman labour will do for our life.

Oh, give 'em the Vote, and the breeks, while you're at it,

Make 'em soldiers, and Bobbies, and bosses. But, drat it,

If this blessed new-fangled game's to prewail,

I pities the beggar who's born a poor Male!

Against these arguments, illustrative of a certain habit of mind, which

at best excite a grudging acknowledgment of their coarse common sense,

one may set the "Dream of Unfairly Treated Women" (after Tennyson) in

1890, describing the hardships of sempstresses, governesses, "slaveys"

and shop-girls, the victims of sweating, greed, and worse, which

unhappily were all too prevalent so recently as thirty years ago.

_Punch_, in fine, exhibits through this period a progressive

acknowledgment of women's claims to be regarded as an intelligent

being, tempered by moments of reaction. In 1875 he has a picture of an

evening party at which all the men are anxious to be introduced to the

wonderful Miss Pynke, that _rara avis_ "who has never written a novel

or contributed to a magazine." In 1887 the "score" is given to the

professor in his retort to the "high-brow" lady:--

MISS HYPATIA: "Yes, now that we are gradually educating

ourselves up to your level, you Men ought at least to meet us

halfway."

THE PROFESSOR: "Meet you halfway? How? By gradually

_un_educating ourselves down to yours?"

[Sidenote: _Feline Amenities_]

In 1890, again, the amusing series of "Feline amenities" continued

for some years, though they are a tribute to the wit of women, are

invariably based on a denial of the quality of magnanimity. In this

context I am minded to include a curiosity, dating from the year

1886, in the shape of an imaginary letter signed "Elizabeth Fry

Romper," which is of interest as showing the change in the attitude of

philanthropic women during the century. The writer describes how "of

course on the hottest day of the whole summer" she was told off to take

a lot of Sunday school girls for "a day in the country" to Greenwich,

"which is supposed to have an elevating effect upon them for the rest

of the year." Of all the disagreeable things she ever has to do, this

is "far the worst." The picture given is decidedly realistic:--

It is no joke waiting for an hour at a suburban station, with eighty

"young girls"--_real_ young girls--pouring in by detachments, all in

the wildest state of excitement, and decked with the entire contents

of their jewel-cases. Of course, the first thing they did was to

rush, helter-skelter, into a wrong train, and all the railway staff

hardly sufficed to pull them out again before the train started. I

had a whole compartment to look after, and felt rather nervous at

the thought that the next one was filled with men--smoking shocking

tobacco, by the way--and that the _talk_ was distinctly _audible_.

I was truly thankful to reach Greenwich, and trusted that the girls

might be fully occupied in getting tea, and that the heavy cake might

calm down their excitement a little. So we all set to with a great

deal of unnecessary bustle, and were flattering our elderly hearts

that everything was going off splendidly, when, on the bell being

rung--we had brought one on purpose--for the girls to be seated, the

Superintendent looked round for the head girl to lead the singing

grace. Instead of pious music of any sort, our ears were greeted with

a shout of discordant laughter, which was found to proceed from some

broken ground in the distance, where the _whole_ of our first class

were engaged in playing _Kiss in the Ring_ with a party of soldiers

from the neighbouring barracks. My dear, if you could have seen

the picture, you would never have forgotten it. I thought I should

have died of laughing on the spot. The hot, dishevelled, romping

girls, and the smart soldiers, quite unconscious of the awful face

of the Superintendent, as she advanced towards them, and the way the

damsels scuttered off as she let fall a few words of rebuke--it was

the funniest thing I ever saw. She succeeded in driving her flock,

sheepish but giggling, before her; all but one, who stoutly declined

to leave her soldier, declaring she didn't want no tea, but would 'ave

a spree in the merry-go-round with 'im. A separation was ultimately

effected, but the gloom that hung over that meal I never shall forget.

It was a mercy everyone else took it so seriously, or I couldn't have

held out; as it was, when I got home, I laughed myself nearly into a

fit.

The combination of duty, detachment and a sense of humour is not

commonly credited to Victorian girls. But the problems that had to be

tackled were very much the same, and so was human nature.

EDUCATION

Hasty generalizations from the study of _Punch_ throughout this period

might easily lead one to the conclusion that the two great evils

in national education were the craze for athletics in Public and

Preparatory, and over-pressure in Board and Elementary, Schools. A

more detailed examination of his pages tends to correct or modify this

view. _Punch_ was in the main a firm believer in the public school

system as an instrument of character-building, and he was no enemy

of the ladder of learning which had been erected by Forster's Act of

1871. But while he detested snobbery, extravagance and complacent

Philistinism, he was by no means satisfied that the State was getting

good value for its constantly increasing expenditure on education. Thus

to take the Elementary schools first, we find continual references,

mostly unfavourable, to the administration and working of the Board

School System. In 1875 he falls foul of the pedantry of over-zealous

officials--the red-tape methods of inspectors, and the action of

visitors who sent children back to school before they were free

from infection. These inquisitorial activities roused _Punch's_ old

democratic sympathies, and some ten years later we find him suggesting

that a similar method might fairly be applied to the upper and upper

middle classes--that what was sauce for the goose in the slums might be

served up to the gander in the squares.

[Illustration: PREDESTINED!

NORTHERN MATRON (before the School Board): "I'm not against

Eddication, Ladies and Gen'l'men. I al'ays make him take his Book o'

nights. But reelly I calls it a flyin' in the face o' Providence to be

keepin' a Boy out o' the Stables with such a pair o' Legs as his'n!!"]

In the series of articles on "Education Made Easy" in 1887, _Punch_

sympathizes with the mothers who were constantly harried by "attendance

officers" for neglecting to send their children to the Board Schools.

Ignorance was a great evil, but the Board Schools were attempting too

much. The essentials were not thoroughly taught; pupil-teachers were

overworked; there was too much of the 'ologies, and the three R's

were in danger of going to the wall. The reactionary protest against

the teaching of music--"We don't want Grisis at Board Schools"--is

ironical; but _Punch_ espoused the cause of those who condemned

over-cramming in Board Schools, and based their crusade on Sir James

Crichton-Browne's Report on over-pressure in 1884. But his great point

was that there was too much teaching of the things that did not matter.

His "Indignant Ratepayer" in 1887 welcomes the decision of the London

School Board to hold an inquiry into the curriculum of their schools.

The special committee were also to report "whether such changes can

be made as shall secure that children leaving school shall be more

fitted than they now are to perform the duties and work of life before

them." One of the speakers had declared that "the boys educated in

public elementary schools scorned all handicraft work, and wanted to be

clerks, while girls in like-manner scorned all domestic service." The

"Indignant Ratepayer" congratulated the School Board on turning over a

new leaf, though it had taken them sixteen years to realize that they

were on the wrong tack.

[Sidenote: _Indignant Ratepayers_]

A week later _Punch_ published another letter from another "Indignant

Ratepayer," deprecating the congratulations as premature and

indiscreet:--

I, too, _Mr. Punch_, am a ratepayer; I have seen my rates trebled

since the creation of the School Board; and I am now told that I ought

to thank my stars that, after sixteen years' work, they have at length

displayed a glimmering of common sense. There seems to be something

ominous in this term of sixteen years, for it appears that it is just

for this period that we have been supplying the Army with bayonets

that won't stab, and the Navy with cutlasses that won't cut. We are

always calling ourselves, though nobody else does, a practical people.

But what care we for the opinion of our neighbours, so long as we are

happy in the calm contemplation of our superiority?

"The unexpected always happens," so said Beaconsfield, and it seems

he was right, for who would have ever dreamed that the School Board

would have ever made such a confession? But although they confessed

much, they did not confess all. They said nothing of the numberless

half-starved children whose health has been impaired or ruined by the

tasks imposed upon them. Nothing of the hundreds of thousands spent in

bullying and worrying their poor parents. Nothing of the money spent

in endless litigation. On all such subjects the Board are discreetly

silent. They draw attention only to the outcome of their labours,

namely the boys and girls whose education has been completed--the

survival of the fittest in short--but who are fit for nothing.

"No handicraft work for the boys, no domestic service for the girls."

The boys all want to be clerks; what the girls want to be we are not

informed, but domestic service is not to be thought of, so the sooner

my wife and daughters take to such work the better. And for this

have I paid trebled rates. For this have we been passing Code after

Code, and fixing Standard after Standard, to find at last that the

whole work must be begun afresh. I too am indignant, as well as your

Correspondent, not that the School Board have been telling the truth,

but that they have been so long in telling it.

I protest against my money having been spent in injuring the health of

half the poor children of London, and of injuring the morals of the

other half.

_Punch_ was ready to give a hearing to economists who really felt the

burden, but he had no sympathy with the "old gang" of City Fathers

who were frankly obscurantist on the subject of education, while they

were proud of having dined and wined themselves into the possession of

"first class stomachs":--

"WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS," ETC.

That not particularly learned body which rejoices in the name of the

Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, held a Special Meeting

at the Guildhall last week, to discuss the terribly extravagant

conduct of the London School Board in adding one penny in the pound to

the amount of the rate to be levied in the wealthy City of London for

the ensuing year. Much burning eloquence, of the peculiar City type,

was used on the occasion, and a statement by one highly excited member

that there were no fewer than 313 Board Schools in the Metropolis in

which the great work of education was being successfully carried on,

and that the cry was still for more, was received with as terrible a

groan of horror as if it had been announced, on authority, that there

were to be no more "Cakes and Ale" for the Sewage Commissioners.

In vain was it stated by those who, apparently, love light rather than

darkness, that whereas the population of London some ten or twenty

years ago was one of the most ignorant of any capital of Europe, it

was now, thanks to the School Board, assuming its proper place in this

respect, by giving all its children a good education. They were met by

a shout of derision from an angry Commissioner, who demanded to know

"why they didn't try to teach a cow to win the Derby," which brilliant

interrogation elicited great applause.

In vain was it suggested that this sudden affectation of sympathy

with the poor Ratepayer for having to pay this additional penny for

education, was but a blind to screen their own increased rate of

double the amount, for a purpose of not one-tenth the importance.

The Sewage Commissioners listened with impatience, reserving their

enthusiastic approbation for the very demonstrative gentleman who

addressed them after their own heart; and in language that all could

understand and thoroughly sympathise with. He was quite willing,

generous soul, that the poor children should have bread, but what he

objected to was rumpsteaks! and he concluded his brilliant oration

with the following magnificent peroration:--"Everybody should have

his meal, but he must have a stomach of the highest class before they

could give him turtle soup and port wine!"

Who but a member of the City Corporation could have contrived, when

discussing the question of the education of the Poor, to have brought

in those two gods of his idolatry, turtle soup and port wine? And in

combination too!

[Sidenote: _Under-feeding and Under-housing_]

[Illustration: PROGRESS

YOUNG RUSTIC: "Gran'fa'r, who was Shylock?"

SENIOR (_after a pause_): "Lauk a' mussy, boy, yeou goo to

Sunday Skewl, and don't know that!"]

This well-merited castigation preceded the protests of the "Indignant

Ratepayers" by a couple of years, but it is more truly representative

of _Punch's_ convictions on the main question. We had to educate our

masters, and we must not squeal over the bill--provided the education

was sound. On that point _Punch_ was by no means satisfied, and in 1887

he invokes the testimony of the British workmen, who is made to protest

against the unpractical nature of modern education, and the undue

prominence assigned to the 'ologies and 'ometries. A cartoon in 1888

represents Education betrayed by its "friends"--pedantry and jobbery.

Over-pressure was aggravated by under-feeding and under-housing.

As for the former, _Punch_ prints an East End remonstrance against

the penny rate: "When we wants daily bread it ain't any good saying

you only wants 'that there penny.'" But the steady growth of State

expenditure on education is resented on the ground that it was

devoted to inappropriate or unnecessary objects. In 1891 _Punch_

publishes a forecast of the Exasperated Public protesting against

the ever-increasing extravagance of the London School Board, who have

taken to building observatories and raised the salaries of elementary

teachers to £2,500 a year.

This is burlesque, but there is criticism and dissatisfaction at the

back of it. So when the Bill providing for "assisted" (i.e. Free)

Education, for which the Budget surplus of £2,000,000 was to be

devoted, was introduced in the same year, _Punch_ represented the

cross-currents of the Unionist Party in his cartoon. Mother Goschen,

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is seen introducing her adopted

child (Free Education), whom she had found in Birmingham, to the Old

Tory Party (Mrs. Gamp), who doesn't like the looks of him at all.

But Goschen carried his point--that the Government were pledged to

alleviate the burden which compulsory education had, in recent years,

imposed upon the poorer portion of the people; and by September 1 the

free education proposals of the Government were generally adopted

throughout the country by both Board and Voluntary Schools.

The old question of corporal punishment comes up in 1880 and 1881, but

in a new light. There was "one law for the rich and another for the

poor," but here, at any rate, it could not be maintained that the poor

were oppressed. Already flogging was only commonly resorted to in the

schools for the upper classes, and _Punch_ emphasizes the contrast in

his dialogue between the Peer and the Peasant. The Peasant observes

that when he is tapped over the head with a cane, his mother goes and

bashes the teacher over the head with the poker and gets him fired

for assaulting her son. The Peer, on the other hand, owns to having

been "swished" four times in a fortnight without attempting reprisals.

Whereupon the Peasant suggests that he should have sent _his_ mother

to go and bang his old master. If _Punch_ is to be believed, conflicts

between teachers and parents were pretty frequent at this time. They

are not unknown even to-day; but parents are less inclined to take the

law into their own hands.

[Sidenote: _Literature and Crime_]

The education of the million, however, was not confined to school

hours, and with the decline of illiteracy the growth of the reading

habit brought its perils as well as its privileges. Juvenile

criminality was no longer the result of ignorance and neglect--at least

to the same extent. _Punch_ was inclined to trace the evil largely to

the low tone of the cheap literature provided for the young. In the

Diary of a Boy Burglar in 1886, his downfall is ascribed to his putting

into practice the principles imbibed by a perusal of _Jack Sheppard_.

A somewhat alarmist article in the _Fortnightly Review_ on "What Boys

Read" declared that while many boys' books were healthy and helpful,

the majority of the journals supplied for the children of the working

classes were devoid of every element of sweetness and light. "They are

filled with stories of blood and revenge, of passion and cruelty, as

improbable and almost impossible in plot as they are contemptible in

literary execution."

The solution of the matter by Press censorship, advocated by the

writer, presented difficulties which _Punch_ did not shirk, and his own

views, though strong, are tempered by sound common sense:--

Ainsworth's story may serve the turn of an Opéra-bouffe Librettist,

and the scamp himself be played by a sprightly actress without much

harm being done to anybody. _Jack Sheppard_, for instance, ought not

to be sanctioned by the Licenser any more than _Claude Duval_, _Dick

Turpin_, or any other drama of a like kind, of which the recognized

motive is the veiled incentive to crime. Still, a raid on Harrison

Ainsworth, notwithstanding the acknowledged mischief that has been

done to the young and ignorant by a perusal of his cracksman's

romance, would scarcely be the same thing, and yet the cases are

sufficiently parallel to admit at least of argument. We should be

inclined to suppress such romances as _Jack Sheppard_, _Rookwood_,

Bulwer's _Claude Duval_, and also _Eugene Aram_, which was so severely

and so justly satirized by Thackeray in _Mr. Punch's_ pages. For the

truth about Jack Sheppard our readers have only to refer to one of the

earliest volumes of _Mr. Punch's_ series, where they will find his

character as described by Ainsworth, and his true character as given

in the Newgate Calendar, displayed side by side in parallel columns.

_There was no sort of romance about the real Jack Sheppard._

Meantime, for want of a better remedy to meet the evil, let parents

and guardians, and those who have charge and direction of the

young idea, keep their eyes open and have a special regard to the

direction in which it shows inclination to shoot. It is just as

ready to derive its nutriment from the "penny healthful," as from

the "penny dreadful," and as a mere matter of commercial enterprise,

the former could be as easily forthcoming and available as the

latter. Philanthropy is continually actively busying itself about

the education of the young--here is something practical for it to

do--let it look to the quality of its _Magazine literature_. It wants

some energy and some capital, but both in these days ought to be

forthcoming. To drive the penny dreadful out of the literary field is

not a task beyond the powers of organization and enterprise. And it is

in this direction that the first steps will be taken in the material

and moral amelioration of "What boys read."

The subject recurs in 1889 and 1890, when sensational juvenile

literature is again denounced; but the new stories are more

vigorously condemned than the old, and the Ghost of Jack Sheppard,

in a conversation with the Shade of Dick Turpin, scouts the notion

that _they_ could upset the minds of the young. Why, they weren't in

it with the papers read by everyone everywhere! _Punch_ vigorously

supported the efforts of those who sought to abate the evils of child

insurance, and welcomed the intervention of Magee, then Archbishop of

York, who died while on a visit to London to attend a Committee of

the House of Lords on his Infant Insurance Bill, in May, 1891. But

when the Prevention of Cruelty Bill was in Committee in the summer of

1887, _Punch_ strongly supported the Attorney-General's amendment to

omit from the Bill the words prohibiting the employment of children

under ten in theatres and licensed places of public entertainment. Mr.

Mundella, who was in charge of the Bill, accepted the amendment, but

"Dick Temple, Sam Smith and other superlatively good people objected,"

and it was defeated both in the Committee and the Report stages, to

_Punch's_ undisguised annoyance. After the Bill became law in July,

he added "one word more," and his arguments, if not convincing, are

at least consistent with his life-long sympathy with the professional

actor:--

[Sidenote: _The Stage and Education_]

Well-intentioned persons do a heap of mischief, and talk and write a

lot of nonsense about what they don't understand. There are dangers to

morality ("who deniges of it?") in the Theatrical Profession, as in

every other profession; but these affect the amateur, and those who

go on the stage late in life, not those who are to the manner born.

The loves of poor, honest, hard-working theatrical families, where the

sons and daughters obtain theatrical employment at an early age, are

thoroughly respectable. Their stage-work is not only compatible with

their receiving a sound education, but is a complement of it. Habits

of strict discipline, cleanliness, and domestic thrift are inculcated;

the little children, from the biggest down to "the Widow's Mites"

engaged in a Pantomime, are seldom sick, and never sorry, but do their

work with pleasure, and would probably be willing to undertake even

"more study," rather than be deprived of their theatrical employment

which brings in the money, pays the school, and helps to keep a happy

family together under one roof, which, "be it never so 'umble," is

styled by that dear old English word "home"--and there is no place

like it. The efforts of those who would exclude children under ten

from theatrical work may cause great misery and break up many such

happy homes. We say this in serious earnest, and, from practical

experience, we do know what we are talking about.

_Punch_ resented pedantic, official, or fussy interference with

children whether at work or play. A Children's Party at the Mansion

House in January, 1881, provokes well-merited ridicule. No mixed

dancing was allowed; the only diversion was provided by some "hideous

negro entertainers" and, by way of compensation, a sermon by Mr.

Spurgeon! After 11.30 P.M. young ladies were allowed to dance,

but _only_ with young ladies; and the young gentlemen with young

gentlemen. At the same time _Punch_ was a believer in the cane, when

administered with discretion, and a resolute discourager of precocity.

The full-page illustration in the _Almanack_ of 1884, "Education's

Frankenstein," representing the omniscient child of the future, ruining

all professions, as everyone can do everything, is an extravagant

burlesque, but it foreshadows the complaints we have had of late of

the "unfair competition" of the infant author and artist with the

adult practitioner. In 1885 Du Maurier's Child of the Period gravely

rebukes her grandmother who speaks of a "puff-puff"--"The locomotive, I

suppose you mean, grandmamma." But this is a form of joke which recurs

throughout the ages.

_Punch's_ "Winter Exhibition of the Works of Young Masters" in 1888 is

a really illuminating piece of prophetic satire. The exhibitors are all

children, and the works shown all belong to the Nursery Period. We may

take one example:--

Billy Bolaine, born 1868, flourished 1880-2. No. 3. _Landscape, with

horse, ducks and figures._ Silvery effect of about eight o'clock in

the morning anywhere. The animals have given rise to some discussion,

but the general impression seems to be that the artist, who never

depicted anything without a subtle meaning, originally intended at

least one of them for a cow.

Altogether this is an excellent skit on the critics who greet all the

efforts of the young with a foolish voice of praise. Self-conscious,

aggressive and complacent precocity _Punch_ could not endure; the small

American child who treats a bishop, who had endeavoured to repress

him, as a back number, is clearly regarded as a nuisance. But in his

plea for the unhappy infant prodigy _Punch_ recognized it as a real

grievance that child performers were overworked by over-practising and

continual travelling. In 1888 it was borne in upon him that, whether

from the engrossing nature of modern girls' and boys' occupations, or

their preference for contemporary and realistic fiction, the study of

Fairy Tales and Nursery Lore was fast falling into neglect if not into

positive contempt. To avert what he considered a national calamity, he

felt it his duty to suggest to parents that no child should be allowed

on any pretext in future to leave the Nursery for School until it had

passed an examination in these subjects.

[Sidenote: _Fairy Tale Test Papers_]

_Punch's_ test papers are all excellent, but I can only find room for

the General and the Pantomime Papers:--

CRITICAL AND GENERAL.

1. What is your opinion of the intelligence of Giants as a race? Of

what substance were they in the habit of making their bread? Would you

draw any and what distinction between (a) Giants and Giantesses, (b)

Ogres and Ogresses, (c) a Mamma Ogress and her daughters?

2. What is a Roc? What do Rocs feed on? If you were on the edge of

steep cliffs surrounding an inaccessible valley, strewn with diamonds

and visited by Rocs--how would you proceed in order to obtain some of

those diamonds? Give the reply of the Slave of the Lamp to Aladdin's

request that a Roc's egg should be hung up in his dome.

3. Mention instances when (a) a Wolf, (b) a Bear, (c) a Cat, (d) a

Harp, are recorded to have spoken, and give the substance of their

remarks, when possible, in each case.

4. Write down the name of any hero you can remember who suffered

inconvenience from (a) the imprudence, (b) the disobedience, of his

wife.

5. How would you act if you were invited to go to a party on the

opposite side of the way, and had nothing to go in but a pair of

Seven-Leagued Boots? Compare the drawbacks and advantages of going to

a State Ball in glass slippers.

6. State which family you would rather belong to: One in which

there was (i.) a Wicked Uncle, (ii.) an Envious Sister, (iii.) a

Jealous Brother, or (iv.) a Cruel Stepmother? Give your reasons, and

illustrate them by examples. How many Wicked Uncles do you remember to

have read of? Are Wicked Uncles ever sorry, and, if so, when?

7. Give any instances that occur to you where it is stated that the

chief personages of the story "all lived happily ever afterwards." Are

there any exceptions to this rule?

PANTOMIME PAPER.

(Optional, and for those Students only who may decide to "take up"

this branch of the subject.)

1. Did the manners, language, and general deportment of the various

Kings and Queens you have seen in Pantomimes correspond at all with

what you had expected them to be from the books?

2. Mention any fairy tale in which (1) long ballets, (2) allusions

to subjects in last year's papers, (3) jokes about "drinks" and

"pawn-tickets," (4) comic duets which you didn't quite understand, and

(5) men dressed up in women's clothes, occur. Mention (if you can) any

Pantomime in which they do not.

3. Were you surprised to hear at Drury Lane that the King who

befriended the Marquis of Carabas was originally a Potman? Do you

remember this in the original text?

4. Why do you suppose that the Wicked Brothers in this year's

Pantomime were frightened by green snakes, pink lizards, and enormous

frogs? Did their own explanation that they had "the jumps" convey much

to your mind? Did this scene make you laugh?

5. Give as clear and intelligible an account as you are able of the

story of any one Pantomime you have been to, mentioning where--if at

all--it departed from the version you have studied, and whether or

not you considered such departures (if any) to be improvements.

6. Investigate the principal peculiarities of Pantomime Animals. How

do they chiefly differ from other animals? Describe the effect of

kindness upon a Pantomime Donkey, and account for it.

N.B.--Not more than four questions need be attempted in each of

the above papers. Candidates are advised not to leave any question

unattempted from a mere inability to answer every part of such

question.

The Pantomime Paper conveys some excellent dramatic criticism, which is

needed as much to-day as thirty years ago, but it may be permitted to

stand in this educational context. As a counterblast to the charge of

indifference towards fairy tales on the part of the modern child, it is

only right to add that in 1892 Du Maurier's picture, "A Warning," shows

a touching belief in the actuality of Bluebeard:--

ARCHIE (to his Sister, who has been reading him Fairy Tales):

"Won't there be a lot of Us, if none of us go and get married? Worse

than Hop-o'-my-Thumb!"

SISTER: "Yes; but you know I mean to be married!"

ARCHIE: "Do you mean to say you'd go and live alone with a

Man after reading Bluebeard?"

When we turn to the Public and Preparatory Schools we find that

_Punch's_ criticisms resolve themselves into a triple indictment of

their costliness, their curriculum and their undue exaltation of

athletics. The attack on the athletic craze begins in 1875, when

_Punch_ published an imaginary Report of a boy's work for 1895 at St.

Paul's, Eastminster, which deals with nothing but his progress at games

and sports.

[Sidenote: _The Fetish of Games_]

The charge had a good deal to justify it, but the choice of a name was

not happy, since Colet's famous foundation has in its recent phase

never invited criticism on the score of any slackness in studious

industry. _Punch_ renews the attack more than once. In 1880, in a

burlesque account of a Prize Day, brain-work is just tolerated;

athletic prowess is the only thing really encouraged and rewarded. Yet

simultaneously we encounter Master Freddy from Eton, who considers that

energy of any sort is "bad form." "Good form," in _Punch's_ view,

might easily degenerate into a snobbish fetish, and in one of his

"International Comparisons," in the _Almanack_ of 1879, he emphasizes

the comprehensiveness of French public schools as contrasted with the

class distinctions observed in England. It was in the same year that an

inquiry was held into the administration of Wellington College and the

alleged departure from the intentions of the founders. _Punch_ took the

line that what was meant to be a military orphanage had become a rather

costly public school of the common type, and noted that Mr. Gladstone

defended the change because Benson, his son-in-law, was head master.

This was a partial error. Gladstone's son-in-law was Wickham, who had

succeeded Benson as head master. But the sting remained. _Punch_, it

may be added, was thoroughly consistent in his attitude of antagonism

to the diversion of old foundations from their original aims.

[Illustration: THE NEW TYRANNY

"Of course you needn't _Work_, Fitzmilksoppe; but _Play_ you _must_ and

_shall_."]

The costly inefficiency of the public schools came up again in 1880, _à

propos_ of a correspondence in _The Times_, in which a "disappointed

mother" recounted the experience of her two sons who, on leaving a

public school at the age of nineteen, had forgotten all they knew

before they went there:--

Hence a justly "Disappointed Mother" naturally enough concludes that

"_Our great schools want inspection sadly_." Experience has certainly

given her some cause to compare them unfavourably with private

schools; although as to the latter she generalizes rather widely in

saying that they "must teach, or close." Too many of them do neither.

Her boys, at any rate, both of them learned at a Private Boarding

School enough to enable them to pass the Junior Oxford Local

Examination at an early age. Unquestionably they were taught so much;

but then how were they taught it? In such a style that they have now,

at an adult age, to be taught it over again.

So it seems that a "Disappointed Mother's" two sons were educated

at the Private Boarding School as the bottles are aërated in a

soda-water manufactory. Information must have been forced into the

former as carbonic acid gas is pumped into the latter. The gas is

retained in the bottles whilst corked down, but escapes on the

removal of pressure; so, if the boyish minds are left open, their

school-learning, set free from forcible compression, goes off in

youthful effervescence. Admirable system, by which our youth at an

early age are enabled to pass the examinations, for which at maturer

years they have to be crammed all over again!

[Sidenote: _Classics v. Commerce_]

The inspection of public schools has remained a subject of acute

controversy ever since; and it is not clear whether _Punch's_ approval

would have extended to Government inspection. It was in the same year,

by the way, that Du Maurier illustrated the dialogue between Sir

Gorgius Midas and an aristocratic Colonel. Sir Gorgius's main regret

was that he had never been at a public school; the Colonel, who was

once at Eton, laments that he suffers from a neglected education.

Burnand, who succeeded to the editorship of _Punch_ in 1880, was also

an old Etonian, but was not on that account prepared to grant his old

school a complete immunity from criticism. The "Diary of a Present

Etonian," which appeared in 1885, is in the main jocularly descriptive,

but illustrates a prevalent Philistinism, the habits of ragging and

borrowing money, and tells of a week with only one whole school-day

and two whole holidays. Yet while fully alive to the waste of time and

money which went on at the public schools, _Punch_ was very far from

embracing the creed of the revolutionary utilitarians who would scrap

the old curriculum wholesale. In 1887 he printed an ironic account of

the "Public School of the Future," thoroughly impregnated with the

Commercial Spirit. The hero, the new "Tom Brown," develops a talent for

finance so remarkable that his father longs to see him loose on the

Stock Exchange.

_Punch_ did not believe in compulsory classics, because he disliked

dons, pedants and academics; but in his parody of "The Isles of Greece"

from the point of view of a British schoolboy, he made it abundantly

clear that he had no love of the purely commercial "bread-study" view

of Education:--

Oh feed me not on mythic lore,

But Science and the Modern Fact;

Teach me Electric Fires to store,

The difference 'twixt "Bill" and "Act."

Why should a Cockney care a "cuss"

For Homer or for Æschylus?

For who _are_ they? But what art thou,

My Country? On thy fertile shore

The heroic lyre is tuneless now;

To scheme for dividends, dig for ore,

_These_ are the things we hold divine,

Not Homer's long-resounding line.

In dealing with University Education _Punch_ maintained his attitude

of a moderate reformer. Keble College, Oxford, dates from 1870; in

1878 _Punch_ twice over displays a keen hostility to the Anglican

spirit of its founders and the "gingerbread and gilt" of Butterfield's

architecture. He seizes the occasion to belittle Keble's poetry, to

attack Pusey, Burgon and Liddon, and to describe the college in the

following contemptuous quatrain:--

Half withdrawn in ways ascetic,

Half with modern notions stirring;

Half athletic, half æsthetic,

Neither fish, flesh nor red herring.

_Punch_ did not share the late Canon Liddon's pessimism over the new

Science degree at Oxford in 1879. Liddon is quoted as saying that

without the habits of exactness and precision acquired by classical

studies it was impossible to reach the higher characteristics of

an educated man. The argument was naturally resented by those who

maintained that "exactness and precision" were precisely the qualities

inculcated by scientific training, and in an ironical dialogue _Punch_

derides specialization as compared with the "humanities." In 1885 the

neglect of English literature at the older Universities is satirized in

the picture of the undergraduate reading out his illiterate letter, in

which the first and third persons are hopelessly mixed up.

In 1886 the spread of free education to the Universities is

foreshadowed in a description of the Slade Professor at Oxford

lecturing to a mixed audience of coal-heavers and undergraduates;

and the "Progressists' Calendar" indicates a revolt of Ratepayers

against their new burdens. In the same year the "Studies from

_Punch's_ Studio" include a portrait of the new type of University

don. "Wyckham of Jude's," who displays much versatile energy and

a wide range of interests--athletics, music, philosophy, Browning

and psychical research--ultimately goes to Australia as a Professor

of Greek. The reference to "Eleutheria Hall" foreshadows Ruskin

College, which was founded in 1899, and in other ways _Punch's_

fancy portraiture illustrates the changes which had come over the

spirit of Oxford's dream. We note, for example, the allusion to the

new cosmopolitanism--the invasion of foreigners, white and coloured,

anticipating the time some thirty years later which gave birth to one

of the best of modern Oxford anecdotes. A film was being exhibited

showing a large canoe manned by Hawaiian natives, whereon a voice arose

from the audience, "Well rowed, Balliol!"

[Sidenote: _The Value of Modern Languages_]

The proposal, since realized, to introduce Agriculture as a subject

for study at Oxford is jocularly treated early in 1887 in the form of

a diary of a candidate who is ploughed for his unorthodox views on

potato culture. As for modern languages, the advantages of a foreign

education--social and artistic as well as commercial--are excellently

summed up in the same year in Du Maurier's picture of the industrious

and accomplished young man from Hamburg, who is not only a skilled

pianist but can speak six languages, live on a pound a week, work

eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and do without a holiday!

* * * * *

[Illustration: ADVANTAGES OF A FOREIGN EDUCATION

YOUNG MÜLLER (from Hamburg) accompanies the Miss Goldmores in

some of Rubinstein's lovely duets--to the envy and disgust of Brown,

Jones, and Robinson. (N.B.--Young Müller can also speak six languages,

live on a pound a week, work eighteen hours out of twenty-four, and do

without a holiday.)]

In 1875 _Punch_ dwelt sympathetically on the still surviving prevalence

of classical learning amongst statesmen. The occasion was furnished by

Disraeli's florid eulogy of the imagination of the English School of

Art at the Royal Academy banquet:--

"HE TOO WAS BORN IN ARCADIA"

(Matthew Arnold on Disraeli at the R.A. Dinner).

Born in Arcadia! Ay, he knew

Pan's cloven foot-print on the dew,

And heard, the mystic woods across,

Aigipod[=e]s, Philokrotos,

"The bright-haired god of pastoral,"[4]

With pipings to his wood-nymphs call.

Yes, but a nobler sound there came--

The clarion of imperial Fame,

By which our greatest are withdrawn

From the serene Arcadian lawn.

Derby and Gladstone felt the breeze

That urged their sails to Homer's seas;

Yet in the Senate found their fate,

And drank the hot wine of debate.

Perish the thought that England's realm

Should e'er have dullards at the helm!

Far from us be the stolid serf

Who ne'er has trod Arcadian turf,

Nor heard, amid the glimmering trees,

Pan's happy Orestiades.

[Footnote 4: Chapman: Homeric Hymns.]

Probably the exigencies of the metre are responsible for the strange

lapse which made _Punch_ substitute "Orestiades" for "Oreades." Greek

was not then in the "last ditch," though the following advertisement,

which _Punch_ reproduces in the same year, seems to show that its

study did not conduce to opulence:--

A Bachelor, elderly and somewhat infirm, having a moderate

acquaintance with the Latin and Greek languages and who is

likewise expert with a weeding hoe, seeks a HOME and

EMPLOYMENT. A bracing air and easy access to the services of

the Church indispensable.--Address, &c.

Nowadays one of our leading literary weeklies talks of the "Hyperion

Spring." But as early as 1891 the question of Compulsory Greek was

attracting a good deal of attention, and _Punch_ sided with _The

Times_ in expressing his disbelief in "protected studies." He also

took occasion to criticize the narrowness of the old curriculum in his

picture deriding the ignorance of Dante shown by classical students. It

is just as well that he heads the picture "Too much Greek," for no good

Virgilian would ever have laid himself open to such a charge.

[Sidenote: _Too Much Greek_]

[Illustration: THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH GREEK

FIRST CLASSIC: "By the way, hadn't Dante got another Name?"

SECOND CLASSIC: "Yes; Alfieri, I think--or else Alighieri."

FIRST CLASSIC: "Ah, perhaps you're right. I had a notion it

was Gabriel Rossetti, or something!"]

At the beginning of this period _Punch_ undoubtedly showed a good deal

of mistrust of the new methods of elementary education, in so far

as they encouraged literary aspirations among the masses and tended

to convert the artisan into the clerk. At its close he strikes a

different and decidedly more democratic note in his ironical proposed

"inscription for a Free Public Library" under the heading, "_Laissez

Faire_":--

Here is an Institution doomed to scare

The furious devotees of _Laissez Faire_.

What mental shock, indeed, could prove immenser

To Mumbo Jumbo--or to Herbert Spencer?

Free Books? Reading provided from the Rates?

Oh, that means Freedom's ruin, and the State's!

Self-help's all right--e'en if you rob a brother--

But human creatures must not help each other!

The "Self-made Man," whom Samuel Smiles so praises,

Who on his fellows' necks his footing raises,

The systematic "Sweater," who sucks wealth

From toiling crowds by cunning and by stealth--

He is all right, he has no maudlin twist,

He does not shock the Individualist!

But rate yourselves to give the poor free reading?

The Pelican to warm her nestlings bleeding,

Was no such monument of feeble folly.

Let folks alone, and all will then be jolly.

Let the poor perish, let the ignorant sink,

The tempted tumble, and the drunkard drink!

Let--no, don't let the low-born robber rob,

Because--well, that would rather spoil the job.

If footpad-freedom brooked no interference,

Of Capital there might be a great clearance;

But, Wealth well-guarded, let all else alone,

'Tis thus our race hath to true manhood grown:

To make the general good the common care,

Breaks through the sacred law of _Laissez Faire_!

_Laissez Faire_ in the family circle was another matter. The authority

of the father in domestic affairs is represented as still unquestioned

even by the mother as late as 1879. But, just as you can always find

proverbs which are mutually contradictory the one of the other, so

the pages of _Punch_ constantly provide simultaneous illustrations

of opposing tendencies. In the very same year in which the doctrine

of patriarchal rule is shown to be still firmly established, _Punch_

exhibits a highly modern aspect of the relations between the two

generations. Squire Quiverfull's son, who pays 60s. a hundred for his

cigars, rebukes his father for paying 3d. each for _his_: "If I had as

many children to provide for as you, I wouldn't smoke at all."

RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES

In the previous volume it was shown how _Punch_ ranged himself on the

side of the determined Protestantism of the mass of the English people

against the growth of Ritualistic opinions and practices in the Church

of England.

The tone of _Punch's_ remonstrances was not always judicious or

considerate, and it would be easy to overrate their influence. Still,

they were not unrepresentative, and undoubtedly played a part in the

movement which led to the introduction in the spring of 1874 of the

Archbishops' Bill for the Regulation of Public Worship. As it was

originally drafted, the directory power as to worship was given to

the Bishop, assisted by a board of Assessors, clerical and lay, with

an appeal to the Archbishop with a Board of Assessors whose decision

should be final. The provisions of the Bill were criticized by Lord

Salisbury, the Bishop of Peterborough, and Lord Shaftesbury, but of the

amendments proposed those of Lord Shaftesbury carried the day, viz.

that an Ecclesiastical Judge should preside in the Courts of Canterbury

and York, to be appointed by the two Archbishops with the approval of

the Crown, and that before this Judge, and not before the Bishop, such

case of complaint, if not dismissed by the Bishop as frivolous, was

to go for trial; one appeal should lie from this Judge to the Privy

Council. These amendments gave the final character to the Act.

So far the Ministers had not committed themselves, and grave

differences of opinion were known to exist in the Cabinet. On the

introduction of the Bill into the Commons further cross-currents were

revealed. Mr. Gladstone declared uncompromising war on the Bill, on the

ground that it was not asked for by the Bishops, and as now modified

was "manufactured not by the two Primates but by members of Parliament

independently of them"; that it lacked weight and authority; and gave

undue powers to indiscreet Bishops. He accordingly formulated six

resolutions embodying the principles which ought to guide legislation

on the subject. Sir William Harcourt followed, vigorously traversing

his late leader's argument, and defending the Bill. His "Erastian

Manifesto" was so favourably received by the House that Disraeli, in a

remarkable speech, made it clear that the Government had adopted the

Bill. It was in this speech that he declared that it "would be wise for

us to rally on the broad platform of the Reformation." As long as the

doctrines relating to the worship of the Virgin, or the Confessional

were held by Roman Catholics, he was prepared to treat them with

reverence. "What I do object to is Mass in masquerade."

The second reading was carried without a division; on the following

day Mr. Gladstone withdrew his resolutions; and large majorities

confirmed the principal clauses in Committee. When the Bill came back

from the Lords, Disraeli gave way on an important amendment dealing

with the question of appeal, which the Commons had introduced and the

Lords had thrown out; he repeated that the Bill was intended "to put

down Ritualism"; incidentally he described Lord Salisbury, who had

repudiated "the bugbear of a majority of the House of Commons," as

"a great master of gibes and flouts and jeers," but appealed to the

House not to fall into the trap and lose the Bill by gratifying their

_amour-propre_. The appeal was not in vain; the Commons without a

division decided not to insist on their amendment, and the Bill which

was appointed to come into operation in July, 1875, was read a third

time on August 3. It is hard to say whether Sir William Harcourt's

panegyrics of Disraeli, or Disraeli's sarcasms at the expense of Lord

Salisbury caused more remark.

[Sidenote: _Gladstone on Vatican Decrees_]

But a more sensational sequel of the debates in Parliament was provided

by Mr. Gladstone's article on Ritualism in the October _Contemporary_

and his pamphlet issued in November on _The Vatican Decrees_. By

the former, in which he insisted on the hopelessness of the attempt

to Romanize the Church and people of England, he provoked the Irish

Romanist journals to fury and indignation. The reverberations of the

_Vatican Decrees_ pamphlet were even wider. For Mr. Gladstone was

not content with assailing the Papal claim to Infallibility: he went

so far as to say that "it was a political misfortune that during the

last thirty years the Roman Catholic Church should have acquired such

an extension of its hold upon the highest classes of this country."

The conquests had been chiefly among women, "but the number of male

converts, or captives (as I might prefer to call them), has not been

inconsiderable."

Gladstone's challenge was taken up both by Ultramontane and Liberal

Catholic champions, lay and clerical, with the result that the latter

disowned the former, and their conflicting answers revealed an

extraordinary divergence of opinion among the professing members of

the Roman Church. The views of Cardinal Manning and Lord Acton were

irreconcilable; and Manning's circular issued at the end of November

amounted to an excommunication of the followers of Döllinger, the

famous German "modernist" whom Gladstone had visited earlier in the

year, and who had been excommunicated himself in 1871 for refusing to

subscribe to the Vatican decrees. But Döllinger had refused to allow

himself to be consecrated a bishop of the old Catholic Church, and

though by conviction he belonged to the old Catholic Community he never

formally joined them.

The Ultramontane organs in Rome ascribed Gladstone's pamphlet to the

alarm occasioned by the progress Romanism was making in England,

and even hinted that his attacks were designed to clear himself of

the suspicion of hidden Catholicism, which he had incurred by his

conversations with Döllinger. This brief sketch of current theological

controversy in 1874 may assist us in recognizing the incentives which

animated _Punch's_ continued attacks on High Anglicans and Ritualists.

At the close of 1875 he quotes the following from the _Church Times_:--

"We regret to observe that that 'chartered libertine,' the Dean of

Westminster, has once more degraded the venerable church which is so

unfortunate as to be committed to his charge, by making its nave a

lecture room in which Nonconformist Ministers may disport themselves."

The same organ described the service in the Abbey on St. Andrew's Day

as "Dr. Moffatt's entertainment," and _Punch_ asks, "if this is High

Church pleasantry, what is Low?" In 1876, when communion was refused on

account of the would-be communicant's disbelief in the Devil, _Punch_

observes:--