Meanwhile the Chartist movement, weakened by defections and dissensions,

and by the dissipation of its energies on a mixed programme, which

antagonized all classes, damped by the constant rains which fell at

every meeting and drenched the fires of revolution, was marching

steadily to disintegration. _Punch's_ distrust of the professional

agitator is expressed in a bitter portrait published in the spring of

1848:--

THE MODEL AGITATOR

[Sidenote: _The Professional Agitator_]

The only thing he flatters is the mob. Nothing is too sweet for

them; every word is a lump of sugar. He flatters their faults,

feeds their prejudices with the coarsest stimulants, and paints,

for their amusement, the blackest things white. He is madly cheered

in consequence. In time he grows into an idol. But cheers do not

pay, however loud. The most prolonged applause will not buy a

mutton chop. The hat is carried round, the pennies rain into it,

and the Agitator pours them into his patriotic pocket. It is

suddenly discovered that he has made some tremendous sacrifice for

the people. The public sympathy is first raised, then a

testimonial, then a subscription. He is grateful, and promises the

Millennium. The trade begins to answer, and he fairly opens shop as

a Licensed Agitator. He hires several journeymen with good lungs,

and sends agents--patriotic bagmen--round the country to sell his

praises and insults, the former for himself, and the latter for

everybody else. Every paper that speaks the truth of him is

publicly hooted at; everybody who opposes him is pelted with the

hardest words selected from the Slang Dictionary. A good grievance

is started, and hunted everywhere. People join in the cry, the

Agitator leading off and shouting the loudest. The grievance is

run off its legs; but another and another soon follows, till there

is a regular pack of them. The country is in a continual ferment,

and at last rises. Riots ensue; but the Model Agitator is the last

person to suffer from them. He excites the people to arm themselves

for the worst; but begs they will use no weapons. His talk is

incendiary, his advice nothing but gunpowder, and yet he hopes no

explosion will take place. He is an arsenal wishing to pass for a

chapel or a baby-linen warehouse. He is all peace, all love, and

yet his hearers grow furious as they listen to him, and rush out to

burn ricks and shoot landlords. He is always putting his head on

the block. Properly speaking he is beheaded once a quarter.

A monster meeting is his great joy, to be damped only by the rain

[the great open-air meetings of the Chartists were uniformly

unfortunate in their weather] or the police. He glories in a

prosecution. He likes to be prosecuted. He asks for it; shrieks out

to the Government, "Why don't you prosecute me?" and cries and gets

quite mad if they will not do it. The favour at length is granted.

He is thrown into prison and gets fat upon it; for from that moment

he is a martyr, and paid as one, accordingly.

The Model Agitator accumulates a handsome fortune, which he

bequeathes to his sons, with the following advice, which is a rich

legacy of itself: "If you wish to succeed as an Agitator, you must

buy your patriotism in the cheapest market and sell it in the

dearest."

[Illustration: PUNCH'S MONUMENT TO PEEL]

The monster demonstration of 1848, as a recent writer[3] puts it, "was

the funeral of Chartism with the Duke of Wellington as the Master of

Ceremonies." Hopes of a general rising had been kindled by the

revolution in Paris, but they were not fulfilled. The _annus mirabilis_

which set thrones rocking on the Continent and toppled down that of

Louis Philippe passed in the main peacefully in England. Feargus

O'Connor's monster procession and petition on April 10 ended in fiasco,

largely owing to the precautions taken by the Duke of Wellington as

Commander-in-Chief--the swearing in of 170,000 special constables

(including Louis Napoleon!) and his wise decision to keep the troops as

far as possible out of sight. It is right to record the fact that

_Punch_ was not moved by these events to desert his "left-centre"

position; that he advocated amnesty rather than reprisals. In September,

1849, he published his special "Chartist Petition to the Queen's Most

Excellent Majesty":--

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY--

WHEREAS Death, the great Gaol-Deliverer, has by Cholera set free

from Westminster Prison, Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharpe,

foolish men, foolishly preaching the Charter, by means of pike and

blunderbuss--

_Punch_ humbly prays that your Majesty will, in this season of

political tranquillity, and of grave moral chastisement, give

orders for the release of certain misguided men, it is hoped better

instructed for the future--and thereupon pardon and set free

William Vernon, Ernest Jones, Little Cuffey, and other such

offenders, now made harmless by the common sense and common loyalty

of the English people.

And your Petitioner will ever Print and Pray--

PUNCH.

[Footnote 3: C. R. Fay in "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"

p. 166.]

[Illustration: SPECIAL'S WIFE: "Contrary to regulations, indeed!

Fiddlesticks! I must insist, Frederick, upon your taking this hot

brandy-and-water. I shall be having you laid up next, and not fit for

anything."]

[Sidenote: "_Little Cuffey_"]

Ernest Jones was the young poet, a recent recruit of Feargus O'Connor,

and Cuffey was the fiery little tailor for whom _Punch_ always had a

soft corner in his heart. When Sir George Grey announced that Cuffey had

been included in the list of deported prisoners, amnestied on the

declaration of peace after the Crimean War, _Punch_ expressed his

satisfaction at the release of the "resolute, fire-eating but withal

frank-hearted and honest goose-hero of Chartism." But of much greater

importance and significance is the striking poem printed in the issue of

June 16, 1849, which may be taken as the best condensed summary of

_Punch's_ political and social creed in a time of transition. The

occasion was a speech of Lord John Russell in the House, declining to

entertain proposals for an extension of the franchise. Lord John, it may

be recalled, was nicknamed "Finality Jack" for saying in a debate on the

Address in 1837 that it was impossible for him to take part in further

measures of electoral reform. _Punch_ held that the collapse of the

physical force movement, so far from prompting a lethargic acquiescence

in the existing régime, ought to stir men of good will to further

efforts in order to remove legitimate grounds of discontent:--

THE TENTH OF APRIL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL

My name, Lord John, is pleasant on many a noble tongue;

I've been bepuffed, bespeechified, bedined, bedrunk, besung;

Conservatism, Finality, Laissez-Faire and Statu Quo,

Are glad to shake hands with "the Tenth," till very proud I grow.

At home, abroad, inside and out, you think you read me true,

But when did ever Whig know man's or people's heart all through?

I _am_ all that you style me, when your praise on me you pour;

All that, my Lord, but take my word, with that I'm something more.

I read your speech, the other night, when Hume, my stout old friend,

Asked of the House, as you did once, the suffrage to extend.

'Twas the use you then made of my name that hath these lines begot--

Hear what the Tenth of April is, and hear what it is not.

I am the friend of Order, but Statu Quo I loathe,

The Law I heed, but still would weed, and trim and guide its growth;

Finality, your present love, unlovely is to me;

That "what is, is," proves not, I wis, that what is, ought to be.

"Content" you think I was, and so, noways for change athirst,

Content men are with second best, in preference to worst:

Content to hold up half a truth, when all truth shakes to fall;

Content with what gives half a loaf, against no bread at all!

But yet no ways content, Lord John, to see some things I see,

As a laughing House of Commons, and a helpless Ministry,

A nation little taught, a Church under-and overpaid,

And prone Respectability in Mammon-service laid.

Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague

and sin;

Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin;

Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol;

The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale.

Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold,

That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old,

Think how delay may order with anarchy combine,

And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine.

Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am,

The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam;

Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law,

That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw.

Nations or men, we may not rest--look round on Europe's thrones

Shattered or shaken--hearken to her convulsive groans--

Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst,

Think 'tis _the Tenth_ of April you invoke, and not _the First_.

[Sidenote: _Reform or Revolution?_]

This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political

philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and

nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it,

and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South

Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present

generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment

against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the

proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in

_Genesis_ (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that

her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there

were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and _Punch_ declared that

Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their

passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At

all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three

miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or

three times."

Emigration at this time was hailed by many, including _Punch_, as a

remedy for existing discontent with conditions, and in the cartoon "Here

and There," and the verses "Know'st Thou the Land where the Kangaroos

Bound?" _Punch_ gives a roseate picture of Australia, "deficient in

mouths, overburdened with meat," and urges John Bull to help his paupers

to go thither and live in plenty at high wages. A little time later the

Female Emigration Scheme, started by Sidney Herbert and other practical

philanthropists, furnished _Punch_ with a text for his oft-repeated

sermon on the Two Nations. The writer was one of those who witnessed the

departure of a party of thirty-eight women from Fenchurch Street station

for Gravesend, and thence to Australia, and after describing the group,

their homely appearance and dress and manners, continues in a vein of

self-reproach:--

What a confession it is that we have almost all been obliged to

make! A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the

_Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, and reports upon the state of our

poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all

kinds--and brings back what? A picture of London life so wonderful,

so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that

readers of romances own they never read anything like to it; and

that the griefs, struggles, strange adventures here depicted exceed

anything that any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and

terrors have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a

door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see, for

ourselves, but we never did. Don't we pay poor-rates, and are they

not heavy enough in the name of patience? Very true; and we have

our own private pensioners, and give away some of our superfluity

very likely. You are not unkind; not ungenerous. But of such

wondrous and complicated misery as this you confess you had no

idea. No. How should you? You and I--we are of the upper classes;

we have had hitherto no community with the poor. We never speak a

word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years; we condescend

to employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance--mind, of

course, at a proper distance; we laugh at his young men if they

dance, jig and amuse themselves like their betters, and call them

counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not; of his workmen we know

nothing--how pitilessly they are ground down, how they live and

die, here close by us at the backs of our houses; until some poet

like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful _Song of the Shirt_; some

prophet like Carlyle rises up and denounces woe; some clear-sighted

energetic man like the writer of the _Chronicle_ travels into the

poor man's country for us, and comes back with his tale of terror

and wonder.

Awful, awful poor man's country! The bell rings and then

eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few

more thousands will be) by some kind people who are interested in

their behalf. It is a solemn moment indeed--for those who (with

the few thousands who will follow them) are leaving this country

and escaping from the question between rich and poor; and what for

those who remain? But, at least, those who go will remember that in

their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and pity them,

and generous hands to give them succour, and will plant in the new

country their grateful tradition of the old. May Heaven's good

mercy speed them.

Emigration was one of the contributory influences which helped to end

the hunger of the Hungry 'Forties. The repeal of the Corn Laws was a far

more powerful factor in the revival of prosperity, and the efforts of

Protection to raise its diminished head met with consistent derision

from _Punch_, who gloried in the statistics of increasing trade. But he

was no Benthamite, and one may search his files in vain for any

recognition of the salutary results of the new Poor Law. The famous

report of 1834 was drawn up by men who were largely inspired by the

doctrines of Bentham and Malthus, and their scientific principles were

repugnant to _Punch_. There is really not much to choose between his

criticisms and the hostility of the Chartists to the workhouses or

"Bastilles" of the new system. In his zeal for pillorying instances of

harsh administration he overlooked the real improvement effected in the

Act of 1834 in the rural districts. But the new Poor Law, though it was

followed by an immediate local re-absorption on a sounder economic basis

of agricultural labour and a migration of the surplus elsewhither, was

not the sole cause of this improvement.[4] The demand for labour in the

rapidly expanding industries of railway construction and coal mining was

an even more potent instrument of relief. Coal, on which both industries

equally depended and depend, may be now a tyrant, but it was in a sense

the good genius of the 'forties, though the high prices paid in London

owing to extortionate tolls caused _Punch_ to denounce him as "Cruel

King Coal" from the point of view of the poor consumer.

[Footnote 4: See C. R. Fay, "Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century,"

p. 204.]

[Sidenote: _The Beginning of Better Times_]

The threat of revolution passed, but the diffusion of prosperity brought

with it, as it always does, further demands for increased wages. The

year 1853 was so notable for strikes that _Punch_, who had already

applauded poor needlewomen for adopting this course, and suggested it to

poor curates, felt obliged to register his protest:--

Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid

intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania--a very

dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not

attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking

mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now

it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and

thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become

machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all

striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking

become what might be called the order, but that it will be the

disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except

the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking

though, we had better take care that we are not floored.

As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, _Punch's_ view is

summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's

wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?"

MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING

In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and

invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching

influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The

views on the new order expressed in _Punch_ reflect, with certain

variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the

spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or

accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as

a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions

he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in

January, 1842, _à propos_ of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that

increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:--

Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of

terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber.

But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and

philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the

morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied--as it will be--a

thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made

idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively

speaking, there shall be _no_ labour for man? Will the multitude

lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not--we are sure not. Then

will rise--and already we hear the murmur--a cry, a shout for an

adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike

upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.

We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man

were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the

possession of some thousand individuals--what would be the cry of

the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?

The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry

statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend

to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.

[Illustration: Proposed lines....

RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)]

[Sidenote: _The Impudence of Steam_]

On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last

sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day

of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and

foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put

into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated

good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality

and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part _Punch_ is

concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of

locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway

directors were to him anathema. In his first volume _Punch_ sturdily

declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would

be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons

perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting

on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The

"Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet

of which is still often quoted:--

"Ease her, stop her!"

"Any gentleman for Joppa?"

"'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."

"Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"

"Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"

"Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"

"Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"

"Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"

"Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"

"What gent or lady's for the Nile,"

"Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"

"Now, where's that party for Engedi?"

Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,

Had ye e'er the least idea,

Even in your wildest flights,

Of a steam trip to Judea?

What next marvel Time will show

It is difficult to say,

"'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,

"Only sixpence all the way."

Cabs in Solyma may fly;

'Tis a not unlikely tale:

And from Dan the tourist hie

Unto Beersheba by "rail."

But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far

more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was

endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with

overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt.

Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither

punctuality nor civility was to be expected.

In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute--a "universal epidemic." George

Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and _Punch_

expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation

which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring.

Burlesques of various railway projects--centrifugal and

atmospheric--abound. _Punch_ ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle

of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England."

The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves

him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway

Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the

Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering

witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the

infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The

Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and _Punch_ asserts that the

largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the

casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of

railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is

submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes.

The protests of fox-hunters, noted by _Punch_, recall the verses of the

Cheshire poet:--

Let the steam pot

Hiss till it's hot,

But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.

[Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845]

The mania was not confined to men: _Punch_ satirizes the ladies who were

"stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a

Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all

these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel

Court," a parody which begins:--

All the world are stags!

Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers--

and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:--

Last scene of all,

That ends this sad but common history,

Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:

Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.

Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with

King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace

at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull--on whom "the sweet

simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall--with humbugging

promoters is hit off in the stanza:--

Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,

I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;

And don't get enough by my paltry rents"--

So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."

[Illustration: KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE]

[Sidenote: _Rules for Railways_]

In his anti-Puseyite zeal _Punch_ mendaciously declares that a railway

from Oxford to Rome has been projected with the Pope's approval. In

fact, any stick was good enough to beat the speculators with. "Locksley

Hall" is parodied as "Capel Court," and the rush to deposit plans at the

Board of Trade, when special trains were chartered by rival promoters,

is described in humorous detail in a _Punch_ ballad. Padded suits are

suggested in 1846 as a protection against railway accidents, but the

best summary--with all its exaggerations--of the discomforts of railway

travelling in the mid 'forties is to be found in the "Rules and

Regulations for Railways":--

The French Government has published a royal _ordonnance_, fixing

the regulations that are henceforward to be observed by all railway

companies in working their lines. As it is a pity these things

should be better managed in France, we publish a set of regulations

for English railways. Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he

likes.

Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to

carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the

train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark

quite long enough.

No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be

ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.

Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible,

as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not

mix sociably together.

No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour.

No railway dividend is to exceed 100 per cent., and no bonus to be

divided oftener than once a month.

No fare is to be raised more than at the rate of a pound a week.

No third-class carriage is to contain more than a foot deep of

water in wet weather, but, to prevent accidents, corks and swimming

belts should always be kept in open carriages.

The ladies' carriages are to be waited upon by female policemen.

Every tunnel must be illuminated with one candle at least.

Never less than five minutes are to be allowed for dinner or

refreshment.[5]

One director must always travel with every train, only he is to be

allowed the option of choosing his seat, either in the second or

third class--whichever of the two he prefers.

Hospitals are to be built at every terminus, and a surgeon to be in

attendance at every station.

There must be some communication between every carriage and the

stoker, or the guard, either by a bell, or a speaking tube, or a

portable electric telegraph, so that the passengers may have some

means of giving information when their carriage is off the line, or

falling over an embankment, or a maniac or a horse has broken

loose.

There is sense as well as absurdity in this list. "Smoking saloons" are

noted as a novelty on the Eastern Counties Railway during the year 1846,

but in the same year to _Punch_ belongs the credit of suggesting

refreshment cars, and indulging in a pictorial forecast of underground

railways.

[Footnote 5: _Punch_ was especially wroth with the "3 minutes for

scalding soup" at Wolverton and Swindon.]

[Illustration: A PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAYS]

The proposal that drums and trombones should be mounted on the engine as

a means of signalling cannot be taken seriously. Railway libraries on

the L. & N.W.R. are noted as a novelty in 1849. But by that year the

temper of the speculating public had changed, and _Punch_ is a faithful

index of the cold fit which had followed the disillusionment of the

over-sanguine investor. The lure of El Dorado now beckoned from the New

World, and the railway madness gave way to the mining insanity. The

papers were full of complaints from discontented shareholders. The

Battle of the Gauges continued, but Hudson is already spoken of in

_Punch_ as a discrowned sovereign, threatened with disestablishment at

Madame Tussaud's. For a while _Punch_ was inclined to extend to him a

certain amount of sympathy in his downfall, and in "Two Pictures" he

draws a contrast between mammon worship and the onslaught on mammon's

high priest by his greedy and discontented worshippers. But the mood of

compassion soon changes to resentment in the bitter adaptation of

Cowper's poem, _The Loss of the Royal George_:--

Toll for a knave!

A knave whose day is o'er!

All sunk--with those who gave

Their cash, till they'd no more!

* * * * *

The _Royal George_ is gone,

His iron rule is o'er--

And he and his directors

Shall break the lines no more!

[Sidenote: _King Hudson's Downfall_]

In the same vein are the proposals that Hudson should be the chief "Guy"

on November 5, and be appointed governor of a convict settlement on the

Isle of Dogs. Simultaneously improvements are noted in the quickening of

the transit to Paris, the increase of excursions, and the beginning of

_voyages de luxe_.

But the note of complaint and dissatisfaction prevails. The discomfort,

danger, unpunctuality and discourtesy endured by railway passengers are

rubbed in with wearisome reiteration. In 1852 _Punch_ ironically

comments on the patience of the British public, "content to travel in

railway pens, like sheep to the slaughter, injured, deluded, derided,

only bleating in return," and concludes his summary of recent protests

from correspondents of _The Times_ with the remark:--

Railway accidents, railway frauds, railway impertinence are the

staple of our daily newspaper-reading. Railway chairmen and

directors are descending to the knavery, extortion, impudence, and

brutality from which cabmen are rising in the scale of manners and

morals. And, as aforesaid, the British public stands all this with

passive mournfulness, quiet endurance, meek, inactive

expostulation.

[Illustration: RAILWAY UNDERTAKING

TOUTER: "Going by this train, Sir?"

PASSENGER: "'M? Eh? Yes."

TOUTER: "Allow me, then, to give you one of my cards, Sir."]

The directors of the L. & N.W.R. are severely criticised for overworking

their engine drivers, _à propos_ of a well-authenticated case of a man

who had been on duty for thirty hours without relief or opportunity to

rest. "If dividends demand economy, and economy necessitates the

employment of one man to do the work of six, the only thing to be done

for public safety is to get a man with an iron constitution," and

_Punch_ accordingly suggests that the directors should provide

themselves with engine drivers entirely composed of that metal.

Complaints of dangerous railways continue to the end of the period under

review, and in 1856 _Punch_ is still of opinion that we might take a

leaf out of the book of the Russians, who carry surgeons on their

trains. Undertakers he had already suggested as a part of the normal

equipment of expresses.

[Sidenote: _"Bradshaw: A Mystery"_]

A witty bishop once scandalized his hearers by bracketing _Bradshaw_

with the Bible as an indispensable book. Bradshaw's _Railway Time

Tables_ were first issued in 1839; the monthly guide dates from

December, 1841; it was not, however, until 1856 that _Punch_ began to

realize the elements of comedy underlying that austere document, and

utilized them in a little play called _Bradshaw: A Mystery_, describing

the separation, adventures and ultimate reunion of two harassed lovers.

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but _Bradshaw_ is another matter. Here is

the happy ending of this romantic libel:--

_Leonora._ Oh, don't talk of _Bradshaw_!

_Bradshaw_ has nearly maddened me.

_Orlando_. And me.

He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;

Of trains that seem to start, and ne'er arrive;

Of junctions where no union is effected;

Of coaches meeting trains that never come;

Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;

Of trains that start after they have arrived;

Of trains arriving long before they leave.

He bids us "see" some page that can't be found;

Or if 'tis found, it speaks of spots remote

From those we seek to reach! By _Bradshaw's_ aid

You've tried to get to London--I attempted

To get to Liverpool--and here we are,

At Chester--'Tis a junction--I'm content

Our union--at this junction--to cement.

And let us hope, nor you nor I again

May be attacked with _Bradshaw_ on the brain.

_Leonora._ I'm happy now! My husband!

_Orlando._ Ah, my bride!

Henceforth take me--not _Bradshaw_--for your guide.

_The curtain falls._

"Orlando's" speech is a good summary of the humours of _Bradshaw_ as

analysed in _Punch's_ "Comic Guide" some years later.

From steam to electricity the transition is obvious. _Punch_ notes the

adoption of the "Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" by the Great Western

Railway in the summer of 1844. In 1845 we read of an electric gun to

fire 1,000 balls a minute. The laying of a submarine cable from Dover to

Calais is discussed in 1846, but was not realized till five years

afterwards, when _Punch_ hailed the completion of the scheme as a new

link between the two countries and celebrated it in a cartoon and a

sonnet.

Already the influence of electricity on international relations had been

foreshadowed, and in the same year in which Palmerston repudiated

responsibility for the welcome of Kossuth in England _Punch_ rudely

described his message as "electric lying." The days of "wireless

diplomacy" in the old sense of the epithet were passing, to the

embarrassment of representatives who were within immediate hail of the

central Government. Soon we begin to hear complaints of the new service

on the score of delays and excessive charges, and when an earthquake

shock was felt "for the first time" in Ireland in the winter of 1852,

_Punch_ notes that a writer in the _Limerick Chronicle_ attributed it to

the atmospheric influence of the electric telegraph! Electricity as an

illuminant elicited an optimistic if somewhat previous eulogy in 1849;

and cooking by electricity is foreshadowed in 1857. The laying of the

transatlantic cable is welcomed long before it was an accomplished fact,

but _Punch's_ compliments had a sting in their tail when he wrote the

following lines:--

AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN A NEW LINE

It is much to be hoped that the telegraph wire,

About to be laid down, will not form a lyre,

On which to strike discord 'twixt the old world and new;

Though scarce can we hope all its messages true,

For then t'other side would have nothing to do.

_Punch's_ interest in aeronautics dates from his earliest infancy,

though his mixture of prophecy and satire is rather confusing. Designs

of aerial steamships abound in his columns; and one of them is not too

bad an anticipation of the aeroplane.

[Illustration: AERIAL STEAM CARRIAGE]

[Sidenote: _Aviation Forecasts_]

In 1845 there was actually a periodical called _The Balloon_, though

_Punch_ is jocular at the expense of its very limited _clientèle_.

Still, though the number of aeronauts was few, their enterprise

attracted a great deal of attention, and Green, who made 526 ascents

between 1821 and 1852, including his famous trip from Vauxhall to

Weilburg in Nassau, is frequently mentioned. _Punch_, to his credit,

inveighed vehemently against the senseless inhumanity of aeronautic

acrobats who made a practice of taking up animals with them. He was less

fortunate in his dogmatic pronouncement in 1851 that the balloon was a

"perfectly useless invention," and in his scornful dismissal, four years

later, of the suggestion that it might be useful in warfare:--

Everybody, including, of course, all the nobodies, would seem to

have some peculiar plan for finishing off the war in a successful

and expeditious manner. The last place we should look for the means

of carrying on hostilities with vigour is up in the air; but,

nevertheless, an aeronaut has "stepped in" upon the public with a

suggestion that balloons are the means required for the siege of

Sebastopol and the smashing of Cronstadt. If this theory is

correct, Lord Raglan ought at once to be superseded by the "veteran

Green" or the "intrepid" Mrs. Graham.

One of the "intrepids," who has gained a high position by his

balloon, has published a dialogue between himself and a general,

who is, of course, represented as soon beating a retreat in an

argument against the employment of balloons in battle. The aeronaut

proposes to hover in his balloon over the enemy's position, and

take observations of what is passing, but he forgets that a passing

shot might happen to catch his eye in a rather disagreeable manner.

The aeronaut undertakes not only to observe, but to make himself

the subject of observation by a series of signals, through the

medium of which he proposes to point out the movements of the

enemy. This is to be effected by an apparatus which, as it would of

course be at the mercy of the wind, would be blown about in all

directions possibly, except that which it ought to take, and thus

the signals would be converted into signal failures. The aeronaut

also proposes using his balloon for "destructive purposes," by

taking up some shells, which should be "light to lift but terrible

to fall," and so arranged as to avoid the fate of Captain Warner's

invention, "whose balloon," we are told by the aeronaut himself,

"went off in an opposite direction to what he had intended."

"And by what means," answers the general, "would you let off your

missiles?"

"Either by fuses," answers the aeronaut, "a liberating trigger, or

an electric communication, or by _another contrivance_ which you

must excuse me, general, for not mentioning, as I hold it _a

secret_."

This "_secret_" will probably be kept to all eternity, and, at all

events, until it is revealed we must be excused for refusing to

call on Lord Aberdeen to adopt balloons for warfare, or to blow up

the Commander-in-Chief literally sky high, till he makes the air

the basis of military operations.

Some enthusiasts certainly laid themselves open to ridicule. In 1849 a

certain J. Browne advertised a "balloon railway to California" as both

"safe and cheap." Captain Warner, again, ruled himself out of court by

his refusal to explain the secret of his alleged inventions--the

long-range torpedo and the bomb-dropping balloon--to the committee

appointed to report thereon until he had been assured of the payment of

£200,000 for each. Still, he cannot be denied the credit, such as it is,

of having foreshadowed two of the deadliest and most destructive engines

of modern warfare. _Punch_ at first lent Warner a certain measure of

support, until careful inquiry had shown him to be both untrustworthy

and intractable.

[Illustration: EFFECT OF THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH; OR, PEACE AND GOOD

WILL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE]

[Illustration: Ye Wild Goose Chase after Ye Golden Calfe.

THE GOLD CRAZE IN 1849]

The railway "boom" had stimulated that first infirmity of ignoble

minds--the desire to "get rich quick"--and cupidity, balked of its

expectations, turned eagerly towards the goldfields to satisfy its

longings. In 1849 California was the Mecca of the gold craze, and there

is hardly a number of _Punch_ in this year which does not refer to the

stampede from Europe to the diggings--"the wild-goose chase after the

golden calf," as he called it. It was a gold fever in more senses than

one, since the diggers suffered terribly from disease, which led to the

cynical suggestion that convicts should be sent there, as they were not

likely to return. Cobden, still in high favour with _Punch_ as the

apostle of national economy, was busy preaching Peace, Retrenchment and

Reform, but his efforts were powerless to stem the tide of speculation.

In 1850 we find a reference to the glut of bullion at the Bank, a state

of affairs long strangely unfamiliar. In 1851 the opening of the

goldfields in Australia diverted the stream of speculative emigration

from California to the antipodes, and this new phase of the _auri sacra

fames_ does not escape _Punch's_ notice, though no mention is made of

the curious fact that amongst those who were lured to the diggings was

Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquess of Salisbury. Alongside of the

evidences of the great expansion of commerce and national prosperity we

find frequent references to the growth of gambling. In 1852 _Punch's_

pages abound in allusions, in text and illustrations, to the betting

mania--to gulls and pigeons and sharks. "Profiteering" was rampant in

the Crimean War, and _Punch_ is eloquent in his denunciation of the

contractors who supplied shoddy equipment and bad guns. And the

aftermath of the war included, besides other familiar sources of

discontent, "defalcations, embezzlements and other cases of gross and

enormous dishonesty." It was a time of speculation and peculation, of

bank smashes and absconding directors--those of the Royal British Bank

coming in for special execration. The fraudulent banker is singled out

by _Punch_ as the arch-rogue and thief who excited the envy of the

burglar, since the banker stole more and escaped unpunished. The

brothers Sadleir are specially selected for dishonourable mention in

1856, but John Sadleir, M.P. for Carlow and an ex-Lord of the Treasury,

who was the original of Mr. Merdle in _Little Dorrit_, and was described

in _The Times_ after his death as a "national calamity," only escaped

punishment by suicide.

[Sidenote: _Novelties and Anticipations_]

As we survey the various new inventions, novel devices and anticipations

mentioned in the pages of _Punch_, we are tempted to exclaim, in the

hackneyed phrase, that there is nothing new under the sun. A

"Glaciarium" with artificial ice is noted in the autumn of 1843.

"Euphonia," or the speaking machine, invented and exhibited by Professor

Faber at the Egyptian Hall in 1846, was an automaton, and can hardly be

regarded as a lineal ancestor of the gramophone. The "patent mile-index

cab" in 1847, on the other hand, was a genuine harbinger of the taxi,

but the time was not ripe for its general adoption. _Punch's_ account of

"Talking by Telegraph," in the autumn of 1848, is no more than a piece

of intelligent anticipation. The telephone voice, however, is happily

hit off in the remark that "we have heard of a singer's voice being

rather wiry at times; but there will be something very trying in the

perpetual twang of the new mode of small talk that is recommended to

us," a comment of 1848. The beneficent side of the discovery of

anæsthetics is lightly passed over in _Punch's_ earlier references to

this revolution in surgery in 1847, which suggest its application to

politicians or its use by hen-pecked husbands. Here only ether is

mentioned, but the "blessings of chloroform" are discussed a few months

later in the same jocular spirit. Incubators, the sewing machine and

phonetic spelling are among the wonders of the wonderful year of 1848.

Pitman and the "Fonetik Nuz" furnish _Punch_ with food for mirth in

1849; the claims of the discoverer of "Xyloidine," a new motive power to

take the place of steam, are treated with frivolous scepticism more

justifiable than that shown by _Punch_ towards ironclads in 1850. In

1851 the novelties included "Electro-biology," _i.e._ hypnotism;

shoeblacks; electric clocks; false legs,[6] invented by Palmer, an

American; and the supply of tea to the Navy. "Noiseless wheels" in 1853

suggest the advent of the age of rubber; but Robert W. Thomson had taken

out his patent for india-rubber tyres in 1845. Steam ploughs, gas-stoves

for cooking and central heating for houses followed in rapid succession

in 1853 and 1854. _Punch's_ ironical suggestions in the latter year for

the comfort and convenience of Cockney travellers in the ascent of

Snowdon are only one of many instances where the mocking fancy of one

generation becomes the fact of its successor.

The "new pillar boxes" must be added to the features of 1854; their

colour harmonized with the red coats then worn by the postmen; while the

scheme to propel mail bags through tubes by atmospheric pressure was put

forward as early as 1855. Massage appears as the new "movement cure" by

kneading and pressing, vide _Punch_, 1856, but he, however, was not

solely interested in beneficent inventions. Lord Dundonald's famous

"secret war plan," originally proposed in 1811, and rejected by a secret

Committee presided over by the Duke of York, who pronounced it

"infallible, irresistible, but inhuman," was revived after the

inventor's readmission to the British Navy, and urged on the Admiralty

and Government during the Crimean War. It was again rejected on the

score of its inhumanity, though _Punch_ welcomed the plan, without

knowing exactly what it was, and besought the Government to cast away

scruples and use _anything_ against such an enemy as Russia. Whatever

may have been "Dundonald's plan" was never divulged, it remained a

nameless mystery. The new nomenclature evolved by the triumphs of

applied science in humaner directions led to a good deal of controversy,

notably over the introduction of the word "telegram" as a substitute for

"telegraphic despatch." The shorter form was first officially used in

1855 (see the _Panmure Papers_) by Lord Clarendon, but scholars and men

of letters protested vigorously against this Yankee barbarism. Shilleto,

the famous Cambridge scholar, suggested "telegrapheme." He did not want

it, but it was at least properly constructed on Greek analogies. Oxford,

as _Punch_ notices in 1857, supported the modern form, and here for

once, at any rate, abandoned her traditional espousal of lost causes.

[Footnote 6: Henry Heather Bigg (1826-81), the surgical instrument

maker, who made the substitutes for the lost limbs of soldiers in the

Crimean War, is mentioned in 1856 (Vol. xxx., p. 28).]

[Sidenote: _Telegram or Telegrapheme?_]

In general, _Punch_, as a moderate reformer, deals impartially with the

contending claims of science and the classical curriculum. He believed

in the liberalizing influence of the humanities, while he denounced

academic arrogance, pedantry and exclusiveness. He might be described as

a mitigated modernist in these years, in which he advocated the

popularization of science by means of Institutes and similar centres of

enlightenment, and welcomed new inventions--while reserving to himself

the right to burlesque their possibilities, and to ridicule the

pretensions of pompous professors and futile philosophers. He was at one

with those rationalists who waged war on superstition and credulity, but

he realized better than they did how deeply entrenched the enemy was in

high places, and how mistaken was the view that the victory was already

won. The friendly lines which he addressed to Faraday in 1853 are mere

halting doggerel, but they are worth recalling, if only for their sound

doctrine, which is as much needed to-day as it was sixty-seven years

ago:--

Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!

Did you of enlightenment consider this an age?

Bless your simplicity, deep in electricity,

But in social matters, unsophisticated sage!

Weak superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,

Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,

Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy

Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?

Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!

Persons not uneducated--very highly dressed--

Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,

To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.

Also seek cunning men, feigning by mesmeric ken,

Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,

Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions

Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.

Oh, Mr. Faraday, simple Mr. Faraday!

Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,

You naturally stare, seeing that so many are

Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-lanterns flit.

Of scientific lore though you have an ample store,

Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;

Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,

Being all philosopher and nothing of a quack.

EDUCATION

Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature.

Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory

of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice.

Money was doled out in homoeopathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000

was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which

£70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which

_Punch_ had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between

ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane

magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared

that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor

children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of

thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth

in habits and practices of idleness and vice," _Punch_ found himself in

the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary

who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points

out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies,

taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary

legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the

transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they

were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of

their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in

1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful

boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though _Punch_ supported the

establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply

of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the

Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy

remained, and it was due in the country districts, in _Punch's_ view, to

the fact that "contending zealots cannot agree with what theological

mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the

schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin."

[Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION]

[Sidenote: _Abysmal Ignorance_]

In 1850 the following dialogue was given in _The Times_ police report of

Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in _Punch_:--

George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and

the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished

upon taking hold of the book.

_Ald. Humphrey._ Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know

what an oath is?

_Boy._ No.

_Ald. H._ Do you know what a Testament is?

_Boy._ No.

_Ald. H._ Can you read?

_Boy._ No.

_Ald._ H. Do you ever say your prayers?

_Boy._ No, never.

_Ald. H._ Do you know what prayers are?

_Boy._ No.

_Ald. H._ Do you know what God is?

_Boy._ No.

_Ald H._ Do you know what the devil is?

_Boy._ I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him.

_Ald. H._ What do you know, my poor boy?

_Boy._ I knows how to sweep the crossing.

_Ald. H._ And that's all?

_Boy._ That's all. I sweeps the crossing.

The Alderman said he, of course, could not take the evidence of a

creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the

truth.

It was to cope with this sort of destitution that the Ragged Schools

movement had been started several years before. From the first _Punch_

lent it his hearty support, though in his first notice, in 1846, he was

unable to resist the opportunity of combining his approval with a dig at

the aristocracy:--

WHAT RAGGED SCHOOLS MAY COME TO

It is with peculiar satisfaction that we view the establishment of

Ragged Schools in various parts of the Metropolis. We speak

advisedly when we describe our satisfaction as peculiar. For it is

not merely that we are rejoiced at the idea of a number of youthful

mendicants being prevented from becoming thieves and pickpockets,

taught to earn an honest livelihood, and rescued from vice and

misery through the instrumentality of these seminaries. No; our

views are much higher than such plebeian considerations as these,

and they also extend far beyond the present time. We have an eye to

the benefit of our posterity and to that of the superior classes

generally.

When we consider that Eton was established for the reception of

poor and indigent scholars, and that Winchester and most of our

other public schools were, at their first foundation, charities, we

may not unreasonably indulge the hope that the Ragged Schools,

originally, like them, destined for the instruction of the

tag-rag-and-bobtail, may ultimately become gratuitous institutions

for the education of the children of the aristocracy.

Yet it was an aristocrat of the "old nobility" who started and devoted

his best energies to the furtherance of the Ragged Schools movement, as

all the world knows. His name is not even mentioned here, and when it is

mentioned in these years is too often coupled with tasteless gibes at

Lord Shaftesbury's proclivities and Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ could not

forgive Lord Shaftesbury for his association with Exeter Hall (which to

_Punch_ meant fireside philanthropy and Jellybyism) and his support of

laws which enabled magistrates to fine boys fifteen shillings or a

fortnight's wages each for playing cricket on Sunday. Sir Robert Peel

had to die before _Punch_ did him justice. Lord Shaftesbury was more

fortunate, for thirty years before he died _Punch_ made the _amende_ in

"The Earl King, or the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Juvenile Mendicant."

[Sidenote: _The Distressed Author_]

"The greater the employment of the primer, the less the need of the

'cat'" is an aphorism which sums up the creed of the humanitarian

reformers of the 'forties and 'fifties. The "ladder of learning" was not

yet planted in the modern sense, and efforts to ascend from the lower to

the upper rungs were frowned upon by those in authority. At a meeting of

the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in June,

1849, a clerical speaker ridiculed the questions, set in an examination

paper for National School teachers, which presupposed a knowledge of the

works of Shakespeare, Milton, Adam Smith, Johnson and Scott, and of the

Life of Mrs. Fry. Learning was at a discount; authors of note, with few

exceptions--such as Thackeray and Macaulay--were generally impecunious,

and sometimes on the border-land of destitution. Douglas Jerrold had a

life-long struggle to keep his head above water, for all his industry.

There were no royalties in those days, and for _Black-Eyed Susan_, which

brought tens of thousands of pounds to theatrical lessees and popular

actors, he received from first to last the sum of £60. _Punch_ was the

constant champion of the distressed author fallen on evil days, such as

Joseph Haydn of the _Dictionary of Dates_, who was granted a Civil List

pension of £25 a year just three weeks before his death in January,

1856, or old Joseph Guy, "the man of many books, the ever-green

'Spelling Book' among the number." One of the finest (but posthumous)

tributes to Sir Robert Peel was on the occasion of the Literary Fund

dinner in 1856, when a sum of £100 was sent from the proceeds of the

first portion of the _Peel Papers_:--

[Illustration: NEWSVENDOR: "Now, my man, what is it?"

BOY: "I vonts a nillustrated newspaper with a norrid murder and a

likeness in it."]

From the tomb of Sir Robert speaks the spirit that, when in the

flesh and baited by the dogs of party [not to mention the bitter

satire of _Punch_ himself], still beneficently thought of the wants

of spasmodic Haydn; still, by sympathy in word and act, smoothed

the dying pillow of poor Tom Hood.

The respect and admiration with which George Stephenson and Joseph

Paxton were invariably treated was largely due to the fact that they

were self-taught men. And when Joseph Hume died in 1855, _Punch_, who

had so often chaffed him for his love of figures and returns, while

applauding his attack on "gold lace" and extravagance, paid fitting

homage to the perseverance which enabled him to fight his way up from

poverty and obscurity, to his rugged honesty, his hard-won triumphs, and

his honourable participation in all victories over wrong in Church and

State. An alarming ignorance, however, was not monopolized by the lower

orders. In his scheme for the reform of the House of Lords _Punch_

suggests that peers should only be admitted to the Upper House after an

examination in the three R's, history, geography and political economy.

Geography even in our own enlightened days remains a stumbling-block to

Ministers, even Prime Ministers. Disraeli's ignorance of arithmetic on

the occasion of his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the

Derby Cabinet is a frequent source of ribaldry in _Punch_, who suggested

the establishment of an infants' school for the new Cabinet. So recently

as the eve of the twentieth century a Chancellor of the Exchequer was

reported to have been so ignorant of decimals that he asked what was

meant by those "damned dots."

[Sidenote: _The Education Bill of 1856_]

Reverting to elementary education, we can find no better commentary on

its progress in the mid 'fifties than two extracts from _Punch's_

"Essence of Parliament" in the spring of 1856:--

_Thursday_, March 6th. In the Commons, Lord John Russell moved a

series of resolutions on the subject of Education, and afterwards

withdrew them. What they were, therefore, does not seem to be a

matter of any very overwhelming interest, especially as he

threatens them again on the 10th of April. His plan, however,

comprised a sort of timid notion of a rate not to be altogether

voluntary; but the fact, disclosed by the census of 1851, that of

four millions of our children, between five and fifteen years of

age, two millions are proved to be on no school list at all, while

a great mass of the other two millions are receiving the most

miserable tuition, did not excite either Lord John, or our Blessed

House of Representatives, into an indignant declaration that the

children _should_ be taught, that the nation should pay for their

teaching, and that the parents who hindered or neglected the work

should be punished. On the contrary, they chattered and talked

commonplace, and complimented one another, and an old Dissenting

Attorney called Hadfield[7] said that the people were taught as

well as any other people, which he proved from the fact that they

wrote and posted a great many letters; and he opposed all further

interference. Having thus got rid of the Education of the Poor, the

House went on to the Education of the Rich, and had a discussion on

the Oxford Reforms, but it also ended in nothing.

_Thursday_, April 10th. The House of Commons was occupied during

this night and the next with discussing Lord John Russell's

Education resolutions. They were opposed, of course, by

representatives of the Church, of Dissent, and of the Manchester

school: the first think that their religion only should be taught

by the State; the second that their religion only should be taught,

but not by the State; and the third that no religion should be

taught at all. It is needless to say that Government has no

practical views on the subject, but like all half-hearted people

contrived to get the worst in the fray.

[Footnote 7: _Punch_ is unjust to George Hadfield, member for Sheffield

from 1852 to 1874, a prominent Congregationalist and advanced Liberal

who took an active part in forming the Anti-Corn Law League and rendered

valuable assistance in the House in promoting legal reform.]

[Illustration: AWFUL EXAMPLE OF INFANT PRECOCITY.

PRODIGY: "Mamma! Look dere, dere Papa!"]

In July, 1856, at the end of the session, the Education Bill for England

and Scotland figured in the "Massacre of the Innocents," sixteen in all.

As a set-off the Cambridge University Bill introduced some useful

reforms, though it failed to secure the admission of Dissenters; and a

Minister for Education was created under the title of Vice-President of

the Committee of the Council of Education. But _Punch_, in these years

at any rate, had no love for the older universities. He regarded them,

and especially Oxford, as the strongholds of mediævalism, obscurantism,

and all the "isms" against which he was always tilting in Church and

State; and he seldom failed to satirize the opposition of academic

authorities to inquiry and reform. The romance of "the home of lost

causes" made no appeal to his practical mind. Yet of classical

scholarship and the classical curriculum he was a loyal supporter.

Classical allusions, quotations and parallels abound in his pages: he

even printed translations in doggerel Greek by Dr. Kenealy. But the

education of the masses was his prime concern, and after the fiasco of

1856 Parliament remained inactive for nearly six years--until the

notable measure, establishing the principle of "payment by results," was

introduced by Lowe in 1862. In this context it may be noted that as

early as 1848 _Punch_ avowed his belief in the value of making lessons

interesting to children:--

The reason why school books are so dreary to the child is because

they are full of subjects he has no sympathy with. Children's books

should be written for children. The child may be father to the man,

but that is no reason why he should be treated with literature

which is only fit for a father.... If battles are to be fought

before children they should be fought with tin soldiers.... Study

should be made into a good romp, learning turned into a game, and

children then could run into the schoolroom with the same eagerness

they rush now into the playground.

[Sidenote: _A Child's Letter to Hans Anderson_]

[Illustration: HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]

Here we have a crude anticipation of the Montessori system, around which

so much controversy rages to-day. _Punch_ has always been a lover of

children, gentle and simple, but at the same time a faithful critic of

the _enfant terrible_ and of juvenile precocity. One of the most

delightful letters that ever appeared in his pages was the genuine

epistle from a little girl printed in the issue of January 10, 1857:--

"MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,

"we Hope you are Quite well and i wish you many Happy returns of

Christmas and i hope you will Excuse me riting to You but mamma Says

you allways are Fond of little people so i Hope you will Excuse as

me and charley read in the illusterated London [_News_] that Mr.

Hans Christian anderson is Coming to spend His Hollidays in England

And We shold like to see Him becase he as Made us All so Happy with

is Betiful storys the ugly duck the Top and the ball the snow Quen

the Red shoes the Storks little ida the Constant tinsoldier great

claws and Little Claws the darning Neddle and All the rest of Them

and it says in the illustat [_several attempts, a smear, and the

spelling evaded_] Paper the children shold Meet him in the

Crys-pallace and we shold Like to Go and tell him how much We Love

him for his betiful stores do you know the tinder box and tommelise

and charley liks the wild Swans best but i Hope you will Excuse bad

riting and i Am

"Yours affectionate

"NELLY.

charley says i Have not put in wat We ment if you please Will you

put In punch wat everybody is to Do to let Mr. hans Ansen know how

Glad we are He is Coming."

We hope that Hans Andersen--who, by the way, as a writer of fairy

stories is regarded with disfavour by Madame Montessori--saw this

letter. On the relations of parents and children generally, two of

_Punch's_ aphorisms are not without their bearing on present-day

conditions. In the year 1844 the _Comic Blackstone_ reads: "Children owe

their parents support; but this is a mutual obligation, for they must

support each other, though we sometimes hear them declaring each other

wholly insupportable." And the other, under the heading "The World's

Nursery," runs: "The spoilt children of the present age rarely turn out

the great men of the next." It should be added, as some readers will

remember, that in neither of the decades under review were the children

of the poor in any danger of being spoiled.

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY

_Punch's_ efforts on behalf of Sunday recreation, already alluded to,

exposed him to a great deal of hostile criticism. In 1854 the _English

Journal of Education_ declared that _Punch_ was not suitable reading for

Sunday: it was "worse than useless literature." But _Punch_ gave as good

as he got. When the _Record_ attacked the Queen for having a band at

Windsor on Sunday, and alluded to Nero fiddling while Rome burned,

_Punch_ unblushingly called the editor "a brimstone-faced _Mawworm_."[8]

The question of the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery

on Sunday came up again in 1855 on the motion of Sir Joshua Walmsley,

but was defeated by 235 to 48 votes, to _Punch's_ great disgust. He

advises constituencies to watch closely the conduct of the triumphant

Sabbatarians. "If one of the 235 saints who opposed the resolution of

Sir Joshua Walmsley has his boots cleaned on Sunday, or takes a drive,

or eats a warm dinner, unless by medical order, he is a humbug and a

hypocrite, and unworthy of the suffrages of free and independent

electors." A year later the anti-Sabbatarians resumed their attack, and

in his "Essence of Parliament," distilled by Shirley Brooks, _Punch_

summarizes the debate:--

The debate to-night was brief, and chiefly left to men of small

calibre. The principal exceptions were Lord Stanley, who manfully

stood out as an Anti-Sabbatarian; Mr. Napier, who saw "poison" in

seeing pictures on Sunday; Mr. Heywood, who denied the truth of the

Jewish history of the Creation, but described the Sabbath as a

divine ordinance to be kept as a day of rejoicing; and Lord

Palmerston, who thought there would be no harm in opening these

exhibitions, but that there would be much if the House acted in

defiance of the opinions which had been expressed against doing so.

This eminently House-of-Commons logic and morality was too suited

to the audience not to be successful. On division, 376--add four

who were "shut out" and say 380--gentlemen in comfortable

circumstances, most of them with carriages and country houses,

decided, against 48 opponents, that the only holiday Mammon has

left to the poor man shall not be better spent than in a squalid

house, a dirty drinking-yard, or a debauching public-house.

[Footnote 8: Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in

Bickerstaffe's play _The Hypocrite_.]

This Parliamentary opportunism, to which Palmerston adhered in the

matter of Sunday bands in the parks, was one of the qualities which

_Punch_ liked least in "the judicious bottle-holder," as he loved to

call Palmerston. In the controversy which raged round this question

throughout the year _Punch_ gladly recognized the enlightened zeal of

Sir Benjamin Hall, the Member for Marylebone and Commissioner of Works.

For a while the bands played in the parks on Sundays, and _Punch_

celebrated the concession, which had been sanctioned by Palmerston, in

an "Ode to Sir Benjamin Hall."

But the boon was short-lived. "The Sunday Band, Hall's grant," was

"abolished by the influence of Cant," and on May 19 Palmerston, while

retaining his personal opinion as to the propriety of having Sunday

music in the parks, stated that such "representations" had been made to

him that he had felt it his duty to give way. The Sabbatarians were

jubilant, as may be gathered from _Punch's_ reference to the _Record_ in

his issue of August 16:--

We doubt very much whether we can any longer conscientiously call

the _Record_ our serious contemporary. That doubt is suggested by

the following passage occurring in one of its leading articles:--

"We are taught to expect the blessing of God on the conduct of our

affairs when we act in accordance with the divine will; and it

almost seems as if Lord Palmerston acquired new strength from the

moment when he agreed to put down the Sunday bands. The attempt to

make Government responsible for the loss of Kars was defeated by a

great majority, and the subsequent attempt to censure Lord

Clarendon on account of the American dispute was defeated by a

majority still more overwhelming."

We can conceive a person devoid of all veracity and conscience,

writing in a great hurry to a set of imbecile fanatics,

perpetrating such stuff and nonsense as the above, but we cannot

well conceive any other person guilty thereof.

[Sidenote: Goldsmith Bowdlerized]

[Illustration: SUNDAY MUSIC AS CANT WOULD HAVE IT]

_Punch_ could not see harm in music on any day, and he printed a

charming "petition" from the song-birds of Kensington to Sir Benjamin

Hall, expressing their apprehension of an order forbidding them to sing

on Sundays. But then, as now, there were moralists who saw not good but

evil in everything. In the same year of 1856 the Government issued an

edition of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" for the use of schools, and

the lines:--

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,

For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made--

were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring

lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, _Punch_

castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he

is a noisome fellow, Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he

is a dunce."

_Punch's_ hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and

other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal

Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy,

which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of

Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:--

It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and

easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet

sofa--it is there that he displays his practical benevolence,

talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa

to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to

die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having

voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own

comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated

their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and--taking

care of themselves.

In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the

Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the

poor at home--multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the

housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and

wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with

Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements,

but _Punch_ could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday

observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs

and Chadbands.

His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and

archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As _The

Times_ wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of

England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." _Punch_

re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic

comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But

he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young

England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church--to

make it the friend, comforter and protector of the people. "Young

England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were

almost as great _bêtes noires_ to _Punch_ as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop

of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy

Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield,

the Bishop of London.

[Illustration: SERIOUS FLUNKEY: "I should require, Madam, forty pounds a

year, two suits of clothes, two 'ats, meat and hale three times a day,

and piety hindispensable."]

[Sidenote: _Clerical Bugbears_]

The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great

prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment.

_Punch_ was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to

the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife

to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The

Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on the

subject, but one extract from _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" may

suffice to illustrate his _nolo episcopari_ attitude:--

_Thursday_, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from

their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its

present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for

deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who

acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in

actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat

more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining

divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied

with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of

bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne

gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (_Mr.

Punch_ does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,

the _Standard_, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's

speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.

"The lower classes did not demand the _privilegia_ afforded to the

higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought

with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice

Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him

and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,

and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a

postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to

"amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the

Priests.

It may be added that _Punch_ was also a supporter of marriage with a

deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope

for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans'

Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, _Punch_ notes that the

result was chiefly due to "four priests"--the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel,

St. David's and Exeter--and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes

of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance."

Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the

opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable

to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence

for the Common Prayer-book." _Punch's_ own reasons for supporting the

change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from

relief, when he remarries takes on a _second_ mother-in-law.

[Illustration: AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND: "Come, Polly--if I _am_ a little

irritable, it's over in a minute."]

[Sidenote: _Destitute Clergy_]

But _Punch's_ chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in

the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the

wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch

with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect

of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted

_Punch's_ attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred

to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the

Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic

inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact

that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on

their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to

2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends _under_ £100 a year, and as many

as 173 _less_ than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this

modern clerical instance of Dives and Lazarus is to be found in an

article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":--

A curate--"an Agueish curate"--wishes to know of _The Times_ if

curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age

and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is

disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for

twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated

by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential

atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of

bishop and curate as below:--

"To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can

give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity--a palace and £6,000

per annum.

"To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir

before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless

from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his

inability to be any longer faithful in his calling--the workhouse."

And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,

and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching

the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient

Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a

bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the

fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in

the volume to which we have reverently alluded.

It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been

introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to

resign, and making provision for them:--

The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has

enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years

at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the

annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for

twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with

£4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.

The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since

departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The

scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still

remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find

it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.

Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and

expenditure.

[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]

In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is

somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low

Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his

followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites

"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,

but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous

Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman

Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars

Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal

Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the

Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most

violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had

welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the

opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed

a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue

of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his

masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures

were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that

the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on

the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with

secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy

is ortho-."

Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's

Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he

declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly

Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were

"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the

Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow

bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham

case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea

for toleration:--

O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while

you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth

these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't

mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....

The people in this country _will_ learn to read and write; they

will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their

lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your

outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as

long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo

Jumbo.

Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No

Popery" movement a few months later. _Punch_, in a poem on "Consolation

amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:--

We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,

But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!

No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,

But only just a little jawing.

* * * * *

There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,

People beheading, throttling, frying.

_Punch_, and he says it without boasting,

Does all the cutting up and roasting.

As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one

subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman,

of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The

Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News"

we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord

Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement

that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new

Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put

forward on behalf of other creeds--Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.

[Illustration: THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE

Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church]

[Sidenote: _Cardinal Wiseman_]

On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter

to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely

whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal

claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our

bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as

asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however,

that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than

by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most

forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the

precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of

England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with

contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the

glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation."

_Punch_ lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of

November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way

with the Pope's Puppets." _Punch_ had no desire, he declares, to bring

back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the

quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called

upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all

spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him

for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the

Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy"

appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging

its way through _Punch's_ columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and

pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that

_Punch_ was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting

the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in

addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations.

Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that

the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular

administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the

request of English communicants," left _Punch_ cold and derisive. He

suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed

to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in

"Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive

Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist--very much to the advantage

of the latter--in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of

history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests,

_Punch_ continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was

more than a little wrathful with the _Morning Chronicle_ for asserting

that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned."

But the _Morning Chronicle_ was not far out, and it is noteworthy that

from this point onwards _Punch's_ attacks were chiefly directed against

Puseyites and Ritualists--such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St.

Barnabas, Pimlico--and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:--

Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,

For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.

Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously

on _Punch_ in the _Dublin Review_, denouncing his opponent as once

facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old

street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented

him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting

the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere

transportation for life. _Punch_ promptly hit back, but he did not get

the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he

was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable

Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and

literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in

_Punch's_ pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he

is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If,

as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop

Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is

certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying

which probably represented the Cardinal's view of _Punch_ accurately in

the verse:--

You, for example, clever to a fault,

The rough and ready man, who write apace,

Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.