Chapter VIII: Part II: The Social Fabric (2)

An interesting treatise might be written on Victorian diseases and their remedies. The worship of pastime, exercise and athletics was still in its infancy; whatever its drawbacks, it has undoubtedly given a new lease of life to the middle-aged. Obesity, due in great measure to over-eating and lack of exercise, was the nightmare of the well-to-do, and, if proof be required of the statement, one need only refer to the success of the movement initiated by Banting. Inasmuch as he was a fashionable undertaker--he was responsible for the construction of the Duke of Wellington's funeral car--there was an element of disinterestedness in his efforts to promote longevity. He was also a living example of the virtue of his method, for he reduced himself many stones in weight by the use of non-fat-producing foods. "He had a whalebone frame made to fit his once large waistcoats and coats, and wore the whole over his reduced size--removing this armour to produce a full effect."[14] His famous letter to the Press "On Corpulence" rang through the land: his name was a household word in the 'sixties, and he enriched our vocabulary with a noun and verb which are enshrined in the classic pages of the _New English Dictionary_, though they are practically unknown to the Georgian generation. Hustle and exercise and nerves have removed the evil against which he warred, and in an age in which excessive bulk is a rarity, the name of Banting has passed into semi-oblivion. But _Punch's Almanack_ for 1864 is full of it and him, and for a good many years Banting was as familiar in the mouths of men as Pussyfoot is to-day.

The campaign against over-indulgence was not confined to an attack on starch, fat and sugar. In the 'fifties hydropathy had come to stay, and in the 'sixties hydropathic establishments were to be found all over the British islands and in America, though the abbreviation of "hydro" was not introduced till later. Fortunes were made--and lost--in these institutions, and they still exist, though some of the most sumptuous "hydros" have undergone curious vicissitudes and conversions. One of the best known of all was used as a girls' school during the War. But the rigour of the water-cure treatment was only enforced in the early years of the movement; proprietors gradually realized that it did not pay to run their establishments as uncomfortable hospitals, and with a laxer administration the whole system fell somewhat into discredit. The convivial _Punch_ never smiled on it, as may be gathered from the verses he printed in March, 1869, when hydropathy was still in its prime, on "Sound Port and Principles." They must not, however, be taken to represent _Punch's_ own views, for he was no lover of guzzling. The poem is really a satire, but it is partly inspired by _Punch's_ inveterate dislike of the teetotal fanatics.

[Footnote 14: See "Bant" in _Passing English of the Victorian Era_, by J. Redding Ware.]

Surgery was active, though the days of appendicitis and adenoids were still a long way off. _Punch_, however, was more interested in mental maladies and the pathology of the social system. The Victorian age had no monopoly of superstition and credulity, but prophets and spiritualists and diviners reaped a rich harvest in the 'fifties and 'sixties. The comet of 1857 caused a good deal of anxiety, so much so, that in December of that year an insolvent butcher gave as a reason for his failure "the loss he had sustained in June, when the comet was expected, by a large quantity of meat being spoilt." Dr. Cumming was assiduous in prophesying the end of the world, but unfortunately _Punch_ ascertained that the doctor had renewed the lease of his house for fifty years, and the prophet's defence of his action did not mend matters:--

_Mr. Punch_ finds in a Liverpool journal the following part of a
lecture which Dr. Cumming has been delivering on Prophecy:--

"He had been, he said, taunted in the columns of _Punch_ with
having, notwithstanding his belief that the world was to come to an
end in 1867, recently renewed the lease of his cottage for 50
years. The accusation, he said, although not literally, was
generally true, but his answer to it was, that a belief in prophecy
should not override commonsense. The doctor was frequently
applauded throughout his eloquent lecture."

And by no person should he have been applauded more loudly than by
_Mr. Punch_, if that gentleman had had the good fortune to be in
the schoolroom at Claughton, where the lecture is reported to have
been delivered. The last quoted sentence is so admirably frank that
_Mr. Punch_ cannot withhold his tribute of veneration. In other
words, although it is all very well, in the way of business, to
work the old Hebrew scrolls, which boil down into capital stock for
the rather thin yet spicy soup vended by our Doctor, he has no
notion of eating his own cookery. We wish we were as certain of our
friend's orthography as we are of his commonsense, and would give a
trifle (say the next three hundred Tupperian sonnets) to know
whether, in his private ledger, he does not spell Prophets as
worldly people spell the opposite of Losses.

MR. FOXER (a medium): "Oh, dear! There's a spirit named Walker writing on my arm!"]

[Sidenote: "_Diviners and Dupes_"]

The chief exploiters of credulity, however, were to be found in the ranks of spiritualists, mediums, clairvoyantes and professional somnambulists. Men of science still held aloof from this traffic with the unseen, and its terminology was crude, but the methods and results were strangely familiar. Spirit drawings, forerunners of spirit photographs, are mentioned as early as 1857. Under the heading of "Diviners and Dupes" _Punch_ deals harshly with the advertisements of the clairvoyantes and diviners, and once more returns to his familiar complaint against the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable impostors escaped:--

The gipsies are hardly dealt with in being convicted as rogues and
vagabonds for telling fortunes by the cards or the palm of the
hand, whilst practitioners in Clairvoyance get their hands crossed
with silver, or with postage-stamps, with perfect impunity. There
is clearly one law for the Romany, and another for Somnambulists.

David Dunglas Home, born near Edinburgh, of Scottish parents, and descended on his mother's side from a family supposed to be gifted with second sight, returned in 1856 from America where he had spent his youth and early manhood, and in 1860, when he was at the zenith of his fame, elicited a scoffing tribute from _Punch_ under the heading, "Home, Great Home." The first stanza of this poem, which is accompanied by a picture representing a spirit hand placing a wreath on the head of a lady with a goose's head, refers to Home's famous feats of "levitation" or rising in the air as if impelled by some unknown force. _Punch_ was stubbornly sceptical of the whole business. But if any medium ever deserved the title of "great" it was Home. Did he not inspire Browning to write his famous "Sludge, the Medium"--though Mrs. Browning is said to have been a believer? Anyhow, the list of his converts is too remarkable to justify _Punch's_ contemptuous disparagement. It included Dr. Robert Chambers, Dr. Lockhart Robertson, the editor of the _Journal of Mental Science_, John Elliotson, a distinguished physiologist, S. C. Hall, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, F.R.S., the Earl of Dunraven, and the late Sir William Crookes, F.R.S. Home was received into the Church of Rome and had an audience of the Pope in 1856, and eight years later was expelled from Rome as a sorcerer--a tremendous testimony to his powers. He married twice into the Russian _noblesse_, his first wife being a god-daughter of the Tsar Nicholas, and he gave repeated _séances_ before his son Alexander II. The infatuation of the Russian Court for wonder-workers and miracle-mongers was hereditary, and of late years became tragically notorious, but Home was received with equal favour by the King of Prussia, the Emperor and Empress of the French, and the Queen of Holland. The "Spiritual Athenæum" (no connexion, need one say, with the august institution at the corner of Pall Mall) which he founded in 1866 had but a short life, and the gift of £60,000, which he received from a rich widow, was revoked as the result of a Chancery suit, the lady alleging he had obtained it by spiritual influence. But we have it on the authority of the D.N.B. that he "was not a professional medium, and scrupulously abstained from taking money for his _séances_," which answers _Punch's_ sneer at his lucrative traffic with spirits. The writer of the notice concludes with the words, "his history presents a curious and unsolved problem." Taken all round, he was by far the most remarkable personality in spiritualistic circles in the nineteenth century, and "imagination's widest stretch" fails to shadow forth the influence he might have exerted had he flourished sixty years later. Let us be thankful that he lived when he did, and freely own that, if an impostor, he was an impostor of genius and emphatically not a Rasputin.

[Sidenote: _Mediums and Faith-healers_]

Alongside of Home's manifestations, the exploits of other Victorian mediums dwindle into insignificance. But they furnished _Punch_ with food for ridicule, as when the Nottingham spiritualists in 1863 suggested the writing of a new Bible from their direct revelations; or when an American clairvoyante published, and distributed in Great Britain, her claims to having made "the greatest discovery ever made," viz., "Mediation Writing, direct to and from the spirit world, in One Minute, without any mechanism, except Pen, Ink and Paper." Her claim to have communicated with Shakespeare gave _Punch_ a special opportunity, for it was the year of the Tercentenary, and the Bard of Avon must have had the whole history of the squabbles which beset that luckless undertaking inflicted upon him by the American lady. More interesting to us, however, is the reference to success achieved by legitimate conjurers in imitating the manifestations of spiritualists. For in 1860 the late Mr. Maskelyne had already exposed the Davenport Brothers, and greatly surpassed any feats they had accomplished in the way of levitation and the materializing of spirit forms. But _populus vult decipi: decipiatur_; and the game went on. Home was much in evidence in 1870 in the provinces and in Belgravian drawing-rooms, flying "by miracle up to the ceiling, And carrying hot coals on pate or palm, no inconvenience feeling." And in the same year there appeared Dr. Newton, an American faith-healer, or "healing medium," as he was called,

... Out-Homing Home, and curing folks' diseases,
Giving blind and dumb, and deaf and halt, eyes, ears, tongues, legs
as he pleases;
By laying his hands upon them, and bidding their ailments begone,
And doing it all for love, and not money--the downy one!
And for all our march of intellect, and our monarchy of mind,
There's never a Reynard the Fox, but he draws his tail of fools
behind;
And there's never a quack that quacks, but he finds green geese to
echo his quacking,
And never a swindler that lowers his trawl, and finds the flat fish
lacking!

SINBAD (as representing the British Public): "I can't be expected to attend to any of _you_, with this 'Interesting Topic' on my shoulders!"]

As Dr. Newton professed to cure diseases partly by mesmerism, partly by the aid of "disembodied assistants," the spiritualist newspapers waxed lyrical in his praise, while _Punch_ contented himself with pointing out the entire absence of any expert verification of his alleged miracles.

If it almost amounted to a privilege to be imposed on by so splendid and well-connected an impostor as Home, the famous Tichborne case exhibited Victorian credulity in a less favourable light. Home's influence was confined to the well-to-do, even well-educated dupes. Though he toured the provinces, lectured and read poetry with considerable acceptance, he was most in his element among the "classes" and in Belgravia. The Claimant's appeal was far wider: he was the hero of the masses and of all the great army of the half-baked. Yet the element of romance was not wanting: there is always something "arresting," as the moderns say, in the emergence of a missing heir; everything connected with the business was on a huge scale--beginning with the physique of the Claimant himself, who weighed twenty-four stone--and at its worst it was far removed from the squalors of "Brides in Bath" and other modern trials. The unshaken belief of the Dowager Lady Tichborne was a great asset; the extraordinary astuteness of Orton in veiling his colossal ignorance and turning the hints of his cross-examiners to good account extorted reluctant admiration even from those most convinced of his guilt. There never was a greater example of the saying that "one lie is the father of many." The force of circumstances was too strong for him. It is generally believed that he would have abandoned his claim long before the first trial but for the pressure of his creditors. He was a seven-years incubus on England, but throughout the whole affair he showed a sort of perverted bulldog tenacity which accounted largely for his popularity.

The notices in _Punch_ begin early in 1867 when, in an illustrated chronicle of the previous month, one of the entries reads, "Sir Roger Tichborne arrived from Australia, after many years absence, and was at once recognized as 'the rightful heir.'" The crescendo of excitement and interest went on for nearly four years before the case came into court. The first action opened on May 11, 1871, and two months later _Punch_ bore witness to its devastating influence on social life:--

GROANS OF THE PERIOD

_Vox Clamantis in Deserto:_
"_Tichborne--Orton--quid refert, O!_"

Who, this side the Channel Ditch born,
Can escape the talk of Tichborne?
What would I not give in payment,
To hear no more of "the Claimant"!
Sure as Death to poor or rich born,
Comes the inevitable Tichborne,
Till with cursing, like a raiment,
One is fain to clothe "the Claimant."
To what realm, by wind or witch borne,
Can I flee from talk of Tichborne?
Was life to July from May meant,
To be given up to "the Claimant"?
Patient I've seen ache and stitch borne,
But what's that to talk of Tichborne?
O, ye Doctors, make essayment
Of some cure for chatt'ring Claimant,
Worse to kill than grass called twitch born,
The still springing talk of Tichborne.
All ask what his little game meant:
All are pro or con "the Claimant."

* * * * *

Unto boredom's highest niche borne,
There enshrine the name of Tichborne;
Crest: two tongues, approuvant, blamant--
Motto: "Rogerne an Arthur Claimant?"

[Sidenote: "_Poor, Persecuted Sir Roger_"]

When, after 102 days' hearing, the jury declined to hear any further evidence on March 5, 1872, _Punch_ joyfully recorded "the collapse of an audacious attempt at robbery, supported by one of the most cruel and dastardly slanders ever devised by rogues in council," and rejoiced in the thought that the folks who lent money in aid of the scheme (by investing in Tichborne bonds) had lost it all. The same number contains a cartoon bearing the inscription, "The Monster Slain," showing _Punch_ saluting Sir John Coleridge, who is standing, armed with the Sword of British Justice, on the prostrate form of the Claimant disguised as a dragon. To the dragon _Punch_ gave the name of "The Waggawock"--a "portmanteau-word" compounded of Wagga-Wagga (where the claimant had lived in Australia) and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwock," and proceeded to dress that prophetic and mystical poem in plain English.

JEAMES: "I'm afraid, me Lady, I'll require to leave you."

LADY: "Why?"

JEAMES: "Well, me Lady, I can't agree with Master's suckasms against that poor, persecuted Sir Roger."]

_Punch's_ "chortling" was a trifle premature: two years had yet to elapse before England was finally rid of her "old man of the sea." In April, 1872, we find a picture representing a flunkey giving notice to his mistress, and when asked for his reason saying, "Well, me Lady, I can't agree with Master's suckasms against that poor, persecuted Sir Roger." The egregious Mr. Whalley, M.P. for Peterborough, at a meeting of 3,000 supporters of the claimant held at Southampton in June, spoke vehemently in his defence. There is a statue of Dr. Watts in Southampton Park, and _Punch_ suggested that if these admirers decided to erect one to "Sir Roger" by its side, they should sing, at its unveiling, one of Watts' _Divine and Moral Songs_ which begins:--

O 'tis a pleasant thing for youth
To walk betimes in wisdom's way--
To fear a lie, to speak the truth
That we may trust to all they say.

The "Waggawock" was not really slain until February 28, 1874, when after a second gigantic trial lasting 188 days, the claimant was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. But his backers, mortified by the loss of the money they had invested in him, lent a ready ear to those, like Whalley, who ascribed the persecution to a Jesuit conspiracy. The agitation did not subside until Dr. Kenealy, who had led for the defence, who had been disbarred for breaches of professional etiquette, and was returned to Parliament to advocate the claimant's cause, was defeated by 433 votes to 1 on his motion to refer the conduct of the trial and the guilt or innocence of the prisoner to a Royal Commission. The Tichborne case remains for all time a rich treasure-house of materials for psychologists interested in the _Esprit de la Foule_; _Punch_ in his punning days would have spelt the last word differently. It also furnishes a conspicuous and ignoble example of the insular detachment which prevailed in a period of "splendid isolation" and non-intervention. At the time when France, beaten to the dust, was agonizing in the throes of the Commune, England was preoccupied and obsessed by this gross and impudent pretender. He certainly made, and unmade, reputations at the Bar and left behind one immortal translation in the course of the cross-examination designed to test his knowledge of the classics--"The Laws of God for Ever" for _Laus Deo Semper_--but he was a national nuisance as well as a criminal, for he not only ruined himself but discredited thousands of his countrymen whose credulity had been reinforced by greed.

[Sidenote: _Sport and Pastime_]

The craze for sensational or dangerous exhibitions so frequently rebuked by _Punch_ in connexion with the performances of Blondin and his imitators cannot be regarded as a specially Victorian weakness. Over pugilism and prize-fighting, as illustrated by the historic contest between Heenan and Sayers in 1860, he could wax enthusiastic. Sayers, by the way, was alleged to have earned £85,000 in one year, a sum which compares not unfavourably with the gains of modern champions. It was an age of non-intervention, but more robust in the expression of likes and dislikes, passions and prejudices, and in some respects less humane or refined in its pleasures. Sporting wagers which resulted in the riding of horses to death were growing rarer but had not altogether died out. The noble pastime of Alpine climbing was already established in 1858, but the combined attractions of healing waters and gambling tables were a more potent attraction to wearied legislators of the gilded breed. The manners of the British traveller were not always above reproach, and _Punch_ in his Almanack for that year, employs his ironical method to explain our unpopularity:--

WHY ENGLISHMEN ARE BELOVED UPON THE CONTINENT

Because they are always so careful to abstain from either word or
action, which, in any way, might hurt the feelings of a foreigner.

Because they never institute odious comparisons between things in
general abroad and those they've left at home, unless indeed it is
to the disparagement of the latter.

Because they never brag about the "freedom of a British subject,"
in countries which are under a despotic form of government.

Because they speak so fluently in any continental language, and
always are so affable when publicly accosted by a stranger, and so
ready at all times to enter into conversation with those they may
be travelling with.

Because they don't bawl for beer at a first-class table d'hôte, nor
make wry faces at the wine as though it disagreed with them.

Because they never in the least let trifles put them out, and
however much they are annoyed they do their utmost to conceal it,
instead of (as has been maliciously asserted) seizing with delight
on every opportunity to give their temper vent, and express
themselves dissatisfied with everything that's done for them.

Because whatever provocation they may think they have received,
they are so careful not to let strong language pass their lips; and
so far from making extracts from the Commination Service, are never
heard to use an exclamation more forcible than "Dear me!" or "Now
really, how provoking!"

A few years later _Punch_ took up the cudgels on the other side, but the rebuke here administered was undoubtedly deserved. Foreign travel, however, was restricted by the passport trouble in 1858, and _Punch_ saw in the restriction a chance for the native hotel-keeper, if he would only reduce his charges.

It was not exactly a temperate age. Heavy meals and copious potations play an important part in Dickens's novels; and a great many men ate and drank a great deal more than was good for them. Abernethy's method of dealing with the voracious Alderman might still have been profitably followed by Victorian practitioners. But we say "men" advisedly, for there is no evidence that women gorged and guzzled, certainly none to support the fantastic account of English dinner parties given by a French writer and reproduced in 1861 by _Punch_ with characteristic comments:--

"At a dinner party the ladies retire into another room, after
having partaken very moderately of wine; and while the gentlemen
empty bottles of Port, Madeira, Claret and Champagne, it is a
constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy."

[Sidenote: _The National Type_]

The extract is taken from a book on _Les Anglais, Londres et L'Angleterre_, with an introduction by no less eminent an authority than M. Emile de Girardin, who vouched for its accuracy. According to the writer the English cared for nothing but roast beef, porter, and spirits. They were "averse to contemplation," had not the remotest conception of grace or feeling, their "climate, coarse food, and black drink being utterly opposed to any mental refinement. To possess taste it is necessary to possess soul, and a large soul; and the English possess nothing but appetite." It was a gross libel, but the misconception was mutual, and _Punch_ had done a great deal to foster it by his persistent representation of the "Mossoo" as a mere figure of fun. And let it never be forgotten that the notion of the English as a gross and crapulous race was in great measure due to our caricaturists, Gillray and Rowlandson, and even Hogarth. We chose the beefy, burly, sixteen-stone top-booted farmer as the national type, and we have retained it long after "John Bull" ceased to be typical of the breed physically. It became a caricature, but we have only ourselves to blame if foreign artists caricatured our own caricature. The process of the mutual discovery of France and England has moved far since the 'sixties, and has reached its climax (on the French side) in _Les Silences du Colonel Bramble_, by our good friend M. André Maurois--a work recently described by Mr. H. A. L. Fisher as "the best psychological study of the English character ever written by a foreigner."

DRIVING LADY (loq.): "Oh, Frank, dear, only fancy, George has got so tipsy at the Archery Meeting, that we've been obliged to put him inside, and drive home ourselves--and poor Clara has pinched her fingers dreadfully putting on the drag, coming down Blunsden Hill!"]

The social history of any period may be studied in its lions, and, if the truth be told, in 1861 Du Chaillu and the Gorilla loom larger than Darwin in the pages of _Punch_, though the _Origin of Species_ is described as "a book of much worth." _Punch_ was not much interested in the theological controversy involved, though he naturally made play later on with Disraeli's famous "Apes and Angels" speech at Oxford. Disraeli was dubbed the new "Angelical Doctor," and in a famous cartoon is exhibited as dressing for an Oxford _bal masqué_, with a contemptuous set of verses on his bewildering versatility, his impartial hostility to Tractarians and Broad Churchmen, winding up with the warning:--

Yet scarce the best mimes can from Nature escape,
And what's simious to saintly brooks change ill;
Have a care lest thou then should be most of the ape,
When most bent on enacting the Angel.

Another and earlier poem is mainly concerned with the lively disputes that broke out between Huxley and Owen and between rival geologists. Du Chaillu's claims were hotly contested; his book was treated by some critics as a collection of traveller's tales, and his meridional exuberance of manner and diction inspired scepticism among some cautious scientists. But _Punch_ espoused his cause--attracted, no doubt, by his championship of Livingstone--promoted the gorilla to the rank of the "Lion of the Season" in May, 1861, and in due course of time Du Chaillu's veracity was substantially confirmed by later explorers.

"The question is, Is man an ape or an angel? (_A laugh._) Now, I am on the side of the angels." (_Cheers._)--

Mr. Disraeli's _Oxford Speech, Nov. 25, 1864_.]

There were lionesses as well as lions in the 'sixties, and the year 1864 was marked by a new and momentous apparition--that of the American woman of fashion. Hitherto America had sent us only social and dress reformers, but the arrival of the "elegant and fascinating American young lady" was an event which did not escape the vigilance of _Punch_. The War was still raging, and, as we know, he regarded the antagonists with almost equal disfavour; but towards these fair New Yorkers he bore no hostility, and no fewer than three pictures, all by Leech, do justice to their charm while the legends emphasize the "pretty little Americanisms" of their speech. It is a welcome change from the consistent disparagement of their brothers and fathers from Lincoln downwards. But the great lion of 1864 was Garibaldi, who was given the freedom of the City of London and greeted everywhere with the enthusiasm which he deserved. It was this visit that gave rise to one of Palmerston's characteristic sayings. Someone suggested that they ought to find Garibaldi an English wife, and someone else observed that he had already got an Italian one, whereupon Pam cheerfully remarked, "O that doesn't matter. We'll get Gladstone to explain her away."

ENGLISHMAN (to fair New Yorker): "May I have the pleasure of dancing with you?"

DARLING: "I guess you may--for I calc'late that if I sit much longer here, _I shall be taking root!_"]

[Sidenote: _Baker and Stanley_]

Sir Samuel Baker, who returned from his adventurous and fruitful explorations in Central Africa in October, 1865, with his heroic wife and companion of his travels, was the hero of that year, and the lion of the winter of 1873, after his successful but arduous campaign against the slave-traders of the Equatorial Nile basin. In 1866, after Baker was knighted, _Punch_ printed a poem of congratulation to the heroic pair, winding up with the lines:--

Three cheers for the Knight and the Lady so brave,
If Echo's asleep let us lustily wake her;
For none are more worthy of shout and of stave,
Than the Two who ennoble the old name of Baker.

Stanley, whose historic "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" when he found the great missionary-explorer at Ujiji, had been duly chronicled by _Punch_ in July, 1872, found himself famous on his arrival in London later in the year. He was, however, a somewhat intractable lion, and the criticisms of the geographical pundits caused him to roar in a rather formidable fashion. Still he received many gratifying proofs of recognition for his great services. He was entertained at Dunrobin Castle by the Duke of Sutherland; his book and lectures brought him in a handsome sum; and the Queen sent him a gold snuffbox set with brilliants.

[Sidenote: _The Shah-in-Shah_]

The last of the lions of this period was the Shah. The lion-hunting of Royalties was always offensive to _Punch_; it is frequently castigated throughout this period, and here it reached a pitch which moved "the Democritus of Fleet Street" to explosions of sardonic and mirthless laughter. There is true satire in the bitter lines headed, "The Shah's Impressions," in the issue of July 12, 1873:--

Yes! Shah-in-Shah in truth I must be
Or why this fuss of the Feringhee?[15]
Why all these hosts my steps that crowd,
With bows so low and cheers so loud?
If the Inglees Queen, so great among princes
All this respect for me evinces;
If the Tsarevitch, when I appear
Falls flat as the flattest of bitter beer;
If all these Wuzeers[16] and Aghas, and Khans,
For me spend their time and their tomauns[17];
Their parks and their palaces lay at my feet,
Muster for me their army and fleet
And their miles upon miles of merchant ships;
If without their ferashes[18] and their whips,
Manchester gathers and Liverpool runs,
With voices of men and thunder of guns,
To the light of the face of the Shah-in-Shah,
As unto the amber is drawn the straw;
All this is proof in more than words,
I am King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

They told me in leaving Teheran,
Danger of eating dirt I ran,--
That out of the realms of the Shah-in-Shah
I should find rulers called Light and Law.
May the graves of their mothers be defiled
That fain with such bosh had their Shah beguiled!
For the more of these Feringhee Kaffirs[19] I've known,
The whiter to me my face has grown.
I've seen the land calls the Russki lord,
And there the rulers are Stick and Sword;
To the land of the Prusski when I came,
The tongue was changed, but the rule the same:
The stars on the coats may be sown more thick,
But the Prusski's Shah-in-Shah is Stick!
And here in the land of the Inglees
They live and move but the Shah to please.
If my diamonds are as the sun in the skies,
What is the brightness of my eyes?
As in this land there is no sun,
They make a daylight instead of one.
The Queen from her palace for me retires
To Teheran binding it with wires.
Here's Sutherland Beg[20] makes his palace mine,
And all but bids skies for me to shine.
At the Crystal Palace, Effendi Grove
With the rain itself for my pleasure strove,
And out of the water brought the fire
To compass the Shah-in-Shah's desire.
In a wonderful land of wax I've been,
And _houris_ fairer than Heaven I've seen;
To the Inglees Bank a visit I've paid
Where Reuter's gold for me is laid;
And all that have seen me, and all I have seen,
As dust in the path of the Shah hath been,
And instead of eating dirt, I see
But Kaffirs eating dirt to me.

[Footnote 15: Frank, European.]

[Footnote 16: Viziers, Ministers.]

[Footnote 17: Cash.]

[Footnote 18: Menials employed to apply the bastinado.]

[Footnote 19: Infidels, unbelievers.]

[Footnote 20: Chief or Lord.]

We need not be surprised, after reading this scathing poem, to find that, when the Shah left our shores, _Punch_ had no difficulty in enduring his bereavement with fortitude. The net result, so far as the million were concerned, was the addition of "Have you seen the Shah?" to the catchwords of the hour.

In the eternal competition between London and the provinces, centralization and local autonomy, it was hardly to be expected that _Punch_, in his jealousy for London, should adopt a judicial or impartial attitude. In earlier years he had protested vigorously against Celtic egotism, when developed at the expense of English sobriety, and the growth of the movement in favour of the vernacular in Wales and the spread of Eisteddfods provoked him to contemptuous antagonism. In the "Essence of Parliament" for May 5, 1862, this hostility is sufficiently outspoken:--

In the course of the debate on Education, the Honourable Douglas
Pennant, a Conservative, and member for Carnarvonshire, had the
courage to say, that he believed the Welsh language to be the curse
of Wales, being the great obstacle to improvement. Of course it is,
but while a pack of sentimentalists keep up a twitter about it, and
offer prizes for Welsh Odes and such-like Gorilla utterances, how
is the fatal jargon to be exterminated? Here's a health to Edward
the First, though we are sorry to say that historians now
disbelieve that he did spiflicate highborn Hoel, soft Llewellyn,
Modred, who made Plinlimmon shudder with his dissonant ballads, and
the rest of the Welsh Bards--whose only merit was their having
afforded T.G. [Thomas Gray] the subject for an ode that will
outlast Snowdon.

The report of the Eisteddfod, held at Bala in the autumn, given in the _Oswestry Observer_, serves as the occasion for a truly ferocious attack on the disloyal "caterwauling" of the Chapel Bards. In particular _Punch_ is exasperated by the fulminations of the Bard Castell, his appeal to his countrymen to "conquer or die," and his final challenge to the English tyrant:--

We scorn your ways, we can despise your terrors,
Then take your chains, pray keep them for your errors.

[Sidenote: _Punch's Pet Aversions_]

For a whole column _Punch_ pours the vials of his abuse on the "humbug" and "bosh" of "Bardery." Some critics declare that _Punch_ killed the crinoline, though he himself acknowledged his failure; he was certainly powerless to check the spread of Eisteddfodau and Pan-Celtitis, and he undoubtedly overshot the mark by the violence of his diatribes.

Pseudo-intellectualism and preciosity were a safer target, and towards the end of this period aestheticism in its earlier stages comes in for a certain amount of satirical notice.

FEMALE EXQUISITE: "Quite a nice ball at Mrs. Millefleurs', wasn't it?"

MALE DITTO: "_Very_ quite. Indeed, really _most_ quite!"]

_Punch's_ reference to abusive personalities in the Press were no doubt justified, though (as we have seen in his comments on the Welsh Bards) they laid him open to the retort, "physician, heal thyself"; but his withers were unwrung when he assailed the _Saturday Review_ in 1858 for its frigid pedantry; or protested against the maudlin, devotional tone and mock impressiveness of fashionable clergymen; or the vulgar curiosity of snobs at bathing places. The futilities of garrison town life and the dangers which young ladies ran of being entrapped by seedy captains are exposed in the same year, to which also belongs a properly indignant remonstrance with the Lord Mayor of London for advising a thief to enlist in the army, a thoroughly characteristic example of the old middle-class prejudice against soldiers. The humours and trials of studio life play an increasing part in the pictorial side of _Punch_; they were derived largely, no doubt, from the experiences of his own artists, but the multiplication of these references serves to show the growing social importance of the artist; and the same remark, _mutatis mutandis_, applies to amateur theatricals. The allusions to club life are fewer than in earlier years, and are mainly concerned with the Athenæum. It is amusing to find the ancient legend of the alleged unsociability of the Athenæum referred to as far back as 1858. The Almanack for that year contains the following: "Imaginary Conversation--Anybody speaking to anybody at the Athenæum." As for Victorian society generally, it would be hard to find a more instructive sidelight on its usages than that furnished by _Punch's_ protest against "the Morning Call Nuisance":--

"Sir," said Dr. Johnson (or might have done so if he didn't), "the
man who makes a morning call pays homage to a custom which the
imbecile may bow to, but the sensible contemn." In the presence of
his lady readers _Mr. Punch_ has not the courage to confess that he
applauds the dictum of the doctor. If it were not for the practice
of making morning calls, ladies often would be puzzled to know what
on earth to do; and _Mr. Punch_ would not debar them from what is,
after all, a harmless act of time-slaughter. But he protests with
all his might against the notion which some ladies appear to
entertain, that their husbands should attend them when they pay
these morning visits. It is bad enough for husbands to be dragged
to evening parties, but worse still is their suffering when they
are cruelly compelled to make some morning call.

[Sidenote: "_What is always Going On_"]

Social abuses and grievances and disparities were not so flagrant as they had been twenty years before; still _Punch_, though no iconoclast, found plenty of scope for his reforming zeal. Cremation was not pronounced a legal procedure until 1884, but Shirley Brooks was one of the original members of the English Cremation Society formed in January, 1874, as a result of Sir Henry Thompson's advocacy of a method which had been neglected in England since Sir Thomas Browne published his _Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial_ in 1658.

In the summer of 1872 _Punch_ printed a list headed, "What is always going on." It is a reassuring proof of the stability of England that of the twenty-six entries exactly half, quoted beneath, are as topical to-day as they were fifty years ago:--

The weather.
The Publicans.
Strikes.
Jobs.
Ireland.
An International Something or Other.
A Big Subscription.
An Inauguration.
A Millenary, Centenary, Anniversary or Jubilee.
A New Daily Paper.
Another English Opera Company.
The High Price of Provisions.
The Albert Memorial.

CLASS DISTINCTIONS

In the report, printed in February, 1865, of an imaginary Meeting for Promoting the Education of the Rich, addressed by various artisans, tradesmen, an ex-footman, etc., we read that there was "a unanimous call for a vote of compliment to _Mr. Punch_ for his indefatigable exertions to bring all classes into harmony." Self-praise is a dangerous game, and there were occasions, already noted, on which the verdict of posterity will not confirm _Punch's_ complacency. Yet we have seen that along with his increasingly critical attitude towards the working-man he seldom failed to recognize the need of friendly personal relations between employers and employed; he regretted the fact that in many industrial areas the masters lived away from and out of touch with their men. But the local conditions of the great industries render social cleavage inevitable to a considerable extent; it is in the domain of unorganized labour, and in particular that of domestic service, that class distinctions lend themselves more freely to comment, criticism and satire. Nowhere else are master or mistress and man or woman brought so close together; the crowded life of fashionable society was once described as "friction without intimacy," and the phrase might well be applied to the relations between servants and their employers.

[Sidenote: _Mistresses and Servants_]

"Domestic Science" was still in its infancy--the name had not yet been coined--but _Punch_ was deeply interested in the training of girls of all classes in household duties. Throughout the mid-Victorian period he is seldom so serious or sympathetic as when the improvement of cookery is discussed.[21] In earlier years he had been eloquent on the subject of the underpayment of certain classes of servants. These complaints practically disappear from 1857 onwards, though he does not fail to rebuke wealthy mistresses for the scandalously inadequate and insanitary accommodation which was habitually provided for servants in the lordliest mansions. Even the most pampered menials had to sleep in cupboards in the basements or in the attics. But the new note of independence in woman servants is often dwelt upon, and not always in a sympathetic spirit, while in 1861 their extravagance, destructiveness and distaste for needlework form the preface to a noteworthy pronouncement on "Servant-galism _versus_ Schooling," which comes rather as a revelation to those who regard the unpopularity of domestic service as a modern development:--

With an ear to these complaints, and an eye to the instruction of
girls in humble life, not merely in the knowledge of how to read
and write, but in the useful arts of sewing, cookery, and
housekeeping, which are no more learnt by instinct than anatomy or
algebra, geography or Greek, a lady four years since established a
training school at Norwich, where the object was, she tells us:

"To give the opportunity for gaining a good education, with the
addition of plain sewing, mending and cutting out; and also (what
every mother was to understand on putting her girl to school) such
practical acquaintance with cookery and housework, under my
excellent housekeeper, that every girl might know how a house
should be kept, and should acquire habits which would hereafter
make all the difference between a tidy and happy home or the
reverse."

MISSIS AND THE YOUNG LADIES (together): "Goodness gracious, J'mima! What have you---- _Where's_ your cr'n'lin?" (This word snappishly.)

JEMIMA: "Oh, 'm, please, 'm, which I understood as they was a goin' out, 'm----"

(Receives warning on the spot.)]

CHARMING LADY (showing her house to benevolent old gentleman): "That's where the housemaid sleeps."

BENEVOLENT OLD GENTLEMAN: "Dear me, you don't say so! Isn't it very damp? I see the water glistening on the walls."

CHARMING LADY: "Oh, it's not too damp for a servant!"]

[Sidenote: _The Ignorant Rich_]

After a trial of four years, the lady is compelled to own her scheme a failure, solely because she found the girls too proud to do the housework, and the parents so absurd as to encourage their refusal. In a letter to the _Norwich Mercury_, she says:

"I was not prepared to find the class of parents I had to do with
would apparently accept the education, but make every excuse to
evade the industrial work, or keep their daughters away when it was
to be done, and threaten to remove them if the household duties
were required of them. In corroboration of this latter fact, I may
observe that twenty-three girls have been taken away from the
school expressly because they would not do the housework. Whether
in the present day girls are allowed to determine for themselves
what they shall or shall not do, or whether their parents are too
proud to recognize such industrial work as a duty belonging to
their children, it is not for me to decide. I can only act on the
result, and close my school. I repeat, I should willingly have
continued the plan, had I not met with discouragement and
opposition from the parents."

[Footnote 21: The year 1859 is regarded by constitutional historians as a turning-point in our Parliamentary history. _Punch_ mentions, amongst other things, that it was the year in which "the fashion broke out of abusing our wives for bad dinners."]

But if the normal relations between mistresses and servants were becoming steadily worse, _Punch_ was far from acquitting employers. In October, 1864, the North London Working Classes Industrial Exhibition was opened--for the most part organized by working-men, though sundry rich philanthropists, including Miss Burdett-Coutts, had a hand in it. This prompted _Punch_ to describe an imaginary "Industrial Exhibition of the Aristocracy," and to describe the fictitious meeting for the Education of the Rich already referred to. His report is for the most part burlesque, but _Punch_ puts into the mouths of the speakers a good deal of shrewd satire at the expense of the folly and ignorance of rich people. "They were very ignorant, but that was the fault of their bringing up." The ex-footman, now a small-coal man, thought well of them, but they had many faults:--

They had no regard for truth, and would order a servant to deny
that they were in the house when they did not wish to see a
visitor. Their indolence was frightful; they would lie in bed until
twelve in the day. (Sensation.) It was true, he assured the
meeting; and a lady at one end of the room would ring a bell and
bring a man up several flights of stairs to fetch her a book that
lay on a table out of her reach. Still, they were very kind when
they knew how to do any kindness, but so few of them took the
trouble to know. As a practical man, he must say that he did not
think that missionaries from their own class would be favourably
received in the houses of the rich. He would mention another thing,
showing the folly of the upper orders. On a freezing night, a
delicate woman would change her warm dress for a very light one,
put on shoes no thicker than ribbons instead of her comfortable
boots, and with nothing on her head, shoulders or arms, would go
out and sit in all the draughts of a playhouse, or stand on the
landing of a staircase, with the wind constantly rushing up from
the street door. What could one do with creatures so hopelessly
plunged in folly? (Sensation.)

Other speakers dwell on the lamentable ignorance of plumbing, mechanics and anatomy (from the point of view of the butcher). _Punch_ might have quoted the authentic story of a very clever lady in this period who imagined that a hydraulic ram was an animal.

Another ground for legitimate complaint on which _Punch_ frequently insisted was the attempt to introduce dogma into the sphere of domestic service, as, for example, when a "Christian gentleman" advertised for a lady housekeeper of "decided piety" to keep his house, without any salary, in return for a comfortable home. _Punch_ did not believe in religiosity of this character any more than he could stand the snobbery which relegated servants to the gallery or the inferior seats in church. When a Bill was introduced in the summer of 1871 for abolishing the pew system, he quoted the following speeches from the debate on the second reading:--

Mr. Beresford Hope told this story:

"He remembered having many years ago to seek a church where his
household could worship. He went to the individual who let the pews
in a chapel of ease near his residence, and he said he wished to
take a pew. The man produced a plan, and he selected the one
nearest the pulpit and the reading-desk. But, unluckily, he dropped
the observation that the pew was for his servants, whereupon the
man said, 'You don't mean that you are taking the pew for your
livery servants.' On his saying, 'Yes, I am,' he received the
reply, 'Then I cannot let it you, for if livery servants were to
come to the pew, all the ladies and gentlemen in the neighbouring
pews would cease to attend.'" (Hear, hear, and laughter.)

Mr. Henley "did not believe that the humbler classes themselves
desired to see the parish churches managed in such a way as to
allow the costermonger a seat beside that of a duchess. It reminded
him of the couplet which says that:

'Something the Devil delights to see
Is the pride that apes humility.'"

GRATEFUL RECIPIENT: "Bless you, my lady! May we meet in Heaven!"

HAUGHTY DONOR: "Good gracious!! Drive on, Jarvis!!!"

(She had evidently read Dr. Johnson, who "didn't want to meet certain people _anywhere_.")]

[Sidenote: _Religious Snobbery_]

What Punch thought of this fashionable Christianity may be learned from his truly admirable comments on the protest of a lady's maid in a provincial paper:--

Here is a letter which might very well have passed muster in the
(original) _Spectator_. It is, however, addressed to the Editor of
the _Hampshire Independent_, in which journal it appeared the other
day under the title, "Is the Church Free?" The Church therein
particularly referred to is the old parish church of Millbrook,
near Southampton:--

"Sir,--I saw lately in your paper a very pleasing paragraph, asking
for free and open sittings in Parish Churches. Now, as the Bishop
is coming amongst us, will you kindly insert this letter, that he
may know how proper it would be at Millbrook, where the rich
people, who are objecting to a new church nearer to the poor, won't
let a servant of any station sit in the body of the church, and we
are sent upstairs, if the masters or mistresses are agreeable or
not.

We don't blame Mr. Blunt, and we hope the Bishop will ask him about
it, and order free pews in the new church.--I am, Sir, etc.,

"August 17, 1871. A Lady's Maid."

Well said, Mary. Your rich people at Millbrook, some of them, apparently need to be told that at Service in Church everyone is a Servant, and all Servants are equal. Perhaps, however, those rich exclusives attend Church for the same kind of reason as that which makes them go to County Balls, if they can, or would make them if they could. If their church-going is merely an airing of their respectability, it is needless to remind them that a Church is a place where the Presence they are supposed to enter is no respecter of persons. The Bishop of Winchester will doubtless, if possible, not disappoint Mary's hope that he will order free pews, or seats, to be provided in the new Church at Millbrook. In old Millbrook Church, by Mary's account, existing accommodation would be improved on principle by another arrangement. The sittings could be divided into First, Second, and Third-Class Pews.

Class patronage was always obnoxious to _Punch_, but he was quite ready to admit that the difficulty of getting good servants arose from the impossibility, in most cases, of the lady of the house adapting herself to the peculiar disposition of each one of her domestics. The accompanying advertisement--a remarkably modern achievement for 1865--sounded the note of independence too boldly to suit so moderate a reformer:--

"Domestic Servant.--A Person about Twenty, with excellent
character, wishes a Situation where not restricted in becoming
dress nor services rendered unnecessarily menial. She would prefer
a small Country Family Situation, away from the noise and hurry of
Birmingham. Should her mistress prove quiet and amiable, a
suitable, respectable, permanent servant would inevitably be
secured. Lowest wages accepted, ten guineas."

The Young Lady's grammar, in "wishing a situation," is somewhat
arbitrary, but it is enough for her purpose that the reader should
know what she means. The restriction in becoming dress probably
alludes to the tyranny of a mistress who objected to her china
ornaments being knocked down by Betty and housemaid's extensive
crinoline. "Services rendered unnecessarily menial" conveys the
idea of the wearer of a crinoline being obliged to clean the
doorsteps, the attitude necessitated by the nature of this
operation being one of supplication so humble, and prostration so
abject, as would never be adopted by any wearer of the steel hoops
who "could see herself as others see her." The Young Lady would
perhaps like to take her quiet tea and beauty sleep in the
drawing-room, about four o'clock of an afternoon, talk over family
matters with her quiet and amiable mistress, or skim her a few
pages of the _Court Circular_. We sincerely trust that the
advertiser has obtained the situation she deserves.

"Mamma, don't you think Pug ought to be vaccinated?"

"What nonsense, dear! They only vaccinate human beings!"

"Why, Lady Fakeaway's had all her _servants_ vaccinated, Mamma!"]

[Sidenote: _Fashions in Christian Names_]

It was in the same spirit that a few years earlier a protest had been raised against the fashion of decorative names amongst the poorer classes:--

Our laundress's infants have no great charms,
Yet they have a Eugénie in arms;
While Victor Albert swings on a gate,
And munches his bacon in village state.

'Twould be hard to say there is any blame,
There is no monopoly in a name;
But it strikes one sometimes as rather absurd
That contrast between the child and the word.

And what will it be when years have flown
And these finely-named damsels are women grown?
When Evelyn Ada must polish the grates
While Edith Amelia is washing the plates.

NURSE: "And to-day was little Cissy's birthday; and Sir John, he gave her a coral necklace; and Milady, she gave her a boo'ful blue frock; and as for Mr. James, he took more notice of her nor anybody did, and gave her a sweet kiss! Heigho! Who wouldn't be little Cissy?"

N.B. Sir John is Cissy's godpapa, and Milady her godmamma, and as for Mr. James, why----

This is Mr. James!]

It has been reserved for a later generation to witness the appropriation of the homely names Joan, Betty, Susan, etc., by the social _élite_, while Gladys, Doris, and so forth, have become common form amongst the daughters of Labour.

[Sidenote: _The Victorian Governess_]