Chapter VI: Part I: The Two Nations (5)

The Charge of the Light Brigade[10] prompts Leech's picture of "A Trump Card(igan)"; but, rather than with the officers, _Punch_, throughout the war, was more concerned with the rank and file, and with instances of unfair differentiation between officers and men, notably in regard to the sale of promotions and the grants of leave, satirized in the cartoon, "The New Game of Follow my Leader," in which a very diminutive bugler, advancing in front of a long file of soldiers, addresses the commander-in-chief: "Please, General, may me and these other chaps have leave to go home on urgent _Private_ affairs?"

The efforts of the Peace Party are a constant source of derisive criticism, as in the bitter stanzas, "Mr. Gladstone's Peace Song." Even more bitter is the onslaught in the year 1856 on John Bright:--

Merrily danced the Quaker Bright,
And merrily danced that Quaker,
When he heard that Kars was in hopeless plight,
And Mouravieff meant to take her.
He said he knew it was wrong to fight,
He'd help nor Devil nor Baker,
But to see that the battle was going right,
O! merrily danced the Quaker.

[Footnote 10: _Punch_ welcomed Tennyson's famous poem, which originally appeared in the _Examiner_, but could not agree with the view expressed in "Maud" that war is better than peace, though he held that it might be the only way--as at the moment--to secure it.]

[Sidenote: _Paying the Bill_]

The article in which we read that "Wholesale slaughter and devastation, when you are driven to it, is the only economy of slaughter and devastation," is a definitely frank espousal of the doctrine of "frightfulness." Cobden and Bright, "our calico friends," are mercilessly assailed in every number; Cobden in particular for his pamphlet, "What next, and next?" and for his servility to America. Peace came at the end of March, 1856, with its aftermath of criticism, dissatisfaction, discontent with the Peace terms, and fierce comments on generals and contractors, mismanagement and neglect of men and horses, and on the failure of the navy. Already the Sebastopol Blue Book had appeared--a painful document with "delay," "want of----" and "unaccountable neglect" appearing on every page. The discussion of the Peace Treaty in Parliament prompts _Punch_ to mitigated "joy and satisfaction" over what he calls "Walewski's Treaty of Peace"; to praise Lord Malmesbury--no favourite of his; to describe Lord Aberdeen as crawling out "like an old slug, now that the war-storm is over," to express his general approbation, tempered by his "preposterous love of Russia"; and to condemn Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, for his ignominious silence in the Commons. The speeches by Lord Panmure in the Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, in moving the votes of thanks to our soldiers, sailors, marines, militia, and Foreign Legion, and those of the Leaders of the Opposition, who seconded them, were appropriate, but fell short of the merits of the theme. "Certain figures, given on official authority, tell the whole story of the two years' war with grim succinctness. We have lost 22,467 men, of whom but 3,532 died in battle or from wounds." Nothing is new: in emphasizing the demand that Russia must be made to pay the bill, and declaring that her attempts to evade the Treaty must be rigorously dealt with, _Punch_ strikes a note all too familiar in the last two years and a half. His general attitude is summed up in the lines on "Rejoicings for Peace":--

Thank Heaven the War is ended!
That is the general voice,
But let us feign no splendid
Endeavours to rejoice.
To cease from lamentation
We may contrive--but--pooh!
Can't rise to exultation,
And cock-a-doodle-doo!

We can't pass now direct from grief to laughter,
Like supernumeraries on the stage,
To smiling happiness from settled rage;
We look before and after.
Before, to all those skeletons and corses
Of gallant men and noble horses;
After--though sordid the consideration--
Unto a certain bill to pay,
Which we shall have for many a day,
By unrepealable taxation.

Yet never fought we in a better cause,
Nor conquered yet a nobler peace.
We stood in battle for the eternal laws;
'Twas an affair of high Police,
Our arms enforced a great arrest of State;
And now remains--the Rate.

Friction with America over the dismissal of our Minister at Washington led to a remarkably frank open letter to President Pierce, of which the gist is: "Let us fight by all means if you will have it, but think what it means"; wholesome advice. On the other hand the temper of the Manchester Pacificists, who had taken to disparaging Sardinia and the cause of Italian liberty, _à propos_ of the advance of a million pounds to Sardinia, prompted the invidious suggestion: "They possibly fear lest a blow struck anywhere for freedom should cause the countermand of a trade offer." _Punch_, in these days no longer Pacificist, hailed Sidney Herbert's Bill for improving the education of officers in the Army, and establishing a board to examine for commissions and promotions; but he was more enthusiastic over Sir Joseph Paxton's proposed inquiry into the barracks system, quoting with approval his remark that, while every prisoner in our gaols costs us £150 a year, "the soldier was the worst-lodged person in the Queen's Dominions."

Post-war parallels multiply at this period, the year 1856--in the recrudescence of crime and burglaries, and the garrotting scare; in wholesale criticism of Lord Palmerston. There is an excellent burlesque in the shape of an imaginary article from the _Morning Herald_ on the execution of Palmerston on Tower Hill. Immediately after exulting over "Pam's" downfall, the writer passes to a fulsome adulation of the dead. Here, as so often time has proved, _Punch_ was a prophet as well as a critic. Other familiar grounds for discontent are to be found in the Peace terms and undue leniency to Russia; in friction with France; wholesale speculation and peculation; unnecessary Parliamentary expenditure; and complaints of high prices, which, by the way, induced _Punch_ to suggest abstinence as the best means of bringing down the price of sugar and butter. The return of the Guards is fitly honoured in July, and "The Nightingale's Return" in August:--

Most blessed things come silently, and silently depart;
Noiseless steals spring-time on the year, and comfort on the heart;
And still, and light, and gentle, like a dew, the rain must be,
To quicken seed in furrow and blossom upon tree.

So she, our sweet Saint Florence, modest, and still, and calm,
With no parade of martyr's cross, no pomp of martyr's palm,
To the place of plague and famine, foulness, and wounds and pain,
Went out upon her gracious toil, and so returns again.

When titles, pensions, orders, with random hand are showered,
'Tis well that, save with blessings, she still should walk undowered.
What title like her own sweet name, with the music all its own?
What order like the halo by her good deeds round her thrown?

[Sidenote: _Incapable Commanders_]

Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, had been denounced as "the apex of incapacity," but _Punch_ spoke kindly of that gallant old hero of the Peninsula on his resignation. He was "all bravery and kindness except when opposed to Court influence, and then he could neither snub great people nor stand up for the interests of the Army." With this statement we may bracket a useful _obiter dictum_ on appointments generally: "Too much ability is demanded for the small places, and for the large places generally too little." No confidence is shown in the "whitewashing report" of the Chelsea Board of Inquiry into the charges brought against Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan, and others. The Board was packed with "aristocratic officers," and its report is described as "a Chelsea Hospital salve for curing the reputations of Lucan, Cardigan, and Co."

Evidently _Punch_ is in good satirical form, for he follows this sally a month later with an indignant article on the appointment of an earl's son, aged twelve, to be a Royal Page at £200 a year for four years, with a grant of £500 as outfit, and a lieutenancy in the Guards without purchase; and the simultaneous offer of a commission as ensign in a marching regiment to a heroic sergeant-major, aged forty, without money to purchase it. A bad case of "ragging" in the Guards comes in for severe castigation, and the dismissal of the offenders from the service is welcomed as a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, while he was a stern critic of extravagant and ill-conditioned officers, _Punch_ recognized the need of decent pay, and appealed for aid from the State to remedy the long-borne grievance. Amid the discordant chorus of criticism and discontent which arose on the conclusion of Peace, happier notes are sounded in the references to the initiation, on a comprehensive basis, of the Order of Valour. The principle adopted in its bestowal is set forth in the lines which appeared in the issue of February 23, 1856:--

Till now the stars and garters
Were for birth or fortune's son,
And as oft in snug home-quarters
As in fields of fight were won.
But at length a star arises,
Which as glorious will shine
On Smith's red serge vest as upon the breast
Of Smyth's scarlet superfine.

Too long mere food for powder
We've deemed our rank and file,
Now higher hopes and prouder
Upon the soldier smile.
And if no Marshal's bâton
Private Smith in his knapsack bears,
At least in the War, the chance of the star
With his General he shares.

The first distribution of the "V.C." by the Queen was not made until June 26, 1857, and in the same vein, but with greater dignity _Punch_ strove to render justice to the occasion:--

THE STAR OF VALOUR

Distributed by the Queen's Own Hand. June 26, 1857.

The fount of Honour, sealed till now
To all save claims of rank and birth,
Makes green the laurel on the brow
Ennobled but by soldier's worth.

Of these the bravest and the best
Who 'scaped the chance of shot and sword,
England doth, by her Queen, invest
With Valour's Cross--their great reward!

Marking her sense of something still,
A central nobleness, that lies
Deeper than rank which royal will,
Or birth, or chance, or wealth supplies.

Knighthood that girds all valiant hearts,
Knighthood that crowns each fearless brow;
That knighthood this bronze cross imparts--
Let Fleece, and Bath, and Garter bow!

[Sidenote: _The Victoria Cross_]

The plainness of the cross aroused critical comment, to which expression was lent in the epigram, which has not lost its point yet:--

Here's Valour's Cross, my men; 'twill serve,
Though rather ugly--take it,
John Bull a medal can deserve,
But can't contrive to make it.

But the very simplicity of the bronze cross has lent it distinction. _Punch_ was on safer ground when he urged that doctors and firemen were well qualified to receive it; the Albert Medal, in recognition of acts of gallantry in saving life performed by anyone whatever, was not instituted till 1866. _Punch's_ democratic bias is also agreeably shown in his plea on behalf of the artisans and artificers employed at the dockyards and arsenals, whose labours shortened the war, but who were thrown out of work on its conclusion. In answer to their petition for help to emigrate, it was intimated to them that the Government would help them if they would help themselves. The delay of the Government in fulfilling their side of the bargain, when the men had complied with this condition, gives occasion for a piece of sarcastic criticism on State parsimony. And in this context we may note the charming poem on Mother Seacole, the brave old sutler in the Crimea, beloved of all soldiers, who had fallen on evil days, but was relieved by public subscription, largely due to the appeal in _Punch's_ columns. Lastly, and to sum up this review, we may note the shrewd common sense of the timely article setting forth the pros and cons of Army Purchase, in which the writer emphasizes the need of a higher standard of brains and ability. Under the existing tradition, the abolition of purchase would probably mean promotion by influence--an equally vicious system. To alter the way of getting a commission was of no avail unless you altered the thing itself. Efficiency was not incompatible with purchase, but it was incompatible with "taking care of Dowb"--not the only reference in _Punch_ to the historic telegram of Lord Panmure to Lord Raglan on behalf of his protégé and relative, Captain Dowbiggin.

ENTR'ACTE

LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY

The survey of London, as set forth in the pages of _Punch_ seventy and eighty years ago, undoubtedly ministers to our complacency. Much that was picturesque has vanished, but the improvements in the state of the streets, in lighting, communications, and, above all, sanitation, cannot be easily overstated. In the early 'forties three methods of paving the streets were employed: stones, Macadam, and wood; and according to _Punch_ they were all bad. The stones caused jolting, Macadam was muddy, while wood pavement, which was only partially used in a few favoured localities--the Poultry and Lombard Street--was a constant source of danger by reason of its slipperiness. The spectacle, so familiar in recent years, of horses skating on all four feet down inclines is noticed in the year 1849. Hansom, the architect, had taken out the patent for his safety carriage in 1834, and that strange vehicle, which Disraeli celebrated as "the Gondola of London," and which is now relegated to the position of a curiosity or a relic, was fully established in a popularity which lasted for half a century or more. To those like the present writer who have been in a hansom when one wheel came off, or the horse's belly-band broke, or who have been propelled against the glass when the horse came down, the wonder is that it lasted so long. Yet, on a fine day, it was a pleasing, if precarious, vehicle, and inspired an exiled poet in the 'eighties to say that he would "give a monarch's ransom for a Piccadilly hansom." The old four-wheeler or "growler" still lingers and emerges during strikes of taxi-drivers, but _Punch_, though he found the cabman swathed in capes a fertile theme for his pencil, in general regarded him as a rapacious and extortionate old bandit, and his cab a squalid and insanitary means of transit. The one-day cab strike in 1853 grew out of the new Act fixing the fare at 6d. a mile. Under the new police regulations, whenever a dispute as to mileage occurred, both parties could deposit five shillings and have the matter decided by a magistrate. In one instance the cabman, not having five shillings, lost his case and was fined. A good deal of public sympathy, fostered by the _Examiner_, was enlisted on behalf of the cabman, but _Punch_ was rigidly on the side of the public as against the proprietors of dirty cabs, miserable horses, and their abusive and rapacious drivers. The stringency of the regulations may be gathered from the lines on "A Civil Cabman's Sauce," based on a paragraph which appeared in _The Times_. A cabman had been sentenced by the Lord Mayor to twenty shillings or fourteen days for refusing to take a fare because he wanted his tea. The cabman had suggested that the fare might also require that refreshment. At this period, it may be also noted, cabmen were not allowed to smoke when on their stands. Towards its close an improvement in the cab service is acknowledged, but many years were to elapse before the institution of cab-shelters. As for the rapacity of cabmen, it was as water compared with wine when judged by the standard of taxi-drivers.

[Sidenote: _The Ancient Omnibus_]

CABBY (impressively): "Beg pardon, Miss! N-n-not (hic) intossi--intossi-cated (hic)--itsh only shlight 'ped-ped-pediment in speesh, Miss!"]

Turning next to the 'buses, some of us are old enough to remember their dim interiors, the smell of damp, sodden straw on the floors, and the perilous ascent to the roof by what was little better than a rope ladder. Still, we own to a sneaking regret for the old 'bus driver; to sit next him on the box-seat was a liberal education in the repartee of the road. The "knife-board," as the low partition against which outside passengers sat back to back was called, does not appear until after 1852. The slow speed of travel by 'bus is a constant source of satire; a journey to the remoter suburbs, if _Punch_ is to be believed, took almost as long as it now takes to go to Exeter. Yet, with familiar inconsistency, he constantly rebukes the 'busmen for racing, especially on the route from Putney to St. Paul's. The miseries of the crowded interior, what with dogs, bundles, bird-cages, and wet umbrellas, are vividly described, and it was not until 1849 that fixed fares were introduced. Up till then the sum was left to the caprice of the conductor, or "cad." Competition brought improvement in the shape of a superior type of "saloon" 'bus, and towards the end of this period complaints against cabs and 'buses died down somewhat; but in comfort, cleanliness, and speed, the difference between the public vehicles of 1857 and 1920 is immense. About the former year the reader will find a good description in "The Fine Old English Omnibus," of its discomforts, stuffiness and perils and the disagreeable qualities of the "cad" and driver. In one respect only, London was better served--on its waterway. The Thames passenger steamers were a great feature of the time. Not that they were above criticism; collisions were frequent, overloading was habitual, the conduct of the passengers was not above reproach, and in general the service was condemned as both risky and inefficient, and ranked along with smallpox and railroads as a remedy for over-population.

From vehicles one passes by a natural transition to those who were charged with the regulation of traffic, though its masterly control by the police had not yet been developed to the point at which it has frequently elicited the admiration of foreign visitors. The new policemen, who had been embodied under the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, when Peel was Home Secretary, were no special favourites of _Punch_ in his early years, and his opinion of their efficiency may be gauged by his greeting the threat of their strike with the remark that he did not think it would make much difference. Their relations with cooks--a fruitful source of satire--began to be a theme of ridicule in the late 'forties, and inspired in _Punch_ "The Loves of the New Police," recounting the tragedy of a constable who forfeited his post owing to a fatal weakness for chops and stout.

[Sidenote: _The New Police Force_]

We have spoken already of the postmen; for their dress in 1844 students of official costume may be referred to the picture overleaf.

As for lighting, gas was already in general, though by no means universal, use. The gasless condition of Kensington is bewailed in 1844; the bad lighting of Eaton Square in 1849. The use of electricity was foreshadowed, but that was all. For domestic purposes the commonest illuminant was "camphine," an oil distilled from turpentine. Miss Mulock in _The Ogilvies_ speaks of it as being always either "too dull or too bright," and _Punch_ is not enthusiastic as to its virtues. The agility of the street lamp-lighter lent point to a proverb which has become obsolete under modern conditions, for the lamp-lighter has no longer need to climb and never runs. In 1844 _Punch_ speaks of the Lucifer having replaced the Congreve--or "Congry" as it was vulgarly called--friction match; but the change of name was later, according to Mayhew and Charles Knight, who speaks of the penny box of Lucifer matches as "a triumph of science."

[Sidenote: _Municipal Apathy_]

The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the 'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the 'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year 1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as _Punch_ called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there were wildernesses even in central London, notably Leicester Square and Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the _terra incognita_ of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests in _Punch_, belong to an unregretted past. _Punch_ was a great Londoner. We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square, the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven years later we read:--

In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions,
is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that
on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A
celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible
particulars:

To erect a Simple Column It takes in England 12 years.
Ditto, with Lions, everything
complete " " 24 "
To build a Common Bridge " " 15 "
Ditto a Suspension Bridge " " 25 "
Ditto Houses of Parliament A trifle under 100 "

With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a
curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in
one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some
celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar
Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is
supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry
to make his appearance.

"Britannia," _Punch_ makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate their memory." And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on "The Nation and Its Monuments":--

The National Gallery holds its place
In Trafalgar's noble Square,
And being a national disgrace,
Will remain for ever there.

The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite
Of all that the world could say;
And because he stands on an awkward site,
We, of course, shall let him stay.

The Palace of Glass is so much admired,
Both in Country and in Town,
That its maintenance is by all desired:
So we mean to pull it down.

[Sidenote: _London Changes and Improvements_]

In 1852 _Punch_ gives a list of things indefinitely postponed, in which we find the completion of Nelson's pillar; the catalogue of the British Museum Library--_Punch_ was no admirer of Panizzi, the librarian; the Reform of the City Corporations; the completion of the new Houses of Parliament; an omnibus that will carry a person quicker than he can walk; good water; cheap gas; perfect sewerage; and unadulterated milk. The campaign against Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament, was conducted with a good deal of acrimony. _Punch_ began by objecting to the cost, then to Barry's "long sleep," and later on to the expensive experiments in ventilation, and the darkness of the reporters' gallery. Nor was he less impatient over the delays in the completion of the Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the new Westminster Bridge--begun in 1854, eight years after the old bridge had been closed as dangerous, and opened in 1860. The future of the derelict Marble Arch moved him to frequent and caustic comment before its removal from outside Buckingham Palace to its present site in 1850. As early as 1853 there was talk of removing Temple Bar, but this was not done till 1878. And the mention of Buckingham Palace recalls the fact that in 1857, when it was proposed to cut a carriage road through St. James's Park, there was no public road past the palace. The pelicans, which delight us to-day on their sadly-diminished lake, date back to the time of Charles II, who received a gift of these birds from the Tsar of Muscovy.

The record of new buildings, constructions, monuments, and "improvements" kept by _Punch_ is not complete, but it serves to illustrate the changes between mid-Victorian and Georgian London. The Thames Tunnel, Brunel's pioneer work in the long series of subterranean engineering achievements which have transformed the under-crust of London, was opened in August, 1843, and on October 28, 1844, the Queen opened the new Royal Exchange amid civic junketings which caused "Q" (Douglas Jerrold) to deplore the absence of the sons of labour from a hollow pageant in which only merchant princes were represented. The reference to the two tall buildings at Albert Gate seems to indicate an apprehension even in those early days of the coming of skyscrapers, of which Queen Anne's Mansions are still the sole realization. Thackeray has a humorous poem on "The Pimlico Pavilion", which refers to the pavilion in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, a summer house with a central octagon room. In view of _Punch's_ persistent attacks on the Court for neglecting native talent, it should be recorded that the task of filling the eight lunettes below the cornice with frescoes was entrusted to eight British artists, including Stanfield, Landseer, and Maclise, and that the subjects were all suggested by passages from Milton's _Comus_. On Wyatt's unfortunate colossal statue of the Duke of Wellington, erected opposite Apsley House in 1846, and replaced by Boehm's smaller equestrian statue in 1883, _Punch_ heaped unstinted ridicule with pen and pencil. Nor was he less hostile in his criticisms on the "hideous models" submitted for the proposed memorial to the Iron Duke, when these designs were exhibited in 1857, describing them as "Nemesis in Plaster of Paris," and representing the French Ambassador as telegraphing to his Government: "Waterloo is avenged."

The New Billingsgate buildings merely serve as an excuse for some jocular remarks on their supposed humanizing influence on the Billingsgate dialect.

But a good deal of space is devoted to Big Ben, his name and note (E natural), and the vicissitudes which attended his hanging in the Clock Tower. Of the references which abound in 1856, perhaps the most notable is the suggestion that the clapper should be named Gladstone, "as, without doubt, his is the loudest tongue in Parliament". The announcement in 1857 that a crack had been discovered in Big Ben led to an epigram in disparagement of Mr. Gladstone's rival, so _Punch_ was able to have it both ways:--

Big Ben is cracked, we needs must own;
Small Ben is sane, past disputation;
Yet we should like to know whose tone
Is most offensive to the nation.

[Sidenote: _The Filthy Thames_]

The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no mention of _Punch's_ services in the cause of London sanitation. They certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:--

Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from
the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives
up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the
mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions,
the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences
of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross--and is, by means
of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent ingredients
of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the
surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel
slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the
contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and
Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime
into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey
side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is
allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those
situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water
(which here sustains six different characters) in the highest
perfection.

The cartoon, The "Silent Highway"-Man, was published in 1858, but it is, perhaps, the best of the many pictorial comments on the above text. The noisome state of the Serpentine--"a lake of mere manure"--constantly affronted _Punch's_ sensitive nose. Insanitary Smithfield and squalid Covent Garden elicit dishonourable mention from the early 'forties onward. But it was in 1849, the year of the cholera and typhus visitation, that his crusade against London filth--"Plague, Pestilence and Co."--began in earnest. The evil is traced to the triple source of bad drainage, overcrowded intramural burial grounds, and the unchecked pollution of the river. _Punch_ salutes Mr. G. A. Walker, the author of "Gatherings from Graveyards," as a public benefactor for his zeal in endeavouring to secure the abolition of intramural interments, and tilts savagely at obstructive Boards of Guardians, vestry clerks, and extortionate undertakers, who profited by the maintenance of the abuse. He gives us an "Elegy written in a London Churchyard," on a victim of an epidemic brought on by preventable dirt; he exhibits "the water that John drinks"; he represents Hamlet soliloquizing in a London graveyard; and in 1849 he suggests the revision of street nomenclature in accordance with official acquiescence in the then existing dominion of dirt.

Though by no means an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Wellington, _Punch_ confesses that he would like to see him appointed Sanitary Dictator. The Thames, with its "acres of cesspool," is likened to "a fetid Dead Sea." Yet _Punch_ refused to lay the blame at the door of Lord John Russell or the Government, who were held guilty by the _Morning Herald_ for the twelve thousand deaths from cholera in London. The real criminals were to be found elsewhere. The ravages of typhus and cholera in 1849 have been surpassed in recent years by those of influenza, but the toll was heavy, and heaviest among the poor:--

For three sad months Britannia mourned her children night and day,
For three sad months she strove in vain the pestilence to stay;
Medicine, helpless, groped and guessed, and tried all arts to save,
But the dead carried with them their secret to the grave.

Death sat at the gaunt weaver's side, the while he plied the loom;
Death turned the wasting grinder's wheel, as he earn'd his bread and
doom;
Death, by the wan shirtmaker, plied the fingers to the bone;
Death rocked the infant's cradle, and with opium hushed its moan.

[Sidenote: _King Cholera's Friends_]

The Metropolitan Internments Bill, introduced in 1850, was a much-needed reform, and furnished _Punch_ with an occasion for free-spoken denunciation of "King Cholera's friends," Boards of Guardians, and other obstructives who "laugh to scorn doctors and drains, and uphold the great cause of dirt." His method of dealing with the offenders is generally direct: sometimes it takes the form of extravagant irony, as in the "account of my travels in search of self-government":--

What is it to _me_ that fever is never absent from these
places--that infants do not rear, and men die before their
time--that sickness engenders pauperism--that filth breeds
depression, and depression drives to drink? What do you mean by
telling me that cholera slew in Rotherhithe its 205 victims in
every 10,000, in St. Olave's its 181, in St. Saviour's its 153, in
Lambeth its 120, while in the Strand it carried off only 35, in
Kensington 33, in Marylebone 17, and in Hampstead 8, out of the
same number? Still, British landlords did what they liked with
their own, and self-government is unimpaired. The satellites and
slaves of an encroaching centralization are kept at arm's length,
and if they have succeeded in putting down sewers, at least we have
triumphed in not laying our house-drains into 'em.

It is with pride, therefore, I repeat, that whatever may be the
case in the country (where I regret to see the hateful Public
Health Act seems to be extending its ravages), in London we are
still enjoying the enormous, the invaluable privileges of
self-government, and that if Epidemic Cholera should visit us
again, we may confidently show him to his old haunts in 1832 and
1849, and so convince him that, in this free country, _he_, too, is
at liberty "TO DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN."

_Punch_ naturally applauded the Bill brought in by Sir George Grey, in 1856, to reform the Corporations of London, but would have preferred a more drastic measure, and warned the unrepentant City Fathers of the dangers of refusing to accept the liberal terms offered them.

[Sidenote: _London's Vanished Glories_]

Among the features of vanishing and now vanished London, the Fleet Prison has already been noticed. It passed "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," save in the ironical valediction pronounced by _Punch_ on the occasion of the sale of the materials of the prison in 1846. Holywell Street, swept away by recent improvements, was still reckoned as one of London's lions, though a dingy one at best. The glories of Vauxhall Gardens were expiring, and the Colosseum in Regent's Park, which, with its Panorama of London, statues, works of dubious art and Swiss scenery, was a precursor of the Earl's Court Exhibitions, had fallen on evil days, and was sold in 1843 by the famous George Robins, the "Cicero of auctioneers." For the splendour of Astley's Circus in the 'forties, _Punch_ forms a useful commentary on the delightful mock ballads of _Bon Gaultier_. Gomersal, the famous equestrian impersonator of Napoleon, was going strong in 1844. His retirement to a hostelry at Hull in 1849 is attributed by _Punch_ to disgust at the failure of Imperialism. Widdecomb, the illustrious ring-master, and the subject of many of _Punch's_ pleasantries, earned the distinction of a mention by Browning, who refers to him as resembling Tom Moore, with his "painted cheeks and sham moustache," and he finds a niche in the Pantheon of the D.N.B. Astley's is the mere shadow of a name to the present generation, and only elderly Londoners can recall the delights of the Polytechnic as a place more of entertainment than instruction, with the tank and diving bell and electrifying apparatus, dear to mid-Victorian schoolboys in their Christmas holidays. These are duly chronicled by _Punch_ along with the attractions of Rosherville Gardens, then presided over by Baron Nathan, one of the irregular _impresario_ peers who do not appear in "Debrett," of whom the last representative was Lord George Sanger. Baron Nathan catered for a mixed audience, but as a director of dances he appealed to a fashionable _clientèle_. When Burnand wrote the libretto of _Cox and Box_ in 1866, Rosherville was the paradise of the City clerk, witness Cox's song,

My aged employer, his whole physiognomy
Shining with soap like a star in astronomy,
Said "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour me
If you will take this as your holiday!"
Then visions of Brighton and back and of Rosherville--
Feeling the rain put on my mackintosh I vill, etc.

Brighton already justified its title of "London-on-Sea," and the volume of excursion traffic had begun to provoke complaints from the residents as likely to impair the amenities of the place. These complaints the democratic _Punch_ denounced as snobbish; and he speaks of Brighton in 1841 as the home of half-pay officers with dyed whiskers. Later on, however, he takes a somewhat different view in his realistic pictures of the Semitic invaders.

[Sidenote: _Burlington Arcadia_]

The Pantheon in Oxford Street, where in its first phase as a theatre Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, made her _début_ on the stage, had since 1834 been reconstructed as a bazaar and picture gallery. _Punch_ describes it in 1842 as a Zoo and National Gallery combined, with its conservatory, aviary, statues, and pictures. It was a pleasant cut for idlers in wet weather from Oxford Street to Marlborough Street. But its glories were but a pale reflex of the days when the building excited Walpole's enthusiasm, and Gibbon was a regular attendant of its "splendid and elegant" masquerades. After various vicissitudes the Pantheon was closed in 1867, and is now a wine warehouse. The Lowther Arcade, from the Strand to King William Street, was consecrated to the sale of toys. The present writer can remember it in the 'seventies, with stout and bearded shopmen blowing on tin trumpets and spinning tops for the allurement of passers by. It has disappeared, but the Burlington Arcade remains. Under the heading of "The Haunts of the Regent Street Idler," _Punch_ gives a detailed account of its attractions in 1842:--

The covered passage through which the overland journey from
Burlington Gardens to Piccadilly is generally performed so abounds
in objects of amusement to the lounger that, in point of cheap
happiness, it becomes a perfect Burlington Arcadia. He can pass a
whole afternoon therein, with the additional comfortable feeling
of security from any unexpected shower. First of all he makes a
regular inspection of every article in Delaporte's windows--from
Gavarni's _Charivari_ sketches, which have been there as far as the
memory of the oldest lounger can reach, to the droll _Diableries_,
and the _Dames et Seigneurs de la Cour du Moyen Age_, who rushed
into publicity at the first whisper of the Queen's Fancy Ball. Then
he listens to the dulcet notes of an accordion, which is
perpetually playing in this favoured thoroughfare, whilst he
saunters on to the fancy stationer's, and criticizes the
water-colour albumified views of Venice and Constantinople, all
neutral tint and burnt sienna; or falls in love with the
impassioned head of La Esmeralda, and regrets such symmetrical
young ladies do not dance about the streets at the present day; his
attention only being withdrawn from the beautiful gipsy by two
portraits of mortal angels in _very_ low dresses, one of whom is
asleep at one corner of the window, and the second combing her hair
at the other. He peers into all the artificial flower shops, to see
what hidden divinities are therein concealed by the bowers of
tinted gauze and tinsel; and having admired the languishing ladies
and very nice gentlemen in the hairdressers' windows, finally loses
himself in an earthly paradise of painted snuff-boxes, parasols,
popular music and perfumery, together with certain articles of
ladies' dress, like dolls' pillows in convulsions, the display of
which has always struck us as being a profane revelation of the
arcana pertaining to the toilet of a beauty.

Covent Garden Theatre, as we know it, was not opened till May, 1858. Of its predecessors on the same site two were destroyed by fire, one in 1808, and the next in May, 1856, after a somewhat orgiastic _bal masqué_ organized by Anderson, "the Wizard of the North," Gye's tenant at the time. This, by the way, was the third theatre burned down during Anderson's engagements, and the disaster led to a picture in _Punch_ representing Mario, the famous tenor, mourning amid the ruins of the scenes of his many triumphs--an ingenious adaptation of the episode of Marius sitting as a refugee amid the ruins of Carthage. _Punch_ was no lover of _bals masqués_, reckoning them among the things which they manage better abroad. Nor was he a friendly critic of Madame Tussaud, modestly housed at the Bazaar in Baker Street until the erection of the present building in 1884. _Punch_ owned that admission to her show was a test of popularity, but he condemned the Chamber of Horrors as ministering to the cult of monstrosity, and compared Madame Tussaud in 1849--the year before her death--to the witches who made wax models of those whom they wished to injure.

Chelsea buns are still with us, though it is declared in _London Past and Present_ that the tradition of making them is lost; the "Original Bun House," at the bottom of Jews' Row, was taken down in 1839, but its memories linger in the early volumes of _Punch_. There is a good series entitled "The Gratuitous Exhibitions of London," one of which, "The Happy Family," lasted for forty years later. The present writer well remembers in his schoolboy days the wire safe on wheels, stationed at the corner of Trafalgar Square, near Hampton's shop, containing cats, mice, pigeons, rabbits, and small birds, very much as in _Punch's_ picture. The nearest survival is the cage of fortune-telling birds one sees now and again. A charge of twopence was made for admission to St. Paul's Churchyard, and this was a non-gratuitous exhibition which _Punch_ bitterly resented, even to the extent of comparing it with Wombwell's Menagerie. The occasional raids of the aristocracy on Cremorne Gardens--which stood a little west of Battersea Bridge--have been described elsewhere. The gardens, which competed with Vauxhall as a scene for dancing, fireworks and various exhibitions--"The Siege of Gibraltar" was pyrotechnically reproduced in 1851--were not closed till 1877, soon after which date the house, built by the Earl of Huntingdon, and occupied as a private house by Lord Cremorne in the Regency, was pulled down and the grounds built over.

[Sidenote: _The Dominion of Din_]

_Punch_ had a friendly feeling for the London street arab, whose sayings so often enliven his pages, and calls him the "small olive-branch of the great unwashed." But he was somewhat impatient of the tyranny of the tip-cat, battledore and shuttlecock, hopscotch and all street games which imperilled the safety of the elderly foot passenger. Professional mendicants he regarded with abhorrence, and waged unceasing war on Italian organ-grinders as an insolent and irremovable nuisance, as well as on German bands and all who maintained the dominion of unnecessary din. He would gladly have seen all street-cries abolished: the "elfin note of the milkman" had no charm for him. Here perhaps the sensitiveness and sufferings of John Leech were responsible for his antipathy. Mark Lemon wrote a letter to Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., who brought in a Bill to regulate street music, in which he traced Leech's fatal illness to the disturbance of his nervous system by "the continual visitation of street bands and organ-grinders." Those readers who take an interest in the evolution of musical taste may be interested to know that in 1856 the popular tunes on the street organs were "The Ratcatcher's Daughter," "Annie Laurie," the serenade from Verdi's "Trovatore" and "The Red, White and Blue," a selection admirably representative of sport, sentiment, the prevalent Italianation of opera, and patriotism.

SHOP GIRL (who had been expected to procure Tennyson's "Miller's Daughter"): "No, Miss! We've not got the Miller's, but here's the 'Ratcatcher's Daughter,' just published!"]

[Sidenote: _Beadles, Broadsheets and Advertisements_]

The Zoological Gardens had been opened in 1828 and were already a most popular resort; the hippopotamus at one time almost rivalling "General" Tom Thumb as the most run-after celebrity. "Good David Mitchell," who was secretary to the Zoological Society from 1847 to 1859, was a prime favourite with _Punch_, and is never mentioned without a friendly word. But of all officials concerned with the administration of London none stood higher in his esteem than Sir Benjamin Hall, M.P. for Marylebone from 1837 to 1859, when he was created Lord Llandovery, President of the Board of Health in 1854, and Chief Commissioner of Works from 1855 to 1858. "Ben Hall's" services in adding to the amenities of the parks and introducing bands on Sundays were celebrated by _Punch_ in prose and verse. It was he who brought in a Bill for the sorely needed better management of the Metropolis in March, 1855, and _Punch_ more than once applauded him for castigating the follies of the Central Metropolitan Board, whose vagaries in suggesting names for streets roused _Punch's_ special ire in 1856. A nomenclator like the late Sir Laurence Gomme, who combined official authority with a fine historical sense, only emerges once in a century. Among the minor officials of the time beadles were conspicuous. _Punch_ devotes a special article to those of the Burlington and Lowther Arcades, the Quadrant and the British Museum, but these gorgeous uniformed functionaries, splendid in scarlet and gold, are now only memories of the elderly or the aged. Gone, too, are the broadsheets, "dying speeches" and ballads of Catnach, the Seven Dials bookseller; gone also are the "mock auctions" which were held in the Strand up to the war. London had no picture-palaces in the 'forties and 'fifties, but there was an abundance of panoramas, which _Punch_ noted as a reaction against the cult of dwarfs. The fogs cannot have been worse than those which prevailed for nearly a week one winter at the close of the 'nineties, but the smoke nuisance was perhaps more acute because entirely unregulated. _Punch_ defended the intermission of postal deliveries on Sunday, on the ground that it promoted the blessed dullness of that day, and here at least the chronicler has no change to record. On the growth of the great modern art of advertising _Punch_ is a most instructive commentator. As early as December, 1842, he printed an essay on its theory and practice in which the following passage occurs:--

The _Kentish Herald_ lately contained the following notice:
"Ranelagh Gardens, Margate--last night of Mount Vesuvius, in
consequence of an engagement with the Patagonians." This is
tragical enough; but _The Times_ outdoes it in horror by informing
us that "The Nunhead Cemetery is now open for _general_ interment";
and immediately afterwards comes an advertisement of "The London
General Mourning Warehouse, Oxford Street"; and then, to crown all,
Mr. Simpson, of Long Acre, declares himself ready to make
"Distresses in Town and Country, so as to give general
satisfaction."

In 1847 _Punch_ recurs to the subject in a spirit foreshadowing the activities of that excellent society which of late years has striven to restrain the excesses of the advertiser:--

Advertisements are spreading all over England--they have crept
under the bridges--have planted themselves right in the middle of
the Thames--have usurped the greatest thoroughfares--and are now
just on the point of invading the omnibuses. Advertising is
certainly the great vehicle for the age. Go where you will, you are
stopped by a monster cart running over with advertisements, or are
nearly knocked down by an advertising house put upon wheels, which
calls upon you, when too late, not to forget "Number One." These
vehicles, one would think, were more than enough to satisfy the
most greedy lover of advertisements, but it seems that there is
such an extraordinary run for them that omnibuses are to be lined
and stuffed with nothing else.

We have long acquiesced in this invasion of the sanctity of the omnibus. It is the desecration of the countryside that chiefly disgusts the fastidious of to-day.