PART I

THE TWO NATIONS

MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND

_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE

O! fair and fresh the early spring

Her budding wreath displays,

To all the wide earth promising

The joy of harvest days;

Yet many a waste of wavy gold

Hath bent above the dead;

Then let the living share it too--

Give us our daily bread.

Of old a nation's cry shook down

The sword-defying wall,

And ours may reach the mercy-seat,

Though not the lordly hall.

God of the Corn! shall man restrain

Thy blessings freely shed?

O! look upon the isles at last--

Give us our daily bread.

[Sidenote: _The Founders of "Punch"_]

It is fitting that a chronicle of social life in England in the

Victorian age, drawn in its essentials from the pages of _Punch_, should

begin with the People. For _Punch_ began as a radical and democratic

paper, a resolute champion of the poor, the desolate and the oppressed,

and the early volumes abound in evidences of the miseries of the "Hungry

'Forties" and in burning pleas for their removal. The strange mixture of

jocularity with intense earnestness which confronts us on every page

was due to the characters and antecedents of the men who founded and

wrote for the paper at its outset. Of at least three of them it might be

said that they were humanitarians first and humorists afterwards. Henry

Mayhew, one of the originators and for a short time joint-editor, was

"the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which

takes the poor of London as its theme," and in his articles in the

_Morning Chronicle_ and his elaborate work on _London Labour and the

London Poor_, which occupied him intermittently for the best part of

twenty years, showed himself a true forerunner of Charles Booth. His

versatility was amazing. The writer of the obituary notice of him in the

_Athenæum_ observes that "it would not be difficult to show him as a

scientific writer, a writer of semi-religious biography, and an

outrageous joker at one and the same time." Another member of the

original staff was Gilbert à Beckett, who crowded an extraordinary

amount of work into his short life as leader-writer on _The Times_,

comic journalist, dramatist, Poor Law Commissioner and Metropolitan

Magistrate. It was à Beckett's report on the scandal connected with the

Andover Union--pronounced by the Home Secretary, Buller, to be one of

the best ever presented to Parliament--that led to important alterations

in the Statute book, and secured for him, at the age of thirty-eight,

his appointment as Metropolitan Police Magistrate. Thackeray's

references to "à Beckett the beak" are frequent and affectionate, and on

his death in 1856 a noble tribute was paid him in the pages of the

journal he had served from its opening number. "As a magistrate, Gilbert

à Beckett, by his wise, calm, humane administration of the law, gave a

daily rebuke to a too ready belief that the faithful exercise of the

highest and gravest social duties is incompatible with the sportiveness

of literary genius." These words were penned by Douglas Jerrold, who

died within a year of his friend, and was the most ardent and

impassioned humanitarian of the three. By the irony of fate Jerrold is

chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and

ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist

and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long

champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry

Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do.

Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education

was largely acquired in a printer's office. His brief service in the

Navy was long enough to make him a strenuous advocate of the claims of

the lower deck to more humane treatment. He did not believe that harsh

discipline and flogging were necessary to the efficiency of either

Service. As a boy he had seen something of the human wreckage of war,

and the spectacle had cured him for ever of any illusions as to

militarism. But his distrust of Emperors, Dictators and the "King

business" generally--always excepting Constitutional Monarchy--was so

pronounced that any interference on their part was enough to convert him

into a Jingo. How far he was from being a pacificist may be judged from

the temper of _Punch_ in the Crimean War, its advocacy of ruthlessness

as the best means of shortening the hostilities, and its bitter

criticism of Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and above all of Cobden

and Bright, for their alleged pro-Russian sympathies. In the 'forties

Cobden and Bright were the leaders of that group of "middle-class men of

enthusiasm and practical sagacity" which directed the Free Trade

movement, and they had been supported by _Punch_ in the campaign against

the Corn Laws. Douglas Jerrold was the spear-head of _Punch's_ attacks

on Protection, Bumbledom, unreformed Corporations, Cant and Snobbery,

the cruelty, the inequality, the expense and the delays of the Law. He

might be described as being violently and vituperatively on the side of

the angels. The freedom of his invective, notably in the articles signed

"Q," is beyond belief. Compared with his handling of ducal landlords,

the most drastic criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George in his earlier days are

as water to wine. At all costs Jerrold was determined that the Tory dogs

should not have the best of it.

[Illustration: THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND

(The Hungry 'Forties)]

Biographies of the _Punch_ staff do not fall within the scope of this

chronicle, but some knowledge of the record and the temperament of the

men who gave the paper its peculiar quality for many years is essential

to a proper understanding of its influence on public opinion. They were

humorous men, but they could be terribly in earnest, and they had

abundant excuse for their seriousness. They could not forgive the Duke

of Wellington when on August 24, 1841, he declared that England was "the

only country in which the poor man, if only sober and industrious, was

quite certain of acquiring a competency." They regarded it as "a

heartless insult thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands, the

ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws.... If rags and starvation put up

their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered

by the Duke of Wellington? 'Ye are drunken and lazy!'" A few days later

Mr. Fielden, M.P., moved "that the distress of the working people at the

present time is so great throughout the country, but particularly in the

manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make

instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise

means to remedy it; and at all events to vote no supply of money until

such inquiry be made." The motion was negatived by 149 to 41, and a Tory

morning paper complacently observed that "there has been for the last

few days a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of

every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this

vast metropolis. It is caused by the Opposition exhibition of Friday

night in the House of Commons." The comment on this "spiteful

imbecility" is not to be wondered at: "Toryism believes only in the

well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the

instrumental parts of her religion. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a

full belly." The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question, about a

year later, that the keepers of St. James's Park were particularly

ordered "not to admit persons who wore fustian jackets," an order which

prompted _Punch_ to remark that in Merry England "labour was ignominy,

and your only man the man with white hands and filbert nails." A writer

in the _Examiner_ so recently as 1861 could remember the time when the

sentries in St. James's Park used, at the point of the bayonet,

according to their orders, to dismount women from their pattens, and

make them trudge on with them in their hands. It is an old story; as

old as the days of Ahasuerus, when "no one might enter the King's gate

clothed with sackcloth." _Punch_ never wearied of bringing home to his

readers these abrupt contrasts of wealth and poverty. The people were

crying for bread and Parliament had been occupied in carrying the

Ventilation of the House Bill and the Royal Kitchen Garden Bill. The

amount voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor was considerably more than

three times what was obtained from Parliament for the education of the

poor. _The Times_ of December 2, 1841, quoted from the _Sporting

Magazine_ an account of the accommodation provided for the Prince

Consort's beagles and Her Majesty's dogs--sleeping beds, compartments

paved with asphalt, dry and clean, with roomy and healthy green yards;

and boiling and distemper houses detached from the other portions of the

building--and bracketed with it the sworn evidence of the late matron

and medical attendant at the Sevenoaks Union. The lying-in ward was

small and always looked dirty. "There had been six women there at one

time: two were confined in one bed. It was impossible entirely to shut

out the infection. I have known fifteen children sleep in two beds." Six

young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were charged about the

same time with breaking several panes of glass. In their defence they

complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they

would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the

latter place they broke the windows. Strange reading this in a comic

journal, yet paralleled by similar extracts week after week and month

after month. The birth of the Prince of Wales was chronicled in the same

issue of the daily papers which contained the "luscious history" of the

Lord Mayor's dinner:--

Oh, men of Paisley--good folks of Bolton--what promise for ye is

here! Turkeys, capons, sirloins, asparagus, pheasants, pineapples,

Savoy cakes, Chantilly baskets, mince-pies, preserved ginger,

brandy cherries, a thousand luscious cakes that "the sense aches

at!" What are all these gifts of plenty but a glad promise that in

the time of the "sweetest young prince," on the birthday of that

Prince just vouchsafed to us, all England will be a large Lord

Mayor's table!

[Sidenote: _Fleshpots and Famine_]

When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, _Punch_

boldly suggested Lazarus:--

Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit

upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall

heal the wounds of wretchedness--shall gather bloodless laurels in

the hospital and workhouse--his ermine and purple shall make

fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey--he shall be a king enthroned

and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!

LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the

wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very

syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth,

there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the

beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed--tatters are

invested with regality--man in his most abject and hopeless

condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the

earth--royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the

embrace of fraternity.

O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and

cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you

can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"

In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in _Punch_, in which the cry

of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from

"The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short

poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the

lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:--

Disease and want are sitting by my hearth--

The world hath left me nothing of its good!

The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,

And yet I am alone and wanting food.

The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth

Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE

Who gave the mighty universe its birth

Would never love the wild bird more than me.

_Punch_ had no illusions as to the genuineness of the Chartist movement,

as may be gathered from his comments on the presentation of the Great

Petition in 1842. There might, he owned, be dangerous demagogues who

offered evil counsel, but the Chartists themselves had a degree of

intelligence, a power of concentration, a knowledge of the details of

public business, heretofore unknown to great popular combinations of

dissentients:--

There are among the Chartists hard-headed logicians--men keenly

alive to their sufferings, and what is more, soundly schooled as to

the causes of them. We grant that their petition presented to

Parliament contained many follies, very many extravagances--that it

prayed for what the timidity of poverty will call revolutionary

measures; but is it not an axiom in politics, that to get even a

little it is necessary to ask a great deal?

We only call upon Toryism, or Whiggism either, each to show us its

army of 3,000,000 of spotless politicians. But we contend that the

Chartists are foully maligned when they are branded as thieves and

spoilers. It is an old cry that property has its rights; it has

been added--and well added--that property has also its duties. To

these let us subjoin--property has also its cowardice.

Inquiries and investigations into the condition of agricultural

labourers and of artisans were already bringing to light many

disquieting facts. The physical destitution and spiritual forlornness of

the workers in the Midlands were painfully illustrated in the evidence

of Mr. Horne on the condition of the operatives of Wolverhampton:--

I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and

keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost

destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for

a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with

the wife hungry--almost crying with hunger--and in rags, _yet the

floor was perfectly clean_. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on

the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side,

but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his

wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the

room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William

Benton--"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't

know justly--mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write;

can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is

of the Baptist school religion, _whatever that is_. Never heard of

Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who

Jesus Christ was--he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to

school if he could...."

You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen

a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a

violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea

of a green field was derived from _having been stung by a nettle_.

[Sidenote: _The Song of the Shirt_]

The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions

of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England

suggested to _Punch_ an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of

the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet,

etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined

being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the

cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and

_Punch_ was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor

widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up

for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a

week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which

paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest

poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of

Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all

the other contributions to insignificance:--

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread--

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch

She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work--work--work,

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It's O! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!

"Work--work--work

Till the brain begins to swim;

Work--work--work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Seam and gusset and band,

Band and gusset and seam,

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in a dream!

"O men, with sisters dear!

O men, with mothers and wives!

It is not linen you're wearing out,

But human creatures' lives!

Stitch--stitch--stitch,

In poverty, hunger and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A shroud as well as a shirt.

"But why do I talk of Death,

That phantom of grisly bone?

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own--

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fasts I keep;

Oh God, that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work--work--work!

My labour never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread--and rags.

That shatter'd roof--and this naked floor--

A table--a broken chair--

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

"Work--work--work!

From weary chime to chime,

Work--work--work--

As prisoners work for crime!

Band and gusset and seam,

Seam and gusset and band,

Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,

As well as the weary hand.

"Work--work--work

In the dull December light,

And work--work--work

When the weather is warm and bright;

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling

As if to show me their sunny backs

And twit me with the spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet;

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want

And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh, but for one short hour!

A respite however brief;

No blessed leisure for love or hope,

But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat in unwomanly rags

Plying her needle and thread--

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,

Would that its tone could reach the rich!

She sang this "Song of the Shirt."

[Sidenote: _Sir Robert Peel and Hood_]

[Illustration: PIN MONEY]

[Illustration: NEEDLE MONEY]

The story of "The Song of the Shirt" is well told by Mr. M. H. Spielmann

in his _History of "Punch"._ Mark Lemon proved himself a great editor

by deciding to publish the poem against the expressed opinions of his

colleagues, who thought it unsuitable for a comic journal, and also by

his omitting the one weak verse in the original MS. Strange to say, the

poem does not appear in the index. The sequel may be found in Peel's

correspondence, and does honour to a statesman who, while he lived,

received scant justice from _Punch_. Though the impact of Hood's burning

verses on public opinion was immense and abiding, Hood himself a year

later was dying in penury, of consumption. On November 16, 1844, Peel

wrote him a letter expressing admiration for his work, and offering him

a pension. "I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am

fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature, which has placed at the

disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable indeed in amount) in

recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown." All he asked

in return was that Hood would give him the opportunity of making his

personal acquaintance. That was impossible owing to the state of Hood's

health. Mrs. Hood wrote on January 14, 1845, to beg for prompt

assistance: Hood was dangerously ill and creditors were pressing. Peel

sent the £100 at once, and on February 17 Hood wrote to thank him "with

all the sincerity of a dying man" and to bid him a respectful farewell.

He could write no more, though he had wished to write one more paper.

Then follow these memorable words, even more needed now than they were

seventy-five years ago:--

Certain classes, at the poles of society, are already too far

asunder. It should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer

by kindly attraction, not to aggravate existing repulsions and

place a wider moral gulf between rich and poor, with hate on one

side and fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the

last I had set myself. It is death that stops my pen, you see, not

a pension. God bless you, sir, and prosper all your measures for

the benefit of my beloved country.

Hood died on May 3, 1845, and was buried in Kensal Green, but more than

seven years later no tombstone marked his resting-place, and _Punch_ was

moved to ask:--

If marble mark the soldier-statesman's grave,

If monuments adorn his place of sleep

Whose hand struck off the fetters from the slave,

And his who sought out woe in dungeons deep,

Did _he_ not fight for Toil's sad sons and daughters?

Was not _his_ voice loud for the worker's right?

Was _he_ not potent to arrest the slaughters

Of Capital and Labour's desperate fight?

Eventually a tombstone was erected, bearing the words: "He sang the Song

of the Shirt," but the pension continued to his widow lapsed on her

death a year later. A sum of £800, collected by public subscription, was

all that was available for the children, Lord John Russell, then

Premier, having found himself unable to extend the pension for their

benefit, at a time when, as _Punch_ reminded him, the Duchess of

Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, was drawing a pension of £1,000

a year. "The Song of the Shirt" rang through the land, but it did not

end the hardships of the sweated sempstress. Within a year _Punch_ was

moved to indignation by the story of Esther Pierce, paid 6d. for

embroidering eighty blossoms on a silk shawl, and charged with pawning

the goods of her employer. In 1848, under the heading "The Cheap Shirt

Market," we read of a woman prosecuted on a similar charge, who was paid

2s. 6d. a dozen for making up shirts, or 2½d. apiece, and on these

earnings supported herself, two children and a husband out of work. As

late as 1859 the sweated shirt makers were still receiving only 4s. 6d.

a dozen. No wonder is it that when the movement in favour of cottage

gardens was frowned upon in some quarters on the ground that flowers

here were "out of place," _Punch_ retorted with the bitter jibe: "What

has the labourer to do with stocks but sit in them?"

[Sidenote: _The Duke of Norfolk's Panacea_]

No wonder again that a legal pillory of harsh sentences was a constant

feature of his pages in the 'forties and 'fifties. A humane magistrate

who refused in 1845 to hear a charge of wood-stealing from a hedge

brought against a man earning 7s. a week--the common rate at the time

for agricultural labourers--stated from the Bench that he knew of good

hands in Warwickshire who were earning only 3s. and 3s. 10d. a week.

Meat was a luxury: only the elders got bacon: the children potatoes and

salt: bread was 10d. a loaf. Yet this was the time when the Duke of

Norfolk seriously proposed that the poor should eke out their meagre

fare by the use of curry powder,[1] a suggestion that recalls the

historic comment of the French lady, shortly before the Revolution, on

hearing that the peasantry had no bread, "Then why don't they eat cake?"

_Punch_ dealt faithfully with this ducal _gaffe_ under the heading, "A

Real Blessing to Landlords":--

The genuine Anti-Appetitive Curry Powder, strongly recommended by

the Duke of Norfolk, is the labourer's only true substitute for

bread and meat. It possesses the singular property of deluding the

empty stomach into a sense of fullness, and is calculated to

relieve those distressing symptoms of vacuity which result from

living on seven shillings a week. It may be warranted to supersede

potatoes and bacon; containing in fact, in itself, the essence of

gammon; and one pinch dissolved in a tumbler of hot water is equal

to a pot of beer. Landed proprietors, not wishing to reduce their

rents, will find this preparation admirably calculated to reconcile

labourers with their present rate of wages by enabling them almost

entirely to dispense with food. Sold in pots, at from one shilling.

Agricultural societies supplied.

N.B.--A liberal allowance on taking a quantity.

[Footnote 1: For the actual speech of the Duke see the _Examiner_ for

1845, p. 786.]

In these years the Dukes were constantly in _Mr. Punch's_ pillory; the

Duke of Marlborough for his harsh treatment of his tenantry in

connection with the Woodstock Election in 1844; the Duke of Buckingham

for prosecuting a rat-catcher, who was fined 18s. or fourteen days for

killing a leveret as big as a kitten, and about the same time for

prosecuting a poacher for damaging a fence to the amount of one penny;

the Duke of Sutherland, in the same year again, for the arbitrary rules

enforced on his estate, the whole county being parcelled out into

sheep-walks, which suggested to _Punch_ that he should be dignified with

the Order of Mutton; the Duke of Richmond for apparently imagining that

agricultural troubles could be settled by the simple process of drinking

the health of the British labourer; the Duke of Atholl for closing Glen

Tilt. Even the Great Duke himself was not immune from criticism and

censure. He had done a great work in the past, but he was out of touch

with the times and lacking in sympathy with the people. His words

reflected his iron temperament: they were like tenpenny nails. In 1845

_Punch_ made bold to suggest that the time for his going to grass had

arrived:--

_The Times_ says "he is the leader of the aristocracy." Let him go

and lead the Dukes. He is fit for that, but not any longer for

governing us.... The old Duke should no longer block up the great

thoroughfare of civilisation--he should be quietly and respectfully

eliminated. For the future, let us have him and admire him--in

history.

[Sidenote: _Harsh Sentences on Children_]

Harsh sentences on juvenile delinquents and plebeian offenders under the

Game Laws and Sunday Trading Act, the harrying of vagrants, the

treatment of destitution as a crime, are a constant spur to _Punch's_

reforming zeal. The hard cases quoted from _The Times_ and many

provincial papers include the flogging of a boy for accidentally killing

a leveret; the trial of a starving woman for the crime of stealing a

faggot worth a penny; the prosecution of two children, aged six and

twelve, for picking two handfuls of peas while walking in a field

through which there was a path, and the sending of the elder boy to gaol

for fourteen days in default of payment of a fine of 6d. and 13s. costs;

a sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a crab worth 1s.

6d.; the fining of a man 5s. by his vicar because his child, aged nine,

had sold a halfpenny worth of sweets to another child on Sunday--which

reminds _Punch_ of Herod and the Innocents. In 1841 Lord Brougham, in

Parliament, during a discussion on prison discipline, stated that a man

"had been confined ten weeks, having been fined 1s., with 14s. costs,

because he was absent one Sunday from church." Then in 1846 we have the

case of a woman charged with "exciting charity," though she had not

solicited alms. As late as 1859 we read of a child of nine in Essex,

sent to prison for fourteen days and whipped for stealing ½lb. of

butter. Small wonder is it that _Punch_ was a fervent and convinced

anti-Sabbatarian, or that he wrote in 1846: "The State does not trouble

itself much with education in this country, but the most usual schools

for the young and destitute are the prisons." The alternatives of fine

or imprisonment heightened the evil, for while the poor delinquent went

to gaol the well-to-do offender escaped. Brutal assaults on women were

punished by a lenient fine, which the bully could generally pay;

fraudulent tradesmen were not deterred from repeating their offences by

a money penalty which they could easily afford; it was only the

penniless pilferer who was sure of prison. In 1844 we find _Punch_

tracing incendiarism in Suffolk to the greed of the farmers in keeping

wages down, and publishing Leech's famous cartoon "The Home of the Rick

Burner." _Facit indignatio versum_: here is the picture of "The Fine Old

English Gentleman of the Present Time"--in the middle of the Hungry

'Forties:--

I'll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,

Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,

But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.

Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,

Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.

* * * * *

In winter's cold, when poor and old for some assistance call,

And come to beg a trifle at the portals of his hall,

He refers them to the workhouse, that stands open wide for all;

For this is how the parish great relieve the parish small,

Like this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.

Here is the portrait of the pauper:--

Houseless, famish'd, desp'rate man,

A ragged wretch am I!

And how, and when, and where I can,

I feed, and lodge, and lie.

And I must to the workhouse go,

_If_ better may not be;

Ay, _if_, indeed! The workhouse! No!

The gaol--the gaol for me.

* * * * *

There shall I get the larger crust,

The warmer house-room there;

And choose a prison since I must,

I'll choose it for its fare.

The dog will snatch the biggest bone,

So much the wiser he:

Call me a dog--the name I'll own--

The gaol--the gaol for me.

The horror of the "Union" inspired some of the most moving pages in

Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" some twenty years later. How deep and well

justified it was in the 'forties may be gathered from the scandal of the

Andover Union workhouse in '45, the habitual underfeeding of paupers,

and the frequent inquests at which verdicts of "natural death" were

returned on victims of neglect and even cruelty. The opposition to the

humane proposal to establish a lending library at the Greenwich

workhouse, following the example of Wandsworth, moved _Punch_ to

indignant irony: "Food for a pauper's mind, indeed! It is quite enough

to have to find food for his body." In 1851 an inquiry into the

management of a workhouse near Leeds revealed that the inmates were fed

at a trough, six at a time. In 1857 the workhouse children at Bath were

not allowed to see the pantomime _Jack and the Beanstalk_. Owing to the

intervention of the Guardians, headed by a clergyman, the children were

actually stopped at the door of the theatre. But in "Dust from a

Bath-brick" _Punch_ dusted the jackets of the Guardians in his best

style. Again and again we find him protesting against the regulation of

the new Poor Law which separated man and wife directly they entered the

workhouse. For professional mendicants he had no sympathy. Witness the

ironical lines on "The Jolly London Beggars":--

A fig for honest occupation,

Beggary's an easier trade;

Industry is mere starvation,

Mendicancy's better paid.

[Sidenote: _Bigamy or Divorce?_]

In the long campaign for the reform of the Marriage Laws _Punch_ never

ceased to reiterate his conviction that cheap divorce was a better

remedy than the punishment of the brutal husband. Yet when Mr. Justice

Maule delivered his historic judgment in 1845, _Punch_ hardly rendered

justice to that masterpiece of fruitful irony:--

WAGGERY OF THE BENCH

One Thomas Rollins, as poor as beggary, was arraigned as a

bigamist. His first wife had left him and become no better than one

of the wicked. Whereupon Rollins took another helpmate; and, for

such violation of the law, found himself face to face with Justice

Maule, who, as it will appear, happened to be in one of his

pleasantest humours. He told the culprit, and we doubt not with a

gravity of face worthy of the original _Billy Lackaday_, "that the

law was the same for him as it was for a rich man, and was _equally

open for him_, through its aid, to afford relief." In the like way

that turbot and champagne are the same to Lazarus as to Dives; if

Lazarus could only buy the taste of them. Beggar and rich man have

both the same papillary organs--a dignifying truth for the outcast

wanting a dinner! However, the droll Judge continued his

pleasantry:

"He (Rollins) _should have brought an action_ against the man who

was living in the way stated with his wife, and _he should have

obtained damages_, and then _should have gone to the Ecclesiastical

Court_ and obtained a divorce, which would have done what seemed to

have been done already, _and then he should have gone to the House

of Lords_, and, proving all his case and the preliminary

proceedings, _have obtained a full and complete divorce_; after

which he might, if he liked it, have married again."

There is a delicious vein of humour in this. It smacks of the grave,

earnest fun of Swift. How the jest increases in volume as we follow the

pauper from court to court--tarry with him awhile in the House of

Lords--and finally see him "married again." And then the Judge, in a

sustained spirit of drollery, observes:

"The prisoner _might perhaps object to this_, that he had not the

money to pay the expenses, which would amount to about £500 or

£600--_perhaps he had not so many pence_--but this did not exempt

him from paying the penalty for committing a felony, of which he

had been convicted."

Of course not. Therefore Thomas Rollins is in effect not punished for

marrying a second wife, but for the turpitude of wanting "about £500 or

£600," by means of which he might have rid himself of his first spouse.

In England the bonds of Hymen are only to be cut with a golden axe.

Assuredly there needs a slight alteration in the marriage service. "Whom

God hath joined, let no man put asunder," should be followed by these

words, "_Unless paid about £500 or £600 to separate them_."

_Punch_, we are afraid, was inclined, in those days at any rate, to

resent any attempt to usurp his functions as a public ironist, even by

those who were fighting on the same side as himself. Anyhow, he omitted

to mention that the judge sentenced Rollins to one day's imprisonment.

But later references to this famous judgment made it clear that _Punch_

recognized that the judge's irony was deliberate and animated by a

sincere desire for reform, not by mere irresponsible "waggery."

Against the Game Laws and their administration _Punch_ waged a

continuous war. Squires were condemned for the damage done to land by

game kept up for the profit of the landlord, hares being fed at the

expense of the tenant farmer. John Bull worshipped rank and money, and

amongst his idols were hares, pheasants and partridges, with his "bold

peasantry" as their constant victims.

[Sidenote: _The Model Labourer_]

The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P., who published a pamphlet

in 1845 defending the drastic treatment of poachers, was very roughly

handled for his calm assertion of the sacred rights of game; but perhaps

the most effective comment on the inequalities of life on the land is to

be found in the ironical portrait of "The Model Labourer" in the summer

of 1848:--

He supports a large family upon the smallest wages. He works from

twelve to fourteen hours a day. He rises early to dig in what he

calls his garden. He prefers his fireside to the alehouse, and has

only one pipe when he gets home, and then to bed. He attends church

regularly, with a clean smock frock and face, on Sundays, and waits

outside, when service is over, to pull his hair to his landlord,

or, in his absence, pays the same reverence to the steward. Beer

and he are perfect strangers, rarely meeting, except at Christmas

or harvest time; and as for spirits, he only knows them, like meat,

by name. He does not care for skittles. He never loses a day's work

by attending political meetings. Newspapers do not make him

discontented, for the simple reason that he cannot read. He

believes strongly in the fact of his belonging to the "Finest

Peasantry." He sends his children to school somehow, and gives them

the best boots and education he can. He attributes all blights, bad

seasons, failures, losses, accidents to the repeal of the Corn

Laws. He won't look at a hare, and imagines, in his respect for

rabbits, that Jack Sheppard was a poacher. He whitewashes his

cottage once a year. He is punctual with his rent, and somehow, by

some rare secret best known by his wages, he is never ill. He knows

absolutely nothing beyond the affairs of his parish, and does not

trouble himself greatly about them. If he has a vote, it is his

landlord's, of course. He joins in the cry of "Protection,"

wondering what it means, and puts his X most innocently to any

farmer's petition. He subscribes a penny a week to a Burial

Society. He erects triumphal arches, fills up a group of happy

tenants, shouts, sings, dances--any mockery or absurdity, to please

his master. He has an incurable horror of the Union, and his

greatest pride is to starve sooner than to solicit parish relief.

His children are taught the same creed. He prefers living with his

wife to being separated from her. His only amusement is the Annual

Agricultural Fat-and-Tallow Show; his greatest happiness if his

master's pig, which he has fattened, gets the prize. He struggles

on, existing rather than living, infinitely worse fed than the

beasts he gets up for the exhibitions--much less cared about than

the soil he cultivates; toiling without hope, spring, summer,

autumn and winter, his wages never higher--frequently less--and

perhaps after thirty years' unceasing labour, if he has been all

that time with the same landlord, he gets the munificent reward of

six-and-twopence, accompanied, it is true, with a warm eulogium on

his virtues by the President (a real Lord) for having brought up

ten children and several pigs upon five shillings a week. This is

the MODEL LABOURER, whose end of life is honourably fulfilled if he

is able, after a whole life's sowing for another, to reap a coffin

for himself to be buried in!

This is not an imaginary portrait, though some of the touches are

heightened by the artist. As for the vote, a good illustration is to be

found in the advertisement of the sale of the Earl of Ducie's domain in

1843, quoted by _Punch_ on page 14 of Vol. v., including "the entire

village of Nymphfield, wherein are 66 houses and the Ducie Arms, with

political influence extending over 1,200 honest yeomen." As for the

exhibitions, with their rewards and prizes for the virtuous and

industrious poor, _Punch_ was lavish of sarcasm at the expense of this

parsimonious and condescending benevolence, when the prizes represented

a miserable percentage on the profits which the recipients had earned

for their masters by special zeal. So we find him suggesting a prize of

£1 to the labourer who had lived the longest number of years on the

shortest commons, and during the same period Leech's cartoon of a show

where the prize pig is awarded £3 3s. and the prize peasant £2 2s. When

baby shows were introduced in the next decade, Lord Palmerston was drawn

with his prize agricultural baby, holding up a wizened old labourer with

the label "Prize, 30s. Labourer all his life and never wanted to improve

his condition." _Punch's_ democratic distrust of Lords and Ladies

Bountiful was no doubt in part the cause of his hostility to the Young

England movement. From his account of the matter one might gather that

Disraeli identified himself with, if he did not actually originate, the

fashion of giving prizes to the working classes. Lord John Manners fell

an easy prey to "the Democritus of Fleet Street" (as the _Daily

Telegraph_ called _Punch_ in later years), when in "England's Trust and

other Poems" was penned the memorable _cri de coeur_:--

Though I could bear to view our crowded towns

Sink into hamlets or unpeopled downs;

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,

But leave us still our old nobility.

[Sidenote: _Lord Shaftesbury_]

But "Young England" practised better than its poet preached. For proof

one need only turn to the history of the reform of the Factory Acts

which _Punch_ unflinchingly supported, while rendering scant justice to

the man who started this "great campaign against the oppression of the

industrial poor" and carried it to a successful conclusion, or to some

of those who lent him most valuable assistance. Of Lord Ashley,

afterwards the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, it has been said that if

there is a Seventh Heaven he is there. But he was a Tory, who had

opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, though he supported Catholic

Emancipation and resigned his seat for Dorset in 1846 in the belief that

the continuance of the Corn Laws was impracticable; he was an

aristocrat; he held pronounced Evangelical views and was a convinced

Sabbatarian. On all these grounds he was held suspect by _Punch_. Yet as

early as 1833 Lord Ashley was mainly instrumental in securing the

passage of a Factory Act, the scope of which was narrowed by the

hostility of Whigs, manufacturing capitalists and doctrinaire Radicals.

In 1840 he got a Commission appointed, whose report, published in 1842,

shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the introduction of a

Bill excluding women and children from mines. In the next phase of this

humane campaign, when Sir James Graham introduced a Government Bill to

regulate labour in factories, Disraeli and the "Young England" group

supported Ashley throughout against the refusal of the Government to

concede the ten-hour limit. But the Government, supported by Bright and

most of the Radical Free Traders, threw all its weight into the scale of

the millowners, carried the day against Ashley, "Young England" and most

of the official Whigs, and until 1847 the labour of boys from 13 to 18

years of age, and of girls and women to 21, stood at twelve hours a

day. The Act of 1847, which limited the hours of work for women and

children to ten hours, was imperfectly drafted, and the interpretation

placed upon it by the Courts enabled manufacturers to evade its

provisions. In 1850 the Government offered a compromise implying a

10½ hour day, which was reluctantly accepted by Lord Ashley. But

Disraeli supported Lord John Manners in protesting against this

compromise. As his biographers do well to remind us, he condemned it as

a breach of faith with the overworked population: the honour of

Parliament was concerned in not taking advantage of a legal flaw. The

Government again carried the day, but only for the moment; the objects

of its critics have long since been more than obtained. Disraeli's

speech on this occasion was "instinct with the spirit of _Sybil_"--his

finest and best constructed novel. _Sybil_ was published in 1845, and

though in its essentials exhibiting a remarkable convergence with the

aims of _Punch_, was never mentioned by him at the time. Disraeli was a

Jew. Now _Punch_ consistently supported the removal of Jewish

disabilities as an act of justice, and when rebuking the Exeter Hall

philanthropists for thinking that charity must begin abroad, and for

neglecting the starving sempstress for the apostate Jew, Chinese,

Hottentots, etc., gave them this excellent advice: "Ye who would convert

the Jews, first copy the Jews' great virtue; first take care of your own

poor; feed and clothe them, and then, if you will, with the superfluity

make converts of the Hebrews." But _Punch_ was no lover of Jews, and

least of all of Disraeli. He soon recognized his abilities as a great

Parliamentary gladiator; he admitted his courage and tenacity. In the

main, however, _Punch_ regarded him at this stage of his career as a

brilliant but undesirable alien, a flamboyant charlatan, an

untrustworthy and insincere patron of the agricultural interest. Yet

_Sybil_ in its pictures of the inequalities and miseries of the social

and industrial system then prevailing, was conceived and executed

largely in the spirit of Hood's deathbed letter to Peel. Disraeli was

never more "on the side of the angels" than when he wrote the dialogue

between Egremont and the stranger. The stranger, after observing that

while Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves,

modern society acknowledges no neighbour, adds that society, still in

its infancy, is beginning to feel its way. Egremont replies:--

[Sidenote: _The Two Nations_]

"Well, Society may be in its infancy; but, say what you like, our

Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed." "Which

nation?" asked the younger stranger; "for she reigns over two." The

stranger paused. Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.

"Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval, "two

nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who

are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if

they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different

planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by a

different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not

governed by the same laws." "You speak of," said Egremont

hesitatingly,--"THE RICH AND THE POOR."

Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of

burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in _Sybil_, though one must not

forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it

bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and

industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the

evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly

painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in _Sybil_. The details

are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S.

R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green

and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of

artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a

systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his

campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but

here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it

that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all

on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the

humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference

by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the

existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving

hand-loom weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de

Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in

smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a

real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's

phrase. But for reasons already given _Punch_ was not prepared to accept

Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and

ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to _Punch's_

eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to _Punch_ it must be

admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal

of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and

damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the

"Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the

distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his

view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the

leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their

responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and

privileges. _Punch_ was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law

Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of

Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to

hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; _Punch_

refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group

were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were

not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than

specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate

action did not appeal to _Punch_. Though often a petulant and intolerant

critic, he was always on the look out for practical evidences of reform,

legislative, administrative or philanthropic. In 1842 he hailed the

decision to close the Fleet Prison, and when it was about to be

demolished, wrote in 1845: "Truly there _are_ sermons in stones, and if

Beelzebub wanted to preach on the folly, cruelty, ignorance and

wickedness of men towards men, even he could not hit upon a more

suggestive text than is written--written in tears--on every stone of the

Fleet Prison." Of the efforts to bring justice within the reach of the

poor he was an impassioned advocate from the very first. When a police

magistrate expressed views of which he disapproved he did not hesitate

to describe him as "an insufferably ignorant, and therefore insolent,

magisterial cur"! That was in 1841. Four years later _Punch_

vociferously applauds a courageous magistrate who committed a

"gentleman" to the House of Correction for a brutal assault, and

welcomes a revolt against harsh sentences in the action of the Recorder

at the Central Criminal Court, who in 1847 refused to send a boy of

twelve to prison for stealing £4 12s. from his master "because if he

went to prison he might become an expert thief."

[Sidenote: _A Plot Against Prisons_]

In the year 1853 _Punch_ discussed at length, under the title of "A Plot

against Prisons," and in the ironical vein which frequently exposed him

to misconception by his prosaic readers, "a dangerous conspiracy

organized for the purpose of defrauding the gallows and the hulks," and

initiated by one of the noblest of many noble Quaker philanthropists:--

The originator of the plot is one Joseph Sturge, who has founded an

establishment, called the Reformatory Institution, in Birmingham,

and placed it under the superintendence of another man named Ellis,

who formerly presided over a similar concern in London, being a

place of resort for young thieves, where they were inveigled, and

seduced into the abandonment of their dishonest calling. To this

end no pains were spared to render the paths of virtue seductive,

by blending as much amusement as possible with the particular

branch of industry the lads were instructed in. The man Ellis,

their enticer from the line of turpitude, is a shoemaker. He says

in his evidence, reported by the House of Commons:

"I used to go and sit with them for two or three hours a day, and I

used to tell them that they might, by governing their tongues,

their tempers and their appetites, and governing themselves

generally, be much more happy if they would put themselves in

harmony with the laws of their own physical nature; and I showed

them how wrong it was to break the social laws that bind society

together, and also the laws of God, and so forth. I considered that

my conversation with them for two or three hours had had a great

effect; and I provided them with wholesome food, and I gave them

clothes to wear, and I surrounded them with as many comforts as I

possibly could."

The Birmingham Institution, under the same management, has also

succeeded to such an extent that it is in contemplation to

establish another there on a larger scale; which, no doubt, will

most seriously tend to impair the utility of those magnificent

edifices, our gaols and bridewells, which everywhere afford such

vast but by no means empty accommodation. A meeting has been held,

Lord Calthorpe in the chair, to carry out the desired object, which

will tend to throw so many turnkeys out of employment, and to which

all persons are asked to subscribe who desire to rob Jack Ketch of

his livelihood, and the Government of convict labour, by

substituting prevention for cure--superseding prison discipline by

reformation.

[Sidenote: _High Life Below Stairs_]

[Illustration: SERVANTGALISM

COOK: "Well, to be sure, Mum! Last place I were in Missis always knocked

at the door afore she come into the kitchen!!"]

[Illustration: COACHMAN: "Why--what's the matter, John Thomas?"

FOOTMAN: "Matter enuff! Here's the marchioness bin and giv me notice

because I don't match Joseph, an' I must go, unless I can get my fat

down in a week!"]

The relations of masters, mistresses and servants is a never ending

theme in the pages of _Punch_. His attitude was governed by the broad

principles that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that those who

offered inadequate wages must expect neither character nor efficiency.

But he draws a clear distinction between the domestic slave and the

flunkey, holding that snobbery in employers was the chief cause of its

prevalence amongst highly paid servants. _Punch_ was the champion of the

"slavey"--immortalized in Dickens's "Marchioness"--even of the

much-maligned charwoman; the relentless critic of Jeames, his plush and

powder and calves. As early as 1847 we find him supporting a reversal of

the old régime: the mistress must be approved by the servant, and

furnish a satisfactory character. The plea is not surprising, when

advertisements for a kitchen-maid, "wages £3 a year," appeared in a

fashionable paper and earned _Punch's_ satire. Contrariwise, he never

spares the arrogance of "servantgalism" the assumption of "my lady the

housemaid." In this spirit _Punch_ makes game of a school for servants

at Bristol, where lessons on the pianoforte were given, but if servant

girls and nurses were neglectful of their duties and their infant

charges, mistresses were equally to blame for their indolence and

disregard of parental responsibilities. But the keenest arrows in

_Punch's_ quiver were reserved for "Jeames." He quotes from the columns

of _The Times_ the advertisements of a footman, "tall, handsome, with

broad shoulders and extensive calves," who "prefers Belgravia or the

North Side of the Park," while a little later on another of this type

insists on "six months a year in town, and if in an unfashionable

neighbourhood, five guineas extra salary." If I refrain from quoting

from Thackeray's constant variations on this theme in the pages of

_Punch_, it is only because they are so familiar to readers of his

collected works. The etiquette of flunkeydom was peculiar. These

gorgeous and pampered menials had their grievances; they were "expected

to sit in church in a position from which the clergyman could neither be

seen nor heard," as _Punch_ put it in 1851. Liveried servants were not

allowed in Rawstorne Street Chapel, Brompton, in 1846, and a protest was

made in the Press that at St. George's, Hanover Square, "the real

aristocracy of the land are separated from their liveried domestics by a

mere oak panelling." But in this war on flunkeyism "Jeames" was not the

real enemy; it was rather the genius of snobbery which _Punch_

impersonated in "Jenkins" of the _Morning Post_ (or _Morning Plush_, as

he called it), whose fulsome and lyrical rhapsodies are held up to

ridicule in number after number. In this context two extracts may

suffice, from an account of the galaxy of rank and fashion at the Opera

which appeared in the _Morning Post_:

It is, above all, necessary that the middle classes and the poor

should see and feel that if the aristocracy has the monopoly of

titles and the lion's share of the dignities and offices of the

State, instead of hoarding, it nobly expends its revenues in those

luxuries which emanate from the ingenuity and labour of the

industrious.

And again--the italics and capitals are _Punch's_:--

Ever since the Italian lyrical drama crossed the Alps in the suites

of the tasteful Medicis, its vogue has daily increased, it has

become a ruling passion--it is the quintessence of all civilized

pleasures; and wherever its principal virtuosi hoist their

standard, there for the time is the CAPITAL OF EUROPE, where the

most illustrious, noble, elegant and tasteful members of society

assemble.

These _ornaments of society_ are in general absent at the too early

opening of Her Majesty's Theatre; but on Saturday, as we surveyed

the house previous to the overture, most of those who _constitute

society_ in England--those whom we _respect, esteem or

love_--rapidly filled the house.

Every seat in every part of it was occupied, and if _those

objectionable spectators were there_--those gentlemen of ambiguous

gentility, the fashionable couriers, valets, _tailors_ and

_shoemakers_, who obtain admission to the pit on the strength of

knowing the measure of some actor or actress's foot--_they and

their frowsy dames_ were so nailed _to their benches as not to

offend the eye_.

These effusions, and others equally unbridled in their assertion of the

divinity of kings and coronets, prompted _Punch_ to adorn "Jenkins" with

the _alias_ of Lickspittleoff. It was not a nice name, but _Punch_ might

have retorted _tâchez de ne pas le mériter_.

[Sidenote: _The Underpaid Governess_]

From servants to governesses the transition in those days was only too

easy. _Punch's_ study of the advertisements in this branch of the "slave

market" began early, and let us hope to good purpose, though as I write

the comparative rates of remuneration for cooks and teachers are still

open to criticism. In the autumn of 1843, commenting on an advertisement

in _The Times_, in which "S. S." offered a salary of £2 a month to "a

morning daily governess of ladylike manners for three or four young

female pupils, capable of imparting a sound English education, with

French, music and singing, dancing and drawing, unassisted by masters,"

_Punch_ observes:--

How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of

offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them,

"It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the

saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen

indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity,

and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to

other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such

offers as those of S.S.?

[Illustration: Thomas gives warning because his master has given up

reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a

governess."]

The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those

offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was

expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not

at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an

excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the

problem of these "Sisters of Misery," _Punch_ waxes ironical on the

results of their improvidence:--

If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty

pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep

company with the children, the governess has not saved a

sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know

that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And

yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such

indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature

who, as I have heard, in her prime--that is, for the ten

years--lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses.

Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank

lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely

taught French, Italian, and the harp to the daughters of small

tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got

too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though

sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of

the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she

continues to eke out a miserable existence--a sad example, if they

would only be warned, to improvident governesses.

[Sidenote: _A Real Dotheboys Hall_]

_Punch's_ attentive study of the curiosities of literature in

advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch

of them extracted from _The Times_ appears in the issue of August 14,

1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure

governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their

houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.

Already, some three weeks earlier, _Punch_ had quoted from _The Times_

the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in

Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and

instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty

and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this

"Dotheboys Hall" in real life _Punch_ observes that while such a price

for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age

of miracles has passed, and especially--after the publication of

_Nicholas Nickleby_--of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of

a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at

least forty years after _Punch's_ protest, as the present writer can

testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his

"Penny Post Medal" _Punch_ endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of

Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his

treatment:--

Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher

_Punch_, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny

missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the

Postman is the soldier of peace--the humanizing, benevolent

distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest

associations. He is the philanthropic go-between--the cheap and

constant communicant betwixt man and man.

[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ST.

MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND]

[Sidenote: _Rowland Hill's Reward_]

In the Penny Post Medal _Punch_ has endeavoured to show the triumph

of Rowland Hill--no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great--carried

in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.

If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing

shouts--he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom

for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,

knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.

Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the

ingratitude of man--old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the

Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the

services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!

or as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him

with--the sack.

After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with

Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be

owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!

[Illustration: BRITANNIA PRESENTING ROWLAND HILL WITH THE SACK]

But these beneficent "red-coated genii" were "cruelly ill-paid" for long

and arduous labour. "His walk in life is frequently such a walk that it

is a wonder he has a leg to stand upon; for he travels some twenty or

thirty miles a day, to the equal wear and tear of body and sole. For

this his salary is a guinea a week." Accordingly, when in 1848 Post

Office robberies were frequent, _Punch_, without excusing theft,

regarded it as the natural result of this miserable pittance.

Under-payment has always been a great incentive to dishonesty, and in

1848 we have _Punch's_ assurance that the postmen were the worst paid of

all Government employees.

The long fight for early closing, for the Saturday half-holiday, and for

reasonable Sunday recreation, found unflinching support in _Punch_ from

his earliest years. He did not, it is true, profess a burning sympathy

with the bank clerks in 1842 when they were agitating for a closure at 4

instead of 5 p.m., but he was wholeheartedly on the side of the shop

assistants, especially in the linendrapers' and milliners'

establishments. One of his earliest incursions into this controversy

took the form of a report of an imaginary meeting of duchesses at

Almack's, at which resolutions were passed deprecating, in a contrite

spirit, the overworking of milliners' assistants, and establishing an

association to persuade dressmakers to reduce the hours of work to eight

a day, abolish Sunday work, afford reasonable time to execute orders,

provide medical advice and change of air for the sick, and start a fund

to carry out these aims (May 27, 1843). These aims have long been

realized in all well-conducted shops, but they were something like

counsels of perfection in the year of "The Song of the Shirt." But

_Punch's_ irony at the expense of inconsiderate shoppers in "Beauty and

Business _versus_ Early Shops," and "Directions to Ladies for Shopping,"

not only tilts at femininity's little ways, but shows that human nature

has not materially changed in the last seventy-five years. _Punch_ was

moved by the hardships of dressmakers and shop-girls, whom he compared

to convicts: "hard labour" was no worse than theirs. He frankly

advocated the boycotting of a money-grubbing hosier in Cheapside, who

kept his shop open until nine or ten o'clock, though all the other

hosiers in that thoroughfare had for two years closed theirs at

eight--for that was as far as early closing had reached in the 'fifties.

But _Punch_ was always a moderate reformer, very far from being a

revolutionary, and he condemned with great asperity an attempt to launch

an experiment mildly foreshadowing modern syndicalism:--

[Sidenote: _Syndicalism in the 'Forties_]

Notwithstanding our desire to aid the assistant drapers in any

reasonable movement, we cannot encourage them in the foolery which,

according to a prospectus of the Metropolitan Assistant Drapers'

Company, they seem to contemplate. They are coolly asking the

public for £150,000 in 15,000 shares of ten pounds each, to start a

model establishment, in which the assistants shall be their own

masters, choose their own work, take their own time, and seize

"every opportunity for indulging in all healthy pursuits and

reasonable enjoyments." The prospectus then goes on to state, that

the assistants will become "free and happy, as they should be." If

a linendraper's shop is to be turned into a state of "freedom and

happiness" all day long, it may suit the shop-boys well enough, but

it will not be quite so agreeable to the customers.

Holding it to be his duty "to smash humbug of every description,"

_Punch_, after an examination of the financial proposals of the "free

and happy" linendrapers, pronounces them guilty of very gross humbug in

putting forward their prospectus. The control of industry by the workers

formed no part of his schemes for bettering their condition.

[Illustration: A View in Hyde Park, showing the proposed site for the

Exhibition of Industry.]

[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR PUNCH'S INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1850 (TO

BE IMPROVED IN 1851)]

In the period under review Sunday was, speaking broadly, the only

holiday of the working classes. _Punch's_ views on their recreations,

therefore, were necessarily governed by his views on Sunday observance,

Sunday trading and Sabbatarianism generally. Let it be noted at the

outset that he was no advocate of the Continental Sunday: he was all for

keeping Sunday quiet, even dull. But against any legal or other

restrictions, which thwarted poor people's innocent enjoyment and

recreation, he ranged himself as an uncompromising adversary. As we have

seen, he indignantly resented the fining of boys for playing cricket, or

children for selling sweets, on Sunday. He supported the opening of

museums and picture galleries on Sundays as early as August, 1842, and,

in recording the defeat of the motion in the Commons, ends his comments

on "The Pharisees' Sunday" with the remark: "The Museum and the National

Gallery are, for the present, closed on Sundays; so for a time there are

left for the people--the Eagle Tavern and the Red House at Battersea."

_Punch_ vehemently assailed the snobbery which sought to exclude working

men and poor children from the parks. He welcomed the opening of the

Zoological Gardens to the public in 1848 at a low charge, without a

"Fellow's order," _plus_ a shilling. But of all the movements which

inspired him with hope for the future, none offered brighter prospects

than the great Exhibition of 1851. It was Douglas Jerrold who coined the

name of the "Crystal Palace." _Punch_ had some misgivings as to the

encroachment of the buildings on public amenities and rights, and warmly

espoused the cause of Ann Hicks, whose family for 118 years had held

possession of an apple stall in Hyde Park. Her grandfather, it was

alleged, had saved George II from drowning in the Serpentine! The stall

was removed and Ann Hicks allowed five shillings a week for one year,

but, largely owing to _Punch's_ intervention, was assisted to emigrate

to Australia. And _Punch_ was indignant at the suggested exclusion of

the public on the opening day, May 1, 1851, for fear of annoying the

Royal family. But these misgivings were happily removed, and the opening

of the Exhibition marked a turning point in the long campaign of

criticism, frank to the verge of discourtesy and indecorum, sometimes

justified, but often malicious, which _Punch_ had conducted against

the Court in general and the Prince Consort in particular. He made the

_amende_ handsomely in his "own report of the opening of the great

Exhibition":--

At length a cheer without, and a flourish of trumpets within,

announce the arrival of the Queen--and the Prince, who, by the idea

of this Exhibition, has given to Royal Consortship a new glory, or,

rather, has rendered for ever illustrious, in his own case, a

position too often vibrating between the mischievous and the

insignificant. Prince Albert has done a great service to humanity,

and earned imperishable fame for himself by an idea, the greatness

of which, instead of becoming less, will appear still greater as it

recedes from us.... Beyond comparison, the most gratifying incident

of the day was the promenade of the Queen and Prince, holding by

the hand their two eldest children, through the whole of the lower

range of the building. It was a magnificent lesson for

foreigners--and especially for the Prussian princes, who cannot

stir abroad without an armed escort--to see how securely and

confidently a young female Sovereign and her family could walk in

the closest possible contact, near enough to be touched by almost

everyone, with five-and-twenty thousand people, selected from no

class, and requiring only the sum of forty-two shillings as a

qualification for the nearest proximity with royalty. Here was a

splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect

security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional

monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the

world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may,

executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's

throats in the name of liberty.

The only blot, as we thought, upon the whole proceedings were the

unnatural and crab-like movements of one of our wealthiest peers,

the Marquess of Westminster, and his fellow-official, the Lord

Chamberlain, whose part in the pageant consisted of the difficult,

but not very dignified, feat of walking backwards during the

progress of the procession. We hope the time is not far distant

when, among the other sensible arrangements of the present reign, a

wealthy nobleman may be released from the humiliation of having to

perform before the Sovereign and the public a series of awkward

evolutions, which not all the skill of the posture-master can

redeem from the absurdity attaching to the contortions of the

mountebank.

_Punch_ could not resist having a dig at the aristocrat courtiers, but

he had nothing but praise for the Queen and the Prince Consort, and

especially for their practice of visiting the Exhibition on the

"shilling days." As he put it in the lines "Victoria Felix",:--

Heaven's duteous sunshine waits upon her going,

And with it blends a sunshine brighter still--

The loyal love of a great people, knowing

That building up is better than o'erthrowing;

That freedom lies in taming of self-will.

_Punch's_ loyalty to the Sovereign, however, did not cause him to forget

the workers. He suggests to Prince Albert that a dinner should be given

to the workmen who erected the building. As for Paxton, the architect,

_Punch_ agreed with the _Examiner_ that a knighthood was not a

sufficient reward for his services, and suggested that he should be

given a share of the profits. But _Punch_ was from the first concerned

with the future of the building; with the possibilities of transforming

it into a permanent People's Palace. So when Paxton asked "What is to

become of the Crystal Palace?" and answered his own question by saying

"Let the Crystal Palace become a winter park under glass," with rare

flowers and plants and a colossal aviary, _Punch_ voted the suggestion

of the Crystal Magician "delightful and practicable," for, as he notes,

on the testimony of "the princely Devonshire, Mr. Paxton never failed in

anything he undertook." Nay, _Punch_ went so far as to depict, in a

cartoon, John Bull contemplating the marvels of the winter garden. The

scheme lapsed, and in the spring of 1852 _Punch_ was indignant at the

imminent sale of the Crystal Palace, and lavish of gibes at the "nobs

and snobs" who despised the masses:--

THE PEOPLE AND THEIR PALACE

The People! I weally am sick of the wawd:

The People is ugly, unpleasant, absawd;

Wha-evaw they go, it is always the case,

They are shaw to destwoy all the chawm of the place.

They are all vewy well in their own pwopa spheeaw,

A long distance off; but I don't like them neeaw;

The slams is the place faw a popula show;

Don't encouwage the People to spoil Wotten Wow.

It is odd that the Duke of Awgyll could pasue

So eccentric a cawse, and Lad Shaftesbuwy too,

As to twy and pwesawve the Glass House on its site,

Faw no weason on awth but the People's delight.

The Queen, in an excellent parody of "The May Queen," is credited with

the desire to keep up the Palace; _Punch_ threw all his weight on the

side of Paxton in his efforts to defeat the obstructives, and when, in

June, 1852, the move to Sydenham was finally decided on, he prophesied a

great future for that favoured suburb. The "christening" took place in

August, and furnished _Punch_ with an opportunity for answering the

reproach that "the English don't know how to amuse themselves":--

The great cause of Peace had every fitting honour paid to it on

Thursday last at Sydenham. In its train followed some of the

greatest celebrities of the day, all children of the people, who

had come to assist at the christening of their new Palace. The Arts

and Sciences, of course, were there, and gave the cause their

blessing, until such time when they could give it something, if not

more pure, at least more tangible. Literature, too, was there, and

promised to devote its best pen to the service of the new

principle, and Trade and Commerce had already sent off their ships

to collect treasure to pour into the lap of their beautiful, but

too long neglected child, as soon as the Palace was in a fit state

to receive them. And the Poor advanced, and, opening their hearts,

gave the cause their best wishes--and these were deposited with the

coins of the realm, and are to form the foundation of the new

building. Never was Palace begun upon so strong a foundation

before!

If only half the promises are fulfilled that were made at its

christening, this Palace of the People will be the grandest palace

ever constructed. And, in truth, it should be so! The people have

built palaces sufficiently for others; it is but proper now they

built one for themselves.

And when it is built it will be time enough to inquire if

Englishmen know how to amuse themselves. They have had hitherto so

few opportunities of learning, that it is ungracious to ask at

present. In the meantime we wish them every enjoyment in their new

playground at Sydenham. It will be the most beautiful playground in

the world.

[Sidenote: _Sabbatarian Solicitude_]

_Punch's_ generous anticipations, in part illusory, were mingled

with wrath against militant Sabbatarians, over-zealous for the

souls of their fellow-creatures. A deputation, headed by the

Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, and

the Earl of Shaftesbury, lost no time in waiting on Lord Derby, in

order to urge upon the Prime Minister "the expediency of adopting

measures to prevent the Crystal Palace, or its grounds, being

opened to the public on Sundays." _Punch_ is bitterly sarcastic

against this condescending solicitude on the part of peers and

prelates for the spiritual welfare of the vulgar cockneys, snips,

snobs, mechanics, shopmen, and their womenkind; creatures that not

only consume tea and shrimps, periwinkles, and ginger-beer, but

also smoke pipes and penny Pickwicks! The people must feel

flattered that they are thus, sympathized with by the superior

classes; only perhaps they would rather the sympathy were shown

otherwise than by excluding them from pure air and enjoyment--in

great tenderness for their immortal part, but with small

consideration for their perishable lungs.

But the attack was not solely based on religious grounds. The _Morning

Herald_ scented revolution in the proposal, and _Punch_ was moved to

address an ironical warning to the Home Secretary:--

A word in your ear, Mr. Walpole. There is treason, hydra-headed

treason hatching. Now, we are not joking. Were we inclined to be

droll, we would not cast our jokes before certain Home Secretaries.

Hush! This way. In a corner, if you please.

Do you ever see the _Morning Herald_? We thought so. Somehow, you

look as if you did. Still, we have brought a copy. Here it is. A

leader on the treasonous atrocities contemplated by the traitorous

projectors of the Crystal Palace in Penge Park! We will read

you--when we can get a good mouthful of breath--a few of the lines:

the dreadful lines. You see, the Palace is to be open on Sundays

after one o'clock. In that fact the _Herald_ sees revolution,

anarchy, and perhaps--a future republic with John Cromwell Bright

in Buckingham Palace! Listen:

"'Go to mass on the Sabbath morning' is the Church of Rome's

command; 'then go to the park, the ball, or the theatre.' That is

the Sabbath of Paris, of Munich, of Vienna, and, we are sorry to

say, of Berlin also. And, as _one natural result_, a single month,

in 1848, saw the Sovereigns of Paris, of Vienna, of Munich, and of

Berlin _fugitives before their rebellious subjects_. The people of

England remained untouched by this sudden madness; they were loyal

to their Queen, _because_ they feared their God!"

You will perceive, Right Honourable Sir, that had the Palace

existed in Penge Park in 1848, the British Throne would have gone

to bits like a smashed decanter. The Queen has only continued to

reign _because_ there has been no People's Palace!

We see, Sir, you are moved, but let us go on.

"The Crystal Palace will be the main engine for introducing the

Continental Sabbath among us. The people may go to church, it will

be said, and _then_ they may go down to Sydenham and enjoy a walk

in the Crystal Palace, and what harm can _that_ do? Just all the

harm in the world. Open and naked profaneness would shock most

persons, but this mixture of religion and dissipation will ruin

myriads!"

_Punch_, on the contrary, believed that, in spite of the fulminations of

Exeter Hall, the Crystal Palace, with its art treasures, and the setting

provided by the wonder-working Paxton, would become the People's Sunday

School, and a monster extinguisher of gin palaces. So we find him

printing a mock protest from publicans against the desecration of the

Sabbath by the proposed opening of the Crystal Palace after morning

service.

_Punch's_ views on temperance were eminently moderate. It is true that

in one of his early numbers he had depicted, in the cartoons of "The Gin

Drop" and "The Water Drop," the horrors of drunkenness in the vein of

Cruickshank; true also that he expressed admiration for the crusade of

Father Mathew. He condemned excess, but he was no enemy of conviviality.

Indeed he was up in arms against those who sought to "rob a poor man of

his beer." In his view the best antidotes to intemperance were to be

found in recreation and education, and in using Sunday to promote those

ends. He severely criticised in the autumn of 1845 the provisions of the

new Beer Bill, which prevented excursionists from obtaining needful

refreshment at an inn, not only at unreasonable, but at reasonable

hours, and protested against the closing of these hospitable portals

against them on Sunday, "and perhaps very soon on every other day, if

gentlemen, who can go to clubs, as well as to church, being blest with

affluence, and, therefore, belonging to the better classes, continue to

legislate in their present spirit for himself (the excursionist) and the

rest of the worse--that is the worse off."

[Sidenote: _Punch at the Palace_]

Meanwhile the Crystal Palace had been opened by the Queen on Saturday,

June 10, 1854. _Punch_ describes the imaginary visit which he paid a few

days earlier to inspect the building and, by special command of the

Queen, to report as to its probable readiness for her reception on the

opening day. After being conducted through the building by Sir Joseph

Paxton, he explained that it was not his intention to be present at the

inaugural ceremony:--

He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and

conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should

leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the

day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly

undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the

Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the

Palace on Sundays.

Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his

optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it

characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal

Palace, which appeared in the pages of _Punch_ in the following months.

But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the

chairman, a very good summary of his own views:--

On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the

crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves--all mutually

sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the

decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace--than

that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in

the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses.

The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled _Punch's_

sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and

school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational

institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than

those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported

by the patronage of the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on

the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered

seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's

Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember

visits in his school days in the early 'seventies--recurrent Handel

festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her

golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the

rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above

all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some

forty years--such a one, and there must be many like him, will always

look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in

reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August

Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize

_Punch's_ ideal.

CHARTISM

[Sidenote: _The Fight for Cheap Bread_]

[Illustration: NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH?

JOHN: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her

creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be

properly attended to."]

We have seen that _Punch_ did not belittle the Chartist movement, but

admitted the evils, political, social, and economic, out of which it

sprang. So did some of the leaders of the Young England group (see

_Sybil_), but _Punch_ ridiculed their remedies. He was out of touch

alike with Whigs, Tories, and Churchmen, especially the Tractarians, who

denounced the men who tempted the people to rail against their rulers

and superiors.

_Punch_, too, did a good deal in this line. But

while he recognized the sincerity and earnestness of Chartism, he

distrusted the methods of the extremists, and his distrust was largely

justified by the history of the movement. The cleavage between the

advocates of moral and physical force showed itself from the very

beginning, and the fiasco of 1848 was largely due to the fact that the

leading spirits of Chartism had already declared themselves against it,

or actually withdrawn from the movement. Of the famous Six Points of the

People's Charter of 1838, three have been conceded--No Property

Qualifications, Vote by Ballot, and Payment of Members--and we have come

very near the realization of Universal Suffrage and Equal

Representation. The demand for Annual Parliaments alone remains

unsatisfied. Yet Lovett, who drafted the Charter, and was imprisoned in

1839 with other Chartist leaders after the riots in Birmingham, emerged

from gaol more than ever an advocate of moral force, joined Sturge in

his efforts to reconcile the Chartists and the middle class reformers,

and after 1842 took no further part in the Chartist movement. In the

years of riots and fires and strikes and starvation that followed the

rejection of the second National Petition in 1842, the leaders were,

with few exceptions, engulfed in a tide which they were unable to

control. Feargus O'Connor was one of the exceptions, but his success in

inducing the Chartists to repudiate the Corn Law Repeal agitation, and

the disastrous failure of his agrarian scheme at Watford, alienated many

of the old Chartists. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law rhymer, withdrew

from the movement, which he had actively supported, in order to devote

all his energies to the repeal of the hated "bread tax," and happily

lived long enough to see it abolished. _Punch_, who had pronounced its

dirge in February, 1849, with the legend "obiit. February 1, 1849, aged

34," was heart and soul with the Corn Law rhymer. Repeal of the Corn

Laws was the deepest principle in his early life, and he was too angry

to do justice to Peel, denouncing him as a "political eel"; an infringer

of Dickens's copyright in Pecksniff; attacking his policy of "wait

awhile," much as later critics attacked the policy of "wait and see";

and even when Peel's conversion was complete, refusing to acknowledge

any virtue in it. When _Punch_ was bracketed with Peel as an opponent of

the Corn Laws he indignantly repudiated the association: _he_ at least

had never turned his coat. One cannot help feeling that remorse must

have mingled with admiration in his posthumous tributes to the statesman

"who gave the people bread." But there were no prickings of conscience

in the welcome extended by him in 1850 to the proposal (realized in

1854) to erect a statue to Ebenezer Elliott at Sheffield:--

The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do a new honour to

themselves by honouring the memory of Ebenezer Elliott, the man

whose wise pen drew up the indictment against that public robber,

Corn Law: and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,

though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it was only

worded with common words, the words themselves hot and glowing with

hate of wrong. Elliott struck from his subject--as the blacksmith

strikes from the red iron--sparkles[2] of burning light; and where

they fell they consumed. His homely indignation was sublimed by the

intensity of his honesty: if his words were homely, they were made

resistless by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But the man

had the true heart and soul of the poet, and could love the simple

and beautiful as passionately as he denounced the selfish and the

mean.

The Corn-Law Rhymes did greatest service. They were the earliest

utterances of a people contending with a sense of inarticulate

suffering. They supplied the words; they gave a voice and meaning

to the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his fine

mission by making his spirit pass into the spirit of the many.

Time rolled on and Corn Law was condemned. The indictment drawn by

the poet was the draft afterwards improved; but Ebenezer Elliott

was the first drawer; and honoured be the men of Sheffield who seek

to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet! We have plenty of

modern statues to the sword, it is full time we had one to the pen.

[Footnote 2: Elliott himself said: "My feelings have been hammered until

they have become _cold_--short, and are apt to snap and fly off in

sarcasms" (D.N.B. xvii., 267).]